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unsearchable are the riches of nature , so complicated and multiform the machinery of life . And yet with this endless diversity of form and function , there is observable an order and a regularity of production quite as marvellous and astonishing . Whatever amount of variety may be observable
in the species of animals and plants , no naturalist has yet been able to show a single instance in which a species has changed . " Two thousand years have elapsed , '' says M . Flourens , " since Aristotle wrote ; yet we recognise , at the present day , all the animals he has described ; and we also recognise them in the characters he has assigned them . " "The history of the elephant , " says Cuvier , "is more correct in Aristotle than in Buffon . " True it is that there are
species of animals and plants which did exist , but do not now exist . Species have become extinct , but they have not changed . The ancient specimens of existing species are precisely the patterns of those which live and breathe amongst us . The fossil horse differs in no respect from the living horse . The fossil elephant is the same animal as the present elephant of India .
Let us now take a view of the machinery of life as illustrated in the gigantic and repulsive forms which , with savage aspect , welcome the railway visitor to the Crystal Palace . We have often thought that in this new world of wonders there is nothing half so interesting as these enormous representatives of the vital machinery of the past . To the vulgar gaze , these " horrid-looking over-grown reptiles " appear like imaginary beings , placed there to excite the wonder and contribute to the amusement of children or childish minds ; and
there are even persons of some education who think that this attempt to clothe with outward form certain fragments of fossil bones is at best rather a childish affair . Professor Owen , it is true , is an enthusiast of the first order ; no one who has seen or heard him can doubt it for a moment ; but his enthusiasm has not a spark of romance about it . It consists of natient nerseveriner efforts to follow nature , about it . It consists of patient persevering efforts to ioilow nature
, and to pry into and unfold what she reveals of her aspect in a bygone age . These saurian and icthyo-saurian giants , are no " gorgons or hydras or chimeras dire . " They are built up as nature always builds , allowing much for possible deviations in minor matters of development . If to the eye of taste they appear supremely ugly ,
—destitute of grace , such as nature never exhibited to the gaze of man , —let it be remembered that the strata which produced them have yielded no human petrifactions , no trace whatever of human existence ; and that they tell of a date in the geological history of the globe , when as yet the earth was not prepared for the habitation
of man , not yet furnished for his wants . The breath of life had not yet been breathed into a human form . There is every reason to believe that all these species were extinct ages before the creation of man . Had these forms , therefore , been ever so beautiful and comely , there would have been no created eye to appreciate , no human mind to admire their proportions , If they are hideous , therefore , they may yet be true representatives of the originals , created for wise
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Untitled Article
unsearchable are the riches of nature , so complicated and multiform the machinery of life . And yet with this endless diversity of form and function , there is observable an order and a regularity of production quite as marvellous and astonishing . Whatever amount of variety may be observable
in the species of animals and plants , no naturalist has yet been able to show a single instance in which a species has changed . " Two thousand years have elapsed , '' says M . Flourens , " since Aristotle wrote ; yet we recognise , at the present day , all the animals he has described ; and we also recognise them in the characters he has assigned them . " "The history of the elephant , " says Cuvier , "is more correct in Aristotle than in Buffon . " True it is that there are
species of animals and plants which did exist , but do not now exist . Species have become extinct , but they have not changed . The ancient specimens of existing species are precisely the patterns of those which live and breathe amongst us . The fossil horse differs in no respect from the living horse . The fossil elephant is the same animal as the present elephant of India .
Let us now take a view of the machinery of life as illustrated in the gigantic and repulsive forms which , with savage aspect , welcome the railway visitor to the Crystal Palace . We have often thought that in this new world of wonders there is nothing half so interesting as these enormous representatives of the vital machinery of the past . To the vulgar gaze , these " horrid-looking over-grown reptiles " appear like imaginary beings , placed there to excite the wonder and contribute to the amusement of children or childish minds ; and
there are even persons of some education who think that this attempt to clothe with outward form certain fragments of fossil bones is at best rather a childish affair . Professor Owen , it is true , is an enthusiast of the first order ; no one who has seen or heard him can doubt it for a moment ; but his enthusiasm has not a spark of romance about it . It consists of natient nerseveriner efforts to follow nature , about it . It consists of patient persevering efforts to ioilow nature
, and to pry into and unfold what she reveals of her aspect in a bygone age . These saurian and icthyo-saurian giants , are no " gorgons or hydras or chimeras dire . " They are built up as nature always builds , allowing much for possible deviations in minor matters of development . If to the eye of taste they appear supremely ugly ,
—destitute of grace , such as nature never exhibited to the gaze of man , —let it be remembered that the strata which produced them have yielded no human petrifactions , no trace whatever of human existence ; and that they tell of a date in the geological history of the globe , when as yet the earth was not prepared for the habitation
of man , not yet furnished for his wants . The breath of life had not yet been breathed into a human form . There is every reason to believe that all these species were extinct ages before the creation of man . Had these forms , therefore , been ever so beautiful and comely , there would have been no created eye to appreciate , no human mind to admire their proportions , If they are hideous , therefore , they may yet be true representatives of the originals , created for wise