312 GEOLOGICAL REFORM x 



Kirwan, and the other Philistines of the day, 

 accused Hutton of declaring that his theory 

 implied that the world never had a beginning, 

 and never differed in condition from its present 

 state. Nothing could be more grossly unjust, as 

 he expressly guards himself against any such 

 conclusion in the following terms : 



&quot; But in thus tracing back the natural opera 

 tions which have succeeded each other, and mark 

 to us the course of time past, we come to a period 

 in which we cannot see any farther. This, how 

 ever, is not the beginning of the operations which 

 proceed in time and according to the wise 

 economy of this world ; nor is it the establishing 

 of that which, in the course of time, had no 

 beginning; it is only the limit of our retrospec 

 tive view of those operations which have come 

 to pass in time, and have been conducted by 

 supreme intelligence.&quot; l 



I have spoken of Uniformitarianism as the doc 

 trine of Hutton and of Lyell. If I have quoted 

 the older writer rather than the newer, it is be 

 cause his works are little known, and his claims 

 on our veneration too frequently forgotten, not 

 because I desire to dim the fame of his eminent 

 successor. Few of the present generation of 

 geologists have read Play fair s &quot; Illustrations,&quot; 

 fewer still the original &quot; Theory of the Earth &quot; ; the 

 more is the pity ; but which of us has not thumbed 



1 The Theory of the Earth, vol. i. p. 223. 



