Life on the Earth, its Origin arid Succession, 209 



complete, owing to the character of some kinds of deposits. Thus we 

 must not expect to be able to arrange the fossil remains in a real how- 

 ever broken series, since the true order and descent may be, and for the 

 most part is irrecoverably lost. 



" Surely this imperfection of the geological record is overrated. With 

 the exceptions of the two great breaks at the close of the Palaeozoic and 

 Mesozoic periods, the series of strata is nearly if not quite com[)lete, the 

 series of life almost equally so. Not indeed in one small tract or in 

 one section ; but on a comparison of different tracts and several sections. 

 For example, the marine series of Devonian life cannot be found in the 

 districts of Wales or Scotland, but must be collected in Devonshire, 

 Bohemia, Russia, and America. When so gathered it fills very nearly 

 if not entirely the whole interval between the Upper Silurian and the 

 Carboniferous Fauna. So in England the marine intermediaries of the 

 Oolitic and Cretaceous ages are not given : but the Neocomian Strata 

 supply the want. We have no Meiocene Strata in England, but their 

 place is marked in France and America. 



" Even the great breaks alluded to are bridged. The Permian series 

 of life contains some Mesozoic interpolations ; and the Lias contains 

 reliquiae of some Palaeozoic genera. The upper chalk of Maestricht and 

 the South of France extends toward the Tertiaries the reign of the 

 Upper Mesozoic beds. 



" On the whole, it appears that there exist ample materials for testing 

 any hypothesis of the sequence of life which includes the marine races; 

 and that there is much ground for believing, in regard to the chasms 

 which do exist in the series of freshwater and terrestrial races, that if 

 filled, they would not lead to other inferences than such as appear con- 

 sistent with the records of the sea. If the monuments of the earlier life 

 of the globs are essential witnesses, but too few and independent for a 

 satisfactory test of a given hypothesis of the sequence of life, it is unfor- 

 tunately ineligible for admission among accepted truths. 



" Caloric, electricity, chemical action, are all influential on life ; 

 elevating and depressing it, carrying it on or bringing it to a close, 

 according to the measure and mode of application of these powers of 

 nature. Employed as they are in the current of life, and at every 

 moment acting on and being acted on by it, nothing has seemed easier 

 to speculation than to conceive these agencies so operating on appro- 

 priate matter as to make the vital machine which could not be kept in 

 motion without them. The only thing wanted is the due co-ordination 

 of these powers, in the appropriate matter. Here unfortunately is the 

 difficulty — due co-ordination of independent powers in matter rightly 

 adapted implies the directing mind of the Master of power and matter. 

 The formula is imperfect — 



We start, for Life is wanting there 



" Given, however, the appropriate matter, and the stroke of life upon 

 it, what have we — no living thing — but vitalized matter. Capable of 

 what ? Self-development ? Into what simple organic form ? The an- 



Oan. Nat. 4 Vol. VI. No. 3. 



