therefore the most obvious and gravest objection that can be urged 

 against it, may nevertheless be assumed by me as conclusively proving it. 



I believe that it is a sufficient answer to the question what has 

 become of the innumerable forms which must have existed before the 

 Silurian deposit, that " long before that " the world " may have," then, 

 " presented a totally different aspect ; " that the older continents, " may " 

 now " all be in a metamorphosed condition," or " may " " lie buried 

 under the ocean ; " that there has " probably " been more extinction of 

 species during the periods of subsidence, and that the duration of each 

 formation was " perhaps " short compared with the average duration of 

 specific forms. 



In fine, I believe that although the Mosaic account of the Creation 

 is borne out by the " Testimony of the Rocks " in a most wonderful 

 manner, yet as it does not suit the theory I have taken into my head, 

 it cannot possibly be true, and I do not believe a word of it. 



I believe that if ever there was such a person as Moses, the five 

 books called the five books of Moses were none of his at all, but a 

 mere compilation of some impostor or victim of delusion. 



I believe that no one who believes in the Bible has any sense or 

 wisdom compared with me, in accounting for the Creation of the world 

 and all the creatures in it. 



I believe that such persons in former times as Sir Isaac Newton, 

 Herschell, Lord Bacon, Dr. Johnson, Milton, Locke, Sir Matthew Hale, 

 etc., etc., etc., who were Believers in the Bible, must have been utterly 

 wrong and mistaken, and in the dark as to such matters. 



I believe, in like manner, that others in the present time who are 

 Believers also, as they were, such as Sir Roundell Palmer (Lord 

 Selborne), Lord Hatherley, Lord Shaftesbury, Faraday, Sir David 

 Brewster, etc., etc., etc.. and others who like them have taken the 

 highest honours in the Universities, and distinguished themselves in 

 the highest departments of art, soieiice, and politics, are also quite in 

 the dark, for if I am right, as I must be, and therefore am, they of 

 course must be wrong. 



I believe that mine is a much more valuable opinion, and much 

 more to be received than that of Humboldt, who said of Strauss 

 " what displeases me in him is the scientific levity which causes him 

 to see no difficulty in the organic springing from the inorganic, nay, 

 man himself, from the Chaldoeaii mud." 



I believe that the following supposititious guesses are "worthy of 

 all men to be received," and should be accepted by all the world as 

 scientific facts and truths, inasmuch as " I have spoken ;" namely, 



I believe, u By considering the embryological structure of man 

 the homologies which he presents with the lower animals the rudi- 

 ments which he retains and the reversions to which he is liable. 

 we can partly recall, in imagination, the former condition of our early 

 progenitors, and can approximately place them in their proper position 

 in the zoological series. We thus (!) learn that man is descended 

 from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, pro- 

 btiltly arboreal in its habits, and an inhabitant of the Old World. This 

 creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, 

 would have been classed amongst the quadrumana, as surely as would 

 the common and still more ancient progenitor of the Old and New 

 World Monkeys. The quadrumana and all the higher mammals are 

 probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal ; and this, through 

 a long line of diversified forms, cither from some reptile-like or some 

 amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. 

 In the dim obscurity of the past we can see (?) that the early progeni- 

 tor of all the vertebrata inut li/icc bern(?) an aquatic animal, provided 



