the leading opponent of the development or Darwinian theories. To
him, development meant development of plan as expressed in
structure, not the change of one structure into another. To his
apprehension the change was based upon intellectual, not upon
material causes. He sums up his own conviction with reference to
this question as follows:* (* "Recherches sur les Poissons
Fossiles" volume 1 chapter 6 pages 171, 172. "Essay on the
Classification of Fishes.") "Such facts proclaim aloud principles
not yet discussed in science, but which paleontological researches
place before the eyes of the observer with an ever-increasing
persistency. I speak of the relations of the creation with the
creator. Phenomena closely allied in the order of their succession,
and yet without sufficient cause in themselves for their
appearance; an infinite diversity of species without any common
material bond, so grouping themselves as to present the most
admirable progressive development to which our own species is
linked,--are these not incontestable proofs of the existence of a
superior intelligence whose power alone could have established such
an order of things?. . ."
"More than fifteen hundred species of fossil fishes, which I have
learned to know, tell me that species do not pass insensibly one
into another, but that they appear and disappear unexpectedly,
without direct relations with their precursors; for I think no one
will seriously pretend that the numerous types of Cycloids and
Ctenoids, almost all of which are contemporaneous with one an
other, have descended from the Placoids and Ganoids. As well might
one affirm that the Mammalia, and man with them, have descended
directly from fishes. All these species have a fixed epoch of
appearance and disappearance; their existence is even limited to an
appointed time. And yet they present, as a whole, numerous
affinities more or less close, a definite coordination in a given
system of organization which has intimate relations with the mode
of existence of each type, and even of each species. An invisible
thread unwinds itself throughout all time, across this immense
diversity, and presents to us as a definite result, a continual
progress in the development of which man is the term, of which the
four classes of vertebrates are intermediate forms, and the
totality of invertebrate animals the constant accessory
accompaniment."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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