572 PROOFS OF DESIGN 
*' In crossing a heath," (says Paley,) '' sup- 
pose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were 
asked how the stone came to be there ; I might 
possibly answer, that, for any thing I knew to 
the contrary, it had lain there for ever : nor would 
it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of 
this answer."^ 
Nay says the Geologist, for if the stone were a 
pebble, the adventures of this pebble may have 
been many and various, and fraught with records 
of physical events, that produced important 
changes upon the surface of our planet ; and its 
rolled condition implies that it has undergone 
considerable locomotion by the action of water. 
gold or silver, but also to all kinds of compound mineral bodies 
that present a regular crystalline structure, accompanied by defi- 
nite proportions of their chemical ingredients. The difference 
between a simple mineral and a simple substance may be illus- 
trated by the case of calcareous spar or crystallized carbonate 
of lime. The ultimate elements, viz. Calcium, Oxygen, and 
Carbon, are simple substances ; the crystalline compound result- 
ing from the union of these elements, in certain definite propor- 
tions, forms a simple mineral, called Carbonate of lime. The 
total number of simple minerals hitherto ascertained according to 
Berzelius is nearly six hundred, that of simple substances, or 
elementary principles, is fifty-four. 
* I have quoted this passage, not in disparagement of the ge- 
neral argument of Paley, which is altogether independent of the 
incidental and needless comparison with which he has prefaced 
it, but to show the importance of the addition, that has been 
made by the discoveries of Geology and Mineralogy, to the evi- 
dence of the non-eternity of the earth, which so great a master 
pronounced to be imperfect, for lack of such information as these 
modern sciences have recently supplied. 
