o ] GEOLOGICAL REFORM. 207 



and in time, and relations to other bodies in both these respects, 

 which constitute 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, succes 

 sion of conditions, actions, and position 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 aBtiology. 



Having regard to this general scheme of geological knowledge 

 and thought, it is obvious that geological speculation may be, so 

 to speak, anatomical and developmental speculation, so far as it 

 relates to points of stratigraphical arrangement which are out of 

 reach of direct observation ; or, it may be physiological specula 

 tion, so far as it relates to undetermined problems relative to the 

 activities of the earth ; or, it may be distributional speculation, 

 if it deals with modifications of the earth s place in space ; or, 

 finally, it will be aBtiological speculation, if it attempts to deduce 

 the history of the world, as a whole, from the known properties 

 of the matter of the earth, in the conditions in which the earth 

 has been placed. 



For the purposes of the present discourse I may take this last 

 to be what is meant by &quot; geological speculation.&quot; 



Now Uniformitarianism, as we have seen, tends to ignore 

 geological speculation in this sense altogether. 



The one point the catastrophists and the uniform! tarians 

 agreed upon, when this Society was founded, was to ignore it. 

 And you will find, if you look back into our records, that our 

 revered fathers in geology plumed themselves a good deal upon 

 the practical sense and wisdom of this proceeding. As a tem 

 porary measure, I do not presume to challenge its wisdom ; but 

 in all organized bodies temporary changes are apt to produce 

 permanent effects ; and as time has slipped by, altering all the 

 conditions which may have made such mortification of the 



