106 APPENDIX. 



This, in fact, is the serious, and only legitimate ob- 

 jection to a doctrine, which would explain many obscure 

 physiological phenomena, and bring the laws of vitality 

 into harmony with those which preside over the in- 

 organic kingdom of nature. 



Azoic sedimentary Strata, note to p. 87. — From the 

 absence of all traces of animal and vegetable structures, 

 or more properly from the non-discovery of organic 

 remains, in the most ancient sedimentary strata, (those, 

 for example, below the Lower Silurian), some eminent 

 geologists infer that the deposition of these rocks was 

 antecedent to the creation of organic beings. This 

 inference appears to me most unphilosophical; for nega- 

 tive evidence, as it is termed, in the present state of 

 geological science, is in fact no evidence at all, as we 

 are still but imperfectly acquainted with the entire 

 system of organic nature in any one of the grand epochs 

 of Geology. 



If we endeavour to trace the order of succession of 

 animal and vegetable organisation upon our planet, as 

 demonstrated by fossil remains, we are at once impressed 

 with the insufficiency of the data hitherto obtained, to 

 present us with a true picture of the full development 

 of organic life, as it existed in the earlier ag6s of the 



