ruin and disorder--are
nevertheless the agents of a conservative principle above all others
essential to the stability of the system.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

CHANGES OF THE ORGANIC WORLD NOW IN PROGRESS.

Division of the subject--Examination of the question, Whether
species have a real existence in nature?--Importance of this
question in geology--Sketch of Lamarck's arguments in favor of the
transmutation of species, and his conjectures respecting the origin
of existing animals and plants--His theory of the transformation of
the orang-outang into the human species.

The last book, from chapters fourteen to thirty-three inclusive, was
occupied with the consideration of the changes brought about on the
earth's surface, within the period of human observation, by inorganic
agents; such, for example, as rivers, marine currents, volcanoes, and
earthquakes. But there is another class of phenomena relating to the
organic world, which have an equal claim on our attention, if we desire
to obtain possession of all the preparatory knowledge respecting the
existing course of nature, which may be available in the interpretation
of geological monuments. It appeared from our preliminary sketch of the
progress of the science, that the most lively interest was excited among
its earlier cultivators, by the discovery of the remains of animals and
plants in the interior of mountains frequently remote from the sea. Much
controversy arose respecting the nature of these remains, the causes
which may have brought them into so singular a position, and the want of
a specific agreement between them and known animals and plants. To
qualify ourselves to form just views on these curious questions, we must
first study the present condition of the animate creation on the globe.

This branch of our inquiry naturally divides itself into two parts:
first, we may examine the vicissitudes to which species are subject;
secondly, the processes by which certain individuals of these species
occasionally become fossil. The first of these divisions will lead us,
among other topics, to inquire, first, whether species have a real and
permanent existence in nature? or whether they are capable, as some
naturalists pretend, of being indefinitely modified in the course of a
long series of generations? Secondly, whether, if species have a real
existence, the individuals composing them have been derived originally
from m