A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

of geology, which in a stable and tested form belongs to the nineteenth century. Of its theoretic founders in the eighteenth century, Werner and Dr. James Hutton (1726-1797), the latter and more important [1899] is known from his Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge (1794) to have been consciously a freethinker on more grounds than that of his naturalistic science; and his Theory of the World (1795) was duly denounced as atheistic. [1900] Whereas the physical infinity of the universe almost forced the orthodox to concede a vast cosmic process of some kind as preceding the shaping of the earth and solar system, the formation of these within six days was one of the plainest assertions in the sacred books; and every system of geology excluded such a conception. As the evidence accumulated, in the hands of men mostly content to deprecate religious opposition, [1901] there was duly evolved the quaint compromise of the doctrine that the Biblical six "days" meant six ages--a fantasy still cherished in the pulpit. On the ground of that absurdity, nevertheless, there gradually grew up a new conception of the antiquity of the earth. Thus a popular work on geology such as The Ancient World, by Prof. Ansted (1847), could begin with the proposition that "long before the human race had been introduced on the earth this world of ours existed as the habitation of living things different from those now inhabiting its surface." Even the thesis of "six ages," and others of the same order, drew upon their supporters angry charges of "infidelity." Hugh Miller, whose natural gifts for geological research were chronically turned to confusion by his orthodox bias, was repeatedly so assailed, when in point of fact he was perpetually tampering with the facts to salve the Scriptures. [1902] Of all the inductive sciences geology had been most retarded by the Christian canonization of error. [1903] Even the plain fact that what is dry land had once been sea was obstinately distorted through centuries, though Ovid [1904] had put the observations of Pythagoras in the way of all scholars; and though Leonardo da Vinci had insisted on the visible evidence; nay, deistic habit could keep even Voltaire, as we saw, preposterously incredulous on the subject. When the scientific truth began to force its way in the teeth of such authorities as Cuvier, who stood for the "Mosaic" doctrine, the effect was proportionately marked; and whether or not the suicide of Miller (1856) was in any way due to despair on perception of the collapse of his reconciliation of geology with Genesis, [1905] the scientific demonstration made an end of revelationism for many. What helped most to save orthodoxy from humiliation on the scientific side was the attitude of men like Professor Baden Powell, whose scientific knowledge and habit of mind moved him to attack the Judaism of the Bibliolaters in the name of Christianity, and in the name of truth to declare that "nothing in geology bears the smallest semblance to any part of the Mosaic cosmogony, torture the interpretation to what extent we may." [1906] In 1857 this was very bold language.