FACT NUMBER ONE
Hitherto we have been dealing only with the _a priori_ aspects of the
succession of life idea. We have seen that it is really based on two
primary assumptions, viz.:
(1) That over all the earth the fossils =must always occur= in the
particular order in which they were found to occur in a few corners of
Western Europe; and also--
(2) That in the long ago =there were no such things as zoological
provinces and zones=, and totally different types of fossils from
separated localities could not possibly have been contemporaneous with
one another as we know they are to-day in "recent" deposits.[13]
On the blending of these two assumptions, the latter essentially absurd,
and the former long ago disproved by the facts of the rocks, has been
built up the towering structure of a complete "phylogenic series" from
the Cambrian to the Pleistocene. The way in which, as we have been,
Spencer and Huxley treated this subject, reminds us very much of the old
advice, "When you meet with an insuperable difficulty, look it
steadfastly in the face--and pass on." For neither they nor any of their
thousands of followers have ever, so far as I know, pointed out the
horrible logic in taking this immense complex of guesses and assumptions
as the starting-point for new departures, the solid foundation for
detailed "investigations" as to =just how= this wonderful phenomenon of
development has occurred. For after Agassiz and his contemporaries had
built on these large assumptions of Cuvier, and had arranged the details
and the exact order of these successive forms by comparison with the
embryonic life of the modern individual, the evolutionists of our time,
led by such men as Spencer and Haeckel, with their "philogenetic
principle," =prove= their theory of evolution by showing that the
embryonic life of the individual is only "a brief recapitulation, as it
were from memory," of the geological succession in time. There would
really seem to be little hope of reaching with any arguments a
generation of scientists who can elaborate genealogical trees of descent
for the different families and genera of the animal kingdom, based
wholly on such a series of assumptions and blind guesses, and then palm
off their work on a credulous world as the proved results of =inductive=
science.
And yet I am tempted to make some effort in this direction. And since we
have now examined the _a priori_ aspects of the question, it remains to
test the two above mentioned assumptions by the facts of the rocks. The
=second=, indeed, involving as it does a profound supernatural knowledge
of the past, and being so positively contrary to all that we know of the
modern world as to seem essentially absurd, is yet by its very nature
beyond the reach of any tests that we can bring to bear upon it. Hence
it remains to test by the facts of the rocks =the assumption that all
over the earth the fossils invariably occur in the particular order in
which they were first found in a few corners of Western Europe= by the
founders of the science. Have we already a sufficiently broad knowledge
of the rocks of the world to decide such a question? I think we have.
To begin then at the beginning, let us try to find out how we can fix on
the rocks which are absolutely the oldest on the globe. We would expect
to find a good many patches of them here and there, but there must be
some common characteristic by which they may be distinguished wherever
found. Of course, when I say "rocks" here I mean fossils, for as has
long been agreed upon by geologists, mineral and mechanical characters
are of practically no use in determining the age of deposits, and we are
here dealing only with life and the order in which it has occurred on
the globe. Accordingly our problem is really to find that typical group
of fossils which is essentially older than all dissimilar groups of
fossils.
In most localities we do not have to go very far down[14] into the earth
to find granite or other so-called igneous rocks, which not only do not
contain any traces of fossils, but which we have no proper reason for
supposing ever contained any. These Azoic or Archaean rocks constitute
practically all the earth's crust, there being only a thin skim of
fossiliferous strata on the outside somewhat like the skin on an apple.
Now it would be natural enough to suppose that those fossils which occur
at the bottom, or next to the Archaean, are the oldest. This is
doubtless what the earlier geologists had in mind, or at least ought to
have had, for it is not quite certain that they had any clear thoughts
on the matter whatever. They did not really begin at the bottom, but
half way up, so to speak, at the Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks, and
Sedgwick and Murchison, who undertook to find bottom, got too excited
over their Cambro-Silurian controversy to attend to such an
insignificant detail as the logical proof that any type of fossils was
really older than all others. If they had really stopped to consider
that some type of fossil might occur next to the Archaean in Wales, and
another type occur thus in Scotland, while still another type altogether
might be found in this position in some other locality, and so on over
the world, leading us to the very natural conclusion that in the olden
times as now =there were zoological provinces and districts=, the
history of science during the nineteenth century might have been very
different, and this chapter might never have been written. But this
commonplace of modern geology, that any type of fossil whatever, even
the very "youngest," may occur next to the Archaean, was not then
considered or understood; and when about 1830 it came to be recognized,
other things were allowed to obscure its significance, and the habit of
arranging the rocks in chronological order according to their fossils
was too firmly established to be disturbed by such an idea.
But the Fact Number One, which I have chosen as the subject of this
chapter, is the now well established principle that =any kind of fossil
whatever, even "young" Tertiary rocks, may rest upon the Archaean or
Azoic series, or may themselves be almost wholly metamorphosed or
crystalline, thus resembling in position and outward appearance the
so-called "oldest" rocks=.
The first part of this proposition, about any rocks occurring next to
the Archaean, is covered by the following quotation from Dana:[15]
"A stratum of one era may rest upon any stratum in the whole of the
series below it,--the Coal-measures on either the Archaean, Silurian, or
Devonian strata; and the Jurassic, Cretaceous, or Tertiary on any one of
the earlier rocks, the intermediate being wanting. The Quaternary in
America in some cases rests on Archaean rocks, in others on Silurian or
Devonian, in others on Cretaceous or Tertiary."
It would be tedious to multiply testimony on a point so universally
understood.
As for the other half of this fact, that even the so-called "youngest"
rocks may be metamorphic and crystalline just as well as the "oldest,"
it also is now a recognized commonplace of science. Dana[16] says that
as early as 1833 Lyell taught this as a general truth applicable to "all
the formations from the earliest to the latest."
The first reference I can find to any disproof of this old fable of
Werner's, that only certain kinds of rock are to be found next to the
"Primitive" or Archaean, is in the observations of Studer and Beaumont
in the Alps, (1826-28), who found "relatively young" fossils in
crystalline schists, which, as Zittel says, "was a very great blow to
the geologists who upheld the hypothesis of the Archaean or pre-Cambrian
age of all gneisses and schists."
James Geikie, doubtless referring to the same series of rocks, tells us
that:--
"In the central Alps of Switzerland, some of the Eocene strata are so
highly metamorphosed that they closely resemble some of the most ancient
deposits of the globe, consisting, as they do, of crystalline rocks,
marble, quartz-rock, mica schist, and gneiss."[17]
Hence we need not be surprised at the following statement of the
situation by Zittel.[18]
"The last fifteen years of the nineteenth century witnessed very great
advances in our knowledge of rock-deformation and metamorphism. =It has
been found that there is no geological epoch whose sedimentary deposits
have been wholly safeguarded from metamorphic changes=, and, as this
broad fact has come to be realized, it has proved most unsettling, and
has necessitated a revision of the stratigraphy of many districts in the
light of new possibilities. The newer researches scarcely recognize any
theory; they are directed rather to the empirical method of obtaining
all possible information regarding microscopic and field evidences of
the passage from metamorphic to igneous rocks, and from metamorphic to
sedimentary rocks."
But in addition to what Zittel means by recognizing "no theory" as to
the origin of the various sorts of "igneous" rocks, it seems to me that
this "broad fact" ought surely to prove "most unsettling," to the
traditional theories about certain fossils being intrinsically older
than others. With our minds divested of all prejudice, and this "broad"
Fact Number One well comprehended, that any kind of fossil whatever may
occur next to the Archaean, and the rocky strata containing it may in
texture and appearance "closely resemble some of the most ancient
deposits on the globe," =where= on this broad earth shall we look for
the place =to start= our life-succession That is, where can we now go to
find those kinds of fossils which we can prove, by independent
arguments, to be absolutely older than all others? It may seem very
difficult for some of us to discard a theory so long an integral part of
all geology; but until it can be proved that this "broad fact" as stated
by Zittel and Dana is no fact at all, I see no escape from the
acknowledgment that the doctrine of any particular fossils being
essentially older than others is a pure invention, with absolutely
nothing in nature to support it.
Or, to state the matter in another way, since the life succession theory
rests logically and historically on Werner's notion that only certain
kinds of rocks (fossils) are to be found at the "bottom" or next to the
Archaean, and it is now acknowledged everywhere that any kind of rocks
whatever may be thus situated, it is as clear as sunlight that the life
succession theory rests logically and historically on a myth, and that
there is =no way of proving what kind of fossil was buried first=.
Of course, the reason the followers of Cuvier and his life succession
now find themselves in such a fix as this is because they have not been
following true inductive methods. Theirs has been a geology by
hypothesis instead of by observed fact. They started out with a pretty
scheme ready-made about the origin and formation of the world, perfectly
innocent of any evil intent in such a method of procedure, and
unconscious of its speculative character; and for nearly a hundred years
they have supposed that they were following inductive methods in
Geology. But in view of what we have now learned I think we are
perfectly justified in adapting and applying to Cuvier and the modern
school of geologists what Geikie[19] says about Werner and his school:
"But never in the history of science did a stranger hallucination arise
than that of Cuvier and the modern school, when they supposed themselves
to discard theory and build on a foundation of accurately ascertained
fact. Never was a system devised in which theory was more rampant;
theory, too, unsupported by observation, and, as we now know, utterly
erroneous. From beginning to end of Cuvier's method and its
applications, assumptions were made for which there was no ground, and
these assumptions were treated as demonstrable facts. The very point to
be proved was taken for granted, and the evolutionary geologists who
boasted of their avoidance of speculation, were in reality among the
most hopelessly speculative of all the generations that had tried to
solve the problem of the theory of the earth."
FOOTNOTES:
[13] The onion-coat hypothesis, which is the only other alternative,
modern science professes to have abandoned.
[14] When the text-books speak of ten or twelve miles thickness of the
fossiliferous rocks, the reader should remember how the rocks have
to be patched up together from here and there to make this
incredible thickness, as only a small fraction of such a thickness
exists in any one place.
[15] "Manual," p. 399, Fourth Ed.
[16] "Manual," p. 408.
[17] "Manual of Historical Geol.," p. 74.
[18] "Hist.," p. 360.
[19] "Founders of Geology," p. 112.