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CONCLUDING EEMAItKS ON 



[Ch. XIV. 



With 



chapter ; namely, whether there has "been any interruption, 

 from the remotest periods, of one uniform system of change 

 in the animate and inanimate world. We were induced to 

 enter into that enquiry by reflecting how much the progress 

 of opinion in Geology had been influenced by the assumption 

 that the analogy was slight in kind, and still more slight in 

 depree, between the causes which produced the former revo- 

 lutions of the globe, and those now in every-day operation. It 

 appeared clear that the earlier geologists had not only a 

 scanty acquaintance with existing changes, but were singu- 

 larly unconscious of the amount of their ignorance. ' 

 presumption naturally inspired by this unconsciousness, they 

 had no hesitation in deciding at once that time could never 

 enable the existing powers of nature to work out changes of 

 great magnitude, still less such important revolutions as those 

 which are brought to light by Geology. They, therefore, 

 felt themselves at liberty to indulge their imaginations in 

 guessing at what might be, rather than enquiring what is ; in 

 other words, they employed themselves in conjecturing what 

 might have been the course of Nature at a remote period, 

 rather than in the investigation of what was the course of 



Nature in their own times. 



It appeared to them far more philosophical to speculate on 

 the possibilities of the past, than patiently to explore the 

 realities of the present ; and having invented theories under 

 the influence of such maxims, they were consistently unwill- 



ing to test their validity by the criterion of their accordance 

 with the ordinary operations of Nature. On the contrary, 

 the claims of each new hypothesis to credibility appeared 

 enhanced by the great contrast, in kind or intensity, of the 

 causes referred to and those now in operation. 



Never was there a dogma more calculated to foster indo- 

 lence, and to blunt the keen edge of curiosity, than this 

 assumption of the discordance between the ancient and exist- 

 ing causes of change. It produced a state of mind unfavour- 

 able in the highest degree to the candid reception ol the 

 evidence of those minute but incessant alterations which 

 every part of the earth's surface is undergoing, and by which 

 the condition of its living inhabitants is continually made to 





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