In order,
then, to obtain the approbation of the public, it may not be enough to
give a theory that should be true, or altogether unexceptionable it may
be necessary to defend every point that shall be thought exceptionable
by other theorists, and to show the fallacy of every learned objection
that may be made against it. It is thus, in general, that truth and
error are forced to struggle together, in the progress of science; and
it is only in proportion as science removes erroneous conceptions, which
are necessarily in the constitution of human knowledge, that truth will
find itself established in natural philosophy.
Mr Kirwan has written a dissertation, entitled, _Examination of the
Supposed Igneous Origin of Stony Substances_, which was read in the
Royal Irish Academy. The object of that dissertation is to state certain
objections, which have occurred to him, against the Theory of the Earth
published in the Transactions of the Edinburgh Royal Society; and he has
attacked that theory in all the points where it appears to him to be
vulnerable. It is to these objections that I am now to give an answer.
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