It has been sufficiently shown; that the root, or PART II. chaotic principle, of the Mineral Geology, cannot endure the test of the reformed philosophy of CHAP. I. Newton, to which it appealed. It will hardly expect, that we should enter into an argument to prove that Newton is right; before we infer, from that failure, that its own conclusions are erroneous. Since it has admitted the authority of his philosophy, it must abide by its decision; and the reader will have seen enough, in the progress of this discussion, to convince him of the just title which that authority possesses to decide the question at issue; viz. the MODE, by which all first formations of this globe were really produced. He will be sensible, that the highest probability to which the energies of unassisted reason can attain in this question, is only to be found in that philosophy; and therefore, that it cannot exist in the opposite philo

CHAP. I.

PART II. sophy, which it contradicts, refutes, and reprobates. The conclusions of the mineral geology upon this point are, therefore, in direct opposition to the highest probability; and therefore, to say the least, they must be in the highest degree improbable.

Valuable, however, as the highest probability is, where the certainty of truth cannot be attained; yet, when the mind has once attained to that eminence of secondary evidence, it experiences an eager yearning to advance still higher, in consequence of the innate appetite for truth, which characterizes the intellect of man. Let us then inquire, whether this final gratification is absolutely withheld from us; or, whether we may` not be able to add, to the sentiment of the highest probability, the consummation of positive certainty.

That this can only be supplied by competent and positive history, and that physical induction is utterly inadequate to impart it, is a truth felt, and indirectly avowed, by the mineral geology itself. "Before we proceed to deter"mine causes, (says the ingenuous M. D'Aubuisson,) let us endeavour to make ourselves acquainted with their effects. All the cir

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"cumstances of the division of mineral masses "into beds and strata, as well as the presence "of these, both in their primitive and actual

CHAP. I.

"state, are yet far from being known to us; PART II. "and we are constrained, to say, in closing. "the subject, that the determination of stratifi ❝cation, its circumstances, and laws, remain "still a problem to be solved; and it is per"haps the most important of geognosy.-We "should have nothing more now to do, than "to compose an history of the revolutions which "have taken place in the terrestrial globe during "the formation of its mineral crust; but that "those revolutions are of an order which has "nothing" analogous to the effects which we see "Nature produce. The thread of induction is cut "off, it can no longer conduct us: to attempt to "advance without its aid, would be voluntarily to “lose ourselves in pure hypothesis.-Neverthe“less, to fill up the void, as far as we are permitted, and to show what observation. "seems to indicate as most probable, and most

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simple, I shall summarily expose the manner "in which Werner represents the changes "which progressively took place in the forma❝tion of the mineral strata1." He then lays down the principle, constituting the root of this geology, which we have just tried by the criterion of Newton; viz. " that the earth was "heretofore covered by a vast chaotic ocean,

1. Tom. i. 353.

PART II.

CHAP. I.

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very different from our actual seas, and containing the elements of the primitive "earth 1,"

The prudence and judgment of this estimable geologist are not so conspicuous in the conclusion of this passage, as his ingenuousness is in the former part. He first acknowledges, that a void exists in the physical means of recording an history of the revolutions of the globe, occasioned by the thread of induction being cut off; and, that to attempt to advance without its guidance, is to plunge ourselves into pure hypothesis; and yet he immediately proceeds to supply that void with pure hypothesis, as if the presence of fiction is always a more desirable thing than the absence of truth: a principle, which has been the fruitful source of the most dangerous errors. But, how comes there to be any void? The truth is, that the mineral geology has created the void at which it repines, by rejecting the history which had filled it. And it is the place of the history so rejected, that it fills up with the hypothesis which we have confuted by the authority of NEWTON; whose "thread of induction" has not been "cut off;" but, on the contrary, has conducted us to the measure of the highest

1 M. D'AUBUISSON, tom. i. 355.

probability, and therefore, to the verge of that PART II. certainty which can only be supplied by competent and positive history.

It is amusing to observe the confidence, with which the mineral geology offers to contrive an history that shall supply that void; as if we were left totally without one. "The ancient "history of the globe," it justly remarks, "is one "of the most curious subjects that can engage "the attention of enlightened men; and if "they take any interest in examining, in the "infancy of our species, the almost obliterated "traces of so many nations that have become "extinct, they will doubtless take a similar "interest in collecting, amidst the darkness "which covers the infancy of the globe, the traces "of those revolutions which took place anterior "to the history of all nations. We admire the

power by which the human mind has "measured the motions of globes, which "nature seemed to have concealed for ever "from our view. Genius and science have "burst the limits of space; and a few observa"tions, explained by just reasoning, have "unveiled the mechanism of the universe. "Would it not also be glorious for man to "burst the limits of time, and, by a few "observations, to ascertain the history of the

CHAP. I.