442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



land was especially fruitful in champions of orthodoxy. First among 

 these may be named Thomas Burnet. In the last quarter of the sev- 

 enteenth century, just at the time when Newton's great discovery was 

 given to the world, Burnet issued his " Sacred Theory of the Earth." 

 His position was commanding ; he was a royal chaplain and a cabinet 

 officer of high standing. Planting himself upon the famous text in 

 the second epistle of Peter,* he declares that the flood had destroyed 

 the old and created a new world. The Newtonian theory he refuses 

 to accept. In his theory of the deluge he lays less stress upon the 

 " opening of the windows of heaven " than upon the " breaking up of 

 the fountains of the great deep." On this latter point he comes forth 

 with great strength. His theory is that the earth is hollow, and filled 

 with fluid like an eg,g. Mixing together the texts in Genesis and in 

 the second epistle of Peter, the theological doctrine of the " Fall," an 

 astronomical theory regarding the ecliptic, and sundry notions caught 

 from Descartes, he insisted that, before sin brought on the deluge, the 

 eaith was of perfect mathematical form, smooth and beautiful, " like 

 an Qggy^ with neither seas nor islands nor valleys nor rocks, "with 

 not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that all creation was equally 

 perfect. 



In the second book of his great work Burnet went still further. 

 As in his first book he had mixed his texts of Genesis and St. Peter 

 with Descartes, he now mixes the account of the Garden of Eden in 

 Genesis with heathen legends of the golden age, and concludes that 

 before the flood there was, over the whole earth, perpetual spring, dis- 

 turbed by no rain more severe than the falling of the dew. 



In addition to his other grounds for denying the earlier existence 

 of the sea, he assigns the reason that, if there had been a sea before 

 the Deluge, sinners would have learned to build ships, and so, when 

 the Deluge set in, could have saved themselves. 



The work was written with much power, and attracted universal 

 attention. It was translated into various languages, and called forth 

 a multitude of supporters and opponents in all parts of Europe. 

 Strong men rose against it — especially in England — and among them 

 a few dignitaries of the Church ; but the Church generally hailed the 

 work with joy. Addison praised it in a Latin ode, and for nearly a 

 century it exercised a strong influence upon t^uropean feeling. It 

 aided to plant more deeply than ever the theological opinion that the 

 existing earth is now but a ruin ; whereas, before sin brought on the 

 Flood, it was beautiful in its "egg-shaped form," and free from every 

 imperfection. 



A few years later came another writer of the highest standing — 

 William AVhiston, professor at Cambridge, who in 1696 published his 

 " New Theory of the Earth." Unlike Burnet, he endeavored to avail 

 himself of the Newtonian idea, and brought in, to aid the geological 



* Sec II Peter, iii, G. 



