X GEOLOGICAL REFORM 319 



which are out of reach of direct observation ; or, 

 it may be physiological speculation so far as it 

 relates to undetermined problems relative to the 

 activities of the earth ; or, it may be distributional 

 speculation, if it deals with modifications of the 

 earth's place in space ; or, finally, it will be aetio- 

 logical speculation if it attempts to deduce the 

 history of the world, as a whole, from the known 

 properties of the matter of the earth, in the con- 

 ditions in which the earth has been placed. 



For the purposes of the present discourse I may 

 take this last to be what is meant by " geological 

 speculation." 



Now Uniformitarianism, as we have seen, tends 

 to ignore geological speculation in this sense 

 altogether. 



The one point the catastrophists and the uni- 

 formitarians agreed upon, when this Society was 

 founded, was to ignore it. And you will find, if 

 you look back into our records, that our revered 

 fathers in geology plumed themselves a good deal 

 upon the practical sense and wisdom of this 

 proceeding. As a temporary measure, I do not 

 presume to challenge its wisdom ; but in all 

 organised bodies temporary changes are apt to 

 produce permanent effects; and as time has 

 slipped by, altering all the conditions which may 

 have made such mortification of the scientific flesh 

 desirable, I think the effect of the stream of cold 

 water which has steadily flowed over geological 



