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THE SPIllIT OF GOOD BOOKS. 
CAMBRIDGE ESSAYS, 1857.— GEOLOGY : BY W. HOPKINS, 
M.A.,E.R.S., E.G.S. 
The object of this essay is to view tlic 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 raalco 
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 degi'ee 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 tho observations 
of the field-geologist, when he would acquaint himself with the con- 
clusions of those who have endeavoured to solve the physical or palajon- 
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 tho 
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 has been. As ordinary liistory 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 tlie 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 relerrcd to the operation of ordinary 
causes, or to some higher order of causation, or to immediate acts of 
Creative power ? These arc questions of deep interest to thoughtful 
and speculative minds anxious to discover some glimpses, however dim_, 
2 I 
