CONTINUITY. 209 



theory required it : how such new races began, the theorist 

 did not stop to enquire. 



A curious speculator might say to a palaeontologist of even 

 recent date, in the words of Lucretius, 



' Nam neque de ccelo cecidisse animalia possunt 

 Nee terrestria de salsis exisse lacunis. 



E nihilo si crescere possent, 

 (Turn) fierent juvenes subito ex infantibus parvis, 

 E terraque exorta repente arbusta salirent ; 

 Quorum nil fieri manifestum est, omnia quando 

 Paulatim crescunt, ut par est, semine certo, 

 Crescentesque genus servant ' 



which may be thus freely paraphrased : ' You have abandoned 

 the belief in one primaeval creation at one point of time, you 

 cannot assert that an elephant existed when the first saurians 

 roamed over earth and water. Without, then, in any way limit- 

 ing Almighty power, if an elephant were created without pro- 

 genitors, the first elephant must, in some way or other, have 

 physically arrived on this earth. Whence did he come ? did he 

 fall from the sky (i.e. from interplanetary space) ? did he rise 

 moulded out of a mass of amorphous earth or rock ? did he ap- 

 pear out of the cleft of a tree ? If he had no antecedent pro- 

 genitors, some such beginning must be assigned to him.' I know 

 of no scientific writer who has, since the discoveries of geology 

 have become familiar, ventured to present in intelligible terms 

 any definite notion of how such an event could have occurred : 

 those who do not adopt some view of continuity are content 

 to say God willed it ; but would it not be more reverent and 

 more philosophical to enquire by observation and experiment, 

 and to reason from induction and analogy, as to the proba- 

 bilities of such frequent miraculous interventions ? 



I know I am touching on delicate ground, and that a long 

 time may elapse before that calm enquiry after truth which it 

 is the object of associations like this to promote can be fully 

 attained ; but I trust that the members of this body are suffi- 

 ciently free from prejudice, whatever their opinions may be, to 

 admit an enquiry into the general question whether what we 



P 



