425 



TEE SPIillT OF GOOD BOOKS. 



CAMBRIDGE ESSAYS, 1857.— GEOLOGY : BY ^V. HOPKINS, 

 :M.A., E.Pv.S., E.G.S. 



The object of this essay is to view the science of Geology on a more 

 extended scale than is generally attempted in popular treatises ; not 

 dwelling on matters of detail, but regarding physical principles and 

 fundamental propositions with those logical sequences by which 

 remoter conclusions are arrived at. 



*' But how, it may be asked, is the student or mere general reader to 

 enter upon these larger views of the subject without a previous ac- 

 quaintance with its details ? And, doubtless, if any one would raaho 

 himself an accomplished geologist, and prepare himself to enter fully 

 into the more profound investigations of the science, he must gain a 

 knowledge of its phenomena with a certain degree of detail ; but tho 

 more complete a science becomes as a science of observation, the less 

 necessary is it for the philosopher who would solve its physical pro- 

 blems to become himself an observer. Newton and Laplace troubled 

 themselves little in looking through astronomical telescopes. They 

 took their facts on the authority of others. And so, also, the general 

 geological reader may accept the facts established by the observations 

 of the field-geologist, when he would acquaint himself with the con- 

 clusions of those who have endeavoured to solve the physical or pala3on- 

 tological problems which the science presents to us." 



Passing over, as untenable, the dogma of Chateaubriand and others, 

 that God created the world as it appears at present, the author proceeds 

 to regard geology in the light of a physical science determining the 

 nature and operations of those physical causes, which have produced tho 

 phenomena presented to our view. 



" And here its peculiar and distinctive character must not be for- 

 gotten — its historical character. It deals not so much with that which 

 is, as with that which lias been. As ordinary history treats partly of 

 events and institutions belonging to a continuous chain, of which the 

 first links are lost in the darkness of remote ages, and partly of those of 

 comparatively recent origin ; so geology deals partly with a series of 

 natural phenomena, linked together by the agency of recognized 

 physical causes, till we ascend to that high antiquity in which Nature's 

 records become illegible ; and partly, also, it treats of things — new 

 forms of organic life — which appear to have had no existence whatever 

 before the epoch at which we recognize their introduction on the surface 

 of the earth. How, then, are we to connect this introduction of totally 

 new objects with the ordinary sequence of events connected by natural 

 causes ? Are such objects — intruding themselves, as it were, upon the 

 face of the globe, without traces of ancestry or discoverable antecedents 

 of any description — are they to be referred to the operation of ordinary 

 causes, or to some higher order of causation, or to immediate acts of 

 Creative power ? These are questions of deep interest to thoughtfuJ 

 and speculatiye minds anxious to discoyer some glimpses^ however dim^ 



