Reader. To call our views “religious and mysterious dreams” is no argument, doctor. We have a history of the earth far more certain than all your modern geology; and that portion of geology which is not fiction and charlatanism not only does not contradict, but rather completes and confirms, the Mosaic history.
Büchner. This is what I cannot admit. “It is now known that there can be no discussion about those periodic creations of the earth of which so much was said, and which to this day an erroneous conception of nature tries to identify with the so-called days of creation of the Bible; but that the whole past of the earth is nothing but an unfolded present” (ibid.)
Reader. You say, “It is known.” No, sir, it is not known; it is only wished. You infidels pretend to know a great many things of which you are ignorant. If you know that geology refutes the Bible, how does it happen that you cannot impart to us such a knowledge in a rational manner—that is, by proving what you assert?
Büchner. “Geology, supported by the knowledge of surrounding nature and its governing forces, is enabled to trace the history of what has happened in infinite periods of time with approximating exactness, frequently with certainty. It has proved that everywhere and at all times only those material and natural forces were in activity by which we are at present surrounded” (p. 59).
Reader. This cannot be proved by geology.
Büchner. “Nowhere was a point reached when it was necessary to stop scientific investigation, and to substitute the influence of unknown forces” (ibid.)
Reader. Not even for the origin of life?
Büchner. “Everywhere it was possible to indicate or to conceive the possibility of visible effects from the combination of natural conditions; everywhere existed the same law and the same matter” (ibid.)
Reader. Of course. But this does not exclude the intervention of a superior cause.
Büchner. “An enlightened intellect no longer requires the aid of that powerful hand which, acting from without, excites the burning spirits of the interior of the earth to a sudden rebellion, which pours the waters as a deluge over the earth, and shapes for its designs the whole structure like soft clay” (p. 60.)