Now, such must surely be the theory of this earth, if the land is
continually wasting in the operations of this world; for, to acknowledge
the perfection of those systems of plants and animals perpetuating their
species, and to suppose the system of this earth on which they must
depend, to be imperfect, and in time to perish, would be to reason
inconsistently or absurdly. This is the view of nature that I would wish
philosophers to take; but, there are certain prejudices of education or
prepossession of opinion among them to be overcome, before they can be
brought to see those fundamental propositions,--the wasting of the land,
and the necessity of its renovation by the co-operation of the mineral
system. Let us then consider how men of science, in examining the
mineral state of things, and reasoning from those appearances by which
we are to learn the physiology of this earth, have misled themselves
with regard to physical causes, and formed certain mineralogical and
geological theories, by which their judgment is so perverted, in
examining nature, as to exclude them from the proper means of correcting
their first erroneous notions, or render them blind to the clearest
evidence of any other theory that is proposed.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273