logists of different nations, whose works have been
considered, that none of them were guilty of endeavoring, by arguments
drawn from physics, to invalidate scriptural tenets. On the contrary,
the majority of those who were fortunate enough "to discover the true
causes of things," rarely deserved another part of the poet's panegyric,
"_Atque metus omnes subjecit pedibus_." The caution and even timid
reserve, of many eminent Italian authors of the earlier period is very
apparent; and there can hardly be a doubt, that they subscribed to
certain dogmas, and particularly to the first diluvian theory, out of
deference to popular prejudices, rather than from conviction. If they
were guilty of dissimulation, we may feel regret, but must not blame
their want of moral courage, reserving rather our condemnation for the
intolerance of the times, and that inquisitorial power which forced
Galileo to abjure, and the two Jesuits to disclaim the theory of
Newton.[117]

Hutton answered Kirwan's attacks with great warmth, and with the
indignation justly excited by unmerited reproach. "He had always
displayed," says Playfair, "the utmost disposition to admire the
beneficent design manifested in the structure of the world; and he
contemplated with delight those parts of his theory which made the
greatest additions to our knowledge of final causes." We may say with
equal truth, that in no scientific works in our language can more
eloquent passages be found, concerning the fitness, harmony, and
grandeur of all parts of the creation, than in those of Playfair. They
are evidently the unaffected expressions of a mind, which contemplated
the study of nature, as best calculated to elevate our conceptions of
the attributes of the First Cause. At any other time the force and
elegance of Playfair's style must have insured popularity to the
Huttonian doctrines; but by a singular coincidence, Neptunianism and
orthodoxy were now associated in the same creed; and the tide of
prejudice ran so strong, that the majority were carried far away into
the chaotic fluid, and other cosmological inventions of Werner. These
fictions the Saxon professor had borrowed with little modification, and
without any improvement, from his predecessors. They had not the
smallest foundation either in Scripture or in common sense, and were
probably approved of by many as being so ideal and unsubstantial, that
they could never come into violent collision with any preconceived
op