THE OLD RED SANDSTONE. 229 
ble to the preservation of entire ichthyolites than those under 
which the organisms of the lower platform were wrapped up 
in their stony coverings. The matrix, which is more micaceous 
than the other, seems to have been less conservative, and the 
waters were probably less still. The process went on. Age 
succeeded age, and one stratum covered up another. Gener- 
ations lived, died, and were entombed in the ever-growing 
depositions. Succeeding generations pursued their instincts by 
myriads, happy in existence, over the surface which covered 
the broken and perishing remains of their predecessors, and 
then died and were entombed in turn, leaving a higher plat- 
form, and a similar destiny to the generations that succeeded 
Whole races became extinct, through what process of destruc- 
tion who can tell? Other races sprang into existence through 
that adorable power which One only can conceive, and One 
only can exert. An inexhaustible variety of design expatiated 
freely within the limits of the ancient type. ‘The main con- 
ditions remained the same —the minor details were dissimilar. 
Vast periods passed ; a class low in the scale still continued to 
furnish the master existences of creation; and so immensely 
extended was the term of its sovereignty, that a being of lim- 
ited faculties, if such could have existed uncreated, and wit- 
nessed the whole, would have inferred that the power of the 
Creator had reached its extreme boundary, when fishes had 
been called into existence, and that our planet was destined 
to be the dwelling-place of no nobler inhabitants. If there 
be men dignified by the name of philosophers, who can nold 
that the present state of being, with all its moral evil, and all 
its physical suffering, is to be succeeded by no better and 
happier state, just because “all things have continued as they 
were ”’ for some five or six thousand years, how much sounder 
and more conclusive would the inference have been which 
22 * 
