ft 



THE VEGETABLE AND ARiMAL KINGDOMS 109 



justment, and might have been as fully foreknown at the 

 commencement, as was the regular succession of any one 

 of the intermediate numbers to its immediate antecedent. 

 The same remark applies to the next apparent deviation 

 from the new law, which was founded on an induction of 

 2761 terms, and also to the succeeding law, with this lim- 

 itation only — that, whilst their consecutive introduction 

 at various definite intervals, is a necessary consequence 

 of the mechanical structure of the engine, our knowledge 

 of analysis does not enable us to predict the periods them- 

 selves at which the more distant laws will be introduced." 



It is not difficult to apply the philosophy of this passage 

 to the question under consideration. It must be borne in 

 mind that the gestation of a single organism is the work 

 of but a few days, weeks, or months ; but the gestation 

 (so to speak) of a whole creation is a matter probably in- 

 volving enormous spaces of time. Suppose that an ephe- 

 meron, hovering over a pool for its one April day of life, 

 were capable of observing the fry of the frog in the water 

 below. In its aged afternoon, having seen no change 

 upon them for such a long time, it would be little quali- 

 fied to conceive that the external branchiae of these crea- 

 tures were to decay, and be replaced by internal lungs, 

 that feet were to be developed, the tail erased, and the 

 animal then to become a denizen of the land. Precisely 

 such may be our difficulty in conceiving that any of the 

 species which people our earth is capable of advancing 

 by generation to a higher type of being. During the 

 whole time which we call the historical era, the limits 

 of species have been, to ordinary observation, rigidly ad- 

 hered to. But the historical era is, we know, only a 

 small portion of the entire age of our globe. We do not 

 know what may have happened during the ages which 

 preceded its commencement, as w T e do not know what may 

 happen in ages yet in the distant future. All, therefore, 

 that we can properly infer from the apparently invariable 

 production of like by like is, that such is the ordinary 

 procedure of nature in the time immediately passing be- 

 fore our eyes. Mr. Babbage's illustration powerfully sug- 

 gests that this ordinary procedure may be subordinate to 

 a higher law which only permits it for a time, and in pro- 

 per season interrupts and changes it. We shall soon see 

 lome philosophical evidence for 'his very conclusion. 

 It has been seen that, in the reproduction of the higher 



