58 APHORISMS AND REFLECTIONS 



Society of London at that time (1869), I thought 

 I might venture to plead that we were not such 

 heretics as we seemed to be ; and that, even if we 

 were, recantation would not affect the question of 

 evolution. 



I am glad to see that Lord Kelvin has just 

 reprinted his reply to my plea, and I refer the 

 reader to it. I shall not presume to question any- 

 thing, that on such ripe consideration, Lord Kelvin 

 has to say upon the physical problems involved. 

 But I may remark that no one can have asserted 

 more strongly than I have done, the necessity 

 of looking to physics and mathematics, for help 

 in regard to the earliest history of the globe. 



And I take the opportunity of repeating the 

 opinion that, whether what we call geological 

 time has the lower limit assigned to it by Lord 

 Kelvin, or the higher assumed by other philosophers ; 

 whether the germs of all living things have originated 

 in the globe itself, or whether they have been 

 imported on, or in, meteorites from without, the 

 problem of the origin of those successive Faunae 

 and Florae of the earth, the existence of which is 

 fully demonstrated by palaeontology, remains exactly 

 where it was. 



For I think it will be admitted, that the germs 

 brought to us by meteorites, if any, were not ova 

 of elephants, nor of crocodiles ; not cocoa-nuts nor 

 acorns ; not even eggs of shell-fish and corals ; 

 but only those of the lowest forms of animal and 

 vegetable life. Therefore, since it is proved that, 

 from a very remote epoch of geological time, the 

 earth has been peopled by a continual succession 

 of the higher forms of animals and plants, these 

 either must have been created, or they have arisen 

 by evolution. And in respect of certain groups of 

 animals, the well-established facts of palaeontology 

 leave no rational doubt that they arose by the latter 

 method. 



In the second place, there are no data what- 



