Chapter XI: Review of the History of Life

What general conclusions can we reach as to this long and strange history of the progress of life on our planet? Perhaps the most comprehensive of these is that the links in the chain of life, or rather in its many chains, are not scattered and disunited things, but members of a great and complex plan; and that when we discern their combinations and their pattern, we find them not only orderly and symmetrical, but all tending to one point and bound to one central object, even the throne of the Eternal. It must also appear evident that the original plan of nature, both in the animal and vegetable worlds, was too vast to be realised at one time on a globe so limited as ours, but had to be distributed in time as well as in space, thus realising the idea of time-worlds: successive A|ons in which, one after the other, the work of creation could rise to successive stages of perfection and completeness till it culminated in man. All this is sufficiently plain on the theistic view of nature, and may suffice for those who reverently regard the God of nature as the Father of their own spirits. But there are others who ask further questions. Do we know anything of the secondary causes and origin of life, of the manner of its introduction and advance, of the laws of its succession?

As to the first of these questions, it is certain that, up to this time, the origination of the living being from the non-living is an inscrutable mystery. No one has witnessed this change, or has been able to effect it experimentally. Nor have we any direct evidence of the origination of one specific type from another. Such reasonings as assume the possibility of these things, or on analogical grounds assert their probability, belong rather to the domain of philosophical speculation than to science. As to the laws of the succession of life, however, it is possible to learn something from the sequence of facts as already ascertained; and though much remains to be discovered, there are a few leading statements on this subject which can already be made with safety.

Unity and uniformity, within the limits imposed by progress and increasing complexity, can be affirmed of the whole process. From the dawn of life to the present time the great laws of physical nature which operate on animals and plants have been uniform. These stable laws have regulated the action of the outer world on organisms. The plans of structure of these organisms laid down at the first have been followed throughout. Thus the succession of life presents nothing fortuitous or arbitrary, but a continuous plan carried out uniformly in time and space, with certain materials of fixed properties, and with certain structures predetermined from the first. There is, for example, a great sameness of plan throughout the whole history of the marine invertebrate life of the PalA|ozoic. If we turn over the pages of an illustrated text-book of geology, or examine the cases or drawers of a collection of fossils, we shall find extending through every succeeding formation, representative forms of Crustaceans, Mollusks, and Corals, in such a manner as to indicate that in each successive period there has been a reproduction of the same type with modifications; and if the series is not continuous, this appears to be due to lack of specimens, or to abrupt physical changes; since sometimes, where two formations pass into each other, we find a gradual change in the fossils by the dropping out and introduction of species one by one. Thus in the whole of the great PalA|ozoic period, both in its fauna and flora, we have a continuity and similarity of a most marked character.

There is, indeed, nothing to preclude the supposition that many forms reckoned as species are really only race modifications. My own provisional conclusion, based on the study of PalA|ozoic plants, published many years ago,[93] is that the general law will be found to be the existence of distinct specific types independent of each other, but liable in geological time to minor modifications, which have often been regarded as distinct species.

While this unity of successive faunA| at first sight presents an appearance of hereditary succession, it loses much of this character when we consider the number of new types introduced without apparent predecessors, or ceasing without successors, and the almost changeless persistence of other types; the necessity that there should be similarity of type in successive faunA| on any hypothesis of a continuous plan; and, above all, the fact that the recurrence of representative species or races in large proportion marks times of decadence rather than of expansion in the types to which they belong. To return to a later period, this is very manifest in that singular resemblance which obtains between the modern mammals of South America and Australia and their immediate fossil predecessorsaEuro"the phenomenon being here manifestly that of decadence of large and abundant species into a few depauperated representatives. This will be found to be a very general law, elevation being accompanied by the abrupt appearance of new types, and decadence by the apparent continuation of old species, or modifications of them.

This resemblance with difference in successive faunA| also connects itself very directly with the successive elevations and depressions of our continental plateaus in geological time.

Every great PalA|ozoic limestone, for example, indicates a depression with succeeding elevation. On each elevation marine animals were driven back into the ocean, and on each depression swarmed in over the land, reinforced by new species, either then introduced or derived by migration from other localities. In like manner on every depression, land plants and animals were driven in upon insular areas, and on re-elevation again spread themselves widely. Now I think it will be found to be a law here that periods of expansion were eminently those of introduction of new specific types, and periods of contraction those of extinction, and also of continuance of old types under new varietal forms. It must also be borne in mind that all the leading types of invertebrate life were early introduced, that change within these was necessarily limited, and that elevation could take place mainly by the introduction of the vertebrate orders. So in plants, Cryptogams early attained their maximum as well as Gymnosperms, and elevation occurred in the introduction of PhA|nogams.

Another allied fact is the simultaneous appearance of like types of life in one and the same geological period, over widely separated regions of the earthaEuro(TM)s surface. This strikes us especially in the comparatively simple and homogeneous life-dynasties of the PalA|ozoic, when for example we find the same types of Silurian Graptolites, Trilobites and Brachiopods appearing simultaneously in Australia, America, and Europe. Perhaps in no department is it more impressive than in the introduction in the Devonian and Carboniferous ages of that grand cryptogamous and gymnospermous flora which ranges from Brazil to Spitzbergen, and from Australia to Scotland, accompanied in all by the same groups of marine invertebrates; or in the like wholesale production of modern types of trees in the Cretaceous. Such facts may depend either on that long life of specific types which gives them ample time to spread to all possible habitats, before their extinction; or on some general law whereby the conditions suitable to similar types of life emerge at one time in all parts of the world. Both causes may be influential, as the one does not exclude the other, and there is reason to believe that both are natural facts. Should it be ultimately proved that species allied and representative, but distinct in origin, come into being simultaneously everywhere, we shall arrive at one of the laws of creation, and one probably connected with the gradual change of the physical conditions of the world.

A closely related truth is the periodicity of introduction of species. They come in by bursts or flood-tides at particular points of time, while these great life-waves are followed and preceded by times of ebb in which little that is new is being produced. We labour in our investigation of this matter under the disadvantage that the modern period is evidently one of the times of pause in the creative work. Had our time been that of the early Tertiary or early Mesozoic, our views as to the question of origin of species might have been very different. It is a striking fact, in illustration of this, that since the Glacial age no new species of mammal can be proved to have originated on our continents, while a great number of large and conspicuous forms have disappeared. It is possible that the proximate or secondary causes of the ebb and flow of life-production may be in part at least physical; but other and more important efficient causes may be behind these. In any case these undulations in the history of life are in harmony with much that we see in other departments of nature.

It results from the above and the immediately preceding statement that specific and generic types enter on the stage in great force, and gradually taper off toward extinction. They should so appear in the geological diagrams made to illustrate the succession of life. This applies even to those forms of life which come in with fewest species and under the most humble guise. What a remarkable swarming, for example, there must have been of Marsupial Mammals in the early Mesozoic; and in the Coal formation the only known Pulmonates, four or five in number, belong to as many generic types.

I have already referred to the permanence of certain species in geological time. I may now place this in connection with the law of origination and more or less continuous transmission of varietal forms. I may, perhaps, best illustrate this in connection with a group of species with which I am very familiar, that which came into our seas at the beginning of the Glacial age, and still exists. With regard to their permanence, it can be affirmed that the shells now elevated in Wales to 1,200 and in Canada to 600 feet above the sea, and which lived before the last great revolution of our continents, a period vastly remote as compared with human history, differ in no tittle from their modern successors after thousands or tens of thousands of generations. It can also be affirmed that the more variable species appear under precisely the same varietal forms then as now, though these varieties have changed much in their local distribution. The real import of these statements, which might also be made with regard to other groups well known to palA|ontologists, is of so great significance that it can be realised only after we have thought of the vast time and numerous changes through which these humble creatures have survived. I may call in evidence here a familiar British and American animal, the common sand clam, _Mya arenaria_, and its relative, _Mya truncata_, which now inhabit together all the northern seas; for the Pacific specimens, from Japan and California, though differently named, are undoubtedly the same. _Mya truncata_ appears in Europe in the older Pliocene, and was followed by _M. arenaria_ a little later. Both shells occur in the Pleistocene of America, and their several varietal forms had then already developed themselves, and remain the same to-day; so that these humble mollusks, littoral in their habits, and subjected to a great variety of conditions, have continued, perhaps for one or two thousand centuries, to construct their shells precisely as at present. Nor are there any indications of a transition between the two species. Similar statements may be made with regard to other mollusks of the Pliocene and Modern periods, and there are even species which extend unchanged from the early Eocene. Nor is it impossible that some modern bivalves of the Brachiopod group may be scarcely modified descendants even of PalA|ozoic species.

Perhaps some of the most remarkable facts in connection with the permanence of species and varietal forms are those furnished by that magnificent flora which burst in all its majesty on the American continent in the Cretaceous period, and still survives among us even in some of its specific types, I say survives; for we have but a remnant of its forms living, and comparatively little that is new has probably been added since. Take, for example, the facts stated in Chapter VIII. as to the continuance to the present time of species of plants introduced in the Cretaceous and Eocene, and which thus came in at the very time when the great Mesozoic reptiles were decaying or had just disappeared, and when the placental mammals were being introduced. Some of these plants must have propagated themselves unchanged for half a million of years.

Plants and the lower tribes of animals are, however, more permanent than the higher animals; and a strange contrast is afforded to the foregoing examples of persistence by the repeated revolutions that have affected vertebrate life since the Mesozoic age. Yet even in the case of vertebrates there seems to have been little change, except in the extinction of species, since the Pliocene period.

In conclusion of this review, can we formulate a few of the general laws, or perhaps I had better call them the general conclusions respecting life, in which all palA|ontologists may agree? Perhaps it is not possible to do this at present satisfactorily, but the attempt may do no harm. We may, then, I think, make the following affirmations:aEuro"

(1) The existence of life and organisation on the earth is not eternal, or even coeval with the beginning of the physical universe, but may possibly date from Laurentian or immediately pre-Laurentian times.

(2) The introduction of new species of animals and plants has been a continuous process, not necessarily in the sense of derivation of one species from another, but in the higher sense of the continued operation of the cause or causes which introduced life at first. This, as already stated, I take to be the true theological or Scriptural as well as scientific idea of what we ordinarily and somewhat loosely term creation.

(3) Though thus continuous, the process has not been uniform; but periods of rapid production of species have alternated with others in which many disappeared and few were introduced. This may have been an effect of physical cycles reacting on the progress of life.

(4) Species, like individuals, have greater energy and vitality in their younger stages, and rapidly assume all their varietal forms, and extend themselves as widely as external circumstances will permit. Like individuals, also, they have their periods of old age and decay, though the life of some species has been of enormous duration in comparison with that of others; the difference appearing to be connected with degrees of adaptation to different conditions of life.

(5) Many allied species, constituting groups of animals and plants, have made their appearance at once in various parts of the earth, and these groups have obeyed the same laws with the individual and the species in culminating rapidly, and then slowly diminishing, though a large group once introduced has rarely disappeared altogether.

(6) Groups of species, as genera and orders, do not usually begin with their highest or lowest forms, but with intermediate and generalised types, and they show a capacity for both elevation and degradation in their subsequent history.

(7) The history of life presents a progress from the lower to the higher, and from the simpler to the more complex, and from the more generalised to the more specialised. In this progress new types are introduced, and take the place of the older ones, which sink to a relatively subordinate place, and become thus degraded. But the physical and organic changes have been so correlated and adjusted that life has not only always maintained its existence, but has been enabled to assume more complex forms, and that older forms have been made to prepare the way for newer, so that there has been on the whole a steady elevation culminating in man himself. Elevation and specialisation have, however, been secured at the expense of vital energy and range of adaptation, until the new element of a rational and inventive nature was introduced in the case of man.

(8) In regard to the larger and more distinct types, we cannot find evidence that they have, in their introduction, been preceded by similar forms connecting them with previous groups; but there is reason to believe that many supposed representative species in successive formations are really only races or varieties.

(9) In so far as we can trace their history, specific types are permanent in their characters from their introduction to their extinction, and their earlier varietal forms are similar to their later ones.

(10) PalA|ontology furnishes no direct evidence, perhaps never can furnish any, as to the actual transformation of one species into another, or as to the actual circumstances of creation of a species, but the drift of its testimony is to show that species come in _per saltum_, rather than by any slow and gradual process.

(11) The origin and history of life cannot, any more than the origin and determination of matter and force, be explained on purely material grounds, but involve the consideration of power referable to the unseen and spiritual world.

Different minds may state these principles in different ways, but I believe that in so far as palA|ontology is concerned, in substance they must hold good, at least as steps to higher truths. And now I may be permitted to add that we should be thankful that it is given to us to deal with so great questions, and that in doing so deep humility, earnest seeking for truth, patient collection of all facts, self-denying abstinence from hasty generalisations, forbearance and generous estimation with regard to our fellow-labourers, and reliance on that Divine Spirit which has breathed into us our intelligent life, and is the source of all true wisdom, are the qualities which best become us.

As we have traced onward the succession of life, reference has been made here and there to the defects of those bold theories of descent with modification which are held forth in our time as the true bond of the links of the chain of life. It must have been apparent that these theories, however specious when placed in connection with a limited induction of facts selected for the purpose of illustrating them, are very far from affording a satisfactory solution of all difficulties. They cannot perhaps be expected to take us back to the origin of living beings; but they also fail to explain why so vast numbers of highly organised species struggle into existence simultaneously in one age and disappear in another, why no continuous chain of succession in time can be found gradually blending species into each other, and why in the natural succession of things degradation under the influence of external conditions and final extinction seem to be laws of organic existence. It is useless here to appeal to the imperfection of the record or to the movements or migrations of species. The record is now in many important parts too complete, and the simultaneousness of the entrance of the faunas and floras too certainly established, while the moving of species from place to place only evades the difficulty. The truth is that such hypotheses are at present premature, and that we require to have larger collections of facts. Independently of this, however, it would seem that from a philosophical point of view all theories of evolution, as at present applied to life, are fundamentally defective in being too partial in their character; and this applies more particularly to those which are aEurooemonsticaEuroŁ or aEurooeagnostic,aEuroŁ and thus endeavour to dispense with a Creative Will behind nature. It may be instructive to illustrate from the facts developed in preceding chapters this feature of most of the attempts at generalisation on this subject.

First, then, these hypotheses are too partial, in their tendency to refer numerous and complex phenomena to one cause, or to a few causes only, when all trustworthy analogy would indicate that they must result from many concurrent forces and determinations of force. We have of late been very familiar with those ingenious, not to say amusing, speculations in which some entomologists and botanists have indulged with reference to the mutual relations of flowers and haustellate insects. Geologically the facts oblige us to begin with Cryptogamous plants and mandibulate insects; and out of the desire of insects for non-existent honey, and the adaptations of plants to the requirements of non-existent suctorial apparatus, we have to evolve the marvellous complexity of floral form and colouring, and the exquisitely delicate apparatus of the mouths of haustellate insects. Now when it is borne in mind that this theory implies a mental confusion on our part precisely similar to that which in the department of mechanics actuates the seekers for perpetual motion, that we have not the smallest tittle of evidence that the changes required have actually occurred in any one case, and that the thousands of other structures and relations of the plant and the insect have to be worked out by a series of concurrent evolutions so complex and absolutely incalculable in the aggregate that the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic astronomy were childaEuro(TM)s play in comparison, we need not wonder that the common sense of mankind revolts against such fancies, and that we are accused of attempting to construct the universe by methods that would baffle Omnipotence itself, because they are simply absurd. In this aspect of them, indeed, such speculations are necessarily futile, because no mind can grasp all the complexities of even any one case, and it is useless to follow out an imaginary line of development which unexplained facts must contradict at every step. This is also no doubt the reason why all recent attempts at constructing aEurooePhylogeniesaEuroŁ are so changeable, and why no two experts can agree about almost any of them.

A second aspect in which such speculations are too partial is in the unwarranted use which they make of analogy. It is not unusual to find such analogies as that between the embryonic development of the individual animal and the succession of animals in geological time placed on a level with that reasoning from analogy by which geologists apply modern causes to explain geological formations. No claim could be more unfounded. When the geologist studies ancient limestones built up of the remains of corals, and then applies the phenomena of modern coral reefs to explain their origin, he brings the latter to bear on the former by an analogy which includes not merely the apparent results but the causes at work, and the conditions of their action; and it is on this that the validity of his comparison depends, in so far as it relates to similarity of mode of formation. But when we compare the development of an animal from an embryo cell with the progress of animals in time, though we have a curious analogy as to the steps of the process, the conditions and agents at work are known to be altogether dissimilar, and therefore we have no evidence whatever as to identity of cause, and our reasoning becomes at once the most transparent of fallacies. Farther, we have no right here to overlook the fact that the conditions of the embryo are determined by those of a previous adult, and that no sooner does this hereditary potentiality produce a new adult animal than the terrible external agencies of the physical world, in presence of which all life exists, begin to tell on the organism, and after a struggle of longer or shorter duration it succumbs to death, and its substance returns into inorganic nature, a law from which even the longer life of the species does not seem to exempt it. All this is so plain and manifest that it is extraordinary that evolutionists will continue to use such partial and imperfect arguments. Another example may be taken from that application of the doctrine of natural selection to explain the introduction of species in geological time which is so elaborately discussed by Sir C. Lyell in the last edition of his _Principles of Geology_. The great geologist evidently leans strongly to the theory, and claims for it the aEurooehighest degree of probability,aEuroŁ yet he perceives that there is a serious gap in it; since no modern fact has ever proved the origin of a new species by modification. Such a gap, if it existed in those grand analogies by which we explain geological formations through modern causes, would be admitted to be fatal.

A third illustration of the partial character of these hypotheses may be taken from the use made of the theory deduced from modern physical discoveries, that life must be merely a product of the continuous operation of physical laws. The assumption, for it is nothing more, that the phenomena of life are produced merely by some arrangement of physical forces, even if it be admitted to be true, gives only a partial explanation of the possible origin of life. It does not account for the fact that life as a force or combination of forces is set in antagonism to all other forces. It does not account for the marvellous connection of life with organisation. It does not account for the determination and arrangement of forces implied in life. A very simple illustration may make this plain. If the problem to be solved were the origin of the marineraEuro(TM)s compass, one might assert that it is wholly a physical arrangement both as to matter and force. Another might assert that it involves mind and intelligence in addition. In some sense both would be right. The properties of magnetic force and of iron or steel are purely physical, and it might even be within the bounds of possibility that somewhere in the universe a mass of natural loadstone may have been so balanced as to swing in harmony with the earthaEuro(TM)s magnetism. Yet we should surely be regarded as very credulous if we could be induced to believe that the marineraEuro(TM)s compass has originated in that way. This argument applies with a thousandfold greater force to the origin of life, which involves even in its simplest forms so many more adjustments of force and so much more complex machinery.

Fourthly, these hypotheses are partial, inasmuch as they fail to account for the vastly varied and correlated interdependencies of natural things and forces, and for the unity of plan which pervades the whole. These can be explained only by taking into the account another element from without. Even when it professes to admit the existence of a God, the evolutionist reasoning of our day limits itself practically to the physical or visible universe, and leaves entirely out of sight the power of the unseen and spiritual, as if this were something with which science has nothing to do, but which belongs only to imagination or sentiment. So much has this been the case that when recently a few physicists and naturalists have turned to this aspect of the subject, they have seemed to be teaching new and startling truths, though only reviving some of the oldest and most permanent ideas of our race. From the dawn of human thought it has been the conclusion alike of philosophers, theologians, and the common sense of mankind, that the seen can be explained only by reference to the unseen, and that any merely physical theory of the world is necessarily partial. This, too, is the position of our sacred Scriptures, and is broadly stated in their opening verse; and indeed it lies alike at the basis of all true religion and all sound philosophy, for it must necessarily be that aEurooethe things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen, eternal.aEuroŁ With reference to the primal aggregation of energy in the visible universe, with reference to the introduction of life, with reference to the soul of man, with reference to the heavenly gifts of genius and prophecy, with reference to the introduction of the Saviour Himself into the world, and with reference to the spiritual gifts and graces of GodaEuro(TM)s people, all these spring not from sporadic acts of intervention, but from the continuous action of God and the unseen world; and this, we must never forget, is the true ideal of creation in Scripture and in sound theology. Only in such exceptional and little influential philosophies as that of Democritus, and in the speculations of a few men carried off their balance by the brilliant physical discoveries of our age, has this necessarily partial and imperfect view been adopted. Never indeed was its imperfection more clear than in the light of modern science.

Geology, by tracing back all present things to their origin, was the first science to establish on a basis of observed facts the necessity of a beginning and end of the world. But even physical science now teaches us that the visible universe is a vast machine for the dissipation of energy; that the processes going on in it must have had a beginning in time, and that all things tend to a final and helpless equilibrium. This necessity implies an unseen power, an invisible universe, in which the visible universe must have originated, and to which its energy is ever returning. The hiatus between the seen and the unseen may be bridged over by the conceptions of atomic vortices of force, and by the universal and continuous ether; but whether or not, it has become clear that the conception of the unseen as existing has become necessary to our belief in the possible existence of the physical universe itself, even without taking life into the account.

It is in the domain of life, however, that this necessity becomes most apparent; and it is in the plant that we first clearly perceive a visible testimony to that unseen which is the counterpart of the seen. Life in the plant opposes the outward rush of force in our system, arrests a part of it on its way, fixes it as potential energy, and thus, forming a mere eddy, so to speak, in the process of dissipation of energy, it accumulates that on which animal life and man himself may subsist, and assert for a time supremacy over the seen and temporal on behalf of the unseen and eternal. I say, for a time, because life is, in the visible universe, as at present constituted, but a temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where it is no longer the exception but the eternal rule. In a still higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify to a Creator, organisation and life, whether in the plant, the animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven that surrounds the visible universe. In them, as in dead matter, Almighty power is no doubt conditioned by law, yet they bear more distinctly upon them the impress of their Maker, and while all explanations of the physical universe which refuse to recognise its spiritual and unseen origin must necessarily be partial and in the end incomprehensible, this destiny falls more quickly and surely on the attempt to account for life and its succession on merely materialistic principles.

Here, however, we must remember that creation, as maintained against such materialistic evolution, whether by theology, philosophy, or Holy Scripture, is necessarily a continuous, nay, an eternal influence, not an intervention of disconnected acts. It is the true continuity, which includes and binds together all other continuity.

It is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest need; and I must here record my belief that neither men of science nor theologians have a right to separate what God in Holy Scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall between nature and religion, and write upon it aEurooeno thoroughfare.aEuroŁ The science that does this must be impotent to explain nature and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. The theology that does this must sink into mere superstition.

In the light of all these considerations, whether bearing on our knowledge or our ignorance, a higher and deeper question presents itself, namely, that as to the relation of nature and of man to a Personal Creator. To this it seems to me that the study of the succession of life yields no uncertain reply. Call the progress of life an evolution if you will; trace it back to primA|val Protozoa, or to a congeries of atoms: still the truth remains that nothing can be evolved out of these primitive materials except what they originally contained. Now we find in the existence of man, and in the tendency of the scheme of nature towards his introduction, evidence that at least all that is involved in the reasoning and moral nature of man must have existed potentially before atoms began to shape themselves into crystals or into organic forms. Nay, more than this is implied, for we do not know that man and what he has hitherto been and done constitute the ultimate perfection of nature, and we must suspect that something much more than what we see in man must be required for the origination of the chain of life. What does this prove, in any sense in which human reason can understand it? Nothing less, it seems to me, than that doctrine of the Almighty Divine Logos, or Creative Reason, as the cause of all things, asserted in our sacred Scriptures, and held in one form or another by all the greatest thinkers who have attempted to deal with the question of origins. Falling back on this great truth, whether presented to us in the simple aEurooeGod saidaEuroŁ of Genesis, or in the more definite form of the New Testament, aEurooeThe Word was with God, and the Word was God,aEuroŁ we find ourselves in the presence of a Divine plan pervading all the ages of the earthaEuro(TM)s history and culminating in man, who presents for the first time the image and likeness of the Divine Maker; and this forms the true nexus of all the separate chains of life. Had man never existed, such reasoning might have been speculative merely, but the existence of man, taken in connection with the progress of the plan which has terminated in his advent, proves the existence of God.

Divine revelation carries us a step farther, and teaches us to recognise in Jesus of Nazareth God manifest in the flesh, the Divine Logos dwelling among men. But though this is a doctrine of revelation and not of science, it is in perfect harmony with the plan of progress which we have been sketching. It is the natural outcome of a process leading to the introduction of a rational and accountable being, understanding something of the works and ways of God, that to him God should reveal Himself, and that the Divine Logos, by whom were aEurooeconstituted the agesaEuroŁ[94] of the worldaEuro(TM)s geological history, should preside also over its future consummation, when all the degradation that has sprung from the aberrations of fallen and imperfect humanity shall be removed, and man himself shall become fully a partaker of the Divine nature.

The world we live in is thus not necessarily a finished world, and it is now marred by the sins of man. What it may be in the future, we can perhaps as little guess as an intelligence studying the PalA|ozoic world could have understood that of the present time. But it is a glorious truth to know that our Maker has revealed Himself to us also as a Saviour, and that as individuals we shall not perish, to be replaced by an improved species in the future, but that we ourselves, as sons of God, may enter into and possess the new earth and new heavens of future A|ons of the universe. Thus it would seem that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that which was wanting to complete and justify the history of nature by bringing to light the final aEurooerestitution of all things,aEuroŁ and our own union to God in a happy immortality.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Croll has elaborated this calculation in his work, _Climate and Time_.

[2] Sept. 1879.

[3] Analyses recently made by Mr. C. Hoffman, of the Geological Survey of Canada, show that beds of graphitic gneiss, some of them 8 feet in thickness, contain as much as 25A.5 to 30 per cent. of carbon, the remaining earthy matter consisting principally of silica, alumina, and lime. The graphite from veins was nearly pure carbon, containing from 97A.6 to 99A.8 per cent. of that substance.

[4] Sometimes separated as a distinct order under the name of _Radiolaria_.

[5] _Loftusia Columbiana_, Dawson, from British Columbia, is the only Carboniferous species yet known.

[6] See Nicholson in the _Memoirs_ of the PalA|ontographical Society.

[7] _ArchA|ospherinA|_ of the author.

[8] _Eophyton LinnA|anum_ (Torrell).

[9] See Paper on aEurooeFootprints and Impressions of Animals,aEuroŁ _Am. Journal of Science_, 1873.

[10] They probably belong to a large sponge named by Billings _Trichospongia sericea_.

[11] _Amphispongia._

[12] _Geological Magazine_, May, 1878.

[13] It is regarded as somewhat doubtful whether these are Hydroids or Bryozoa.

[14] _Heliopora_, an Alcyonarian; _Pocillopora_, an Anthozoan.

[15] _Haplophyllia_, _Guynia_, _Duncania_, of Pourtales.

[16] _PalA|chinus._

[17] Some of the earliest appear to be allies of the modern limpets.

[18] aEurooeUn produit de laEuro(TM)imagination, sans aucun fondement dans la rA(C)alitA(C).aEuroŁ

[19] _Hymenocaris_.

[20] Phyllopods and Ostracods.

[21] _Pterygotus, Eurypterus_, &c.

[22] Whitfield, _Am. Journ. of Sci._, 1880.

[23] _Report on Devonian Fossil Plants of Canada_, 1871. _Story of the Earth and Man_, 1873. _Address to American Association_, 1875.

[24] See the important memoir of Barrande on the Silurian Brachiopods, in which, as the result of the most elaborate and detailed comparisons, he concludes that in the case of these shells, as in that of the Cephalopods and Trilobites, the introduction of species in geological time has not occurred by modification, but must have depended on a creative process. It is such painstaking researches as those of the great Bohemian palA|ontologist which must finally settle these questions, in so far as geology is concerned.

[25] _Geological Magazine_, November, 1869.

[26] The genus _Buthotrephis_ includes supposed branching sea-weeds of the Silurian. For this reason I would propose the name _Protannularia_ for these plants.

[27] _LycopodiaceA|._

[28] Allied to those named by Brongniart _Aetheotesta_.

[29] _Cordaites._

[30] Paper by Sir W. Dawson in _Chicago AcademyaEuro(TM)s Bulletin_, 1886.

[31] _Calamodendron_ and _Arthropitys_ are forms of this kind.

[32] GrandaEuro(TM) Eury and Williamson have directed attention to this in the case of those of France and England.

[33] _Amphioxus._

[34] _Petromyzon_, &c.

[35] Dr. Newberry has kindly furnished me with specimens, and Dr. Harrington has submitted to analysis portions of shale filled with these little teeth, the result giving 2A.58 of calcium phosphate for the whole, which indicates that the Conodonts are really bone. Their microscopic structure approaches to that of the dentine of such Carboniferous fishes as _Diplodus_. Hinde has described Conodonts from the Silurian of Canada.

[36] _Ueber Conodonten_: Munich, 1886.

[37] _Lepidosteus._

[38] _PalA|ichthyes_ of GA1/4nther.

[39] _Dinichthys Terrelli_ and _D. Hertzeri_ (Newberry).

[40] Cestracionts.

[41] Selachians.

[42] _Amphipeltis paradoxus_ of Salter.

[43] Genus _Strophia_. I have provisionally named the St. John species _Strophites erianus_.

[44] The enlarged figure of _Pupa vetusta_ is too much elongated, and the aperture is somewhat conjectural, as it is usually crushed.

[45] _Dawsonella_ of Bradley.

[46] _ArchiulidA|_ of Scudder.

[47] _Euphobesia armigera_ (Meek and Worthen), from Illinois.

[48] About fifty in all, as I learn from Mr. Scudder.

[49] _Orthoptera._

[50] _Neuroptera._

[51] _Coleoptera._

[52] _TincA|._

[53] One highly specialised Carboniferous insect recently found is the _Protophasma_ of Brongniart, a relative of the modern aEurooeWalking-sticks.aEuroŁ

[54] This was first described as part of the larva of a Dragon-fly. It is now recognised as belonging to a Scorpion.

[55] _Protolycosa_ (Roemer).

[56] _Menopoma_, _Menobranchus_, &c.

[57] _Ophiderpeton Brownriggii._

[58] _Diplichnites._

[59] These are known in some of the smaller species, but not as yet in the larger.

[60] _Hylonomus._ See Fig. facing this chapter.

[61] _Mastodonsaurus_ or _Labyrinthodon_.

[62] _PalA|osiren Beinertii_ of Geinitz.

[63] _Hyleopeton._

[64] _Diadictes_ and _Bolasaurus_ (Cope).

[65] _Enaliosauria_, including _Ichthyopterygia_ and _Sauropterygia_.

[66] _Anomodontia_ and _Theriodontia_.

[67] _Geology of Oxford_, p. 227.

[68] Cope has proposed the names _Camerosaurus_, _AmphicA"lias_, &c., for these problematical animals. Marsh names them _Titanosaurus_, _Atlantosaurus_, &c., while Owen holds that some of them at least are identical with his genus _Chondrosteosaurus_. Seeley and Hulke adopt the name _Ornithopsis_, and support CopeaEuro(TM)s view of their nature.

[69] _RatitA|._

[70] Woodward in a recent paper refers to a still more curious resemblance of the Dinosaurs to the biped lizard of Australia (_Chlamydosaurus_), which runs on its hind limbs, and even perches on trees.

[71] A poplar occurs in Greenland, in beds held to be Lower Cretaceous.

[72] By some regarded as Upper Cretaceous.

[73] First recognized in American Eocene by Newberry.

[74] Described by La Harpe and Gaudin, and recently by Gardner.

[75] Recent discoveries have since the publication of the first edition removed the Bovey Tracey beds from the Miocene to the Eocene. See Reports of Mr. Starkie Gardner to the British Association.

[76] Lyell, _Principles_; Brown, _Florula Discoana_.

[77] G. M. Dawson, _Report on 49th Parallel_; _Reports on British Columbia_.

[78] GrayaEuro(TM)s reasoning is based on the extreme view of the Glacial period now prevalent in America, contrary, as it appears to me, to the actual facts; but with limitations it holds good on more moderate views as well.

[79] _Geological Magazine_, July, 1887.

[80] _Les Enchainements du Monde Animal._

[81] See Frontispiece to this Chapter.

[82] For example, _Tillotherium_ of the American Eocene, which was as large as a tapir, and in form resembled a bear.

[83] Croll, _Climate and Time_.

[84] Notes on Post-Pliocene of Canada; _Acadian Geology_, 3rd edition.

[85] The actual reason for belief in the past existence of land in the basin of the Indian Ocean is found in the close relationship of forms of life found in Madagascar, Southern Asia, and Australia.

[86] Traditions of this animal, a veritable primA|val unicorn, are said still to exist in Siberia.

[87] As, for instance, those of Cro-Magnon, and Mentone, and Engis.

[88] De Puyot and Lohert, Namur, 1887.

[89] Religious Tract Society, 1878.

[90] May, 1887.

[91] _Climate and Time_, a work in which these and other matters relating to the Glacial period are very well discussed.

[92] Kimber, quoted by Southall.

[93] _Report on Devonian Plants of Canada_, 1871.

[94] The true meaning of Hebrews i. 2 and xi. 3.

INDEX.

(_Principally to Forms of Life noticed or illustrated._)

Agnostus, 79
Alethopteris, 105
Ammonites, 76
_Amphibians_, 152
Amphipeltis, 85
Ancyloceras, 77
Antholithes, 101
Anthozoa, 57
_Angiosperms_, 187
AnthropalA|mon, 85
_Antiquity of Man_, 247
_Apes_, 228
Arachnida, 150
ArchA|ocyathus, 38
ArchA|opteryx, 172
Archegosaurus, 153
Archimulacris, 146
Arctocyon, 228
Asterophyllites, 103
Astylospongia, 51
Athyris, 67

Baculites, 77
Baphetes, 155
Bathygnathus, 174
_Batrachians_, 152
_Bats_, 226
_Beetles_, 145
_Beginning of Life_, 23
Belemnites, 78
Beryx, 133
Beyrichia, 83
_Birds_, 172
_Bivalve shells_, 69
Blattina, 146
_Brachiopods_, 63
Brontotherium, 217
Buthotrephis, 92
_Butterflies_, 150

Calamites, 99, 105
Calymene, 80, 82
Campsognathus, 179
Carcharodon, 132
Cardiocarpum, 101
Cephalaspis, 122
_Cephalopods_, 71
Ceratites, 75
Ceratodus, 126
Ceteosaurus, 178
Cinnamomum, 198
Clidastes, 169
_Cockroaches_, 146
Conocephalites, 79
_Conodonts_, 118
_Corals_, 55
Cordaites, 110
Coryphodon, 215
_Crinoids_, 61
Crioceras, 77
Crustacea, 79
_Cuttle-fishes_, 71
Cyathaspis, 121
Cyathophyllum, 60
_Cystideans_, 62
Cythere, 83

Dadoxylon, 100
Dapedius, 132
Davallia, 192
Dictyonema, 53
Dikellocephalus, 79
Dinichthys, 127
Dinoceras, 216
_Dinosaurs_, 174
Dipnoi, 123
Discina, 66
_Dragon-fly_, 148
Dromatherium, 209
Dryopithecus, 229

Echinoderms, 61
Elasmotherium, 242
Elephants, 224
Eocene age, 213
Eopteris, 93
Eoscorpius, 151
Eozoon, 27
_Equine feet_, 218
EquisetaceA|, 97
Extracrinus, 64

Favosites, 59
_Ferns of PalA|ozoic_, 106
_Ferns, Tree_, 97
_Fishes_, 120
_Floras, distribution of_, 201
_Footprints_, 152
Foraminifera, 32
_Fruits of Devonian_, 101

_Ganoids_, 120
_Gastropods_, 70
_Glacial age_, 233
Glyptocrinus, 63
Glyptodendron, 94
Gomphoceras, 73
Graptolites, 53

Halisites, 59
Heliophyllum, 59
Heterocrinus, 63
_Horse_, 218
_Huronian age_, 24
Hydrozoa, 54
Hylonomus, 157

Ichthyosaurus, 167
Implements, 245
Insects, 139
Isotelus, 82

_Labyrinthodonts_, 155
Lamellibranchiata, 69
_Lampreys_, 117
_Land-snails_, 142
_Laurentian age_, 24
Lepidodendron, 108
Lepidosiren, 124
Leptophleum, 98
Libellula, 148
Lingula, 65
Liriodendron, 191
Lituites, 73
Loligo, 72

Machairodus, 227
_Mammals_, 207
_Mammoth_, 240
Man, advent of, 233
_Mantids_, 146
_Mares-tails_, 97
_Marsupials_, 207
Mastodon, 224
May-flies, 146
Megalosaurus, 1
Megaphyton, 107
Megatherium, 222
Microlestes, 208
Microsauria, 156
_Millepedes_, 145
_Modern forests_, 186
Monotremes, 208
Mososaurus, 169
Moths, 148
Murchisonia, 70
Myrica, 194

Nautilus, 71
Neuropteris, 105

Oldhamia, 52
Onchus, 121
Onoclea, 191
Oreodon, 221
_Origin of Life_, 23
Orthis, 66
Orthoceras, 73
Osteolepis, 124
_Ostracods_, 83
Otodus, 131

PalA|aster, 62
PalA|chinus, 62
PalA|oniscus, 129
PalA|otherium, 212
Paradoxides, 79
Pentacrinus, 64
Phaceps, 83
Phascolotherium, 210
Pinnularia, 101
Plagiaulax, 210
_Plants, earliest_, 89
_Pleistocene_, 240
Plesiosaurus, 167
Pleurocystites, 63
Pleurotomaria, 70
Pliosaurus, 168
Polyzoa, 59
Post-glacial, 236
Prodryas, 150
Productus, 68
Protannularia, 91
Protosalvinia, 101
Proterosaurus, 166
Protostigma, 92
Protozoa, 27
Psilophyton, 95
Pterichthys, 123
_Pterodactyls_, 171
Pteropods, 70
Pterygotus, 84
Ptilodictya, 55
Ptyonius, 154

Quadrumana, 228
Quercus, 194

Receptaculites, 38
_Reptiles_, 165
Rhamphorhyncus, 171
_Rhizopods_, 34
Ruschinites, 81

Sassafras, 190
_Scorpions_, 151
_Sea-lizards_, 167
Selachians, 130
Sequoia, 197
_Sharks_, 120
Sigillaria, 109
Sphenophyllum, 92, 103
Sphinx-moth, 149
Spirifer, 67
Sponges, 48
_Squids_, 72
Stelliosaurus, 158
Stenopora, 57
Stromatopora, 36
Syringoxylon, 102

Tabulata, 59
_Teliosts_, 120
Terebratula, 66
Trichospongia, 51
Trigonocarpum, 101
Trilobites, 78
Turrilites, 77

Xylobius, 145

Zaphrentis, 60
Zonites, 143

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LONDON AND BUNGAY.

<pre id="pg-footer">