Kant pictures to himself the universe as once an infinite expansion of formless and diffused matter.  At one point of this he supposes a single centre of attraction set up; and, by strict deductions from admitted dynamical principles, shows how this must result in the development of a prodigious central body, surrounded by systems of solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development.  In vivid language he depicts the great world-maelstrom, widening the margins of its prodigious eddy in the slow progress of millions of ages, gradually reclaiming more and more of the molecular waste, and converting chaos into cosmos.  But what is gained at the margin is lost in the centre; the attractions of the central systems bring their constituents together, which then, by the heat evolved, are converted once more into molecular chaos.  Thus the worlds that are, lie between the ruins of the worlds that have been, and the chaotic materials of the worlds that shall be; and in spite of all waste and destruction, Cosmos is extending his borders at the expense of Chaos.

Kant’s further application of his views to the earth itself is to be found in his “Treatise on Physical Geography"[14] (a term under which the then unknown science of geology was included), a subject which he had studied with very great care and on which he lectured for many years.  The fourth section of the first part of this Treatise is called “History of the great Changes which the Earth has formerly undergone and is still undergoing,” and is, in fact, a brief and pregnant essay upon the principles of geology.  Kant gives an account first “of the gradual changes which are now taking place” under the heads of such as are caused by earthquakes, such as are brought about by rain and rivers, such as are effected by the sea, such as are produced by winds and frost; and, finally, such as result from the operations of man.

[Footnote 14:  Kant’s Saemmtliche Werke, Bd. viii. p. 145.]

The second part is devoted to the “Memorials of the Changes which the Earth has undergone in remote Antiquity.”  These are enumerated as:—­A.  Proofs that the sea formerly covered the whole earth.  B. Proofs that the sea has often been changed into dry land and then again into sea.  C. A discussion of the various theories of the 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 application.  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.