HUMANITY IN GEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE 547 



science to civilisation, is the aesthetic influence of the study ; for Geology 

 is a stimulant to the imagination. Without intelligence man is but an 

 unsatisfactory animal ; intelligent but unimaginative he is a dangerous 

 nuisance ; imaginative and unintelligent he is futile ; but with imagina- 

 tion controlled by intelligence he is truly human. The glories of Nature, 

 whether expressed in a landscape or a sand-grain, are wasted on a mind 

 that fails to respond with intelligent curiosity. There is better and more 

 inspiring entertainment to be derived from the works of Nature than was 

 ever provided by the art of man. Boredom and disillusionment, those 

 ravaging diseases that kill body and mind, can never approach a man 

 trained to appreciate his environment. No very profound geological 

 knowledge is needed to transform a country walk from mere exercise of 

 the legs into an adventure of the mind. Everywhere in this world is a 

 happy hunting-ground for a geologist. The average expectation of life 

 among geologists is such that it has fostered the superstition that Geology, 

 like bowls, is a pastime of senility ; it is due to the perpetual interest that 

 keeps life worth living. 



My purpose to-night, however, is neither to extol the study of Geology 

 as a gateway to long and happy life, nor as the basic factor in the material 

 aspect of modern civilisation. I wish to direct your thoughts rather to 

 the reaction on our philosophy of life of such geological facts as can be 

 claimed to be established. Man's place in Nature, his whereabouts in 

 time and space, is, and has always been, his fundamental problem. Early 

 and mediseval attempts to solve that problem were foredoomed to failure, 

 for next to nothing was known of Nature, and philosophical speculation 

 savoured of vacuous bombination. We still know very little about the 

 material Universe, but we do know something ; and our few established 

 data afford a solid basis for theoretical deductions that are as worthy of 

 serious consideration as some of the older speculations are of ridicule. 



Most psychologists, and all parents, will agree that a young child, as 

 soon as he acquires independent consciousness, is in his own estimation 

 the centre of the Universe. All phenomena that he experiences are aimed, 

 benevolently or maliciously, at him and at him only. He is, in his own 

 conceit, the only pebble on the beach. Experience and training will in 

 time tend to modify this attitude ; and indeed, if and when wisdom comes, 

 egotism will be banished. But knowledge is usually in advance of wisdom, 

 and there is often a regrettable stage in childish development when 

 budding knowledge is mistaken for omniscience. This phase can also 

 be modified by experience. After the disappointment and humiliation 

 have subsided, the adolescent is in a position to find his place in the scheme 

 of things, and to adapt himself to it. The clever animal may become 

 transmuted into a man. His success in that sphere may be measured in 

 direct proportion to the reversal of his childish instincts. 



It is not surprising that the earliest philosophers, the first thinkers 

 in the childhood of the race, should have fallen into childish errors. 

 Scarcely removed from the supreme egotism of animals, but capable of 

 correlation and imagination, they saw themselves as the ultimate climax 

 of creation, for whose especial accommodation the whole Universe was 

 designed. They could not conceive of any reason for the existence of 

 the world apart from themselves ; so that, for them, the world and the 



