xx PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
surrounding country, I recollected that I was the first individual of 
the human race to whom it had been permitted to unravel the 
structure and record the history of that subterraneous portion of the 
works of God that lay within the horizon then around me. 
Sir, it has been the high privilege of our time, which our successors 
cannot enjoy, to be the pioneers of a great and comprehensive master 
science; and wherever we have pushed forward our original discoveries, 
these discoveries will have indelibly inscribed our names on the annals 
of the physical history of the globe. We have established landmarks 
and fixed physical and chronological horizons which must endure so 
long as men regard the structure and contents and physical history 
of the earth which God has given the children of men. 
Many individuals of that Council who have concurred in awarding 
to me this Medal, have acquired to themselves, not only an European, 
but a Mundane reputation, not only as citizens, but as mstructors and 
benefactors of the world. Many of their names are as familiar on the 
banks of the Ganges and of the Ohio as on those of our own Thames. 
The scientific discoverers of the world are now closely united as one 
brotherhood in one great family of the human race, and the literature 
of science which records the physical discoveries of our time will con- 
tinue indestructible by the burning of another Alexandre library, 
and so long as science shall be regarded by any nation upon earth. 
Were all Europe and Africa again submerged beneath the oceans from 
which they have been elevated by the force of subterranean fires, our 
literature would survive in the libraries of Asia and America. 
It is highly gratifying to feel that whatever real additions we may 
have made to man’s positive knowledge of the works of God, will be 
indelibly preserved and imparted to all our successors of the human 
family in all countries and in all generations yet to come, and we trust, 
for their moral as well as intellectual and social and physical advantage. 
Geological knowledge, 7. e. the knowledge of the rich ingredients 
with which God has stored the earth beforehand, when He created it 
for the then future uses and comfort of man, must fill the mind of 
every one who acquires this knowledge with feelings of the highest 
admiration, the deepest gratitude, and the most profound humility 
The more our knowledge increases of the infinity of the wisdom and 
goodness of the Creator, greater and greater becomes the conscious- 
ness of our own comparative ignorance and insignificance. The 
sciolist alone is proud ; the philosopher is humble, and duly conscious 
of the comparative littleness of his most extended knowledge. We 
may be gratified by our discoveries and by the recognition of the value 
of our labours by our fellow-men. We may and ought to be gratified, 
but we are not made proud ; we feel that pride was not made for man : 
we learn the lesson of humility, icreasmg more and more continually 
as our knowledge of the works of God becomes more and more ex- 
panded ; and to those who have laboured diligently and successfully 
in their calling, as investigators of the wonders of creation, it is per- 
mitted to hope that they may have done good in their generation, 
and that their labour has not been in vain. 
