1 



I 



TNE CHAIN OF LIFE TRACED BACKWARD IN 

 GEOLOGICAL TIME 



T N infancy wc have little conception of the per- 

 spective of time. To us the objects around us 

 and even our seniors in age seem to have always 

 been, and to have had no origin or childhood. It 

 is only as we advance in knowledge and experience 

 that we learn to recognise distinctions of age in 

 beings older than ourselves. In thinking of this, it 

 seems at first sight an anomaly, or at least contrary 

 to analogy, that the oldest literature and philosophy 

 deal so much with doctrines as to the origins of 

 things. In this respect primitive men do not seem 

 to have resembled children ; and the fact that our 

 own sacred records begin with answers to such 

 questions, and that these appear in the oldest 

 literary remains of so many ancient nations, and 

 even in the folk-lore of barbarous tribes, might be 

 used as an additional argument in favour of an 

 early Divine revelation on such subjects, as a means 



3 



