Ill SCIENCE AND PSEUDO-SCIENCE 99 



unknown causes. Geology is as much a historical 

 science as archaeology ; and I apprehend that all 

 sound historical investigation rests upon this 

 axiom. It underlay all Button's work and ani- 

 mated Lyell and Scope in their successful efforts 

 to revolutionise the geology of half a century ago. 

 There is no antagonism whatever, and there 

 never was, between the belief in the views which 

 had their chief and unwearied advocate in Lyell 

 and the belief in the occurrence of catastrophes. 

 The first edition of Lyell's " Principles," published 

 in 1830, lies before me ; and a large part of the 

 first volume is occupied by an account of volcanic, 

 seismic, and diluvial catastrophes which have 

 occurred within the historical period. Moreover, 

 the author, over and over again, expressly draws 

 the attention of his readers to the consistency of 

 catastrophes with his doctrine. 



Notwithstanding, therefore, that we have not witnessed with- 

 in the last three thousand years the devastation by deluge of a 

 large continent, yet, as we may predict the future occurrence of 

 such catastrophes, we are authorised to regard them as part of 

 the present order of nature, and they may be introduced into 

 geological speculations respecting the past, provided that we do 

 not imagine them to have been more frequent or general than 

 we expect them to be in time to come (vol. i. p. 89). 



Again : 



If we regard each of the causes separately, which we know to 

 be at present the most instrumental in remodelling the state of 

 the surface, we shall find that we must expect each to be in 

 action for thousands of years, without producing any extensive 



