difplays not perhaps that vivacity of imagination nor that feducing eloquence which diftinguish Meffieurs de Buffon and Bailly; he will not captivate fo many readers, nor obtain fuch rapid conqueft of opinions; but profound, clear, and concife reafoning will, when his work shall be better known to the learned of Europe, fecure to him a more folid reputation of real fcience. Suppofe him not, however, deftitute of imagination; his, it is true, is not exhaled in the flowers of ftyle; but that chapter of his work in which he calls into order the confused abyss of fluid matter, and in which he combines, 'arranges, and develops the fucceffive origin of the various fubftances of which the earth is now composed, will fhew him to have possessed that vaft conception and that quickness of feizing the most diftant connection of things which truly characterize the great genius. Mr. de Luc of Geneva, already mentioned, published about the fame time his fentiments on the fame fubjects, and, though probably uncommunicated, their opinions coincide on most points. As of a more concife and regular system, I fhall chiefly confine myself to an abstract of the work of Mr. Wallerius. You will be surprised, Sir, to find him closely following step by step, and in fact confining himself to the explication of that mosaical narration which the philofophers of your nation have accustomed you to look upon as a confused tale, inexplicable by nature, and unworthy of the attention of the man of fcience; or at least as the disguised and veiled account of the creation, meant not to convey phyfical truths, but calculated to fuit the prejudices and understandings of an illiterate

and

and ignorant people. Here you will fee the fucceffive progress of creation delineated, however briefly, by Mofes, not only connected with but fupported and confirmed by the fucceffive application of the only well known fundamental laws of nature. In fact, if that narrative is true, and, as christians suppose, inspired by the Divinity himself, nothing in it, though certainly not intended directly to inftruct us in the arcana of nature, fhould be found incompatible with her pofitive and immutable laws. When the fun is faid to ftand ftill in Gibeon, or to retrograde on the dial of Ezechias, scripture talks only of appearances as these really were, effected not by any alteration in the rotation of the whole earth, but by fome partial refraction of its rays, as yet happens in fome mornings or evenings before that body really appears in fight, or after it has in fact disappeared. It talks the language then alone comprehenfible, as we yet do, though we know the contrary, in common converfation: but here it relates facts without attending to their being perfectly comprehended or not; its only object is to inftruct us that God was the fole creator and disposer of all that is. This idea of the neceffary truth of facts afferted in Genefis will both account for the anxiety of Mr. Wallerius and myself to fhew that no part of these facts is really inexplicable by true philofophy, though for want of more certain knowledge our explications may yet be defective.

You have feen, Sir, that I have already endeavoured to fhew, from the most authentic documents of the history and gradual pro3 N

grefs

grefs of mankind, that the time elapfed fince a general deluge, the tradition of which has been from time immemorial preserved by all nations, cannot be of much longer duration than what may coincide with fome of the various chronologies of fcripture; and that probably the first existence of mankind is not of much older date than what these will warrant. I have alfo, I think, demonftrated that the arguments adduced by Mr. de Buffon and others to prove a very high and almost indefinite antiquity to the globe itself are both inconclufive and fallacious; and I have fhewn against those who reclaim the unerring teftimonies of nature herself against history and the narration of the first of hiftorians, that these pretended teftimonies are in fo much more doubtful as their adducers difagree amongst themfelves; and that the jarring systems hitherto fubftituted to the mosaical account, fo far from according better with the laws of nature, or being a clearer explication of her paft and prefent ftate, are generally founded on abfurd or ideal hypothefes, and often in direct oppofition withthe most certain principles hitherto deduced from her. By the following expofition of the opinions of Meffieurs Wallerius and De Luc, you will perceive that in what I may hereafter offer as an explication of Genesis and of nature I am not fingular, but fupported by the fentiments of fome men of high reputation and of profound learning, amongst whom I may alfo reckon my countryman Mr. Whitehurst. To Mr. Wallerius I with pleasure own that I owe not only a confirmation of my before pre-conceived fentiments, but a much clearer arrangement of them, and a more regular connec

tion with, and application of, the fundamental laws of nature. A fhort abftract of his fyftem will, therefore, be a proper and leading introduction to the more detailed opinions which I fhall hereafter. prefume to offer to your confideration.

*" In principio creavit Deus cœlum et terram;" that is to say, the original matter or fubftance of all things-the pure elements of celeftial or luminous matter, and the pure elements of terreftrial matter and of all folid bodies. The firft confifts of particles infinitely fubtle, light, and qualified for motion and activity; the fecond, of particles fixed and motionless of themselves, very hard and incapable of flaming or fhining.

"Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebræ erant fuper faciem abyffi." According to the Septuagint verfion, the earth was as yet fimple and unprepared. Thefe matters were yet inert, without life or motion, and the mass of this abyfs by their confused union was as yet dark; but foon the spirit of God, which neither means wind nor air not yet exifting, acted upon them, and communicated to these two primordial principles attraction and re-action, causes of all motion, of cohesion and of all combinations. This immediate action of the spirit or power of God, efficient and creative force of all things, by these new properties impressed on these

*The following quotations made by Mr. Wallerius are not taken from the Vulgate, but from fome Latin tranflation ufed in Sweden.

elements, occafioned the earthy principle to combine with the luminous principle, and gave birth to calorific and to inflammable matter, which, giving neceffarily an intrinsic motion to the whole mass, put it into a state of fluidity, or, according to Mofes, changed it into water; for it is only after the action of the fpirit of God that he calls it by that name. 'The celeftial matter or the matter of light, the active principle, was neceffary to imprefs motion, to produce calorific matter, heat and the inflammable principle; and it was by the means of thefe laft that the terreftrial particles became fluid. The active principle or the principle of light, as well as the paffive or terrestrial principle, exifted then before these combinations; but light was produced when God faid, "Fiat lux," and feparated the light from darkness. According to St. Paul, "Deus juffit lucem de tenebris lucere:" whence it follows that the matter of light was already present in the darkness, though it only began to thine when God impreffed on it a new activity neceffary to produce that effect. "Divifit Deus lucem à tenebris:"-he made a local feparation of them by withdrawing from the great mafs of the abyss the fuperabundant matter of light no longer neceffary for the first combinations. By the action of this moft powerful and active matter of light, thus feparated and difengaged from the great mafs, God gave to the watery terreftrial matter a motion of rotation on its axis; and hence the diftinction of night and day, the first of which muft, as Mofes fays, have neceffarily preceded. This rotation and the new motions. which it caused in the watery mafs gave room for an infinity of

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