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merely cuticular could be representative of the endo-skeletal,--of the opercular, maxillary, frontal, and occipital bones in the osseous fishes of a long posterior period,--fishes that were not ushered upon the scene until after the appearance of the reptile in its highest forms and of even the marsupial quadruped.
THE ASTEROLEPIS, ITS STRUCTURE, BULK, AND ASPECT.
FISHES OF THE SILURIAN ROCKS--UPPER AND LOWER. THEIR RECENT HISTORY, ORDER, AND SIZE.
Most directly, and after a fashion that at once discomfits the challenger.
Still, however, the question of organization remains. Did these ancient Placoid fishes stand high or low in the scale? According to the poet, "What can we reason but from what we know?" We are acquainted with the Placoid fishes of the present time; and from these only, taking analogy as our guide, can we form any judgment regarding the rank and standing of their predecessors, the Placoids of the geologic periods. But the consideration of this question, as it is specially one on which the later assertors of the development hypothesis concentrate themselves, I must, to secure the space necessary for its discussion, defer till my next chapter. Meanwhile, I am conscious I owe an apology to the reader for what he must deem tedious minuteness of description, and a too prolix amplitude of statement. It is only by representing things as they actually are, and in the true order of their occurrence, that the effect of the partially selected facts and exaggerated descriptions of the Lamarckian can be adequately met. True, the disadvantages of the more sober mode are unavoidably great. He who feels himself at liberty to arrange his collected shells, corals, and fish-bones, into artistically designed figures, and to select only the pretty ones, will be of course able to make of them a much finer show than he who is necessitated to represent them in the order and numerical proportions in which they occur on some pebbly beach washed by the sea. And such is the advantage, in a literary point of view, of the ingenious theorist, who, in making figures of his geological facts, takes no more of them than suits his purpose, over the man who has to communicate the facts as he finds them. But the homelier mode is the true one. "Could we obtain," says a distinguished metaphysician, "a distinct and full history of all that has passed in the mind of a child, from the beginning of life and sensation till it grows up to the use of reason,--how its infant faculties began to work, and how they brought forth and ripened all the various notions, opinions, and sentiments which we find in ourselves when we come to be capable of reflection,--this would be a treasure of natural history which would probably give more light into the human faculties than all the systems of philosophers about them since the beginning of the world. But it is in vain," he adds, "to wish for what nature has not put within the reach of our power." In like manner, could we obtain, it may be remarked, a full and distinct account of a single class of the animal kingdom, from its first appearance till the present time, "this would be a treasure of natural history which would cast more light" on the origin of living existences, and the true economy of creation, than all the theories of all the philosophers "since the beginning of the world." And in order to approximate to such a history as nearly as possible,--and it does seem possible to approximate near enough to substantiate the true readings of the volume, and to correct the false ones,--it is necessary that the real vestiges of creation should be carefully investigated, and their order of succession ascertained.
HIGH STANDING OF THE PLACOIDS.--OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.
We have seen that some of the Silurian Placoids were large of size: the question still remains, Were they high in intelligence and organization?
The Edinburgh Reviewer, in contending with the author of the "Vestiges," replies in the affirmative, by claiming for them the first place among fishes. "Taking into account," he says, "the brain and the whole nervous, circulating, and generative systems, they stand at the highest point of a natural ascending scale." They are fishes, he again remarks, that rank among "the very highest types of their class."
Such is the ingenious piece of special pleading which this most popular of the Lamarckians directs against the standing and organization of the earlier fishes. Let us examine it somewhat in detail, and see whether the slight admixture of truth which it contains serves to do aught more than to render current, like the gilding of a counterfeit guinea spread over the base metal, the amount of error which lies beneath. I know not a better example than that which it furnishes, of the entanglement and perplexity which the meshes of an artificial classification, when converted, in argumentative processes, into symbols and abstractions, are sure to involve subjects simple enough in themselves.
"Like the old kings, with high exacting looks, Sceptred and globed,"
but like our modern constitutional monarchs, who govern by law; and, further, that an appeal from their decisions on all subjects within the jurisdiction of Nature should for ever be open to Nature herself. The seeming ingratitude of such a course, if the "complaints" be made in a right spirit and on proper grounds, Jupiter always rewards with gifts.
Let us now see for ourselves, in this spirit, whether there may not be something absolutely derogatory, in the existence of a cartilaginous skeleton, to the creatures possessing it; or whether a deficit of internal bone may not be greatly more than neutralized, as it assuredly must have been in the view of Linnaeus, Muller, and Owen, by a larger than ordinary share of a vastly more important substance.
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