Page:A Treatise on Geology, volume 1.djvu/38

 22 and directing inquiry. In proportion as the philosophy of chemical, mechanical, and vital phenomena advances, so the interpretation of geological phenomena expands; and if at any time the leaders of geology have substituted conjecture for induction—a dogma for a dictum—they were then offending not so much geology as chemistry, physiology, and astronomy; and by these have they been justly condemned. Would that this warning might suffice to keep many hands to the sketch book and hammer, which they know well to use; and prevent them from attempting, without adequate precaution, to hasten the progress of geological theory.