TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 865 



shutting off, as it were, each successive period from those which preceded or 

 succeeded it ; or whether, as some imagined, they were the result of the Noachian 

 deluge. 



And in the beginning of this century fierce discussions arose as to whether or 

 not the whole tendency of these investigations was not intensely irreligious, as it 

 appeared to be at variance with the account of the creation as given by Moses. 



In 1830 to 1833, however, by the publication of his * Principles of Geology, or 

 the Modern Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants,' Sir Charles Lyell, following 

 on the lines laid down by Hutton and Playfair, in the most philosophic spirit 

 proved beyond a doubt that all the great changes which geology disclosed were 

 the outcome of the action of those forces of nature which we see around us, 

 0]ierating with greater or less energy throughout long ages. 



_ Lyell did not attempt to theorise on how or why the remains of extinct 

 animals and plants succeeded each other in the rocks, but he pointed out in the 

 most precise manner that, whether we take the primary, the secondary, or the 

 tertiary periods, the different series of organisms, of which we find the remains, 

 were each distinctive of its particular zone; and that as we examine the tertiary 

 strata their characteristics become more and more similar to the animals and 

 plants which we see around us at the present day. 



Newton had taught us that the sum of space throughout the universe is prac- 

 tically unlimited, and that the whole is governed by law and not caprice. 



The teaching of geology has instructed us in a somewhat similar way that the 

 time over which the present forces of nature that have tended to form' the earth, 

 as we now see it, have operated, is to be measured, not by 6,000 years, but by 

 many millions of years. 



I do not pretend to enter upon the vexed question of how many millions of 

 years, but what I wish to direct your attention to is that, as astronomy teaches an 

 almost infinite space, geology teaches not perhaps an infinite but a vastly extended 

 period of operation almost beyond the grasp of the human mind. 



I have spoken above of the action and interaction of the thoughts of our pre- 

 decessors and our contemporaries in forming and originating new scientific 

 conceptions in different periods. 



A curious example of this is to be found in modern science. 

 Malthus published his essay on population in 1798, Sir Charles Lvell his 

 ' Principles of Geology ' in 1830 to 1833. 



The great Charles Darwin has told us that it v.'as by the study of these two 

 nooks that he was first led to contemplate those changes in nature, and to amass 

 that vast collection of scientific thought, which resulted in ' The Origin of Species,' 

 published in 1859, coincidently corroborated by the illustrious Wallace. 



The co-operation of these two great thinkers, the graceful way in which the 

 younger gave place to the older observer, marks an advance in the kindlier feelings 

 of contemporaneous scientific workers, in marked contrast to the virulent and often 

 acrimonious controversies which characterised the period ofDescartes and Newton. 

 I am not going to enter into a description of the Darwinian hypothesis, but it 

 is sufficient to say that putting on one side for a moment the details with which it 

 deals, the teaching of Darwin has produced during the last thirty years an entire 

 revolution in our ideas, whether we look at them in literature or in science, bv 

 which we begin to understand how, in the long series of past ages, the various 

 organisms which we find in the fossil state have passed gradually and almost 

 imperceptibly from a lower to a higher state of organisation. And possibly in the 

 teachings .if our great countryman we see, for the first time, perhaps, in a some- 

 what dim and distant way, a scientific reason for the origin of thoc^e innate ideas 

 which formed so large a portion of the teaching of that great Frenchman Ren6 

 Descartes. 



And, again, we s^e in the teachings of science the reiterated lesson that nature 

 works by slow degrees in an orderly and regular succession, ever advancing, ever 

 improving:, and not by spasmodic jerks ; and the train of such ideas naturally leads 

 the mind to the contemplation of a future more perfect and more beautiful in all 

 that is good and true. 



1900. 3 K 



