In attempting to explain geological phenomena, the bias has always been on the wrong side; there has always been a disposition to reason á priori on the extraordinary violence and suddenness of changes, both in the inorganic crust of the earth, and in organic types, instead of attempting strenuously to frame theories in accordance with the ordinary operations of nature.

The present is the key to the past

Amidst the vicissitudes of the earth's surface, species cannot be immortal, but must perish, one after another, like the individuals which compose them. There is no possibility of escaping from this conclusion.

'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.

It has long been a fact familiar to geologists, that, both on the east and west coasts of the central part of Scotland, there are lines of raised beaches, containing marine shells of the same species as those now inhabiting the neighbouring sea.

When on my return to England I showed the cast of the cranium to Professor Huxley, he remarked at once that it was the most ape-like skull he had ever beheld.

Such discoveries have led me, and other geologists, to reconsider the evidence previously derived from caves brought forward in proof of the high antiquity of Man.