Abstract
II. IF all the Mammalia are the results of a process of evolution analogous to that which has taken place in the case of the Equidæ, and if they exhibit different degrees of that process, then a natural classification will arrange them, in the first instance, according to the place which they occupy in the scale of evolution of the mammalian type, or the particular rung of the “scala mam-malium” on which they stand. The determination of the position thus occupied by any group may, I think, be effected by the deductive application of the laws of evolution. That is to say, those groups which approach the non-mammalian Vertebrata most closely, present least inequality of development, least suppression, and least coalescence of the fundamental parts of the type, must belong to earlier stages of evolution; while those which exhibit the contrary characters must appertain to later stages.
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Prof. Huxley on Evolution 1 . Nature 23, 227–231 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/023227a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023227a0