570 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



to form of it such a judgment as this ; that it is not only the source 

 of mere vegetable and animal life, but also of rational and social life, 

 language and arts, law and order ; in short, of all the progressive 

 tendencies by which the highest principles of the intellectual and 

 moral world have been and are developed, as well as of the succes- 

 sion of organic forms, which we find scattered, dead or living, over the 

 earth. 



This reflection concerning the natural scientific view of creation, it 

 will be observed, has not been sought for, from a wish to arrive at such 

 conclusions ; but it has flowed spontaneously from the manner in 

 which we have had to introduce geology into our classification of the 

 sciences ; and this classification was framed from an unbiassed consi- 

 deration of the general analogies and guiding ideas of the various 

 portions of our knowledge. Such remarks as we have made may on 

 this account be considered more worthy of attention. 



But such a train of thought must be pursued with caution. Al- 

 though it may not be possible to arrive at a right conviction respect- 

 ing the origin of the world, without having recourse to other than 

 physical considerations, and to other than geological evidence ; yet 

 extraneous considerations, and extraneous evidence, respecting the 

 nature of the beginning of things, must never be allowed to influence 

 our physics or our geology. Our geological dynamics, like our astro- 

 nomical dynamics, may be inadequate to carry us back to an origin 

 of that state of things, of which it explains the progress : but this 

 deficiency must be supplied, not by adding supernatural to natural 

 geological dynamics, but by accepting, in their proper place, the views 

 supplied by a portion of knowledge of a different character and order. 

 If we include in our Theology the speculations to which we have 

 recourse for this purpose, we must exclude from them our Geology. 

 The two sciences may conspire, not by having any part in common ; 

 but because, though widely diverse in their lines, both point to a mys- 

 terious and invisible origin of the world. 



o 



All that which claims our assent on those higher grounds of which 

 theology takes cognizance, must claim such assent as is consistent 

 with those grounds ; that is, it must require belief in respect of all 

 that bears upon the highest relations of our being, those on which 

 depend our duties and our hopes. Doctrines of this kind may and 

 must be conveyed and maintained, by means of information concern- 

 ing the past history of man, and his social and material, as well as 

 moral and spiritual fortunes. He who believes that a Providence has 



