12 THE RIGHT HON. LOKD KRLVIN^ G.C.V.O., ON 



understanding and scientific investigation. This would have 

 left geology much in the same position as that in Avhicli 

 English history ^vould be if it were impossible to ascertain 

 whether the battle of Hastings took place 800 years ago, or 

 800 thousand years ago, or 800 million years ago. If it were 

 absolutely impossible to find out which of these periods is 

 more probable than the other, then I agree we might be 

 Gallios as to the date of the Norman Conquest. But a 

 change took place just about the time to which I refer, and 

 from then till now geologists have not considered the 

 question of absolute dates in their science as outside the 

 scope of their investigations. 



§ 3. T maybe allowed to read a few extracts to indicate how 

 geological thought was expressed in respect of this subject, 

 in various largely used po])ular text books, and in scientific 

 writings which were new in 18C8, or not too old to be for- 

 gotten. I have several short extracts to read and I hope 

 you will not find them tedious. 



The first is three lines from Darwin's Origin of Sjyecies, 

 1859 Edition, p. 287. 



"In all probability a far longer period than 300,000,000 years has 

 elapsed since the latter part of the secondary period."' 



Here is another still more important sentence, which I read 

 to you from the same book : — 



"He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles 

 of Geology, which the future histoiian will recognise as having ])roduced 

 a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly 

 vast have been tlie past periods of time, may at once close this volume.''^ 



I shall next read a short statement from Page's Advanced 

 Students Text Book of Geology/, published in 1859 : — 



"Again where the FORCE seems unequal to the result, the student 

 should never lose sight of the element TIME : a.n element to which we can 

 set no hounds in tlie past, any more than we know of its limit in the 

 future." 



" It will be seen from this hasty indication that theie are two great 

 schools of g;eological causation — tiie one ascribing every result to the 

 ordinary operations of Nature, combined wiih the element of unlimited 

 time, the other appealing to agents that operated during the earlier 

 epochs of the workl with greater intensity, and also for the most part 

 over wider areas. The former belief is certainly more in accordance with 

 the spirit of right philosophy, though it must be confessed that many 

 problems in geology seem to tind their solution only through the 

 admission of the latter hypothesis." 



§ 4. I have several other statements which I think you may 

 hear with some interest. Dr. Samuel Haugliton, of Trinity 



