THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 63 
Now, we find the Geology of what may be termed the 
second age of vertebrated existence (for the Lower Old Red 
Sandstone was such) coming curiously in to confirm the rea- 
sonings of Johnson. It shows us the greater part of the fish 
of an entire creation thus insinuated between two of the 
links of our own. 
It is now several years since I was first led to suspect that 
the condition of the ichthyolites of the Old Red Sandstone 
was intermediate. I have alluded to the comparative inde- 
structibility of the osseous skeleton, and the extreme liability 
to decay characteristic of the cartilaginous one. Of a skel- 
eton in part osseous and in part cartilaginous, we must, of 
course, expect, when it occurs in a fossil state, to find the in- 
destructible portions only. And when, in every instance, we 
find the fossil skeletons of a formation complete in some of 
their parts, and incomplete in others —the entire portions in- 
“To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, 
not of our Maker, but of each other, since on the one side creation, 
whenever it stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the oth- 
er infinitely above nothing, what necessity there is that it should 
proceed so far either way — that being so high or so low should ever 
have existed. We may ask, but I believe no created wisdom can 
give an adequate answer. 
“Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are in- 
finite vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of 
beings to be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of 
beings between them ; and if for one order, then for infinite orders, 
since every thing that admits of more or less, and consequently all 
the parts of that which admits them, may be infinitely divided; so 
that, as far as we can judge, there may be room in the vacuity be- 
tween any two steps of the scale, or between any two points of the 
cone of being, for infinite exertion of infinite power.’’ — Review of 
“A Free Inquiry” 
