But, if it were necessary always to see this immediate connection, in
order to acknowledge the operation of a power which, at present, is
extinguished in the effect, we should lose the benefit of science, or
general principles, from whence particulars may be deduced, and we
should be able to reason no better than the brute. Man is made for
science; he reasons from effects to causes, and from causes to effects;
but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore,
from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we
generalise; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which
may perhaps be only of our own invention.
The immediate question now before us is not, If the subterraneous fire,
or elevating power, which we perceive sometimes as operating with such
energy, be the consolidating cause of strata formed at the bottom of the
sea; nor, if that power be the means of making land appear above the
general surface of the water? for, though this be the end we want to
arrive at ultimately, the question at present in agitation respects the
laws of nature, or the generality of particular appearances.
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