THE PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY 409 



ceeded, they would review the evidence afforded by mum- 

 mies more impartially, and would no longer controvert 

 the preliminary question, that human beings had lived 

 in Egypt before the nineteenth century: so that when a 

 hundred years perhaps had been lost, the industry and 

 talents of the philosopher would be at last directed to the 

 elucidation of points of real historical importance. 



But the above arguments are aimed against one only of 

 many prejudices with which the earlier geologists had to 

 contend. Even when they conceded that the earth had been 

 peopled with animate beings at an earlier period than was 

 at first supposed, they had no conception that the quantity 

 of time bore so great a proportion to the historical era as is 

 now generally conceded. How fatal every error as to the 

 quantity of time must prove to the introduction of rational 

 views concerning the state of things in former ages, may be 

 conceived by supposing the annals of the civil and military 

 transactions of a great nation to be perused under the im- 

 pression that they occurred in a period of one hundred in- 

 stead of two thousand years. Such a portion of history 

 would immediately assume the air of a romance; the events 

 would seem devoid of credibility, and inconsistent with the 

 present course of human affairs. A crowd of incidents 

 would follow each other in thick succession. Armies and 

 fleets would appear to be assembled only to be destroyed, 

 and cities built merely to fall in ruins. There would be 

 the most violent transitions from foreign or intestine war 

 to periods of profound peace, and the works effected dur- 

 ing the years of disorder or tranquillity would appear alike 

 superhuman in magnitude. 



He who should study the monuments of the natural world 

 under the influence of a similar infatuation, must draw a 

 no less exaggerated picture of the energy and violence of 

 causes, and must experience the same insurmountable diffi- 

 culty in reconciling the former and present state of nature. 

 If we could behold in one view all the volcanic cones thrown 

 up in Iceland, Italy, Sicily, and other parts of Europe, 

 during the last five thousand years, and could see the lavas 

 which have flowed during the same period ; the dislocations, 

 subsidences, and elevations caused during earthquakes; the 



