PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. xli 



ther, if, as is the case, another geologist of equal reputation (Seclg- 

 wick) believes he has found a formation lower than the Silurian, and 

 discovers in it remains of animals of an exceedingly humble character, 

 and no others, is not such a fact also fairly available to us ?* In 

 denying us these privileges, Mr. Miller says nothing of the privi- 

 lege he assumes of ignoring possible fossils, when it suits his 

 convenience in this controversy to do so. He does not scruple in 

 all. cases to speak of the earliest " actually ascertained" and generally 

 admitted fossils as if they were positively and conclusively the first, 

 overlooking that many believe them not to have been the first ; and 

 many of his most plausible arguments are based on this deliberate 

 assumption of what constitutes " Geology as it is known to be." 

 He is at least consistent. It is precisely from one who takes more 

 than justice to himself, that we should expect a denial of justice to 

 another. 



In the twelfth and part of the thirteenth chapters, Mr. Miller 

 treats of what he calls the Latnarckian hypothesis of the origin of 

 plants, or rather the idea thrown out in this book, and which had 

 also (unknown to us) been propounded in the mystic pages of Oken, 

 that the vegetation of the earth had its origin in the sea. He con- 

 siders it as necessary to this theory that there should be intermediate 

 species on the borders of seas, or where salt and fresh-water meet ; 

 which he says is not the case he finds no such thing in a particular 

 inlet in Orkney, where there is a very gradual transition from salt to 

 fresh-water. It seems to us a narrow ground on which to debate so 

 great a question, and we must confess that till botanists of good 

 authority have given their opinions, we cannot consent to take Mr. 

 Miller's statements as conclusive even about the facts. We therefore 

 place this question in suspense, feeling the more justified in doing so 

 that the phytological part of the organic creation has never been pro- 

 minently brought forward in this work or its sequel, but on the 

 contrary held as subordinate to any rule which could be established 

 for the animal kingdom. 



Mr. Miller proceeds to try the aim and purpose of the present 

 work by a reference to the experience argument of Hume and 

 Laplace. Because of my having a preference for law as against 

 miracle, he holds us as risking all upon the argument of these two 

 writers, though we never made any reference to it. He assumes 

 that we objected to creation by miracle, as contrary to invariable ex- 

 perience ; and here, says he, is transmutation of plants shown by the 

 Lake of Stennis to be "not only contrary to an invariable experience, 

 but opposed to all testimony" "a mere idle dream." In Mr. 

 Miller's words, the experience argument of Hume " is quite sufficient 

 to establish the fact that there can be no real escape from belief in 

 acts of creation never witnessed by man, to processes of develop- 

 ment never witnessed by man ; seeing that a presumed law beyond 



* It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader that geology, as it now is 

 (I860), gives a variety of fossils below the zone of the Silurians. 



