e order, from the lower and more generalized to the
higher and more specialized. Quite obviously this succession of life was
antagonistic to the former views of a literal Creation; and only on this
supposed fact as an outline has the modern theory of biological
evolution been built up. For if geology cannot furnish the most
unquestionable proof that life has occurred in a very definite and
invariable order, what is the use of talking about the development of
one form of life into another by a gradual process of evolution?

One of the highest scientific authorities in America, Prof. Thomas Hunt
Morgan, of Columbia University, has recently said, "The direct evidence
furnished by fossil remains is by all odds the strongest evidence that
we have in favor of organic evolution."[33] Accordingly we purpose to
examine carefully what this by all odds "strongest evidence" is like.

[Footnote 33: "A Critique of the Theory of Evolution," p. 24.]

II

As with some of the other facts with which we have had to deal in
previous chapters, a correct understanding of the questions involved
can best be obtained by examining the history of the development of the
science.

The first man with whom we need to concern ourselves is A.G. Werner, a
teacher of mineralogy in the University of Freiberg, Germany. For three
hundred years his ancestors had been connected with mining work, and he,
though possessing little general education, knew about all that was then
known regarding mineralogy and petrology. He wrote no books; but by his
enthusiastic teaching he gathered as students and sent out as
evangelists hundreds of devoted young scientists who rapidly spread his
theories through all the countries of Europe.

"Unfortunately," says Zittel, "Werner's field observations were limited
to a small district, the Erz Mountains and the neighboring parts of
Saxony and Bohemia. And his chronological scheme of formations was
founded on the mode of occurrence of the rocks within these narrow
confines."[34]

[Footnote 34: "History of Geology," p. 59.]

Werner had found the granites, limestones, sandstones, schists, etc.,
occurring in a certain relative order in his native country; and he drew
the very remarkable conclusion that this was the _normal_ order in which
these various rocks would invariably be found in all parts of the world,
on the theory that this was the order in which these different rocks had
been formed in the beginning, great layers