to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer."[1]
Nay says the Geologist, for if the stone were a pebble, the adventures of this pebble may have been many and various, and fraught with records of physical events, that produced important changes upon the surface of our planet; and its rolled condition implies that it has undergone considerable locomotion by the action of water.
Or, should the stone be Sandstone, or part of any Conglomerate, or fragmentary stratum, made up of the rounded detritus of other rocks, the ingredients of such a stone would bear similar evidence of movements by the force of water, which reduced them to the state of sand, or pebbles, and transported them to their present place, before the existence of the stratum of which they form a part; consequently no such stratum can have lain in its present place for ever.
Again, should the supposed stone contain within it the petrified remains of any fossil Animal or fossil Plant, these would not only show that animal and vegetable life had preceded the formation of the rock in which they are embedded; but their organic structure might afford examples of contrivance and design, as unequivocally attesting the exercise of Intelligence and Power, as the mechanism of a Watch or Steam engine, or any other instrument produced by human art, bears evidence of intention and skill in the workman who invented and constructed them.
Lastly, should it even be Granite, or any crystalline Primary Rock, containing neither organic remains, nor fragments of other rocks more ancient than itself] it can still be shown that there was a time when even stones of this class
- ↑ I have quoted this passage, not in disparagement of the general argument of Paley, which is altogether independent of the incidental and needless comparison with which he has prefaced it, but to show the importance of the addition, that has been made by the discoveries of Geology and Mineralogy, to the evidence of the non-eternity of the earth, which so great a master pronounced to be imperfect, for lack of such information as these modern sciences have recently supplied.
