56 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
While observation and experiment constitute the only firm foundation 
for the geological edifice, so many facts have been pigeon-holed that, 
perhaps, the time has come to empty the holes and take stock. I believe 
that the result would be below our expectation in so far as grand general- 
isations are concerned. Perhaps the time has come when a modified return 
to ‘armchair’ philosophy would be excusable. I shall venture a little 
indulgence in this respect, and must plead the nature of my subject as the 
excuse. 
The History and Scope of Geology. 
The earliest geology, doubtless, was purely economic. Primitive man 
learned the nature of flints and the localities of their occurrence; he 
acquired a knowledge of land forms and experienced the effects of the 
forces of Nature. His object was utilitarian and his geology unconscious. 
With the Egyptians began definite geological observation and philosophical 
deduction, and ‘ theories of the earth ’ engaged the attention of the Greek 
philosophers. Contemporaneously the exploitation of metallic ores must 
have added continually tothe stores of economic knowledge, a phase of the 
subject more particularly cultivated under the commercialism of Rome. 
Passing through the slough of the Middle Ages, we have, even in the 
fantastic conceptions of the cosmogonists, a glimmer of cultural geology, 
and in the revived interest in fossils we see the dawn of modern inquiry 
into the organic history of the earth. 
The science of geology as now understood dates from about 1800. The 
name was suggested by De Luc (1788), but De Saussure (1789) was the 
first to use the term without apology. It is interesting to note that Werner 
makes ‘ geognosy ’ the general term, and restricts “ geology ’ to theoretical 
discussions as to the origin and history of the earth. 
It would appear, therefore, that the science of geology was dual, if 
not multiple, at its inception. It embraced at least two aspects which have 
remained somewhat divergent, yet intimately related, to the present day 
—historical and philosophical geology on the one hand and economic 
geology on the other. Cultural geology, as I have attempted to define it, 
is not confined to either branch, but is inherent in both and may be revealed 
by an approach in the proper frame of mind. 
Geology is the most comprehensive of sciences : literally it embraces all 
subjects that have to do with the earth. In the narrower sense, it does not 
include all the other material sciences, but it requires them all for the 
solution of its problems. 
The line of separation between chemistry and physics has practically 
disappeared. Botany and zoology are so closely related, that a single term 
‘biology ’ has been coined to.include them both. These two groups of 
sciences have a connexion so intimate, that such expressions as ‘ bio- 
chemistry ’ and ‘ biophysics’ have arisen. The unity of the sciences is 
established ; geology is the application of this unity to the problems of 
the earth. The term ‘ paleontology ’ stands in evidence, and the intro- 
duction of ‘ geophysics’ and ‘ geochemistry’ indicates the application 
of the fundamental sciences in the study of the structure and history of 
the globe. 
There is, however, one aspect of geology in which it is the leader and 
not the follower of the so-called fundamental sciences. Geology is history 
