218 On Mr. Ly ell's "Principles of Geology" 



of another, (see p. 89,) as part of the present order of nature, 

 though from some accident or other, which it would be rather 

 difficult to explain, we do not happen to have seen anything 

 of the kind for the last three thousand years ; — that it is absurd 

 to consider the ages which have elapsed since the occupation 

 of the planet by man has given rise to historical record as a 

 period of comparative repose; — that the earthquakes which now 

 ravage Calabria and America are as violent as any which for- 

 merly disrupted our strata (tearing them thousands of feet 

 asunder, evidently at a single stroke*), and which raised our 

 continents and their mountains, and want only a little more 

 time to reproduce the same effects ; — that it is altogether un- 

 philosophical to suppose that any causes can have tended 

 to exhaust or diminish the power of these disturbing forces; — 

 there being, perhaps, some canon in Mr. Ly ell's logic or physics, 

 with which mine is unprovided, to the effect, that a force which 

 has ever acted with a given power must always continue to 

 act with the same power. 



I hope it will not be considered as an invidious remark, but 

 merely as expressing the general impression which the book 

 has left on my mind, that it is an expanded commentary on 

 the celebrated Huttonian axiom, that " in the oeconomy of the 

 world no traces of a beginning or prospect of an end can be 

 discerned." Now I would not doubt for a moment on the 

 unfounded (as I am most willing to own) moral objections 

 which have been urged against this axiom ; but considered 

 purely as it ought to be philosophically, I have ever regarded 

 it, and I continue to regard it, as one of the most gratuitous 

 and unsupported assertions ever hazarded. 



At present I will only further trespass on your space to 

 add a few words on the phrases " existing causes" and "the 

 uniformity of nature," so often employed. Mr. Lyell has many 

 acute and useful observations on the prejudices which have 

 impeded just reasoning on the subject. Wishing him every 

 success in his chivalrous encounter with these idola spems, 

 I only regret that he seems to spare with some partiality one 

 of the tribe; I mean, mistaking words for things, and philo- 

 sophical expressions for philosophical arguments. I will ven- 

 ture on an illustration, which may exhibit how far these 

 phrases are really available in the argument : — Infants grow at 

 the rate of some inches a-year; but there is a popular persua- 

 sion, evidently erroneous, according to the canons of Mr. 

 Lyell's logic, that this rate decreases, and at length stops, and 



* This illustration is, indeed, not given in the work ; but I cannot sup- 

 pose Mr. Lyell otherwise then well acquainted with its proofs in many geo- 

 logical faults of large magnitude. 



that 



