BIOLOGICAL CHANGE IN GEOLOGICAL TIME. 



121 



evidence of any extensive elevation of land above the hydrosphere 

 of the globe before (at the earliest) the Devonian age. One might do 

 worse than recommend to Professor Lobley's notice the views 

 propounded (as inductions from a far wider range of facts) by such 

 masters of the science as Professor Hermann Credner and Professor 

 Zittel, to whose works references have been given in a foot-note to 

 page 81 of the paper read by the present writer on January 15th, 

 1906. 



To come to closer quarters, I raise an objection against Mr. 

 Lobley's animadversions upon some remarks I made at a meeting of 

 the Institute last year ; because they imply misunderstanding on his 

 part, and misconstruction of what I said on that occasion. He has 

 no right whatever to drag in the hypothesis of the " supernatural," 

 which is a rather foolish term, though a favourite one with minds of 

 a, certain order. The deterioration of which he speaks in detailed 

 instances is a fact which he assumes in rather too easy a fashion ; 

 and he seems to supply no standard by which such deterioration 

 can be gauged. 



In a sense, no doubt, it is true in some cases — as in the case of 

 the Permian fauna as compared with the Carboniferous, as I pointed 

 out in various papers years ago. The advance of the whole fauna 

 and flora of the globe is what we have to consider, and not to 

 attempt to construct theory upon these or those details. That 

 advance towards higher types, and towards a greater multiplicity of 

 them, has been along many lines, some of which are seen (or at 

 least appear) in the light of such an imperfect geologic record as 

 we possess, to reach their vanishing points ; but of these we can only 

 fairly judge by considering their place in the totality of progressive 

 advance. 



Deterioration of a given set of organisms under more unfit 

 conditions of environment is but the correlative of advance under 

 favourable conditions ; it eliminates the old notion of sudden {qua 

 miraculous) extinctions, but that is simply " slaying the slain." 

 We may fairly contend that such cases teach merely the sub- 

 ordination of the interests of the individual to the economy of the 

 whole. That that economy is all under "the reign of Law " no one 

 questions ; but the mere geologist claims too much when he assumes 

 that the great and deep questions, as to what really constitutes " law" 

 €an be settled by what appear on his single plane of mental vision. 



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