e question at issue. But from our enlarged views of the laws
and nature of heredity and variation, as well as from the original
intent of the term _species_ as defined by the great scientist who
originated it, the verdict of an impartial investigator must be that we
have never seen a new species originate by any natural or artificial
method since the dawn of scientific observation.

Here again we find the record of Creation confirmed; for the failure of
the thousands of modern investigators to originate genuine new species
proves that in this respect also Creation is not now going on. And all
the analogies from the origin of matter, of energy, of life, and from
the laws of the reproduction of cells, indicate that we have at last
found rock bottom truth regarding the vexed question of the origin of
species. So far as science can observe and record, each living thing on
earth, in air, in water, reproduces "after its kind."

VII

GEOLOGY AND ITS LESSONS

I

In all the previous chapters I have not been giving any very new facts
or any discoveries of my own. True, my conclusions from the facts may
seem novel; but in general I have been giving merely facts which are
almost universally acknowledged by educated men. The conservation laws
of matter and of energy, the impassable gulf between the living and the
not-living, the laws governing cell multiplication, are matters of
common knowledge and will be found in the appropriate college text-books
throughout the civilized world. Even the facts which I have presented
regarding variation and heredity are admitted in one way or another by
practically all biologists. But in following our general subject into
the field of geology, I shall be obliged to present some comprehensive
truths and general conclusions which are not so widely acknowledged,
because only recently brought to light. However, as these facts and
conclusions may seem very new and strange to many, I shall endeavor to
build up my argument wholly on the recorded observations of the very
highest authorities rather than on my own unsupported testimony; though
for the sake of brevity I shall be obliged to refer the reader to my
"Fundamentals of Geology" (1913) for some of the details.

One of the great outstanding ideas of geology as usually taught is that
life has been on the globe for many millions of years, that in fact
there has been a graded succession of different types of life in a well
defined invariabl