James Hutton

“ Among the passengers were General Oglethorpe, Bishop David Nitschmann, and twenty-three other Brethren, and thus Moravians and Methodists were brought together by their common interest in missionary work.
James Hutton was thrilled. As soon as his apprenticeship was over he set up in business for himself at the "Bible and Sun," founded a new Society in his own back parlour, and made that parlour the centre of the Evangelical Revival {1736.}. There he conducted weekly meetings; there he established a Poor-box Society, the members paying in a penny a week ”

“ For the sake of the Church the baker kneaded, the weaver plied his shuttle, the Single Sisters did needlework of marvellous beauty and manufactured their famous marble-paper. For many years, too, these Brethren at Fulneck employed a congregation doctor; and the object of this gentleman's existence was not to build up a flourishing practice, but to preserve the good health of his beloved Brethren and Sisters.
We must not, however, regard the Brethren as communists. James Hutton was questioned on this by the Earl of Shelburne. ”

“ James Hutton was boiling with fury. If this Act had applied to all preachers of the Gospel he would not have minded so much; but the other denominations—Presbyterians, Independents, Anabaptists and Quakers—were all specially exempted; and the loyal Moravians were bracketed together with vagrant preachers and Papists in disguise. He regarded the Act as an insult. He wrote to Zinzendorf on the subject. "This," he said, "is the work of Presbyterian firebrands." If an Act like this could be passed in America, who knew what might not happen soon in England? ”

“ He had often been at James Hutton's house, had attended services in Fetter Lane, was present at the famous Watch-Night Love-feast, and had thus learned to know the Brethren as thoroughly as Wesley himself. From first to last he held them in high esteem. "They are," he wrote, "more like the Primitive Christians than any other Church now in the world, for they retain both the faith, practice and discipline delivered by the Apostles. They live together in perfect love and peace. They are more ready to serve their neighbours than themselves. ”

“ After a study of the mountain systems of Germany, however, “he declared that the more elevated mountains had never been covered by the sea, as Werner had taught, but were produced by successive ruptures and uplifts of the terrestrial crust” (Geikie) .
Rise of Geology and Conformism.—Modern geology has its rise in James Hutton (1726–1797) of Edinburgh, Scotland. In 1785 and 1795, Hutton published his Theory of the Earth, with Proofs and Illustrations. His “immortal theory” is his only work on geology. ”

“ He appealed confidently to the public. "We are so well known to our neighbours," he said, "that all our clearing ourselves of accusations appears to them quite needless." In reply to the charge of using indecent language, he contended that his purpose was good, and justified by the results; and that, as soon as he found himself misunderstood, he had cut out all doubtful phrases from his discourses.
James Hutton explained their use of childish language. At this period the Brethren, in some of their hymns, used a number of endearing epithets which would strike the modern reader as absurd. ”

“ At Herrnhut the leader was the Lutheran, Christian David; at Fetter Lane, James Hutton, the Anglican clergyman's son; and in Yorkshire, the clergyman, Benjamin Ingham, who never joined the Moravian Church at all. He had, like the Wesleys and Whitefield, taken part in the Evangelical Revival. He was one of the Oxford Methodists, and had belonged to the Holy Club. He had sailed with John Wesley on his voyage to America, had met the Brethren on board the Simmonds, and had learned to know them more thoroughly in Georgia. ”

“ They had not, they declared, been robbed by Zinzendorf and the Moravian leaders; on the contrary, they had received substantial benefits from them. Thomas Rhodes himself proved Whitefield in the wrong. He wrote a letter to his own lawyer; James Hutton published extracts from the letter, and in that letter Rhodes declared that he had sold his estate of his own free will, that the Brethren had paid a good price, and that he and his mother were living in perfect comfort. Thus was Whitefield's fiction exploded, and the Brethren's credit restored. ”

“ At the close of the discussion the Count spoke a sentence which seemed to Wesley as bad as the teaching of Molther.
"We spurn all self-denial," he said, "we trample it under foot. Being believers, we do whatever we will and nothing more. We ridicule all mortification. No purification precedes perfect love."
And thus the Count, by extravagant language, drove Wesley further away from the Brethren than ever.
Meanwhile, at Fetter Lane events were moving fast. As soon as Wesley was out of the way, James Hutton came to the front ”

“ On trouve souvent au dessous une couche moins épaisse qui tire sur le jaune, et plus bas est une troisième qui a une couleur violette, qui a souvent trois ou quatre pieds d'épaisseur, mais qui n'a aussi quelquefois qu'un pouce, et c'est cette troisième dans laquelle l'or est mêlé. Au dessous la terre change encore de couleur, elle devient noire comme à la surface du sol, et elle ne contient aucun métal. D'ailleurs on ne creuse pas indistinctement par tout. On se détermine à chercher en certains endroits plutôt qu'en d'autres par la pente de terrain. ”

“ The examination of what is commonly called a secondary country is not sufficient to give us an idea of the immense operation of time in wearing the surface of this earth. It is not that those countries of inferior hardness and elevation have been spared in the course of time, but because we have not, in those levelled countries, such great remainders, by which we are to judge the quantity of what is lost. In the alpine country, again, though it be the same system of things with that which takes place in the lower country, the revolution of things is more marked for our view ”

“ Man is made for science; he reasons from effects to causes, and from causes to effects; but he does not always reason without error. In reasoning, therefore, from appearances which are particular, care must be taken how we generalise; we should be cautious not to attribute to nature, laws which may perhaps be only of our own invention.
The immediate question now before us is not, If the subterraneous fire, or elevating power, which we perceive sometimes as operating with such energy, be the consolidating cause of strata formed at the bottom of the sea ”

“ In the first place, then, it must be considered, that the alleged fact is nothing but a negative assertion, importing that no mark of organised bodies had been observed, in certain stones and strata which some naturalists have examined with that view. But, though many naturalists have looked for them without success, it does not follow that such marks may not be found; it indeed proves that such a task is difficult, and the success of it, to a particular, most precarious; accident, however, may bring about what the greatest industry has not been able to attain. ”

“ Had it been otherwise, and the demolishing powers of the land increased, in a growing rate with the diminution of the height, the changes of this earth and renovation of our continent, in which occasionally animal life must suffer, would necessarily require to be often repeated; and, in that case, chaos and confusion would seem to be introduced into that system which at present appears to be established with such order and economy that man suspects not any change; it requires the views of scientific men to perceive that things are not at present such as they were created ”

“ This journal they continued to direct until its cessation towards the close of 1864. During the first four years of its existence they were aided by Roscoe, who did some of his best critical work on this paper. On his death in 1859 Hutton undertook to edit his writings, which were published in 1860 with a memoir, under the title of 'Poems and Essays' (London, 2 vols. 8vo) . Hutton was professor of mathematics from 1856 to 1865 at Bedford College, London, and from 1858 to 1860 he acted as assistant-editor of the 'Economist' [see Wilson, James, 1805-1860] . ”

“ The plunderers had two requisites for mischief, inclination and power. They could fight or run. The name of Goodman, head of the clan, did not altogether coincide with the character.
They returned to their former course, till James the First became sovereign of both kingdoms; when, in the first of his reign, he issued a proclamation against them, and seized many of the clan, who confessed they were unfit for civilized society.
Many of this mischievous race were in 1606, transported into Ireland, and their possessions given to others.
It is difficult to fasten a rogue, except by a halter. ”

“ HUTTON, Sir RICHARD (1561?–1639) , judge, second son of Anthony Hutton, of Hutton Hall, Penrith, Cumberland, by Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Musgrave of Hayton in the same county, born about 1561, read divinity for a time at Jesus College, Oxford, with a view to taking holy orders, but changed his mind and entered Gray's Inn in 1580, being already a member of Staple Inn, in the hall of which his arms are emblazoned. ”

“ By David Cranz. Translated from the High Dutch; and illustrated with Maps and other Copperplates. London, 1767. Printed for the Brethren’s Society for the Furtherance of the Gospel among the Heathen.” 8vo; vol. i., pp. 405; vol. ii., pp. 497.
About eighty copies were distributed among the nobility and gentry, for the purpose of enlightening them respecting the Moravian Mission; and the writer of the Memoirs of James Hutton, says:—
“Although the work, in a pecuniary sense, was by no means profitable ”

“ Our object is to know the time which had elapsed since the foundation of the present continent had been laid at the bottom of the ocean, to the present moment in which we speculate on these operations. The space is long; the data for the calculations are, perhaps, deficient: No matter; so far as we know our error, or the deficiency in our operation, we proceed in science, and shall conclude in reason. It is not given to man to know what things are truly in themselves, but only what those things are in his thought. We seek not to know the precise measure of any thing ”

“ But, besides the misinterpretation of matters of fact, we are also to guard against the misrepresentation of natural appearances. Whether warped by the prejudice of partial and erroneous theory, or deceived by the inaccuracy of superficial observation, naturalists are apt to see things in an improper light, and thus to reason from principles which cannot be admitted, and, which often lead to false conclusions. A naturalist, for example, comes to examine a cavity in the mines, he there finds water dropping down all around him, and he sees the cavity all hung with siliceous crystals ”

“ Si on a la constance de suivre une espèce jusqu'au lieu de son origine ou position premiere, on l'y trouvera anguleuse, et n'ayant subi d'autres changemens que celui que le tems imprime à toutes les substances qui restent en place; on verra qu'à mesure qu'elles s'éloignent de leur premiere position leurs angles et leurs parties saillantes se détruisent, et qu'elles finissent par prendre la forme ronde ou approchante, en raison de leurs dureté et du chemin qu'elles auront parcouru. ”

“ Il arrive souvent que des filons, qui sont à la même heure, c'est-à-dire, qui ont des directions semblables vers l'horizon, ont une chute ou inclinaison différente, et telle que leurs deux plans se coupent à une certaine profondeur. Si le mineur ne s'en apperçoit pas assez tôt, et que des le commencement de son exploitation, il n'étançonne pas fortement partout ou il enlevé les filons, tout son ouvrage peut être écrasé par l'enfoncement de la pièce qui les séparoit. ”

“ But this is not to be wondered at, when we consider how few among philosophising men remount to the first principles of their theory; and, unless they shall thus remount to that first step, in which the concreting operation of a dissolved stony substance is supposed to take place without the necessary conditions for the petrifying operation, it is impossible to be convinced that their theory, thus formed with regard to mineral concretion, is merely supposition, and has no foundation in matter of fact from whence it should proceed. ”

“ It is impossible for the emotions arising from the sublime to be felt beyond what they are here. On the sight of so beautiful an arch, so elevated, so light, and springing as it were up to heaven, the rapture of the spectator is really indescribable! ”

“ Hutton was a clever, cultured, and—when he pleased—a wholly delightful companion. Occasionally on Sundays the pair made little excursions together, visited the City churches and quaint bits of Old London, or ventured a dash into the country, or up the river.
“You say Friday is a holiday in your office, Shafto,” he remarked one evening; “how would you like to come for a prowl, and see what we can find in the Caledonian Market? It’s an out-of-the-way place, where once a week all manner of rubbish is shot, and now and then you pick up a really staggering bargain.” ”

“ The New-York Beauty. The Sleeping Nymph. A Tea Party of Young Ladies, with a Servant Negro Girl. The Salem Beauty. Maternal Affection, or a Lady with two beautiful Children. The Boston Beauty. Sir Charles Grandison and Miss Harriet Byron. Charlotte weeping at the Tomb of Werter.—Humphreys and Mendoza, the celebrated English Boxers. The domestic Cottager, at the spinning wheel. The venerable John S. Hutton, who lately died in Philadelphia, aged 108 years and 4 months, drest with the same cloathes which he wore when living, with his own cane, pipe, tobacco-box, &c. ”