56 ON CHANGES IN THE DISPOSITION 



Geologists have been accused, and justly, of impro- 

 perly mixing their physical enquiries with the history 

 of the earth as delivered in the Sacred writings. But this 

 is because they have attempted to account for that which 

 lies beyond the reach of investigation, and also to explain 

 it by evidence equally misapprehended and misapplied. 

 This is alike injurious to the cause of Religion andto that 

 of Philosophy. But a juster view of the nature and 

 limits of Geological science, is subject to no such cen- 

 sure. Abandoning all pretensions to explain the in- 

 explicable, and to reconcile the irreconcileable, it is 

 content with tracing the series of visible causes and 

 effects, with pointing out analogies, and indicating 

 the inferences to which they lead. This is far dif- 

 ferent from that ignorance which would fain prove the 

 truth of Scripture by physical evidence, or the weak- 

 ness that would found a system of natural philosophy 

 on the Sacred writings. The preceding subject, with 

 a future renovation of the Earth from the materials 

 of the present, is not beyond reach of human reason- 

 ing, until it can be shown that the past history of the 

 Earth is a vision. And if such a catastrophe be es- 

 sential to the total welfare of the earth and its inhabi- 

 tants, one among the laws which regulate the govern- 

 ment of the Universe, if it is that act of mercy, not of 

 vindictive justice which I have shown it to be, be- 

 speaking, like the more ordinary course of nature, the 

 goodness and the wisdom, not less than the power, of 

 the Deity, then does Geology serve the cause of Re- 

 ligion through its own powers, instead of meriting the 

 ignorant persecution which it has experienced from 

 the fanatical ignorant. Let the censure be directed to 

 those who have taken improper views of it. The study 

 of nature will never lead to impiety ; nor can Truth 

 ever oppose Truth : the more the universe is examined, 



