436 PECULIAR EVIDENCES OP GEOLOGY. 



species, or by an Eternal Succession from preceding indi- 

 viduals of the same species, M^ithout any evidence of a Be- 

 ginning or prospect of an End, has no where been met by so 

 full an answer, as that afforded by the phenomena, of fossil 

 Organic Remains. 



In the course of our inquiry, we have found abundant 

 proofs, both of the Beginning and the End of several suc- 

 cessive systems of animal and vegetable life ; each compel- 

 ling us to refer its origin to the direct agency of Creative 

 Interference ; " We conceive it undeniable, that we see, in 

 the transition from an Earth peopled by one set of animals 

 to the same Earth swarming with entirely new forms of or- 

 ganic life, a distinct manifestation of creative power trans- 

 cending the operation of known laws of nature : and it ap- 

 ])ears to us, that Geology has thus lighted a new Ijgmp along 

 the path of Natural Theology."* 



Whatever alarm therefore may have been excited in the 

 earlier stages of their development, the time is now arrived 

 when Geological discoveries appear to be so far from dis- 

 closing any phenomena, that are not in harmony with the 

 arguments supplied by other branches of physical Science, 

 in proof of the existence and agency of One and the same 

 all-wise and all-powerful Creator, that they add to the evi- 

 dences of Natural Religion links of high importance that 

 have confessedly been wanting, and are now filled up by 



live at full maturity. In a more extended sense, the term is also applied to 

 those progressive changes in fossil genera and species, whicli have followed 

 one another during the deposition of the strata of the earth, in the course of 

 the gradual advancement of the grand system of Creation. The same term 

 has been adopted by Lamarck, to express his hypothetical views of the 

 derivation of existing species from preceding spe^cies, by successive Trans- 

 mutations of one form of organization into another form, independent of 

 the influence of any creative Agent. It is important that tiiese distinctions 

 should be rightly understood, lest the frequent application of the word 

 Development, which occurs in the writings of modern physiologists, should 

 lead to a false inference, that the use of this term implies an admission of the 

 theory of Transmutation with which Lamarck has associated it, 

 * British Critic, No. XVII. Jan. 1831, p. 194. 



