512 ON THE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF THE EARTH. 



still nearer, though, at this point, we must stop. But 

 stop wherever we may, the facts still prove, that the 

 phenomena of the Earth do not coincide, as is said, 

 with those of the Celestial mechanism, that the Earth 

 was not the same at previous periods as it is now, and 

 and that it also hears, as I have formerly shown, the 

 marks of a progressive and steady melioration. 



Therefore was it created in time ; and therefore 

 does it not support, hy thensserted analogy, an equally 

 imagined Eternity of the Celestial system, or of the 

 merely Solar one. Let a peculiar philosophy fancy 

 what it may, it receives no assistance from facts : on 

 the contrary, these contradict it. The Peripatetic phi- 

 losopher must submit : for even on that which had no 

 foundation, the bolt has fallen. 



But Geology can effect yet more ; and with that I 

 shall conclude. There is nothing in the celestial me- 

 chanism to prove that the Solar system, the Universe 

 tself, is of a more remote date than Man. Astronomy 

 furnishes no evidence. But Geology teaches us that a 

 terrestrial globe had a long prior existence ; and thence 

 does it prove the equally remote antiquity of the Solar 

 system, though mathematics cannot as yet so far demon- 

 strate its connexion with other systems, as to prove that 

 the date of the creation of those is involved in our own, 

 as that of the Earth is with the entire mechanism of 

 the Solar group. 



Of such high value is geological science, when duly 

 viewed. As far as what has now passed involves a 

 Theory, it consists of those deductions from facts which* 

 philosophy is justified in drawing, but it is not yet a 

 Theory of the Earth- 



END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 



J. Teuten, Printer, 14, Dean-street, Soho. 



