(vi.) Worthy of notice also is "the remarkable circumstance that in the
line of evolution culminating in the modern Horse, a parallel series of
generically identical or closely allied forms occurs in the Tertiaries
of both Europe and North America, from which it has been suggested that
on both continents a parallel development of the same genera has
simultaneously taken place."[291] And, as we have seen, while the
American pedigree must have been entirely different from the European,
it terminates equally in both continents with the genus _Equus_, if not
actually with _Equus caballus_.[292] But, on any mechanical system of
evolution, it is impossible to suppose that developments conducted along
separate roads could thus be brought to meet in one terminus.[293] Mr.
Darwin did not conceive it possible that the same species should be
produced twice over, "if even the very same conditions of life, organic
and inorganic should recur,"[294] and the production of genuine horses,
not only in widely diverse circumstances, but through totally different
ancestors, must appear still less conceivable. Consequently, says Mr.
Mivart,[295] "it follows from this generic identity, that classification
will be no longer Darwinian, but one more Aristotelian, and will regard,
not the origin but the _outcome_ of development, whether of the
individual or the species."
(vii.) There is, however, another consideration more serious than any of
the above. In order to set the theory of genetic Evolution upon a sound
and substantial basis, it is not sufficient to show that the last
ungulate is lineally descended from the first,--_Equus_ from _Eohippus_,
_Hyracotherium_, _Phenacodus_, or _Hippops_,--but that this first
ungulate himself--whichever it was--has been, or at least may have been,
similarly developed from a non-ungulate Mammalian ancestor, the common
parent of all the protean forms assumed by his progeny. To develop all
these from one original, through a graduated series in each case, by the
infinitesimal process of descent with modification, would require a
period of time inconceivably long--immensely longer than that required
to change one ungulate into another. Ungulates, as has been said, are a
highly specialized type of Mammals, and although they walked on the
nails of five digits instead of only one, a vast amount of Evolution
would be required to bring them even to this point, from that whence all
Mammals are said to have started. There must also have existed, while
this development was in progress, a teeming and multitudinous mammalian
life, as raw material for its operations--and of this at least _some_
trace should remain.
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