that there are generally three periods or phases
in a theological attack upon any science. The first of these is marked
by the general use of scriptural texts and statements against the new
scientific doctrine; the third by attempts at compromise by means of
far-fetched reconciliations of textual statements with ascertained fact;
but the second or intermediate period between these two is frequently
marked by the pitting against science of some great doctrine in
theology. We saw this in astronomy, when Bellarmin and his followers
insisted that the scientific doctrine of the earth revolving about the
sun is contrary to the theological doctrine of the incarnation. So now
against geology it was urged that the scientific doctrine that fossils
represent animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological
doctrine of Adam's fall and the statement that "death entered the world
by sin."

In this second stage of the theological struggle with geology, England
was especially fruitful in champions of orthodoxy, first among whom may
be named Thomas Burnet. In the last quarter of the seventeenth century,
just at the time when Newton's great discovery was given to the
world, Burnet issued his Sacred Theory of the Earth. His position was
commanding; he was a royal chaplain and a cabinet officer. Planting
himself upon the famous text in the second epistle of Peter,(142) he
declares that the flood had destroyed the old and created a new world.
The Newtonian theory he refuses to accept. In his theory of the deluge
he lays less stress upon the "opening of the windows of heaven" than
upon the "breaking up of the fountains of the great deep." On this
latter point he comes forth with great strength. His theory is that
the earth is hollow, and filled with fluid like an egg. Mixing together
sundry texts from Genesis and from the second epistle of Peter, the
theological doctrine of the "Fall," an astronomical theory regarding the
ecliptic, and various notions adapted from Descartes, he insisted that,
before sin brought on the Deluge, the earth was of perfect mathematical
form, smooth and beautiful, "like an egg," with neither seas nor islands
nor valleys nor rocks, "with not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that
all creation was equally perfect.

(142) See II Peter iii, 6.

In the second book of his great work Burnet went still further. As in
his first book he had mixed his texts of Genesis and St. Peter with
Descartes, he n