Chapter 6

The Testimony of the Rocks.

We have seen that the principal argument for a development of the higher types of life from lower organisms is based upon a study of fossil remains (paleontology). The older the strata in the earth's surface, the simpler the animal forms imbedded therein; the more recent the strata, the more complex and highly developed the fossil remains. Popular scientific works, and books of refence [tr. note: sic] generally, quote it as an axiom: In the oldest rocks the simplest fossils are found, hence the higher animals are developed from the lower. Davis "Physical Geograhy" [tr. note: sic] says (page 17):

"Age of the Earth.--It is impossible to say what the age of the earth and the solar system is, but it certainly should be reckoned in millions and millions of years. There is every reason to believe that the sun and the planets existed for an indefinitely long period before the condition of the earth's surface was such as to allow the habitation of the planet by plants and animals. It is well proved by the prints or fossils of various plants and animals in ancient rock layers that these lower forms of life existed upon the earth for a vast length of time, millions and millions of years before man appeared."

Here, then, we are squarely confronted by the issue. Either the rocks testify to a slow evolution of plant and animal life, or they supply no such testimony. Professor Downing of Chicago University, says that this is indeed, the one primary argument for evolution, the rest being simply corroborative. On this _rock_ evolutionists build their scientific Faith. Let us investigate.

We shall note, to begin with, that there are, indeed, a larger number of species, both of animals and plants, preserved in the rocks,--thousands, in fact. There are lowly organisms, of the crab and cuttle fish variety, and more highly organized forms, fishes and birds, and there are the prints and fossilized bones of great monsters, huge lizards and sloths and other mammalia. It is possible to establish a gradation in this great catalog of fossils, beginning with the largest or most perfectly developed, and ending with the animals lower in the scale of life; or vice versa. The evolutionists say, _vice versa,_ the simplest first, the most complex last, and then they add: _So_ they have developed.

At this point we shall first quote one of the earliest palaeontologists, and one of the most famous, Hugh Miller, whose _"Old Red Sandstone,"_ first published in 1841, has now been republished in the _"Everyman Library."_ In this brilliant work, Miller pays his respects to the evolutionists of his age. He refers to Lamarck and says: "The ingenious foreigner, on the strength of a few striking facts which prove that to a certain extent the instincts of species may be improved and heightened, and their forms changed from a lower to a higher degree of adaptation to their circumstances, has concluded that there is a natural progress from the inferior order of being towards the superior, and that the off-spring of creatures low in the scale in the present time may hold a much higher place in it, and belong to different and nobler species, a few thousand years hence. . . . He has argued on this principle of improvement and adaptation,--which, carry it as far as we rationally may, still leaves the vegetable a vegetable, and the dog a dog,--that in the vast course of ages, inferior have risen into superior natures, and lower into higher races; that molluscs and zoophytes have passed into fish and reptiles, and fish and reptiles into birds and quadrupeds; that unformed gelatinous bodies, with an organisation scarcely traceable, have been metamorphosed into oaks and cedars; and that monkeys and apes have been transformed into human creatures, capable of understanding and admiring the theories of Lamarck.

"It is a law of nature," continues Mr. Miller, "that the chain of being, from the lowest to the highest form of life, should be, in some degree, a continuous chain; that the various classes of existence should shade into one another, so that it often proves a matter of no little difficulty to point out the exact line of demarcation where one class or family ends and another class or family begins. The naturalist passes from the vegetable to the animal tribes, scarcely aware, amid the perplexing forms of intermediate existence, at what point he quits the precincts of the one, to enter on those of the other. All the animal families have, in like manner, their connecting links; and it is chiefly out of these that writers such as Lamarck and Maillet construct their system. _They confound gradation with progress_. Geoffrey Hudson was a very short man, and Goliath of Gath a very tall one; and the gradations of the human stature lie between. But gradation is not progress; and though we find full-grown men of five feet, five feet six inches, and six feet and a half, the fact gives us no earnest whatever that the race is rising in stature, and that at some future period the average height of the human family will be somewhat between ten and eleven feet. And equally unsolid is the argument that from a principle of gradation in races would reduce a principle of progress in races. The tall man of six feet need entertain quite as little hope of rising into eleven feet as the short man of five; nor has the fish that occasionally flies any better chance of passing into a bird than the fish that only swims. Geology abounds with creatures of the intermediate class. _But it furnishes no genealogical link to show that the existences of one race derive their lineage from the existences of another_. The scene shifts as we pass from formation to formation; we are introduced in each to a new dramatis personae. Of all the vertebrata, fishes rank lowest, and in geological history appear first. Now, fishes differ very much among themselves: some rank nearly as low as worms,--some nearly as high as reptiles; and if fish could have risen into reptiles, and reptiles into mammalia, we would necessarily expect to find lower orders of fish passing into higher, and taking precedence of the higher in their appearance in point of time. If such be not the case,--if fish made their first appearance, not in their least perfect, but in their most perfect state,--not in their nearest approximation to the worm, but in their nearest approximation to the reptile,--there is no room for progression, and the argument falls. Now, it is a geological fact, that _it is fish of the higher orders that appear first on the stage,_ and that they are found to occupy exactly the same level during the vast period represented by five succeeding formations. There is no progression. If fish rose into reptiles, it must have been by sudden transformation. There is no getting rid of miracle in the case,--there is no alternative between creation and metamorphosis. The infidel substitutes progression for Deiety;--Geology robs him of his God."

Mr. Miller then relates his discovery of the winged fish (Pterichtys): "Of all the organisms of the Old Red Sandstone, one of the most extraordinary, and the one in which Lamarck would have most delighted, is the Pterichtys, or winged fish. Had Lamarck been the discoverer, he would unquestionably have held that he had caught a fish almost in the act of wishing itself into a bird. Here are wings which lack only feathers, a body which seems to have been as well adapted for passing through the air as the water and a tail by which to steer. I fain wish I could communicate to the reader the feeling with which I contemplated my first-found specimen. It opened with a single blow of the hammer; and there on a ground of light-colored limestone, lay the effigy of a creature fashioned apparently out of jet, with a body covered with plates, two powerful-looking arms articulated at the shoulders, a head as entirely lost in the trunk as that of the ray or the sun-fish, and long angular tail." Miller says that he at first thought he had discovered a kind of turtle that partook of the characteristics of a fish. But he continues: "I had inferred somewhat too hurriedly, though perhaps naturally enough, that these wings or arms, with their strong sharp points and oar-like blades, had been at once paddles and spears, --instrument of motion and weapons of defence; and hence the mistake of connecting the creature with the Chelonia (turtles). I am informed by Agassiz, however, that they were weapons of defence only, which, like the spines of the river bull-head, were erected in moments of danger or alarm, and at other times lay close by the creature's side; and that the sole instrument of motion was in the tail. The river bull-head, when attacked by an enemy, or immediately as it feels the hook in its jaws, erects its two spines at nearly right angles with the plates of the head, as if to render itself as difficult of being swallowed as possible. The attitude is one of danger and alarm; and it is a curious fact, that in this attitude nine-tenth of the Pterichthyes of the Lower Old Red Sandstone are to be found."

A century has passed since Miller thought he had discovered a turtle which was so modified in structure as to be a link between the turtles and the fish. But to the present day geology has failed to furnish evidence that such a link at one time existed.

This _absence, in the geological record, of transitional forms,_ is one of the greatest difficulties of the evolutionistic theory. According to the theory, the fossils found in the various layers of rock ought to show gradual modifications, linking the various species of animals and plants in a finely graduated system, with thousands of forms showing in rudimentary structure those organs which in the more advanced forms have become fully developed. However, no such progress from more to less generalized types has been demonstrated, although many trained investigators have searched the fossiliferous rocks for such evidence of evolution. Professor Huxley in his _"Lay Sermons"_ admits that an impartial survey of the positively ascertained truths of paleontology "Either shows us no evidence of such modification, or demonstrates such modification as has occurred to have been very slight; and as to the nature of that modification, it yields no evidence whatsoever that the earlier members of any long-continued group were more generalized in structure than the later ones." LeConte says: "Although the species change greatly, and perhaps many times, in passing from the lowest to the highest strata, we do not usually, it must be acknowledged, find the gradual transitions we would naturally expect, if the change were effected by gradual transitions." He further speaks of the absence of connecting links as "the greatest of all objections" against the theory of evolution. (_"Evolution,"_ p. 234.) This absence of transitional forms between different species has always been recognized as a serious difficulty; and Mr. Darwin, in the attempt to obviate it, succeeds only in showing how very serious it is. These are his words: "Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most obvious and gravest objection which can be urged against my theory."

Alfred Fairhurst says, in his _"Organic Evolution Considered"_ (p. 93):

"According to the theory of evolution, and especially of natural selection, if we start with any organism and trace its history backward, we would find that through an endless number of generations it had been very slightly changing, so that any individual is always a transitional form between its immediate ancestors and its own offspring. This being true, one would expect, if the theory of evolution is true, to find vast numbers of transitional forms connecting earlier and later species in the various periods where fossils are well preserved. This, however, is not true. Species, when they first appear, stand sharply defined. Darwin expresses his disappointment at the absence of transitional forms as follows: 'But I do not pretend that I should ever have suspected how poor was the record in the best preserved geological sections, had not the absence of innumerable transitional links between the species which lived at the commencement and close of each formation pressed so hardly on my theory.'"

Even a cursory study of such texts as Dana's _"Manual of Geology"_ will reveal that the development of the plants and animals through the "ages" of speculative geology does not move forward like a steadily rising flood. There is rather a series of great waves, each rising abruptly, new forms often appearing suddenly and together. The very simplest known fossils, the trilobites, of which nearly a hundred species are known in America alone, and certain cephalopods (sea snails) are animals highly complex in structure and regarded by Le Conte as "hardly lower than the middle of the animal scale." The trilobites possess well developed compound eyes and the cephalopods have simple eyes, almost as complex as the eyes of man, possess a well defined stomach, a systemic heart, a liver, and a highly developed nervous system [tr. note: no period in original] Observe, that these two highly organized forms of animals, "hardly to be regarded as lower than the middle of the animal scale," are the very "oldest" animals found in fossil form! In other words, of at least one half of the total progress of the animal kingdom every vestige is lost. If we turn a few pages in Dana's _"Manual"_ we find in the sandstone of the "Devonian Era" gigantic species of fish. The entire record of evolution from the mollusk to the fish is lost! There is not a single transitional form. These fishes have organs as complex and perfect as the fishes of to-day. Suddenly, in the "carbonic age" amphibia and reptiles appear, and then come, in the "Triassic" the huge reptiles known as dinosaurs. Insects and scorpions have been found in the "Silurian." [tr. note: sic on punctuation] They stand among the highest of even _living_ articulates, and they are the "oldest" known airbreathing animals. "We seek in vain for the progenitors of these highly organized articulates or for some conceivable method by which their wings and special breathing apparatus could have evolved. We do not know that these first insects and scorpions have made any material progress through all the ages." (Fairhurst.)

Professor Huxley in delivering the anniversary address to the Geological Society for 1870, quotes the following from an address before the same society in 1862: "If we confine ourselves to positively ascertained facts, the total amount of change in the forms of animal and vegetable life since the existence of such forms is recorded, is small. When compared with the lapse of time since the first appearance of these forms, the amount of change is wonderfully small. Moreover, in each great group of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, there are certain forms which I termed Persistent Types, which have remained, with but very little apparent change, from their first appearance to the present time. In answer to the question, 'What then does an impartial survey of the positively ascertained truths of paleontology testify in relation to the common doctrines of progressive modification, which suppose that modification to have taken place by necessary progress from more to less embryonic forms, from more to less generalized types within the limits of the period represented by the fossiliferous rocks?' I reply, It negatives these doctrines; for it either shows us no evidence of such modifications, or demonstrates such modification as has occurred to have been very slight. The significance of persistent types and of the small amount of change which has taken place even in those forms which can be shown to have been modified, becomes greater and greater in my eyes, the longer I occupy myself with the Biology of the past."

From the fact that the trilobites, so highly organized, appeared in the "primordial," or "oldest" strata, it would seem that they were specially adapted to make progress. They lived through "Paleozoic" time, which, according to Dana, represents twelve of the sixteen parts of all geological time, beginning with the Primordial; or, calling the whole geological time 48 millions of years, the trilobites lived 36 million of years, or three-fourths of all geological time. From their great persistence in time (accepting, for the sake of argument, the "ages" of speculative geology) it would seem that they had a remarkably good opportunity to make wonderful progress in structure. During that time there were thousands of species, yet they made no progress. We do not know that in all those "millions of years" a single higher form was evolved from any one of the great multitude of species of trilobites. As Darwin says of the goose, so one may say of the trilobite; it "had a singularly inflexible organization." The remarkable thing about this, however, is that previous to the "Primordial," while it was becoming a trilobite, it must have had a singularly flexible organization, otherwise it could not have obtained its complex structure; but when it reached the "Primordial" it became very conservative.

Fairhurst says, in the work already quoted:

"It is a most remarkable fact that in the first geological period in which undoubted fossils occur, all the sub-kingdoms except that of the vertebrates are well represented, and that there is no evidence from fossils that one sub-kingdom, or even that different classes of the same sub-kingdom were evolved from each other. The great gulfs that separate the animal kingdom into sub-kingdoms and classes existed then, and have continued till the present time.... If we rely on known fossils as evidence, we would be obliged to conclude that highly organized fishes were suddenly introduced. The break in the supposed chain of evolution between the invertebrates and the highly organized vertebrates of the Lower Silurian is one of the greatest in the whole geological record. The vast gulf between these structures must, I think, remain unbridged except by the imagination."

The late Prof. Joseph LeConte, of the University of California, writes in his book, "Religion and Science:" "The evidence of geology to-day is that species seem to come in suddenly and in full perfection, remain substantially unchanged during the term of their existence, and pass away in full perfection. Other species take their places apparently by substitution, not by transmutation."

Dr. Robert Watts uses these emphatic words: "The record of the rocks know nothing of the evolution of a higher form from a lower form. Neither the paleozoic age nor the living organisms of our world reveal an authentic instance of such evolution. Both nature and revelation proclaim it as an inviolable law that like produces like."

And Hugh Miller went one step further when he testified: "I would ask such of the gentlemen whom I now address as have studied the subject most thoroughly, whether, at those grand lines of division between the Palaeozoic and Secondary, and again between the Secondary and Tertiary periods, at which the entire type of organic being alters, so that all on the one side of the gap belongs to one fashion, and all on the other to another and wholly different fashion,--whether they have not been as thoroughly impressed with the conviction that there existed a Creative Agent, to whom the sudden change was owing, as if they themselves had witnessed the miracle of creation?" (Presidential address before the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh, 1852.)

But we have not yet done with this part of our investigation. The argument from geology is based on the assumption that the chronological order of the earth's layers _has been determined_ at least with great approximation to certainty, so that we may say with some assurance that this layer of limestone or sandstone is of earlier, that, of later origin. As a matter of fact, the textbooks do treat the various "ages" of geology as if they corresponded to certain strata of the earth's crust. _But by what method is the age of the various layers determined?_ James D. Dana in his "Manual of Geology" (Fourth edition, p. 398 f.) says that there are four methods by which we may decide the relation of one layer to another. The first is, naturally, the order in which the layers rest upon one another; the lower strata, are, of course, older than the upper. However, he points out in four "precautions" the inability of the investigator to depend on this method, since "for the comparing of rocks of disconnected regions, this criterion must fail." Also the color and mineral composition can be used only "with distrust" and must be "usually disregarded." Then the _Manual_ proceeds: "4 _Fossils_.--The criterion for determining the chronological order of strata dependent on kinds of fossils takes direct hold upon time, and therefore, _is the best;_ and, moreover, it serves for the correlation of rocks all over the world." Now observe how, in the following, the geologist leans upon the evolutionist: _"The life of the globe has changed with the progress of time. Each epoch has had its peculiar species, or peculiar groups of species._ Moreover, the succession of life has followed a grand law of progress, involving under a single system a closer and closer approximation in the species, as time moved on, to those which now exist. It follows, therefore, that _identity of species of fossils proves approximate identity of age."_ Let us bear this in mind. Dana _takes for granted_ the evolutionary process. The simpler forms of animal life indicate the older strata, the complex forms, the more recent. We do not misunderstand Mr. Dana. Such expressions as the following abound: "Where direct paleontological observation has ascertained in particular cases the steps of progress in the development of organs, as, for example, those of the teeth in Mammals, the facts become a basis for further use in the same direction." (p. 402.) "The grander divisions of geological time should be based, in a comprehensive way, on organic progress" (from simple to more complex structures) (p. 404.) "When the relations of the beds to those recognized in other regions have been ascertained through fossils..." (p. 405.)

The principle announced by Dana is accepted by geologists generally. Angelo Heilprin in _"The Earth and its Story,"_ p. 153 ff. has the following: "There has been a steady and progressive advance in the general type of organization from the oldest to the newest periods; more highly developed or more complicated forms have successively replaced forms of simpler construction; and this advance is still continuing to-day. Once more, the correctness of the evolutionary hypothesis is taken for granted. In the oldest rocks, for example, no trace of backboned animals has yet been detected; when such do appear for the first time, they show themselves in their lowest types, the fishes; these are succeeded later by the amphibians (frogs, newts, salamanders), and these again by reptiles. And if we take the fishes by themselves, we find that they, too, begin with their lower, if not absolutely the lowest types, and progressively develop their higher ones. This history is repeated in the cases of the reptiles and quadrupeds--in fact, with every class of animals that is known to us. _Naturalists_ (evolutionists) are to-day well agreed among themselves that all animal and vegetable forms are derivatives from forms that preceded them..... Hence it is, that, in following the geological record, we speak of progressive evolution, the evolving of higher or more complicated types of organisms from those simpler and more general in structure." Now read carefully the following: _"This fact_ has permitted geologists to mark off distinct eras or periods in the life-history of the planet, each of them determined by certain characteristic animal or vegetable forms, which either do not appear before or after such period, or else are by numbers so distinctive of it as to typify it clearly." Evidently, the Philadelphia professor, too, _assumes_ "progressive evolution" _as an ascertained fact_ and in accordance therewith classifies the layers of the earth's surface. "Almost every species of fossil has a definite position in the geological scale, and would by itself serve to locate a formation; but oftentimes the determination of species, owing to insufficiency of knowledge of the obliteration of characters, is a most difficult task, and then recourse is had to the aspect of the entire group 'of fossils which a given rockmass contains. This generally _gives the age_ or position without difficulty." Edward Clodd, in _"The Story of Creation, a Plain Account of Evolution,"_ says, page 18. "The relative _age and place of each stratum .... are fixed by the fossils."_

Now, is not this a most extraordinary situation? The evolutionist says: The science of paleontology furnishes the basic argument for our hypothesis,--the older the strata of the earths surface, the simpler the fossils found therein. This sounds impressive. But we ask him: How do you know the age of the strata,--and the answer is, that, of course, is the business of the geologist to determine. We now turn to the geologist and ask: How do you determine the age of the strata? And the geologist answers: Why, evolutionary science has proven that the simplest animals and plants appeared first; hence, where I find simple fossils, I know that I have a more ancient bed of lime-stone or sand-stone than the strata which contain more complex forms,--which appeared later. Note well, the geologists which we have quoted assert that this is the best and final proof for the position of a stratum in the scale of geological history. The geologist depends on the fossils. But he believes these to belong to an earlier or more recent age because he accepts _the evolutionist's_ word for it. And the evolutionist says: the _geologist_ says these rocks are oldest; but in them I find the simplest forms; hence the evolutionary theory is proven.

We repeat it,--is not this a very, very extraordinary situation? Have we not here a perfect case of what logicians call "reasoning in a circle," or "begging the question?" How can the evolutionist quote the geologist when the geologist asserts that he classifies his layers of rock according to the fossils,--and that he accepts what the evolutionists asserts [tr. note: sic] regarding these?

What, in view of this situation, becomes of the evolutionist's argument from fossils? And what becomes of the "ages" of speculative geology?