380 



! 



CHAP. XLV1. 



On. Theories of the Earth. 



I HAVE reserved to this place the following slender but 

 necessary account of geological theories ; as the reader 

 will now be a better judge, and as I need not also, now, 

 bestow a minute examination on them, or labour to 

 refute what stands self-refuted. But I do not intend 

 a history of geology or of geologists : I must leave to 

 others what would be more easy to write than to read, 

 and try to gratify a rational curiosity on easier terms. 

 And if a record of error demands criticism, so have 

 many preceding allusions rendered that necessary : 

 while, the more distinctly the wrong is made visible, 

 in the clearer light will the right appear. 



But, as many of these differ in their very design, I 

 must premise a few remarks. A " theory of the earth" 

 may commence, with Epicurus, or with Buiibn, at the 

 creation of the globe : and where speculation has sup- 

 plied the place of evidence, we need not wonder at the 

 succession of such hypotheses. Hence the current pre- 

 judice against geological theories, among those who 

 confound theory and hypothesis. But if it is thence 

 argued that the pursuit is fruitless, astronomy might 

 equally be condemned, because of its successive sys- 

 tems. And if also ridicule has been thrown on the 

 very attempt, by those too whose systems best deserved 

 it, this is but a result of the vulgar fallacy which ima- 

 gines a vision and a project in the term theory. ^Geo- 

 logy would indeed have been singularly fortunate if it 

 had not possessed its share of. bad observers and bad 

 writers : it has been notoriously and oppressively fer- 

 tile in both; the refuge of him whom no other science 

 will own; the science in which anyone may assert 



