epresent, or the mouldings of them
petrified," and not, as some have imagined, 'a lusus naturae,' sporting
herself in the needless formation of useless beings."[60]

It was objected to Hooke, that his doctrine of the extinction of species
derogated from the wisdom and power of the omnipotent Creator; but he
answered, that, as individuals die, there may be some termination to the
duration of a species; and his opinions, he declared, were not repugnant
to Holy Writ: for the Scriptures taught that our system was
degenerating, and tending to its final dissolution; "and as, when that
shall happen, all the species will be lost, why not some at one time and
some at another?"[61]

But his principal object was to account for the manner in which shells
had been conveyed into the higher parts of "the Alps, Apennines, and
Pyrenean hills, and the interior of continents in general." These and
other appearances, he said, might have been brought about by
earthquakes, "which have turned plains into mountains, and mountains
into plains, seas into land, and land into seas, made rivers where there
were none before, and swallowed up others that formerly were, &c., &c.;
and which, since the creation of the world, have wrought many great
changes on the superficial parts of the earth, and have been the
instruments of placing shells, bones, plants, fishes, and the like, in
those places where, with much astonishment, we find them."[62] This
doctrine, it is true, had been laid down in terms almost equally
explicit by Strabo, to explain the occurrence of fossil shells in the
interior of continents, and to that geographer, and other writers of
antiquity, Hooke frequently refers; but the revival and development of
the system was an important step in the progress of modern science.

Hooke enumerated all the examples known to him of subterranean
disturbance, from "the sad catastrophe of Sodom and Gomorrah," down to
the Chilian earthquake of 1646. The elevating of the bottom of the sea,
the sinking and submersion of the land, and most of the inequalities of
the earth's surface, might, he said, be accounted for by the agency of
these subterranean causes. He mentions that the coast near Naples _was
raised during the eruption of Monte Nuovo_; and that, in 1591, land rose
in the island of St. Michael, during an eruption: and although it would
be more difficult, he says, to prove, he does not doubt but that there
had been as many earthquakes in the parts