reception in society, that his moral character should have
been traduced, than that he should become a mark for these poisoned
weapons.

I shall pass over the works of numerous divines, who may be excused for
sensitiveness on points which then excited so much uneasiness in the
public mind; and shall say nothing of the amiable poet Cowper,[112] who
could hardly be expected to have inquired into the merit of doctrines
in physics. But in the foremost ranks of the intolerant are found
several laymen who had high claims to scientific reputation. Among these
appears Williams, a mineral surveyor of Edinburgh, who published a
"Natural History of the Mineral Kingdom," in 1789; a work of great
merit, for that day, and of practical utility, as containing the best
account of the coal strata. In his preface he misrepresents Hutton's
theory altogether, and charges him with considering all rocks to be
lavas of different colors and structure; and also with "warping every
thing to support the eternity of the world."[113] He descants on the
pernicious influence of such skeptical notions, as leading to downright
infidelity and atheism, "and as being nothing less than to depose the
Almighty Creator of the universe from his office."[114]

_Kirwan_--_De Luc._--Kirwan, president of the Royal Academy of Dublin, a
chemist and mineralogist of some merit, but who possessed much greater
authority in the scientific world than he was entitled by his talents to
enjoy, said, in the introduction to his "Geological Essays, 1799," "that
_sound_ geology _graduated_ into religion, and was required to dispel
certain systems of atheism or infidelity, of which they had had recent
experience."[115] He was an uncompromising defender of the aqueous
theory of all rocks, and was scarcely surpassed by Burnet and Whiston,
in his desire to adduce the Mosaic writings in confirmation of his
opinions.

De Luc, in the preliminary discourse to his Treatise on Geology,[116]
says, "The weapons have been changed by which revealed religion is
attacked; it is now assailed by geology, and the knowledge of this
science has become essential to theologians." He imputes the failure of
former geological systems to their having been anti-Mosaical, and
directed against a "sublime tradition." These and similar imputations,
reiterated in the works of De Luc, seem to have been taken for granted
by some modern writers: it is therefore necessary to state, in justice
to the numerous geo