CHAP. III.

PART I. defect in the analysis, have been crying out by the mouth of Newton, during the last ten pages, to the eager and unheeding progress of the mineral geology-Siste, viator!-Halt! They are these: It seems probable to me, (said "the wise, sober, and circumspect Newton,) "that GOD, in the beginning, formed matter, in

"

solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable

particles, of such sizes and figures, and with "such other properties, and in such proportions "to space, as most conduced to the end for which "HE formed them.-All material things seem "to have been composed of the hard and solid "particles above mentioned, variously associated "in the FIRST CREATION by the counsels of an "INTELLIGENT AGENT. For it became HIM "who created them to set them in order; and "if He did so, it is unphilosophical to seek "for any other origin of this world, or to pretend that it might rise out of a CHAOS by the mere laws of Nature; though, being once formed, it may continue by those laws "for many ages 1."

σε

This is the test, to which we were to bring and apply the root of the mineral geology. Now, it must be evident to every understanding, that the mundane. system which supposed the earth to be at rest on the back of a

CHAP. III.

tortoise, is not more fundamentally in opposition PART I. to the planetary system of Newton, than the conclusions of the mineral geology, which we have just read, concerning the MODE of first formations, are in opposition to the conclusions of Newton upon the same subject; which conclusions constitute the basis of his philosophy.

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The confused assemblage of elements, or "chaotic ocean,"

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instabilis tellus, innabilis unda,

from which the mineral geology derives the
figure, symmetry, beauty, and accommoda-
tion, which we "observe and experience" in
this earthly system, is no other than the
CHAOS," which Newton has expressly and
pointedly rejected and reprobated. The opera-
tion, which he entitles "the setting in order,"
is the very same which the mineral geology de-
scribes as "the forming successively a chemical,
"a mineral, and a geognostic structure." That ope-
ration, Newton ascribed to the immediate intel-
ligence and power of God; the mineral geology,
attributes it to general chemistry, and to certain
laws of affinity, acting through a long succession
of ages;

Donicum ad extremum crescendi perfica finem
Omnia perduxit rerum Natura creatrix'.

LUCRETIUS, ii. 1115.

PART 1.

CHAP. III.

Till all things, to their end of growing brought,
Creative Nature in perfection wrought.

Newton emphatically, and as it were by a pro-
phetical judgment, pronounced this conclusion
of the mineral geology to be "unphilosophical;"
and therefore, essentially contrary to that which
alone he acknowledged to be philosophical,
according to the principles of his own philo-
sophy.

This judgment, indeed, chiefly affects the Neptunian system; but he has not altogether forgotten the Plutonian, which perpetually replaces a perishing system of the globe with a new one, by "the mere laws of nature:" "The growth of new systems out of old ones,' says he, "without the mediation of a DIVINE POWER, seems to me apparently absurd'.

1 Third Letter to Dr. Bentley.

"

CHAPTER IV.

CHAP. IV.

Ir will be instructive and important, to PART I. trace with some minuteness the opposition of doctrine, between the philosophies of Newton and of the mineral geology, respecting a chaotic state of this globe; and to observe, how deeply the foundation of that opposition is laid.

When Newton had remarked, that the planets presented to the view figures of obtuse spheroids, and not of perfect spheres; when he had reflected upon the nature of that peculiar figure, and had contemplated those orbs as subjected, in their revolutions, to the adverse actions of gravity and centrifugal force; his penetrating mind at length discovered, that the rule of harmony and equilibrium between those two contending powers was only to be found in the figure of an obtuse spheroid. To make this fact plain to the understanding of others, he imagined this hypothetical illustration." If," said he, "the "earth were formed of an uniformly yielding substance, and if it were to become deprived

66

PART I.

CHAP. IV.

-

1

"of
of its motion," si terra constaret ex uni-
"formi materia, motuque omni privaretur 1 ;”
the law of gravity acting equally, and without
resistance, from all points of its surface towards
its centre, would cause that yielding substance
to settle into the figure of a perfect sphere.
But, if it were then to receive a transverse im-
pulse, which should cause it to revolve upon
its axis, the new transverse force would coun-
teract the former force of gravity, by urging
the particles composing the yielding substance,
from their centre, towards their circumference;,
and would thus produce an alteration in the
figure of that sphere. For, the new force would
tend to elevate the surface, and would have
most power at the equator, and least at the
poles; whereas the opposite force of gravity.
would tend to depress the surface, and would
have most power at the poles, and least at the
equator. The result of this inequality of gravita-
tion must necessarily be, that the original sphere,
becoming elevated at the equator, but not at the
poles, and the elevating power gradually dimi-
nishing from the equator to the poles, its figure
would be eventually changed into that of an
obtuse spheroid.