Sciences,” refuses to acknowledge that in geology any real advance has yet been made toward a stable science like those of astronomy, physics, and chemistry.  “We hardly know,” he says, “whether the progress is begun.  The history of physical astronomy almost commences with Newton, and few persons will venture to assert that the Newton of geology has yet appeared."[37] Hence it is that T.H.  Huxley declares, “In the present condition of our knowledge and of our methods, one verdict,—­’not proven and not provable’—­must be recorded against all grand hypotheses of the palaeontologist respecting the general succession of life on the globe."[38] And hence it is that Sir Henry H. Howorth, a member of the British House of Commons and the author of three exhaustive works on the Glacial theory, declares, “It is a singular and notable fact, that while most other branches of science have emancipated themselves from the trammels of metaphysical reasoning, the science of geology still remains imprisoned in a priori_ theories."[39]

[Footnote 36:  “Illustr. of Univ.  Prog.,” p. 343.]

[Footnote 37:  Vol.  II, p.580.]

[Footnote 38:  “Discourses,” pp. 279-288.]

[Footnote 39:  “The Glacial Nightmare,” Preface, vii.]

And thus the matter remains even to-day, in this second decade of the twentieth century. Geology has never yet been regenerated, as have all the other sciences, by being delivered from the caprice of subjective speculations and a priori theories and being placed on the secure basis of objective and demonstrable fact, in accordance with the principles of that inductive method of investigation which was instituted by Bacon and which has become so far universal in the other sciences that it is everywhere known as the scientific method.  In accordance with this method, theories in all the other sciences are always kept well subordinated to facts; and whenever unequivocal facts are found manifestly contradicting a theory no matter how venerable, the theory must go to make way for the facts.  In other words, the theoretical parts of the various other sciences are always kept revised from time to time, to keep them in line with the new discoveries that have been made.  There has been no lack of astonishing discoveries of new facts in geology during the past half century or so, while all the other sciences have been making such astonishing progress. But for over seventy five years geology has not made a single advance movement in its theoretical aspects; indeed, in all its important general principles it has scarcely changed in a hundred years.  I shall leave it to the reader to judge whether this is a case of almost miraculous perfection from the beginning, or of arrested development.

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