96 



PEEJUDICES WHICH KETAED 



[Ch. v. 



es 



n 



is 



that it would be inconsistent with all calculation of chanc 

 to suppose them to happen at one and the same time. "Wj le 

 the unlooked-for association of such rare phenomena 

 witnessed in the present course of nature, it scarcely ever 

 fails to excite a suspicion of the preternatural in those minds 

 which are not firmly convinced of the uniform agency of 

 secondary causes ; — as if the death of some individual 

 whose fate they are interested happens to be accompanied 

 by the appearance of a luminous meteor, or a comet, or the 

 shock of an earthquake. It would be only necessary to 

 multiply such coincidences indefinitely, and the mind of 

 every philosopher would be disturbed. Now it would be 

 difficult to exaggerate the number of physical events, many 

 of them most rare and unconnected in their nature, which 



in 



were imagined by the Woodwardian hypothesis to have 

 happened in the course of a few months : and numerous 

 other examples might be found of popular geological theories, 

 which require us to imagine that a long succession of events 

 happened in a brief and almost momentary period. 



Another liability to error, very nearly allied to the former, 

 arises from the frequent contact of geological monuments 

 referring to very distant periods of time. We often behold, 

 at one glance, the effects of causes which have acted at times 

 incalculably remote, and yet there may be no striking cir- 

 cumstances to mark the occurrence of a great chasm in the 

 chronological series of Nature's archives. In the vast interval 

 of time which may really have elapsed between the results 

 of operations thus compared, the physical condition of the 

 earth may, by slow and insensible modifications, have become 

 entirely altered ; one or more races of organic beings may 

 have passed away, and yet have left behind, in the particular 

 region under contemplation, no trace of their existence. 



To a mind unconscious of these intermediate events, the 

 passage from one state of things to another must appear so 

 violent, that the idea of revolutions in the system inevitably 

 suggests itself. The imagination is as much perplexed by 

 the deception, as it might be if two distant points in space 

 were suddenly brought into immediate proximity. Let us 

 suppose, for a moment, that a philosopher should lie down 





V 





