"Species, like individuals, have a certain limited term of existence. It is the fact, that, according to some general law, species of animals are introduced, last for a limited period, and are then succeeded by others performing the same office."—Ansted's Ancient World, 52, 54.
[101] "The unity of the plan of organization, and the regular succession of animal forms, point out a beginning of this great kingdom on the surface of our globe, although the earliest stages of its development may now be effaced: and the continuity of the series though all geological epochs, and the gradual transitions which connect the species of one formation with those of the next in succession, distinctly indicate that they form the parts of one creation, and not the heterogeneous remnants of successive kingdoms begun and destroyed: so that, while they present the best records of the changes which the surface of the globe has undergone, they likewise afford the best testimony of the recent origin of the present crust of our planet, and of all its organic inhabitants."—Dr. Grant, in Br. Sci. Annual for 1839.
[102] Dr. Harris has the following observations:—
"Why might not God have created the crust of the earth, just as it is, with all its numberless stratifications, and diversified formations, complete? And the analogy for such an exercise of creative power is supposed to be found in the creation of Adam, not as an infant, but as an adult; and in the production of the full-sized trees of Eden. To which the reply is direct: the maturity of the first man, and of the objects around him, could not deceive him by implying that they had slowly grown to that state. His first knowledge was the knowledge of the contrary. He lived, partly, in order to proclaim the fact of his creation. And, could his own body, or any of the objects created at the same time, have been subjected to a physiological examination, they would, no doubt, have been found to indicate their miraculous production in their very destitution of all the traces of an early growth; whereas the shell of the earth is a crowded storehouse of evidence of its gradual formation. So that the question, expressed in other language, amounts to this: Might not the God of infinite truth have enclosed in the earth, at its creation, evidence of its having existed ages before its actual production? Of course, the objector would disavow such a sentiment. But such appears to be the real import of the objection; and, as such, it involves its own refutation."—Pre-Adamite Earth, p. 83.
Now this reasoning appeared, doubtless, very triumphant to the worthy Doctor: and yet a very little acquaintance with physiology would have taught him that he was enunciating an absurdity. The very supposition which he considers as self-refuting, is an indubitable physiological fact. I have abundantly shown, in the text, that the cells which compose the tree or the animal are as undeniable evidences of past processes as the concentric cylinders of timber, or the superposed layers of bone and scale.
[103] I here assume the life-history of the globe to be represented by a straight line, because I cannot prove it to be a circle. I cannot even imagine its circularity. I do not mean the possibility;—I can imagine that: but the mode I cannot conceive. This, however, does not disprove the possibility. If man's science extended not beyond the accumulated observations of his own life, he would probably be quite incompetent to conceive how the life-history of such a tree as the Oak could be a circle; if he had never seen more than one individual, which was a tree when he was born, and continued to flourish till his death.
[104] The existence of Coprolites—the fossilized excrement of animals—has been considered a more than ordinarily triumphant proof of real pre-existence. Would it not be closely parallel with the presence of fæces in the intestines of an animal at the moment of creation? Yet this appears to me demonstrable. It may seem at first sight ridiculous, and will probably be represented so; but truth is truth. I have already proved that blood must have been in the arteries and veins of the newly-created Man (vide p. 276, supra), and that blood presupposes chyle and chyme; but what became of the indigestible residuum of the chyme, when the chyle was separated from it? Would it not, as a matter of course, be found in the intestines? If the principle is true, that the created organism was exactly what it would have been had it reached that condition by the ordinary course of nature, then fæcal residua must have been in the intestines as certainly as chyle in the lacteals, or blood in the capillaries.
[105] Blackwood; April, 1849; p. 412.
[106] Strictly speaking, the current is a lagging behind of the water, which cannot keep pace with the speed communicated to the solid crust of the globe at its equatorial regions. The trade-wind is owing to the same cause.
[107] Philos. Trans. for 1802; p. 498.