﻿XXxii PROCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETT. 



' cosmos,' as carrying back the dominion of physical law through 

 the abysses of past time — in its earlier stages was found where 

 perhaps we might least have looked for it — among the Italian writers. 

 The mantle of Galileo descended, in some measure, on Vallisneri and 

 Moro, and more amply on Generelli, though a Carmelite monk. 

 We here perceive perhaps the first great advance in true philo- 

 sophical ideas of geology, and the anticipation and prototype of the 

 real inductive independent views of Hut'ton and Lyell, under the 

 vivifying influence of whose principles the English school of 

 geologists is but now beginning to cast off the lingering remnants of 

 its hereditary bondage to mystical paroxysms, occasional recurrences 

 of chaos and creation, subversions and renewals of the order of 

 nature, and miraculous originations of new species out of nothing — ■ 

 in a word, the spirit of invoking the supernatural to cover our ig- 

 norance of natural causes*." 



His broad and liberal views, and his fearless assertion of the truths 

 to which he was conducted by reasoning on facts, exposed him to 

 the shafts of prejudice and bigotry, the more envenomed from the 

 fact of his being himself in Holy Orders. But, although conscious 

 that he was thereby putting a bar on his prospects of worldly ad- 

 vancement, he continued to the end to work steadily in the course 

 which his conscience dictated, satisfied that at a later day justice 

 would be rendered to his arguments. He was at the same time 

 ever ready to give to his opponents the same credit for that sincerity 

 of belief and honesty of purpose by which he, doubtless, felt he was 

 himself actuated, and to which we all know he might justly have 

 laid claim. 



His lucid style, philosophical tone, and extensive learning 

 secured for him, as a writer, the sympathy and support of the 

 friends of intellectual progress, whilst his private friends had to 

 admire his constant readiness to assist and instruct, his lively in- 

 terest in and great acquaintance with most branches of knowledge, 

 his skill as a musician and draughtsman, and his unassuming kind- 

 ness of disposition. For many years he formed one of a small band at 

 Oxford who kept alive the study of the physical sciences] during a 

 season when they were not regarded with so much favour as at the 

 present day ; and when, in 1850, he was appointed to be one of the 

 Oxford University Commissioners, he had the satisfaction of aiding 

 to introduce some of those modifications which have now given the 

 physical sciences a recognized position in the system of studies 

 adopted at the University. 



Peter Jonx MAairsr, Esq., of Pulborough, Sussex, was elected a 

 Eellow of this Society in 1833, and died last May, aged seventy-four. 



Established as a medical man in the Valley of the Arun, Mr. 

 Martin had two favourite holiday-studies, which he continually 

 pursued, as an antiq aarian and a geologist. Of his researches in the 

 history of the Eoman Roads, and in other archaeological subjects, 

 his antiquarian friends are well aware ; and accounts of them have 

 * Order of Kalure, p. 1G1. 



