4 THE AGE OF THE EARTH 



from my unskilful handling, and the fame of his solid 

 contributions to science will endure long after these 

 controversies are forgotten. The echoes of the combat 

 are already dying away, and uniformitarians, in the sense 

 already denned, are now no more ; indeed, were I to 

 attempt to exhibit any distinguished living geologist as 

 a still surviving supporter of the narrow Lyellian creed, 

 he would probably feel, if such a one there be, that I was 

 unfairly singling him out for unmerited obloquy. 



Our science has become evolutional, and in the trans- 

 formation has grown more comprehensive : her petty 

 parochial days are done, she is drawing her provinces 

 closer around her, and is fusing them together into a 

 united and single commonwealth the science of the 

 earth. 



Not merely the earth's crust, but the whole of earth- 

 knowledge is the subject of our research. To know all 

 that can be known about our planet, this, and nothing 

 less than this, is its aim and scope. From the morpho- 

 logical side geology inquires not only into the existing 

 form and structure of the earth, but also into the series 

 of successive morphological states through which it has 

 passed in a long and changeful development. Our science 

 inquires also into the distribution of the earth in time 

 and space ; on the physiological side it studies the 

 movements and activities of our planet ; and not content 

 with all this, it extends its researches into aetiology and 

 endeavours to arrive at a science of causation. In these 

 pursuits geology calls all the other sciences to her aid. In 

 our commonwealth there are no outlanders ; if an eminent 

 physicist enter our territory we do not begin at once to 

 prepare for war, because the very fact of his undertaking 

 a geological inquiry of itself confers upon him all the 

 duties and privileges of citizenship. A physicist studying 

 geology is by definition a geologist. Our only regret is, 



