ORIGIN OF LIFE ON THE EARTH. 127 



the use of ill-advised arguments by its sup- 

 porters, similar harm is liable to be caused 

 to science by injudicious arguments brought 

 forward in support of doubtful theories. 



The double use which may be made of an 

 argument invented simply to explain away facts 

 which we are unwilling to admit, may be 

 curiously illustrated by the now almost forgotten 

 theory which Gosse, in his " Omphalos," dig- 

 nifies with the title of the " Law of Prochronism 

 in Creation." This "law" sets forth that the 

 Bible states that the earth and its organisms 

 were created less than six thousand years ago, 

 and yet all organisms arise from one another by 

 natural generation in unbroken succession, so 

 that we cannot imagine a seed except as having 

 fallen from a plant, or a plant except as having 

 grown from a seed ; nor can we conceive of an 

 egg which was not laid by a bird (or other ovi- 

 parous animal), nor of a bird which did not 

 spring from an egg. Granting this, it follows 

 that the earth must have been created nearly as 

 it now exists, containing geological formations 

 which were never deposited, filled with the re- 

 mains of animals and plants, which never really 

 existed, but which would have existed, if the 



