s always answered before--and
answered with that trust which is at once her beauty and her
life--Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself.

_APPENDIX AND NOTES_

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER V.

ON OBJECTIONS WHICH HAVE BEEN BROUGHT AGAINST THE THEORY OF ORGANIC
EVOLUTION ON GROUNDS OF PALAEONTOLOGY.

While stating in the text, and in a necessarily general way, the
evidence which is yielded by palaeontology to the theory of organic
evolution, I have been desirous of not overstating it. Therefore, in the
earlier paragraphs of the chapter, which deal with the most general
heads of such evidence, I introduced certain qualifying phrases; and I
will now give the reasons which led me to do so.

Of all the five biological sciences which have been called into
evidence--viz. those of Classification, Morphology, Embryology,
Palaeontology, and Geographical Distribution--it is in the case of
palaeontology alone that any important or professional opinions still
continue to be unsatisfied. Therefore, in order that justice may be done
to this line of dissent, I have thought it better to deal with the
matter in a separate Appendix, rather than to hurry it over in the text.
And, as all the difficulties or objections which have been advanced
against the theory of evolution on grounds of palaeontology must vary, as
to their strength, with the estimate which is taken touching the degree
of imperfection of the geological record, I will begin by adding a few
paragraphs to what has already been said in the text upon this subject.

First, then, as to the difficulties in the way of fossils being formed
at all. We have already noticed in the text that it is only the more or
less hard parts of organisms which under any circumstances can be
fossilized; and even the hardest parts quickly disintegrate if not
protected from the weather on land, or from the water on the sea-bottom.
Moreover, as Darwin says, "we probably take a quite erroneous view when
we assume that sediment is being deposited over nearly the whole bed of
the sea, at a rate sufficiently quick to embed and preserve fossil
remains. Throughout an enormously large proportion of the ocean, the
bright blue tint of the water bespeaks its purity. The many cases on
record of a formation conformably covered, after an immense interval of
time, by another and a later formation, without the underlying bed
having suffered in the interval any wear and tear, seem explicable only
on the