74 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 



of Life necessary to his theory can have been 

 preserved through such an incalculable period of 

 time ? Geologists tell us that the earliest formation 

 is of primitive rock, without any sign of animal or 

 vegetable Life ; in the course of 470,000 years three 

 or four of these periods may have existed, and every 

 vestige of Life may have been swept from the Globe, 

 and creations have begun again three or four times 

 in the interval. Mr. Darwin requires for the de- 

 velopment of his theory enormous periods of time, 

 far exceeding any of which we have the slightest 

 knowledge ; this alone places his whole system 

 beyond the domain of fact and in the regions of 

 mere reverie and imagination. It is also necessary 

 that there should be a continuity preserved during 

 the whole period ; the same series must be preserved 

 during the whole 470,000 years, for if at any 

 period, a total destruction of Life had occurred, 

 it is quite evident that this process of Natural 

 Selection would have to be begun de novo. It 

 is a weak point in Geological Science that its 

 chronology is absolutely vague. No one can assign 

 any limit of years to the duration of any one of 

 those periods into which Geologists have divided it, 

 and all argument therefore based upon any assump- 



