hunter's posthumous paper on fossils. 339 



balanced by generation, so extinction has been concomitant with the 

 creative power which has continued to provide a succession of species ; 

 and furthermore, that, as regards the various forms of life which this 

 planet has supported, there has been " an advance and progress in the 

 main." Thus we learn, that the creative force has not deserted the 

 earth during any of the epochs of geological time that have succeeded 

 to the first manifestation of such force ; and that, in respect to no one 

 class of animals, has the operation of that force been limited to one 

 geological epoch ; and perhaps the most important and significant result 

 of palseontological research has been the establishment of the axiom of 

 the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of new species of living 

 things. 



Amongst the circumstances that have most conduced to extend a 

 knowledge of the nature of the changes in the crust of the earth 

 and its inhabitants since Hunter's philosophical attempt to compre- 

 hend and explain them, must be cited the establishment, in 1807, of 

 the Geological Society of London. By the labours of the distin- 

 guished founders and early members of that Society, Wollaston, 

 Greenough, Horner, De la Beche, Fitton, Conybeare, Sedgwick, and 

 Buckland, Geology was soon rescued from the imputation of being a 

 dangerous, or at best a visionary, pursuit. By their worthy successors, 

 so numerous now that to particularize might seem invidious, but 

 amongst whom common consent would name with honour Murchison, 

 Phillips, and Lyell, and by the well-organized Geological Survey of 

 Great Britain, the combined Sciences of Geology and Palaeontology have 

 been most surely and rapidly advanced; and I cannot conclude this 

 sketch of the leading steps of that advance, made more especially in 

 England since the time of Hunter, than in the eloquent language of 

 the most philosophical historian of the progress of the combined Sciences 

 which owe so much to his own original labours. 



" Never, perhaps, did any science, with the exception of Astronomy, 

 unfold, in an equally brief period, so many novel and unexpected 

 truths, and overturn so many preconceived opinions. The senses had 

 for ages declared the earth to be at rest, until the astronomer taught 

 that it was carried through space with inconceivable rapidity. In bike 

 manner was the surface of this planet regarded as having remained un- 

 altered since its creation, until the geologist proved that it had been 

 the theatre of reiterated change, and was still the subject of slow, but 

 never-ending, fluctuations. The discovery of other systems in the 

 boundless regions of space was the triumph of astronomy ; to trace the 

 same system through various transformations — to behold it at success- 

 ive eras adorned with different hills and valleys, lakes and seas, and 



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