While this is preëminently true of the concept of time, the concept of space is fairly well cultivated by geologic study, though far less effectively than is done by astronomical study. Astronomy and geology work happily together in contributing to largeness of thought.
The study of the origin and early history of the earth brings the student into touch with the most far-reaching problems that have thus far called forth the intellectual efforts of man. If rightly handled, these great themes may be made to teach the true method of inquiry into past natural events whose vastness puts them quite beyond the resources of the laboratory. This method finds its key in a search for the history of such vast and remote events by a scrutiny of the vestiges these events have left as their own automatic record. This method stands in sharp contradistinction to simple speculation without such search for talismanic vestiges, a discredited method which is too often supposed to be the only way of dealing with such themes. To be really competent in the field of larger and deeper thinking, every courageous mind should be able to cross the threshold of any of the profound problems of the universe with safe and circumspect steps, however certain it may be that only a slight measure of penetration of the problem may be attainable. A well-ordered mind will remain at once complacent and wholesome when brought to the limit of its effort by the limit of evidence. The problem of the origin of celestial worlds, of which the genesis of the earth is the theme of largest human interest, is admirably suited to give college students at once a modest sense of their limitations and a wholesome attitude toward problems of the vaster type. Without having acquired the power to make prudent and duly controlled excursions into the vaster fields of thought, the mind can scarcely be said to have been liberalized.
=Geology a means of training in thinking in scientific experiences=
From the very outset, the tracing of the earth history forces a comprehensive study of the co-workings of the three dominant states of matter massively embodied in the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the lithosphere, the great terrestrial triumvirate. The strata of the earth are the joint products of these three elements and constitute their lithographic record. These three coöperating and contending elements not only bring into view the three typical phases of physical action, but they present this action in such titanic aspects as to force the young mind to think along large lines, with the great advantage that these actions are controlled by determinate laws, while the causes and the results are both tangible and impressive.