With these general results in mind, we must now become acquainted with
such subjects as the interpretation of fossils, the causes for the
incompleteness of the series, the conditions for fossilization, the forces
of geological nature, and other matters that make the fossils themselves
intelligible as scientific evidence.

* * * * *

Many views have been entertained regarding the actual nature of the relics
of antiquity exhumed from the rocks or exposed upon the surface by the
wear and tear of natural agencies. In earliest times such things were
variously considered as curious freaks of geological formation, as sports
of nature, or as the remains of the slain left upon the battle-ground of
mythical Titans. Some of the Greeks supposed that fossils were parts of
animals formed in the bowels of the earth by a process of spontaneous
generation, which had died before they could make their way to the
surface. They were sometimes described as the bones of creatures stranded
upon the dry land by tidal waves, or by some such catastrophe as the
traditional flood of the scriptures. In medieval times, and even in our
own day, some people who have been opposed to the acceptance of any
portion of the doctrine of evolution have actually defended the view that
the things called fossils were never the shells or bones of animals living
in bygone times, but that they only simulate such things and have been
created as such together with the layers of rock from which they may have
been taken. If we employed the same arguments in dealing with the broken
fragments of vases and jewelry taken from the Egyptian tombs or from the
buried ruins of Pompeii, we would have to believe that such pieces were
created as fragments and that they were never portions of complete
objects, just because no one alive to-day has ever seen the perfect vessel