INTRODUCTION. 



Of the Paltetiological Sciences. 



WE now approach the last Class of Sciences which enter into the 

 design of the present work ; and of these, Geology is the repre- 

 sentative, whose history we shall therefore briefly follow. By the 

 Class of Sciences to which I have referred it, I mean to point out 

 those researches in which the object is, to ascend from the present 

 state of things to a more ancient condition, from which the present is 

 derived by intelligible causes. 



The sciences which treat of causes have sometimes been termed 

 (ctiological, from cuVi'a, a cause : but this term would not sufficiently 

 describe the speculations of which we now speak ; since it might 

 include sciences which treat of Permanent Causality, like Mechanics, 

 as well as inquiries concerning Progressive Causation. The investi- 

 gations which I now wish to group together, deal, not only with the 

 possible, but with the actual past ; and a portion of that science on 

 which we are about to enter, Geology, has properly been termed Pa- 

 Iceontology, since it treats of beings which formerly existed. 1 Hence, 

 combining these two notions, 2 Palcetioloyy appears to be a term not 

 inappropriate, to describe those speculations which thus refer to actual 

 past events, and attempt to explain them by laws of causation. 



Such speculations are not confined to the world of inert matter ; 

 we have examples of them in inquiries concerning the monuments of 

 the art and labor of distant ages ; in examinations into the origin and 

 early progress of states and cities, customs and languages ; as well as 

 'in researches concerning the causes and formations of mountains and 



O 



rocks, the imbedding of fossils in strata, and their elevation from the 

 bottom of the ocean. All these speculations are connected by this 

 bond, that they endeavor to ascend to a past state of things, by the 

 aid of the evidence of the present. In asserting, with Cuvier, that 



1 Mri\ai. iii'-a. 2 ITciXai. ain'a. 



