54 THE NEW SCIENCE AND ENGLISH LITERATURE 



to this service. The first part of the Sacred Theory appeared in a 

 Latin quarto, 1680, and was commended by Charles II. In 1684 

 an English folio was published dedicated to the King. Nine years 

 later the second part came out; and three years afterward his 

 Archaelogiae PkilosopJiiae, the offspring of the former study, satir- 

 ized the biblical account of the fall of man. 



Then the battle was on. No sooner had the Sacred Theory been 

 discovered than it was attacked. Erasmus Warren, Rector of 

 Worlington in Suffolk, wrote the first criticism. Burnet answered ; 

 Warren fell upon the theory again, adding a personal attack; 

 Burnet retorted in kind. In 1698 Dr. Keill wrote an essay against 

 the Sacred Theory, to which Burnet replied in A Review, etc. At 

 almost the same time Whiston's Netu Theory of the Earth was 

 published (1697), Then Blount praised Burnet's work in his 

 Oracles of Reason. But the Bishop thought he had vindicated 

 his theory and was afterwards silent. Dr. Keill, however, wrote 

 a second criticism in 1734, which practically refuted the entire 

 hypothesis upon which Burnet had built his wonderful fabrication. 

 These "flytings" are all far inferior to the Sacred Theory itself, 

 with which this discussion is to deal. It may be noted in passing 

 what the judgment of the phlegmatic scientists was upon this 

 book. Dr. Keill claimed "that it was his (Burnet's) unhappiness 

 to begin at first with the Cartesian Philosophy, and not having a 

 sufficient Stock of Mathematical and Mechanical Principles to ex- 

 amine rightly, he rashly believed it, and thought that there was 

 but little skill required in those Sciences to become a Philosopher; 

 and therefore, in Imitation of Descartes, he could undertake to 

 show how the World was made, a task too great even for a Mathe- 

 matician. "^^^ When the author made inquiry of Dr. Flamstead 

 as to his opinion of the Sacred Theory that scientist's laconic reply 

 was, — "There goes more to the making of the World than a fine 

 turned Period". "The whole Theory", he said, could be over- 

 thrown in "one sheet of paper ".^^° The written page does not 

 record the author's answer. 



Burnet, however, was a writer of splendid imagination and 

 possessed of a power of vivid description. He was also a man of 



^^ Sacred Theory, vol. I, Preface, p. XXXI. 

 ^Sacred Theory, vol. I, Preface, p. XXXI. 



