460 SKETCH TOWARDS A 



Need I now add, that independently of its practieal 

 value, Geology occupies a lofty place among those 

 sciences which tend to enlarge our views of the plan 

 and conduct of the Universe, and of the government 

 of its Great Author. It teaches us that this Earth 

 had a beginning : it almost introduces us to the very 

 act of Creation : while, by rigid inference or by ana- 

 logy, it also teaches us this of the Planetary system, 

 and, finally, of the whole Universe. Theology and 

 metaphysics might have inferred this, as they have 

 often done : but no other branch of physical science 

 has ever dreamt of attempting to prove it : while I 

 know not that any science, excepting that of abstract 

 quantity and number, has ever produced proofs so sa- 

 tisfactory, on any point equally wide and out of reach. 

 Doing this, important as it is for the satisfaction of 

 minds which, from various causes, the priori conclu- 

 sions of Theology and metaphysics do not reach, geo- 

 logy also confirms that Record which informs us that 

 Life was created at no very remote period, by demon- 

 strating that there was a time without previous life, 

 and that this also is a repetition of the conduct of the 

 Deity at many preceding ones. 



It shows us further, that, as to the Earth itself, the 

 plans of Providence are progressive and slow; as they 

 are, in all else which we witness of His government: 

 slow, to us, to whom Time is a weighty element, but 

 not to Him, to whom a thousand years are but as one 

 day. Thus ought they who have so long hesitated 

 or feared respecting the Time demanded by geology, 

 to fear or hesitate no longer. The past of Man, like the 

 future, is the Creator's present : but foolish man 

 would measure that Being by himself. I will not re- 

 peat what I formerly said of the time required for the 

 successive modifications of this t^lobe : but he who 



