X GEOLOGICAL REFORM 823 



earth put forward by Scheuchzer, Moro, Bonnet, 

 Woodward, White, Leibnitz, Linnaeus, and Buffon. 



The third part contains an " Attempt to give a 

 sound explanation of the ancient history of the 

 earth." 



I suppose that it would be very easy to pick 

 holes in the details of Kant's speculations, whether 

 cosmological, or specially telluric, in their appli- 

 cation. But for all that, he seems to me to have 

 been the first person to frame a complete system 

 of geological speculation by founding the doctrine 

 of evolution. 



With as much truth as Hutton, Kant could say, 

 " I take things just as I find them at present, and, 

 from these, I reason with regard to that which 

 must have been." Like Hutton, he is never tired 

 of pointing out that " in Nature there is wisdom, 

 system, and consistency." And, as in these great 

 principles, so in believing that the cosmos has a 

 reproductive operation " by which a ruined consti- 

 tution may be repaired," he forestalls Hutton; 

 while, on the other hand, Kant is true to science. 

 He knows no bounds to geological speculation 

 but those of the intellect. He reasons back to a 

 beginning of the present state of things; he 

 admits the possibility of an end. 



I have said that the three schools of geological 

 speculation which I have termed Catastrophism, 

 tJniformitarianism, and Evolutionism, are com- 

 monly supposed to be antagonistic to one another ; 



