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Updated: May 25, 2025
The fact is, however, that both parties set out with an inadmissible postulate. Of the Uniformitarians, not only such writers as Hugh Miller, but also such as Sir Charles Lyell, reason as though we had found the earliest, or something like the earliest, strata. Their antagonists, whether defenders of the Development Hypothesis or simply Progressionists, almost uniformly do the like.
For the purposes of the present discourse I may take this last to be what is meant by "geological speculation." Now Uniformitarianism, as we have seen, tends to ignore geological speculation in this sense altogether. The one point the catastrophists and the uniformitarians agreed upon, when this Society was founded, was to ignore it.
On the other hand, the Uniformitarians, who not only reject the hypothesis of development, but deny that the modern forms of life are higher than the ancient ones, reply that the paleontological evidence is at present very incomplete; that though we have not yet found remains of highly-organized creatures in strata of the greatest antiquity, we must not assume that no such creatures existed when those strata were deposited; and that, probably, search will eventually disclose them.
Those geologists who believe that “our continents have long remained in nearly the same relative position” would probably give the supposed change a much greater antiquity than Brasseur de Bourbourg would be likely to accept; and the geological “Uniformitarians” would deny with emphasis that so great a change in the shape of a continent was ever effected by such means, or with such rapidity as he supposes.
The mockers here described certainly talk exactly like our modern uniformitarians; for they argue that "from the days that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." They imply that in the days of "the fathers" some people were foolish enough to believe differently; but since they "fell asleep" we have learned better.
Few triumphs of the uniformitarians, who sacrifice individual needs to mechanical convenience in dealing with youth in masses, have been so sad as marking off and standardizing a definite quantum of requirements here. Instead of irrigating a wide field, the well-springs of literary interest are forced to cut a deep canyon and leave wide desert plains of ignorance on either side.
The fact was admitted that the uniformitarians of one's youth had wound about their universe a tangle of contradictions meant only for temporary support to be merged in "larger synthesis," and had waited for the larger synthesis in silence and in vain. They had refused to hear Stallo. They had betrayed little interest in Crookes.
For the purposes of the present discourse I may take this last to be what is meant by "geological speculation." Now uniformitarianism, as we have seen, tends to ignore geological speculation in this sense altogether. The one point the catastrophists and the uniformitarians agreed upon, when this Society was founded, was to ignore it.
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