The Earth 



as an 



- i. XJV/4 .- .1 . . .,, . . . ^'Jiii^ /Oil;. Ji.;- 



.<$: Animal Organism. . -i.i; 



If it were within the limits of human possibility to 

 anatomise the earth, we might reveal by dissection many 

 curious and interesting facts about its construction, but 

 unfortunately man, himself a tiny insignificent particle of 

 his own mother earth, can do nothing of that sort ; 

 nevertheless his inquisitive intellect is not altogether 

 arrested in its course by the fact of this impossibility, 

 but goes on striving to penetrate the hidden mysteries 

 of the globe. His method of research, though not anato- 

 mical but analytical, consisting often of conjectures and 

 suppositions, confining itself to the search after analogies, 

 or taking the path of geological investigation and the 

 study of physical laws, enables us to reach a general 

 comprehension of the earth's formation, and of the pro- 

 perties of nature while astronomical observations tell us 

 from day to day, by what paths and with what velocity 

 our planet is travelling through the immensity of space. 



In fixing attention upon the earth as an animal orga- 

 nism ; I must point out those distinguishing features 

 which in general, may be said to characterise such 'orga- 

 nism. These features are : a head, the organ of go- 

 verning reason ; feet, the organ of movement and trans- 

 port from place to place ; breath, the organ of vitality 

 itself, and finally all the other factors characteristic ot 

 organic life in animals. 



