And geology tells us
that some of the lowest forms, as the infusoria and rhizopods, have
remained for an enormous period in nearly their present state. But to
suppose that most of the many now existing low forms have not in the least
advanced since the first dawn of life would be extremely rash; for every
naturalist who has dissected some of the beings now ranked as very low in
the scale, must have been struck with their really wondrous and beautiful
organisation.
Nearly the same remarks are applicable, if we look to the different grades
of organisation within the same great group; for instance, in the
vertebrata, to the co-existence of mammals and fish--among mammalia, to the
co-existence of man and the ornithorhynchus--among fishes, to the co-
existence of the shark and the lancelet (Amphioxus), which latter fish in
the extreme simplicity of its structure approaches the invertebrate
classes. But mammals and fish hardly come into competition with each
other; the advancement of the whole class of mammals, or of certain members
in this class, to the highest grade would not lead to their taking the
place of fishes. Physiologists believe that the brain must be bathed by
warm blood to be highly active, and this requires aerial respiration; so
that warm-blooded mammals when inhabiting the water lie under a
disadvantage in having to come continually to the surface to breathe. With
fishes, members of the shark family would not tend to supplant the
lancelet; for the lancelet, as I hear from Fritz Muller, has as sole
companion and competitor on the barren sandy shore of South Brazil, an
anomalous annelid.
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