246 thk development hypothesis 



you have not a vestige of testimony with which to sui^port 

 your ingenious vagaries. 



But on another account do we refuse to sustain the excuse. 

 It is not true that human observation has not been spread 

 over a period sufficiently extended to furnish the necessary 

 data for testing the development hypothesis. In one special 

 walk, — that which bears on the supposed transmutation of 

 algae into terrestrial plants, — human observation has been 

 spread over what is strictly analogous to millions of years. 

 For extent of space in this matter is exactly correspondent 

 with duration of time. No man, in this late period of the 

 world's history, attains to the age of five hundred years ; 

 and as some of our larger English oaks have been known to 

 increase in bulk of trunk and extent of bough for five cen- 

 turies together, no man can possibly have seen the same huge 

 oak pass, according to Cowper, through its various stages of 

 " treeship," — 



** First a seedling hid in grass ; 

 Then twig ; then sapling ; and, as century rolls 

 Slow after century, a giant bulk, 

 Of girth enormous, with moss-cushioned root 

 Upheaved above the soil, and sides embossed 

 With prominent wens globose." 



But though no man lives throughout five hundred years of 

 time, he can trace, by passing in some of the English forests 

 through five hundred yards of space, the history of the oak 

 in all its stages of growth, as correctly as if he did live 

 throughout the five hundred years. Oaks, in the space of a 

 few hundred yards, may be seen in every stage of growth, 

 from the newly-burst acorn, that presents to the light its 

 two fleshy lobes, with the first tender rudiments of a leaflet 

 between, up to the giant of the forest, in the hollow of whoso 

 trunk the red deer may shelter, and find ample room for the 

 broad spread of his antlers. The fact of the development 



