EVIDENCE OF GEOLOGY. II3 



only in very recent years has been found to 

 speak with any distinctness upon the question 

 of Man's Antiquity. Not that there is any 

 change in the general bearing of that evidence 

 as it stood before. There is none whatever. 

 The evidence of Geology has always been, 

 that among all the creatures which have in 

 succession been formed to live upon this 

 earth, and to enjoy it, Man is the latest born. 

 This great fact is still the fundamental truth 

 in the History of Creation : that history, as 

 Geology has revealed it, has been a history 

 of successive Creations, and of successive 

 Destructions, — Old Forms of Life perishing, 

 and New Forms appearing, so that the whole 

 face of nature has been many times renewed. 

 But until very lately it was supposed that 



I 



