GOD IN NATURE. 149 
can be traced down from the Eocene period ;—each succes- 
sive stage being an advance on the preceding one,* till the 
horse, in all his beauty of form, fleetness of foot, and natural 
docility, becomes an inhabitant of the earth with man as his 
master. 
On the other hand, I cannot but feel strongly that geology 
presents us with certain phenomena which have not been 
satistactorily explained by any hypothesis of evolution yet 
propounded. Such, for example, is the remarkable persistency 
of some forms from very early geological periods to the present 
day, and this during numerous changes and modifications in 
the environment; while, on the other hand, we have examples 
(as in the case of the Liassic Ammonites) of repeated modi- 
fications of form under apparently similar, or but slightly 
modified, conditions. The introduction at particular periods 
of new types of organised forms, such as the vertebrates at 
the close of the Silurian period, although falling in with the 
gencral law of progression, has to be accounted for on the 
basis of design. Nor is this evidence of design abrogated by 
the discovery of forms which help to fill up the gaps in the 
succession of organised forms, such as the birds with teeth, 
which Professor Marsh regards as connecting the Dinosaurian 
reptiles with the true birds, and which are found in deposits 
of the Jurassic period; by such forms the gaps are being 
narrowed, if not bridged. But, while admitting that if there 
were no lost pages in the geological record, a complete 
chain of successive forms might be disclosed, it is no less 
necessary to recognise the directing agency of “Him in 
whom we live, move, and have our being; and by whom all 
things consist.” 
In attempting to explain the existence of the forms by 
which our world is peopled, there is reason to fear that the 
advocates of a purely secondary hypothesis are tempted to 
recognise analogies which are only imaginary, and to shut 
their eyes to evidence which appears to militate against their 
views; and it may be well, in conclusion, to revert to the 
weighty words of our President in his recent Annual Address, 
where he says, ‘It may be, that the impression thus left on the 
mind, will be that the votaries of science carried away by an 
excess of zealin the attempt to discover the causes of natural 
phenomena, have really, though honestly, over-estimated the 
* This development is most remarkable in the process by which the 
Orohippus of the Eocene is represented by the Hipparion of the early 
Pliocene, with three fully developed toes to each foot, and this by the 
Pliohippus of the later Pliocene ; and this by the Zgwus fossilis. 
