4 ON THE GENERAL OBJECTS OF 



refuse to inquire into the agencies by which the ma- 

 terials of this earth have been disposed and modified, 

 by which they are alternately renewed and destroyed, 

 by which all the changes, of which it displays the 

 marks, are caused to work together to one great end. 

 But even the philosophical geologist does not inquire 

 how the great Creator of the universe produced the 

 globe that we inhabit. He is content with investigat- 

 ing the secondary causes by which its materials as- 

 sumed their present form and disposition, the laws which 

 regulate those incessant changes by which every thing 

 is alternately destroyed and renewed, yet where no- 

 thing of all that has been created is lost. Had as- 

 tronomers been content to know that the earth was a 

 sphere and that the planets performed their revolu- 

 tions in stated times, had the force of gravity remained 

 unknown because they refused to investigate secondary 

 causes, the nature of the tides would yet have been a 

 mystery, like the complicated motions of the moon, 

 and comets would still have been objects of astonish- 

 ment and terror. 



But the human mind is so constituted that it cannot 

 rest content with facts. If it possesses innate propen- 

 sities, the investigation of causes is assuredly one of 

 them. The very geologist who disclaims all theory, 

 has his own; the lowest of the vulgar desire reasons. 

 We cannot open our eyes without seeing daily changes 

 on the surface of our globe. Rivers alter their courses, 

 and lakes are obliterated, by the transportation of 

 earth. Mountains are levelled with the plains by the 

 action of rains and frost; and valleys are filled up by 

 their ruins. An earthquake alters, in an instant, the 

 whole face of a country, and a volcano overwhelms it 

 with new rocks. These phenomena irresistibly com- 

 pel us to inquire whether similar causes may not, in 



