8 4 



accumulate improvements. Give us time enough, then, and the 

 synthesis is complete. We have the agencies competent to de- 

 velop the human race from the primal germ. Geologists have 

 been accustomed to draw on the bank of time to an unlimited 

 amount. Sir Charles Lyell has, however, by measurements of the 

 delta of the Rhone, made some estimates which show how great 

 is the lapse of time even in what may be called modern periods. 

 When we consider the extreme slowness of a deep-sea deposit, and 

 look at the masses of such deposits, we know that the lapse of 

 time since the dawn of life on our planet has been enormous. 

 Sir William Thomson tells us, however, that there is a limit. He 

 concludes that the consolidation of the earth's crust can hardly 

 have occurred less than 20 or more than 200 million years ago. 

 As Mr. Darwin remarks, the wideness of the limits shows how 

 doubtful the data are. Professor Huxley takes up the same ques- 

 tion. He says, " Before we can be accused of running counter to 

 the principles of Natural Philosophy, it must be shown that the 

 limits assigned by Sir William are really insufficient for the purpose 

 of the evolutionist. That is, are we really contravening the con- 

 clusions of Natural Philosophy? And secondly, if we are, are 

 those conclusions so firmly based that we may not contravene 

 them?" Professor Huxley replies in the negative to both these 

 questions. He says, " If it be said that it is Biology, and not 

 Geology, that asks for so much time — that the succession of life 

 demands vast intervals — but this appears to me to be reasoning in 

 a circle. Biology takes its time from Geology. The only reason 

 we have for believing in the slow rate of the change in living forms, 

 is the fact that they persist through a series of deposits which, 

 Geology informs us, took a long time to make. If the geological 

 clock is wrong, all the naturalist will have to do is to modify his 

 notions of the rapidity of change accordingly. And I venture to 

 point out, when we are told that the limitation of the period during 

 which living beings have inhabited this planet to one, two, or three 

 hundred million years, requires a complete revolution in geological 

 speculation — the onus probandi rests on the maker of the assertion, 

 who brings forward not a shadow of evidence in its support. 



