68 Results of Geology. 



species in every great section of geological formations ; and yet 

 this new evidence does not appear to approximate these sections 

 together, or to bind them more into one great whole, so long as 

 the test applied be identity of species, though unquestionably, if 

 all the formations be taken together, every new discovery seems 

 to supply a link, and to bring the organic elements of formations, 

 widely apart as to time, into connection as parts of one great and 

 harmonious organic system. How then are we to account for 

 this separation in time of the elements of a creation ? Are we 

 still, with Cuvier, to suppose that it has resulted from successive 

 destructions of a partially constructed creation and successive re- 

 newals, each new creation supplying deficiencies in the preceding 

 one, but producing others by leaving out some of the elements of 

 the last; the creations, therefore, remaining imperfect? Or are 

 we to suppose, with Blainville, that the work of creation was ori- 

 ginally complete, and that the gaps now visible are due to the 

 gradual dropping-out of certain of the links in the course of count- 

 less ages \ Or are we to consider, with Lamarck and many others, 

 that the present is only the development, through various succes- 

 sive stages, of the past, and that the limits of possible variation 

 and transmutation of species, either by imperceptible steps of 

 gradation or by periodic and sudden changes, regulated by the 

 original law of creation, have not yet been determined ? To one 

 or other of these theories we must necessarily recur, and so far as 

 the wisdom and power of the Great Creator are concerned, neither 

 can augment or diminish it ; for, admitting that creative power 

 must have been exercised, it is indifferent whether it acted in the 

 mode of Cuvier, or in that of Blainville, or in that of Lamarck. 

 In every case the image of the whole must have been in the crea- 

 tive mind, and the wisdom equal, whether the creation was formed 

 as a whole, and members of it were allowed to perish at certain 

 intervals, corresponding to the successive physical conditions of 

 the earth ; or, the whole creation being mentally determined by 

 the Creator, those portions of it only which corresponded to the 

 conditions of the earth's crust at each epoch were called succes- 

 sively into existence, various classes and genera attaining therefore 

 the highest development under circumstances best suited to the 

 requirements of their organization ; or, the final result having 

 been conceived by creative intelligence, and certain members only 

 of the great whole called into existence, like points on the circum- 

 ference of a circle, and imbued with such -a power of vital deve- 



