a
permanence and completeness of records such as is never found. We do not
find even that all recently extinct plants have left memorials of their
existence in the crust of the earth; and ancient archives are certainly
extremely defective. To one who is aware of the extreme imperfection of
the geological record, the discovery of one or two missing links is a
fact of small significance; but each new form rescued from oblivion is
an earnest of the former existence of hundreds of species, the greater
part of which are irrevocably lost.

A somewhat serious cause of disquiet and alarm arises out of the
supposed bearing of this doctrine of the origin of species by
transmutation on the origin of man, and his place in nature. It is
clearly seen that there is such a close affinity, such an identity in
all essential points, in our corporeal structure, and in many of our
instincts and passions with those of the lower animals--that man is so
completely subjected to the same general laws of reproduction, increase,
growth, disease, and death--that if progressive development, spontaneous
variation, and natural selection have for millions of years directed the
changes of the rest of the organic world, we cannot expect to find that
the human race has been exempted from the same continuous process of
evolution.

Such a near bond of connection between man and the rest of the animate
creation is regarded by many as derogatory to our dignity. But we have
already had to exchange the pleasing conceptions indulged in by poets
and theologians as to the high position in the scale of being held by
our early progenitors for humble and more lowly beginnings, the joint
labours of the geologist and archaeologist having left us in no doubt of
the ignorance and barbarism of Palaeolithic man.

It is well, too, to remember that the high place we have reached in the
scale of being has been gained step by step, by a conscientious study
of natural phenomena, and by fearlessly teaching the doctrines to which
they point. It is by faithfully weighing evidence without regard to
preconceived notions, by earnestly and patiently searching for what is
true, not what we wish to be true, that we have attained to that
dignity, which we may in vain hope to claim through the rank of an ideal
parentage.

JAMES CLERK MAXWELL

A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism

James Clerk Maxwell, the first professor of experimental physics at
Cambridge, was