■ V 



fcfc 







» 



' 







>« 





• 







J } 



^ 





d( 



il \ 



leti 



in't 

 uiii- 



.ret 



V Bl' 



leu. 





• 



ll0 tl)i 

 9 * 



Ch. II.] 



ARISTOTELIAN SYSTEM. 



21 



-x- 



He 



nection with earthquakes, 

 upheaving of one of the Bolian islands previous to a volcanic 

 eruption.° < The changes of the earth,' he says, < are so slow 

 in comparison to the duration of our lives, that they are over- 

 looked (Xav&w**) ; and the migrations of people after great 

 catastrophes and their removal to other regions, cause 



the 



t 



When we consider the acquaintance displayed by Aristotle, 

 in his various works, with the destroying and renovating 

 powers of Nature, the introductory and concluding passages 

 of the twelfth chapter of his ' Meteorics ' are certainly very 

 remarkable. In the first sentence he says, < The distribu- 

 tion of land and sea in particular regions does not endure 

 throughout all time, but it becomes sea in those parts where 

 it was°land, and again it becomes land where it was sea : and 

 there is reason for thinking that these changes take place 



accordin 



m. 



As time never 



The concluding observation is as follows : 

 fails, and the universe is eternal, neither the Tanais, nor the 

 Nile, can have flowed for ever. The places where they rise 

 were once dry, and there is a limit to their operations : but 

 there is none to time. So also of all other rivers ; they 



up, and they perish; and the sea also continually 

 deserts some lands and invades others. The same tracts, 



some 



yth 



in the course of 



time.' 



It seems, then, that the Greeks had not only derived from 



preceding nations, but had also, in some slight degree, 

 deduced from their own observations, the theory of periodical 

 revolutions in the inorganic world: there is, however, no 



lplated former changes 



Even the fact that 

 solid rocks, although 



in the races of animals and plants. 



marine remains were enclosed in 



observed by some, and even made the groundwork of geolo- 



stimulated 



gical speculation, never 



the enquiries of naturalists. It is not impossible that the 



* Lib. ii. cap. 14, 15, and 16. 



t Ibid. 



