Illogical Geology Part 1

Illogical Geology.

by George McCready Price.

PART I

PREFACE

This book is not written especially for geologists or other scientists as such, though it deals with the question which it discusses from a purely scientific standpoint, and presupposes a good general knowledge of the rocks and of current theories. It is addressed rather to that large cla.s.s of readers to whom geology is only an incident in larger problems, and who are not quite wholly satisfied with those explanations of the universe which are now commonly accepted on the testimony of biological science. I am free to say that my own conviction of the higher value and surer truth of other data outside of the biological sciences have always been given formative power in my own private opinions, and that in this way I have long held that there =must be something wrong= with the Evolution Theory, and also that there must be a surer way of gauging the value of that Theory, even from the scientific standpoint, than the long devious processes connected with Darwinism and biology. Some years ago, when compelled to investigate the subject more fully than I had hitherto done, I discovered, somewhat to my own surprise, the phenomenal weakness of the geological argument. The results of that investigation have grown into the present work.

Though mostly critical and a.n.a.lytic, it is not wholly so. But so far as it is constructive there is one virtue which can rightly be claimed for it. It is at least an honest effort to study the foundation facts of geology from the inductive may be standpoint, and whether or not I have succeeded in this, it is, so far as I know, the only work published in the English or any other language which does not treat the science of geology more or less as a cosmogony.

That such a statement is possible is, I think, my chief justification in giving it to the public. It would seem as if the twentieth century could afford at least one book built up from the present, instead of being postulated from the past.

GEORGE McCREADY PRICE.

INTRODUCTION

A brief outline of the argument which I have used in the following pages will be in order here.

Darwinism, as a part, the chief part, of the general Evolution Theory, rests logically and historically on the succession of life idea as taught by geology. If there has actually been this succession of life on the globe, then some form of genetic connection between these successive types is the intuitive conclusion of every thinking mind. But if there is no positive evidence that certain types are essentially older than others, =if this succession of life is not an actual scientific fact=, then Darwinism or any other form of evolution has no more scientific value than the vagaries of the old Greeks--in short, from the standpoint of true inductive science it is a most gigantic hoax, historically scarce second to the Ptolemaic astronomy.

In Part One I have examined critically this succession of life theory.

It is improper to speak of my argument as destructive, for there never was any real constructive argument to be thus destroyed. It is essentially =an exposure=, and I am willing to =give a thousand dollars= to any one who will, in the face of the facts here presented, show me how to prove that one kind of fossil is older than another.

In Part Two I have attempted to build up a true, safe induction in the candid, unprejudiced spirit of a coroner called upon to hold a _post mortem_. The abnormal character of most of the fossiliferous deposits, the sudden world-wide change of climate they record, the marked degeneration in all organic forms in pa.s.sing from the older to the modern world, together with the great outstanding fact that human beings, with thousands of other living species of animals and plants have at this great world-crisis left their fossils in the rocks all over the world, prove beyond a possible doubt that our once magnificently stocked world met with a tremendous catastrophe some thousands of years ago, before the dawn of history. As for the =origin= of the living beings that existed before that event, we can only suppose a =direct creation=, since modern science knows nothing of the spontaneous generation of life, or of certain types of life having originated =before= other types, and thus being able to serve as =the source of origin= of other alleged succeeding types.

With the myth of a life succession dissipated once and for ever, the world stands face to face with creation as the direct act of the Infinite G.o.d.

CHAPTER I

THE ABSTRACT IDEA

How many of us have ever tried to think out a statement of just how we would prove that there has been a succession of life on the globe in a particular order?

Herbert Spencer did[1] and he did not seem to think the way in which it is usually attempted a very praiseworthy example of the methods to be pursued in natural science.

He starts out with Werner, of Neptunian fame, and shows that the latter's main idea of the rocks always succeeding one another over the whole globe like the coats of an onion was "untenable if a.n.a.lyzed," and "physically absurd," for among other things it is incomprehensible that these very different kinds of rocks could have been precipitated one after another by the same "chaotic menstrum."

But he then proceeds to show that the science is "still swayed by the crude hypotheses it set out with; so that even now, old doctrines that are abandoned as untenable in theory, continue in practice to mould the ideas of geologists, and to foster sundry beliefs that are logically indefensible."

Werner had taken for his data the way in which the rocks happened to occur in "a narrow district of Germany," and had at once jumped to the conclusion that they must always occur in this relative order over the entire globe. "Thus on a very incomplete acquaintance with a thousandth part of the earth's crust, he based a sweeping generalization applying to the whole of it."

Werner cla.s.sified the rocks according to their mineral characters, but when the fossils were taken as the prime test of age, the "original nomenclature of periods and formations" kept alive the original idea of complete envelopes encircling the whole globe one outside each other like the coats of an onion. So that now, instead of Werner's successive ages of sandstone making or limestone making, and successive suites of these rocks, we have successive ages of various types of life, with successive systems or "groups of formations which everywhere succeed each other in a given order; and are severally everywhere of the same age. Though it may not be a.s.serted that these successive systems are universal, yet it seems to be tacitly a.s.sumed that they are so....

Though, probably, no competent geologist would contend that the European cla.s.sification of strata is applicable to the globe as a whole; yet most, if not all geologists, write as though it were so."

Spencer then goes on to show how dogmatic and unscientific it is to say that when the Carboniferous flora, for example, existed in some localities, this type of life and this only must have enveloped the world.

"Now this belief," he says, "that geologic 'systems' are universal, is quite as untenable as the other. It is just as absurd when considered _a priori_: and it is equally inconsistent with the facts," for all such systems of similar life-forms must in olden time have been of merely "local origin," just as they are now. In other words, we have no scientific knowledge of a time in the past when there were not zoological provinces and zones as there are to-day, one type of life existing in one locality, while another and totally different type existed somewhere else.

Then, after quoting from Lyell a strong protest against the old fancy that only certain types of sandstone and marls were made at certain epochs, he proceeds:

"Nevertheless, while in this and numerous pa.s.sages of like implication, Sir C. Lyell protests against the bias here ill.u.s.trated, he seems himself not completely free from it. Though he utterly rejects the old hypothesis that all over the earth the same continuous strata lie upon each other in regular order, like the coats of an onion, he still writes as though geologic 'systems' do thus succeed each other. A reader of his 'Manual' would certainly suppose him to believe, that the Primary epoch ended, and the Secondary epoch commenced, all over the world at the same time.... =Must we not say that though the onion-coat hypothesis is dead, its spirit is tractable, under a transcendental form, even in the conclusions of its antagonists.="

Spencer then examines at considerable length the kindred idea that the same or similar species "lived in all parts of the earth at the same time." "This theory," he says, "is scarcely more tenable than the other."

He then shows how in some localities there are now forming coral deposits, in some places chalk, and in others beds of Molluscs; while in still other places entirely different forms of life are existing. In fact, each zone or depth of the ocean has its particular type of life, just as successive alt.i.tudes do on the sides of a mountain; and it is a dogmatic and arbitrary a.s.sumption to say that such conditions have not existed in the past.

"On our own coasts, the marine remains found a few miles from sh.o.r.e, in banks where fish congregate, are different from those found close to the sh.o.r.e, where only littoral species flourish. A large proportion of aquatic creatures have structures that do not admit of fossilization; while of the rest, the great majority are destroyed, when dead, by the various kinds of scavengers that creep among the rocks and weeds. So that no one deposit near our sh.o.r.es can contain anything like a true representation of the fauna of the surrounding sea; much less of the co-existing faunas of other seas in the same lat.i.tude; and still less of the faunas of seas in distant lat.i.tudes. Were it not that the a.s.sertion seems needful, it would be almost absurd to say that the organic remains now being buried in the Dogger Bank can tell us next to nothing about the fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and corals that are now being buried in the Bay of Bengal."

This author evidently found it difficult to keep within the bounds of parliamentary language when speaking of the absurd and vicious reasoning at the very basis of the whole current geological theory; for, unlike the other physical sciences, the great leading ideas of geology are not generalisations framed from the whole series or group of observed facts, but are really abstract statements supposed to be reasonable in themselves, or at the most =very hasty conclusions based on wholly insufficient data=, like that of Werner in his "narrow district of Germany." Sir Henry Howorth[2] has well expressed the urgent need that there is of a complete reconstruction of geological theory:

"It is a singular and a notable fact, that while most other branches of science have emanc.i.p.ated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning, the science of geology still remains imprisoned in _a priori_ theories."

But Huxley[3] also has left us some remarks along the same line which are almost equally helpful in showing the essential absurdity of the a.s.sumption that when one type of life was living and being buried in one locality another and very diverse type could not have been doing the same things in other distant localities.

This is how he expresses it:

"All competent authorities will probably a.s.sent to the proposition that physical geology does not enable us in any way to reply to this question--Were the British Cretaceous rocks deposited at the same time as those of India, or were they a million of years younger, or a million of years older?"

This phase of the idea, however, is not so bad, for the human mind refuses to believe that distant and disconnected groups of similar forms were not connected in time and genetic relations.h.i.+p. It is really the reverse of this proposition that contains the most essential absurdity, and this is the very phase that is most essential to the whole succession of life idea. Huxley, indeed, seems to have caught a glimpse of this truth, for he says:

"A Devonian fauna and flora in the British Islands =may= have been contemporaneous with Silurian life in North America, and with a Carboniferous fauna and flora in Africa. =Geographical provinces and zones may have been as distinctly marked in the Palaeozoic epoch as at present.="

Certainly; but if this be true, it is equally certain that the Carboniferous flora of Pennsylvania may have been contemporaneous alike with the Cretaceous flora of British Columbia and the Tertiary flora of Germany and Australia. But in that case what becomes of this succession of life which for nearly a century has been the pole star of all the other biological sciences--I might almost say of the historical and theological as well?

Must it not be admitted that in any system of clear thinking this whole idea of there having really been a succession of life on the globe is not only =not proved= by scientific methods, but that it is essentially unprovable and absurd?

Huxley, in point of fact, admits this, though he goes right on with his scheme of evolution, just as if he never thought of the logical consequences involved. His words are:

"In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods (_sic_) one verdict--'=not proven and not provable='--must be recorded against all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe."

In view of these startling facts, is it not amazing to see the supernatural knowledge of the past continually and quietly a.s.sumed in every geological vision of the earth's history?

FOOTNOTES:

[1] "Illogical Geology; Ill.u.s.trations of Universal Progress," pp.

329-380; D. Appleton & Co., 1890.