f loose and incoherent materials; and that
those same means have also been employed in changing the place and
situation of those strata. But how describe an operation which man
cannot have any opportunity of perceiving? Or how imagine that, for
which, perhaps, there are not proper data to be found? We only know,
that the land is raised by a power which has for principle subterraneous
heat; but, how that land is preserved in its elevated station, is a
subject in which we have not even the means to form conjecture; at
least, we ought to be cautious how we indulge conjecture in a subject
where no means occur for trying that which is but supposition.

We now proceed, from the facts which have been properly established, to
reason with regard to the duration of this globe, or the general view of
its operations, as a living world, maintaining plants and animals.

SECTION IV.

System of Decay and Renovation observed in the Earth.

Philosophers observing an apparent disorder and confusion in the solid
parts of this globe, have been led to conclude, that there formerly
existed a more regular and uniform state, in the constitution of this
earth; that there had happened some destructive change; and that the
original structure of the earth had been broken and disturbed by some
violent operation, whether natural, or from a super-natural cause. Now,
all these appearances, from which conclusions of this kind have been
formed, find the most perfect explanation in the theory which we have
been endeavouring to establish; for they are the facts from whence we
have reasoned, in discovering the nature and constitution of this earth:
Therefore, there is no occasion for having recourse to any unnatural
supposition of evil, to any destructive accident in nature, or to the
agency of any preternatural cause, in explaining that which actually
appears.

It is necessary for a living or inhabited world, that this should
consist of land and water. It is also necessary, that the land should be
solid and stable, refilling, with great power, the violent efforts
of the ocean; and, at the same time, that this solid land should be
resolved by the influence of the sun and atmosphere, so as to decay,
and thus become a soil for vegetation. But these general intentions are
perfectly fulfilled in the constitution of our earth, which has been now
investigated. This great body being formed of different mixed masses,
having various degrees of hardness and so