540 ORDER AMIDST APPAJIENT CONFUSION. 
fusion, yet when fully understood, demonstrate 
the existence of Order, and Method, and Design, 
even in the operations of the most turbulent, 
among the many mighty physical forces which 
have affected the terraqueous globe.* 
Some of the most important results of the ac- 
tion of these forces have been already noticed in 
* '' Notwithstanding the appearances of irregularity and con- 
fusion in the formation of the crust of our globe, which are 
presented to the eye in the contemplation of its external features, 
Geologists have been able in numerous instances to detect, in 
the arrangement and position of its stratified masses, distinct 
approximations to geometrical laws. In the phenomena of anti- 
clinal lines, faults, fissures, mineral veins, &c. such laws are 
easily recognized." Hopkin's Researches in Physical Geology. 
Trans. Cambridge Phil. Soc. v. 6. part 1. 1835. 
" It scarcely admits of a doubt," says the author of an able 
article in the Quarterly Review, (Sept. 1826, p. 537,) " that the 
agents employed in etfecting this most perfect and systematic 
arrangement have been earthquakes, operating with different 
degrees of violence, and at various intervals of time, during a 
lapse of ages. The order that now reigns has resulted therefore, 
from causes which have generally been considered as capable 
only of defacing and devastating the earth's surface, but which 
we thus find strong grounds for suspecting were, in the primeval 
state of the globe, and perhaps still are, instrumental in its per- 
petual renovation. The effects of these subterranean forces 
prove that they are governed by general laws, and that these 
laws have been conceived by consummate wisdom and fore- 
thought." 
" Sources of apparent derangement in the system appear, when 
their operation throughout a series of ages is brought into one 
view, to have produced a great preponderance of good, and to be 
governed by fixed general laws, conducive, perhaps essential, to 
the habitable state of the globe." ibid. p. 539. 
