xi.] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 237 



knowledge I obtain fall \ I can learn its structure, or 

 what we call its Anatomy ; and its Development, or 

 the series of changes which it passes through to acquire 

 its complete structure. Then I find that the living 

 being has certain powers resulting from its own acti- 

 vities, and the interaction of these with the activities of 

 other things — the knowledge of which is Physiology. 

 Beyond this the living being has a position in space and 

 time, which is its Distribution. All these form the 

 body of ascertainable facts which constitute the statu* 

 quo of the living creature. But these facts have their 

 causes ; and the ascertainment of these causes is the 

 doctrine of .ZEtiology. 



If we consider what is knowable about the earth, we 

 shall find that such earth-knowledge — if I may so trans- 

 late the word geology — falls into the same categories. 



What is termed stratigraphical geology is neither more 

 nor less than the anatomy of the earth ; and the history 

 of the succession of the formations is the history of a 

 succession of such anatomies, or corresponds with deve- 

 lopment, as distinct from generation. 



The internal heat of the earth, the elevation and 

 depression of its crust, its belchings forth of vapours, 

 ashes, and lava, are its activities, in as strict a sense, as are 

 warmth and the movements and products of respiration 

 the activities of an animal. The phenomena of the 

 seasons, of the trade winds, of the Gulf-stream, are as 

 much the results of the reaction between these inner 

 activities and outward forces, as are the budding of the 

 leaves in spring and their falling in autumn the effects 

 of the interaction between the organization of a plant 

 and the solar light and heat. And, as the study of the 

 activities of the living being is called its physiology, so 

 are these phenomena the subject-matter of an analogous 

 telluric physiology, to which we sometimes give the 



