418 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



picture of the manifold shortcomings of geology — shortcomings which, if they 

 really exist to the extent he wishes to make out, must go a great way towards 

 invalidating nearly the whole of the facts of Palaeontology. For example, what 

 reliance can be placed upon the teachings of a science any one of whose known facts 

 may be successfully denied by a reference to some other of its supposed and unknown 

 facts, and of which it is asserted, by even its own cultivators, that we can at the 

 best only hope to obtain a few fragments of its latter half % We shall return again 

 to the subject of these alleged defects in the geological records ; meantime be it 

 remembered that these ''primordial periods" are altogether hypothetical — that 

 they are assumed in direct opposition to the opinion of the most eminent geologists 

 — that they are admitted by Darwin himself to be " quite unknown," and that they 

 are assumed by the advocates of the Development Theory solely because the exist- 

 ence of their theory requires it. The dictum of Johnson strikes me as peculiarly 

 applicable to such ingenious speculators. "He who will determine against that 

 which he knows, because there may be something which he knows not — he who will 

 set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty, is not to be admitted 

 among reasonable beings." 



Again, to test the "theory" still further. " What," asks Hugh Miller, "in order 

 to establish its truth, or even to render it some degree probable, ought to be the 

 geological evidence regarding it ? The reply seems obvious. In the first place, the 

 earlier fossils ought to be very small in size ; in the second, very low in organiza- 

 tion" (" Footprints of the Creator," p. 21). Every student of geology knows how 

 completely the facts of geology contradict the " theory " on these points. " The 

 earlier fossils" of every formation, from the lowest to the highest, are, as is well 

 known, neither f< very small in size," nor " very low in organization." The lowest 

 found fossils of each form of life are not foetal or imperfect ; when they make their 

 firstappearance they are always found fully formed, and perfect in their organization. 

 Nay more, so far from the fossils of the different formations appearing imperfect in 

 form or organization on their first appearance, and then exhibiting a gradually- 

 increasing perfection of form and organization as we ascend from the lower to the 

 higher beds (as they ought to do according to the " theory"), we find that in many 

 respects the contrary is actually the case — that 1 i the magnates of each race walk 

 first," and that if geology furnishes no " reasons for disbelieving the theory" of 

 development, it furnishes many undoubted facts in favour of an opposite theory of 

 degradation. Many of these facts are very ably set forth in Hugh Miller's "Foot- 

 prints of the Creator," an excellent work, and to which I again refer the reader. I 

 leave to Lieutenant Hutton the task of harmonizing the negative evidence which he 

 considers geology to furnish in support of his Theory of Development with the 

 positive evidence adduced by Hugh Miller in support of his theory of degradation. 



I am aware that in opposition to these statements Lieut. Hutton will refer me to 

 that part of his article in which be describes the imperfection of the geological 

 record, and assumes that we have not yet reached, and that we ought not to expect 

 ever to reach, the horizon of any form of life. But to this I reply — first, by asking 

 him if he means to oppose to acknowledged fact hypothetical probability, and if so, 

 I refer him to my quotation from Johnson. But I reply still further, that this 

 argument admitted to its fullest extent, is very far from being conclusive. Admitted 

 that we are not to assume that the lowest-found fossils of any form of life coincide 

 with the dawn of that particular organism, still if it is an admitted fact that that 

 form of life makes its first appearance perfect and fully formed and comparatively 

 high in its organization, the " Development Theory" plainly asks too much of us 

 when it asks us to believe that this form could have gone on developing itself from 

 some other form, during perhaps " hundreds of thousands of years," until it had 

 assumed its most perfect form, and no record whatever of its condition during all 

 this enormous period of time be preserved. And this too, be it remembered, not 

 merely in the case of one particular form of life, but of all the forms of life! If 

 the records of geology are really as imperfect as this amounts to, their testimony is 

 certainly of very little value either for or against the development or any other 

 theory. 



But this leads me to remark, that I have cause to believe that the geological 

 records are not nearly so imperfect, nor the results of what imperfection actually 

 dors exist nearly so important, as some naturalists to suit certain purposes attempt 

 to make it appear. 



