THE WOLLASTON MEDAL. 
267 
which must endure so long as men regard the structure, 
and contents, and physical history of the earth which God 
has given to the children of men. 
“ Geological knowledge, i.e. the knowledge of the rich 
ingredients with which God has stored the earth beforehand, 
when He created it for the then future use and comfort 
of man, must fill the mind of every one who acquires this 
knowledge, with feelings of the highest admiration, the 
deepest gratitude, and the most profound humility. The 
more our knowledge increases, of the infinity of the wisdom 
and goodness of the Creator, greater and greater becomes 
the consciousness of our own comparative ignorance and 
insignificance. The sciolist alone is proud ; the philo¬ 
sopher is humble, and duly conscious of the comparative 
littleness of his most extended knowledge. We may be 
gratified by our discoveries, and by the recognition of the 
value of our labours by our fellow-men. We may and 
ought to be gratified, but we are not made proud ; we feel 
that pride was not made for man ; we learn the lesson of 
humility; increasing more and more continually, as our 
knowledge of the works of God becomes more and more 
expanded ; and to those who have laboured diligently and 
successfully in their calling as investigators of the wonders 
of creation, it is permitted to hope that they have done 
good in their generation, and that their labour has not been 
in vain.” 
The presentation of the medal was almost the last 
important occasion on which Buckland appeared in public. 
The words already quoted from his speech—which, as Sir 
Roderick Murchison writes of his old friend, “embody 
a humble confession of the comparative littleness and 
incompleteness of all human knowledge ”—were but “ too 
prophetic of the approaching close of his own valuable 
and honourable career.” 
The first few months of the Dean’s mysterious illness 
