endent of altered
and perhaps suddenly altered physical conditions, namely, the mutual
relation of organism to organism--the improvement of one organism
entailing the improvement or the extermination of others; it follows,
that the amount of organic change in the fossils of consecutive
formations probably serves as a fair measure of the relative, though not
actual lapse of time. A number of species, however, keeping in a body
might remain for a long period unchanged, whilst within the same period,
several of these species, by migrating into new countries and coming
into competition with foreign associates, might become modified; so
that we must not overrate the accuracy of organic change as a measure of
time.

In the future I see open fields for far more important researches.
Psychology will be securely based on the foundation already well laid
by Mr. Herbert Spencer, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental
power and capacity by gradation. Much light will be thrown on the origin
of man and his history.

Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view
that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords
better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator,
that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants
of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those
determining the birth and death of the individual. When I view all
beings not as special creations, but as the lineal descendants of some
few beings which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian system
was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled. Judging from the
past, we may safely infer that not one living species will transmit its
unaltered likeness to a distinct futurity. And of the species now living
very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity;
for the manner in which all organic beings are grouped, shows that the
greater number of species in each genus, and all the species in many
genera, have left no descendants, but have become utterly extinct. We
can so far take a prophetic glance into futurity as to foretell that it
will be the common and widely spread species, belonging to the larger
and dominant groups within each class, which will ultimately prevail and
procreate new and dominant species. As all the living forms of life are
the lineal descendants of those which lived long before the Cambrian
epoch, we may feel