EVIDENCE OF THE FOSSIL FLORA- 199 



ves ! They may and do urge that Geology furnishes evidence 

 of such a succession of existences ; and the arrangement seems 

 at once a very wonderful and very beautiful one. Of that 

 jrreat and imposing procession of being of which this world 

 has been the scene, the })rogramme has been admirably mar- 

 shalled. But the order of the arrangement in no degree jus- 

 tifies the inference based upon it by the Lamarckian. The 

 fact that fishes and reptiles were created on an earlier day 

 than the beasts of the field and the human family, gives no 

 ground whatever for the belief that " the peopling of the earth 

 was one of a natural kind, requiring time," or that the reptiles 

 and fishes have been not only the predecessors, but also the 

 progenitors, of the beasts and of man. The geological phe- 

 nomena, even had the author of the "Vestiges" been con- 

 sulted in their arrangement, and permitted to determine their 

 sequence, would yet have failed to furnish, not merely an 

 adequate foundation for the development hypothesis, but even 

 the slightest presumption in its favour. In making good the 

 assertion, may I ask the reader to follow me through the de- 

 tails of a simple though somewhat lengthened illustration ? 



