ON THEORIES OF THE EARTH. 389 



the attempts, of all ages, equally, to get rid of their 

 imagined enemy, the Deity himself, and such the 

 blindness which does not see that He is still behind 

 all, the irreinoveable ; the Necessary, the Eternal, The 

 Cause. 



If I need not assign the relative merits of Kepler 

 and Patrin, suffice it that the Earth is a living ani- 

 mal. Vital fluids circulate, minerals are produced by 

 assimilation, the mountains are lungs, the schists are 

 glands, secretion causes volcanoes, and even chemistry 

 is an animal power. Patrin at least was a geologist : 

 conchologists or geologists, " hand multum distant." 

 I need not however tell the scholar that this "vitality" 

 of the celestial bodies has not the merit of novelty ; 

 and all can see that the sympathies of molecules are 

 the "understanding" of the Stoics. 



Bertrand finds the earth to be a hollow sphere in- 

 cluding a moveable magnet. The approach of a comet 

 alters the centre of gravity, and thus the earth is in- 

 undated : whence the several irruptions and retreats 

 of the sea. But Mr. Marschall has discovered that it 

 was formed from meteoric stones, which, arriving 

 from other spheres, brought with them the organic 

 bodies of those worlds ; whence the lost species of 

 our own must ever be sought in vain, without, at 

 least, the powers of Micromegas. It is not surprising 

 that geology has been a subject of ridicule. 



Theories of Burnet, Whixton, Woodward, and others. 



Though the "'Sacred theory of the earth" i-s an hy- 

 pothesis, Burnet is not without arguments drawn 

 from facts ; while we must not forget how little was 

 known in 1681. Yet has he furnished valuable hints 

 to modern system makers ; while, in his eloquence 

 and the grandeur of his views, he has had no rival, 



