THE GEOLOGICAL RECORD. 135 



any hesitation to the characteristics which the fossil 

 creature will probably have presented in its living- state. 

 Our reasonings may often be erroneous, but the mere 

 fact of our accepting the apparent analogies as a ground 

 for reasoning at all, implies a belief in the uniformity 

 of the conditions of animal existence between our own 

 times and the most distant ages of the past. We argue 

 as if generation had succeeded generation without 

 interruption, not as if there had been new independent 

 creations from time to time, since these would imply 

 new conditions replacing the old, and make the argument 

 from analogy between the items of the different creations 

 of no value. For these independent creations, whether 

 capricious or not in themselves, could only exhibit to 

 our minds the symptoms of caprice. The mere fact of 

 their being independent one of another would be so 

 wanting in congruity with all the rest of our experience, 

 that we should reasonably expect their minor details as 

 well as the general plan to be wholly fantastic. In 

 other words, the fossil memorials of life in past ages, 

 imperfect as we confess and maintain them to be, still 

 present so many general resemblances to one another 

 and to living structures of the present day, that if they 

 do not prove the continuity of life upon the globe, they 

 cannot be held to prove anything at all ; they should 

 be regarded as a very elaborate practical joke played 

 upon the human reason. 



Palaeontology is defined as e the science which treats 

 of fossil remains both animal and vegetable.' This 

 principle of the continuity of life from age to age may 



