APPENDIX 289 



of government in England. But when you make allowance 

 for the slowness of progress of the second hand on the clock 

 of evolution and remember that 1,000 years is but a day, 360 

 years but an hour, 120 years but a minute, and 40 years but a 

 second, these are but trivial differences in the march of time 

 along the road of Eternity. So in endeavouring to formulate 

 some sort of chronological estimate or probable periods of the 

 days of creation, if I have estimated the lifetime of the evolu- 

 tion of Government at 27,000 years in one place, it may com- 

 mence from 10,000 B.C. to 17,000 A.D., this might be its 

 shortest life under favourable environment or auspicious con- 

 dition ; yet, under adverse circumstances, to produce the same 

 effect in some other part of the globe, the same evolution might 

 extend from 15,000 B.C. to 15,000 A.D., with equal probability 

 in some other portion of the world, and still not be mis-stated, 

 at 27,000 years. Hence in appending the accompanying 

 approximate calculation (for it is only a calculation nothing 

 more) of the probable duration of the subdivisions, my hypo- 

 thesis makes of creation, I must ask my reader to keep these 

 considerations in view. 



It would be absurd to suggest that these periods are any- 

 thing more than the approximate estimate. It struck me in 

 reading history that as near as I could arrive at a solution of 

 the question it appeared probable that invention has been an 

 active force for from 900 to 1,100 years in the advancement 

 of the world, and that also if I took a mean of that figure 1,000, 

 it would be an approximate estimate on which I could base my 

 calculations, for it also appeared to me that each of the cor- 

 responding periods, subject to such conditions as I have 

 already expressed, correspond on a progressive ratio of three 

 times the length of time in the evolution that preceded. 



Taking the four last days of creation, numbered re- 

 spectively 14, 13, 12, and nth days, it appeared to me that 

 the estimation of that duration took me back to The earliest 

 possible conception 't>f historic times, but it would be utterly 

 ridiculous to try to fix definitely their periods, even if my 

 starting figure of 1,000 should be reckoned as a reliable data 

 of calculation. The age of Government is as impossible to fix 

 at between 25,000 to 29,000 years as it would have been to 

 fix the age of invention between 900 and 1,100. Notwithstand- 

 ing, continuing the same method down to creation of plant life, 



