Geology Differs As Widely From Cosmogony, As

It Has Long Been A Fact Familiar To Geologists, That, Both On The East And West Coasts Of The Central Part Of Scotland, There Are Lines Of Raised Beaches, Containing Marine Shells Of The Same Species As Those Now Inhabiting The Neighbouring Sea.

[my Book] Will Endeavour To Establish The Principle[s] Of Reasoning In ... [geology]; And All My Geology Will Come In As Illustration Of My Views Of Those Principles, And As Evidence Strengthening The System Necessarily Arising Out Of The Admission Of Such Principles, Which... Are Neither More Nor Less Than That No Causes Whatever Have From The Earliest Time To Which We Can Look Back, To The Present, Ever Acted, But Those Now Acting; And That They Never Acted With Different Degrees Of Energy From That Which They Now Exert.

Notwithstanding, Therefore, That We Have Not Witnessed Of A Large Continent, Yet, As We May Predict The Future Occurrence Of Such Catastrophes, We Are Authorized To Regard Them As Part Of The Present Order Of Nature.

Man, Whose Organization Is Regarded As The Highest, Departs From The Vertebrate Archetype; And It Is Because The Study Of Anatomy Is Usually Commenced From, And Often Confined To, His Structure, That A Knowledge Of The Archetype Has Been So Long Hidden From Anatomists.

In Attempting To Explain Geological Phenomena, The Bias Has Always Been On The Wrong Side; There Has Always Been A Disposition To Reason á Priori On The Extraordinary Violence And Suddenness Of Changes, Both In The Inorganic Crust Of The Earth, And In Organic Types, Instead Of Attempting Strenuously To Frame Theories In Accordance With The Ordinary Operations Of Nature.