James Hutton (1726-1797), the "Father of Geology" in 1789, in a lecture presented on his behalf by Dr. Black, wrote "I consider the Earth to be a super-organism and that its proper study should be by physiology." This view that the Earth in some ways could be viewed as a superorganism was widely held in the early 19th century, and was supported even by such early biologists as Huxley (1825-1895).