As Some Of The Lowest Organisms, In

About Thirty Years Ago There Was Much Talk That Geologists Ought Only To Observe And Not Theorise; And I Well Remember Some One Saying That At This Rate A Man Might As Well Go Into A Gravel-pit And Count The Pebbles And Describe The Colours. How Odd It Is That Anyone Should Not See That All Observation Must Be For Or Against Some View If It Is To Be Of Any Service!

I Have Long Discovered That Geologists Never Read Each Other's Works, And That The Only Object In Writing A Book Is A Proof Of Earnestness.

Linnaeus And Cuvier Have Been My Two Gods, Though In Very Different Ways, But They Were Mere Schoolboys To Old Aristotle.

I Am Aware That The Conclusions Arrived At In This Work Will Be Denounced By Some As Highly Irreligious; But He Who Denounces Them Is Bound To Show Why It Is More Irreligious To Explain The Origin Of Man As A Distinct Species By Descent From Some Lower From, Through The Laws Of Variation And Natural Selection, Than To Explain The Birth Of The Individual Through The Laws Of Ordinary Reproduction. The Birth Both Of The Species And Of The Individual Are Equally Parts Of That Grand Sequence Of Events, Which Our Minds Refuse To Accept As The Result Of Blind Chance.

The Western Nations Of Europe, Who Now So Immeasurably Surpass Their Former Savage Progenitors, And Stand At The Summit Of Civilization, Owe Little Or None Of Their Superiority To Direct Inheritance From The Old Greeks, Though They Owe Much To The Written Works Of That Wonderful People.