380 RECAPITULATION OF THE OBJECTIONS [Oh. XVI. 



which may be in progress." * But the earlier enquirers (re- 

 marks the same author whom we have just quoted) employed 

 themselves in conjecturing what might have been the course 

 of nature at a remote period, rather than in investigating what 

 was the course of nature in their own times. Indeed, of late 

 years, notwithstanding the repeated warnings of experience, 

 the ancient method of philosophising has not been materially 

 modified. " In our attempt, however," says Lyell, " to un- 

 ravel difficult questions, we shall adopt a different course, 

 restricting ourselves to the known or possible operations of 

 existing causes." 



We have been induced to make these extracts for two 

 reasons; first, in order to vindicate the character of the earlier 

 enquirers ; and, secondly, to show that the Professor himself 

 is a disciple of the ancient philosophy of which he has ex- 

 pressed his disapprobation. That the speculations of geolo- 

 gists, formerly, were entirely imaginary, cannot, we think, be 

 maintained : it is true that they were not founded on such 

 extensive data of the known effects of natural agents as they 

 now are, but they always had some reference to actual oper- 

 ations, though these were frequently but very imperfctly under- 

 stood. But surely it is not fair to consider their intellectual 

 exertions inferior to our own, by a comparison instituted be- 

 tween the dawning twilight of the science, and the present 

 time, when the whole horizon is illuminated by copious and 

 brilliant rays of light : succeeding enquirers will possess a 

 more extended knowledge of nature, and probably a more 

 perfect mode of investigation than ourselves, but they must 

 not on that account suppose that our science was not founded 

 on the same rules of induction, though often misapplied, and 

 sometimes extended beyond their legitimate limits. In the 

 same manner, Lyell has (as we conceive) carried the analogy 

 of the operations now in progress too far, in supposing that 



* Principles of Geology, vol. iii. p. 3. 



