with respect to Inanimate Matter. 31 



ning of the actual physical condition of our planet. If not, the 

 earth must have been created at once, at some finite distance of 

 time, as fit a dwelling-place for organic beings, as it has been 

 rendered, according to the theory of progression, only by a long 

 series of superficial operations. In other words, phenomena must 

 have existed as the immediate act of creation, and anterior to the 

 operation of physical causes, which it is the very essence of geology 

 to account for by reference to those causes. This would be to sap 

 the foundations on which alone geology can rest as a physical 

 science. 



I would again, gentlemen, carefully remind you that I have been 

 discussing these theories with reference to my own definitions of 

 the terms which designate them, and which others may not have 

 accepted in the same rigorous sense. Still I believe that, if they 

 are to bear a determinate meaning, they must ultimately be re- 

 ceived in the sense which I have assigned to them. In that sense, 

 leaving the question entirely open respecting the organic creation 

 to be decided by future research, I feel it impossible to adopt any 

 other view than that of progressive development of inorganic matter 

 from some primitive to its present state. I have already remarked 

 that we do not know sufficient of the laws which may regulate the 

 succession of organic life on our planet, to assert that the one of 

 these theories or the other is most consistent with these laws ; but, 

 with respect to inorganic matter, the theories of uniformity and of 

 non-progression appear to me incompatible with our most certain 

 knowledge of the properties of heat — that ever-active agent in the 

 work of terrestrial transformation. 



It is far from my purpose to enter into a discussion of the evi- 

 dence which might be deduced from recognised geological pheno- 

 mena in favour of the theory of progression, but merely to insist 

 on that which depends on the most immediate and simple inferences 

 from the properties of heat. And here it should be remarked, 

 that this argument cannot be refuted by any reasoning which may 

 appear to establish an approximate general uniformity or non-pro- 

 gression in the character of geological phenomena since the earliest 

 geological epochs, because the progressive refrigeration of the earth 

 from some high temperature to its present temperature is perfectly 

 consistent with such approximate uniformity or non-progression 

 for enormous periods of time. Climatal conditions, for instance, 

 may, consistently with the earth's continual refrigeration, have re- 

 mained sensibly unaffected by the internal heat, as I have else- 

 where explained, for millions of centuries ; and the very theory 

 which tells us that these conditions can never be sensibly altered 

 in all future time (external circumstances remaining the same) 

 essentially involves the hypothesis of progressive change towards 

 an ultimate limit. 



