112 Geology as a means of culture — A. Winchell. 
pure romance and a romantic inference is as wide as the begin- 
ning and conclusion of terrestrial history. It cannot be claimed 
that the particular denouements which we picture have been or 
are to be actual events. The pathway of reasoning often bifur- 
cates, and we may jDursue either road to conclusions. There 
-are always concomitances lying alongside, which are the out- 
•comes of causes acting outside of our trains of reasoning. These 
may determine whether the actual course of events will pursue 
the right or the left. We know however, that it will pursue 
one. or the other; or at least some course within the scope of 
rational anticipation. With all these qualifications and uncer- 
tainties of actual detail, the sublime fact remains, that our science 
enables us to mount into the aeons past, and plunge into the 
■depths of the aeons to come, and get visions, even if dim, of the 
stupendous events flowing out of the exercise of infinite power 
^nd infinite intelligence in the realms of infinite space and infi- 
nite time. 
Let me add that if these visions are absolutely unreal, the 
exercise of the intelligence is still the same. It is an exercise of 
the loftiest powers of the mind, and if it leaves in our possession 
no real knowledge, but only culture, it stands on a footing 
-equal with some other studies deliberately pursued simply for 
their cultural influence — and that, even on a lower range of 
faculties than those employed in the higher inductions and de- 
ductions of geological science. 
It must have occurred to the reader that much yet remains to 
be said of the cultural influence of the higher reasonings of 
geology. I allow myself a few words further. Imagination, 
I said, is not the creator of the histories, past and future, which I 
have depicted in the vicissitudes of the world ; but it is the in- 
dispensable instrument for securing to the understanding a vivid 
:apprehension of the reality, the nature and meaning, of those 
vicissitudes. These exercises of the higher reason keep imagi- 
nation in constant and pleasing activity, and thus train a power 
which sheds over the logical products of the mind a vivid ra- 
diance, and often lights the way for the understanding into the 
dark regions of the unknown. 
The loftiness of these themes demands a lofty style. To por- 
tray them to the common intelligence — always eager to learn 
