54 
On Buevedwulity with respect to Geological Lacts.* 
HE parent of incredulity with regard to scientific truths is, in 
the majority of cases, ignorance. People refuse to believe 
a statement because the fact to which it refers is beyond the 
range of their experience, and they cannot understand how it is 
ascertained. The most commonly accepted doctrines of Geology 
were once rejected with an amount of contempt and even of pity, 
quite equal to that with which the ideas of Solomon de Caus and 
the Marquis of Worcester, concerning steam, were heard. Toa 
certain extent this principle may be a good one; but when it ex- 
tends to a resolute refusal to believe the statements of persons 
whose experience is much greater than our own, it becomes 
reprehensible. And for this reason, that anyone may, if he chooses 
to exercise the powers imparted to him, examine into these things 
for himself, and so become capable of judging about them: when 
he refuses to do this, in addition to refusing to believe, the very 
utmost we can do for him is to leave him in his wilful ignorance. 
What numbers of people there are who firmly believe the earth 
to be still in the same state in which it first came from the hands 
of the Creator ; who laugh when you assert that the dry land upon 
which they stand was once covered by the sea; who smile in 
pity for you when you revive the tale of an old Atlantis, and say 
it is not at all improbable: they forget how our mighty rivers are 
constantly wearing down their banks, deepening their channels, 
and occasionally seeking fresh beds; how waterfalls grind down 
rocks; how ice and frost cause them to crumble away ; how the 
restless dash of the sea wears away the shore, while in other 
places the mouths of rivers are filling up. You remind them of 
these, you refer them to a new island lately sprung up during an 
earthquake in mid ocean, to the action of volcanoes and floods of 
lava century after century—and you startle them; they begin to 
* Read before the Society at the first Evening Meeting (October 9, 1866) 
of the Second Winter Session, 1866-7. 
