their own. Thus, in the present instance, the controversy turns upon the
mode in which the separation was effected, which affords the widest field
for conjecture, while they both agree that such separation has taken
place. As to this fact I have not yet made up my mind, though it must
be confessed that there is much to give plausibility to their opinion.
I recognise, for instance, a striking resemblance between the animal
and vegetable productions of Asia and those of the moon."

"Do you think, father," said I, "that animal, or even vegetable life,
could possibly exist in such a disruption as is supposed?"

"Why not?" said he: "you are not to imagine that the shock would be felt
in proportion to the mass that was moved. On the contrary, while it would
occasion, in some parts, a great destruction of life, it would, in others,
not be felt more than an earthquake, or rather, than a succession of
earthquakes, during the time that the different parts of the mass were
adjusting themselves to a spherical form; whilst a few pairs, or even a
single pair of animals, saved in some cavity of a mountain, would be
sufficient, in a few centuries, to stock the whole surface of the earth
with as many individuals as are now to be found on it.

"After all," he added, "it is often difficult in science to distinguish
Truth from the plausibility which personates her. But let us not, however,
be precipitate; let us but hear both sides. In the east we have a saying,
that 'he who hears with but one ear, never hears well.'"




CHAPTER V.