Cii. v.i 



VIEWS ON THE DURATION OF PAST TIME. 



91 



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sufficient to produce, by their various combinations, the 

 endless diversity of effects, of which the shell of the earth 

 has preserved the 



memor 



and, consistently with these 

 principles, the recurrence of analogous changes is expected 

 by them in time to come. 



Whether 



coincide or not in this 



must 



admit that the gradual progress of opinion concerning the 



of phenomena in very remote eras, resembles, in 



succession 



manner 



intelligence of every people, in regard to the economy 



nature in their own times. 



advancement 



when a greater number of natural appearances are unintel- 

 ligible, an eclipse, an earthquake, a flood, or the approach 

 of a comet, with many other occurrences afterwards found 

 to belong to the regular course of events, are regarded as 

 prodigies. The same delusion prevails as to moral pheno- 

 mena, and many of these are ascribed to the intervention 

 of demons, ghosts, witches, and other immaterial and 

 supernatural agents. By degrees, many of the enigmas of 

 the moral and physical world are explained, and, instead of 

 being due to extrinsic and irregular causes, they are found 

 to depend on fixed and invariable laws. The philosopher at 



undeviating uniformity of 



last becomes convinced of the undeviating 

 secondary causes ; and, guided by his faith in this principle, 

 he determines the probability of accounts transmitted to him 

 of former occurrences, and often rejects the fabulous tales of 

 former times, on the ground of their being irreconcilable 



•As a 



with the experience of more enlightened ages. 



Prepossessions in regard to the duration of past time.— 

 belief in the want of conformity in the causes by which the 

 earth's crust has been modified in ancient and modern periods 

 was, for a long time, universally prevalent, and that, too, 

 amongst men who were convinced that the order of nature 

 had been uniform for the last several thousand years, every 

 circumstance which could have influenced their minds and 



an undue bias to their opinions deserves particular 

 attention. Now the reader may easily satisfy himself, that, 

 however undeviating the course of nature may have been 

 from the earliest epochs, it was impossible for the first 



given 



