HUGH MILLEE AS A GEOLOGIST. 341 



Bcurity to a place in the world of literature and science, 

 shows him to have been highly endowed in character and 

 intelligence. And that he had a remarkable power of pre- 

 senting his facts and arguments in an attractive form, a 

 glance at any of his books will quickly prove. By all 

 means, let us respect him as a man of activity and sagacity, 

 joined with a large amount of poetry. But while saying 

 this we must add, that his reputation stands by no means 

 so high in the scientific world as in the world at large. 

 Partly from the fact that our Scotch neighbours are in the 

 habit of blowing the trumpet rather loudly before their 

 notabilities — partly because the charming style in which his 

 books are written has gained him a large circle of readers 

 ■ — partly, perhaps, through a praiseworthy sympathy with 

 him as a self-made man ; Hugh Miller has met with an 

 amount of aj^plause which, little as we wish to diminish it, 

 must not be allowed to blind the public to his defects as a 

 man of science. 



The truth is, he was so far committed to a foregone 

 conclusion, that he could not become a philosophical geolo- 

 gist. He might be aptly described as a theologian study- 

 ing geology. vThe dominant idea with which he wrote, 

 may be seen in the titles of his books — Law versus Miracle^ 

 — Footiwints of the Creator^ — The Testimony of the 

 HocJcs. Regarding geological facts as evidence for or 

 against certain religious conclusions, it was scarcely possi- 

 ble for him to deal with geological facts impartially. His 

 ruling aim wms to disprove the Development Hypothesis, 

 the assumed implications of which were repugnant to him ; 

 and in proportion to the strength of his feeling, was the 

 one-sidedness of his reasoning. He admitted that " God 

 might as certainly have originated the species by a law of 

 development, as he mmntains it by a law of development \ 

 the existence of a First Great Cause is as perfectly compat- 

 i)le with the one scheme as with the other." Neverthe* 



