THE FAR PAST. 



PALAEOZOIC SYSTEMS THE CAMBRIAN, SILURIAN, DEVONIAN, 



CARBONIFEROUS, AND PERMIAN. 



ON glancing over the existing forms of the vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms, struck as we may be at first by their 

 wondrous variety and complexity, we gradually begin to 

 detect innumerable affinities that link one family to an- 

 other, and at length perceive that one plan and purpose 

 runs throughout the whole. In like manner, when we 

 turn to the still stranger and more complicated forms of the 

 Past, and blend them with those of the Present varied 

 and endless as the details may appear they gradually coa- 

 lesce into one unbroken sequence of design, from the morn- 

 ing that first dawned on infant life, to the sunset that closed 

 around us but a few hours ago. Without this uniformity 

 in purpose and design, the study of nature would be im- 

 possible : we can only reason respecting the past from our 

 knowledge of the present, and predict of the future from 

 what is now taking place around us. And here at the out- 

 set we must specially guard against the misconception that 

 in the Past Life of the globe we are to meet with anything 

 that is monstrous or abnormal. As in the physical world 

 we have no evidence of the operation of " aberrant" or 

 " cataclysmal" or "revolutionary" forces, so in the vital 

 world philosophy cannot point its finger to a single instance 



