The primary rocks, ... I regard as the deposits of a period in which the earth's crust had sufficiently cooled down to permit the existence of a sea, with the necessary denuding agencies,-waves and currents,-and, in consequence, of deposition also; but in which the internal heat acted so near the surface, that whatever was deposited came, matter of course, to be metamorphosed into semi-plutonic forms, that retained only the stratification.
Hugh MillerBecause science flourishes, must poesy decline? The complaint serves but to betray the weakness of the class who urge it. True, in an age like the present,-considerably more scientific than poetical,-science substitutes for the smaller poetry of fiction, the great poetry of truth.
Hugh MillerBut, in truth, the existing premises, wholly altered by geologic science, are no longer those of Hume. The footprint on the sand โ to refer to his happy illustration โ does not now stand alone. Instead of one, we see many footprints, each in turn in advance of the print behind it, and on a higher level.
Hugh MillerThe footprint of the savage traced in the sand is sufficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist who will not recognize God, whose hand is impressed upon the entire universe.
Hugh MillerAll geologic history is full of the beginning and the ends of species-of their first and last days; but it exhibits no genealogies of development.
Hugh MillerThe geologist, in those tables of stone which form his records, finds no examples of dynasties once passed away again returning. There has no repetition of the dynasty of the fish, of the reptile, of the mammal. The dynasty of the future is to have glorified man for its inhabitant; but it is to be the dynasty-"the kingdom"-not of glorified man made in the image of God, but of God himself in the form man.
Hugh Miller