Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 25.djvu/62

 undergone and is still undergoing," and is in fact a brief and pregnant essay upon the principles of geology. Kant gives an account first " of the gradual changes which are now taking place " under the heads of such as are caused by earthquakes, such as are brought about by rain and rivers, such as are effected by the sea, such as are produced by winds and frost, and, finally, such as result from the operations of man.

The second part is devoted to the " Memorials of the changes which the earth has undergone in remote antiquity." These are enumerated as: — A. Proofs that the sea formerly covered the whole earth. B. Proofs that the sea has often been changed into dry land and then again into sea. C. A discussion of the various theories of the earth put forward by Scheuchzer, Moro, Bonnet, Woodward, White, Leibnitz, Linnaeus, and Buffon.

The third part contains an " Attempt to give a sound explanation of the ancient history of the earth."

I suppose that it would be very easy to pick holes in the details of Kant's speculations, whether cosmological or specially telluric in their application. But, for all that, he seems to me to have been the first person to frame a complete system of geological speculation by founding the doctrine of evolution.

With as much truth as Hutton, Kant could say, " I take things just as I find them at present, and from these I reason with regard to that which must have been." Like Hutton, he is never tired of pointing out that " in nature there is wisdom, system, and constancy." And as in these great principles, so in believing that the cosmos has a reproductive operation " by which a ruined constitution may be repaired " he forestalls Hutton : while, on the other hand, Kant is true to science. He knows no bounds to geological speculation but those of the intellect. He reasons back to a beginning of the present state of things ; he admits the possibility of an end.

I have said that the three schools of geological speculation which I have termed Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and Evolutionism are commonly supposed to be antagonistic to one another ; and I presume it will have become obvious that, in my belief, the last is destined to swallow up the other two. But it is proper to remark that each of the latter has kept alive the tradition of precious truths.

Catastrophism has insisted upon the existence of a practically unlimited bank of force, on which the theorist might draw ; and it has cherished the idea of the development of the earth from a state in which its form, and the forces which it exerted, were very different from those we now know. That such difference of form and power once existed is a necessary part of the doctrine of evolution.

Uniformitarianism, on the other hand, has with equal justice insisted upon a practically unlimited bank of time, ready to discount any quantity of hypothetical paper. It has kept before our eyes the power of the infinitely little, time being granted, and has compelled us to exhaust known causes before flying to the unknown.

To my mind there appears to be no sort of necessary theoretical