440 PROPER PROVINCE OF GEOLOGY. 



with a clear and perfect understanding, as to what we ought, 

 and what we ought not to expect from the discoveries of 

 Natural Philosophy, we may strenuously pursue our labours 

 in the fruitful field of Science, under the full assurance that 

 we shall gather a rich and abundant harvest, fraught with 

 endless evidences of the existence, and wisdom, and power, 

 and goodness of the Creator. 



" The Philosopher (says Professor Babbage) has conferred 

 on the Moralist an obligation of surpassing weight ; in un- 

 veiHng to him the living miracles which teem in rich exu- 

 berance around the minutest atom, as well as through the 

 largest masses of ever active matter, he has placed before 

 him resistless evidence of immeasurable design."* 



" See only (says Lord Brougham) in what contemplations 

 the wisest of men end their most subhme inquiries ! Mark 

 where it is that a Newton finally reposes after piercing the 

 thickest veil that envelopes nature — grasping and arresting 

 in their course the most subtle of her elements and the 

 swiftest — traversing the regions of boundless space — ex- 

 ploring worlds beyond the solar way — giving out the law 

 which binds the universe in eternal order ! He rests, as by 

 an inevitable necessity, upon the contemplation of the great 

 First Cause, and holds it his highest glory to have made the 

 evidence of his existence, and the dispensations of his power 

 and of his wisdom better understood by mcn."t 



If then it is admitted to be the high and peculiar privilege 

 of our human nature, and a devotional exercise of our most 

 exalted faculties, to extend our thoughts towards Immensity 

 and into Eternity, to gaze on the marvellous Beauty that 

 pervades the material world, and to comprehend that Wit- 

 ness of himself, which the Author of the Universe has set 

 before us in the visible works of his Creation ; it is clear that 

 next to the study of those distant worlds which engage the 

 contemplation of the Astronomer, the largest and most su- 



• Babbage on the Economy of Manufactures, 1 Ed, p. 319. 

 + Lord Brougham's Discourse of Natuind Theology, 1 Ed. p. 194. 



