CHAPTER V 



THE SPECIAL SOCIOLOGICAL ERRORS 



ABOUT a century ago, in 1806, Cuvier said of 

 geology, that it was "a tissue of hypotheses 

 and conjectures, so vain and so contradictory to 

 each other that it had become almost impossible 

 to pronounce its name without exciting laughter," 

 All sorts of wild explanations were put forward 

 to explain observed facts. For example, to ac- 

 count for the shells and fossils found high up in 

 the Alps, the hypothesis was advanced that they 

 had been carried there by the Great Deluge; 

 another hypothesis was that they were only 

 "freaks of nature," bearing merely an accidental 

 resemblance to animals and plants; while the 

 celebrated Voltaire suggested that the shells and 

 fossils must have been dropped there by the pil- 

 grims, who used to cross the mountains in former 

 centuries on their way to Rome. It was the pre- 

 scientific period in geology, when a great mass of 

 facts had been accumulated, but all the observa- 

 tions were still in a chaotic condition. No clear 

 guiding principle had been found, around which 

 the known facts could be grouped. The entire 



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