e of such shells,
and to recall from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth century,
that they were sports of nature. He also pretended that vegetable
impressions were not those of real plants.[109] Yet he was perfectly
convinced that the shells had really belonged to living testacea, as may
be seen in his essay "On the formation of Mountains."[110] He would
sometimes, in defiance of all consistency, shift his ground when
addressing the vulgar; and, admitting the true nature of the shells
collected in the Alps and other places, pretend that they were Eastern
species, which had fallen from the hats of pilgrims coming from Syria.
The numerous essays written by him on geological subjects were all
calculated to strengthen prejudices, partly because he was ignorant of
the real state of the science, and partly from his bad faith.[111] On
the other hand, they who knew that his attacks were directed by a desire
to invalidate Scripture, and who were unacquainted with the true merits
of the question, might well deem the old diluvian hypothesis
incontrovertible, if Voltaire could adduce no better argument against it
than to deny the true nature of organic remains.

It is only by careful attention to impediments originating in extrinsic
causes, that we can explain the slow and reluctant adoption of the
simplest truths in geology. First, we find many able naturalists
adducing the fossil remains of marine animals as proofs of an event
related in Scripture. The evidence is deemed conclusive by the multitude
for a century or more; for it favors opinions which they entertained
before, and they are gratified by supposing them confirmed by fresh and
unexpected proofs. Many who see through the fallacy have no wish to
undeceive those who are influenced by it, approving the effect of the
delusion, and conniving at it as a pious fraud; until, finally, an
opposite party, who are hostile to the sacred writings, labor to explode
the erroneous opinion, by substituting for it another dogma, which they
know to be equally unsound.

The heretical Vulcanists were soon after openly assailed in England, by
imputations of the most illiberal kind. We cannot estimate the
malevolence of such a persecution, by the pain which similar
insinuations might now inflict; for although charges of infidelity and
atheism must always be odious, they were injurious in the extreme at
that moment of political excitement; and it was better, perhaps, for a
man's good