That this law of "evolution" has
prevailed to a great extent is quite certain; but it does not
meet all the exigencies of the case, and it is probable that
its action has been supplemented by some still unknown law of
a different character.
We shall have to consider the question of geological "continuity"
again. In the meanwhile, it is sufficient to state that this
doctrine is now almost universally accepted as the basis of all
inquiries, both in the domain of geology and that of palaeontology.
The advocates of continuity possess one immense advantage over
those who believe in violent and revolutionary convulsions, that
they call into play only agencies of which we have actual knowledge.
We _know_ that certain forces are now at work, producing certain
modifications in the present condition of the globe; and we _know_
that these forces are capable of producing the vastest of the
changes which geology brings under our consideration, provided
we assign a time proportionately vast for their operation. On
the other hand, the advocates of catastrophism, to make good
their views, are compelled to invoke forces and actions, both
destructive and restorative, of which we have, and can have, no
direct knowledge. They endow the whirlwind and the earthquake,
the central fire and the rain from heaven, with powers as mighty
as ever imagined in fable, and they build up the fragments of a
repeatedly shattered world by the intervention of an intermittently
active creative power.
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