urpose
that the nature of the documents should at length be correctly
understood, if men were to be prevented from deducing fair conclusions
from them.

_Diluvial Theory._--The theologians who now entered the field in Italy,
Germany, France, and England, were innumerable; and henceforward, they
who refused to subscribe to the position, that all marine organic
remains were proofs of the Mosaic deluge, were exposed to the imputation
of disbelieving the whole of the sacred writings. Scarcely any step had
been made in approximating to sound theories since the time of
Fracastoro, more than a hundred years having been lost, in writing down
the dogma that organized fossils were mere sports of nature. An
additional period of a century and a half was now destined to be
consumed in exploding the hypothesis, that organized fossils had all
been buried in the solid strata by Noah's flood. Never did a theoretical
fallacy, in any branch of science, interfere more seriously with
accurate observation and the systematic classification of facts. In
recent times, we may attribute our rapid progress chiefly to the careful
determination of the order of succession in mineral masses, by means of
their different organic contents, and their regular superposition. But
the old diluvialists were induced by their system to confound all the
groups of strata together instead of discriminating,--to refer all
appearances to one cause and to one brief period, not to a variety of
causes acting throughout a long succession of epochs. They saw the
phenomena only as they desired to see them, sometimes misrepresenting
facts, and at other times deducing false conclusions from correct data.
Under the influence of such prejudices, three centuries were of as
little avail as a few years in our own times, when we are no longer
required to propel the vessel against the force of an adverse current.

It may be well, therefore, to forewarn the reader, that in tracing the
history of geology from the close of the seventeenth to the end of the
eighteenth century, he must expect to be occupied with accounts of the
retardation, as well as of the advance, of the science. It will be
necessary to point out the frequent revival of exploded errors, and the
relapse from sound to the most absurd opinions; and to dwell on futile
reasoning and visionary hypothesis, because some of the most extravagant
systems were invented or controverted by men of acknowledged talent. In
short, a