V. VARIETIES, ETC. 47 
Divine Power. The existence of the earth itself may be only one 
of a long series of changes in our planetary system, ultimately 
referable to the Power that has fashioned all things, but which 
may have required no more direct interference than the creation 
of Mr. Scott’s essay itself has required.” . . . . . 
“ Geology, be it observed, has shown nothing whatever con- 
cerning the creation of races or individuals. Neither the mode of 
creation, nor the first state, nor yet the last state, of any race or 
species, has been in the slightest degree explained by geological 
discovery. The fossil records of past life are limited to incomplete 
representations of the state of individuals at death; and in the 
older deposits the remains are scarcely more than mere copies of 
their shapes. In the more recent deposits good skeletous, etc., 
are found; but in all likelihood, the stony models and skeletons, 
which have hitherto met the eye of man, will not bear the pro- 
portion of one individual out of every million that have existed. 
Granting this, how can any sober reasoner assert positively, on 
such meagre evidence, that intermediate forms and structures 
have not existed? Geology is far too imperfect yet, to allow of 
any fair presumption, from its individual facts, either of the 
trausition or non-transition of one species into another. On the 
great scale, it is as clear as such evidence can make it, that one 
species has been substituted for another, but we know not how this 
substitution has been brought about; and, allowing for the dif- 
ference of time, it may well be questioned whether the changes 
brought to light by geological researches, at all exceed the changes 
now effected in the vegetable world by human efforts.” . . . . 
“The nearest approach towards bringing about a sudden 
change of species, occurs in the production of hybrids or mule 
breeds. This is something ; but it is not the way for permanently 
converting or creating species, if it be possible to do so at all. 
These hybrids rarely breed with each other; and, when mixing 
with the original stocks, they soon revert back so far as to be 
undistinguishable. If man is ever to create a permanent species, 
he must go to work in a much more gradual manner, by coupling 
together varieties becoming more and more unlike the original 
