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Show ,t; :2 '!'BE PAST CO)l'DJ1'IGN 01~ ORGANIC NATURE. nites, and more ichthyosauri and plesiosauri, with a vast number of other things; and under that I should meet with vet older rocks, containing numbers of stranO'e shelis and fishes; and in thus passing from 0 the surface to the lowest depths of the earth's crust, the forms of animal life and vegetable life which I ·should meet with in the successive beds would, looking .at them broadly, be the more different the further that I went down. Or, in other words, inasmuch as we started with the clear principle, that in a series of naturally-disposed mud beds the lowest are the {)ldest, we should come to this result, that the further we go back in time the more difference exists between the animal and vegetable life of an epoch and that which now exists. That was the conclusion to which [ wished to bring you at the end of this Lecture. LECTURE III. THE METHOD BY WHICH THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT AND PAST CONDITIONS OF ORGANIC NATURE ARE 'fO BE DISCOVERED. -THE ORIGINATION OF LIVING BEINGS. IN the two preceding lectures I have endeavoured to indicate to you the extent of the subject-matter of the inquiry upon which we are engaged; and now., having thus acquired some conception of the Past and Present phenomena of Organic Nature, I must turn, to-night, to that which constitutes the great problem which we have set before ourselves ;-I mean, the question of what knowledge we have of the causes of these phenomena of organic nature, and how such knowledge is obtainable. Here, on the threshold of the inquiry, an objection meets us. There are in the world a number of extremely worthy, well-meaning persons, whose judgments and opinions are entitled to the utmost respect on account of their sincerity, who are of opinion that Vital Phenomena, and especially all questions relating to the origin of vital phenomena, are questions quite D |