no
resemblance. I see certain treatises named Theories of the Earth; but, I
find not any thing that entitles them to be considered as such, unless
it be their endeavouring to explain certain appearances which are
observed in the earth. That a proper theory of the earth should explain
all those appearances is true; but, it does not hold, conversely, that
the explanation of an appearance should constitute a theory of the
earth. So far as the theory of the earth shall be considered as the
philosophy or physical knowledge of this world, that is to say, a
general view of the means by which the end or purpose is attained,
nothing can be properly esteemed such a theory unless it lead, in some
degree, to the forming of that general view of things. But now, let us
see what we have to examine in that respect.

We have, first, Burnet's Theory of the Earth. This surely cannot be
considered in any other light than as a dream, formed upon the poetic
fiction of a golden age, and that of iron which had succeeded it; at the
same time, there are certain appearances in the earth which would, in a
partial view of things, seem to justify that imagination. In Telliamed,
again, we have a very ingenious theory, with regard to the production of
the earth above the surface of the sea, and of the origin of those
land animals which now inhabit that earth. This is a theory which has
something in it like a regular system, such as we might expect to find
in nature; but, it is only a physical romance, and cannot be considered
in a serious view, although apparently better founded than most of that
which has been wrote upon the subject.

We have then a theory of a very different kind; this is that of the
Count de Buffon. Here is a theory, not founded on any regular system,
but upon an irregularity of nature, or an accident supposed to have
happened to the sun. But, are we to consider as a theory of the earth,
an accident by which a planetary body had been made to increase the
number of these in the solar system? The circumvolution of a planetary
body (allowing it to have happened in that manner) cannot form the
system of a world, such as our earth exhibits; and, in forming a theory
of the earth, it is required to see the aptitude of every part of this
complicated machine to fulfil the purpose of its intention, and not to
suppose the wise system of this world to have arisen from, the cooling
of a lump of melted matter which had belonged to another body.