FIELD AND STUDY 



a back seat, exact knowledge leads. This change has 

 its unhandsome side. Life is in* many ways less 

 attractive. We have less veneration, less humility, 

 less virtue than our fathers. Large, loving, pictur- 

 esque personalities are becoming rarer and rarer, 

 both in private and in public life;. 



In his practical life man had to follow his reason 

 and common sense; he had to have a little practical 

 science or perish, but in his religious and emotional 

 life he was under no such pressure; he was free, and 

 has always been free, to let himself go, to give un- 

 bridled range to his imagination; hence his fan- 

 tastic beliefs, and his silly or horrible superstitions. 



§ 

 The earth grew as a whole like an organic being. 

 The hemispheres kept pace with each other in their 

 development. When the coal was being laid down in 

 Europe, it was being laid down in America; when 

 the chalk hills of England and France were being 

 formed, chalk-beds were being deposited in our 

 Southwestern States. When the Old Red Sandstone 

 was forming in Scotland, an equivalent formation 

 was being built up in this country. The great form- 

 ative and deformative movements were world- 

 wide. The continents are all built upon the same 

 plan, a foundation of granite and a superstructure 

 of sedimentary rocks, the different formations suc- 

 ceeding one another in regular order around the 

 globe. Earthquakes and volcanoes are local; over- 

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