In fact, we are perfectly safe in concluding in all similar cases that we may encounter in the literature of the science that it is the reversed order of the fossils which constitutes the whole evidence; for, as I have said, we can imagine no possible physical evidence competent to form a foundation for such ideas, nor do I know of anything save the exigencies of this venerable theory of life succession, for which otherwise competent observers will thus freely sacrifice their common sense. When the dividing line between two sets of strata "acts exactly like the line of contact between two nearly horizontal formations," so much so that in a natural section cut out by a river the two "appear to succeed one another conformably," a calm judicial mind, divested of all theoretical prejudice, instead of talking about these conditions having been planned by nature "for the purpose of deception," will find no difficulty at all in believing that these rocks were really laid down in the =reverse order= in which we now find them, with the "younger" below and the "older" above, and only one under the hypnotic spell of a preconceived theory would at the suggestion of such a fact begin "to wonder whether he himself is not really standing on his head." FOOTNOTES: [24] "Manual," p. 367. [25] "Ancient Life-History of the Earth," p. 40. [26] "Text-Book," p. 837, Ed. of 1903. [27] "Annual Report," New Series, Vol. II., Part D, pp. 33-34. [28] pp. 111, 534. [29] Nov. 13, 1884, pp. 29-35. [30] See _Nature_, Jan. 24, 1901, p. 294. [31] "Text-Book," p. 678. CHAPTER VI FACT NUMBER FOUR There is only one class of agents now working upon the rocks of the globe which have been in business continuously ever since the dry land appeared, and which have left us a legible record of approximately the amount of business they have been doing all these centuries. And my Fact Number Four, which will complete this line of argument in illustrating the antagonism between the facts of the rocks and the theory of life succession, is that the =rivers= of the world, which of course are the agents to which I have referred, in traveling across the country, =act precisely as if they knew nothing of the varying ages of the rocks=, but on the contrary treat them all alike as if they were of the same age, and =as if they began sawing at them all at the same time=. Of course it is, evidently, in only a few cases where the records are so free from ambiguity as to be quite incapable of being misunderstood, that is, the cases of rivers with steep rocky gorges, or those that cut through mountain ranges; but there are several such rivers in the world, and they all seem to tell the same story.