172 ON THE SUCCESSIVE FORMS 



quire of the great question of Time. It is not, of course, 

 meant to ask what was the absolute length of time 

 which passed from the first condition to that last ex- 

 amined, nor of that which was appropriated to each 

 particular condition. Such questions must for ever 

 lie beyond the sphere of our powers. But we can 

 discover that the whole period must have been in- 

 calculably great, that even one of the portions was 

 of immense duration ; and hereafter, in comparing all 

 these portions with each other, up to the present 

 time, although we shall never discover the absolute 

 length of any interval, we shall be able to draw in- 

 ferences respecting their comparative quantities and 

 general sum. 



We have, in the first place, no means whatever of 

 conjecturing the length of time occupied, in any case, 

 by the interval of change or revolution. Whether 

 the elevation of the strata which accompanied and 

 immediately produced it, was of long or short dura- 

 tion, whether it consisted in a series of repeated actions, 

 or in one sudden and violent catastrophe, must for 

 ever remain unknown to us; though the present 

 nature of volcanic action, to which it must have been 

 analogous, should lead us to infer a considerable 

 duration, and repeated actions. But we are not left 

 equally in the dark respecting the interval of repose; 

 that interval during which there existed a world 

 divided into sea and land, and, in one case, at least, 

 of the different periods up to the point in question, 

 inhabited. That interval is, in every case, measured by 

 the submarine deposits of the sea which was the ocean 

 of that world; and to these we gain access in the subse- 

 quent revolution which brings them to the surface of the 

 earth. We have every reason to know, from what 

 is now taking place on our own earth, that the ac- 



