Ch. XXVI.] CONCLUDING REMARKS. 



also inferred, it was uninhabitable, and, therefore, probably in 

 a nascent state. 



The opposite doctrine, that the oldest visible strata might 

 be the monuments of an antecedent period, \vhen the animate 

 world was already in existence, was declared to be equivalent 

 to the assumption, that there never was a beginning to the 

 present order of things. The unfairness of this charge was 

 clearly pointed out by Playfair, who observed, ' that it was 

 one thing to declare that we had not yet discovered the traces 

 of a beginning, and another to deny that the earth ever had a 

 beginning.' 



We regret, however, to find that the bearing of our argu- 

 ments in the first volume has been misunderstood in a similar 

 manner, for we have been charged with endeavouring to esta- 

 blish the proposition, that ' the existing causes of change have 

 operated with absolute uniformity from all eternity *.' 



It is the more necessary to notice this misrepresentation of 

 our views, as it has proceeded from a friendly critic whose 

 theoretical opinions coincide in general with our own, but who 

 has, in this instance, strangely misconceived the scope of our 

 argument. With equal justice might an astronomer be accused 

 of asserting, that the works of creation extend throughout 

 infinite space, because he refuses to take for granted that the 

 remotest stars now seen in the heavens are on the utmost verge 

 of the material universe. Every improvement of the telescope 

 has brought thousands of new worlds into view, and it would, 

 therefore, be rash and unphilosophical to imagine that we 

 already survey the whole extent of the vast scheme, or that it 

 will ever be brought within the sphere of human observation. 



But no argument can be drawn from such premises in favour 

 of the infinity of the space that has been filled with worlds ; 

 and if the material universe has any limits, it then follows that 

 it must occupy a minute and infinitessimal point in infinite 

 space. So, if in tracing back the earth's history, we arrive at the 

 monuments of events which may have happened millions of ages 



* Quarterly Review, No. 86, Oct. 1830, p. 464. 



