XI PHENOMENA OF ORGANIC NATURE 459 



only record we have of a most prodigious lapse of 

 time, that time being, in all probability, but a 

 fraction of that of which we have no record ; if 

 you observe in these successive strata of rocks 

 successive groups of animals arising and dying 

 out, a constant succession, giving you the same 

 kind of impression, as you travel from one group 

 of strata to another, as you would have in travel- 

 ling from one country to another ; when you 

 find this constant succession of forms, their 

 traces obliterated except to the man of science 

 when you look at this wonderful history, and 

 ask what it means, it is only a paltering with 

 words if you are offered the reply " They were 

 so created." 



But if, on the other hand, you look on all 

 forms of organised beings as the results of the 

 gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts 

 receive a meaning, and you see that these older 

 conditions are the necessary predecessors of the 

 present. Viewed in this light the facts of palae- 

 ontology receive a meaning upon any other 

 hypothesis I am unable to see, in the slightest 

 degree, what knowledge or signification we are 

 to draw out of them. Again, note as bearing 

 upon the same point, the singular likeness which 

 obtains between the successive Faunas and Florae, 

 whose remains are preserved on the rocks : you 

 never find any great and enormous difference 

 between the immediately successive Faunas and 



