and no small sensation was excited when Hutton seemed, with unhallowed hand, desirous to erase characters already regarded by many as sacred. "In the economy of the world," said the Scotch geologist, "I can find no traces of a beginning, no prospect of an end;" a declaration the more startling when coupled with the doctrine, that all past ages on the globe had been brought about by the slow agency of existing causes. The imagination was first fatigued and overpowered by endeavoring to conceive the immensity of time required for the annihilation of whole continents by so insensible a process; and when the thoughts had wandered through these interminable periods, no resting-place was assigned in the remotest distance. The oldest rocks were represented to be of a derivative nature, the last of an antecedent series, and that, perhaps, one of many pre-existing worlds. Such views of the immensity of past time, like those unfolded by the Newtonian philosophy in regard to space, were too vast to awaken ideas of sublimity unmixed with a painful sense of our incapacity to conceive a plan of such infinite extent. Worlds are seen beyond worlds immeasurably distant from each other, and, beyond them all, innumerable other systems are faintly traced on the confines of the visible universe.
The characteristic feature of the Huttonian theory was, as before hinted, the exclusion of all causes not supposed to belong to the present order of nature. But Hutton had made no step beyond Hooke, Moro, and Raspe, in pointing out in what manner the laws now governing subterranean movements might bring about geological changes, if sufficient time be allowed. On the contrary, he seems to have fallen far short of some of their views, especially when he refused to attribute any part of the external configuration of the earth's crust to subsidence. He imagined that the continents were first gradually destroyed by aqueous degradation; and when their ruins had furnished materials for new continents, they were upheaved by violent convulsions. He therefore required alternate periods of general disturbance and repose; and such he believed had been, and would forever be, the course of nature.
Generelli, in his exposition of Moro's system, had made a far nearer approximation towards reconciling geological appearances with the state of nature as known to us; for while he agreed with Hutton, that the decay and reproduction of rocks were always in progress, proceeding with the utmost uniformity, the learned Carmelite represented the repairs of mountains by elevation from below to be effected by an equally constant and synchronous operation. Neither of these theories, considered singly, satisfies all the conditions of the great problem, which a geologist, who rejects cosmological causes, is called upon to solve; but they probably contain together the germs of a perfect system. There can be no doubt, that periods of disturbance and repose have followed each other in succession in every region of the globe; but it may be equally true, that the energy of the subterranean movements has been always uniform as regards the whole earth. The force of earthquakes may for a cycle of years have been invariably confined, as it is now, to large but determinate spaces, and may then have gradually shifted its position, so that another region, which had for ages been at rest, became in its turn the grand theatre of action.
Playfair's illustrations of Hutton.—The explanation proposed by Hutton, and by Playfair, the illustrator of his theory, respecting the origin of valleys and of alluvial accumulations, was also very imperfect. They ascribed none of the inequalities of the earth's surface to movements which accompanied the upheaving of the land, imagining that valleys in general were formed in the course of ages by the rivers now flowing in them; while they seem not to have reflected on the excavating and transporting power which the waves of the ocean might exert on land during its emergence.
Although Hutton's knowledge of mineralogy and chemistry was considerable, he possessed but little information concerning organic remains; they merely served him, as they did Werner, to characterize certain strata, and to prove their marine origin. The theory of former revolutions in organic life was not yet fully recognized; and without this class of proofs in support of the antiquity of the globe, the indefinite periods demanded by the Huttonian hypothesis appeared visionary to many; and some, who deemed the doctrine inconsistent with revealed truths, indulged very uncharitable suspicions of the motives of its author. They accused him of a deliberate design of reviving the heathen dogma of an "eternal succession," and of denying that this world ever had a beginning. Playfair, in the biography of his friend, has the following comment on this part of their theory:—"In the planetary motions, where geometry has carried the eye so far, both into the future and the past, we discover no mark either of the commencement or termination of the present order. It is unreasonable, indeed, to suppose that such marks should anywhere exist. The Author of Nature has not given laws to the universe, which, like the institutions of men, carry in themselves the elements of their own destruction. He has not permitted in His works any symptom of infancy or of old age, or any sign by which we may estimate either their future or their past duration. He may put an end, as he no doubt gave a beginning, to the present system, at some determinate period of time; but we may rest assured that this great catastrophe will not be brought about by the laws now existing, and that it is not indicated, by any thing which we perceive."[107]
The party feeling excited against the Huttonian doctrines, and the open disregard of candor and temper in the controversy, will hardly be credited by the reader, unless he recalls to his recollection that the mind of the English public was at that time in a state of feverish excitement. A class of writers in France had been laboring industriously for many years, to diminish the influence of the clergy, by sapping the foundations of the Christian faith; and their success, and the consequences of the Revolution, had alarmed the most resolute minds, while the imagination of the more timid was continually haunted by dread of innovation, as by the phantom of some fearful dream.
Voltaire.—Voltaire had used the modern discoveries in physics as one of the numerous weapons of attack and ridicule directed by him against the Scriptures. He found that the most popular systems of geology were accommodated to the sacred writings, and that much ingenuity had been employed to make every fact coincide exactly with the Mosaic account of the creation and deluge. It was, therefore, with no friendly feelings that he contemplated the cultivators of geology in general, regarding the science as one which had been successfully enlisted by theologians as an ally in their cause.[108] He knew that the majority of those who were aware of the abundance of fossil shells in the interior of continents, were still persuaded that they were proofs of the universal deluge; and as the readiest way of shaking this article of faith, he endeavored to inculcate skepticism as to the real nature of such shells, and to recall from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth century, that they were sports of nature. He also pretended that vegetable impressions were not those of real plants.[109] Yet he was perfectly convinced that the shells had really belonged to living testacea, as may be seen in his essay "On the formation of Mountains."[110] He would sometimes, in defiance of all consistency, shift his ground when addressing the vulgar; and, admitting the true nature of the shells collected in the Alps and other places, pretend that they were Eastern species, which had fallen from the hats of pilgrims coming from Syria. The numerous essays written by him on geological subjects were all calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly because he was ignorant of the real state of the science, and partly from his bad faith.[111] On the other hand, they who knew that his attacks were directed by a desire to invalidate Scripture, and who were unacquainted with the true merits of the question, might well deem the old diluvian hypothesis incontrovertible, if Voltaire could adduce no better argument against it than to deny the true nature of organic remains.
It is only by careful attention to impediments originating in extrinsic causes, that we can explain the slow and reluctant adoption of the simplest truths in geology. First, we find many able naturalists adducing the fossil remains of marine animals as proofs of an event related in Scripture. The evidence is deemed conclusive by the multitude for a century or more; for it favors opinions which they entertained before, and they are gratified by supposing them confirmed by fresh and unexpected proofs. Many who see through the fallacy have no wish to undeceive those who are influenced by it, approving the effect of the delusion, and conniving at it as a pious fraud; until, finally, an opposite party, who are hostile to the sacred writings, labor to explode the erroneous opinion, by substituting for it another dogma, which they know to be equally unsound.
The heretical Vulcanists were soon after openly assailed in England, by imputations of the most illiberal kind. We cannot estimate the malevolence of such a persecution, by the pain which similar insinuations might now inflict; for although charges of infidelity and atheism must always be odious, they were injurious in the extreme at that moment of political excitement; and it was better, perhaps, for a man's good reception in society, that his moral character should have been traduced, than that he should become a mark for these poisoned weapons.
I shall pass over the works of numerous divines, who may be excused for sensitiveness on points which then excited so much uneasiness in the public mind; and shall say nothing of the amiable poet Cowper,[112] who could hardly be expected to have inquired into the merit of doctrines in physics. But in the foremost ranks of the intolerant are found several laymen who had high claims to scientific reputation. Among these appears Williams, a mineral surveyor of Edinburgh, who published a "Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom," in 1789; a work of great merit, for that day, and of practical utility, as containing the best account of the coal strata. In his preface he misrepresents Hutton's theory altogether, and charges him with considering all rocks to be lavas of different colors and structure; and also with "warping every thing to support the eternity of the world."[113] He descants on the pernicious influence of such skeptical notions, as leading to downright infidelity and atheism, "and as being nothing less than to depose the Almighty Creator of the universe from his office."[114]