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 
invalidatii^g nearly the whole of the facts of PaljBontology. For example, what 
reliance can be placed upon the teachings of a science any one of whose known fact* 
may be successfully denied by a reference to some other of its supposed and unknovm 
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 detects 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 w^ho 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 orde^ 
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, th 
earlier fossils ought to be very small in size ; in the second, very low in organiz 
tion" (" Footprints of the Creator," p. 21). Every student of geology knows how 
completely the facts of geology contradict the " theoi-y " Sn these points. " Tl 
earlier fossils " of every formation, from the lowest to the highest, are, as is we^ 
known, neither " very small in size," nor very low in organization." The lowes 
found fossils of each form of life are not foetal or imperfect ; when they make thei 
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 ' ' 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 he 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 ai-e 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 ^3g?/gc^ and fully formed and comparatively 
high in its organization, tlie " 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 he preserved. And this too, be it remembered, not 
merely in the case of one particular form of life, hut of all the forms of life! If 
the records of geology are really as imperfect as this amounts to, their testimony \i 
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 
does exist nearly so important, as some naturalists to suit certain purposes attempt 
to make it appear. 
