T2 
at, apparently, a rate more considerable. . . . All the 
time, however, the actual motion — upwards in one region, 
downwards in another— is in the solid earth, not in the sea, 
which merely serves as a kind of hydrostatic level to indicate 
the fact of subsidence or elevation of the land. " * Shade of 
the illustrious Newton ! must we acquiesce in such monstrous 
fallacies, and tacitly aid in trampb'ng upon Truth thus 
ruthlessly hurled from its pinnacle, despite the evidence of 
facts in Nature pointing to totally opposite conclusions, if 
science would but read them intelligently I Such hypotheses 
as the foregoing are but " oppositions of science, falsely so 
called ; " to be repudiated, with wonder that such Could 
ever be advanced by the late Hugh Miller, or acquiesced in 
by contemporary geologists. The style of i-ea.soning reminds 
one of that of the inebriate laird, who, after vain attempts 
to preserve his equilibrium in the saddle, succumbed to a 
sudden lurch in crossing a ford, and became a squatter in the 
stream. Hearing the splash) perhaps, but oblivious as to 
his change of position, apparently, he hailed his servant with 
" Wattie, my man, there's something fallen in the bum." 
To which that worthy replied, judging from appearances, like 
the Chilian fisherman, "I'm thinking, laird, its yoursel'." 
The inebriate, — like the geologist, who ignores the principles 
of mechanical philosophy, blind to the results of a loss of 
equilibrium in moveable matter, in redisposition of its 
volume in accordance with the natural law of gravitation, 
could not sec the matter in that light, remarking, " How 
can it be me, when I'm here ?" How could the margin of 
the ocean rise on the Indian shores, asks the geologist, 
though appearing to recede from those of Chili '! The 
surface of the ocean is, he tells us, inflexibly level, and 
merely indicates elevation or depression of the land ! Such 
is the crumbling foundation upon which much of what is 
termed scientific geology has been reared, inducing an ever- 
extending series of assumptions as to formations of strata, and 
ages of fossils, and other relics of organisms therein embedded, 
involving the assumed antiquity of man as coeval with mam- 
malia now extinct, which will not bear exhaustive scrutiny as 
to being based on facts, and arc therefore unworthy of the 
name of philosophy. Of the influence the disrupting and 
drifting agency of water may have in conveyance and deposi- 
tation of commingled earthy matters and organisms, brought 
together fortuitously, and not as having local and contempo- 
rary origin, instances will be submitted in a second chapter. 
* "Testimony of the Roeks," lecture on the Deluge, by Hugh Miller. 
