Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/58

 title than catastrophism to call itself the geological speculation of Britain, or, if you will, British popular geology. For it is eminently a British doctrine, and has even now made comparatively little progress on the continent of Europe. Nevertheless it seems to me to be open to serious criticism upon one of its aspects.

I have shown how unjust was the insinuation that Hutton denied a beginning to the world. But it would not be unjust to say that he persistently, in practice, shut his eyes to the existence of that prior and different state of things which in theory he admitted ; and in this aversion to look beyond the veil of stratified rocks Lyell follows him.

Hutton and Lyell alike agree in their indisposition to carry their speculations a step beyond the period recorded in the most ancient strata now open to observation in the crust of the earth. This is, for Hutton, " the point in which we cannot see any farther ; " while Lyell tells us, —

" The astronomer may find good reasons for ascribing the earth's form to the original fluidity of the mass in times long antecedent to the first introduction of living beings into the planet ; but the geologist must be content to regard the earliest monuments which it is his task to interpret, as belonging to a period when the crust had already acquired great solidity and thickness, probably as great as it now possesses, and when volcanic rocks, not essentially differing from those now produced, were formed from time to time, the intensity of volcanic heat being neither greater nor less than it is now"*.

And again, " As geologists, we learn that it is not only the present condition of the globe which has been suited to the accommodation of myriads of living creatures, but that many former states also have been adapted to the organization and habits of prior races of beings. The disposition of the seas, continents and islands, and the climates have varied ; the species likewise have been changed ; and yet they have all been so modelled, on types analogous to those of existing plants and animals, as to indicate, throughout, a perfect harmony of design and unity of purpose. To assume that the evidence of the beginning, or end, of so vast a scheme lies within the reach of our philosophical inquiries, or even of our speculations, appears to be inconsistent with a Just estimate of the relations which subsist between the finite powers of man and the attributes of an infinite and eternal Being " †.

The limitations implied in these passages appear to me to constitute the weakness and the logical defect of uniformitarianism. No one will impute blame to Hutton that, in face of the imperfect condition, in his day, of those physical sciences which furnish the keys to the riddles of geology, he should have thought it practical wisdom to limit his theory to an attempt to account for " the present order of things " ; but I am at a loss to comprehend why, for all time, the geologist must be content to regard the oldest fossiliferous rocks as the ultima Thule of his science, or what there is inconsistent with the relations between the finite and the infinite mind in the assump-


 * Principles of Geology, vol. ii. p. 211.

† lb. p. 613.