THE PAL^TIOLOGICAL SCIENCES. 501 



trains of change is similar .and offers the same features for description. 

 The relics and ruins of the earlier st&tes are preserved, mutilated and 

 dead, in the products of later times. The analogical figures by which 

 \ve are tempted to express this relation are philosophically true. It is 

 more than a mere fanciful description, to say that in languages, cus- 

 toms, forms of Society, political institutions, we see a number of forma- 

 tions super-imposed upon one another, each of which is, for the most 

 part, an assemblage of fragments and results of the preceding con- 

 dition. Though our comparison might be bold, it would be just, 

 if we were to assert, that the English language is a conglomerate 

 of Latin words, bound together in a Saxon cement ; the fragments 

 of the Latin being partly portions introduced directly from the 

 parent quarry, with all their sharp edges, and partly pebbles of the 

 same material, obscured and shaped by long rolling in a Norman 

 or some other channel. Thus the study of palatiology in the mate- 

 rials of the earth, is only a type of similar studies with respect to 

 all the elements, which, in the history of the earth's inhabitants, 

 have been constantly undergoing a series of connected changes. 



But, wide as is the view which such considerations give us of 

 the class of sciences to which geology belongs, they extend still fur 

 ther. " The science of the changes which have taken place in the 

 organic kingdoms of nature," (such is the description which has 

 been given of Geology, 3 ) may, by following another set of connex- 

 ions, be extended beyond " the modifications of the surface of our 

 own planet." For we cannot doubt that some resemblance of a closer 

 or looser kind, has obtained between the changes and causes of 

 change, on other bodies of the universe, and on our own. The 

 appearances of something of the kind of volcanic action on the sur- 

 face of the moon, are not to be mistaken. And the inquiries con- 

 cerning the origin of our planet and of our solar system, inquiries to 

 which Geology irresistibly impels her students, direct us to ask 

 what information the rest of the universe can supply, bearing upon 

 this subject. It has been thought by some, that we can trace sys- 

 tems, more or less like our solar system, in the process of forma- 

 tion ; the nebulous matter, which is at first expansive and attenu- 

 ated, condensing gradually into suns and planets. AVhether this 

 Nebular Hypothesis be tenable or not, I shall not here inquire ; but 

 the discussion of such a question would be closely connected with 



Lyell, Principles of Geology, p. 1. 



