1 1 2 The Foimders of Geology LECT. 



general relations of the great masses of which the globe is 

 composed ? " x The geognosts boasted of the minuteness 

 and precision of their master's system, and contrasted the 

 positive results to which it led with what they regarded 

 as the vague conclusions and unsupported or idle specula- 

 tions of other writers. Werner arranged the crust of the 

 earth into a series of formations, which he labelled and 

 described with the same precision that he applied to the 

 minerals in his cabinet. He taught that these formations 

 were to be recognized all over the world, in the same order 

 and with the same characters. The students whom he 

 sent forth naturally believed that they carried with them, 

 in this sequence, the key that would unlock the geological 

 structure of every country. 



But never in the history of science did a stranger 

 hallucination arise than that of Werner and his school, 

 when they supposed themselves to discard theory and 

 build on a foundation of accurately-ascertained fact. Never 

 was a system devised in which theory was more rampant ; 

 theory, too, unsupported by observation, and, as we now 

 know, utterly erroneous. From beginning to end of Werner's 

 method and its applications, assumptions were made for 

 which there was no ground, and these assumptions were 

 treated as demonstrable facts. The very point to be 

 proved was taken for granted, and the geognosts, who 

 boasted of their avoidance of speculation, were in reality 

 among the most hopelessly speculative of all the genera- 

 tions that had tried to solve the problem of the theory of 

 the earth. 



1 Jameson, "Elements of Geognosy," forming vol. iii. of his System of 

 Mineralogy, p. 42. The italics in this quotation are in the original. 



