Age of the Sun in Relation to Evolution

Abstract

ONE of the most formidable objections to the theory of evolution is the enormous length of time which it demands. On this point Prof. Haeckel, one of the highest authorities on the subject, in his “History of Creation,” has the following:—“Darwin's theory, as well that of Lyell, renders the assumption of immense periods absolutely necessary. … If the theory of development be true at all there must certainly have elapsed immense periods, utterly inconceivable to us, during which the gradual historical development of the animal and vegetable proceeded by the slow transformation of species … the periods during which species originated by gradual transmutation, must not be calculated by single centuries, but by hundreds and by millions of centuries. Every process of development is the more intelligible the longer it is assumed to last.”