102 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



blance between processes altogether different in their 

 nature, and therefore in their causes. The greater 

 part, however, of the more experienced palaeontolo 

 gists, or students of fossils, have long ago seen that 

 in the larger field of the earth s history there is very 

 much that cannot be found in the narrower field of 

 the development of the individual animal ; and they 

 have endeavoured to reduce the succession of life to 

 such general expressions as shall render it more com 

 prehensible, and may at length enable us to arrive at 

 explanations of its complex phenomena. Of these 

 general expressions or conclusions I may state a few 

 here, as apposite to our present subject, and as show 

 ing how little of real support the facts of the earth s 

 history give to the pseudo-gnosis of agnostic and 

 monistic evolution. 



I. The chain of life in geological time presents a 

 wonderful testimony to the reality of a beginning. 

 Just as we know that any individual animal must 

 have had its birth, its infancy, and its maturity, and 

 will reach an end of life, so we trace species and 

 groups of species to their beginning, watch their cul 

 mination, and perhaps follow them to their extinction. 

 It is true that there is a sense in which geology shows 

 no sign of a beginning, no prospect of an end ; but 

 this is manifestly because it has reached only a little 

 way back toward the beginning of the earth as a 

 whole, and can see in its present state no indication 

 of the time or manner of the end. But its revelation 



