310 WHAT OF THE FUTURE? 



it is only by seeing what had been the regular course of 

 things that any knowledge can be formed of what is after- 

 wards to happen ; but, having observed with accuracy the 

 matter of fact, and having thus reasoned as we ought, with- 

 out supposition or misinformation, the result will be no 

 more precarious than any other subject of human under- 

 standing." No more precarious than any other subject, 

 and a great deal more certain, indeed, than most of the 

 topics with which the human understanding is apt to busy 

 itself ! Here is a world, Physical Geography informs us, 

 having certain ordainings at present ; here is a world, Geo- 

 logy informs us, which has had a strange and varied history 

 in the past ; and combining our knowledge of past and 

 present, with faith in the uniformity of nature's operations, 

 we are surely entitled to speculate with some degree of cer- 

 tainty as to the fate that awaits it in the future. Such spec- 

 ulation forms the subject of the present Sketch, and guided 

 by the spirit of the Huttonian philosophy as above ex- 

 pressed, we do not despair of arriving at something like an 

 intelligible indication. This indication may not exactly 

 carry us forward to positive appearances, but it will show 

 us, at least, what cannot continue, and thus the better pre- 

 pare us for the perception and admission of the changes 

 that must follow. Xo doubt, the changes in the natural 

 world are so multiform and complex, and their producing 

 causes act and react so unequally upon each other, that 

 man, limited in his faculties and imperfect in his know- 

 ledge, can never hope to forecast either their exact order 

 or amount; still, by adhering to right methods, he can 

 sketch an outline of the future, just as he has been enabled 

 to trace the vestiges of the past, and this outline, shadowy 

 as it may be, is something at least for Geology to boast of. 

 It is true that it will add no new fact to our knowledge, 

 for facts are things that have been accomplished; but its 



