134 THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



sufficient knowledge of the particular branches of 

 science, to employ their acquired talents in promoting 

 general science, or knowledge of the great system, 

 where ends and means are wisely adjusted in the con- 

 stitution of the material universe. Philosophy, he 

 says, is surely the ultimate end of human knowledge, 

 or the object at which all sciences properly must aim. 

 Sciences no doubt should promote the arts of life ; 

 but, he proceeds, what are all the arts of life, or all 

 the enjoyments of mere animal nature, compared with 

 the art of human happiness, gained by education and 

 brought to perfection by philosophy ? Man must 

 learn to know himself ; he must see his station 

 among created things ; he must become a moral 

 agent. But it is only by studying things in general 

 that he may arrive at this perfection of his nature. 

 " To philosophize, therefore, without proper science, 

 is in vain ; although it is not vain to pursue science, 

 without proceeding to philosophy." 



In the early part of 1785 Dr. Hutton presented 

 his Theory of the Earth in ninety-six pages of per- 

 fectly lucid English. The globe is studied as a ma- 

 chine adapted to a certain end, namely, to provide a 

 habitable world for plants, for animals, and, above 

 all, for intellectual beings capable of the contempla- 

 tion and the appreciation of order and harmony. 

 Hutton's theory might be made plain by drawing an 

 analogy between geological and meteorological ac- 

 tivities. The rain descends on the earth ; streams and 

 rivers bear it to the sea ; the aqueous vapors, drawn 

 from the sea, supply the clouds, and the circuit is com- 

 plete. Similarly, the soil is formed from the over- 

 hanging mountains ; it is washed as sediment into the 



