LETTER PKOM CHEV. W. JERVIS, F.G.S. 281 



very varied studies converge to one grand centre. Few Transac- 

 tions of general academies gave such, little trouble to the single 

 student in picking and choosing such memoirs as may be useful to 

 him individually. They are all rich materials for thought. 



" It is only since the publication of my lecture On the Creation and 

 Eevelation that I have read some remarkably analogous convic- 

 tions expressed by the authors of the papers in vol. xxxiii, quoted 

 above, as also by members during the discussion. 



" Twenty-two years ago, in my lectures On Gold, printed in 1879 

 I laid stress on the antediluvian high civilization, and in my con- 

 viction that our first parents were created as the most glorious 

 type of humanity, jiossessed of a grasp of mind and knowledge such 

 as could be compatible with their pure, sinless condition, in con- 

 tinual contact with Grod, and exempt from sickness, suffering, and 

 error. In various writings I have sustained that, as the crowning 

 work of the terrestrial creation, logic itself would go to prove — 

 apart from what we all know as certain — that man was not cast 

 as a shipwrecked mariner, destitute of all knowledge or experience, 

 on the unfriendly, unknown shores of the world, to dispute his 

 bare existence with the beasts of the forest. 



" As in geology Ave find the most magnificent types in the 

 Cambrian and Silurian fauna, so the volume alluded to adds to 

 our faint knowledge of the grandeur of prehistoric relics of human 

 art, and proves the rashness of those who have affirmed that 

 civilization is but an outcome, an ' evolution,' of the most con- 

 temptible stage of degradation and savagery. Could anyone 

 holding such belief of primitive mankind conceive of the 

 prophecy of the incarnation of the Son of God made to Eve in 

 the Garden of Eden ? Could the brain of an anthropic bastard 

 goi'illa be capable of realizing that glorious pi'omise ? I do not see 

 one sound argument for any form of 'evolution,' I see no chain of 

 life, no generic or even specific transition. Can we not learn some 

 day that specific names have frequently been given to mere 

 varieties ? Of course, scientific, wise caution renders this often 

 prudent until our knowledge on the particular subject can justify 

 our identifying individual forms manifesting immaterial differ- 

 ences. Only of late, while studying the latest Memoirs of the 

 Geological Survey of India, I was impressed by seeing that a 

 magnificent series of Brachyopoda were illustrated, and not one of 

 them had a specific name attributed to it identical to Eui'opean 



