THEORY OF THE EARTH. 459 



I have done: and I leave this sketch to its fate: as 

 I leave its evidences to the judgments which are able and 

 willing to examine Evidence, and its blanks to the in- 

 dustry and talents of future geologists. I have said, 

 that I would gladly have given it in a far other form: 

 with all the illustrative evidence and expansion which 

 it requires, and with those drawings, without which, 

 it is but a truth, that I cannot, myself, read it satisfac- 

 torily, after it is thus written. But writers must con- 

 form to what they cannot command. The spirit of 

 commerce has discovered the art of obstructing what 

 does not fill its own coffers: and, unfortunately, in the 

 algebra of life, the multiplication of two negatives is 

 not a source of production. It is, however, but a chain 

 of fragments : nor must it be tried on the plea that it 

 is a Theory of the Earth. I do not believe that a com- 

 plete one will ever be produced ; because I think there 

 is much that is inaccessible. And even a more perfect 

 one must be of slow growth, because it must depend 

 on tedious accumulations of knowledge. But there is 

 not a philosopher, versed in this subject, and capable 

 of comparing what has preceded with that which was 

 examined in the foregoing chapter, even where most 

 rational, who will now say that a Geological Theory, 

 to some tolerable extent at least, is a subject of despair, 

 far less that such a term should excite ridicule; while, 

 of those who are in ignorance, or who judge from such 

 attempts as Werner's and many more, philosophy takes 

 no heed. And I do not hesitate to say, that the pro- 

 gress thus made, in the far most difficult branch of 

 Natural History, in so short a period, under very little 

 effective, through much ostensible assistance, and under 

 the most enduring obstructions, through false hypo- 

 theses and bad observations, is such as to have no pa- 

 rallel as yet in the history of Science. 



