The Present Is The Key

Hitherto, No Rival Hypothesis Has Been Proposed As A Substitute For The Doctrine Of Transmutation; For 'independent Creation,' As It Is Often Termed, Or The Direct Intervention Of The Supreme Cause, Must Simply Be Considered As An Avowal That We Deem The Question To Lie Beyond The Domain Of Science.

It Was A Profound Saying Of Wilhelm Humboldt, That 'man Is Man Only By Means Of Speech, But In Order To Invent Speech He Must Be Already Man.'

The Question Now At Issue, Whether The Living Species Are Connected With The Extinct By A Common Bond Of Descent, Will Best Be Cleared Up By Devoting Ourselves To The Study Of The Actual State Of The Living World, And To Those Monuments Of The Past In Which The Relics Of The Animate Creation Of Former Ages Are Best Preserved And Least Mutilated By The Hand Of Time.

I Long Ago Suggested The Hypothesis, That In The Basin Of The Thames There Are Indications Of A Meeting In The Pleistocene Period Of A Northern And Southern Fauna.

Geology Is The Science Which Investigates The Successive Changes That Have Taken Place In The Organic And Inorganic Kingdoms Of Nature; It Enquires Into The Causes Of These Changes, And The Influence Which They Have Exerted In Modifying The Surface And External Structure Of Our Planet.