sh this, it was necessary,
first of all, to examine without prejudice the material already in hand,
adding such new discoveries from time to time as might be made, but
always applying to the whole unvarying scientific principles and
inductive methods of reasoning.

"If we are to take the written history of man for the rule by which we
should judge of the time when the species first began," said Hutton,
"that period would be but little removed from the present state of
things. The Mosaic history places this beginning of man at no great
distance; and there has not been found, in natural history, any document
by which high antiquity might be attributed to the human race. But
this is not the case with regard to the inferior species of animals,
particularly those which inhabit the ocean and its shores. We find
in natural history monuments which prove that those animals had long
existed; and we thus procure a measure for the computation of a period
of time extremely remote, though far from being precisely ascertained.

"In examining things present, we have data from which to reason with
regard to what has been; and from what actually has been we have
data for concluding with regard to that which is to happen hereafter.
Therefore, upon the supposition that the operations of nature are
equable and steady, we find, in natural appearances, means for
concluding a certain portion of time to have necessarily elapsed in the
production of those events of which we see the effects.

"It is thus that, in finding the relics of sea animals of every kind
in the solid body of our earth, a natural history of those animals
is formed, which includes a certain portion of time; and for the
ascertaining this portion of time we must again have recourse to the
regular operations of this world. We shall thus arrive at facts which
indicate a period to which no other species of chronology is able to
remount.

"We find the marks of marine animals in the most solid parts of the
earth, consequently those solid parts have been formed after the ocean
was inhabited by those animals which are proper to that fluid medium.
If, therefore, we knew the natural history of these solid parts, and
could trace the operations of the globe by which they have been formed,
we would have some means for computing the time through which those
species of animals have continued to live. But how shall we describe a
process which nobody has seen performed and of which no writ