318 GEOLOGICAL REFORM x 



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 organ 

 isation 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 physio 

 logy, to which we sometimes give the name of 

 meteorology, sometimes that of physical geography, 

 sometimes that of geology. Again, the earth has 

 a place in space and in time, and relations to 

 other bodies in both these respects, which con 

 stitute its distribution. This subject is usually 

 left to the astronomer; but a knowledge of its 

 broad outlines seems to me to be an essential 

 constituent of the stock of geological ideas. 



All that can be ascertained concerning the 

 structure, succession of conditions, actions, and posi 

 tion in space of the earth, is the matter of fact of its 

 natural history. But, as in biology, there remains 

 the matter of reasoning from these facts to their 

 causes, which is just as much science as the other, 

 and indeed more ; and this constitutes geological 

 setiology. 



Having regard to this general scheme of geo 

 logical knowledge and thought, it is obvious that 

 geological speculation may be, so to speak, ana 

 tomical and developmental speculation, so far as it 

 relates to points of stratigraphical arrangement 



