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HUTTONIAN THEORY. 



^33 



the crooked, the fquare and the round, the move- 

 able and the immoveable. Is it not evident 

 that fuch an explanation is a mere word ; or, if 

 any thing more than a word, an expreffion of 

 our ignorance, fo awkward and indirect, as to 

 deprive us of whatever credit might have been 

 gained by a plain and candid avowal of it? 



It fiiould never be forgotten, that a theory 

 which accounts for iuij tJjing, and a theory which 

 accounts for nothing^ (land precifely on the fame 

 footing, and ought to be baniihed from all parts 

 of philofophy, as they have been from thofe 

 fciences which are juftly honoured with the name 

 of accurate. The animated orbs of Ariftotle, and 

 the vortices of Des Cartes, have long ceafed to be 

 mentioned in phyfical aftronomy ; the firit, be- 

 caufe they accounted for every thing alike ; the 

 fecond, becaufe, when they accounted for one' 

 thing, they never could be made to account for 

 another. Both theories, therefore, have very 

 properly been rejeded ; and, when geology 

 ihall undergo a fimilar purification, the princi- 

 ple we have been confidcring will not be the 



V 



only facrifice required of the Neptunian fyftem. 

 2o8. An appearance obferved in fome kinds 



\ 



of primary fchiftus, which clearly indicates their 



depolition by water, and in planes very different 

 from thofe in which we now fee them, though 



it might have been introduced before, is alio 



m u c h 



