Then Hutton wrote a little book on the “Nature, Quality, and Distinction of Culm and Coal.” The result was more economical than scientific, for it led to the abolition of a duty on the small coal of Scotland. He read hard, and every book on travels which referred to physical geography was carefully studied, so that at last no man of the age was so fit to deal with the great problem he had been revolving in his mind for thirty years. All his studies of nature, all his examinations of the surface of the earth, were with a view of ascertaining the changes that have taken place on its surface, and of discovering the causes by which they have been produced. He was impressed with the belief that the former changes in the earth’s surface have been of the same kind as those now in progress; that the ancient history of the earth could only be studied by taking the example of modern changes, and that the past could be studied from the present, because there was uniformity and constancy and law in nature. The same energies and forces have always been and have acted by law in much the same manner as at the present time. With his true scientific spirit Hutton would have nothing to do with convulsions or with the origin of the globe; he did not want to guess or speculate, but to argue logically on facts which anybody could observe. He took geology out of the age of the marvellous and laid the foundations of the present aspect of the science. He was in no hurry to publish his views, possibly because his temperament was cautious, and possibly he was aware what a furious fuss there would be made about it; how he would be abused, scolded, and anathematized. There is no doubt that the lights of the age and public opinion were perfectly incompetent to judge the merits of such a theory; they were sunken in prejudices, and resisted any change of opinion. He was aware that a great outcry would be made by men whose religious opinions were his own, and whom he respected greatly. In fact, the world, just before the appearance of Hutton’s “Theory of the Earth,” was less prepared for it than ordinary opinion was for the doctrines of Charles Darwin one hundred years afterwards. The appearance of the work of this last great naturalist made, and is still making, a great stir, but that of Hutton’s work was received, as he anticipated, with incredible opposition, by the teachers of the day; and its slow acceptation by the scientific world was remarkable. No abuse could efface its effects; it was true, and the true alone lasts; it was reasonable, and it was to the glory of God.