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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin: fossiliferous strata. -- There is another and allied difficulty, which is
much graver. I allude to the manner in which numbers of species of the
same group, suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. Most
of the arguments which have convinced me that all the existing species of
the same group have descended from one progenitor, apply with nearly equal
force to the earliest known species. For instance, I cannot doubt that all
the Silurian trilobites have descended from some one crustacean, which must
have lived long before the Silurian age, and which probably differed
greatly from any known animal. Some of the most ancient Silurian animals,
as the Nautilus, Lingula, &c., do not differ much from living species; and
it cannot on my theory be supposed, that these old species were the
On the Origin of Species |
