must in this case have stood in the
most immediate connection with, and in perfect subordination to, those
powers which caused the gradually progressing perfection of the crust
of the earth, and the gradual development of the outward conditions of
life for the constantly increasing numbers and higher classes of
organic forms in consequence of this perfection. Only in this way can
we explain how the development of the organic world could have
regularly kept pace with that of the inorganic. Such a power, although
we know it not, would not only be in perfect accordance with all the
other functions of nature, but the Creator, who regulated the
development of organic nature by means of such a force so implanted in
it, as he guides that of the inorganic world by the mere co-operation
of attraction and affinity, must appear to us more exalted and
imposing than if we assumed that he must always be giving the same
care to the introduction and change of the vegetable and animal world
on the surface of the earth as a gardener daily bestows on each
individual plant in the arrangement of his garden.

"7. We therefore believe that all species of plants and animals were
originally produced by some natural power unknown to us, and not by
transformation from a few original forms, and that that power was in
the closest and most necessary connection with those powers and
circumstances which effected the perfection of the earth's surface."

Barrande also, probably the greatest living palaeontologist of Europe,
adheres substantially to these views; as Agassiz did, and I believe
Hall and Dana still do, in America.

I have, for my own part, seen no reason to dissent from these views,
though in the sequel I shall endeavor to present some considerations
which may tend to reconcile with them some of the hypotheses of a
contrary nature now held. It must be admitted, however, that the
majority of geologists and biologists have abandoned these views of
Pictet and Bronn, and have gone over to the evolutionist philosophy,
with how little reason I have endeavored to show elsewhere,[147] and
shall farther illustrate in the Appendix. Let it be observed, however,
that even evolution does not affect the grand idea of the unity of
nature, or the fact that the plan of the Creator in the organic world
was so vast that it required the whole duration of our planet, in all
its stages of physical existence, to embrace the whole. There is but
one system of or