ANNIVEE8AEY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. xliii 



tion that we may discern somewhat of the beginning, or of the end, 

 of this speck in space we call our earth. The finite mind is certainly- 

 competent to trace out the development of the fowl within the egg ; 

 and I know not on what ground it should find more difficulty in un- 

 raveUing the complexities of the development of the earth. In fact, 

 as Kant has well remarked*, the cosmical process is really simpler 

 than the biological. 



This attempt to limit at a particular point the progress of inductive 

 and deductive reasoning from the things which are to those which 

 were — this faithlessness to its own logic, seems to me to have cost 

 Uniformitarianism the place, as the permanent form of geological 

 speculation, which it might otherwise have held. 



It remains that I should place before you what I understand to be 

 the third phase of geological speculation — namely Evolutionism. 



I shall not make what I have to say on this head clear unless I 

 diverge, or seem to diverge, for a while from the direct path of my 

 discourse, so far as to explain what I take to be the scope of geology 

 itself. I conceive geology to be the history of the earth in precisely 

 the same sense as biology is the history of living beings ; and I trust 

 you will not think that I am overpowered by the infiuence of a domi- 

 nant pursuit if I say that 1 trace a close analogy between these two 

 histories. 



If I study a living being, under what heads does the knowledge I 

 obtain fall ? I can learn its structure, or what we call its Anatomy ; 

 and its Development, or the series of changes which it passes 

 through to acquire its complete structure. Then I find that the 

 living being has certain powers resulting from its own activities, and 

 the interaction of these with the activities of other things — the 

 knowledge of which is Physiology. Beyond this the living being 

 has a position in space and time, which is its DistPvIbution. All these 

 form the body of ascertainable facts which constitute the status quo of 

 the living creature. But these facts have their causes ; and the ascer- 

 tainment of these causes is the doctrine of ^Etiology. 



If we consider what is knowable about the earth, we shall find that 

 such earth-knowledge — if I may so translate the word geology — falls 

 into the same categories. 



What is termed stratigraphical geology is neither more nor less 

 than the anatomy of the earth ; and the history of the succession of 

 the formations is the history of a succession of such anatomies, or 

 corresponds with development, as distinct from generation. 



The internal heat of the earth, the elevation and depression of its 

 crust, its belchings forth of vapours, ashes, and lava are its activi- 

 ties in as strict a sense, as are warmth and the movements and pro- 

 ducts of respiration the activities of an animal. The phenomena of 



* " Man darf es sich also nicht befremden lassen, wenn ich mich unterstehe 

 zu sagen, dass eher die Bildimg aller Himmelskorper, die Ursache ihrer Bewe- 

 gungen, kiirzder Ursprung der ganzen gegenwartigen Verfassung des Weltbaues 

 werden konnen eingeselien werden, ehe die Erzeugung eines einzigen Krauts oder 

 einer Raupe aus mechanischen Griinden, deutlich und rollstandig kund werden 

 wird."— Kant's ' Sauimtliche Werke,' Bd. I. p. 220. 



