Page - 363 - in The Origin of Species

SUDDEN APPEARANCE OF GROUPS 363 epoch in a completely metamorphosed and denuded con- dition. The several difficulties here discussed, namely—that, though we find in our geological formations many links be- tween the species which now exist and which formerly existed, we do not find infinitely numerous fine transitional forms closely joining them all together;—the sudden man- ner in which several groups of species first appear in our European formations;—the almost entire absence, as at present known, of formations rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian strata,—are all undoubtedly of the most serious nature. We see this in the fact that the most eminent palaeontologists, namely, Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c., have unanimously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But Sir Charles Lyell now gives the support of his high author- ity to the other side ; and most geologists and palaeontologists are much shaken in their former belief. Those who believe that the geological record is in any degree perfect, will un- doubtedly at once reject the theory. For my part, follow- ing out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history we possess the last vol- ume alone, relating only to two or three countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been pre- served; and of each page, only here and there a few lines. Each word of the slowly-changing language, more or less different in the successive chapters, may represent the forms of life, which are entombed in our consecutive formations, and which falsely appear to have been abruptly introduced. On this view, the difficulties above discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.