CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



and found therein a definite succession of fossils. There- 

 upon geologists jumped to the conclusion that the same suc- 

 cession held good everywhere else. If they discovered that 

 it did not, but that the order was reversed, or that there 

 were great gaps, then they explained such exceptions by 

 saying that the rocks had been overturned or that large 

 portions of them had been removed, and so on. On this 

 assumed succession of the fossils the palaeontologists based a 

 number of lines of descent of the extinct animals and plants 

 and claimed that the changes were due to evolution. Links 

 were admittedly missing, but sometimes a fossil was found 

 that fitted into one of these supposed breaks ; then the palae- 

 ontologists put it in and called it fresh evidence for evolu- 

 tion; and if the geological age did not quite suit their theory, 

 they said the geologists were wrong, and that there must 

 have been some disturbance of the rocks. In short, the 

 theory was based on the succession of fossils in the rocks, and 

 the succession of the rocks was deduced from the theory. A 

 vicious circle if ever there was one! 



So far the critics, but it is somewhat difficult to make out 

 what explanation they would themselves give of the facts 

 presented by the fossils. They do not deny that fossils are 

 the remains of extinct animals. They seem to suppose that 

 the ringed trilobites, the coiled ammonites, the armoured 

 fishes of the Old Red Sandstone, the scaly bony fishes of the 

 Chalk, the monstrous dinosaurs, the huge horned mam- 

 mals, the great marine ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, and 

 hundreds of other forms unknown to us today, all lived at 

 the same time, though in difi"erent regions or difi^erent situa- 

 tions, and that the rocks are a sort of hotch-potch in which 

 their remains occur anyhow. 



This explanation, or any other conceivable interpretation 

 of our critics' views, only raises more difficulties and is hope- 



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