It Is Probable That A Greater Number

I May Conclude This Chapter By Quoting A Saying Of Professor Agassiz, That Whenever A New And Startling Fact Is Brought To Light In Science, People First Say, 'it Is Not True,' Then That 'it Is Contrary To Religion,' And Lastly, 'that Everybody Knew It Before.'

It Must Have Appeared Almost As Improbable To The Earlier Geologists, That The Laws Of Earthquakes Should One Day Throw Light On The Origin Of Mountains, As It Must To The First Astronomers, That The Fall Of An Apple Should Assist In Explaining The Motions Of The Moon.

The Present Is The Key To The Past

In The Course Of This Short Tour, I Became Convinced That We Must Turn To The New World If We Wish To See In Perfection The Oldest Monuments Of The Earth's History, So Far At Least As Relates To Its Earliest Inhabitants.

Hitherto, No Rival Hypothesis Has Been Proposed As A Substitute For The Doctrine Of Transmutation; For 'independent Creation,' As It Is Often Termed, Or The Direct Intervention Of The Supreme Cause, Must Simply Be Considered As An Avowal That We Deem The Question To Lie Beyond The Domain Of Science.