312 GEOLOGICAL REFORM X 



Kirwan, and the other Philistines of the day, 

 accused Hutton of declaring that his theory 

 implied that the world never had a beginning, 

 and never differed in condition from its present 

 state. Nothing could be more grossly unjust, as 

 he expressly guards himself against any such 

 conclusion in the following terms : 



" But in thus tracing back the natural opera- 

 tions which have succeeded each other, and mark 

 to us the course of time past, we come to a period 

 in which we cannot see any farther. This, how- 

 ever, is not the beginning of the operations whicli 

 proceed in time and according to the wise 

 economy of this world ; nor is it the establishing 

 of that which, in the course of time, had no 

 beginning; it is only the limit of our retrospec- 

 tive view of those operations which have come 

 to pass in time, and have been conducted by 

 supreme intelligence." l 



I have spoken of Uniformitarianism as the doc- 

 trine of Hutton and of Lyell. If I have quoted 

 the older writer rather than the newer, it is be- 

 cause his works are little known, and his claims 

 on our veneration too frequently forgotten, not 

 because I desire to dim the fame of his eminent 

 successor. Few of the present generation of 

 geologists have read Playfair's " Illustrations," 

 fewer still the original " Theory of the Earth " ; the 

 more is the pity ; but which of us has not thumbed 

 1 The Theory of the Earth^ol i. p. 223. 



