6 Prof. Parsons on the Origin of Species. 
that there have been some—perhaps many—cataclysmic destruc- 
tions of whole orders of being, followed by periods characterized 
by the absence of organic life. If this were = ere must 
have been not only many new creations, but many new beginnings 
of organic life. It must be remembered billie that the geo- 
logic record is assuredly not yet wholly unrolled ; and _ we 
are not sure that we read aright all that is seen. I have some 
doubts whether there be an instance in which such an inet 
extreme aberration, some who may have been their offspring, 
and the parents of succeeding ra 
But I must forbear following 7 wl suggestions further. The 
difficulty of admitting the transformation is, I know, great; and 
still greater difficulties must be encountered in other parts of this 
supposed chain of reproduction. A very great one to my own 
mind arises from those beds below the Silurian, which, on the one 
hand, are wholly free from traces of life, and on the other, from 
pew of destructive alteration by heat. They seem to me to 
lead strongly to the conclusion of Murchison and others, that the 
earth had only then become cool enough to make life ‘possible, 
and consequently that life must have begun there; and there cer- 
tainly we find it already very various. But, not to insist that 
with farther knowledge, wider discovery of “ connecting links,” 
or transitional forms, and better Br all these difficul- 
es may be ma terially lessened, I say at once that I should ac- 
cept them all persia rather than the actich that the first 
horse, or dog, or eagle, or whale, flashed into being out of noth- 
ingness, or out of a mass mere inorganic elements which had been 
drawn together in due proportion for that purpose. 
This last supposition is inevitable if we reject the first. 
The one thing I would be understood to assert, is, that science 
must now elect Rairaon two hypotheses, which together fill the 
whole ground, and cannot both be rejected. One is, that the an- 
imals and vegetables of the world have been formed, by abso- 
lute fiat, out of a mass of inorganic materials. The other, that 
they have come into being successively, by generative produc- 
_ tion, of some kind and in some way. When Milton tells us that 
hi, es my The earth ia fot and straight 
Cpa her fertile womb, sontsiteles a birth 
Innumerous living creatures, perfect om 
Limbed and full grown. Out of the gro ‘ie mr 
As from his lair, the wild beast where he dw 
Tn forest wilds, in wong brake © or den. 
: now half appeared 
The tawny lion, pawing to set cas 
] er parts: 
dis hinder 
he adopts and adorns the first ge a a but while Milton 
was a great poet, he was not so great a zoologist 
<a 
