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Show 78 CAUSES OF ERROR IN ' be abortiO. nS of na t ure produced by he.r incipient efFo. rts inb the f . F if deformed bemgs are sometimes orn 'work o creatiOn. or . . ll d l d h the scheme of the umverse 1s fu y evo ope , ' even now, w en h · · h e been " sent before t e1r time, scarce ' many more may av . b ' hal f ma d e up, " when the planet itself was m the em ryo£ sta.t e. ' But if these notions appear to derogate fro~ the. per ectio.n f h D. · tt 1'butes and if these mummies be mall their ' 0 t e 1vme a r ' 'parts true representations of the human form, may we not ' refer them to the future rather than the past? May we not 'b l k' 'nto the womb of nature, and not her grave? may e 00 mg I b . v· 'l' ' not these images be like the shades of the un. orn ~~ ugi ~ , Elysium-the archetypes of men not yet called mt~ existence? These speculations, if advocated by eloquent writers, 'Y~uld not fail to attract many zealous votaries, for t?ey would re~Ieve men from the painful I)ecessity o~ .renouncmg prec?ncetved opinions. Incredible as such scepticism may appear, It would be rivalled by many systems of the sixteenth and seventee~th centuries, and among others by that of the learned Fallo~p10, who regarded the tusks of fossil elephants as earthy concretiOns, and the vases of Monte Testaceo, near Rome, as works of nature, and not of art. But when one generation had passed away, and another not compromised to the support of antiquated dogmas had su9ceeded, they would review the evidence afforded by mummies more impartially, and would n? longer co~trove;t the preliminary question, that human bemgs had hved m Egypt before the nineteenth century : so that when a hundred years perhaps had been lost, the industry and tale~ts ?f the philosopher would be at last directed to the eluCidatiOn of points of real historical importance. But we have adverted to one only of many prejudices with which the earlier geologists had to contend. Eve~ when ~hey conceded that the earth had been peopled with ammate bemgs at an earlier period than was at first supposed, they had .no conception that the quantity of time bore so great a proportiOn to the historical era as is now generally conceded. Ho~ fatal every error as to the quantity of time must prove to the mtro· duction of rational views concerning the state of things in for~~r ages, may be conceived by supposing that the annals of the civll and military transactions of a great nation were perused under the impression that they occurred in a ·period of one hundred GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 79 instead of two thousand years. Such a portion of history would immediately assume the air of a romance ; the events would seem devoid of credibility, and inconsistent with the present course of human affairs. A crowd of incidents would follow each other in thick succession. Armies and fleets would appear to be a~sem?led only to be destroyed, and cities built merely to fall m rums. There would be the most violent transitions from foreign or intestine war to periods of profound peace and the works effected during the years of disorder or tranqt;illity would be alike superhuman in magnitude. He who should study the monuments of the natural world under the influence of a similar infatuation, must draw a no less exaggerated picture of the energy and violence of causes, and must experience the same insurmountable difficulty in reconciling the former and present state ·of nature. If we could behold in one view all the volcanic cones thrown up in Iceland, Italy, Sicily, and other parts of Europe, during the last five thousand years, and could see the lavas which have flowed during the same period; the dislocations, subsidences and elevations caused by earthquakes; the la~ds added to various deltas, or devoured by the sea, together With the effects of devastation by floods, and imagine that all these events had happened in one year, we must form most exalted ideas of the activity of the agents, and the suddenness of the revolutions. Were an equal amount of change to pass before our eyes in the next year, could we avoid the conclusion that some great crisis of nature was at hand? If geologists, therefore, have misinterpreted the signs of a succession of events, so as to conclude that centuries were implied where the characters imported thousands of years, and thousands of year~ where the laaguage of nature signified millions, they could not, If they reasoned logically from such false premises, come to any other conclusion, than that the system of the natural world had undergone a complete revolution. We should be warranted in ascribing the erection of the grea~ pyramid to superhuman power, if we were convinced that It was raised in one day; and if we imagine, in the same manner, a mountain chain to have been elevated, during an ~qually small fraction of the time which was really occupied In upheaving it, we might then be justified in inferring, that |