632 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



species of plants and animals, be the result of phy- 

 siological and geological investigation. 



But, though philosophers have never yet demon- 

 strated, and perhaps never will be able to demon- 

 strate, what was that primitive state of things in 

 the social and material worlds, from which the 

 progressive state took its first departure ; they can 

 still, in all the lines of research to which we have 

 referred, go very far back ; determine many of the 

 remote circumstances of the past sequence of events; 

 ascend to a point which, from our position at 

 least, seems to be near the origin ; arid exclude 

 many suppositions respecting the origin itself. 

 Whether, by the light of reason alone, men will 

 ever be able to do more than this, it is difficult to 

 say. It is, I think, no irrational opinion, even on 

 grounds of philosophical analogy alone, that in all 

 those sciences which look back and seek a beginning 

 of things, we may be unable to arrive at a con- 

 sistent and definite belief, without having recourse 

 to other grounds of truth, as well as to historical 

 research and scientific reasoning. When our thoughts 

 would apprehend steadily the creation of things, we 

 find that we are obliged to summon up other ideas 

 than those which regulate the pursuit of scientific 

 truths ; to call in other powers than those to which 

 we refer natural events : it cannot, then, be con- 

 sidered as very surprizing, if, in this part of our 

 inquiry, we are compelled to look for other than 

 the ordinary evidence of science. 



