To this line of argument we must be content to reply, that we have no wish to limit the power of God. But we have learned from our daily experience that in the physical world He is pleased to employ the agency of secondary causes; and when we know that for many ages a certain effect has been uniformly produced by a certain cause, and not otherwise, then if we again see the effect, we infer the cause. When a traveller in the untrodden wilds of Western America, comes upon a forest of great trees, or a herd of unknown animals, surely he never thinks of supposing that the wild beasts and the forest trees came directly from the hand of the Creator, in that state of maturity in which he beholds them. And why? for it might be argued that the power of God is unbounded, and he might have created them as they now are if He had so pleased. Is it not that the traveller is impelled, by an instinct of his nature, to interpret the works of God which he now sees for the first time, according to the analogy of those with which he has been long familiar? Now this is just the principle for which we are contending. According to all our experience of the works of God in the physical world, the living body comes first, and the skeleton afterward; the living tree comes first, and afterward the prostrate trunk and the splintered branches. Therefore when we meet with a skeleton, we conclude that it was once a living body; and when we find the petrified stems, and branches, and leaves of trees, we have no doubt that they are the remains of an ancient vegetation.
But, in truth, if any one, with all the facts of the case fully before his mind, were deliberately to adopt this theory, that Fossils, as we find them now, were created by God in the Crust of the Earth, we candidly confess we have no argument that we should think likely to shake his conviction; just as we should be utterly at a loss if he were to say that the Pyramids of Egypt, or the colossal sculptures of Nineveh, or the ruins of Baalbec, were created by God from the beginning. The evidence of human workmanship is certainly not more clear in the one case than is the evidence of animal and vegetable life in the other. We believe, however, that no such persons are to be found; that theories of this kind have their origin, not so much in false reasoning, as in imperfect knowledge of facts; and we have, therefore, judged it most expedient not to spend our time in a discussion of philosophical axioms, but to set forth the facts, and leave them to speak for themselves.
CHAPTER XII.
GEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGY—PRINCIPLES OF THE SYSTEM EXPLAINED AND DEVELOPED.
Significance of fossil remains—Science of Palæontology—Classification of existing animal life—Fossil remains are found to fit in with this classification—Succession of organic life—Time in Geology not measured by years and centuries—Successive periods marked by successive forms of life—The Geologist aims at arranging these periods in chronological order—Position of the various groups of strata not sufficient for this purpose—It is accomplished chiefly through the aid of fossil remains—Mode of proceeding practically explained—Chronological table.
The existence of Fossil Remains is, then, a fact. Go where you will through the civilized world, and every chief town has its Museum, into which they have been gathered by the zeal and industry of man; descend where you can into the Crust of the Earth,—the quarry, the mine, the railway cutting,—and there, notwithstanding the plunder which has been going on for two centuries or more, you will find that the inexhaustible cabinets of Nature are still teeming with these remains of ancient life.
When we are brought, for the first time, face to face with these countless relics of a former world, we are impressed with a sense of wonder and bewilderment. That the skeletons before us, though now dry and withered, were once animated with the breath of life; that the trees now lying shattered and prostrate, and shorn of their branches, once flourished on the earth, we cannot for a moment hesitate to believe. But beyond this one fact, all is darkness and mystery. These gaunt skeletons, these uncouth monsters, these petrified forests, are silent, lifeless, as the rocks within whose stony bosoms they have lain so long entombed. Had they speech and memory, they could tell us much, no doubt, of that ancient world in which they bore a part, of its continents, and seas, and rivers, and mountains; of the various tribes of animals and plants by which it was peopled; of their habits and domestic economy; how they lived, how they died, and how they were buried in those graves from which, after the lapse of we know not how many ages, they now come forth into the light of day. As it is, however, we can but gaze and wonder. We have nothing here but the relics of death and destruction: there is no feeling, no memory, no voice, in these dry bones; no living tenant in these hollow skulls, to recount to us the history of former times.
So thinks and reasons the ordinary observer. But far different is the language of the Geologist. These dry and withered bones, he tells us, are gifted with memory and speech; and, though the language they speak may seem at first unfamiliar and obscure, it is not, on that account, beyond our comprehension. Like the birds, reptiles, fish, and other symbols, inscribed on the obelisks of ancient Egypt, these bones and shells stored up in the Crust of the Earth, have a hidden meaning which it is the business of Science to search out and explain. They are Nature’s hieroglyphics, which she has impressed upon her works to carry down to remote ages the memory of the revolutions through which our Globe has passed; and when we come to understand them aright, they do unfold to us the story of that ancient world to which they belonged.
The interpretation of Fossil Remains is, then, an important department of Geology. Of late years it has been admitted to the rank of a special science, under the name of Palæontology, which means, as the word denotes—παλαιῶν ὄντων λόγος—the science which is concerned about the organic remains of ancient life. The honor of having been the first to place this science on a solid basis, in fact we may say the honor of having brought it into existence, is justly accorded to the distinguished Cuvier, whose name shed a lustre upon France during the early years of the present century. It is therefore still in its infancy; but it has already rewarded the zeal of its students by many wonderful and unexpected revelations. We purpose in the first place to examine the principles on which it is founded, and then to take a rapid glance at the conclusions to which it has led.