I 



SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 207 



As, however, tlie succession of remains in the fossiliferous 

 series of rocks is infinitely less favourable to the develop- 

 ment hypothesis than that of the organisms of the ditch-side 

 it is not very surprising that the disciples of the development 

 school should be now evincing a disposition to escape from 

 the ascertained facts of Geology, and the legitimate conclu- 

 sions based upon these, into unknown and unexplored pro- 

 vinces of the science ; or that they should be found virtually 

 urging, that though some of the ascertained facts may seem 

 to bear against them, the facts not yet ascertained may be 

 found telling in their favour. Such, in effect, is the coui-se 

 taken by the author of the "Vestiges," in his "Explana- 

 tions," when, availing himself of a difference of opinion which 

 exists among some of our most accomplished geologists re- 

 garding the first epochs of organized existence, he takes part 

 with the section who hold that we have not yet penetrated 

 to the deposits representative of the dawn of being, and that 

 fossil-charged formations may yet be detected beneath the 

 oldest rocks of what is now regarded as the lowest fossili- 

 ferous system. Sir Charles Lyell and Mr Leonard Horner 

 represent the abler and better-known assertors of this last 

 view ; while Sir Roderick Murchison and Professor Sedgwick 

 rank among the more distinguished assertors of the antago- 

 nist one. It would be of course utterly presumptuous in the 

 writer of these pages to attempt deciding a question regard- 

 ing which such men differ ; but in forming a judgment for 

 myself, various considerations incline me to hold that the 

 point is now very nearly determined at which, to employ the 

 language of Sir Roderick, "life was first breathed into the 

 waters." The pyramid of organized existence, as it ascends 

 into the by-past eternity, inclines sensibly towards its apex, — 

 that apex of " beginning^'' in which, on far other than geolo- 

 gical grounds, it is our privilege to believe. The broad base 

 of the superstructure, planted on the existing noWy stretches 



