Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/24

 20 of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks in the scale of sciences next to astronomy;" and the history of the structure of our planet, when it shall be fully understood, must lead to the same great moral results that have followed the study of the mechanism of the heavens; Geology has already proved by physical evidence, that the surface of the globe has not existed in its actual state from eternity, but has advanced through a series of creative operations, succeeding one another at long and definite intervals of time; that all the actual combinations of matter have had a prior existence in some other state; and that the ultimate atoms of the material elements, through whatever changes they may have passed, are, and ever have been, governed by laws, as regular and uniform, as those which hold the planets in their course. All these results entirely accord with the best feelings of our nature, and with our rational conviction of the greatness and goodness of the Creator of the universe; and the reluctance with which evidences, of such high importance to natural theology, have been admitted by many persons, who are sincerely zealous for the interests of religion, can only be explained by their want of accurate information in physical science; and by their ungrounded fears lest natural phenomena should prove inconsistent with the account of the creation in the book of Genesis.

It is argued unfairly against Geology, that because its followers are as yet agreed on no complete and incontrovertible theory of the earth; and because early opinions advanced on imperfect evidence have yielded, in succession, to more extensive discoveries; therefore nothing certain is known upon the whole subject; and that all geological deductions must be crude, unauthentic, and conjectural.

It must be candidly admitted that the season has not yet arrived, when a perfect theory of the whole earth can be fixedly and finally established, since we have not yet before us all the facts on which such a theory may eventually be