Once more. An objection may arise to the reception of the prochronic principle, on the ground that the examples I have adduced are not to be compared, in point of grandeur, with the mighty revolutions, which are presumed to have written their records in the crust of the globe; and that hence no analogy can be fairly drawn from one to the other. To the philosopher, however, there is no great or small, as there is none in the works of God. We have every reason to believe that He has wrought by the same laws in all portions of his universe: the principle on which an apple falls from the branch to the ground, is the same as that which keeps the planet Neptune in the solar system. I have shown that the principle of prochronic development obtains wherever we are able to test it; that is, wherever another principle, that of _cyclicism_, exists; whether the cycle be that of a gnat's metamorphosis, or of a planet's orbit. The distinction of great or small, grand or mean, does not apply to it. If it cannot be proved to be universal, it is only because we are not sufficiently acquainted with some of the economies of nature to be able to pronounce with certainty whether they are cyclical or not. I am not aware of any natural process, in which its existence can be absolutely denied. And this makes all the difference in the world between my position and that of the old simple-minded observers, with which a superficial reader might think it to possess a good deal in common. A century ago, people used to talk of _lusus naturae_; of a certain _plastic power_ in nature; of abortive or initiative attempts at making things which were never perfected; of imitations, in one kingdom, of the proper subjects of another, (as plants were supposed to be imitated by the frost on a window-pane, and by the dendritic forms of metals). Still later, many persons have been inclined to take refuge from the conclusions of geology in the absolute sovereignty of God, asking,--"Could not the Omnipotent Creator make the fossils in the strata, just as they now appear?" It has always been felt to be a sufficient answer to such a demand, that no reason could be adduced for such an exercise of mere power; and that it would be unworthy of the Allwise God. But this is a totally different thing from that for which I am contending. I am endeavouring to show that a grand LAW exists, by which, in two great departments of nature at least, the analogues of the fossil skeletons were formed without pre-existence. An arbitrary acting, and an acting on fixed and general laws, have nothing in common with each other.