said to be favourable to it, and, finally, how far it can be said to be
demonstrative.

From almost the origin of the discussions about the existing condition
of the animal and vegetable worlds and the causes which have determined
that condition, an argument has been put forward as an objection to
evolution, which we shall have to consider very seriously. It is an
argument which was first clearly stated by Cuvier in his criticism of
the doctrines propounded by his great contemporary, Lamarck. The French
expedition to Egypt had called the attention of learned men to the
wonderful store of antiquities in that country, and there had been
brought back to France numerous mummified corpses of the animals which
the ancient Egyptians revered and preserved, and which, at a reasonable
computation, must have lived not less than three or four thousand years
before the time at which they were thus brought to light. Cuvier
endeavoured to test the hypothesis that animals have undergone gradual
and progressive modifications of structure, by comparing the skeletons
and such other parts of the mummies as were in a fitting state of
preservation, with the corresponding parts of the representatives of the
same species now living in Egypt. He arrived at the conviction that no
appreciable change had taken place in these animals in the course of
this considerable lapse of time, and the justice of his conclusion is
not disputed.

It is obvious that, if it can be proved that animals have endured,
without undergoing any demonstrable change of structure, for so long a
period as four thousand years, no form of the hypothesis of evolution
which assumes that animals undergo a constant and necessary progressive
change can be tenable; unless, indeed, it be further assumed that four
thousand years is too short a time for the production of a change