A QUESTION PROPOUNDED. 187 



animal organism, that kept on changing, and improving the 

 whole face of the earth, that so arranged organic matter, as 

 to make this world, at last, a fit residence for man, may be 

 going on still ; approaching all things nearer, and nearer to 

 perfection, until we have arrived upon the threshold of an 

 era, when living men may commune with the spirits of the 

 physically dead ? An era as yet but in its dawn, when the 

 stupendous future can be seen only as through a glass 

 darkly ? 



" Eemember, I do not assert my faith in a theory which 

 is indicated by an affirmative answer to these inquiries, for I 

 have none. I give the record of the earth's progress in the 

 past, as it is written upon the rocks, standing out upon 

 precipices, brought to light by the researches, and translated 

 by the energy of science from forgotten and buried ages. 

 The deductions to be drawn from it,- 1 leave to those who 

 have a taste for the speculative, neither believing in, nor 

 quarrelling with the theory which they may predicate upon 

 it." 



