One important remark has been made, that a comparatively small variety of species is found in the older rocks, although of some particular ones the r… - Robert Chambers

Now it is possible that wants and the exercise of faculties have entered in some manner into the production of the phenomena which we have been considering; but certainly not in the way suggested by Lamarck, whose whole notion is obviously so inadequate to account for the rise of the organic kingdoms, that we only can place it with pity among the follies of the wise.

Abstract perfection should always be the direction aimed at by human efforts, however imperfect they may be; and the success of sanitary legislation will be indicated by the nearness or the distance of its actual practice from this perfect idea.

When we hear of carbon beginning to appear in the ascending series of rocks, we are unavoidably led to consider it as marking a time of some importance in the earth's history, a new era of natural conditions, one in which organic life has probably played a part.