Just so the general mind
of humanity finds some satisfaction in supposing a world or a series of
worlds anterior to the present, thus escaping the insoluble enigma of
creation by removing it indefinitely in time.
The support lent to these views by the presence of marine shells on high
lands, or by faint reminiscences of local geologic convulsions, I
estimate very low. Savages are not inductive philosophers, and by
nothing short of a miracle could they preserve the remembrance of even
the most terrible catastrophe beyond a few generations. Nor has any such
occurred within the ken of history of sufficient magnitude to make a
very permanent or wide-spread impression. Not physics, but metaphysics,
is the exciting cause of these beliefs in periodical convulsions of the
globe. The idea of matter cannot be separated from that of time, and
time and eternity are contradictory terms. Common words show this
connection. World, for example, in the old language _waereld_, from the
root to wear, by derivation means an age or cycle (Grimm).
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