204 SUPERPOSITION NOT PAREJJTAL RELATION 



turbot, cod, and ling ; but the smaller osseous fish was gra- 

 dually converted into a batracliian reptile ; in short, the 

 herring became a frog, — an animal that still testifies to its 

 ichthyological origin, by commencing life as a fish. Gradu- 

 ally, in the course of years, the reptile, expanding in size and 

 improving in faculty, passed into a warm-blooded porpoise ; 

 the porpoise at length, tiring of the water as he began to 

 know better, quitted it altogether, and became a monkey; 

 and the monkey by slow degrees improved into man, — yes, 

 into man, my friend, who has still a tendency, especially 

 when just shooting up to his full stature, and studying the 

 'Vestiges,' to resume the monkey. Such, Sir, is the true 

 history of creation, as clearly recorded in the section of earth, 

 moss, and silt, which you have so opportunely laid bare. 

 Where that ditch now opens, the generations of the man atop 

 lived, died, and were developed. There flourished and de- 

 cayed his great-great-great-great-grandfather the sea-pen, — 

 his great-great-great-grandfather the mussel, — his great- 

 great-grandfather the herring, — his great-grandfather the 

 frog, — ^his grandfather the porpoise, — and his father the 

 monkey. And there also lived, died, and were developed, 

 the generations of the oak, from the kelp-weed and tangle to 

 the reed and the flag, and from the reed and the flag, to the 

 pine, the juniper, the hazel, and the birch." 



" Master," replies the farmer, " I see you are a scholar, 

 and, I suspect, a wag. It would take a great deal of be- 

 lieving to believe all that. In the days of my poor old 

 neighbour the infidel weaver, who died of delirium treTnens 

 thirty years ago, I used to read Tom Paine ; and, as I was 

 a little wild at the time, I was, I am afraid, a bit of a sceptic. 

 It wasn't easy work always to be as unbelieving as Tom, 

 especially when the conscience within got queasy; but it 

 would be a vast deal easier, Master, to douht with Tom than 

 to believe with you. I am a plain man, but not quite a fool ; 



