THE INFLUENCE OF OXFORD ON THE 

 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY.* 



ONE of the most immediate effects produced by contem- 

 plation of the world around us is that of pleasure in its 

 abounding beauty. Whether we wander through the smiling 

 country which surrounds this University, or climb the snowy 

 peaks of the Alps, or visit the sunlit islands of the 

 Tropics, wherever we turn, the feeling expressed by a 

 German poet will spontaneously arise : " Oh ! Wunder- 

 schon ist Gottes Erde, Und Schon auf ihr ein Mensch zu 

 sein " — Beautiful is God's Earth and good it is to be a Man 

 thereon. 



This aesthetic delight, while it may sometimes suffice for 

 the poet, is succeeded generally by a desire for closer ac- 

 quaintance ; a certain divine curiosity implanted in the 

 breast of man leads him to search into the inner mysteries 

 of Nature, and to explore the causes of the wonderful 

 phenomena which surround him. He begins to examine 

 and compare, to analyse the complex into its elements, and 

 to build up again the elements into a new and intellectual 

 cosmos. Thus he gains a new pleasure from contemplation 

 of the world, and labouring in the pleasant work of investi- 

 gation he experiences the joy of discovery. 



The pleasures of sport are generally supposed to be 

 those to which the soul of the Englishman is most deeply 

 responsive.. Thus the famous Darwin writing of his youth 

 remarks: "The autumns were devoted to shooting . . . 

 my zeal was so great that I used to place my shooting boots 

 open by the bed-side when I went to bed, so as not to lose 

 half a minute in putting them on in the morning. . . . How 

 I did enjoy shooting ! " But a little later, and he writes : 

 " During the first two years my old passion for shooting 

 survived in nearly full force, and I shot myself all the birds 

 and animals for my collection ; but gradually I gave up my 



1 An Inaugural Lecture delivered before the University of Oxford, 

 on 19th October, 1897. 



