NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION, 159 



justment, and miglit have been as fully foreknoicn at tlie 

 commencement, as ivas the rerjidar succession of any mie 

 of the {7ite7' mediate members to its immediate antecedent. 

 The same remark applies to the next apparent deviation 

 from the new law, wliicli was founded on an induction of 

 2761 terms ond also to the succeeding law, with this 

 limitation only — that, whilst their consecutive intro- 

 duction at various definite intervals, is a necessary con- 

 sequence of the mechanical structure of the engine, our 

 knowledge of analysis does not enable us to predict the 

 periods themselves at which the more distant laws will 

 be introduced." 



It is not difficult to apply the philosophy of this pas- 

 sage to the question under consideration. It must be 

 borne in mind that the gestation of a single organism is 

 the work of but a few days, weeks, or months ; but the 

 gestation (so to speak) of a whole creation is a matter 

 probably involving enormous spaces of time. Suppose 

 that an ephemeron, hovering over a pool for its one 

 April day of life, were capable of observing the fry of 

 the frog in the water below. In its aged afternoon, 

 having seen no change upon them for such a long time, 

 it would be little qualified to conceive that the external 

 branchiae of these creatures were to decay, and be replaced 

 by internal lungs, that feet were to be developed, the 

 tail erased, and the animal then to become a denizen of 

 the land. Precisely such may be our difficulty in con- 

 ceiving that any of the species which people our earth 

 is capable of advancing by generation to a higher type 

 of being. During the whole time which we call the 

 historical era, the limits of species have been, to ordinary 

 observation, rigidly adhered to. But the historical era 

 is, we know, only a small portion of the entire age of 

 our globe. We do not know what may have happened 



