Where so many living creatures are to ply their respective powers, in pursuing the end for which they were intended, we are not to look for nature in a quiescent state; matter itself must be in motion, and the scenes of life a continued or repeated series of agitations and events.
Dove così tante creature viventi esistono per esercitare i loro rispettivi poteri, perseguendo il fine cui sono destinate, non dobbiamo cercare la natura in uno stato di riposo; la materia stessa deve essere in movimento, e le scene della vita una serie continua o ripetuta di agitazioni ed eventi.
James Hutton MD (1726 – 1797), Theory of the Earth; or an investigatiopn of the Laws observable in the Composition, Dissolution, and Restoration of Land upon the Globe, in “Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh”, I, p. II, 1788, pp. 209–304. [p. 209 (PartI Prospect of the Subject to be treated of)]
