Hutton according to MacCulloch. 263 



mination of the present order. It is unreasonable, indeed, to 

 suppose that such marks should any where exist. The Author 

 of nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the 

 institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their 

 own destruction ; he has not permitted in his works any symp- 

 tom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may esti- 

 mate either their future or their past duration. He may put an 

 end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system, at 

 some determinate period of time ; but we may rest assured, that 

 this great catastrophe will not be brought about by the laws 

 now existing, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we 

 perceive. 



(2.) Htttton according to MacCulloch. — The theory of Hutton 

 is best known through the commentary of Playfair. I must 

 make the following sketch as brief as possible ; while by com- 

 mencing from the present state of the earth, it will easily be 

 seen that it is almost a transcript of Lazzoro Moro's, with some 

 extension, and some aid from succeeding sources ; yet with some 

 important additions united to numerous and serious errors. 



The action of the elements, and the flow of water, transfer 

 the materials of rocks to the lower lands and the sea ; and the 

 same proceeding having occurred in former times, those alluvia 

 were the germs of the present strata, as the existing ones are 

 those of a subsequent earth. The ancient rocky strata have 

 therefore been produced from the waste of a former world ; as 

 their organic fossils are the evidences of former life. The cen- 

 tral ignited matter has protruded, as it does now in volcanoes ; 

 and, under different circumstances, has produced granite and 

 trap forming the unstratilied rocks which have elevated the 

 older strata, and producing there several accidents, as in the 

 former system ; while the fluid matter, filling their fissures, has 

 generated rock veins. The consolidation of the strata is at- 

 tributed to the same cause ; but wherever there are differences 

 in the action of this and of ordinary fire, it is attributed to pres- 

 sure from superincumbent weight ; under which the trap-rocks 

 are falsely said to be never cavernous ; as hmestones become 

 fusible. Lastly, having conceived no other division of rocks 

 but into primary and secondary, this theory traces but throe 



