Results of Geology. 71 



supplied him with, an agent of almost unlimited power of destruc- 

 tion ; aud fuither, that, even provided with it, he has made hut 

 small progress indeed in the destruction of species. The Creation 

 is, and must ever be, a mystery to man, and yet it is a speculation 

 worthy of the exercise of the highest intelligence. Placed on the 

 earth, it is our privilege to study everything connected with it, 

 and we should be neglecting the highest endowments of our race 

 were we not to do so ; nor let us be tempted to scoff at or con- 

 demn those who, possessed perhaps of a higher intelligence than 

 our own, see further than wc do, and adopt theories which appear 

 to us absutd, sometimes only from our own inferiority ; and above 

 all, let us avoid that fatal error of connecting the results of scien- 

 tific inquiry with the articles of religious belief. In attempting 

 to discuss two widely different subjects at the same time, we must 

 necessarily stumble. The speculation of a plurality of inhabited 

 worlds, for example, is to the philosopher a proper mental exer- 

 cise, though incapable of any positive solution ; for, even suppos- 

 ing organic life to be compatible with every possible variation of 

 physical conditions — a postulate at variance with the conditions 

 of existence present on the earth, where life is limited on the one 

 hand by the increase of pressure under the water, and on the 

 other by its decrease in the air, — what more can we do than guess 

 or speculate in the dark ? Why then should we rashly connect 

 such a speculation with the creed of the philosopher and the faith 

 of the Christian, or assume the dream of the philospher to be a 

 proper measure of the Creator's wisdom ? Let us then continue, 

 as we have hitherto done, to pursue our investigations into the 

 history of the earth, under all its various stages, unbiassed by any 

 preconceived opinions, and unshackled by the diead of offending 

 those who will not study the works of creation, but, remaining 

 ignorant of them, consider that they are thereby the better fitted 

 for discussing the Divine attributes. At all events, let us make 

 truth, and truth alone, our aim, supporting our own appreciations 

 of it when we have reason for so doing, but treating with calm- 

 ness and forbearance the opinions of others who may differ from 

 us: it is from such differences of opinion that we may expect ulti- 

 mately to discover truth, sublimed from the dross of error which 

 must ever be mingled with it in all those reasonings of man which 

 cannot be actually based on mathematical principles, or reduced 

 to positive demonstration. — Journal of GeoL Society. 



