particles, still less aqueous or aerial, but a great quantity of fluid,
dense and heavy matters, mixed, agitated and jumbled together in the
greatest disorder and confusion. Such was the earth before the six days,
but on the first day of the creation, when the eccentrical orbit of the
comet had been changed, every thing took its place, and bodies arranged
themselves according to the law of gravity, the heavy fluid descended to
the lowest places, and left the upper regions to the terrestrial,
aqueous and aerial parts; those likewise descended according to their
order of gravity; first the earth, then the water, and last of all the
air. The immense volume of chaos was thus reduced to a globe of a
moderate size, in the centre of which is the solid body that still
retains the heat which the sun formerly communicated to it, when it
belonged to a comet. This heat may possibly endure six thousand years,
since the comet of 1680 required fifty thousand years to cool. Around
this solid and burning matter, which occupies the centre of the earth,
the dense and heavy fluid which descended the first is to be found, and
this is the fluid which forms the great abyss on which the earth is
borne, like cork on quicksilver; but as the terrestrial parts were
originally mixed with a large quantity of water, in descending they have
dragged with them a part of this water, which, not being able to
re-ascend after the earth was consolidated, formed a concentrical bed
with the heavy fluid which surrounds this hot substance, insomuch that
the great abyss is composed of two concentrical orbs, the most internal
of which is a heavy fluid, and the other water; the last of which serves
for a foundation to the earth. It is from this admirable arrangement,
produced by the atmosphere of a comet, that the Theory of the Earth, and
the explanation of all its phenomena are to depend.
When the atmosphere of the comet was once disembarrassed from all the
solid and terrestrial matters, there remained only the lighter air,
through which the rays of the sun freely passed and instantly produced
light: "Let there be light, and there was light." The columns which
composed the orb of the Earth being formed with such great precipitation
is the cause of their different densities: consequently the heaviest
sunk deeper into this subterraneous fluid than the lightest; and it is
this which has produced the vallies and mountains on the surface of the
earth. These inequalities were, before the deluge, dispersed and
situated otherwise than they are at present. Instead of the vast valley,
which contains the ocean, there were many small divided cavities on the
surface of the globe, each of which contained a part of this water; the
mountains were also more divided, and did not form chains as at present:
nevertheless, the earth contained a thousand times more people, and was
a thousand times more fertile; and the life of man and other animals
were ten times longer, all which was affected by the internal heat of
the earth that proceeded from the centre, and gave birth to a great
number of plants and animals, bestowing on them a degree of vigour
necessary for them to subsist a long time, and multiply in great
abundance. But this heat, by increasing the strength of bodies,
unfortunately extended to the heads of men and animals; it augmented
their passions; it deprived man of his innocence, and the brute creation
of part of their intelligence; all creatures, excepting fish, who
inhabited a colder element, felt the effects of this heat, became
criminal and merited death. It therefore came, and this universal death
happened on Wednesday the 28th of November, by a terrible deluge of
forty days and forty nights, and was caused by the tail of another comet
which encountered the earth in returning from its perihelion.
The tail of a comet is the lightest part of its atmosphere; it is a
transparent mist, a subtile vapour, which the heat of the sun exhales
from the body of the comet: this vapour composed of extremely rarefied
aqueous and aerial particles, follows the comet when it descends to its
perihelion, and precedes when it re-ascends, so that it is always
situate opposite to the sun, as if it sought to be in the shade, and
avoid the too great heat of that luminary. The column which this vapour
forms is often of an immense length, and the more a comet approaches the
sun, the longer and more extended is its tail, and as many comets
descend below the annual orb of the earth, it is not surprising that
the earth is sometimes found surrounded with the vapour of this tail;
this is precisely what happened at the time of the deluge. In two hours
the tail of a comet will evacuate a quantity of water equal to what is
contained in the whole ocean. In short, this tail was what Moses calls
the cataracts of Heaven, "and the cataracts of Heaven were opened." The
terrestrial globe meeting with the tail of a comet, must, in going its
course through this vapour, appropriate to itself a part of the matter
which it contains; all which, coming within the sphere of the earth's
attraction, must fall on it, and fall in the form of rain, since this
tail is partly composed of aqueous vapours. Thus rain may come down in
such abundance as to produce an universal deluge the waters of which
might easily surmount the tops of the highest mountains. Nevertheless,
our author, cautious of not going directly against the letter of holy
writ, does not say that this rain was the sole cause of the universal
deluge, but takes the water from every place he can find it. The great
abyss as we see contains a considerable quantity. The earth, at the
approach of the comet, would prove the force of its attraction; and the
waters contained in the great abyss would be agitated by so violent a
kind of flux and reflux, that the superficial crust would not resist,
but split in several places, and the internal waters be dispersed over
the surface, "And the fountains of the abyss were opened."
But what became of these waters, which the tail of the comet and great
abyss furnished so liberally? our author is not the least embarrassed
thereon. As soon as the earth, continuing its course, removed from the
comet, the effects of its attraction, the flux and reflux in the great
abyss ceased of course, and immediately the upper waters precipitated
back with violence by the same roads as they had been forced upon the
surface. The great abyss absorbed all the superfluous waters, and was of
a sufficient capacity not only to receive its own waters, but also all
those which the tail of the comet had left, because during its
agitation, and the rupture of its crust, it had enlarged the space by
driving out on all sides the earth that surrounded it. It was at this
time also the figure of the earth, which till then was spherical, became
elliptic. This effect was occasioned by the centrifugal force caused by
its diurnal motion, and by the attraction of the comet, for the earth,
in passing through the tail of the comet, found itself so placed that it
presented the parts of the equator to that planet; and the power of the
attraction of the comet, concurring with the centrifugal force of the
earth, caused the parts of the equator to be elevated, and that with the
more facility as the crust was broken and divided in an infinity of
places, and because the flux and reflux of the abyss drove against the
equator more violently than elsewhere.
Here then is Mr. Whiston's history of the creation; the causes of the
universal deluge; the length of the life of the first men; and the
figure of the Earth; all which seem to have cost our author little or no
labour; but Noah's ark appears to have greatly disquieted him. In the
midst of so terrible a disorder occasioned by the conjunction of the
tail of a comet with the waters of the great abyss, in the terrible
moments wherein not only the elements of the earth were confused, but
when new elements still concurred to augment the chaos, how can it be
imagined that the ark floated quietly with its numerous cargo on the top
of the waves? Here our author makes great efforts to arrive at and give
a physical reason for the preservation of the ark, but which has always
appeared to me insufficient, poorly imagined, and but little
orthodoxical: I will not here relate it, but only observe how hard it is
for a man who has explained objects so great and wonderful, without
having recourse to a supernatural power, to be stopt by one particular
circumstance; our author, however, chose rather to risk drowning with
the ark, than to attribute to the immediate bounty of the Almighty the
preservation of this precious vessel.
I shall only make one remark on this system, of which I have made a
faithful abridgement: which is, whenever we are rash enough to attempt
to explain theological truths by physical reasons, or interpret purely
by human views, the divine text of holy writ, or that we endeavour to
reason on the will of the Most High, and on the execution of his
decrees, we consequently shall involve ourselves in the darkness and
chaos of obscurity and confusion, like the author of this system, which,
in defiance of its absurdities, has been received with great applause.
He neither doubts the truth of the deluge, nor the authenticity of the
sacred writ; but as he was less employed with it than with physic and
astronomy, he has taken passages of the scripture for physical facts,
and the results of astronomical observations; and has so strangely
blended the divine knowledge with human science as to give birth to the
most extraordinary system that possibly ever was or will be conceived.
FOOTNOTES:
[115:A] A New Theory of the Earth by William Whiston, 1708.
ARTICLE III.
FROM THE SYSTEM OF BURNET.[128:A]
This author is the first who has treated this subject generally and in a
systematical matter. He was possessed of much understanding, and was a
person well acquainted with the _belles lettres_. His work acquired
great reputation, and was criticised by many of the learned, among the
rest by Mr. Keil, who has geometrically demonstrated the errors of Mr.
Burnet, in a treatise called "Examination of the Theory of the Earth."
Mr. Keil also refuted Whiston's system; but he treats the last author
very different from the first, and seems even to be of his opinion in
several cases, and looks upon the tail of a comet to be a very probable
cause for the deluge. But, to return to Burnet, his book is elegantly
written; he knew how to paint noble images and magnificent scenes. His
plan is great, but the execution is deficient for want of proper
materials: his reasoning is good, but his proofs are weak; yet his
confidence in his writings is so great, that he frequently causes his
readers to pass over his errors.
He begins by telling us, that before the deluge the earth had a very
different form from that which it has at present; it was at first, he
says, a fluid mass, compounded of matters of all kinds, and all sorts of
figures, the heaviest descended towards the centre, and formed a hard
and solid body; round which the waters collected, and the air, and all
the liquors lighter than water, surmounted them. Between the orb of air
and that of water, was an orb of oily matter, but as the air was still
very impure, and contained a great quantity of small particles of
terrestrial matter, they by degrees descended on the coat of oil, and
formed a terrestrial orb blended with earth and oil; and this was the
first habitable earth, and the first abode of man. This was an excellent
soil, light, and calculated to yield to the tenderness of the first
germs. The surface of the terrestrial globe was at first equal, uniform,
without mountains, without seas, and without inequalities; but it
remained only about sixteen centuries in this state, for the heat of the
sun by degrees drying the crust, split it at first on the surface, soon
after these cracks penetrated farther and increased so considerably by
time, that at length they entirely opened the crust; in an instant the
whole earth fell into pieces in the abyss of water it surrounded; and
this was the cause of the deluge.
But all these masses of earth, by falling into the abyss, dragged along
with them a great quantity of air; these struck against each other,
divided, and accumulated so irregularly, that great cavities filled with
air were left between them. The waters by degrees opened these cavities,
and in proportion as they filled them, the surface of the earth
discovered itself in the highest parts; at length water alone remained
in the lowest parts; that is to say, the vast vallies which contain the
sea. Thus our ocean is a part of the ancient abyss, the rest is entered
into the internal cavities with which the ocean communicates. The
islands and sea rocks are the small fragments, and continents are the
great masses of the old crust. As the rupture and the fall of this crust
are made of a sudden, and with confusion, it was not surprising to find
eminences, depths, plains, and inequalities of all kinds on the surface
of the earth.
FOOTNOTES:
[128:A] Thomas Burnet. Telluris theoria sacra, orbis nostri originem &
mutationes generales, quas aut jam subut, aut olim Subiturus est
complectens. Londina, 1681.
ARTICLE IV.
FROM THE SYSTEM OF WOODWARD.
It may be said of this author, that he attempted to raise an immense
monument on a less solid base than the moving sand, and to construct a
world with dust; for he pretends, that at the time of the deluge a total
dissolution of the earth was made. The first idea which presents, after
having gone through his book,[132:A] is, that this dissolution was made
by the waters of the great abyss. He asserts, that the abyss where the
water was included opened all at once at the command of God, and
dispersed over the surface an enormous quantity of water necessary to
cover the tops of the highest mountains, and that God suspended the
cause of cohesion which reduced all solid bodies into dust, &c. He did
not consider that by these suppositions he added other miracles to that
of the universal deluge, or at least physical impossibilities, which
agree neither with the letter of the holy writ, nor with the
mathematical principles of natural philosophy. But as this author has
the merit of having collected many important observations, and as he was
better acquainted with the materials of which the globe is composed than
those who preceded him, his system, although badly conceived, and worse
digested, has nevertheless dazzled many people, who, seduced by the
truth of some particular circumstances, put confidence in his general
conclusions; we shall, therefore, give a short view of his theory, in
which, by doing justice to the author's merit, and the exactness of his
observations, we shall put the reader in a state of judging of the
insufficiency of his system, and of the falsity of some of his remarks.
Mr. Woodward speaks of having discovered by his sight that all matters
which compose the English earth, from the surface to the deepest places
which had been dug, were disposed by beds of strata, and that in a great
number of these there were shells and other marine productions; he
afterwards adds, that by his correspondents and friends he was assured,
that in other countries the earth is composed of the same materials, and
that shells are found there, not only in the plains but on the highest
mountains, in the deepest quarries, and in an infinity of different
places. He perceived their strata to be horizontal and disposed one over
the other, as matters are which are transported by the waters, and
deposited in form of sediment. These general remarks, which are true,
are followed by particular observations, by which he evidently shews,
that fossils found incorporated in the strata are real shells and marine
productions, not minerals and singular bodies, the sport of nature, &c.
To these observations, though partly made before him, which he has
collected and proved, he adds others less exact. He asserts, that all
matters of different strata are placed one on the other in the order of
their specific gravity.
This general assertion is not true, for we daily see rocks placed above
clay, sand, coal, and bitumen, and which certainly are specifically
heavier than either of these latter materials. If, in fact, we found
throughout the earth that the first strata was bitumen, then chalk, then
marl, clay, sand, stone, marble, and at last metals, so that the
composition of the earth exactly followed the law of gravity, there
would be an appearance that they might have been precipitated at the
same time, which our author asserts with confidence, in spite of the
evidence to the contrary; for, without being a naturalist, we need only
have our eye-sight to be convinced that heavy strata are often found
above lighter, and that consequently these sediments were not
precipitated all at one time, but have been brought and deposited
successively by the water. As this is the foundation of his system, and
is manifestly false, we shall follow it no farther than to show how far
an erroneous principle may produce false combinations and erroneous
conclusions.
All the matters, says our author, which compose the earth, from the
summits of the highest mountains, to the greatest depths of mines, are
disposed by strata, according to their specific weights; therefore he
concludes the whole has been dissolved and precipitated at one time. But
in what manner, and at what time was it dissolved? In water, replies he,
and at the time of the deluge. But there is not a sufficient quantity of
water on the globe for this to be effected, since there is more land
than water, and the bottom of the sea itself is earth. This he admits,
but says, there is more water than is requisite at the centre of the
earth, that it was only necessary for it to ascend, and possess a power
of dissolving every substance but shells, afterwards to find the means
for this water to re-enter the abyss, and to make all this agree with
the history of the deluge. This then is the system, of which the author
does not entertain the least doubt; for when it is opposed to him that
water cannot dissolve marble, stone, and metals, especially in forty
days, the duration of the deluge, he answers simply, that nevertheless
it did happen so. When he is asked, what the virtue of this water of
the abyss was, to dissolve all the earth, and at the same time preserve
the shells? he says, that he never pretended that this water was a
dissolvent; but that it is clear, by facts, that the earth has been
dissolved and the shells preserved. When he was evidently shown that if
he had no reason to give, or facts to support, for these phenomena, his
system was useless, he said, we have only to imagine that, during the
deluge, the force of gravity and the coherency of matter ceased on a
sudden, and by this supposition the dissolution of the old world would
be explained in a very easy and satisfactory manner. But, it was said to
him, if the power which holds the parts of matter united was suspended,
why were not the shells dissolved as well as all the rest? Here he makes
a discourse on the organization of shells and bones of animals, by which
he pretends to prove that their texture being fibrous, and different
from that of minerals, their power of cohesion was different also; after
all, we have, says he, only to suppose that the power of gravity and
cohesion did not entirely cease, but that it was only diminished
sufficient to disunite all the parts of minerals, and not those of
animals. To all this we cannot be prevented from discovering, that our
author's philosophy was not equal to his talents for observation; and I
do not think it necessary seriously to refute opinions which have no
foundation, especially when they have been imagined against the rules of
probability, and drawn from consequences contrary to mechanical laws.
FOOTNOTES:
[132:A] An Essay towards the Natural History of the Earth, &c. by John
Woodward.
ARTICLE V.
EXPOSITION OF SOME OTHER SYSTEMS.
It is plain that the three forementioned hypotheses have much in common
with each other. They all agree in this point, that during the deluge
the earth changed its form, as well externally as internally; but these
speculators have not considered that the earth before the deluge was
inhabited by the same species of men and animals, and must necessarily
have been nearly such as it is at present. The sacred writings teach us,
that before the deluge there were rivers, seas, mountains, and forests.
That these rivers and mountains were, for the most part, retained in the
same situations; the Tigris and Euphrates were the rivers of the ancient
paradise; that the mountain of Armenia, on which the ark rested, was one
of the highest mountains in the world at the deluge, as it is at
present: that the same plants and animals which exist now, existed then;
for we read of the serpent, of the raven, of the crow, and of the dove,
which brought the olive branch into the ark. Although Tournefort asserts
there are no olive trees for more than 400 miles from Mount Ararat, and
passes some absurd jokes thereon[138:A], it is nevertheless certain
there were olives in this neighbourhood at the time of the deluge, since
holy writ assures us of it in the most express terms; but it is by no
means astonishing that in the space of 4000 years the olive trees should
have been destroyed in those quarters, and multiplied in others; it is
therefore contrary to scripture and reason, that those authors have
supposed the earth was quite different from its present state before the
deluge; and this contradiction between their hypothesis and the sacred
text, as well as physical truths, must cause their systems to be
rejected, if even they should agree with some phenomena. Burnet gives
neither observations, nor any real facts, for the support of his system.
Woodward has only given us an essay, in which he promised much more than
he could perform: his book is a project, the execution of which has not
been seen. He has made use of two general observations; the first, that
the earth is every where composed of matters which formerly were in a
state of fluidity, transported by the waters, and deposited in
horizontal strata. The second, that there are abundance of marine
productions in most parts of the bowels of the earth. To give a reason
for these facts, he has recourse to the universal deluge, or rather it
appears that he gives them as proofs of the deluge; but, like Burnet, he
falls into evident contradictions, for it is not to be supposed with
them that there were no mountains prior to the deluge, since it is
expressly stated, that the waters rose fifteen cubits above the tops of
the highest mountains. On the other hand, it is not said that these
waters destroyed or dissolved these mountains; but, on the contrary,
these mountains remained in their places, and the ark rested on that
which the water first deserted. Besides how can it be imagined that,
during the short duration of the deluge, the waters were able to
dissolve the mountains and the whole body of the earth? Is it not an
absurdity to suppose that in forty days all marble, rocks, stones, and
minerals, were dissolved by water? Is it not a manifest contradiction to
admit this total dissolution, and at the same time maintain that shells,
bones, and marine productions were preserved entire, and resisted that
which had dissolved the most solid substances? I shall not therefore
hesitate to say, that Woodward, with excellent facts and observations,
has formed but a poor and inconsistent system.
Whiston, who came last, greatly enriched the other two, and
notwithstanding he gave a vast scope to his imagination has not fallen
into contradiction; he speaks of matters not very credible, but they are
neither absolutely nor evidently impossible. As we are ignorant of the
centre of the earth, he thought he might suppose it was a solid matter,
surrounded with a ring of heavy fluid, and afterwards with a ring of
water, on which the external crust was sustained; in the latter the
different parts of this crust were more or less sunk, in proportion to
their relative weights, which produced mountains and inequalities on the
surface of the earth. Here, however, this astronomer has committed a
mechanical blunder; he did not recollect that the earth, according to
this hypothesis, must be an uniform arch, and that consequently it could
not be borne on the water it contains, and much less sunk therein. I do
not know that there are any other physical errors; but he has made a
great number of errors, both in metaphysics and theology. On the whole
it cannot be denied absolutely that the earth meeting with the tail of a
comet might not be inundated, especially allowing the author that the
tail of a comet may contain aqueous vapours; nor can it be denied as an
absolute impossibility that the tail of a comet, in returning from its
perihelium, might not burn the earth, if we suppose, with Mr. Whiston,
that the comet passed very near the sun; it is the same with the rest of
the system. But though his ideas are not absolutely impossibilities,
there is so little probability to each thing, when taken separately,
that the result upon the whole taken together puts it beyond
credibility.