TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
A list of corrections is at the end of the text. Italics are indicated
by _underscores_, bold by =equal signs= and superscripts by '^'.
_Illogical Geology_
_The Weakest Point in_
_The Evolution Theory_
[Illustration: Author]
BY
GEORGE McCREADY PRICE
EDITOR OF "THE MODERN HERETIC," AND AUTHOR OF "OUTLINES OF
MODERN SCIENCE AND MODERN CHRISTIANITY."
THE MODERN HERETIC COMPANY
257 S. HILL STREET, LOS ANGELES, CAL.
SINGLE COPIES 25^c
3 COPIES 60c: 10 COPIES $1.75
ILLOGICAL GEOLOGY
THE WEAKEST POINT IN THE EVOLUTION THEORY
To the Reader.
This _Advance Edition_ has been issued by the Publishers in this cheap
form to enable them to get out several thousand copies for critical
review at comparatively small expense. Succeeding editions will be in
regular book form, and will be sold at the usual rates for bound
volumes.
"It is a singular and a notable fact, that while most other branches
of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of
metaphysical reasoning, the science of geology still remains
imprisoned in '_a priori_' theories."--_Sir Henry Howorth: "The
Glacial Nightmare and the Flood." Preface. VII._
_THE MODERN HERETIC COMPANY_
257 S. HILL ST., LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1906
COPYRIGHT 1906
BY
GEORGE McCREADY PRICE
LOS ANGELES, CAL.
PART I
PREFACE
This book is not written especially for geologists or other scientists
as such, though it deals with the question which it discusses from a
purely scientific standpoint, and presupposes a good general knowledge
of the rocks and of current theories. It is addressed rather to that
large class of readers to whom geology is only an incident in larger
problems, and who are not quite wholly satisfied with those explanations
of the universe which are now commonly accepted on the testimony of
biological science. I am free to say that my own conviction of the
higher value and surer truth of other data outside of the biological
sciences have always been given formative power in my own private
opinions, and that in this way I have long held that there =must be
something wrong= with the Evolution Theory, and also that there must be
a surer way of gauging the value of that Theory, even from the
scientific standpoint, than the long devious processes connected with
Darwinism and biology. Some years ago, when compelled to investigate the
subject more fully than I had hitherto done, I discovered, somewhat to
my own surprise, the phenomenal weakness of the geological argument. The
results of that investigation have grown into the present work.
Though mostly critical and analytic, it is not wholly so. But so far as
it is constructive there is one virtue which can rightly be claimed for
it. It is at least an honest effort to study the foundation facts of
geology from the inductive may be standpoint, and whether or not I have
succeeded in this, it is, so far as I know, the only work published in
the English or any other language which does not treat the science of
geology more or less as a cosmogony.
That such a statement is possible is, I think, my chief justification in
giving it to the public. It would seem as if the twentieth century could
afford at least one book built up from the present, instead of being
postulated from the past.
GEORGE McCREADY PRICE.
257 South Hill Street,
Los Angeles, California,
June, 1906.
CONTENTS
PART I
I THE ABSTRACT IDEA 11
II HISTORY OF THE IDEA 14
III FACT NUMBER ONE 20
IV FACT NUMBER TWO 24
V TURNED UPSIDE DOWN 27
V FACT NUMBER FOUR 31
VII EXTINCT SPECIES 34
VIII SKIPPING 42
PART II
IX GRAVEYARDS 53
X CHANGE OF CLIMATE 64
XI DEGENERATION 70
XII FOSSIL MEN 74
XIII INDUCTIVE METHODS 81
APPENDIX 89
INTRODUCTION
A brief outline of the argument which I have used in the following pages
will be in order here.
Darwinism, as a part, the chief part, of the general Evolution Theory,
rests logically and historically on the succession of life idea as
taught by geology. If there has actually been this succession of life on
the globe, then some form of genetic connection between these successive
types is the intuitive conclusion of every thinking mind. But if there
is no positive evidence that certain types are essentially older than
others, =if this succession of life is not an actual scientific fact=,
then Darwinism or any other form of evolution has no more scientific
value than the vagaries of the old Greeks--in short, from the standpoint
of true inductive science it is a most gigantic hoax, historically
scarce second to the Ptolemaic astronomy.
In Part One I have examined critically this succession of life theory.
It is improper to speak of my argument as destructive, for there never
was any real constructive argument to be thus destroyed. It is
essentially =an exposure=, and I am willing to =give a thousand dollars=
to any one who will, in the face of the facts here presented, show me
how to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another.
In Part Two I have attempted to build up a true, safe induction in the
candid, unprejudiced spirit of a coroner called upon to hold a _post
mortem_. The abnormal character of most of the fossiliferous deposits,
the sudden world-wide change of climate they record, the marked
degeneration in all organic forms in passing from the older to the
modern world, together with the great outstanding fact that human
beings, with thousands of other living species of animals and plants
have at this great world-crisis left their fossils in the rocks all over
the world, prove beyond a possible doubt that our once magnificently
stocked world met with a tremendous catastrophe some thousands of years
ago, before the dawn of history. As for the =origin= of the living
beings that existed before that event, we can only suppose a =direct
creation=, since modern science knows nothing of the spontaneous
generation of life, or of certain types of life having originated
=before= other types, and thus being able to serve as =the source of
origin= of other alleged succeeding types.
With the myth of a life succession dissipated once and for ever, the
world stands face to face with creation as the direct act of the
Infinite God.
CHAPTER I
THE ABSTRACT IDEA
How many of us have ever tried to think out a statement of just how we
would prove that there has been a succession of life on the globe in a
particular order?
Herbert Spencer did[1] and he did not seem to think the way in which it
is usually attempted a very praiseworthy example of the methods to be
pursued in natural science.
He starts out with Werner, of Neptunian fame, and shows that the
latter's main idea of the rocks always succeeding one another over the
whole globe like the coats of an onion was "untenable if analyzed," and
"physically absurd," for among other things it is incomprehensible that
these very different kinds of rocks could have been precipitated one
after another by the same "chaotic menstrum."
But he then proceeds to show that the science is "still swayed by the
crude hypotheses it set out with; so that even now, old doctrines that
are abandoned as untenable in theory, continue in practice to mould the
ideas of geologists, and to foster sundry beliefs that are logically
indefensible."
Werner had taken for his data the way in which the rocks happened to
occur in "a narrow district of Germany," and had at once jumped to the
conclusion that they must always occur in this relative order over the
entire globe. "Thus on a very incomplete acquaintance with a thousandth
part of the earth's crust, he based a sweeping generalization applying
to the whole of it."
Werner classified the rocks according to their mineral characters, but
when the fossils were taken as the prime test of age, the "original
nomenclature of periods and formations" kept alive the original idea of
complete envelopes encircling the whole globe one outside each other
like the coats of an onion. So that now, instead of Werner's successive
ages of sandstone making or limestone making, and successive suites of
these rocks, we have successive ages of various types of life, with
successive systems or "groups of formations which everywhere succeed
each other in a given order; and are severally everywhere of the same
age. Though it may not be asserted that these successive systems are
universal, yet it seems to be tacitly assumed that they are so....
Though, probably, no competent geologist would contend that the European
classification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole; yet
most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so."
Spencer then goes on to show how dogmatic and unscientific it is to say
that when the Carboniferous flora, for example, existed in some
localities, this type of life and this only must have enveloped the
world.
"Now this belief," he says, "that geologic 'systems' are universal, is
quite as untenable as the other. It is just as absurd when considered _a
priori_: and it is equally inconsistent with the facts," for all such
systems of similar life-forms must in olden time have been of merely
"local origin," just as they are now. In other words, we have no
scientific knowledge of a time in the past when there were not
zoological provinces and zones as there are to-day, one type of life
existing in one locality, while another and totally different type
existed somewhere else.
Then, after quoting from Lyell a strong protest against the old fancy
that only certain types of sandstone and marls were made at certain
epochs, he proceeds:
"Nevertheless, while in this and numerous passages of like implication,
Sir C. Lyell protests against the bias here illustrated, he seems
himself not completely free from it. Though he utterly rejects the old
hypothesis that all over the earth the same continuous strata lie upon
each other in regular order, like the coats of an onion, he still writes
as though geologic 'systems' do thus succeed each other. A reader of his
'Manual' would certainly suppose him to believe, that the Primary epoch
ended, and the Secondary epoch commenced, all over the world at the same
time.... =Must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead,
its spirit is tractable, under a transcendental form, even in the
conclusions of its antagonists.="
Spencer then examines at considerable length the kindred idea that the
same or similar species "lived in all parts of the earth at the same
time." "This theory," he says, "is scarcely more tenable than the
other."
He then shows how in some localities there are now forming coral
deposits, in some places chalk, and in others beds of Molluscs; while in
still other places entirely different forms of life are existing. In
fact, each zone or depth of the ocean has its particular type of life,
just as successive altitudes do on the sides of a mountain; and it is a
dogmatic and arbitrary assumption to say that such conditions have not
existed in the past.
"On our own coasts, the marine remains found a few miles from shore, in
banks where fish congregate, are different from those found close to the
shore, where only littoral species flourish. A large proportion of
aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit of fossilization;
while of the rest, the great majority are destroyed, when dead, by the
various kinds of scavengers that creep among the rocks and weeds. So
that no one deposit near our shores can contain anything like a true
representation of the fauna of the surrounding sea; much less of the
co-existing faunas of other seas in the same latitude; and still less of
the faunas of seas in distant latitudes. Were it not that the assertion
seems needful, it would be almost absurd to say that the organic remains
now being buried in the Dogger Bank can tell us next to nothing about
the fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and corals that are now being buried in
the Bay of Bengal."
This author evidently found it difficult to keep within the bounds of
parliamentary language when speaking of the absurd and vicious reasoning
at the very basis of the whole current geological theory; for, unlike
the other physical sciences, the great leading ideas of geology are not
generalisations framed from the whole series or group of observed facts,
but are really abstract statements supposed to be reasonable in
themselves, or at the most =very hasty conclusions based on wholly
insufficient data=, like that of Werner in his "narrow district of
Germany." Sir Henry Howorth[2] has well expressed the urgent need that
there is of a complete reconstruction of geological theory:
"It is a singular and a notable fact, that while most other branches
of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of
metaphysical reasoning, the science of geology still remains
imprisoned in _a priori_ theories."
But Huxley[3] also has left us some remarks along the same line which
are almost equally helpful in showing the essential absurdity of the
assumption that when one type of life was living and being buried in one
locality another and very diverse type could not have been doing the
same things in other distant localities.
This is how he expresses it:
"All competent authorities will probably assent to the proposition that
physical geology does not enable us in any way to reply to this
question--Were the British Cretaceous rocks deposited at the same time
as those of India, or were they a million of years younger, or a million
of years older?"
This phase of the idea, however, is not so bad, for the human mind
refuses to believe that distant and disconnected groups of similar forms
were not connected in time and genetic relationship. It is really the
reverse of this proposition that contains the most essential absurdity,
and this is the very phase that is most essential to the whole
succession of life idea. Huxley, indeed, seems to have caught a glimpse
of this truth, for he says:
"A Devonian fauna and flora in the British Islands =may= have been
contemporaneous with Silurian life in North America, and with a
Carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa. =Geographical provinces and
zones may have been as distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at
present.="
Certainly; but if this be true, it is equally certain that the
Carboniferous flora of Pennsylvania may have been contemporaneous alike
with the Cretaceous flora of British Columbia and the Tertiary flora of
Germany and Australia. But in that case what becomes of this succession
of life which for nearly a century has been the pole star of all the
other biological sciences--I might almost say of the historical and
theological as well?
Must it not be admitted that in any system of clear thinking this whole
idea of there having really been a succession of life on the globe is
not only =not proved= by scientific methods, but that it is essentially
unprovable and absurd?
Huxley, in point of fact, admits this, though he goes right on with his
scheme of evolution, just as if he never thought of the logical
consequences involved. His words are:
"In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods (_sic_)
one verdict--'=not proven and not provable='--must be recorded against
all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general
succession of life on the globe."
In view of these startling facts, is it not amazing to see the
supernatural knowledge of the past continually and quietly assumed in
every geological vision of the earth's history?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] "Illogical Geology; Illustrations of Universal Progress," pp.
329-380; D. Appleton & Co., 1890.
[2] "The Glacial Nightmare and the Flood," Preface VII.
[3] "Discourses Biol. and Geol.," pp. 279-288.