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One explains the term "days" to mean long periods of time; the other accepts the word in its ordinary and most natural sense, and endeavours to eliminate the long course of developmental work made known to us by palaeontological science, and supposes all that to have been passed over in silence; and argues that a final preparation for the advent of the man Adam was made in a special work of six days.
The Anniversary Meeting of the Geological Society seems to be an occasion well suited for an undertaking of this kind for an inquiry, in fact, into the nature and value of the present results of palaeontological investigation; and the more so, as all those who have paid close attention to the late multitudinous discussions in which palaeontology is implicated, must have felt the urgent necessity of some such scrutiny.
The conclusions of Steinmann, that are most important for us, may be summarized as follows: 1. The family and transition forms demanded from palaeontology by Darwinism for its family-trees, constructed not empirically but a priori, are nowhere to be found among the abundant materials which palaeontological investigation has already produced.
I will here interrupt my argument for a moment to say that there is a certain degree of coincidence between the succession of life on the earth as far as it is explained by palaeontological research, and the order of creation stated in Genesis; but that is not concerned with any forced interpretation of the term "day."
What an infinite number of generations, which the mind cannot grasp, must have succeeded each other in the long roll of years! Now turn to our richest geological museums, and what a paltry display we behold! That our palaeontological collections are very imperfect, is admitted by every one.
At the time of its appearance in a new form, forty years ago, it exercised a beneficial influence on scientific progress and induced a great number of capable minds to devote themselves to the study of anatomical, palaeontological and evolutionary problems.
What he says in effect is, not that palaeontological evidence is against him, but that it is not distinctly in his favour; and, without attempting to attenuate the fact, he accounts for it by the scantiness and the imperfection of that evidence.
As this point has been selected as a line of demarkation for one of the three great divisions of the fossiliferous series, the student might naturally expect that by aid of lithological and palaeontological characters he would be able to recognise without difficulty a distinct break between the newer and older group.
But there is no other way of escape. Prof. Bronco, of the Geological and Palaeontological Institute of Berlin University, says, "Man appeared suddenly in the Quaternary period. Palaeontology tells us nothing on the subject, it knows nothing of the ancestors of man." As fossils must be imbedded in rock, there is not a single fossil of an ape-man in the world.
Gladstone mentions. If he will get them to sign a joint memorial to the effect that our present palaeontological evidence proves that birds appeared before the "land-population" of terrestrial reptiles, I shall think it my duty to reconsider my position but not till then.
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