xl PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. 



In the second place, the illustration of the ditch and its fossils 

 breaks down from want of true parity. It happens that, in the true 

 geological " ditch," we see a series of animals in a rough way resem- 

 bling not only their ascent in the scale of the zoologist, but also the 

 progress of the higher individual in the process of reproduction. 

 When the facts involved in these lines of investigation are modestly 

 presented as vestiges of the manner in which God may have effected 

 the peopling of the earth, it is humbly conceived that nothing truly 

 ridiculous has been done, much less anything irreligious. It would 

 be easy to show further differences of no small magnitude between the 

 premises in the two cases ; but I cannot condescend to take further 

 trouble with an argument which seems to trust lor its force chiefly 

 to the foolish laughter which it ma} 7 raise, or the unreflecting bigotry 

 which it may excite. 



At the end of this chapter, Mr. Miller refuses us the privilege of 

 supposing that, prior to the Silurian era, there were lower and 

 humbler forms of life, the remains of which have not been detected, 

 or which may not have been preserved. He admits that Sir Charles 

 Lyell and others take this view ; but in the question connected with 

 it the author of the Vestiges can have " no legitimate stake." " It 

 is to Geology, as it is known to be, that the Lamarckian has ap- 

 pealed, not to Geology as it is not known to be." "His appeal to 

 the unknown serves but to show how thoroughly he feels that the 

 actually ascertained evidence bears against him." This seems a 

 hard law. It looks particularly so when the fact is that, if the 

 opposition had not made rash and ultimately unjustified attempts to 

 deprive us of an invertebrate era, and given representations of the 

 grade of the earliest fossils which seemed opposed to the development 

 hypothesis, we should have had comparatively little temptation to 

 point to possible earlier fossils. Now that our original assertion of an 

 invertebrate era stands triumphant over a hundred ignominious 

 assaults, and the disingenuousness of the opposition in misrepresent- 

 ing the earliest " actually ascertained evidence" is exposed, we are 

 comparatively independent of possible earlier fossils. But supposing 

 this had not been the case, can it be seriously said that we have no 

 " legitimate stake" in the question ? If, in descending through the 

 formations, we find them all fossiliferous till we arrive at one which is 

 non-fossiliferous, but wliich has evidently been subjected to an 

 agency notoriously calculated to destroy traces of organic matter, is 

 the surmise, so natural in the case, that this formation may, in its 

 original state, have been fossiliferous too, to be legitimate to all but 

 the author of the Vestiges ? We must profess ourselves unable to 

 see how any rule of controversy can sanction such partiality. Mr. 

 Miller says, our appeal was to geology as it is known to be. Well, 

 and what is geology as it is known to be but the entire code of doc- 

 trine entertained at the present moment by its best expositors ? If 

 some geologists of reputation inferior to none, hold last by the be- 

 lief that there probably were fossils below the Silurians, is not the 

 fact of some consequence, and are we not entitled to refer to it ? Fur- 



