76 THE RECORD. 



lead to their extinction ] Do the simpler and lowlier forms 

 always precede the higher and more complex ; and does 

 the introduction of any family in point of time harmonise 

 with its place in the scale of organisation 1 ? Does the ex- 

 tinction of species appear to be, in every case, the result of 

 a change in external conditions ; or may not species, like 

 individuals, have a term assigned to their existence from 

 the beginning 1 ? If race after race follow each other in 

 order of organisation, what countenance does this give to 

 the theory of self-development 1 Is there, as far as palae- 

 ontology can discover, any foundation whatever for the be- 

 lief in a progressive transmutation of species, by which the 

 lower gives birth to the higher ; or does geology not rather 

 establish the conviction of independent creations as time 

 rolled on and new conditions were prepared for their re- 

 ception 1 Seeing that physical phenomena invariably take 

 place under the orderly operations of natural laws, are we, 

 in the spirit of sound philosophy, entitled to assume for 

 vital phenomena any other mode of occurrence 1 ? In all 

 other reasonings are we to adopt the inductive method, and 

 in the solitary instance of LIFE its incomings and outgo- 

 ings are we to forsake this course as impotent and una- 

 vailing, and appeal to the direct and miraculous interference 

 of Creative Power ? These, and numerous analogous ques- 

 tions, present themselves to the palaeontologist ; and if in 

 human history chronologers are often disagreed as to times 

 and incidents so recent as those that come within the range 

 of a few thousand years, if ethnologists have failed to trace 

 with certainty the relationship of the few varieties of our 

 own race, and antiquarians be only beginning to decipher 

 the phases of certain extinct civilisations, what marvel need 

 it be that geologists are not yet as one as to events for 

 which time has no dates, save "cycles" and " systems," or 

 that they should be occasionally unable to discover the 



