312 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1907. 
new geology would have nothing to do with the search for cosmogo- 
nies and such like fancy foods, and the Geological Society of London 
should be nourished on unadulterated facts. 
The time was ripe for the change. No less a person than Goethe. 
once an enthusiastic votary of geology, was now, in his play of 
“ Faust,” holding up its teachers to ridicule. The theories “ evolved 
from the inner consciousness ” of continental Neptunists and Pluto- 
nists were to Goethe excellent subjects for caricature. It was then the 
Englishman, Greenough, founded a society to turn geology from the 
pursuit of fleeting fancies and lead her to the study of sober but 
enduring facts. The members of this society were to abandon the 
quest of scientific chimeras; they were to leave to later generations the 
attempt to solve the universe as a whole. 
The Geological Society has owed its influence to its bold, original 
purpose. It was not founded as a drifting social union of men with 
a common interest in a single science. Its object was to apply to geol- 
ogy one particular mode of research. It adopted as its motto this fine 
passage from Bacon: 
“Tf any man makes it his delight and care—not so much to cling to 
and use past discoveries, as to penetrate to what is beyond them—not 
to conquer Nature by talk, but by toil—in short, not to have elegant 
and plausible theories, but to gain sure and demonstrable knowledge; 
let such men (if it shall seem to them right), as true children of 
knowledge, unite themselves with us.” 
The methods of the society were as practical as its ideals. London, 
with characteristic unconventionality and originality, has used its 
scientific societies as its university for post-graduate teaching. In- 
formally the Geological Society enrolled every British master of 
geology on its staff of unpaid professors, then set each of them to 
teach the branch of geology which he knew best. And these profes- 
sors were no carpet knights; they were knights errant who derived 
their knowledge, not from books alone, but from their wanderings 
over hills and dales, in mines and quarries, by ice-polished rocks and 
water-worn valleys. At its meetings the leaders of the society an- 
nounced what they had discovered, gave sure and demonstrable proofs 
of their discoveries, and showed in what direction the geological 
forces should be directed for the conquest of Nature. The goodly 
fellowship of the Geological Society has always encamped on the 
ever-advancing frontier of geological knowledge, where the well-sur- 
veyed tracks pass out into the bright, alluring realms of the unknown. 
The actual founders of the Geological Society were apparently men 
of less showy intellect than the great Werner, whose teaching had 
intoxicated many of the most gifted of his enthusiastic pupils. They 
were men, like Horner and Greenough, who had a practical insight 
that enabled them to give a permanent help to the progress of science. 
