Patrick Matthew Quote

Geologists discover... an almost complete difference to exist between the species or stamp of life, of one epoch from that of every other. We are therefore led to admit, either of a repeated miraculous creation; or of a power of change, under a change of circumstances, to belong to living organised matter, or rather to the congeries of inferior life, which appears to form superior.

On naval timber and arboriculture (1831) - Appendix F, part II