The Ordinary Naturalist Is Not Sufficiently Aware

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.

I Long Ago Suggested The Hypothesis, That In The Basin Of The Thames There Are Indications Of A Meeting In The Pleistocene Period Of A Northern And Southern Fauna.

When The Aggregate Amount Of Solid Matter Transported By Rivers In A Given Number Of Centuries From A Large Continent, Shall Be Reduced To Arithmetical Computation, The Result Will Appear Most Astonishing To Those...not In The Habit Of Reflecting How Many Of The Mightiest Of Operations In Nature Are Effected Insensibly, Without Noise Or Disorder.

In The Course Of This Short Tour, I Became Convinced That We Must Turn To The New World If We Wish To See In Perfection The Oldest Monuments Of The Earth's History, So Far At Least As Relates To Its Earliest Inhabitants.

The Earth's Becoming At A Particular Period The Residence Of Human Beings, Was An Era In The Moral, Not In The Physical World, That Our Study And Contemplation Of The Earth, And The Laws Which Govern Its Animate Productions, Ought No More To Be Considered In The Light Of A Disturbance Or Deviation From The System, Than The Discovery Of The Satellites Of Jupiter Should Be Regarded As A Physical Event In The History Of Those Heavenly Bodies, However Influential They May Have Become From That Time In Advancing The Progress Of Sound Philosophy Among Men.