A comparatively small variety of species is found in the older rocks, although of some particular ones the remains are very abundant; ... Ascending to the next group of rocks, we find the traces of life become more abundant, the number of species extended.

Geology fully proves that organic creation passed through a series of stages before the highest vegetable and animal forms appeared.

It is most interesting to observe into how small a field the whole of the mysteries of nature thus ultimately resolve themselves. The inorganic has one final comprehensive law, GRAVITATION. The organic, the other great department of mundane things, rests in like manner on one law, and that is,—DEVELOPMENT. Nor may even these be after all twain, but only branches of one still more comprehensive law, the expression of that unity which man's wit can scarcely separate from Deity itself.

The hypothesis of the connexion of the first limestone beds with the commencement of organic life upon our planet is supported by the fact, that in these beds we find the first remains of the bodies of animated creatures.

The organic creation, as we now see it ... was not placed upon the earth at once:—it observed a PROGRESS.

This statistical regularity in moral affairs fully establishes their being under the presidency of law. Man is seen to be an enigma only as an individual: in the mass he is a mathematical problem.