236 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES, AND REVIEWS. [xi 



to regard the oldest fossiliferous rocks as the ultima 



o 



Tliule of his science ; or what there is inconsistent with 

 the relations between the finite and the infinite mind, in 

 the assumption, that we may discern somewhat of the 

 beginning, or of the end, of this speck in space we call 

 our earth. The finite mind is certainly competent to 

 trace out the development of the fowl within the egg ; 

 and I know not on what ground it should find more 

 difficulty in unravelling the complexities of the develop- 

 ment of the earth. In fact, as Kant has well remarked, 1 

 the cosmical process is really simpler than the biological. 



This attempt to limit, at a particular point, the progress 

 of inductive and deductive reasoning from the things 

 which are, to those which w x ere — this faithlessness to its 

 ow r n logic, seems to me to have cost Uniformitarianism 

 the place, as the permanent form of geological specula- 

 tion, which it might otherwise have held. 



It remains that I should put before you what I 

 understand to be the third phase of geological specula- 

 tion — namely, Evolutionism. 



I shall not make what I have to say on this head 

 clear, unless I diverge, or seem to diverge, for a while, 

 from the direct path of my discourse, so far as to explain 

 what I take to be the scope of geology itself. I conceive 

 geology to be the history of the earth, in precisely the 

 same sense as biology is the history of living beings ; 

 and I trust you will not think that I am overpowered by 

 the influence of a dominant pursuit if I say that I trace 

 a close analogy between these two histories. 



If I study a living being, under what heads does the 



1 "Man darf es sicli also nicht befremden lassen, wenn ich micli unterstehe 

 zu sagen, dass eher die Biklung aller Himmelskorper, die Ursache ihrer 

 Bewegungen, kurz der Ursprung der ganzen gegenwartigen Verfassung dcs 

 Weltbaues "\verden konnen eintcesehen werden, ehe die Erzeuimnrr eines 

 omzigen Krautes oder einer Raupe aus mechanischen Grunden, deiitlich mid 

 Yollstindig kund verden wird." — Kant's iSdmmtlichc Werke, Bd. I. p. 220 



