Nothing precedes them from which they could be derived; and nothing of
the same kind follows them. They live through their appointed period;
and then, in a multitude of cases, finally disappear, and are in their
turn followed by new orders or kinds. In other words, the links or
connecting forms of this assumed regular succession or derivation are
not to be found. This fact is so patent, that Hugh Miller, when arguing
against the doctrine of evolution as proposed in the "Vestiges of
Creation," says, that the record in the rocks seems to have been written
for the very purpose of proving that such evolution is impossible.
We have the explicit testimony of Agassiz, as a Palaeontologist, that the
facts of geology contradict the theory of the transmutation of species.
This testimony has been repeatedly given and in various forms. In the
last production of his pen, he says: "As a Palaeontologist I have from
the beginning stood aloof from this new theory of transmutation, now so
widely admitted by the scientific world. Its doctrines, in fact,
contradict what the animal forms buried in the rocky strata of our earth
tell us of their own introduction and succession upon the surface of the
globe." "Let us look now at the earliest vertebrates, as known and
recorded in geological surveys. They should, of course, if there is any
truth in the transmutation theory, correspond with the lowest in rank or
standing.
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