194 THE SUCCESSION OF ANIMAL FORMS 



connected acts. It is the true continuity, which includes and 

 binds together all other continuity. 



It is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an 

 antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest 

 need ; and I must here record my belief that neither men of 

 science nor theologians have a right to separate what God in 

 Holy Scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall 

 between nature and religion, and write upon it, " no thorough- 

 fare." The science that does this must be impotent to explain 

 nature, and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. 

 The theology that does this must sink into mere superstition. 



In conclusion, can we formulate a few of the general laws, 

 or perhaps I had better call them the general conclusions, 

 respecting life, in which all Palaeontologists may agree. Per- 

 haps it is not possible to do this at present satisfactorily, but 

 the attempt may do no harm. We may, then, I think, make 

 the following affirmations : — 



1. The existence of life and organization on the earth is not 

 eternal, or even coeval with the beginning of the physical uni- 

 verse, but may possibly date from Laurentian or immediately 

 pre-Laurentian ages. 



2. The introduction of new species of animals and plants has 

 been a continuous process, not necessarily in the sense of 

 derivation of one species from another, but in the higher sense 

 of the continued operation of the cause or causes which intro- 

 duced life at first. This, as already stated, I take to be the 

 true theological or Scriptural as well as scientific idea of what 

 we ordinarily and somewhat loosely term creation. 



3. Though thus continuous, the process has not been uni- 

 form ; but periods of rapid production of species have alter- 

 nated with others in which many disappeared and few were 

 introduced. This may have been an effect of physical cycles 

 reacting on the progress of Hfe. 



4. Species, like individuals, have greater energy and vitality in 





