128 EVOLUTION AND NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



earth had existed longer than the Bible tells us. 

 A century ago, the very existence of fossils 

 was held to furnish unequivocal evidence of the 

 reality of the Noachian Deluge ; and Voltaire 

 wished to dispute its occurrence.* He did not, 

 however, suggest some different explanation to 

 account for the presence of fossils, but antici- 

 pated the absurd argument with which Gosse, in 

 our own day, thought to bolster up the literal 

 infallibility of Genesis, by suggesting that fossil 

 shells were only appearances, and probably 

 never had any real existence. 



One of the recent scientific theories re- 

 specting the origin of life, which attracted 

 an unusual amount of attention at the time it 

 was promulgated, was brought forward by Sir 

 W. Thomson in his address to the British As- 

 sociation in ISTl.f It may be briefly stated as 

 follows : 



The heavenly bodies are moving through 

 space in all directions without any intelligence 

 to guide them [how does he know that ?] and 



* Cf. Miller's "Testimony of the Kocks,'' pp. 306-310, and Goethe's 

 " Wahrheit und Dichtung," iii ch. I. 



t " Eeport," pp. civ. cv. [It is now stated that this suggestion was 

 made simply as a joke !] 



