in this true statement of the case, there is necessarily required the
destruction of an animal and vegetable earth prior to the former land;
and the materials of that earth which is first in our account, must have
been collected at the bottom of the ocean, and begun to be concocted for
the production of the present earth, when the land immediately preceding
the present had arrived at its full extent.

This, however, alters nothing with regard to the nature of those
operations of the globe. The system is still the same. It only protracts
the indefinite space of time in its existence, while it gives us a view
of another distinct period of the living world; that is to say, the
world which we inhabit is composed of the materials, not of the earth
which was the immediate predecessor of the present, but of the earth
which, in ascending from the present, we consider as the third, and
which had preceded the land that was above the surface of the sea, while
our present land was yet beneath the water of the ocean. Here are three
distinct successive periods of existence, and each of these is, in our
measurement of time, a thing of indefinite duration.

We have now got to the end of our reasoning; we have no data further
to conclude immediately from that which actually is: But we have got
enough; we have the satisfaction to find, that in nature there is
wisdom, system, and consistency. For having, in the natural history of
this earth, seen a succession of worlds, we may from this conclude that
there is a system in nature; in like manner as, from seeing revolutions
of the planets, it is concluded, that there is a system by which they
are intended to continue those revolutions. But if the succession of
worlds is established in the system of nature, it is in vain to look for
any thing higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of
this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,--no
prospect of an end.

CHAPTER II.

An Examination of Mr KIRWAN'S Objections to the Igneous Origin of Stony
Substances.

A theory which is founded on a new principle, a theory which has to make
its way in the public mind by overturning the opinions commonly received
by philosophising men, and one which has nothing to recommend it but the
truth of its principles, and the view of wisdom or design to which it
leads, neither of which may perhaps be perceived by the generality of
people, such a theory, I say, must meet wit