stence of the
giants mentioned in Scripture and of the early inhabitants of the earth
overwhelmed by the Flood.(155)

(155) For the steady adherence to this sacred theory, see Audiat, Vie de
Palissy, p. 412, and Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. xv, p. 492. For
Calmet, see his Dissertation sur les Geants, cited in Berger de Xivery,
Traditions Teratologiques, p. 191.

But the greatest champion appeared in England. We have already seen how,
near the close of the seventeenth century, Thomas Burnet prepared the
way in his Sacred Theory of the Earth by rejecting the discoveries of
Newton, and showing how sin led to the breaking up of the "foundations
of the great deep," and we have also seen how Whiston, in his New Theory
of the Earth, while yielding a little and accepting the discoveries of
Newton, brought in a comet to aid in producing the Deluge; but far more
important than these in permanent influence was John Woodward, professor
at Gresham College, a leader in scientific thought at the University
of Cambridge, and, as a patient collector of fossils and an earnest
investigator of their meaning, deserving of the highest respect. In 1695
he published his Natural History of the Earth, and rendered one great
service to science, for he yielded another point, and thus destroyed the
foundations for the old theory of fossils. He showed that they were not
"sports of Nature," or "models inserted by the Creator in the strata for
some inscrutable purpose," but that they were really remains of living
beings, as Xenophanes had asserted two thousand years before him. So
far, he rendered a great service both to science and religion; but, this
done, the text of the Old Testament narrative and the famous passage in
St. Peter's Epistle were too strong for him, and he, too, insisted that
the fossils were produced by the Deluge. Aided by his great authority,
the assault on the true scientific position was vigorous: Mazurier
exhibited certain fossil remains of a mammoth discovered in France as
bones of the giants mentioned in Scripture; Father Torrubia did the
same thing in Spain; Increase Mather sent to England similar remains
discovered in America, with a like statement.

For the edification of the faithful, such "bones of the giants mentioned
in Scripture" were hung up in public places. Jurieu saw some of
them thus suspended in one of the churches of Valence; and Henrion,
apparently under the stimulus thus given, drew up tables