GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION. 593 



concealed. Astonishingly, however, you see in it nothing less than a 

 contrivance of Providence for counteracting the materialism of the 

 present. This is to me the most incomprehensible part of your essay. 

 I see in spiritualism, on the contrary, a sign of the materialism and 

 the barbarism of our time. From early times, as you well know, ma- 

 terialism has had two forms ; the one denies the spiritual, the other 

 transforms it into matter. The latter form is the older. From the 

 animism of the popular mythologies, it passes into philosophy, in order 

 to be by the latter gradually overcome. As civilized barbarism can 

 experience relapses into all forms of primitive conditions, so it is not 

 spared from this also. 



That, in your person, philosophy too has shared in this relapse, I 

 count most melancholy. Above all else, however, I deplore the pos- 

 sible influence of your example upon our academical youth, among 

 whose instructors you belong. What would become of science, if pur- 

 suits which your views only too easily encourage should become 

 prevalent among our students ; if earnest work and the emulation of 

 scientific studies should become supplanted among them by an aimless 

 chase after wonders and by rapping-spirit clubs ? I have such firm 

 confidence in the sound sense of our youth, that I am sure these fears 

 will not be realized. Nevertheless, I held it to be my duty no longer 

 to remain a silent spectator, but to answer your challenge. I sincerely 

 hope, at the same time, that my answer may succeed in prompting you 

 to another careful consideration of the subject. Then perhaps I may 

 not entirely relinquish the hope that we may one day find ourselves 

 with a common feeling concerning this question. 



With this wish, I remain, with high esteem, yours, 



W. Wundt. 



GEOGKAPHICAL EVOLUTION. 



By Professor AECHIBALD GEIKIE, F. K. S. 

 II. 



THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE LAND. Let us now proceed 

 to consider how these materials, sedimentary and crystalline, 

 have been put together, so as to constitute the solid land of the globe. 

 It requires but a cursory examination to observe that the sedimen- 

 tary masses have not been huddled together at random ; that, on the 

 contrary, they have been laid down in sheets one over the other. An 

 arrangement of this kind at once betokens a chronological sequence. 

 The rocks can not all have been formed simultaneously. Those at the 

 bottom must have been laid down before those at the top. A truism 

 of this kind seems hardly to require formal statement. Yet it lies at 

 VOL. xy. 38 



