If it is meant by this merely to say, that it is better to have facts without theory, than theory without facts, and that it is wiser to inquire into the secrets of nature, than to guess at them, the truth of the maxim will hardly be controverted. But if we are to understand by it, as some may perhaps have done, that all theory is mere fiction, and that the only alternative a philosopher has, is to devote himself to the study of facts unconnected by theory, or of theory unsupported by facts, the maxim is as far from the truth, as I am convinced it is from the real sense of Bergman. Such an opposition between the business of the theorist and the observer, can only occur when the speculations of the former are vague and indistinct, and cannot be so embodied as to become visible to the latter. But the philosopher who has ascended to his theory by a regular generalization of facts, and who descends from it again by drawing such palpable conclusions as may be compared with experience, furnishes the infallible means of distinguishing between _perfect science_ and _ingenious fiction_. Of a geological theory that has stood this double test of the analytic and synthetic methods, Dr Hutton has furnished us with an excellent instance, in his explanation of granite. The appearances which he observed in that stone led him to conclude, that it had been melted, and injected while fluid, among the stratified rocks already formed. He then considered, that if this is true, veins of granite must often run from the larger masses of that stone, and penetrate the strata in various directions; and this must be visible at those places where these different kinds of rock come into contact with one another. This led him to search in Arran and Glentilt for the phenomena in question; the result, as we have seen, afforded to his theory the fullest confirmation, and to himself the high satisfaction which must ever accompany the success of candid and judicious inquiry.