Cli. XXVI.] 
CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
383 
also inferred, it was uninhabitable, and, therefore, probably in 
a nascent state. 
The opposite doctrine, that the oldest visible strata might 
be the monuments of an antecedent period, when the animate 
world was already in existence, was declared to be equivalent 
to the assumption, that there never was a beginning to the 
present order of things. The unfairness of this charge was 
clearly pointed out by Play fair, who observed, 'that it was 
one thing to declare that we had not yet discovered the traces 
of a beginning, and another to deny that the earth ever had a 
beginning.' 
We regret, however, to find that the bearing of our argu- 
ments in the first volume has been misunderstood in a similar 
manner, for we have been charged with endeavouring to esta- 
blish the proposition, that ' the existing causes of change have 
operated with absolute uniformity from all eternity *.' 
It is the more necessary to notice this misrepresentation of 
our views, as it has proceeded from a friendly critic whose 
theoretical opinions coincide in general with our own, but who 
has, in this instance, strangely misconceived the scope of our 
argument. With equal justice might an astronomer be accused 
of asserting, that the works of creation extend throughout 
infinite space, because he refuses to take for granted that the 
remotest stars now seen in the heavens are on the utmost verge 
of the material universe. Every improvement of the telescope 
has brought thousands of new worlds into view, and it would, 
therefore, be rash and unphilosophical to imagine that we 
already survey the whole extent of the vast scheme, or that it 
will ever be brought within the sphere of human observation. 
But no argument can be drawn from such premises in favour 
of the infinity of the space that has been filled with worlds ; 
and if the material universe has any limits, it then follows that 
it must occupy a minute and infinitessimal point in infinite 
space. So, if in tracing back the earth's history, we arrive at the 
monuments of events which may have happened millions of ages 
* Quarterly Review, No. 86, Oct. 1830, p. 464. 
