336 THE HISTORY OF CREATION, 
cealed beneath. The only Divine revelation which we 
recognise as true, is written everywhere in nature, and to 
every one with healthy senses and a healthy reason it is 
given to participate in the unerring revelation of this holy 
temple of nature, by his own inquiry and independent 
discovery. 
If we, therefore, here disregard all objections to the Doc- 
trine of Descent which may be raised by the priests of the 
different religious faiths, we must nevertheless endeavour 
to refute the most important of those objections which seem 
more or less founded on science, and which we grant might, 
at first sight, to a certain extent captivate us and deter us 
from adopting the Doctrine of Descent. Many persons seem 
to think the length of the periods of time required the most 
important of these objections. We are not accustomed to 
deal with such immense periods as are necessary for the 
history of the creation. It has already been mentioned that 
the periods, during which species originated by gradual 
transmutation, must not be calculated by single centuries, 
but by hundreds and by millions of centuries. Even the 
thickness of the stratified crust of the earth, the consider- 
ation of the immense space of time which was requisite for 
its deposition from water, taken together with the periods 
of elevation between the periods of depression, indicate a 
duration of time of the organic history of the earth which 
the human intellect cannot realize. We are here in much 
the same position as an astronomer in regard to infinite 
space. In the same way as the distances between the 
different planetary systems are not calculated by miles but 
by Sirius-distances, each of which comprises millions 
of miles, so the organic history of the earth must not be 
