ARTICLE II.
FROM THE SYSTEM OF WHISTON6
This Author commences his treatise by a dissertation on the creation of the world; he says that the account of it given by Moses in the text of Genesis has not been rightly understood; that the translators have confined themselves too much to the letter and superficial views, without attending to nature, reason, and philosophy. The common notion of the world being made in six days, he says is absolutely false, and that the description given by Moses, is not an exact and philosophical narration of the creation and origin of the universe, but only an historical representation of the terrestrial globe. The earth, according to him, existed in the chaos; and, at the time mentioned by Moses, received the form, situation and consistency necessary to be inhabited by the human race. I shall not enter into a detail of his proofs, nor undertake their refutation. The exposition we have just made, is sufficient to demonstrate the difference of his opinion with public facts, its contrariety with scripture, and consequently the insufficiency of his proofs. On the whole, he treats this matter as a theological controvertist, rather than as an enlightened philosopher.
Leaving these erroneous principles, he flies to ingenious suppositions, which, although extraordinary, yet have a degree of probability to those who, like him, incline to the enthusiasm of system. He says, that the ancient chaos, the origin of our earth, was the atmosphere of a comet: that the annual motion of the earth began at the time it took its new form, but that its diurnal motion began only when the first man fell. That the ecliptic cut the tropic of cancer, opposite to the terrestrial paradise, which was situated on the north-west side of the frontiers of Assyria: that before the deluge, the year began at the autumnal equinox: that the orbits of the planets, and the earth were then perfect circles. That the deluge began the 18th of November, 2365 of the Julian period, or 2349 years before Christ. That the solar and lunar year were then the same, and that they exactly contained 360 days. That a comet descending in the plane of the ecliptic towards its perihelion, passed near the globe of the earth the same day as the deluge began: that there is a great heat in the internal part of the terrestrial globe, which constantly diffuses itself from the centre to the circumference; that the form of the earth is like that of an egg, the ancient emblem of the globe; that mountains are the lightest part of the earth, &c. He afterwards attributes all the alterations and changes which have happened to the earth, to the universal deluge; then blindly adopts the theory of Woodward, and indiscriminately makes use of all the observations of that author on the present state of the globe; but assumes originality when he speaks of its future state: according to him it will be consumed by fire, and its destruction will be preceded by terrible earthquakes, thunder, and frightful meteors; the Sun and Moon will have an hideous aspect, the heavens will appear to fall, and the flames will be general over all the earth; but when the fire shall have devoured all the impurities it contains; when it shall be vitrified and rendered transparent as crystal, the saints and the blessed spirits will return and take possession of it, and there remain till the day of judgment.
These hypotheses, at the first glance, appear to be rash and extravagant assertions; nevertheless the author has managed them with such address, and treated them with such strength, that they cease to appear absolutely chimerical. He supports his subjects with much science, and it is surprising that, from a mixture of ideas so very absurd, a system could be formed with an air of probability. It has not affected vulgar minds so much as it has dazzled the eyes of the learned, because they are more easily deceived by the glare of erudition, and the power of novel ideas. Mr. Whiston was a celebrated astronomer, in the constant habit of considering the heavens, observing the stars, and contemplating the wonderful course of nature; he could never persuade himself that this small grain of sand, this Earth which we inhabit, occupied more the attention of the Creator than the universe, the vast extent of which contains millions of other Suns and Earths. He pretends, that Moses has not given us the history of the first creation of this globe, but only a detail of the new form that it took when the Almighty turned it from the mass of a comet into a planet, and formed it into a proper habitation for men. Comets are, in fact, subjected to terrible vicissitudes by reason of the eccentricity of their orbits. Sometimes, like that in 1680, it is a thousand times hotter there than red-hot iron; and sometimes a thousand times colder than ice; if they are, therefore, inhabited it must be by strange creatures, of which we can have no conception.
The planets, on the contrary, are places of rest, where the distance of the sun not varying much, the temperature remains nearly the same, and permits different kinds of plants and animals to grow and multiply.
In the beginning God created the world; but, observes our author, the earth was then an uninhabitable comet, suffering alternatively the excess of heat and cold, its liquifying and freezing by turns formed a chaos, or an abyss, surrounded with thick darkness: "and darkness covered the face of the deep," & tenebræ erant superfaciam abissi. This chaos was the atmosphere of the comet, a body composed of heterogeneous matters, the centre occupied by spherical, solid, and hot substances, of about two thousand leagues in diameter, round which a very great surface of a thick fluid extended, mixed with an unshapen and confused matter, like the chaos of the ancient rudis & indigestaque moles.
This vast atmosphere contained but very few dry, solid, or terrestrial 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.
ARTICLE III.
FROM THE SYSTEM OF BURNET.7
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.
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,8 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.