314 PEEJUDICES OPPOSED TO [CHAP. XXXVII. 



the first creation of a particular class of beings coin 

 cides in date with our first knowledge of it in a 

 fossil state, or the kindred dogma that the first ap 

 pearance of life on the globe agrees, chronologi 

 cally, with the present limits of our insight into the 

 first creation of living beings, as deduced from organic 

 remains. These limits have shifted, even in our 

 own times, more than once, or have been greatly ex._ 

 panded, without dissipating the delusion, so intense is 

 the curiosity of man to trace back the present system 

 of things to a beginning. Rather than be disap 

 pointed, or entertain a doubt of his power to discern 

 the shores of the vast ocean of past time, into which 

 his glances are penetrating, like the telescope into 

 the region of the remoter nebulas, he cannot refrain 

 from pleasing his imagination with the idea that some 

 fog-banks, resting on the bosom of the deep, are, in 

 reality, the firm land for which his aching vision is on 

 the stretch. 



I cannot conclude these remarks on the geological 

 discoveries made in these remote valleys of the Alle- 

 ghanies, without alluding to a moral phenomenon, 

 which was forcibly brought before my mind in the 

 course of the investigation. The interest excited by 

 these singular monuments of the olden times, natu 

 rally led to animated discussions, both in lecture- 

 rooms and in the columns of the daily journals, of 

 Pennsylvania, during which the high antiquity of the 

 earth, and the doctrine of former changes in the 

 species of animals and plants inhabiting this planet 

 before the creation of man, were assumed as esta 

 blished truths. But these views were so new and 



