iv Hutt on s Fundamental Doctrines 167 



sion of statement and felicity of language it has no superior 

 in English scientific literature. To its early inspiration I 

 owe a debt which I can never fully repay. Upon every 

 young student of geology I would impress the advantage 

 of reading and re-reading and reading yet again this con- 

 summate masterpiece. How different would geological 

 literature be to-day if men had tried to think and write 

 like Playfair ! 



There are thus three sources of information as to 

 Hutton's geological system his first sketch of 1785, his 

 two octavo volumes of 1795 and Playfair's Illustrations of 

 1802. Let us now consider what were his fundamental 

 doctrines. 



Although he called his system a Theory of the Earth, 

 Hutton's conceptions entirely differed from those of the 

 older cosmologists, who thought themselves bound to begin 

 by explaining the origin of things, and who proceeded on 

 a foundation of hypothesis to erect a more or less fantastic 

 edifice of mere speculation. He, on the contrary, believed 

 that it is the duty of science to begin by ascertaining what 

 evidence there is in the earth itself to throw light upon 

 its history. Instead of invoking conjecture and hypo- 

 thesis, he proceeded from the very outset to collect the 

 actual facts, and to marshal these in such a way as to 

 make them tell their own story. Unlike Werner, he had 

 no preconceived theory about th# origin of rocks, with 

 which all the phenomena of nature had to be made to 

 agree. His theory grew so naturally out of his observa- 

 tions that it involved no speculation in regard to a large 

 part of its subject. 



Hutton started with the grand conception that the past 



