196 THE LAW. 



the more we examine and know, the more we become con- 

 vinced that geology cannot point its finger to a single 

 break in the great evolution of vitality, any more than it 

 can point to a moment's cessation in the physical operations 

 of nature. On the contrary, geologists now know that a 

 considerable number of species always pass from one for- 

 mation to another; and such terms as " passage -beds," 

 " Cambro- Silurian," " Siluro-Devonian," &c., sufficiently 

 express their conviction that the outgoings and incomings 

 of life-forms are inseparably interwoven into one gradual 

 and continuous sequence. 



The whole of our groups and formations are merely suc- 

 cessive stages in one great system or COSMOS the minor 

 stages imperceptibly graduating into each other, and the 

 amount of progress becoming apparent only after the lapse 

 of ages. These progressive stages constitute, in fact, our 

 "systems" and "periods;" and if in one region there 

 should appear to be a sudden break between them, let it 

 ever be remembered that the deficiency is to be supplied 

 by some other district in other words, let it be remem- 

 bered that the oscillations of sea and land, of elevation and 

 depression, and other physical changes, are sufficient to 

 account for local breaks in life but that there is no found- 

 ation whatever for the belief in "general extinctions," and, 

 consequently, "new general creations." So far as the few 

 thousand years of man's experience extends, the current 

 era is as mutable as any of the epochs that preceded, and 

 yet so gradually have its extinctions and creations taken 

 place, that science can scarcely corroborate the one, and has 

 as yet failed to detect the other. The systems of the geo- 

 logist are, therefore, mere concatenations of events indica- 

 tive of certain periods ; and as nature never repeats herself 

 in time, each period, when taken at sufficiently distant in- 

 tervals, is characterised by some forms of vitality peculiar 



