GNEISS. 147 



chiefly from the use of this term as indicating a geo- 

 logical series, and as the mere name of a rock. If it 

 he used to express the latter alone, gneiss alternates 

 with many other strata, sometimes much inferior in 

 quantity, to which the arbitrary and abused term 

 subordinate, has then been applied ; yet equally alter- 

 nating with the same rocks, and on an extensive 

 scale, in such a manner, that so far from including 

 them it is itself inferior in quantity, and might, with 

 equal reason, be considered subordinate. But all this 

 difficulty, like most of the other vexations of Geology, 

 are the produce of systems, themselves the produce 

 of original ignorance, promulgated and enforced 

 by equivalent minds, so as to enslave other similar 

 ones ; as has happened in every science, from logic 

 and metaphysics to mechanical science and medicine. 

 It is the hypothesis of the formations in the secon- 

 dary strata, in another form ; meaning nothing when 

 it cannot prove some fact in the history of the Earth, 

 yet not simply foolish and innocent when it becomes 

 a substitute for true description, because conferring 

 -the mischievous authority of a philosopher on a mere 

 phraseologist. There is but one reasonable and phi- 

 losophical view in the present case. If there are al- 

 ternating beds of other rocks which have undergone 

 common changes of flexure and contortion with 

 gneiss, that whole series was completed before this 

 subsequent influence and change ; where this does 

 not occur, the deposits may have been of different and 

 distant dates, especially where large masses of other 

 strata intervene ; though the limited influence of the 

 granite may render even this doubtful. In any case, 

 the term subordinate is as idle as all the other Ger- 

 manic philosophy which continues to obstruct the 

 progress of this science. 



L 2 



