species, or by an Eternal Succession from preceding individuals of the same species, without any evidence of a Beginning or prospect of an End, has no where been met by so full an answer, as that afforded by the phenomena, of fossil Organic Remains.
In the course of our inquiry, we have found abundant proofs, both of the Beginning and the End of several successive systems of animal and vegetable life; each compelling us to refer its origin to the direct agency of Creative Interference; "We conceive it undeniable, that we see, in the transition from an Earth peopled by one set of animals to the same Earth swarming with entirely new forms of organic life, a distinct manifestation of creative power transcending the operation of known laws of nature: and it appears to us, that Geology has thus lighted a new lamp along the path of Natural Theology."[1]
Whatever alarm therefore may have been excited in the earlier stages of their development, the time is now arrived when Geological discoveries appear to be so far from disclosing any phenomena, that are not in harmony with the arguments supplied by other branches of physical Science, in proof of the existence and agency of One and the same all-wise and all-powerful Creator, that they add to the evidences of Natural Religion links of high importance that have confessedly been wanting, and are now filled up by
rive at full maturity. In a more extended sense, the term is also applied to those progressive changes in fossil genera and species, which have followed one another during the deposition of the strata of the earth, in the course of the gradual advancement of the grand system of Creation. The some term has been adopted by Lamarck, to express his hypothetical views of the derivation of existing species from preceding species, by successive Transmutations of one form of organization into another term, independent of the influence of any creative Agent. It is important that these distinctions should be rightly understood, lest the frequent application of the word Developement, which occurs in the writings of modern physiologists, should lead to a false inference, that the use of this term implies an admission of the theory of Transmutation with which Lamarck has associated it.
- ↑ British Critic, No. XVII. Jan. 1831, p. 194.
