Inductive Sciences," refuses to acknowledge that in
geology any real advance has yet been made toward a stable science like
those of astronomy, physics, and chemistry. "We hardly know," he says,
"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."[37] Hence it is that T.H. Huxley
declares, "In the present condition of our knowledge and of _our
methods_, one verdict,--'_not proven and not provable'--must be recorded
against all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the
general succession of life on the globe."[38] And hence it is that Sir
Henry H. Howorth, a member of the British House of Commons and the
author of three exhaustive works on the Glacial theory, declares, "It is
a singular and notable fact, that while most other branches of science
have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning,
_the science of geology still remains imprisoned in a priori_
theories."[39]

[Footnote 36: "Illustr. of Univ. Prog.," p. 343.]

[Footnote 37: Vol. II, p.580.]

[Footnote 38: "Discourses," pp. 279-288.]

[Footnote 39: "The Glacial Nightmare," Preface, vii.]

And thus the matter remains even to-day, in this second decade of the
twentieth century. _Geology has never yet been regenerated_, as have all
the other sciences, by being delivered from the caprice of subjective
speculations and _a priori_ theories and being placed on the secure
basis of objective and demonstrable fact, in accordance with the
principles of that inductive method of investigation which was
instituted by Bacon and which has become so far universal in the other
sciences that it is everywhere known as the scientific method. In
accordance with this method, theories in all the other sciences are
always kept well subordinated to facts; and whenever unequivocal facts
are found manifestly contradicting a theory no matter how venerable, the
theory must go to make way for the facts. In other words, the
theoretical parts of the various other sciences are always kept revised
from time to time, to keep them in line with the new discoveries that
have been made. There has been no lack of astonishing discoveries of new
facts in geology during the past half century or so, while all the other
sciences have been making such astonishing progress. _But for over
seventy five years geology has not made a single advanc