246 CONCLUSION. 



ing diligently in the way. The vestiges of vital develop- 

 ment are yet but faintly discernible ; we shall never trace 

 them to their source and origin under the guidance of a 

 materialistic hypothesis. To attempt, on the other hand, 

 reconciliations of geology with Scripture is to mistake the 

 functions of both to confound the philosophically ascer- 

 tainable with what needed to be revealed the physical 

 with the spiritual, and reason with faith. It has been re- 

 plied, no doubt, that the Words and the Works of God 

 cannot possibly be at variance. This, however, is a mere 

 dignified nothingism. No rational man ever supposed they 

 could, but men may differ in their interpretation of either, 

 and this makes all the difference. Geology loses by such 

 well-meant but ignorant attempts theology cannot be a 

 gainer. 



Let us then, as geologists, restrict ourselves to our own 

 proper field the physical evidences of God's working in 

 creation , labouring to comprehend his plan, and from a 

 comprehension of that plan to rise to the higher conception 

 of his will as regards our own place and function in the 

 scheme of vitality. To combine our knowledge of the 

 earth's history as an intellectual attainment with the prac- 

 tical application of its treasures to our material necessities, 

 is a high and important aim; to ascend from this aim to 

 the conception of the whole as an orderly Cosmos, with 

 whose ordainings, physical and vital, our thoughts and 

 actions are inseparably interwoven, is the loftiest attainment 

 the true philosophy of geology. As yet this height has 

 lain far and dimly before us ; arid the path of the earlier 

 travellers has been often uncertain and obscure. Light, 

 however, is beginning to crest the mountain-tops, and ob- 

 jects to cast their shadows across the valley below. Yet a 

 little longer, and the sun will attain its meridian, and bathe 



