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Ch. IV.] 



SPIRIT OF INTOLERANCE. 



81 



more 



tained before, and they are gratified by supposing tliem con- 

 firmed by fresh and unexpected proofs. Many, who see 

 through the fallacy, have no wish to undeceive those who are 

 influenced by it, approving the effect of the delusion and 

 conniving at it as a pious fraud ; until, finally, an opposite 

 party, who are hostile to the sacred writings, labour to 

 explode the erroneous opinion, by substituting for it another 

 dogma which they know to be equally unsound. 



The heretical Yulcanists were soon after openly assailed in 

 England, by imputations of the most illiberal kind. We 



estimate 



mi 



7 ~ 



atheism must always be 

 erne at that moment 



of political excitement; and it was better, perhaps for 



good reception in society, that his moral character 



man s 



mark 



become 



I shall pass over the works of numerous divines, who may 

 be excused for sensitiveness on points which then excited 



T • * . _ _ _ 



so much uneasiness in the public mind 



nothing of the amiable poet Cowpei 

 expected to have enquired into the 

 physics. But in the 



and shall say 



merit of doctrines in 



of the intolerant are 



found several laymen who had high claims to scientific repu- 



foremost 



tation. 



of Edinburgh, who published 



Williams, a mineral 



a 'Natural History 



Mineral Kingdom,' in 1789; a work of great merit _ VMUV 

 day and of practical utility, as containing the best account 



of the coal strata. 



misrepresents Hutto 



theory altogether, and charges him with considering all 

 rocks to be lavas of different colours and structure ; and also 

 with warping everything to support the eternity of the 



t He 



Some drill and bore 



borne drill and bore TWtt*-™^ j ^ -. , , . -, 



The solid earth, and from the strata there To M ° ' *** re ™ ded ltS dat e 



-Lxtract a register, by which we learn, 



VOL. I. 



t P.577. 



To Moses, was mistaken in its age.' 

 The Task. Book iii. < The Garden.' 



