66 66 "the science of physics makes known to us the laws "which appear to govern matter; and that, by continually keeping before our eyes the phenomena of Nature and the causes which produce them, it "renders us competent to apprehend and form a just notion of the relations which may subsist be"tween the effects we see and the causes to which we are led to attribute them-in order to be sensible, "how necessary this science is to those who apply "their thoughts to the revolutions of the terrestrial globe, and who endeavour to account for "the changes which its surface experiences, or "has experienced'. 66 66 17." It is principally, I repeat it, the progress of chemistry, that has conducted us to this general "conclusion, from whence at length has resulted a "solid BASIS for geology. - General chemistry, ought here to be our only guide as to principles; "and it is but very lately, that it has supplied us "with true lights with respect to these3." 66 Thus, the Mineral Geology concludes, from the crystalline phenomena of the earth, that it was originally "a confused mass of elemental principles, 66 suspended in a vast solution, chaotic ocean, or original chaotic fluid," which, after an unassignable series of ages, "settled themselves" at last into the order and correspondence of parts which it now possesses, by a gradual process of " preci 'D'AUBUISSON, Disc. Prél. p. 30. 3 'Ib. p. 111. DE LUC, Lett. Geol. P. 112. pitation and crystallisation," according to certain "laws of matter," which it denominates "the laws "of affinity of composition and aggregation;" and that they thus formed successively, though remotely in time, 1. a chemical, 2. a mineral, and lastly, a geognostic, which is its present, structure; and, that it was during this long process, and before it attained to its present solidity, that the earth acquired its peculiar figure by the operation of the physical laws which cause it to revolve upon its axis. This is that root or fundamental principle of the mineral geology, which we were to extract, and to try by the test of the reformed philosophy of Bacon and Newton. The igneous geology, which would substitute a primitive amorphous paste" for a primitive" chaotic fluid," stands precisely on the same ground as the aqueous geology, with relation to the present argument. 66 If the foregoing conclusions are the genuine fruits of that reformed philosophy, we shall of course find them to be in entire and perfect concord with the conclusions of Bacon and Newton upon the same subject; since, the mineral geology professes to deduce them by the method of induction, "from "observation and sound principles of physics, and by the rule of an exact logic," introduced by that philosophy. Bacon and Newton certainly taught, both by doctrine and example, the method of philosophising by analysis and induction; and it was that method, skilfully and rigidly observed by them, 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 truths'." 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 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: 66 66 "It seems probable to ME, (said the wise and circumspect Newton,) that God, in the beginning, formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, 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 HẸ "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. 66 The " confused assemblage of elements or chaotic ocean," 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, σε 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. |