The Present Is The Key To The

[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.

So Far From Having A Materialistic Tendency, The Supposed Introduction Into The Earth At Successive Geological Periods Of Life,-sensation,-instinct,-the Intelligence Of The Higher Mammalia Bordering On Reason,-and Lastly The Improvable Reason Of Man Himself, Presents Us With A Picture Of The Ever-increasing Dominion Of Mind Over Matter.

The Question Now At Issue, Whether The Living Species Are Connected With The Extinct By A Common Bond Of Descent, Will Best Be Cleared Up By Devoting Ourselves To The Study Of The Actual State Of The Living World, And To Those Monuments Of The Past In Which The Relics Of The Animate Creation Of Former Ages Are Best Preserved And Least Mutilated By The Hand Of Time.

Such Discoveries Have Led Me, And Other Geologists, To Reconsider The Evidence Previously Derived From Caves Brought Forward In Proof Of The High Antiquity Of Man.

That Ere Long, Now That Curiosity Has Been So Much Excited On This Subject, Some Human Remains Will Be Detected In The Older Alluvium Of European Valleys, I Confidently Expect.