SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 205 



and as I have now been looking about me in this neighbour- 

 hood for the last forty years, I have come to know that it 

 gives no assurance that any one thing grew out of any other 

 thing because it chances to be found atop of it, Master. See 

 yonder is Dobbin lying lazily atop of his bundle of hay ; and 

 yonder little Jack, with bridle in hand, and he in a few mi- 

 nutes will be atop of Dobbin. And all I see in that ditch, 

 Master, from top to bottom, is neither more nor less than a 

 certain top-upon-bottom order of things. T see sets of bones 

 and dead plants lying on the top of other sets of bones and 

 dead plants, — things lying atop of things, as I say, like Dob- 

 bin on the hay and Jack upon Dobbin. I doubt not the sea 

 was once here, Master, just as it was once where you see the 

 low-lying field yonder, which I won from it ten years ago. 

 I have carted tangle and kelp-weed where I now cut clover 

 and rye-grass, and have gathered periwinkles where I now 

 see snails. But it is clean against experience^ as my poor old 

 neighbour the weaver used to say, — against my experience, 

 Master, — that it was the kelp-weed that became the rye- 

 grass, or that the periwinkles freshened into snails. The 

 kelp-weed and periwinkles belong to those plants and animals 

 of the sea that we find growing in only the sea ; the rye- 

 grass and snails, to those plants and animals of the land that 

 we find growing on only the land. It is contrary to all 

 experience, and all testimony too, that the one passed into 

 the other, and so I cannot believe it ; but I do and must 

 Deli eve instead, — for it is not contrary to experience, and 

 much according to testimony, — that the Author of all created 

 both land-productions and sea-productions at the * times 

 before appointed,' and ' determined the bounds of their ha- 

 bitation.' ' By faith we understand that the worlds were 

 framed by the Word of God ;' and I find I can be a believer 

 on God's terms at a much less expense of credulity than an 

 infidel on yours." 



