256 THE DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESIS 



But how very different the nature and history of the de- 

 velopment hypothesis, and the character of the intellects with 

 whom it originated, or by whom it has been since adopted I 



thoroughly respectable section of the old Dissenters of Scotland. I pre- 

 sent it to the reader merely to show, that if, according to the author of 

 the " Vestiges," geologists assailed the development hypothesis in the 

 fond hope of ** purchasing impunity for themselves," they would suc- 

 ceed in securing only disappointment for their pains : — 



** THE PRE- ADAMITE EAKTH. 



*' Tothe Editor of the ' Scottish Press. * 



" Sir, — I occasionally observe articles in your neighbour and contem- 

 porary the * Witness,' characteristically headed 'Rambles of a Geologist,' 

 wherein the writer with great zeal once more * slays the slain' heresies 

 of the * Vestiges of Creation.' This writer (of the * Rambles,' I mean) 

 nevertheless, and at the same time, announces his own tenets to be much 

 of the same sort, as appHed to mere dead matter, that those of the * Ves- 

 tiges ' are with regard to living organisms. He maintains that the world, 

 during the last million of years, has been of itself rising or developing, 

 without the interposition of a miracle, from chaos into its present state ; 

 and, of course, as it is still, as a world, confessedly far below the acme 

 of physical perfection, that it must be just now on its passage, self-^^jro- 

 gressing, towards that point, which terminus it may reach in another 

 million of years hence, [! ! !] The author of the 'Vestiges,' as quoted 

 by the author of the ' Rambles,' in the last nmnber of the 'Witness,' 

 complains that the latter and his allies are not at all so liberal to him as, 

 from their present circumstances and position, he had a right to expect. 

 He (the author of the * Vestiges') reminds his opponents that they 

 themselves only lately emerged from the antiquated scriptvu-al notions 

 that oiir world was the direct and almost immediate construction of its 

 Creator, — as much so, in fact, as any of its organized tenants, — and 

 that it was then created in a state of physical excellence the highest 

 possible, to render it a suitable habitation for these tenants, and all this 

 only about six or seven thousand years ago, — to the new light of their 

 present physico-LamarcJcian views ; and he asks, and certainly not with- 

 out reason, why should these men, so circumstanced, be so anxious to stop 

 him in his attempt to move one step farther forward in the very direc- 

 tion they themselves have made the last move ? — that is, in his endeavour 

 to extend their own principles of self-development from mere matter to 

 living creatures. Now, Sir, I confess myself to be one of those (and 



