258 On the Physical Facts contained in the Bible, 
has, notwithstanding, been known to us only for half a cen- 
tury. To the general idea thus connected by Moses with 
the appearance of living beings, this great legislator adds 
details, the accuracy of which is not less evident in our opi- 
nion, although assertions to the contrary have been made by 
many illustrious naturalists. According to him, terrestrial 
vegetables preceded the animals which inhabit the dry and 
uncovered land. In this particular, chemistry confirms the 
assertion of the sacred writer ; but geological observations 
seem to be opposed to it. Accordingly, certain modern na- 
tural philosophers, far from admitting it as real and satis- 
factory, have regarded it as a manifest error. The question 
is to determine whether these observations are as conclusive 
as they are supposed to be, and if, according to the nature of 
things, vegetables must not have appeared before animals. 
The researches by means of which it has been supposed 
possible to prove that vegetables have not preceded beings 
endowed with motion, are far from authorising the inference 
wished to be deduced from them. In fact, while terrestrial 
vegetables appear in great numbers in the transition forma- 
tions, this is far from being the case with animals. Only a 
few individuals of the lower classes of the animal kingdom 
have been discovered in them; up to the present time the 
number does not exceed six species at most. And yet the 
most active researches have been made in all parts of the 
world to discover a greater number. But even although 
these beings had been observed in the same terrestrial strata, 
this would not have been a proof that they lived simulta- 
neously. We are unacquainted with the time which may 
have been necessary for the precipitation of these ancient 
strata, as well as for their consolidation. Hence plants, al- 
though anterior to such or such species of animal, may have 
been embedded along with it in the same order of deposit, 
the latter having required more or less considerable intervals 
of time for its formation. 
There is, therefore, more or less uncertainty with regard 
to the simultaneity of the period of the appearance of vege- 
tables and animals, if we suppose that both were interred 
in formations of the same age. It is far from being demon- 
