This great misunderstanding of mineralists has such an extensive
and baneful effect in the judging of geological theories, that it
will be proper here to explain how that has happened, and to shew the
necessity of correcting that erroneous principle before any just opinion
can be formed upon the subject.
Fire and water are two great agents in the system of this earth; it is
therefore most natural to look for the operation of those agents in the
changes which are made on bodies in the mineral regions; and as the
consolidated state of those bodies, which had been collected at the
bottom of the sea, may have been supposed to be induced either by
fusion, or by the concretion from a solution, we are to consider how far
natural appearance lead to the conclusion of the one or other of those
two different operations. Here, no doubt, we are to reason analogically
from the known power and effects of those great agents; but, we must
take care not to reason from a false analogy, by misunderstanding the
circumstances of the case, or not attending to the necessary conditions
in which those agents act.
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