ABSTRACT
Since we have heard the verdict of zoologists and botanists concerning Darwinism, it is but right that we should now listen to a palaeontologist, a representative of the science, which investigates the petrified records of the earth’s surface, and strives to collect information regarding the world of life during remote, by-gone ages of the earth. It is evident to every one that the verdict of this science must be of very special importance in passing on the question of the development of living organisms. Darwin himself recognized this at the outset. He and his followers, however, soon perceived that, while the revelations of palaeontology were on the whole favorable to the doctrine of Descent, in so far as they proved the gradual change of organization, in consecutive strata, from the simple to more complex forms, palaeontology revealed nothing that would sustain the Darwinian theory as to the method of that development. As soon as the Darwinians, and first of all Darwin himself, perceived this, they at once brought forward a very cheap subterfuge. Since Darwinism postulates a very gradual, uninterrupted development of living organisms, there must have been an immense number of transition-forms between any two animal or plant species which to-day, although otherwise related, are separated by 235characteristic features. Consequently, on the Darwinian hypothesis, all of these transition-forms must have perished for the singular reason that other better organized forms overcame them in the struggle for existence. If therefore the millions of transition-forms were still missing, and the known petrified forms of older strata of the earth did not reveal them, the Darwinians were able to console themselves until from 20 to 40 years ago, with the assertion that our knowledge was still too deficient, that a more thorough investigation of the earth’s surface and especially of out-of-the-way parts would eventually bring to light the supposed transition forms. Such assertion affords very poor consolation, and is anything but scientific. The method of natural science consists in establishing general principles on the basis of the materials actually furnished by experiments and observation and not in excogitating general laws and then consoling oneself with the thought that while our knowledge of nature is as yet extremely imperfect, time will furnish the actual material necessary to substantiate our guesses. But since then many a year has come and gone and Darwinism has caused, and for that alone it deserves credit, a diligent research in every field of natural science, and has promoted among palaeontologists a search for the missing transition-forms. The materials of investigation from the field of palaeontology have also wonderfully increased during these decades. Hence it is worth while now at the dawn of the new century to examine this material with a view to its availableness for the theory of Descent and especially for Darwinism.
