LIFE of Dr HUT TON. 55 



fteps of the fame progreffion, and that mineral fubftances are al- 

 ternately difTolved and renewed. Thefe viciffitudes may have been 

 often repeated ; and there are not wanting remains among mine- 

 ral bodies, that lead us back to continents from which the pre- 

 fent are the third in fucceflion. Here, then, we have a feries of 

 great natural revolutions in the condition of the earth's furface, 

 of which, as the author of this theory has remarked, we neither 

 fee the beginning nor the end ; and this circumftance accords 

 well with what is known concerning other parts of the economy 

 of the world. In the continuation of the different fpecies of 

 animals and vegetables that inhabit the earth, we difcern nei- 

 ther a beginning nor an end ; and in the planetary motions, 

 where geometry has carried the eye fo far both into the future 

 and the paft, we difcover no mark either of the commencement 

 or termination of the prefent order. It is unreafonable, indeed, 

 to fuppofe that fuch marks mould any where exift. The Author 

 of nature has not given laws to the univerfe, which, like the 

 inftitutions of men, carry in themfelves the elements of their 

 own destruction ; he has not permitted in his works any fymp- 

 tom of infancy or of old age, or any fign by which we may 

 eftimate either their future or their paft duration. He may put 

 an end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the prefent fyftem, 

 at fome determinate period of time ; but we may reft affured, 

 that this great cataftrophe will not be brought about by the laws 

 now exifting, and that it is not indicated by any thing which we 

 perceive. 



It would be defirable to trace the progrefs of an author's 

 mind in the formation of a fyftem where fo many new and en- 

 larged views of nature occur, and where fo much originality is 

 difplayed. On this fubjecl:, however, Dr Hutton's papers do 

 not afford fo much information as might be wifhed for, though 

 fomething may be learnt from a few fketches of an Effay on the 

 Natural Rijlory of the Earth, evidently written at a very early, 

 period, and intended, it would feem, for parts of an extenfjve 



Vol. V.— P. III. H work, 



