The Present Is The Key

So Far From Having A Materialistic Tendency, The Supposed Introduction Into The Earth At Successive Geological Periods Of Life,-sensation,-instinct,-the Intelligence Of The Higher Mammalia Bordering On Reason,-and Lastly The Improvable Reason Of Man Himself, Presents Us With A Picture Of The Ever-increasing Dominion Of Mind Over Matter.

Millions Of Our Race Are Now Supported By Lands Situated Where Deep Seas Once Prevailed In Earlier Ages. In Many Districts Not Yet Occupied By Man, Land Animals And Forests Now Abound Where The Anchor Once Sank Into The Oozy Bottom.

Each Species May Have Had Its Origin In A Single Pair, Or Individual, Where An Individual Was Sufficient, And Species May Have Been Created In Succession At Such Times And In Such Places As To Enable Them To Multiply And Endure For An Appointed Period, And Occupy An Appointed Space On The Globe.

[my Book] Will Endeavour To Establish The Principle[s] Of Reasoning In ... [geology]; And All My Geology Will Come In As Illustration Of My Views Of Those Principles, And As Evidence Strengthening The System Necessarily Arising Out Of The Admission Of Such Principles, Which... Are Neither More Nor Less Than That No Causes Whatever Have From The Earliest Time To Which We Can Look Back, To The Present, Ever Acted, But Those Now Acting; And That They Never Acted With Different Degrees Of Energy From That Which They Now Exert.

The Earth's Becoming At A Particular Period The Residence Of Human Beings, Was An Era In The Moral, Not In The Physical World, That Our Study And Contemplation Of The Earth, And The Laws Which Govern Its Animate Productions, Ought No More To Be Considered In The Light Of A Disturbance Or Deviation From The System, Than The Discovery Of The Satellites Of Jupiter Should Be Regarded As A Physical Event In The History Of Those Heavenly Bodies, However Influential They May Have Become From That Time In Advancing The Progress Of Sound Philosophy Among Men.