One of the founders of geology, was born at Edinburgh. He studied medicine there, in Paris, and at Leyden, but in 1754 settled in Berwickshire and devoted himself to agriculture and chemistry, from which he was led to mineralogy and geology; in 1768 he removed to Edinburgh. The Huttonian theory, emphasising the igneous origin of many rocks and deprecating the hypothetical assumption of other causes than those we see still at work, was expounded in two papers read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, “A Theory of the Earth” (1785) and “A Theory of Rain” (1784). The former was afterwards expanded into two volumes (1795). He also wrote “Dissertations in Natural Philosophy” (1792), “Considerations on the Nature of Coal and Culm” (1777), and other works.

Personal

  To his friends his conversation was inestimable; as great talents, the most perfect candour, and the utmost simplicity of character and manners, all united to stamp a value upon it. He had, indeed, that genuine simplicity, originating in the absence of all selfishness and vanity, by which a man loses sight of himself altogether, and neither conceals what is, nor affects what is not. This simplicity prevaded his whole conduct; while his manner, which was peculiar, but highly pleasing, displayed a degree of vivacity hardly ever to be found among men of profound and abstract speculation. His great liveliness, added to this aptness to lose sight of himself, would sometimes lead him into little eccentricities, that formed an amusing contrast with the graver habits of a philosophic life…. His conversation was extremely animated and forcible, and, whether serious or gay, full of ingenious and original observation…. His figure was slender, but indicated activity; while a thin countenance, a high forehead, and a nose somewhat aquiline, bespoke extraordinary acuteness and vigour of mind. His eye was penetrating and keen, but full of gentleness and benignity; and even his dress, plain, and all of one colour, was in perfect harmony with the rest of the picture, and seemed to give a fuller relief to its characteristic features.

  Hutton was slender, but active, thin-faced, with a high forehead, acquiline nose, keen and penetrating eyes, and a general expression of benevolence. His dress was very plain. His portrait was painted by Raeburn for John Davidson of Stewartfield. Upright, candid, humane, and a true friend, he was very cheerful in company, whether social or scientific, and was, like Adam Smith and Joseph Black, a leading member of the “Oyster Club.” Playfair draws an interesting contrast (Biography of Hutton, pp. 58, 59), between Hutton and his friend Black, to whom, as well as to John Clerk of Eldin, he owed many valuable suggestions.

General

  It might have been expected, when a work of so much originality as this “Theory of the Earth” was given to the world, a theory which professed to be the result of such an ample and accurate induction, and which opened up so many views, interesting not to mineralogy alone, but to philosophy in general, that it would have produced a sudden and visible effect, and that men of science would have been everywhere eager to decide concerning its real value. Yet the truth is, that it drew their attention very slowly, so that several years elapsed before any one showed himself publicly concerned about it, either as an enemy or a friend…. Truth, however, forces me to add, that other reasons certainly contributed not a little to prevent Dr. Hutton’s theory from making a due impression on the world. It was proposed too briefly, and with too little detail of facts, for a system which involved so much that was new, and opposite to the opinions generally received. The descriptions which it contains of the phenomena of geology, suppose in the reader too great a knowledge of the things described. The reasoning is sometimes embarrassed by the care taken to render it strictly logical; and the transitions, from the author’s peculiar notions of arrangement, are often unexpected and abrupt. These defects run more or less through all Dr. Hutton’s writings, and produce a degree of obscurity astonishing to those who knew him, and who heard him every day converse with no less clearness and precision, than animation and force. From whatever causes the want of perspicuity in his writings proceed, perplexity of thought was not among the number; and the confusion of his ideas can neither be urged as an apology for himself, nor as a consolation to his readers.

  Meanwhile Hutton, a contemporary of Werner, began to teach, in Scotland, that granite as well as trap was of igneous origin, and had at various periods intruded itself in a fluid state into different parts of the earth’s crust. He recognized and faithfully described many of the phenomena of granitic veins, and the alterations produced by them on the invaded strata which will be treated of in the thirty-third chapter. He, moreover, advanced the opinion, that the crystalline strata called primitive had not been precipitated from a primæval ocean, but were sedimentary strata altered by heat. In his writings, therefore, and in those of his illustrator, Playfair, we find the germ of that metamorphic theory.

  By an idea entirely new, the illustrious Scottish philosopher showed the successive co-operation of water and the internal heat of the globe in the formation of the same rocks. It is the mark of genius to unite in one common origin phenomena very different in their nature…. Hutton explains the history of the globe with as much simplicity as grandeur. Like most men of genius, indeed, who have opened up new paths, he exaggerated the extent to which his conceptions could be applied. But it is impossible not to view with admiration the profound penetration and the strictness of induction of so clear-sighted a man, at a time when exact observations had been so few, he being the first to recognise the simultaneous effect of water and heat in the formation of rocks, in imagining a system which embraces the whole physical system of the globe. He established principles which, in so far as they are fundamental, are now universally admitted.

  It is not so generally known that he found much satisfaction in the pursuit of metaphysics, and is author of an elaborate work in three large quarto volumes, “An Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, and of the Progress of Reason from Sense to Science and Philosophy.” The work is full of awkwardly constructed sentences and of repetitions, and it is a weariness in the extreme to read it. Yet we are made to feel at times that these thoughts must be profound, if only we could understand them. He certainly speculates on recondite subjects, but does not throw much light on them.

  But it was not merely, or even chiefly, for their exposition of the structure and history of the rocks under our feet that the geologists of the Scottish School deserve to be held in lasting remembrance. They could not, indeed, have advanced as far as they did in expounding former and ancient conditions of the planet, had they not, with singular clearness, perceived the order and system of change which is in progress over the surface of the globe at the present day. It was their teaching which first led men to see the harmony and co-operation of the forces of nature which work within the earth, with those which are seen and felt upon its surface. Hutton first caught the meaning of that constant circulation of water which, by means of evaporation, winds, clouds, rain, snow, brooks, and rivers, is kept up between land and sea. He saw that the surface of the dry land is everywhere being wasted and worn away. The scarped cliff, the rugged glen, the lowland valley, are each undergoing this process of destruction; wherever land rises above ocean, there, from mountaintop to sea-shore, degradation is continually going on. Here and there, indeed, the débris of the hills may be spread out upon the plains; here and there, too, dark angular peaks and crags rise as they rose centuries ago, and seem to defy the elements. But these are only apparent and not real exceptions to the universal law, that so long as the surface of land is exposed to the atmosphere it must suffer degradation and removal…. The men were before their time: and thus, while the world gradually acknowledged the teaching of the Scottish school as to the past history of the rocks, it lent an incredulous ear to that teaching when dealing with the present surface of the earth. Even some of the Huttonians themselves refused to follow their master when he sought to explain the existing inequalities of the land by the working of the same quiet unobtrusive forces which are still plying their daily tasks around us. But no incredulity or neglect can destroy the innate vitality of truth. And so now after the lapse of fully two generations, the views of Hutton have in recent years been revived, and have become the war-cry of a yearly increasing crowd of earnest hard-working geologists.

  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.

  Hutton ranks as the first great British geologist, and the independent originator of the modern explanation of the phenomena of the earth’s crust by means of changes still in progress. “No powers,” he says, “are to be employed that are not natural to the globe, no action to be admitted of except those of which we know the principle.” He first drew a marked line between geology and cosmogony. He early observed that a vast proportion of the present rocks are composed of materials afforded by the destruction of pre-existing materials. He realised that all the present rocks are decaying, and their materials being transported into the ocean; that new continents and tracts of land have been formed by elevation, often altered and consolidated, by volcanic heat, and afterwards fractured and contorted; and that many masses of crystalline rocks are due to the injection of rocks among fractured strata in a molten state. His views on the excavation of valleys by denudation, after being largely ignored by Lyell, have been accepted and enforced by Ramsay, A. Geikie, and others. He may be considered as having originated the uniformitarian theory of geology (science modified by that of evolution).