many others. But there is not the
least perceptible change in the corresponding species now inhabiting
Egypt and the desert.

We can go further than the mere external appearance; for we can actually
dissect specimens of the various animals, and thus satisfy ourselves
whether any physiological change, amounting to a transmutation of
species, has occurred, or was in progress; and the investigation has
been conducted by no less a physiologist and zoologist than Cuvier,
whose authority in such matters no naturalist will dispute. And this is
what he says: "It might seem as if the ancient Egyptians had been
inspired by nature, for the purpose of transmitting to after ages a
monument of her natural history. That strange and whimsical people, by
embalming with so much care the brutes which were the objects of their
stupid adoration, have left us in their sacred grottoes cabinets of
zoology almost complete. Climate has conspired with art to preserve the
bodies from corruption, and we can now assure ourselves with our own
eyes what was the state of a good number of species three thousand years
ago. * * * I have endeavored to collect all the ancient documents
respecting the forms of animals, and there are none equal to those
furnished by the Egyptians, both in regard to their antiquity and
abundance. I have examined with the greatest care the engraved figures
of quadrupeds and birds upon the obelisks brought from Egypt to ancient
Rome; and all these figures, one with another, have a perfect
resemblance to their intended objects, such as they still are in our
days. My learned friend, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, convinced me of the
importance of this research, and carefully collected in the tombs and
temples of Upper and Lower Egypt as many mummies of animals as he could
procure. He has brought home the mummies of cats, ibises, birds of prey,
dogs, crocodiles, and the head of a bull. After the most attentive and
detailed examination, not the smallest difference is to be perceived
between these animals and those of the same species which we now see,
any more than between human mummies and skeletons of men of the present
day."[17]

There is then not the first fact, or appearance of a fact, to be adduced
in proof of the change of species either by domestication, or Natural
Selection, or any other process known to man. That any such evolution of
any animal, or plant, into one of another species ever occurred, is a
mere empty notion, in supp