We see this in the plainest manner by the fact that
all the most eminent palaeontologists, namely Cuvier, Owen, Agassiz,
Barrande, Falconer, E. Forbes, etc., and all our greatest geologists,
as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, etc., have unanimously, often
vehemently, maintained the immutability of species. But I have reason
to believe that one great authority, Sir Charles Lyell, from further
reflexion entertains grave doubts on this subject. I feel how rash it
is to differ from these great authorities, to whom, with others, we
owe all our knowledge. Those who think the natural geological record
in any degree perfect, and who do not attach much weight to the facts
and arguments of other kinds given in this volume, will undoubtedly at
once reject my theory. For my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I
look at the natural geological record, as a history of the world
imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of this history
we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three
countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has
been preserved; and of each page, only here and there a few lines.
Each word of the slowly-changing language, in which the history is
supposed to be written, being more or less different in the
interrupted succession of chapters, may represent the apparently
abruptly changed forms of life, entombed in our consecutive, but
widely separated formations. On this view, the difficulties above
discussed are greatly diminished, or even disappear.
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