54 FRIMAr.Y STRATIFIED EOCKS. 



different natures and properties may be imagined to be 

 within the range of possible existences, not one of all the 

 living or fossil species of animals or vegetables, could ever 

 have endured the temperature of an incandescent planet. 

 All these species must therefore have had a beginning, 

 posterior to the state of universal fusion which Geology 

 points out. 



I know not how 1 can better sum up the conclusion of 

 this argument than in the words of my Inaugural Lecture, 

 (Oxford, 1819, p. 20.) 



" The consideration of the evidences afforded by geologi- 

 cal phenomena may enable us to lay more securely the 

 very foundations of natural theology, inasmuch as they 

 clearly point out to us a period antecedent to the habitable 

 state of the earth, and consequently antecedent to the exist- 

 ence of its inhabitants. When our minds become thus 

 familiarized with the idea of a beginning and first creation 

 of the beings we see around us, the proofs of design, which 

 the structure of those beings affords, carry with them a 

 more forcible conviction of an intelligent Creator, and the 

 hypothesis of an eternal succession of causes, is thus at 

 once removed. We argue thus: it is demonstrable from 

 Geology that there was a period w4icn no organic beings 

 had existence ; these organic beings must therefore have 

 had a beginning subsequently to this period ; and where is 

 that beginning to be found but in the will and fiat of an in- 

 tellicfent and all-wise Creator?' 



The same conclusion is stated by Cuvier, to be the result 

 of his observations on geological phenomena: " Mais ce qui 

 etonne davantage encore, et ce qui n'est pas moins certain, 

 c'est que la vie n'a pas toujours cxiste sur la globe, et qu'il 

 est facile a I'observateur de reconnoitre le point ou elle a 

 commence a deposer ses produits." — Cuvier, Ossemens 

 Fossiles, Disc. Prelim. 1821, vol. i. p. ix. 



