hunter's posthumous paper on fossils. 301 



official letter from the Sorbonne, inviting him to send in an explanation 

 of his " reprehensible opinions ; " the result of which was a declaration, 

 in the next published volume, by Buffon, " that I abandon everything 

 in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and, generally, all 

 which may be contrary to the narration of Moses 1 ." And yet, as one of 

 our best living geologists has remarked, the principle which Buffon was 

 called upon to renounce was simply this : that the present mountains 

 and valleys of the earth are due to secondary causes, and that the same 

 causes will, in time, destroy all the continents, hills, and valleys, and 

 reproduce others. 



Werner, bike Buffon, attributed all the geological phenomena of the 

 earth to the operation of the waters. The great German mineralogist, 

 who flourished contemporaneously with Hunter, appears to have regarded 

 geology as little other than a subordinate department of mineralogy. 

 His errors and failings chiefly arose from his mistaking the right aim of 

 his labours, and committing himself, like his predecessors, to a general 

 cosmological theory, that of ' universal formations,' which he supposed 

 had been " each in succession simultaneously precipitated over the whole 

 earth from a common menstruum, or chaotic fluid." 



Werner's unrivalled quality was a tact in detecting the nature 

 and composition of minerals, and their natural position in particular 

 rocks. He successfully taught their external characters ; and he was 

 the first to direct attention to the constant relations of superposition of 

 certain mineral beds. To the late venerable Professor Jameson, of 

 Edinburgh, a pupil of Werner, this country is mainly indebted for the 

 application of all that was sound in Werner's system to the advance- 

 ment of geological science. 



I have selected the well-known names of the eminent and highly 

 gifted men who have committed themselves to ' Theories of the Earth,' 

 in justice to the aim I have in view, — the exemplification of the truly 

 philosophical character of Hunter's mind, of its peculiar adaptation to 

 the discovery of pure truth, as exemplified in a field of his intellectual 



1 [Neither Buffon nor Galileo cared to be ' Martyrs of Science.' There is some- 

 thing, perhaps, in the nature of abstract truth, that is less akin to our mixed and 

 excitable nature than religious and political beliefs : some qualities in pure science 

 that fail to engender so warm a devotion, because they come not so directly home to 

 our business and bosoms, as the doctrines of State or Church, affecting more immedi- 

 ately our own special welfare here and hereafter. Man is not, therefore, so moved to 

 lay down a life in the cause of cold abstract scientific truth, in the pursuit and 

 acquisition of which he too often stands alone, as for a heart-cherished belief, in 

 which many of his contemporaries eagerly sympathise with him, and are ready to 

 encourage, applaud, and cherish with veneration the memory of suffering and sacri- 

 fice endured for the sake of common tenets.] 



