have remained, with but very little apparent
change, from their first appearance to the present time.

6. In answer to the question "What, then, does an impartial survey of
the positively ascertained truths of palaeontology testify in relation
to the common doctrines of progressive modification, which suppose
that modification to have taken place by a necessary progress from
more to less embryonic forms, from more to less generalized types,
within, the limits of the period represented by the fossiliferous
rocks?" I reply, "It negatives these doctrines; for it either shows us
no evidence of such modification, or demonstrates such modification as
has occurred to have been very slight; and, as to the nature of
that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earlier
members of any long-continued group were more generalized in structure
than the later ones."

I think that I cannot employ my last opportunity of addressing you,
officially, more properly--I may say more dutifully--than in
revising these old judgments with such help as further knowledge and
reflection, and an extreme desire to get at the truth, may afford me.

1. With respect to the first proposition, I may remark that
whatever may be the case among the physical geologists, catastrophic
palaeontologists are practically extinct. It is now no part of
recognized geological doctrine that the species of one formation all
died out and were replaced by a brand-new set in the next formation.
On the contrary, it is generally, if not universally, agreed that
the succession of life has been, the result of a slow and gradual
replacement of species by species; and that all appearances of
abruptness of change are due to breaks in the series of deposits, or
other changes in physical conditions. The continuity of living forms
has been unbroken from the earliest times to the present day.

2, 3. The use of the word "homotaxis" instead of "synchronism" has
not, so far as I know, found much favour in the eyes of geologists.
I hope, therefore, that it is a love for scientific caution, and not
mere personal affection for a bantling of my own, which leads me still
to think that the change of phrase is of importance, and that the
sooner it is made, the sooner shall we get rid of a number of pitfalls
which beset the reasoner upon the facts and theories of geology.

One of the latest pieces of foreign intelligence which has reached
us is the information that the Austri