Astronomy. 297 
this point Professor Heckel, one of the highest authorities on the 
subject, in his “ History of Creation,” has the following :—* Dar- 
Wwin’s theory, as well that of Lyell, retiders the assumption of im- 
ense periods absolutely necessary. . . . If the theory of 
development be true at all there must certainly have elapsed im- 
mense periods, utterly inconceivable to us, during which the 
gradual historical development of the animal and vegetable pro- 
ceeded by the slow transformation of species. . . . t ri- 
ods during which species originated by gradual transmutation, 
must not be calculated by single centuries, but by hundreds and 
by millions of centuries. Every process - development is the 
ast, 
deavors to answer this question and to meet the objections urged 
against the enormous lapse of time assumed for evolution. : 
ig g leave to remark,” he says, “that we have not a single 
rational ground for conceiving the time requisite to be limited in 
any Way. . % t is absolutely impossible to see what can in 
any way limit us in assuming long periods of time . . . 
From a strictly philosophical point of view it makes no difference 
whether we hypothetically assume for this process ten millions or 
ten thousand millions of years n the same way as the 
distances between the different planetary systems are not caleu- 
ated by miles but by Sirius-distances, each of which comprises 
millions of miles, so the organic history of the earth must not be 
calculated by thousands of years, but by paleontological or geo- 
logical periods, each of which comprises many thousands of years, 
nd perhaps millions or milliards of thousands of years.” 
Statements more utterly opposed to the present state of modern 
at. 
rsally appealed to as the only 
e sun could have obtained its 
