AVOIDANCE OF THEORY 175 



And though no relic had yet been found, or indeed was 

 ever likely to be found, of the first living things that 

 appeared upon the earth's surface, the manifest sim- 

 plification of types in the older formations pointed 

 irresistibly to some beginning from which the long 

 procession had taken its start. If then it could thus be 

 demonstrated that there had been upon the globe an 

 orderly march of living forms, from the lowliest grades 

 in early times to man himself to-day, and thus that 

 in one department of her domain, extending through 

 the greater portion of the records of the earth's history, 

 Nature had not been uniform but had followed a vast 

 and noble plan of evolution, surely it might have been 

 expected that those who discovered and made known 

 this plan would seek to "ascertain whether some 

 analogous physical progression from a definite begin- 

 ning might not be discernible in the framework of the 

 globe itself. 



But the early masters of the science laboured under 

 two great disadvantages. In the first place, they found 

 the oldest records of the earth's history so broken 

 up and defaced as to be no longer legible. And in the 

 second place, they lived under the spell of that strong 

 reaction against speculation which followed the bitter 

 controversy between the Neptunists and Plutonists in 

 the earlier decades of the century. They considered 

 themselves bound to search for facts, not to build up 

 theories ; and as in the crust of the earth they could 

 find no facts which threw any light upon the primeval 

 constitution and subsequent development of our planet, 

 they shut their ears to any theoretical interpretations 

 that might be offered from other departments of 



