'time's Noblest Offspring Is The Last.' This

The Ordinary Naturalist Is Not Sufficiently Aware That When Dogmatizing On What Species Are, He Is Grappling With The Whole Question Of The Organic World & Its Connection With The Time Past & With Man; That It Involves The Question Of Man & His Relation To The Brutes, Of Instinct, Intelligence & Reason, Of Creation, Transmutation & Progressive Improvement Or Development. Each Set Of Geological Questions & Of Ethnological & Zool. & Botan. Are Parts Of The Great Problem Which Is Always Assuming A New Aspect.

In Attempting To Explain Geological Phenomena, The Bias Has Always Been On The Wrong Side; There Has Always Been A Disposition To Reason á Priori On The Extraordinary Violence And Suddenness Of Changes, Both In The Inorganic Crust Of The Earth, And In Organic Types, Instead Of Attempting Strenuously To Frame Theories In Accordance With The Ordinary Operations Of Nature.

I May Conclude This Chapter By Quoting A Saying Of Professor Agassiz, That Whenever A New And Startling Fact Is Brought To Light In Science, People First Say, 'it Is Not True,' Then That 'it Is Contrary To Religion,' And Lastly, 'that Everybody Knew It Before.'

Each Species May Have Had Its Origin In A Single Pair, Or Individual, Where An Individual Was Sufficient, And Species May Have Been Created In Succession At Such Times And In Such Places As To Enable Them To Multiply And Endure For An Appointed Period, And Occupy An Appointed Space On The Globe.

The Question Now At Issue, Whether The Living Species Are Connected With The Extinct By A Common Bond Of Descent, Will Best Be Cleared Up By Devoting Ourselves To The Study Of The Actual State Of The Living World, And To Those Monuments Of The Past In Which The Relics Of The Animate Creation Of Former Ages Are Best Preserved And Least Mutilated By The Hand Of Time.