



> 





\ 





- 





> 





s. 





til, 



hat 





\l 



t 







* 



htofl 



mm 

 tt 



lerhnw 

 in' 



v': 





j ait 



Bit 



.1 







t),eJ» 





On. v.] 



THE PKOGEESS OE GEOLOGY. 



93 



accommodate ancient theories to some of the new facts, and 

 much wit and ingenuity would be required to modify and 

 defend their old positions. Each new invention would 

 violate a greater number of known analogies ; for if a theory 

 be required to embrace some false principle, it becomes more 

 visionary in proportion as facts are multiplied, as would be 

 the case if geometers were now required to form an astro- 



t * 



nomical system on the assumption of the immobility of the 

 earth. 



Amongst other fanciful conjectures concerning the history 



may suppose some 



' As the banks 



the Nile 



for the 



time 



could never in reality 

 have been generated by 

 interior of the earth, or 



so recently colonized 

 ices called mummies 



They may 



men 



some 



may be abortions of Nature 



produced by her incipient efforts in the work of creation. 

 For if deformed beings are sometimes born even now, when 

 the scheme of the universe is fully developed, many more 

 may have been " sent before their time, scarce half made up/ 5 



state. But if these 



from 



mbryo 



attributes, and if these mummies be in a 

 representations of the human form, may • 

 to the future rather than the past ? — May 



into the womb 



ima 

 m 



Nature 



grave 



9 



May 



like the shades of the unborn in Virgil's 



C\9 



the archetypes of men not yet called into existence? 

 These speculations, if advocated by eloquent writers, would 

 not fail to attract many zealous votaries, for they would 

 relieve men from the painful necessity of renouncing precon- 

 ceived opinions. Incredible as such scepticism 



may 



teenth 



many systems 



centuries, and among others by that of the learned 

 Falloppio, as we have seen (p. 33), who regarded the tusks 

 of fossil elephants as earthy concretions, and the pottery or 

 fragments of vases in the Monte Testaceo, near Koine, as 

 works of nature, and not of art. But when one generation 

 had passed away, and another, not compromised to the 



