THE RELATIONS OF GEOLOGY. 365 



It is needless in these days to insist upon tlie fierce and pained 

 resistance whicli both have encountered at almost ever}- fresh ad\ance. 

 In spite of the fact that in the end ever}^ such advance has proved 

 itself to l)e a higher stage in the mental or material progress of man- 

 kind at large, there still exists, ev^en at the present time, an instinctive 

 antagonism to astronomy and geology in the minds of many, especially 

 from the sides of literature and of philosoph}". 



The bewildering immensities of space and time with which these 

 two sciences deal, and their insistent claim to ])e the only autiiorities 

 that can bring home to the mind of man the awful ideas of intinity 

 and eternity, cause them to be shunned and dreaded by the man of 

 letters, and wring now and again a wail of impotence and sadness from 

 the poet: 



What be these two shapes high over the sacred fountain, 

 Taller than all the muses, and higher than all the mountain? 

 On these two peaks they stand, ever spreading and heightening. 



****** 



Look in their deep double sliadow, the crowned ones all disappearing! 

 These are Astronomy and Geology^terrible Muses I 



But, while astronomy and geology share almost equally in the vague 

 dread which they inspire in the minds of those who look onl}- at nature 

 from the side of the emotional and the beautiful, they ])y no means 

 share equally in the admiration instinctivel}' accorded l)y the average 

 thinking man to the sciences in general. Along the whole range of 

 the concrete sciences there is perhaps not one that has so effectually 

 compelled the respect of men as astronomy. There is not one in whose 

 progress they have taken so keen an interest, or whose conclusions 

 have been so unhesitatingly accepted. On the other hand, everv new 

 discovery arrived at by geology appears to have come upon the minds 

 of men with something of the nature of a shock. The conclusions of 

 our science seem rarely or never to have l)een accepted with pleasure 

 because of their value or their grandeur, but rather to have been 

 adopted with reluctance and regret and liecause they were found to 

 be irresistible. 



Yet, after all, this is hardly a matter for astonishment, for it has 

 its root in the origin and the growth of the two sciences themselves. 

 Astronomy had its birth in the childhood of mankind, in the silence and 

 calm of the night, and in the wonder of curiosity and awe. It carried 

 with it from the verv first the mystic fascination of the distant and 

 unknown. It was associated in man's mind with the peaceful hours 

 of rest and of contemplation. It held within it much of the enthusi- 

 asm and elevation of religion, for it lifted man's e3^es upward and 

 heavenward, away from the never-ending struggle in the world below. 



Geology had none of these attractions.^ The world over which early 

 man wandered was to him the theater of a never-endino- conflict, in 



