288 PKOCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



agency, that Agassiz and Barrande are constrained to attribute the 

 presence of whole communities of new living beings in sedimentary 

 rocks to direct creation. In the actual state of oar knowledge, 

 there seems no other method of accounting for the existence of 

 peculiar, well-adjusted, and variously-peopled life-provinces through 

 a series of distinct horizons, but to ascribe the fact to creation by 

 divine power as a regular, not a casual, transaction, and as a de- 

 terminate part of a suite of combined phenomena. It took place, 

 in all probability, by epochs or periods ; and it is not likely, jud- 

 ging from our own times, that it occurred at different parts of the 

 same period. This creative power (solely an attribute of Deity, and 

 incommunicable), now generally admitted, may have been exerted 

 through secondary means ; but the really efficient of these, being 

 peculiar and profound, working too in some inappreciable nascent 

 form, will for ever elude the most eager questionings of man. It 

 should not be forgotten that animal conservation (the sustaining of 

 life) is but a continuata creatio, or, to use the words of Chamock, 

 *' conservation is but one continued act with creation, following 

 on from instant to duration, or as a line from its mathematical 

 point." The growth of organized forms is just as wonderful, and to 

 me as inexplicable, as creation itself. Considerations like these 

 may incline us the more readily to admit of successive direct cre- 

 ations, in carrying out a process immeasurably lengthened in dura- 

 tion, and co-existent with the earth. That migration existed in 

 palaeozoic times is almost certain, and the means are obvious ; but it 

 did not occur to the extent which might have been expected. Had 

 it been very great, centres of diffusion (or geographic provinces) 

 would have been greatly obscured, if not obliterated ; this, however, 

 was not the case, even in contiguous parts of the same basin. 



§ 8. Recurrence. — The recurrence, or reappearance in new epochs, 

 of any given organic form, must be either by creative power, migra- 

 tion, or translation — the last being a passive act, — and either as 

 germs or eggs, or in the dead state. Sir C. Lyell denies the repeti- 

 tion of species by the first-named of these methods, in the following 

 words* : — " There are no facts leading to the opinion that species 

 which have once died out have ever been reproduced." He further 

 observes t, " That an intermixture and blending of organic remains 

 of different ages have taken place in former times is unquestionable, 

 though the occurrence appears to be very local and exceptional. It 

 is, however, a class of accidents more likely than almost any other to 

 lead to serious anachronisms in geological chronology." James Hall 

 declares J that " the Creator never repeats the same form in success- 

 ive creations : the various animals have performed their part in the 

 economy of nature, lived their time, and perished." I cannot, how- 

 ever, readily attribute to migration or translation the hundreds of 

 acts of recurrence we meet with in all the examined portions of the 

 world, amid the innumerable obstacles to such a transition, which 

 sometimes overleaps many and great epochs. And it is not to be 



* Principles, p. 191. t Principles, p. 775. 



J Palasont. vol. i. p. xxiiL 



