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.