SUPERPOSITION NOT PARENTAL RELATION. 211 



no more standing in this controversy than the "possible 

 angel" He tells us that we have not yet got down to that 

 base-line of all the fossiliferous systems at which life j&rst be- 

 gan ; and very possibly we have not. But what of that 1 

 He has carried his appeal to Geology as it is ; — ^he has re- 

 ferred his case to the testimony of the known witnesses, for 

 in no case can the unknown ones be summoned or produced. 

 It is on the evidence of the known, and the known only, that 

 the exact value of his claims must be determined ; and his 

 appeal to the unknown serves but to show how thoroughly 

 he himself feels that the actually ascertained evidence bears 

 against him. The severe censure of Johnson on reasoners 

 of this class is in no degree over-severe. " He who will de- 

 termine," said the moralist, " against that which he knows, 

 because there may be something which he knows not, — ^he 

 that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged cer- 

 tainty, — is not to be admitted among reasonable beings." 



But the honest farmer's reminiscences of his deceased 

 neighbour the weaver, and his use at second-hand of Hume's 

 experience-argument, naturally lead me to another branch of 

 the subject 



