410 Notices of Memoirs—Professor J. W. Gregory— 
universe, its liberating influence from dogma, we may rightly regard 
the work of the Geological Society as one of the most valuable 
British contributions to intellectual progress during the nineteenth 
century. 
A hundred years ago the spirit of the eighteenth century still con- 
trolled much of the then orthodox geology. Jameson’s ‘‘ Elements of 
Geognosy,”’ of which the preface is dated January 15th, 1808, taught, 
as the certain conclusions of geology, doctrines that had been reached 
by applying prejudiced speculation to imaginary facts. It was 
a manual of pure, a priort, Wernerian geology. The author claimed 
that to Werner ‘‘ we owe almost everything that is truly valuable in 
this important branch of knowledge”; and that it was Werner ‘‘ who 
had discovered the general structure of the crust of the globe and 
pointed out the true mode of examining and ascertaining those great 
relations which it 1s one of the principal objects of geognosy to 
investigate.” 
But Jameson’s book was the death-song of Wernerian geology in 
British science. A new geology was developing, and the Geological 
Society of London ushered in its birth. No more should observations 
be made through the distorting medium of preconceived fancies! No 
more should geology be inspired by that heedless spirit which cares 
not to distinguish between fancy and fact! With youthful vigour 
the new geology would have nothing to do with the search for 
cosmogonies and such like fancy foods; and the Geological Society of 
London should be nourished on unadulterated facts, 
The time was ripe for the change. No less a person than Goethe, 
once an enthusiastic votary of geology, was now, in his play of 
‘« Faust,” holding up its teachers to ridicule. The theories ‘‘ evolved 
from the inner consciousness ”’ of Continental Neptunists and Plutonists 
were to Goethe excellent subjects for caricature. It was then the 
Englishman, Greenough, founded a society to turn geology from the 
pursuit of fleeting fancies and lead her to the study of sober but 
enduring facts. The members of this society were to abandon the 
quest of scientific chimeras; they were to leave to later generations. 
the attempt to solve the universe as a whole. 
The Geological Society has owed its influence to its bold, original 
purpose. It was not founded as a drifting social union of men with 
a common interest in a single science. Its object was to apply to 
geology one particular mode of research. It adopted as its motto 
this fine passage from Bacon :— 
‘‘ Tf any man makes it his delight and care—not so much to cling to 
and use past discoveries, as to penetrate to what is beyond them—not 
to conquer Nature by talk, but by toil—in short, not to have elegant. 
and plausible theories, but to gain sure and demonstrable knowledge ; 
let such men (if it shall seem to them right), as true children of know- 
ledge, unite themselves with us.” 
The methods of the society were as practical as its ideals. London, 
with characteristic unconventionality and originality, has used its 
scientific societies as its university for post-graduate teaching. 
Informally the Geological Society enrolled every British master of 
geology on its staff of unpaid professors, then set each of them to- 
