5()8 ON THE SUCCESSIVE FORMS 



with the opinions referred to the Stoics, respecting the 

 destruction and renovation of the Earth at fixed periods. 

 But it is easy to trace these doctrines, and the Great 

 year of Aristotle, to Pythagoras, and, beyond him, to 

 the far more antient philosophy whence Greece bor- 

 rowed more than its astronomy and mythology. If it 

 was a Chaldean doctrine, so % was it that of antient 

 India. The Calpas of $\e Brahminical school are the 

 periods in question : and hence the (i inagnns ab in- 

 tegro saeclorum nascitur ordo," of those who copied 

 more than they invented. But if there be any one who 

 imagines that these opinions were the result of obser- 

 vation, and not the speculations of hazard, that the 

 East had made those advances in Geology which it 

 had in Astronomy, he may please himself by dwelling 

 on that singular coincidence through which we are 

 now in the fifth Calpa. 



If I have attempted to trace backwards to that 

 furthest state of our globe respecting which we can 

 procure any evidence, yet not thus tracing the first 

 member in this series, nor thus excluding many former 

 vicissitudes and a long preceding existence, I have 

 also, in tracing a progressive melioration, retraced to 

 points in succession where organic beings were less 

 various and abundant, and especially where animals 

 continue to diminish, from the least questionable of 

 evidences, that of the gradual diminution of the cal- 

 careous strata. In such a diminishing series, the first 

 point is unity; and, beyond it, is nothing. Could we 

 therefore fix this point, we might discover when the 

 Creation of animals commenced. We have not done 

 this: yet so far are we from being called on to believe 

 that the creation of animated beings has no retreating 

 limit, that we must conclude it to have had a com- 

 mencement, and one also, the date of which we can 



