FT. n. 



Mr. Darwin and Mr. Buckle. 73 



service all the antecedent Geological periods which 

 that Science has enumerated, for he requires count- 

 less ages in order to give him time enough to work 

 out the slow results of Natural Selection. He speaks 

 of millions of years, and in his diagram he represents 

 10,000 or 14,000 generations; but the existing World, 

 of which either from history or tradition we have 

 any knowledge, is comprised within at most 4,000 

 years. A generation is perhaps rather an indefinite 

 term : we may easily conceive a father having a son 

 at 75 years of age who may live to be 75, and these 

 two generations would amount to 150 years; but if 

 we take the average duration of human life and the 

 succession of one generation to another, 100 years 

 might be calculated as numbering three generations ; 

 therefore the whole number of existing generations 

 of Man, of whom we can have the faintest knowledge 

 have existed, is 120. It is quite evident, therefore, 

 that Mr. Darwin assumes as the basis of his argument 

 periods of time purely imaginary ; he can have no 

 shadow of proof that the World has existed for 

 14,000 generations, or 470,000 years. If we were 

 to admit for the sake of argument that the solid 

 sphere of the Earth might then have been in 

 existence, how can he feel sure that that succession 



