The Foot-prints of the Creator : $b or, The Asterolepis of Stromness — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
The Foot-prints of the Creator : $b or, The Asterolepis of Stromness
John Stuart Mill · en
It seems truly wonderful, when one considers it, to what minute and
obscure ramifications that variety of pattern which nature so loves to
maintain is found to descend. It descends in the fishes, both recent
and extinct, to even the microscopic structure of their teeth; and
we find, in consequence, not less variety of figure in the sliced
fragments of the teeth of the ichthyolites of a single formation, than
in the carved blocks of an extensive calico print-yard. Each _species_
has its own distinct pattern, as if, in all the individuals of which
it consisted, the same block had been employed to stamp it; and each
_genus_ its own general _type_ of pattern, as if the same radical idea,
variously altered and modified, had been wrought upon in all. In the
_Dendrodic_ (Cœlacanth?) family, for instance, it is the radical type,
that from a central nave there should radiate, spoke-like, a number
of arborescent branches; but in the several genera and species of the
family, the branches belong, if I may so express myself, to different
shrubs, and present dissimilar outlines. It has appeared to me, that
at least a _presumption_ against the transmutation of species might be
based on those inherent peculiarities of structure which are thus found
to pervade the entire texture of the framework of animals. If we find
erections differing from one another merely in external form, we have
no difficulty in conceiving how, by additions and alterations, they
might be brought to exhibit a perfect uniformity of plan and aspect:
_transmutation_,—_development_,—_progression_,—(if one may use such
terms,)—seem possible in such circumstances. But if the buildings differ
from each other, not only in external form, but also in every brick and
beam, bolt and nail, no mere scheme of external alteration could ever
induce a real resemblance. Every brick would have to be taken down, and
every beam and bolt removed. The problem could not be wrought by the
remodelling of an old house: the only mode of solving it would be by the
erection of a new one.
[Illustration: Fig. 34.
MAXILLARY BONE?
(One fourth nat. size, linear.)]