While there is in general an ascending
series in these living forms, each was perfect in its kind.
Agassiz says that fishes existed contemporaneously with species of all
the invertebrate sub-kingdoms in the Taconic, or sub-Cambrian strata.
This is the extreme limit of known geological strata in which life is
found to have existed. As the evolution of one species out of another
requires, according to Darwin, millions of years, it is out of the
question to trace these animals beyond the strata in which their remains
are now found. Yet "crabs or lobsters, worms, cuttle-fish, snails,
jelly-fish, star-fish, oysters, the polyps lived contemporaneously with
the first known vertebrate animals that ever came into being--all as
clearly defined by unmistakable ordinal or special characters as they
are at the present moment."[52]
The foot of the horse is considered by zooelogists as "one of the most
beautiful contrivances in nature." The remains of this animal found in
what is called the Pliocene Period, show the foot to have been as
perfect then as it is now.
Mr. Wallace says that man has existed on the earth a hundred thousand
years, and that it is probable that he existed four hundred thousand
years ago. Of course we do not believe this. We have little faith in the
chronology of science. It gives no sure data for the calculation of
time, hence we find them differing from four thousand to four hundred
thousand years as to the time required for certain formations.
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