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.

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.

The Ordinary Naturalist Is Not Sufficiently Aware That When Dogmatizing On What Species Are, He Is Grappling With The Whole Question Of The Organic World & Its Connection With The Time Past & With Man; That It Involves The Question Of Man & His Relation To The Brutes, Of Instinct, Intelligence & Reason, Of Creation, Transmutation & Progressive Improvement Or Development. Each Set Of Geological Questions & Of Ethnological & Zool. & Botan. Are Parts Of The Great Problem Which Is Always Assuming A New Aspect.

It Is Probable That A Greater Number Of Monuments Of The Skill And Industry Of Man Will, In The Course Of The Ages, Be Collected Together In The Bed Of The Ocean Than Will Exist At Any Other Time On The Surface Of The Continents.

'time's Noblest Offspring Is The Last.' This Line Of Bishop Berkeley's Expresses The Real Cause Of The Belief In Progress In The Animal Creation.