THE NATURE OF FOSSILS 



35 



common-sense was long- kept up. Dr. Ralph Cudworth 

 of Cambridge taught that there is in nature a subor- 

 dinate creative force of limited power and wisdom, to 

 whose imperfections may be attributed the " errors 

 and bungles " which now and then mar the work. To 

 this subordinate creative force he gave the name of 

 "vegetative soul," or "plastic nature." None but 

 Cambridge men, it would appear, felt the weight of 

 Cudworth's reasoning ; but several of these, and espe- 

 cially John Ray 1 and Martin Lister, defended his 

 conclusions in published treatises. Lister, in a chapter 

 devoted to " cochlites," or shell-shaped stones, pointed 

 out that they differ from true shells in being of larger 

 size, in occurring far from the sea, in being formed of 

 mere stony substance, and in being often imperfect. 

 Some naturalists had conjectured that the living animals 

 of the cochlites still exist at great depths in the sea, but 

 Lister evidently thought otherwise. 



In the eighteenth century the belief that fossils are the 

 remains of actual animals and plants more and more pre- 

 vailed, the death and sealing up of the organisms being 

 generally attributed to Noah's flood. The occurrence 

 of fossils on high mountains seemed so strong a con- 

 firmation of the Biblical narrative that Voltaire was 

 driven to invent puerile explanations in order to dispel 

 an inference so unwelcome to him. By the end of 

 the century most naturalists accepted the doctrine that 

 the great majority of fossils are the remains of organ- 

 isms now extinct a doctrine which was enforced by 

 the remarkable discoveries of Cuvier (see p. 93). 

 Nearly at the same time William Smith established the 



1 Ray came at last to believe that tossils were the remains of 

 actual organisms, but he was still much hampered by his theolo- 

 gical views. 



