AN]STVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xU 



astray. The final cause of tlie existence of the world is, for Hutton, 

 the production of life and intelligence. 



" We have now considered the globe of this earth as a machine, 

 constructed upon chemical as well as mechanical principles, by which 

 its different parts are all adapted, in form, in quality, and in quantity, 

 to a certain end ; an end attained with certainty or success ; and an 

 end from which we may perceive wisdom, in contemplating the means 

 employed. 



" But is this world to be considered thus merely as a machine, to 

 last no longer than its parts retain their present position, their pro- 

 per forms and qualities ? Or may it not be also considered as an 

 organized body ? such as has a constitution in which the necessary 

 decay of the machine is naturally repaired, in the exertion of those 

 productive j)owers by which it had been formed. 



" This is the view in which we are now to examine the globe ; 

 to see if there be, in the constitution of this world, a reproductive 

 operation, by which a ruined constitution may be again repaired, and 

 a duration or stability thus procured to the machine, considered as 

 a world sustaining plants and animals"*. 



Kirwan and the other Philistines of the day accused Hutton of 

 declaring that his theory implied that the world never had a begin- 

 ning, and never differed in condition from its present state. Nothing 

 could be more grossly unjust, as he expressly guards himself against 

 any such conclusion in the following terms : — 



" But in thus tracing back the natural operations which have suc- 

 ceeded each other, and mark to us the course of time past, we come 

 to a period in which we cannot see any farther. This, however, is 

 not the beginning of the operations which proceed in time and ac- 

 cording to the wise ceconomy of this world ; nor is it the establish- 

 ing of that which, in the course of time, had no beginning ; it is only 

 the limit of our retrospective view of those operations which have 

 come to pass in time, and have been conducted by supreme intelli- 

 gence "f. 



I have spoken of Uniformitarianism as the doctrine of Hutton and 

 of Lyell. If I have quoted the older writer rather than the newer, 

 it is because his works are little known, and his claims on our ve^ 

 neration too frequently forgotten, not because I desire to dim the 

 fame of his eminent successor. Few of the present generation of 

 geologists have read Playfair's ' Illustrations,' fewer still the original 

 * Theory of the Earth ; ' the more is the pity ; but which of us has 

 not thumbed every page of the ' Principles of Geology ' ? I think 

 that he who writes fairly the history of his own progress in geological 

 thought wiU not be able to separate his debt to Hutton from his 

 obligations to Lyell ; and the history of the progress of individual 

 geologists is the history of geology. 



No one can doubt that the influence of uniformitarian views has 

 been enormous, and, in the main, most beneficial and favourable to 

 the progress of sound geology. 



Nor can it be questioned that uniformitarianism has even a stronger 

 * lb. pp. 16, 17 . . t Ik p. 223. 



/2 



