that produced and constituted the " happy revo"lution in the studies of the natural sciences,' which the mineral geology so justly eulogises. But, was there not a caveat which Newton annexed to his process of induction? "The method "of analysis," said he, "consists in making expe"riments and observations, and in drawing general "conclusions from them by induction; and, in "admitting no objections against the conclusions "but such as are taken from experiments, or other "certain truths1." There were, then, some "cer"tain truths," which had always authority, in Newton's philosophy, to govern and regulate the process of induction; and even to oppose "ob 66 'jections" to general conclusions, if these betrayed any defect in the analysis from which they were deduced for, the analysis must be complete, before the induction can be conclusive. If, therefore, any certain truths were disregarded, and if the induction still persisted in going forward in despite of them, it necessarily departed from philosophy and truth exactly in the same ratio; and only wandered, further and further, into the wilderness of fiction and error. And, what are the "certain truths," which, in consequence of a manifest evidence of original defect in the analysis, have been crying out by the mouth of Newton during the last ten pages, to the headlong and unheeding progress of the mineral geology—Siste! - Halt! They are these : Optics, lib. iii. in fin. 66 66 66 66 It seems probable to ME, (said the wise and circumspect Newton,) that GOD, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impe“netrable, moveable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportions to space, as most conduced to the END for which He formed them.-All material things seem to have been composed of the hard and "solid particles above mentioned, variously asso"ciated in the FIRST CREATION by the counsels of an INTELLIGENT AGENT. For, it became HIM "who created them to set them in order; and, if HE "did so, it is unphilosophical to seek for any other origin of this world, or to pretend that it might "rise out of a CHAOS by the mere laws of Nature; though, being once formed, it may continue by "those laws for many ages1." 66 This is the test, to which we were to bring and apply the root of the mineral geology. Now, it must be evident to every plain understanding; that the mundane system which supposed the earth to be at rest on the back of a tortoise, is not more fundamentally in opposition to the planetary system of Newton, than the conclusions of the mineral geology which we have just read, concerning the MODE of first formations, are in opposition to the conclusions of Newton upon the same subject; which conclusions constitute the basis of his philosophy. The " 66 ocean," confused assemblage of elements or chaotic instabilis tellus, innabilis unda, from which the mineral geology would derive the figure, symmetry, beauty, and accommodation that we observe and experience" in this earthly system; is no other than the "CHAOS," which Newton has expressly and pointedly rejected and reprobated. The operation which he entitles "the setting in order," is the very same which the mineral geology describes as "the forming successively a chemical, a mineral, and a geognostic "structure." That operation, Newton ascribed to the immediate intelligence and operation of God; the mineral geology attributes it to general chemistry, and to certain laws of affinity acting through a long succession of ages, Donicum ad extremum crescendi perfica finem Till all things, to their end of growing brought, Newton emphatically, and as it were by a prophetical judgment, pronounced this conclusion of the mineral geology to be "unphilosophical;" and therefore, essentially contrary to that which alone he acknowledged to be philosophical, according to the principles of his own philosophy. 1 LUCRETIUS, ii. 1115. This judgment, indeed, chiefly affects the neptunian system; but, he has not altogether forgotten the plutonian, which perpetually replaces a perishing system of the globe with a new one, by "the "mere laws of nature:" "The growth of new systems out of old ones," says he, "without the mediation of a DIVINE POWER, seems to ME apparently absurd'." Neither will 66 66 66 the new geogony, which (we are told) has a tendency to "lean to the idea of the liquified masses ascending 66 from below upwards, whereas the ancient geo gony explained every thing by precipitation, " and movements in an opposite direction"," escape any better from the overwhelming weight of Newton's condemnation. Third Letter to BENTLEY. 2 HUMBOLDT, Superpos. of Rocks, p. 414. CHAPTER IV. SOME very recent and eminent geological writers have adopted the course, of prudentially excluding from their disquisitions all consideration of the 'unphilosophical" or "absurd" speculations on the MODE of primitive formations, which we have just witnessed; but then, they have at the same time excluded all consideration of the question itself, leaving their geologies without any basis or root, and standing among the other systems of human science, as the air-plant stands among the rooted systems of vegetation. Such mere exclusions, are but weak and timid evasions of a question of primary and fundamental concernment to the truth of geology; and leave the mind in ignorance of that truth, and consequently, the adverse error free to extend its operation in unresisted, because in unregarded, progress. The question, of the MODE of primitive formations, is essential to geology; and may not be excluded, merely because some theorists have proposed "unphilosophical” or unphilosophical" or "absurd" solutions of it: we are not, therefore, simply to exclude those solutions, but we are to replace them with a solution which shall be conformable to philosophy and sense. There is a third course, besides losing our way in a fog, and standing still in a fog; and that is, to get out of it, and above it, into a |