This
statement appeared in the shape of an argument, used by Bertrand
and others in the previous century, to prove that fossil remains
of plants in the coal measures had never existed as living
plants, but had been simply a "result of the development of
imperfect plant embryos"; and the same misty theory was
suggested to explain the existence of fossil animals without
supposing the epochs and changes required by geological science.
In 1837 Wagner sought to uphold this explanation; but it was so
clearly a mere hollow phrase, unable to bear the weight of the
facts to be accounted for, that it was soon given up.
Similar attempts were made throughout Europe, the most
noteworthy appearing in England. In 1853 was issued an anonymous
work having as its title _A Brief and Complete Refutation of the
Anti-Scriptural Theory of Geologists_: the author having revived
an old idea, and put a spark of life into it--this idea being
that "all the organisms found in the depths of the earth were made
on the first of the six creative days, as models for the plants and
animals to be created on the third, fifth, and sixth days.
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