408 ON THE GEOLOGICAL RELATION 



entirely neglected in those works, as, from that neglect^ 

 many erroneous conclusions have been drawn respect- 

 ing the history of the earth, and also of those objects 

 themselves* 



It may interest those who think the antiquities of a 

 science worth studying, to name some antient opinions 

 on this subject: the record of folly would be more 

 valuable^ did it teach ourselves wisdom. But when 

 we smile at Ray and Lister and Bertrand and others, 

 we forget the greater folly and ignorance which create 

 and destroy oceans, dissolve rocks without water, and 

 fuse them without heat. If these fossils were thought 

 to be formed by a plastic power in Nature, this was 

 but the Greek philosophy which Cudworth had bor- 

 rowed. If Lusus Naturae was a term without an 

 idea, cheating by the semblance of knowledge, we are 

 doing the same every day, and forget to note it. If 

 the seeds of shell fishes were evaporated and con- 

 veyed to the earth, modern physiology does not yet 

 see on how many points it will hereafter be an object 

 of equal ridicule. If stones themselves grew from 

 seeds, a yesterday's philosophy produces a man from 

 a monas, and dares to smile at the self-growth of or- 

 ganic fossils. Forms uniting the organic with the in- 

 organic world, materials prepared for living beings y 

 these, and more, can be paralleled by modern hypo- 

 theses. Voltaire's reading might however have taught 

 him what his knowledge of nature could not ; since 

 Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and others, had, long be- 

 fore, formed just conclusions on this subject. The 

 parent philosophy was wiser than its progeny, for 

 many centuries, in this and far more. But let Ter- 

 tullian have the credit which he deserves, for explain- 

 ing the positions of organic fossils through the de- 

 luge. This was a bold and a grand view : but it is 



