The past history of our globe must be explained by what can be seen to be happening now. No powers are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted except those of which we know the principle.

Error, never can be consistent, nor can truth fail of having support from the accurate examination of every circumstance.

There is no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.

We are not to suppose, that there is any violent exertion of power, such as is required in order to produce a great event in little time; in nature, we find no deficiency in respect of time, nor any limitation with regard to power. But time is not made to flow in vain; nor does there ever appear the exertion of superfluous power, or the manifestation of design, not calculated in wisdom to effect some general end.

In matters of science, curiosity gratified begets not indolence, but new desires.

As there is not in human observation proper means for measuring the waste of land upon the globe, it is hence inferred, that we cannot estimate the duration of what we see at present, nor calculate the period at which it had begun; so that, with respect to human observation, this world has neither a beginning nor an end.

The result, therefore, of this physical enquiry is that we find no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end.