ON THE GENETIC VIEW OF NATURE. 



291 



the teachings of the several natural philosophers who 

 initiated the genetic conception of natural phenomena. 

 One of the earliest who broke with the older and intro- 

 duced the modern methods was James Hutton, who to- 

 wards the end of the preceding century led that school in 

 geology which is called after him, and which violently 

 opposed the ideas introduced from the Continent. The 

 controversy culminated in the wrangle of the Neptunists 

 and Vulcanists, those who looked to the agency of water 

 and those who upheld that of fire as the principal cause 

 of geological change. This difference, which at the time 

 impressed the popular mind, is hardly that by which, in 

 a history of scientific thought, 1 this controversy has 

 become important. Button's position is marked rather 

 by his opposition to catastrophism, and by his doc- 

 trine that geological changes, such as the decay and 

 reproduction of rocks, were going on with the utmost 

 uniformity, being always in progress. This he opposed 

 to the Wernerian view, which believed in the existence 

 of certain " fundamental rocks," which were " triumphantly 



1 The great merits of James 

 Hutton, his extensive and original 

 geological studies, his opposition to 

 catastrophism, were overlooked 

 through the theoretical discussions 

 and the unfortunate title of his 

 book. The world had grown tired 

 of ' Theories of the Earth ' and the 

 discussion of fundamental problems. 

 A spirit of observation had set in ; 

 the Geological Society was formed, 

 and theories were for the time dis- 

 countenanced. (See vol. i. p. 290, 

 note 1 , of this ' History.' ) The attacks 

 also of Kirwan and De Luc. which 

 turned upon the stale argument 

 that Button's ideas were opposed to 

 the scriptural records, had their 



effect in circles in which everything 

 connected with the revolution 

 against Church and State was dis- 

 tasteful. As Huxley has told us, 

 Hutton came before his time. To 

 him belongs the merit of having 

 initiated the line of research and 

 reasoning which, through the 

 brilliant labours of Charles Lyell a 

 generation later, swept away the 

 older geology, and prepared the way 

 for the genetic study of nature on a 

 large scale. (See the "Historical 

 Sketch" in the first volume of 

 Lyell's ' Principles of Geology,' and 

 Huxley's address on "Geological 

 Reform," 1869.) 



