ding of any one island or piece of country,
because the operation is only accomplished in the course of time, and
the experience of man is only in the present moment. But man has science
and reason, in order to understand what has already been from what
appears; and we have but to open our eyes to see all the stages of the
operation although not in one individual object. Now, where the nature
of things will not admit of having all and every step of the progress
to be perceived in one object, an indefinite progression in the various
states of different objects, showing the series or gradation from a
continent to a rock, must form a proof in which no deficiency will be
found.

I have given for example the coast of Scotland; but all over the world
where there is a coast not covered with sand, or where it is exposed to
the violence of the sea, it is the same. Take the map of any country,
provided it be sufficiently particular, and you will see the breaking of
continents or islands, first, into promontories or peninsulas; secondly,
into islands which stand on the same solid basis with the continent;
and, lastly, into rocks which are related to the islands, in like manner
as those parasitical islands are related to the head lands and the
shore. Here is a general fact, from the simple inspection of which we
must conclude one of two things; either that those rocks and smaller
islands, which we have termed parasitical, are in a state of
progression, by which in time they will be joined to the main land, and
form one continent; or that they are in a state of degradation, by which
in time they will be made to disappear. There is no other supposition to
be made; and, of that alternative, there is no room to hesitate a moment
which to choose. This is not a matter of mere probability, it is the
subject of physical demonstration. Should we find an old manuscript in a
similar condition, we could not conclude with more certainty, that
the deficient or intervening places had been destroyed, than we here
conclude that the part which is now wanting, between the two remaining
portions of the same rock or strata, had once connected those two
portions, and had been destroyed by the operation of those causes which
are every day employed in still increasing the breach.

Though over all the world, where the shore is washed bare by the sea,
examples are to be found which require but to be seen to give compleat
conviction, it is not in every plac