Picture - Cosmic Polymath

INTRODUCTION xxix
ments met with in the steins and vessels of plants, leaves, hairs, fruits, &c. ; in the nerves, the umbihcal cord, the
cochlea of the ear, the ventricles of the mammahan heart, the stomach, bladder, uterus, &o. All these structures
are spiral because of original endowment and bias.
An outstanding argument in favour of Design and Original Purpose is to be found in the give-and-take movements
or rhythms common alike to the inorganic and organic kingdoms. The physical universe gives to and takes
from plants and animals light, heat, moisture, &c., during the day and laight, and the seasons. The importance
of day and night and the seasons to plants and animals cannot be over-estimated. These changes ensure periods
of activity and periods of comparative repose ; periods for feeding and growing ; periods for reproducing, &c. If
there were no alternations of day and night and of the seasons, the whole economy of plants and animals would be
changed. They would cease to be healthy, and would probably cease to exist.
Day and night and the seasons are due to well-known cosmic changes ; namely, to the rotation of the earth
on its axis every twenty-four hours, and to the earth revolving round the sun once in 365 days. The sun and light
and the earth, and the earth's atmosphere, were necessarily created before plants and animals. The latter are
parts of a designed whole.
The unfailing recurrence of day and night and the seasons were all considered before plants and animals were
formed. The inorganic and organic kingdoms were clearly made for each other, and form complemental parts of
one great scheme.
" Oldest of all the formations lonown to geologists, and representing perhaps the earliest rocks produced after
our earth had ceased to be a molten mass, are the hard, crystalhne, and much contorted rocks, named by the late
Sir W. E. Logan Laurentian, and which are largely developed in the northern parts of North America and Europe,
and in many other regions. ... In the lower part of this great system of rocks which, in some places at least, is
thirty thousand feet in thickness, we find no traces of the existence of any living thing on the earth. But in the
middle portion of the Laurentian, rocks are found which indicate that there were already land and water, and that
the waters and possibly the land were already tenanted by Uving beings. The great beds of limestone which exist
in this part of the system furnish one indication of this. . . . The cUmate and atmosphere of the Laurentian may
have been well adapted for the sustenance of vegetable life. We can scarcely doubt that the internal heat of the
earth still warmed the waters of the sea, and these warm waters must have diffused great quantities of mists and
vapours over the land, giving a moist and equable if not a very clear atmosphere. The vast quantities of carbon
dioxide afterwards sealed up in Hmestones and carbonaceous beds must also have still floated in the atmosphere and
must have suppUed abundance of the carbon, which constitutes the largest ingredient in vegetable tissues. Under
these circumstances the whole world must have resembled a damp, warm greenhouse, and plants loving such an
atmosphere could have grown luxuriantly. In these circumstances the lower forms of aquatic vegetation and those
that love damp, warm air and wet soil would have been at home. .
" It may fairly be assumed that in the present world, and in those geological periods with whose organic remains
we are more familiar than with those of the Laurentian, there is no other source of unoxidised carbon in rocks than
that furnished by organic matter, and that this has obtained its carbon in all cases, in the first instance, from the
deoxidation of carbonic acid by hving plants. . .
" In the later geological formations the limestones are mostly organic—that is, they consist of accumulated
remains of shells, corals, and other hard parts of marine animals."
Sir WiUiam Dawson, to whom I am indebted for the foregoing extracts, furnishes the annexed table indicating
the order in which plants and animals appeared on the earth.i
It will be seen from the table on p. xxx that plants and animals become more complex with the advance of
time, there being what may be regarded as types of plants and animals, and an ascending series in both. Thus the
Bozoic age furnished Protogens and Algae in plants, and Protozoa in animals ; the Palaeozoic age, Acrogens and
Gymnosperms in plants, and Invertebrates, Amphibians, and Fishes in animals ; the Mesozoic age, Cycads and Pines
in plants, and Reptiles in animals ; the Kainozoic age, Angiosperms, Palms, &c., in plants, and Mammals and Man
in animals.
It also shows that creation, considered from the geologic standpoint, is a progressive work, that is, a work which
consists of stages and has been accomphshed at different times. This was a priori to be expected. The earth and
its climate had to be prepared for the advent of plants and animals, and the plants and animals were created in
succession and varied according to the condition of the earth and climate at particular periods. This accounts
for the prevalence of rank vegetation and huge animals at one period of the earth's history, and for a less luxuriant
vegetation and a more refined fauna at another. It also accounts for changes in the flora and fauna of different
regions of the earth at different times, due to vicissitudes of climate ; the remains of temperate and tropical plants
and animals being not unfrequently found in the same district.
1 "The Geological History of Plants " {International Scicntilio Series, London, 1888, pp. 4 and 8).
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