672 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY. 



matter is condensing, solid bodies are forming, 

 are arranging themselves into systems of cyclical 

 motion ; in short, we have exactly what we are told, 

 on this analogy, we ought not to have ; the begin- 

 ning of a world. To justify this argument, I will 

 not maintain the truth of the nebular hypothesis ; 

 but if geologists wish to borrow maxims of philo- 

 sophizing from astronomy, such speculations as have 

 led to that hypothesis must be their model. 



Or, let them look at any of the other provinces 

 of palaetiological speculation; at the history of states, 

 of civilization, of languages. We may assume some 

 resemblance or connexion between the principles 

 which determined the progress of government, or 

 of society, or of literature, in the earliest ages, and 

 those which now operate ; but who has speculated 

 successfully, assuming an identity of such causes? 

 Where do we now find a language in the process 

 of formation, unfolding itself in inflexions, termina- 

 tions, changes of vowels by grammatical relations, 

 such as characterize the oldest known languages? 

 Where do we see a nation, by its natural faculties, 

 inventing writing, or the arts of life, as we find 

 them in the most ancient civilized nations ? We may 

 assume hypothetically, that man's faculties develop 

 themselves in these ways ; but we see no such effects 

 produced by these faculties, in our own time, and now 

 in progress, without the influence of foreigners. 



Is it not clear, in all these cases, that history 

 does not exhibit a series of cycles, the aggregate 



