UNIFORMIT ARIANISM. 419 



that, while the laws of nature are immutable, the 

 relative intensity of different geological agencies may 

 have varied from period to period, and that in seek- 

 ing for explanations of the phenomena presented by 

 geological evidence we are not to be hampered by any 

 foregone conclusions as to uniformity or variation, but, 

 as in other questions, must frame our hypotheses on an 

 exhaustive discussion of the facts. 



He contended that our interpretations should be 

 judged by their agreement with the multifarious ques- 

 tions suggested by the facts, and by the manner in 

 which they satisfy the various conditions of the prob- 

 lems to which they are applied. Neither a Uniformi- 

 tarian nor an extreme Convulsionist, he was content 

 to accept the guidance of the present condition of 

 geological causation on the face of the globe, so long 

 as it did not involve any contradiction of what seemed 

 to him the obvious teachings of the rocks. But he 

 never shrank from invoking a gigantic flood, or a 

 subsidence or elevation of the land, if such seemed 

 to him the most natural solution of the problems 

 that presented themselves before him. He lived long 

 enough to have witnessed some remarkable oscilla- 

 tions in geological opinion. In his young days a 

 belief was almost universal in former catastrophes 

 by which the surface of the globe had from time to 

 time been devastated. He saw the rise of Lyell into 

 fame, and the overwhelming influence in this country 

 of the Uniformitarian doctrines which that great 

 teacher so cogently enforced. He marked the decline 

 of the extremer form of Uniformitarianism, and the 

 growth of a creed more nearly in harmony with his 

 own. 



But it is not from his direct contributions to theo- 



