Proofs of Evolution. 291 



tombed all organic forms that have ever lived, and awaits 

 the inevitable hour to receive all that live and breathe 

 to-day. The process which everywhere goes on is one of 

 evolution and revolution. Every disappearance is followed 

 by a new form, readjusted upon a higher plane. The Earth 

 is the Great Stone Book, giving us, as we turn the strata- 

 leaves, illuminated pictures in bas-relief of the life-forms 

 of past ages. What a Revelation ! written by the linger 

 of Time on the rock of Ages, and by the ink of Death. 

 Nothing can falsify the record. It is immutable, and ante- 

 dates by millions of years the printed books of man, which 

 assume, with much pomp and circumstance, to tell us all 

 about the beginnings of things. 



Geology finds in the lower strata of rocks, just what we 

 might expect to see if evolution is true : First, only the 

 lowest forms of animal life, and sea-weeds. Then, through 

 later and later deposits, successively appear remains of 

 fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally man, together with 

 all the varying forms of plant-life appropriate to the suc- 

 cessive periods. Nor is this all. In many cases, interme- 

 diate forms between species have been found, — the '^ Missing 

 Links " so often inquired for by the opponents of Evolution. 

 Why all the generalized types are not found, is manifestly 

 owing to the imperfection of the geological record, induced 

 by the devastations of time ; such as the action of heat and 

 cold, and the convulsions of nature. Change is manifested 

 everywhere, stability nowhere, except in the laws of univer- 

 sal causation. Form and substance are but puppets in the 

 hands of one great master, Time. 



Astronomy and Geology ! twin liberators of the human 

 mind,— one taught Infinite Space, the other Infinite Time. 

 Before their birth was mental chaos. The popular theory 

 of the heavens and earth was essentially mythological, like 

 those of Greece and Rome, but shorn of all their wondrous 

 beauty and refinement. Astronomy caught from dancing- 

 globes their laws of sustentation. Geology wrung from 

 stubborn earth the jewels of her treasure-house. 



PROOFS FKOM MORPHOLOGY. 



Convincing proofs of the truth of evolution are found in 

 the homologies of animal structure. It may be Avell to 

 distinguish this word, Homology, from Analogy, which 

 refers to organs similar in form or function, but differing. 



