Concepts of Natural Law and Time in the History of Geology

Our contemporary conceptions of time in terms of geology have developed since the Renaissance. In addition to an adequate notion of the age of the earth, these ideas include different concepts of the nature of geological processes in history. Until the 19th century the different concepts of geological time were determined by views on cyclic processes and processes which have a direction, as well as sequences of events, with or without relations between their various phases. These different aspects of geological thought have finally been incorporated into evolutionary conceptions of geohistory.

Despite objective and epistemological problems, geological laws were formulated in the history of geology such as the law of superposition by Steno in 1669, the law of stratigraphy by Smith in 1799, and the law of development of the earth by Cotta in 1858. Laws of nature are interpreted as essential correlations of a general and necessary nature which exist independently of human cognition. Some fundamental geological processes have not been effective throughout the history of the earth. Presupposing that these processes were governed by natural laws as well, it is inferred that laws of nature exist over certain different periods of time. There are four possibilities of how long laws of nature, or combinations of them, can exist: (1) temporally unlimited existence, (2) existence from the beginning up to a certain point in time, (3) existence from a certain point in time up to the present time, (4) existence over a certain past period of time. Thus the science of geology shows that natural laws are of a historical nature, in that they do not exist eternally nor everywhere.