nsmutation theory, correspond with the lowest in rank or
standing. What then are the earliest known vertebrates? They are
Selachians (sharks and their allies) and Ganoids (garpikes and the
like), the highest of all living fishes, structurally speaking." He
closes the article from which these quotations are taken with the
assertion, "that there is no evidence of a direct descent of later from
earlier species in the geological succession of animals."[53] It will be
observed that Agassiz is quoted, not as to matters of theory, but as to
matters of fact. The only answer which evolutionists can make to this
argument, is the imperfection of the geological record. When asked,
Where are the immediate predecessors of these new species? they answer,
They have disappeared, or, have not yet been found. When asked, Where
are their immediate successors? the answer again is, They have
disappeared.[54] This is an objection which Mr. Darwin, with his usual
candor, virtually admits to be unanswerable. We have already seen, that
he says, "Every one will admit that the geological record is imperfect;
but very few can believe that it is so very imperfect as my theory
demands."

Such are some of the grounds on which geologists and palaeontologists of
the highest rank assert that the theory of evolution has not the
slightest scientific basis; and they support their assertion with an
amount of evidence of which the above items are a miserable pittance.

Sixthly. There is another consideration of decisive importance. Strauss
says, there are three things which have been stumbling-blocks in the way
of science. First, the origin of life; second, the origin of
consciousness; third, the origin of reason. These are equivalent to the
gaps which, Principal Dawson says, exist in the theory of evolution. He
states them thus: 1. That between dead and living matter. 2. That
between vegetable and animal life. "These are necessarily the converse
of each other: the one deoxidizes and accumulates, the other oxidizes
and expends." 3. That "between any species of plant or animal, and any
other species. It was this gap, and this only, which Darwin undertook to
fill up by his great work on the origin of species, but, notwithstanding
the immense amount of material thus expended, it yawns as wide as ever,
since it must be admitted that no case has been ascertained in which an
individual of one species has transgressed the limits between it and
another species." 4.