The Origin of the World According to Revelation and Science

by Sir John William Dawson

It would be quite unphilosophical for geology to affirm either that animal life must always have existed, or that its earliest animals are necessarily the earliest organic beings. To use, with a slight modification, the words of an able thinker on these subjects, [88] "For ages the prejudice prevailed that the historical period, or that which is coeval with the life of man, exhausted the whole history of the globe. Geologists removed that prejudice," but must not substitute "another in its place, viz., that geological time is coeval with the globe itself, or that organic life always existed on its surface."

A second doubt as to the existence of this primitive flora may be based on the statement that it included the highest forms of plants. Had it consisted only of low and imperfect vegetables, there might have been much less difficulty in admitting its probability. Farther, we find that even in the Carboniferous period scarcely any plants of the higher orders flourished, and there was a preponderance of the lower forms of the vegetable kingdom. We have, however, in geological chronology, many illustrations of the fact that the progress of improvement has not been continuous or uninterrupted, and that the preservation of the flora and fauna of many geological periods has been very imperfect. Hence the occurrence in one particular stratum or group of strata of few or low representatives of animal and vegetable life affords no proof that a better state of things may not have existed previously. We also find, in the case of animals, that each tribe attained to its highest development at the time when, in the progress of creation, it occupied the summit of the scale of life. Analogy would thus lead us to believe that when plants alone existed, they may have assumed nobler forms than any now existing, or that tribes now represented by few and humble species may at that time have been so great in numbers and development as to fill all the offices of our present complicated flora, as well as, perhaps, some of those now occupied by animals. We have this principle exemplified in the Carboniferous flora, by the magnitude of its arborescent club-mosses, and the vast variety of its gymnosperms. For this reason we may anticipate that if any remains of this early plant-creation should be disinterred, they will prove to be among the most wonderful and interesting geological relics ever discovered, and will enlarge our views of the compass and capabilities of the vegetable kingdom, and especially of its lower forms.

A farther objection is the uselessness of the existence of plants for a long period, without any animals to subsist on or enjoy them, and even without forming any accumulation of fossil fuel or other products useful to man. The only direct answer to this has already been given. The previous existence of plants may have been, and probably was, essential to the comfort and subsistence of the animals afterwards introduced. Independently of this, however, we have an analogous case in the geological history of animals, which prevents this fact from standing alone. Why was the earth tenanted so long by the inferior races of animals, and why were so much skill and contrivance expended on their structures, and even on their external ornament, when there was no intelligent mind on earth to appreciate their beauties. Even in the present world we may as well ask why the uninhabited islands of the ocean are found to be replete with luxuriant vegetable life, why God causes it to rain in the desert where human foot never treads, or why he clothes with a marvellous exuberance of beautiful animal and plant forms the depths of the sea. We can but say that these things seemed and seem good to the Creator, and may serve uses unknown to us; and this is precisely what we must be content to say respecting the plant-creation of the Eozoic period.

Some writers [89] on this subject have suggested that the cosmical use of this plant-creation was the abstraction from the atmosphere of an excess of carbonic acid unfavorable to the animal life subsequently to be introduced. This use it may have served, and when its effects had been gradually lost through metamorphism and decay, that second great withdrawal of carbon which took place in the Carboniferous period may have been rendered necessary. The reasons afforded by natural history for supposing that plants preceded animals are thus stated by Professor Dana:

"The proof from science of the existence of plants before animals is inferential, and still may be deemed satisfactory. Distinct fossils have not been found, all that ever existed in the azoic [90] rocks having been obliterated. The arguments in the affirmative are as follows:

"1. The existence of limestone rocks among the other beds, similar limestones in later ages having been of organic origin; also the occurrence of carbon in the shape of graphite, graphite being, in known cases in rocks, a result of the alteration of the carbon of plants.

"2. The fact that the cooling earth would have been fitted for vegetable life for a long age before animals could have existed; the principle being exemplified everywhere that the earth was occupied at each period with the highest kinds of life the conditions allowed.

"3. The fact that vegetation subserved an important purpose in the coal-period in ridding the atmosphere of carbonic acid for the subsequent introduction of land animals, suggests a valid reason for believing that the same great purpose, the true purpose of vegetation, was effected through the ocean before the waters were fitted for animal life.

"4. Vegetation being directly or mediately the food of animals, it must have had a previous existence. The latter part of the azoic age in geology we therefore regard as the age when the plant kingdom was instituted, the latter half of the third day in Genesis. However short or long the epoch, it was one of the great steps of progress."

In concluding the examination of the work of the third day, I must again remind the reader that, on the theory of long creative periods, the words under consideration must refer to the first introduction of vegetation, in forms that have long since ceased to exist. Geology informs us that in the period of which it is cognizant the vegetation of the earth has been several times renewed, and that no plants of the older and middle geological periods now exist. We may therefore rest assured that the vegetable species, and probably also many of the generic and family forms of the vegetation of the third day, have long since perished, and been replaced by others suited to the changed condition of the earth. It is indeed probable that during the third and fourth days themselves there might be many removals and renewals of the terrestrial flora, so that perhaps every species created at the commencement of the introduction of plants may have been extinct before the close of the period. Nevertheless it was marked by the introduction of vegetation, which in one or another set of forms has ever since clothed the earth.