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CONCLUSION. 



presslon of Lord Bacon,* has (to use the words of Dugald Stewart) 

 " made it fashionable to omit the consideration of final causes entire- 

 ly, as inconsistent with the acknowledged rules of sound philosophi- 

 zing. The effect of this has been to divest the study of Nature of its 

 most attractive charms, and to sacrifice to a false idea of logical 

 rigour, all the moral impressions and pleasures, which physical knowl- 

 edge is fitted to yield." 



Geology discovers to us proofs of the awful revolutions which have 

 in former ages changed the surface of the globe, and overwhelmed 

 all its inhabitants : it reveals to us the forms of strange and unknown 

 animals, and unfolds the might and skill of creative energy, display- 

 ed in the ancient world : indeed, there is no science, which presents 

 objects that so powerfully excite our admiration and astonishment. 

 We are led almost irresistibly to speculate on the past and future con- 

 dition of our planet, and on man its present inhabitant. What vari- 

 ous reflections crowd upon the mind, if we carry back our thoughts 

 to the time when the surface of our globe was agitated by conflicting 

 elements, or to the succeeding intervals of repose, when enormous 

 crocodihan animals scoured the surface of the deep, or darted through 

 the air for their prey ; — or again, to the state of the ancient conti- 

 nents, when the deep silence of nature was broken by the bellow- 

 ings of the mammoth and the mastodon, who stalked the lords of the 

 former world, and perished in the last grand revolution, that preced- 

 ed the creation of man. Such speculations are somewhat humbling 

 to human pride on the one hand, but on the other, they prove our 

 superiority over the rest of the animal creation ; for it has been re- 

 garded by the wisest philosophers in ancient times, as a proof of the 

 high future destiny of man, that he alone, of all terrestrial animals, is 

 endowed with those powers and faculties, which impel him to specu- 

 late on the past, to anticipate the future, and to extend his views and 

 exalt his hopes, beyond this visible diurnal sphere. 



The following observations on the study of geology, taken from 

 Professor Sedgwick's truly eloquent address to the Geological Society 

 of London, in 1831, are so just and beautiful, and are so closely rela- 

 ted to what I have before stated, that I am certain my readers will be 

 highly gratified by their insertion. 



"If I believed that the imagination, the feelings, the active intellect- 

 ual powers bearing on the business of life, and the highest capacities 

 of our nature were blunted or impaired by the study of our science 

 (Geology,) I should then regard it as little better than a moral sepul- 

 chre, in which, like the strong man, we were burying ourselves and 

 those around us, in ruins of our own creating. But I believe too firm- 

 ly in the immutable attributes of that Being, in whom all truth, of 



* " Causarum finalium inquisilio sterilis est, et tanquam virgo Deo consecrata 

 nihil parit." 



