1898] lYUJV SCHEME OF GEOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT 37 



thought upon the various current methods in which the earth's 

 surface is being disintegrated and renewed, and having calculated 

 the cumulative effects of very small causes extending over very long- 

 periods of time, he was more or less fascinated by the result, and 

 argued sometimes, as if he thought that the whole architecture of 

 the universe had been fashioned in this gentle way. The diurnal 

 effect of raindrops, of the grinding of the tide, of the results of 

 frost and heat, of wind and water, when supplemented by unlimited 

 drafts upon time, were deemed competent to shape the gaping 

 hollows and the mantled crags which diversify the earth's surface. 

 This was hinted at by Lyell in many places, although his keen eye 

 and long experience made him qualify the conclusion by many 

 exceptions. His scholars have had no such scruples. They have 

 boldly and aggressively and continuously pressed the conclusion to 

 its logical end. But they have gone further. They have iterated 

 and reiterated the anti-Baconian aphorism that the forces of nature 

 have always been in quality and quantity what they are now. The 

 dictum was enunciated in all its naked absurdity by Eamsay when he 

 presided over the geological section of the British Association, and 

 this view has been since the inspiring philosophical creed of that 

 most tyrannical of scientific tribunals, a Government Depart- 

 ment — namely, the Geological Survey and its officers. Com- 

 mitted to preach a certain definite creed that has become the 

 corporate geological faith of the Department, it has dominated 

 shelves full of reports and manuals, which, from their official 

 sanction, have almost the character of inspiration with most students. 

 More especially has this been the case in America, where, as in 

 this country, this bastard form of uniformity dominates official 

 geology. Against it many of the older writers of the first rank 

 protested vigorously, and against it I have preached myself (being 

 only one of their scholars) all my life, and signs are multiplying 

 that a revolution in men's opinions on the subject is not far off. 



When we look at the face of a man pitted with small-pox, we 

 refuse to believe that those hollows and scars are the normal results 

 of human daily life instead of being the effects of a new disease 

 which came upon mankind as a tremendous catastrophe in the last 

 century. When we look at the moon through a telescope and ex- 

 amine its pitted face where the large rents and craters exceed all 

 human experience, and when we, on the other hand, realise what 

 peace and stillness and terrible quietude mark the face of that great 

 cinder at this moment, we laugh at your uniformity as taught 

 by modern geologists. It is as monstrous to suppose that any 

 forces which have operated on the moon since human observation 

 was turned upon it could have moulded that surface, as it is to 

 suppose that the north wind hatches geese out of barnacles, which 



