TRANSMUTABLE. 13 



muted. There is not in this three billions and 

 two hundred millions of years a single form which 

 Mr. Darwin can bring forward as transitional 

 from one phase of being to another. The won- 

 derful records of geology display a succession of 

 life during the past period which it occupies, as 

 remarkable as it is positive in its details. We do 

 not, it is true, as some have erroneously inferred, 

 and, as according to Mr. Darwin's views, we ought 

 to have done, find a gradual succession of the lower 

 into the higher organism. On the contrary, there 

 are evident marks of degeneration in some forms, 

 while others are exalted. We see in fact, perfect 

 adaptation of structure to the mode and the means 

 of life. Where now shall we see the modified 

 representative of the huge Saurian which lived 

 in an atmosphere, and in a condition of the 

 earth, formed, I will not say specially for, but in 

 accordance with its peculiar structure. Look 

 again at the remains of the Mammoth, or the 

 Mastodon, and other allied monsters, which have 

 long since become extinct. They do not speak 

 of a progressive development, or a passage in the 

 transition of a lower to a higher form ! 



But like every other class of organisms in the 

 geological record, these extinct animals tell their 

 own tale, and display in language which no one 

 can misunderstand, that in every great period of 

 geological history the world has been peopled by 

 creatures adapted to its physical and climatic 

 condition, and that this has been done by distinct 

 acts of special creation, by Him whose wisdom 



