Religious Belief. 



187 



amazing, the regularity in the sequence of the geo- 

 logical formations, and distinguishing, with ever- 

 increasing precision, the specific differences of the 

 animals and plants contained in these accumulations 

 of past ages. These results bear living testimony to 

 the wonderful progress of the kindred sciences of 

 geology and palaeontology in the last half-century ; 

 and the development theory has but an insecure 

 foundation so long as it attempts to strengthen itself 

 by belittling the geological record, the assumed im- 

 perfection of which, in default of positive facts, has 

 now become the favourite argument of its beholders/* 

 In 1863 Agassiz published a volume entitled, 

 Method of Study in Natural History^ the main ob- 

 ject of which was to give hints and suggestions to 

 young readers, yet in the introduction he says : I 

 have also wished to avail myself of this opportunity 

 to enter my earnest protest against the transmuta- 

 tion theory, revived of late with so much ability, 

 and so generally received. It is my belief that 

 naturalists are chasing a phantom, in their search 

 after some material gradation among created beings, 

 by which the whole Animal Kingdom may have 

 been derived by successive development from a 

 single germ, or from a few germs. It would seem, 

 from the frequency with which this notion is re- 

 vived, — ever returning upon us with hydra-headed 

 tenacity of life, and presenting itself under a new 

 form as soon as the preceding one has been ex- 

 ploded and set aside, — that it has a certain fascina- 

 tion for the human mind. This arises, perhaps, from 

 the desire to explain the secret of our own existence ; 



