LUCIAN.--That the sea, by its restless, mighty, and irresistible workings and creations, is the parent of all land, is a fact so demonstrable, from the proofs it has everywhere left behind it, that it is undisputed except by theology; and though it may require many millions of years completely to alternate the surface of our globe, or to make those portions of it sea, which had been land, and vice versa; yet that process and routine, though almost inconceivably slow, is nevertheless sure in endless succession. Man has no doubt migrated from land to land in the way you state; but this would not affect the natural distinction of species, which, however much they may be crossed and mixed for a time, will assert and recur to their primitive distinction ultimately; for Nature positively refuses to perpetuate, within themselves, any of the varieties. This is conclusive proof of the specific difference under the genus homo. Allowing that the height of land is the best criterion of its antiquity, America may by this rule dispute the palm with Asia, as the mountains of the former are nearly as high as those of the latter; and, therefore, the theologian's assertion that the western hemisphere was peopled from Asia, may, with as much truth, be reversed. Whatever may be the respective age of these continents, it seems highly probable, if not certain, that the Andes of South America will be reduced to the fluid state, by the action of the sea and other elements, many hundred thousands of years before the Himmalaya mountains of Asia are levelled by these unsleeping powers; for the former have now the great Pacific Ocean undermining their very foundations, whereas, the latter are still two thousand miles from the sea.
MOD.--The time required to bring about these and other changes which have relation to the celestial globes is so prodigious, that in giving it admittance we virtually set at nought not only all scripture authority, but turn the extent of human chronology into something inconceivably less than a moment sand-glass. Yet it is quite agreeable to the opinion of a great authority among the ancients;--Ocellus Lucanus says:
The universe admitteth neither creation nor annihilation, for it ever was, and ever shall be; if any man should conceive it to have been made, he would not be able to know from what material it was made. Now, I call universal matter by the name of universe, which appellation it obtaineth in that it comprehendeth all things, being an absolute and perfect collection of all natures; and besides the universe there is nothing. Wherefore, there can be nothing without, or external to that which comprehends all things. After men and other animals finish the progress of their nature, and have passed their several ages, they die, and are dissolved, becoming in the same state they were; quo non nati jacent. There is no such thing as _quies in natura_, all things being in a perpetual circular motion. Nor hath man any original production from the earth, or elsewhere, as some have believed; but hath always been, as he now is, co-existent with the world, whereof he is a part. "Nature and generation govern all things."