592 PROPER PROVING?: OF GEOLOGY* 
envelopes nature — grasping and arresting in their 
course the most subtle of her elements and the 
swiftest — traversing the regions of boundless space 
— exploring worlds beyond the solar way — giving 
out the law which binds the universe in eternal 
order ! He rests, as by an inevitable necessity, 
upon the contemplation of the great First Cause, 
and holds it his highest glory to have made the 
evidence of his existence, and the dispensations 
of his power and of his wisdom better understood 
by men."* 
If then it is admitted to be the high and pecu- 
liar privilege of our human nature, and a devo- 
tional exercise of our most exalted faculties, to 
extend our thoughts towards Immensity and into 
Eternity, to gaze on the marvellous Beauty that 
pervades the material world, and to comprehend 
that Witness of himself, which the Author of the 
Universe has set before us in the visible works of 
his Creation ; it is clear that next to the study of 
those distant worlds which engage the contem- 
plation of the Astronomer, the largest and most 
sublime subject of physical enquiry which can 
occupy the mind of Man, and by far the most in- 
teresting, from the personal concern we have in 
it, is the history of the formation and structure of 
the Planet on which we dwell, of the many and 
wonderful revolutions through which it has 
* Lord Brougham's Discourse of Natural Theology, 1 Ed. 
p. 194. 
