OF THE ORGANIC FOSSILS. 451 



more ? But it is better not to put more questions. 

 This lias been an injudicious interference at every 

 period : it is even peculiarly imprudent in the present 

 case, as the slightest consideration will show. The 

 assertion that these things do prove the Deluge, may 

 satisfy those who can thus be satisfied, by an assertion 

 from authority : but the effect is not lasting, even 

 among those : there is ever danger that conclusions 

 the very reverse may be drawn by persons who know 

 how to examine evidence. But I am glad to pass 

 from a subject that ought never thus to have been 

 mixed up with physical inquiries : more sorry that I 

 cannot avoid recurring to it hereafter. There is 

 abundant proof of a gradual change in the original 

 balance of animals, all over the earth, and of gradual 

 extinctions of individual kinds, in many countries. 

 This is familiar of our own, in the Urus, Elk, Beaver, 

 and Wolf, at least ; and that which we know by record 

 or clear evidence, has probably been going on from 

 the beginning. There is no mystery here : had there 

 been more, it would have been more acceptable. 



And yet I cannot avoid noticing another of these 

 speculations as to human remains. It is said to be a 

 proof of the especially recent formation of man, that 

 his remains are not found in the same alluvia as those 

 of other animals. What support of Scripture is this? 

 That record says that Man and animals were created 

 within one short period. If they ought thus equally 

 to be found, and are not, it is evidence against the 

 record, not in favour of it. This is a strange over- 

 sight: but such it ever is with Systems, and especially 

 where produced for a special purpose. But I desire 

 to avoid all further examination of this disagreeable 

 subject also: it is doubly painful, from the impropriety 

 of these attempts to prove what rests on far different 



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