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 As we have said, in order to arrive even hypothetically at this
result, it is necessary to assume besides a mere capacity for
change, other positive and active principles, some of which we may
notice. Thus, we must have as the direct productions of nature on
this hypothesis, certain monads or rough draughts, the primary
rudiments of plants and animals. We must have, in these, a constant
tendency to progressive improvement, to the attainment of higher
powers and faculties than they possess; which tendency is again
perpetually modified and controlled by the force of external
circumstances. And in order to account for the simultaneous
existence of animals in every stage of this imaginary progress, we
must suppose that nature is compelled to be constantly producing
those elementary beings, from which all animals are successively
developed. 567

I need not stay to point out how extremely arbitrary every part of
this scheme is; and how complex its machinery would be, even if it
did account for the facts. It may be sufficient to observe, as others
have done, 84 that the capacity of change, and of being influenced by
external circumstances, such as we really find it in nature, and
therefore such as in science we must represent it, is a tendency, not
to improve, but to deteriorate. When species are modified by
external causes, they usually degenerate, and do not advance. And
there is no instance of a species acquiring an entirely new sense,
faculty, or organ, in addition to, or in the place of, what it had before.
84 Lyell, B. iii. c. iv.

Not only, then, is the doctrine of the transmutation of species in

itself disproved by the best physiological reasonings, but the
additional assumptions which are requisite, to enable its advocates
to apply it to the explanation of the geological and other phenomena
of the earth, are altogether gratuitous and fantastical.

Such is the judgment to which we are led by the examination of

the discussions which have taken place on this subject. Yet in certain
speculations, occasioned by the discovery of the Sivatherium, a new
fossil animal from the Sub-Himalaya mountains of India, M. Geoffroy
Saint-Hilaire speaks of the belief in the immutability of species as a
conviction which is fading away from men’s minds. He speaks too of
the termination of the age of Cuvier, “la clôture du siècle de Cuvier,”
and of the commencement of a better zoological philosophy. 85 But
though he expresses himself with great animation, I do not perceive
that he adduces, in support of his peculiar opinions, any arguments
in addition to those which he urged during the lifetime of Cuvier. And
the reader 86 may recollect that the consideration of that controversy
led us to very different anticipations from his, respecting the probable
future progress of physiology. The discovery of the Sivatherium
supplies no particle of proof to the hypothesis, that the existing
species of animals are descended from extinct creatures which are
specifically distinct: and we cannot act more wisely than in listening
to the advice of that eminent naturalist, M. de Blainville. 87 “Against
this hypothesis, which, up to the present time, I regard as purely
gratuitous, and likely to turn geologists out of the sound and
excellent road in which they now are, I willingly raise my voice, with
the most absolute conviction of being in the right.”
85 Compte Rendu de l’Acad. des Sc. 1837, No. 3, p. 81.

86 See B. xvii. c. vii.

87 Compte Rendu, 1837, No. 5, p. 168.

 568 [2nd Ed.] [The hypothesis of the progressive developement of
species has been urged recently, in connexion with the physiological
tenet of Tiedemann and De Serres, noticed in B. xvii. c. vii. sect. 3;
—namely, that the embryo of the higher forms of animals passes by
gradations through those forms which are permanent in inferior
animals. Assuming this tenet as exact, it has been maintained that
the higher animals which are found in the more recent strata may
have been produced by an ulterior development of the lower forms in
the embryo state; the circumstances being such as to favor such a
developement. But all the best physiologists agree in declaring that
such an extraordinary developement of the embryo is inconsistent
with physiological possibility. Even if the progression of the embryo
in time have a general correspondence with the order of animal
forms as more or less perfectly organized (which is true in an
extremely incomplete and inexact degree), this correspondence
must be considered, not as any indication of causality, but as one of
those marks of universal analogy and symmetry which are stamped
upon every part of the creation.

Mr. Lyell 88 notices this doctrine of Tiedemann and De Serres; and

observes, that though nature presents us with cases of animal forms
degraded by incomplete developement, she offers none of forms
exalted by extraordinary developement. Mr. Lyell’s own hypothesis of
the introduction of new species upon the earth, not having any
physiological basis, hardly belongs to this chapter.]
88 Principles, B. iii. c. iv.

Sect. 5.—Question of Creation as related to Science.

But since we reject the production of new species by means of
external influence, do we then, it may be asked, accept the other
side of the dilemma which we have stated; and admit a series of
creations of species, by some power beyond that which we trace in
the ordinary course of nature?

To this question, the history and analogy of science, I conceive,

teach us to reply as follows:—All palætiological sciences, all
speculations which attempt to ascend from the present to the remote
past, by the chain of causation, do also, by an inevitable
consequence, urge us to look for the beginning of the state of things
which we thus contemplate; but in none of these cases have men
been able, by the aid of science, to arrive at a beginning which is
homogeneous with the 569 known course of events. The first origin of
language, of civilization, of law and government, cannot be clearly
made out by reasoning and research; just as little, we may expect,
will a knowledge of the origin of the existing and extinct species of
plants and animals, be the result of physiological and geological
investigation.

But, though philosophers have never yet demonstrated, and

perhaps never will be able to demonstrate, what was that primitive
state of things in the social and material worlds, from which the
progressive state took its first departure; they can still, in all the lines
of research to which we have referred, go very far back;—determine
many of the remote circumstances of the past sequence of events;—
ascend to a point which, from our position at least, seems to be near
the origin;—and exclude many suppositions respecting the origin
itself. Whether, by the light of reason alone, men will ever be able to
do more than this, it is difficult to say. It is, I think, no irrational
opinion, even on grounds of philosophical analogy alone, that in all
those sciences which look back and seek a beginning of things, we
may be unable to arrive at a consistent and definite belief, without
having recourse to other grounds of truth, as well as to historical
research and scientific reasoning. When our thoughts would
apprehend steadily the creation of things, we find that we are obliged
to summon up other ideas than those which regulate the pursuit of
scientific truths;—to call in other powers than those to which we refer
natural events: it cannot, then, be considered as very surprizing, if, in
this part of our inquiry, we are compelled to look for other than the
ordinary evidence of science.

Geology, forming one of the palætiological class of sciences,

which trace back the history of the earth and its inhabitants on
philosophical grounds, is thus associated with a number of other
kinds of research, which are concerned about language, law, art, and
consequently about the internal faculties of man, his thoughts, his
social habits, his conception of right, his love of beauty. Geology
being thus brought into the atmosphere of moral and mental
speculations, it may be expected that her investigations of the
probable past will share an influence common to them; and that she
will not be allowed to point to an origin of her own, a merely physical
beginning of things; but that, as she approaches towards such a
goal, she will be led to see that it is the origin of many trains of
events, the point of convergence of many lines. It may be, that
instead of being allowed to travel up to this focus of being, we are
only able to estimate its place and nature, and 570 to form of it such
a judgment as this;—that it is not only the source of mere vegetable
and animal life, but also of rational and social life, language and arts,
law and order; in short, of all the progressive tendencies by which
the highest principles of the intellectual and moral world have been
and are developed, as well as of the succession of organic forms,
which we find scattered, dead or living, over the earth.

This reflection concerning the natural scientific view of creation, it

will be observed, has not been sought for, from a wish to arrive at
such conclusions; but it has flowed spontaneously from the manner
in which we have had to introduce geology into our classification of
the sciences; and this classification was framed from an unbiassed
consideration of the general analogies and guiding ideas of the
various portions of our knowledge. Such remarks as we have made
may on this account be considered more worthy of attention.

But such a train of thought must be pursued with caution. Although

it may not be possible to arrive at a right conviction respecting the
origin of the world, without having recourse to other than physical
considerations, and to other than geological evidence: yet
extraneous considerations, and extraneous evidence, respecting the
nature of the beginning of things, must never be allowed to influence
our physics or our geology. Our geological dynamics, like our
astronomical dynamics, may be inadequate to carry us back to an
origin of that state of things, of which it explains the progress: but
this deficiency must be supplied, not by adding supernatural to
natural geological dynamics, but by accepting, in their proper place,
the views supplied by a portion of knowledge of a different character
and order. If we include in our Theology the speculations to which we
have recourse for this purpose, we must exclude from them our
Geology. The two sciences may conspire, not by having any part in
common: but because, though widely diverse in their lines, both
point to a mysterious and invisible origin of the world.
 All that which claims our assent on those higher grounds of which
theology takes cognizance, must claim such assent as is consistent
with those grounds; that is, it must require belief in respect of all that
bears upon the highest relations of our being, those on which
depend our duties and our hopes. Doctrines of this kind may and
must be conveyed and maintained, by means of information
concerning the past history of man, and his social and material, as
well as moral and spiritual fortunes. He who believes that a
Providence has 571 ruled the affairs of mankind, will also believe that
a Providence has governed the material world. But any language in
which the narrative of this government of the material world can be
conveyed, must necessarily be very imperfect and inappropriate;
being expressed in terms of those ideas which have been selected
by men, in order to describe appearances and relations of created
things as they affect one another. In all cases, therefore, where we
have to attempt to interpret such a narrative, we must feel that we
are extremely liable to err; and most of all, when our interpretation
refers to those material objects and operations which are most
foreign to the main purpose of a history of providence. If we have to
consider a communication containing a view of such a government
of the world, imparted to us, as we may suppose, in order to point
out the right direction for our feelings of trust, and reverence, and
hope, towards the Governor of the world, we may expect that we
shall be in no danger of collecting from our authority erroneous
notions with regard to the power, and wisdom, and goodness of His
government; or with respect to our own place, duties, and prospects,
and the history of our race so far as our duties and prospects are
concerned. But that we shall rightly understand the detail of all
events in the history of man, or of the skies, or of the earth, which
are narrated for the purpose of thus giving a right direction to our
minds, is by no means equally certain; and I do not think it would be
too much to say, that an immunity from perplexity and error, in such
matters, is, on general grounds, very improbable. It cannot then
surprise us to find, that parts of such narrations which seem to refer
to occurrences like those of which astronomers and geologists have
attempted to determine the laws, have given rise to many
interpretations, all inconsistent with one another, and most of them at
variance with the best established principles of astronomy and
geology.

It may be urged, that all truths must be consistent with all other
truths, and that therefore the results of true geology or astronomy
cannot be irreconcileable with the statements of true theology. And
this universal consistency of truth with itself must be assented to; but
it by no means follows that we must be able to obtain a full insight
into the nature and manner of such a consistency. Such an insight
would only be possible if we could obtain a clear view of that central
body of truth, the source of the principles which appear in the
separate lines of speculation. To expect that we should see clearly
how the providential government of the world is consistent with the
unvarying laws 572 by which its motions and developements are
regulated, is to expect to understand thoroughly the laws of motion,
of developement, and of providence; it is to expect that we may
ascend from geology and astronomy to the creative and legislative
centre, from which proceeded earth and stars; and then descend
again into the moral and spiritual world, because its source and
centre are the same as those of the material creation. It is to say that
reason, whether finite or infinite, must be consistent with itself; and
that, therefore, the finite must be able to comprehend the infinite, to
travel from any one province of the moral and material universe to
any other, to trace their bearing, and to connect their boundaries.
 One of the advantages of the study of the history and nature of
science in which we are now engaged is, that it warns us of the
hopeless and presumptuous character of such attempts to
understand the government of the world by the aid of science,
without throwing any discredit upon the reality of our knowledge;—
that while it shows how solid and certain each science is, so long as
it refers its own facts to its own ideas, it confines each science within
its own limits, and condemns it as empty and helpless, when it
pronounces upon those subjects which are extraneous to it. The
error of persons who should seek a geological narrative in
theological records, would be rather in the search itself than in their
interpretation of what they might find; and in like manner the error of
those who would conclude against a supernatural beginning, or a
providential direction of the world, upon geological or physiological
reasonings, would be, that they had expected those sciences alone
to place the origin or the government of the world in its proper light.

Though these observations apply generally to all the palætiological

sciences, they may be permitted here, because they have an
especial bearing upon some of the difficulties which have
embarrassed the progress of geological speculation; and though
such difficulties are, I trust, nearly gone by, it is important for us to
see them in their true bearing.

From what has been said, it follows that geology and astronomy
are, of themselves, incapable of giving us any distinct and
satisfactory account of the origin of the universe, or of its parts. We
need not wonder, then, at any particular instance of this incapacity;
as, for example, that of which we have been speaking, the
impossibility of accounting by any natural means for the production
of all the successive tribes of plants and animals which have peopled
the world in the 573 various stages of its progress, as geology
teaches us. That they were, like our own animal and vegetable
contemporaries, profoundly adapted to the condition in which they
were placed, we have ample reason to believe; but when we inquire
whence they came into this our world, geology is silent. The mystery
of creation is not within the range of her legitimate territory; she says
nothing, but she points upwards.

Sect. 6.—The Hypothesis of the regular Creation and Extinction of

Species.

1. Creation of Species.—We have already seen, how untenable,

as a physiological doctrine, is the principle of the transmutability and
progressive tendency of species; and therefore, when we come to
apply to theoretical geology the principles of the present chapter, this
portion of the subject will easily be disposed of. I hardly know
whether I can state that there is any other principle which has been
applied to the solution of the geological problem, and which,
therefore, as a general truth, ought to be considered here. Mr. Lyell,
indeed, has spoken 89 of an hypothesis that “the successive creation
of species may constitute a regular part of the economy of nature:”
but he has nowhere, I think, so described this process as to make it
appear in what department of science we are to place the
hypothesis. Are these new species created by the production, at long
intervals, of an offspring different in species from the parents? Or are
the species so created produced without parents? Are they gradually
evolved from some embryo substance? or do they suddenly start
from the ground, as in the creation of the poet?

. . . . . . . Perfect forms
Limbed and full-grown: out of the ground up rose
 As from his lair, the wild beast where he wons
In forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; . . .
The grassy clods now calved; now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts; then springs as broke from bounds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; &c. &c.
Paradise Lost, B. vii.

89 B. iii. c. xi. p. 234.

Some selection of one of these forms of the hypothesis, rather

than the others, with evidence for the selection, is requisite to entitle
us to 574 place it among the known causes of change which in this
chapter we are considering. The bare conviction that a creation of
species has taken place, whether once or many times, so long as it
is unconnected with our organical sciences, is a tenet of Natural
Theology rather than of Physical Philosophy.

[2nd Ed.] [Mr. Lyell has explained his theory 90 by supposing man
to people a great desert, introducing into it living plants and animals:
and he has traced, in a very interesting manner, the results of such a
hypothesis on the distribution of vegetable and animal species. But
he supposes the agents who do this, before they import species into
particular localities, to study attentively the climate and other
physical conditions of each spot, and to use various precautions. It is
on account of the notion of design thus introduced that I have,
above, described this opinion as rather a tenet of Natural Theology
than of Physical Philosophy.
90 B. iii. c. viii. p. 166.

Mr. Edward Forbes has published some highly interesting

speculations on the distribution of existing species of animals and
plants. It appears that the manner in which animal and vegetable
forms are now diffused requires us to assume centres from which the
diffusion took place by no means limited by the present divisions of
continents and islands. The changes of land and water which have
thus occurred since the existing species were placed on the earth
must have been very extensive, and perhaps reach into the glacial
period of which I have spoken above. 91
91 See, in Memoirs of the Geological Survey of Great Britain, vol.
i. p. 336, Professor Forbes’s Memoir “On the Connection between
the Distribution of the existing Fauna and Flora of the British Isles,
and the Geological Changes which have affected their area,
especially during the epoch of the Northern Drift.”

According to Mr. Forbes’s views, for which he has offered a great

body of very striking and converging reasons, the present vegetable
and animal population of the British Isles is to be accounted for by
the following series of events. The marine deposits of the meiocine
formation were elevated into a great Atlantic continent, yet separate
from what is now America, and having its western shore where now
the great semi-circular belt of gulf-weed ranges from the 15th to the
45th parallel of latitude. This continent then became stocked with life,
and of its vegetable population, the flora of the west of Ireland, which
has many points in common with the flora of Spain and the 575
Atlantic islands (the Asturian flora), is the record. The region
between Spain and Ireland, and the rest of this meiocene continent,
was destroyed by some geological movement, but there were left
traces of the connexion which still remain. Eastwards of the flora just
mentioned, there is a flora common to Devon and Cornwall, to the
south-east part of Ireland, the Channel Isles, and the adjacent
provinces of France;—a flora passing to a southern character; and
having its course marked by the remains of a great rocky barrier, the
destruction of which probably took place anterior to the formation of
the narrower part of the channel. Eastward from this Devon or
Norman flora, again, we have the Kentish flora, which is an
extension of the flora of North-western France, insulated by the
breach which formed the straits of Dover. Then came the Glacial
period, when the east of England and the north of Europe were
submerged, the northern drift was distributed, and England was
reduced to a chain of islands or ridges, formed by the mountains of
Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland, which were connected with the
land of Scandinavia. This was the period of glaciers, of the
dispersion of boulders, of the grooving and scratching of rocks as
they are now found. The climate being then much colder than it now
is, the flora, even down to the water’s edge, consisted of what are
now Alpine plants; and this Alpine flora is common to Scandinavia
and to our mountain-summits. And these plants kept their places,
when, by the elevation of the land, the whole of the present German
Ocean became a continent connecting Britain with central Europe.
For the increased elevation of their stations counterbalanced the
diminished cold of the succeeding period. Along the dry bed of the
German Sea, thus elevated, the principal part of the existing flora of
England, the Germanic flora, migrated. A large portion of our existing
animal population also came over through the same region; and
along with those, came hyenas, tigers, rhinoceros, aurochs, elk,
wolves, beavers, which are extinct in Britain, and other animals
which are extinct altogether, as the primigenian elephant or
mammoth. But then, again, the German Ocean and the Irish
Channel were scooped out; and the climate again changed. In our
islands, so detached, many of the larger beasts perished, and their
bones were covered up in peat-mosses and caves, where we find
them. This distinguished naturalist has further shown that the
population of the sea lends itself to the same view. Mr. Forbes says
that the writings of Mr. Smith, of Jordan-hill, “On the last Changes in
the relative Levels of the Land and Sea in the British Islands,”
published in the Memoirs of the 576 Wernerian Society for 1837–8,
must be esteemed the foundation of a critical investigation of this
subject in Britain.]

2. Extinction of Species.—With regard to the extinction of species

Mr. Lyell has propounded a doctrine which is deserving of great
attention here. Brocchi, when he had satisfied himself, by
examination of the Sub-Apennines, that about half the species which
had lived at the period of their deposition, had since become extinct,
suggested as a possible cause for this occurrence, that the vital
energies of a species, like that of an individual, might gradually
decay in the progress of time and of generations, till at last the
prolific power might fail, and the species wither away. Such a
property would be conceivable as a physiological fact; for we see
something of the kind in fruit-trees propagated by cuttings: after
some time, the stock appears to wear out, and loses its peculiar
qualities. But we have no sufficient evidence that this is the case in
generations of creatures continued by the reproductive powers. Mr.
Lyell conceives, that, without admitting any inherent constitutional
tendency to deteriorate, the misfortunes to which plants and animals
are exposed by the change of the physical circumstances of the
earth, by the alteration of land and water, and by the changes of
climate, must very frequently occasion the loss of several species.
We have historical evidence of the extinction of one conspicuous
species, the Dodo, a bird of large size and singular form, which
inhabited the Isle of France when that island was first discovered,
and which now no longer exists. Several other species of animals
and plants seem to be in the course of vanishing from the face of the
earth, even under our own observation. And taking into account the
greater changes of the surface of the globe which geology compels
us to assume, we may imagine many or all the existing species of
living things to be extirpated. If, for instance, that reduction of the
climate of the earth which appears, from geological evidence, to
have taken place already, be supposed to go on much further, the
advancing snow and cold of the polar regions may destroy the
greater part of our plants and animals, and drive the remainder, or
those of them which possess the requisite faculties of migration and
accommodation, to seek an asylum near the equator. And if we
suppose the temperature of the earth to be still further reduced, this
zone of now-existing life, having no further place of refuge, will
perish, and the whole earth will be tenanted, if at all, by a new
creation. Other causes might produce the same effect as a change
of climate; and, without supposing such causes to affect the whole
globe, it is easy to 577 imagine circumstances such as might entirely
disturb the equilibrium which the powers of diffusion of different
species have produced;—might give to some the opportunity of
invading and conquering the domain of others; and in the end, the
means of entirely suppressing them, and establishing themselves in
their place.

That this extirpation of certain species, which, as we have seen,

happens in a few cases under common circumstances, might
happen upon a greater scale, if the range of external changes were
to be much enlarged, cannot be doubted. The extent, therefore, to
which natural causes may account for the extinction of species, will
depend upon the amount of change which we suppose in the
physical conditions of the earth. It must be a task of extreme difficulty
to estimate the effect upon the organic world, even if the physical
circumstances were given. To determine the physical condition to
which a given state of the earth would give rise, I have already noted
as another very difficult problem. Yet these two problems must be
solved, in order to enable us to judge of the sufficiency of any
hypothesis of the extinction of species; and in the mean time, for the
mode in which new species come into the places of those which are
extinguished, we have (as we have seen) no hypothesis which
physiology can, for a moment, sanction.

Sect. 7.—The Imbedding of Organic Remains.

There is still one portion of the Dynamics of Geology, a branch of

great and manifest importance, which I have to notice, but upon
which I need only speak very briefly. The mode in which the spoils of
existing plants and animals are imbedded in the deposits now
forming, is a subject which has naturally attracted the attention of
geologists. During the controversy which took place in Italy
respecting the fossils of the Sub-Apennine hills, Vitaliano Donati, 92
in 1750, undertook an examination of the Adriatic, and found that
deposits containing shells and corals, extremely resembling the
strata of the hills, were there in the act of formation. But without
dwelling on other observations of like kind, I may state that Mr. Lyell
has treated this subject, and all the topics connected with it, in a very
full and satisfactory manner. He has explained, 93 by an excellent
collection of illustrative facts, how deposits of various substance and
contents are formed; how plants and animals become fossil in peat,
in blown sand, in volcanic matter, in 578 alluvial soil, in caves, and in
the beds of lakes and seas. This exposition is of the most instructive
character, as a means of obtaining right conclusions concerning the
causes of geological phenomena. Indeed, in many cases, the
similarity of past effects with operations now going on, is so
complete, that they may be considered as identical; and the
discussion of such cases belongs, at the same time, to Geological
Dynamics and to Physical Geology; just as the problem of the fall of
meteorolites may be considered as belonging alike to mechanics
and to physical astronomy. The growth of modern peat-mosses, for
example, fully explains the formation of the most ancient: objects are
buried in the same manner in the ejections of active and of extinct
volcanoes; within the limits of history, many estuaries have been
filled up; and in the deposits which have occupied these places, are
strata containing shells, 94 as in the older formations.
92 Lyell, B. i. c. iii. p. 67. (4th ed.)

93 B. iii. c. xiii. xiv. xv. xvi. xvii.

94Lyell, B. iii. c. xvii. p. 286. See also his Address to the

Geological Society in 1837, for an account of the Researches of
Mr. Stokes and of Professor Göppert, on the lapidification of
vegetables.
PHYSICAL GEOLOGY.
 CHAPTER VII.

Progress of Physical Geology.

Sect. 1.—Object and Distinctions of Physical Geology.

B EING, in consequence of the steps which we have attempted to

describe, in possession of two sciences, one of which traces the
laws of action of known causes, and the other describes the
phenomena which the earth’s surface presents, we are now
prepared to examine how far the attempts to refer the facts to their
causes have been successful: we are ready to enter upon the
consideration of Theoretical or Physical Geology, as, by analogy with
Physical Astronomy, we may term this branch of speculation.

The distinction of this from other portions of our knowledge is

sufficiently evident. In former times, Geology was always associated
with Mineralogy, and sometimes confounded with it; but the mistake
of such an arrangement must be clear, from what has been said.
Geology is connected with Mineralogy, only so far as the latter
science classifies a large portion of the objects which Geology
employs as evidence of its statements. To confound the two is the
same error as it would be to treat philosophical history as identical
with the knowledge of medals. Geology procures evidence of her
conclusions wherever she can; from minerals or from seas; from
inorganic or from organic bodies; from the ground or from the skies.
The geologist’s business is to learn the past history of the earth; and
he is no more limited to one or a few kinds of documents, as his
sources of information, than is the historian of man, in the execution
of a similar task.
 Physical Geology, of which I now speak, may not be always easily
separable from Descriptive Geology: in fact, they have generally
been combined, for few have been content to describe, without
attempting in some measure to explain. Indeed, if they had done so,
it is 580 probable that their labors would have been far less zealous,
and their expositions far less impressive. We by no means regret,
therefore, the mixture of these two kinds of knowledge, which has so
often occurred; but still, it is our business to separate them. The
works of astronomers before the rise of sound physical astronomy,
were full of theories, but these were advantageous, not prejudicial, to
the progress of the science.

Geological theories have been abundant and various; but yet our
history of them must be brief. For our object is, as must be borne in
mind, to exhibit these, only so far as they are steps discoverably
tending to the true theory of the earth: and in most of them we do not
trace this character. Or rather, the portions of the labors of geologists
which do merit this praise, belong to the two preceding divisions of
the subject, and have been treated of there.

The history of Physical Geology, considered as the advance

towards a science as real and stable as those which we have
already treated of (and this is the form in which we ought to trace it),
hitherto consists of few steps. We hardly know whether the progress
is begun. The history of Physical Astronomy almost commences with
Newton, and few persons will venture to assert that the Newton of
Geology has yet appeared.

Still, some examination of the attempts which have been made is

requisite, in order to explain and justify the view which the analogy of
scientific history leads us to take, of the state of the subject. Though