366 CHAPTERS ON EVOLUTION. 



XVI. 

 GEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 



ALLUSION has frequently been made in preceding chapters to the 

 fact that the deductions of geology and the theory of evolution 

 possess many relations in common. The relationship in question 

 has been demonstrated more than once in the course of our inquiries 

 into the evidence which living nature presents of the truth of the 

 development theory. For example, the case for " missing links," 

 and for the substantiation or denial of the connected series of beings 

 which evolution postulates, was seen to be one which must stand or 

 fall accordingly as the geological evidence revealed the existence of 

 " links " or not. If the history of the fossil contents of the rock- 

 formations could be shown to include no examples whatever of the 

 " transitional forms " between species which the evolutionist demands, 

 it is clear that the validity of his special conception of the order of 

 nature would thereby be seriously impugned. The least cultured 

 critic of the theory of descent would naturally turn to the geological 

 evidence in search of confirmation or refutation of the views 

 advanced by the followers of Mr. Darwin. Hence, in the early 

 days of evolution, when the theory was in its infancy, the relations of 

 geology to this conception of nature were foreseen to be of a kind 

 demanding the most careful attention from both promulgators and 

 opponents of the hypothesis of descent. In this view of matters, 

 the chapters on the " Origin of Species," dealing with the " Imper- 

 fections of the Geological Record," and with the " Geological Suc- 

 cession of Organic Beings," have always been regarded with special 

 interest alike by evolutionists and their opponents. Mr. Darwin 

 had undoubtedly felt the high importance of the geological side of 

 the great question he had propounded before the world of thought. 

 The two chapters just mentioned, bear plain evidence of the pains- 

 taking care with which the venerable author of the classic work 

 marshalled the evidence at hand, and with which also he reviewed the 

 conclusions to which that evidence seemed to point. A perusal of 

 the chapters in question will serve to show how consistently the facts 

 of geology may be placed beside those revealed by the study of the 

 life that exists to-day, and how the facts of life's past development 

 often support, whilst they never negative, the ideas on which the 

 evolutionist bases his belief. 



The aspects which the geological evidence offers for the attention 



