xi.] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 203 



come to a period in which we cannot see any farther. This, 

 however, 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 retrospective 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 doctrine of Hutton 

 and of Lyell. If I have quoted the older writer rather than the 

 newer, it is because 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 Playfair 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 every page of the &quot; Principles of 

 Geology &quot; ? I think that he who writes fairly the history of his 

 own progress in geological thought, will not be able to separate 

 his debt to Hutton from his obligations to Lyell ; and the 

 history of the progress of individual geologists is the history 

 of geology. 



No one can doubt that the influence of uniformitarian views 

 has been enormous, and, in the main, most beneficial and favourable 

 to the progress of sound geology. 



Nor can it be questioned that Uniformitarianism has even a 

 stronger title than Catastrophism to call itself the geological 

 speculation of Britain, or, if you will, British popular geology. 

 For it is eminently a British doctrine, and has even now made 

 comparatively little progress on the continent of Europe. Never 

 theless, it seems to me to be open to serious criticism upon one 

 of its aspects. 



I have shown how unjust was the insinuation that Hutton 

 denied a beginning to the world. But it would not be unjust to 

 say that he persistently, in practice, shut his eyes to the existence 

 of that prior and different state of things which, in theory, he 



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



