all probability, but a fraction of that of which we have no record;--if
you observe in these successive strata of rocks successive groups of
animals arising and dying out, a constant succession, giving you the
same kind of impression, as you travel from one group of strata to
another, as you would have in travelling from one country to
another;--when you find this constant succession of forms, their traces
obliterated except to the man of science,--when you look at this
wonderful history, and ask what it means, it is only a paltering with
words if you are offered the reply,--'They were so created.'

But if, on the other hand, you look on all forms of organized beings as
the results of the gradual modification of a primitive type, the facts
receive a meaning, and you see that these older conditions are the
necessary predecessors of the present. Viewed in this light the facts
of palaeontology receive a meaning--upon any other hypothesis, I am
unable to see, in the slightest degree, what knowledge or signification
we are to draw out of them. Again, note as bearing upon the same
point, the singular likeness which obtains between the successive
Faunae and Florae, whose remains are preserved on the rocks: you never
find any great and enormous difference between the immediately
successive Faunae and Florae, unless you have reason to believe there
has also been a great lapse of time or a great change of conditions.
The animals, for instance, of the newest tertiary rocks, in any part of
the world, are always, and without exception, found to be closely
allied with those which now live in that part of the world. For
example, in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the large mammals are at present
rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, elephants, lions, tigers, oxen, horses,
etc.; and if you examine the newest tertiary deposits, which contain
the animals and plants which immediately preceded those which now exist
in the same country, you do not find gigantic specimens of ant-eaters