LIFE of Dr HUttON. 91 



had in this inflance admitted an exception to the rule, by which 

 flie has ordained the perpetual accumulation of knowledge 

 among civilized men, and had deftined a confiderable portion 

 of fcience continually to grow up and perifh with the indivi- 

 dual. 



A circumstance which greatly diftinguifhed the intellec- 

 tual character of the philofopher of whom we now fpeak, was 

 an uncommon activity and ardour of mind, upheld by the 

 greateft admiration of whatever in fcience was new, beautiful, 

 or fublime. The acquifitions of fortune, and the enjoyments 

 which mod directly addrefs the fenfes, do not call up more live- 

 ly expreffions of joy in other men, than hearing of a new inven- 

 tion, or being made acquainted with a new truth, would, at any 

 time, do in Dr Hutton. This fenfibility to intellectual plea- 

 fure, was not confined to a few objects, nor to the fciences 

 which he particularly cultivated : he would rejoice over Watt's 

 improvements on the fleam-engine, or Cook's difcoveries in 

 the South Sea, with all the warmth of a man who was to fhare 

 in the honour or the profit about to accrue from them. The 

 fire of his expreflion, on fuch occafions, and the animation of 

 his countenance and manner, are not to be defcribed ; they were 

 always feen with great delight by thofe who could enter into his 

 fentiments, and often with great altonifhment by thofe who 

 could not. 



With this exquifite relifh for whatever is beautiful and fu- 

 blime in fcience, we may eafily conceive what pleafure he de- 

 rived from his own geological fpeculations. The novelty and 

 grandeur of the objects offered by them to the imagination,, 

 the fimple and uniform order given to the whole natural hiftory 

 of the earth, and, above all, the views opened of the wifdom that 

 governs nature, are things to which hardly any man could be 

 infenfible ; but to him they were matter, not of tranfient delight, 



but 



