APPENDIX H: LYELL 431 



established, even where all identity of mineralogical character was 

 wanting, and where no light could be derived from the order of super- 

 position. 



The minute investigation, moreover, of the relics of the animate 

 creation of former ages, had a powerful effect in dispelling the illusion 

 which had long prevailed concerning the absence of analogy between 

 the ancient and modern state of our planet. A close comparison of 

 the recent and fossil species, and the inferences drawn in regard to 

 their habits, accustomed the geologist to contemplate the earth as 

 having been at successive periods the dwelling-place of animals and 

 plants of different races, some of which were discovered to have been 

 terrestrial, and others aquatic some fitted to live in seas, others in 

 the waters of lakes and rivers. By the consideration of these topics, 

 the mind was slowly and insensibly withdrawn from imaginary pic- 

 tures of catastrophes and chaotic confusion, such as haunted the 

 imagination of the early cosmogonists. Numerous proofs were dis- 

 covered of the tranquil deposition of sedimentary matter and the 

 slow development of organic life. If many still continued to main- 

 tain, that " the thread of induction was broken, " yet in reasoning by 

 the strict rules of induction from recent to fossil species, they vir- 

 tually disclaimed the dogma which in theory they professed. The 

 adoption of the same generic, and, in some cases, even the same 

 specific, names for the exuviae of fossil animals, and their living ana- 

 logues, was an important step towards familiarising the mind with the 

 idea of the identity and unity of the system in distant eras. It was 

 an acknowledgment, as it were, that a considerable part of the ancient 

 memorials of nature were written in a living language. The growing 

 importance then of the natural history of organic remains, and its 

 general application to geology, may be pointed out as the character- 

 istic feature of the progress of the science during the present century. 

 This branch of knowledge has already become an instrument of great 

 power in the discovery of truths in geology, and is continuing daily 

 to unfold new data for grand and enlarged views respecting the former 

 changes of the earth. 



When we compare the result of observations in the last thirty years 

 with those of the three preceding centuries, we cannot but look 

 forward with the most sanguine expectations to the degree of excel- 

 lence to which geology may be carried, even by the labours of the 

 present generation. Never, perhaps, did any science, with the excep- 



