THE THEORY OF THE EARTH. BOOK II

    respecting only the Material World; and accordingly this part of Providence orders and superintends the state of the Earth, the great Vicissitudes and Mutations of it; for we must not imagine, but that these are under the eye of Providence, as well as Humane affairs, or any revolutions of States and Empires. Now seeing both in the Intellectual and Corporeal World there are certain Periods, Fulnesses of Time, and fixt Seasons, either for some great Catastrophe, or some great Instauration, 'Tis Providence that makes a due harmony or Synchronism betwixt these two, and measures out the concurrent fates of both Worlds, so as Nature may be always a faithful minister of the Divine pleasure, whether for rewards or punishments, according as the state of Mankind may require. But Theological Providence not being the subject of this work, we shall only observe, as we said before, what account we have hitherto given of the Natural state of the Earth, and what remains to be handled in another Treatise, and so conclude.

I did not think it necessary to carry the story and original of the Earth, higher than the Chaos, as Zoroaster and Orpheus seem to have done; but taking That for our Foundation, which Antiquity Sacred and Profane doth suppose, and Natural Reason approve and confirm, we have form'd the Earth from it. But when we say the Earth rise from a Fluid Mass, it is not to be so crudely understood, as if a rock of Marble, suppose, was fluid immediately before it became Marble; no, Things had a gradual progression from one form to another, and came at length to those more permanent forms they are now setled in: Stone was once Earth, and Earth was once Mud, and Mud was once fluid. And so other things may have another kind of progression from fluidity; but all was once fluid, at least all the exteriour Regions of this Earth. And even those Stones and Rocks of Marble which we speak of, seem to confess they were once soft or liquid, by those mixtures we find in them of Heterogeneous Bodies, and those spots and Veins disperst thorough their substance;