ent, and its end to be imminent.
Thus 'Catastrophic' ideas came to be regarded as _orthodox_, and
evolutionary ones as utterly irreligious and damnable.

There are few more curious facts in the history of science than the
contrast between the reception of the teaching of the Saxon professor
Werner, and those of Hutton, the Scotch philosopher, his great rival.
While the enthusiastic disciples of the former carried their master's
ideas everywhere, acting with missionary zeal and fervour, and teaching
his doctrines almost as though they were a divine revelation, the
latter, surrounded by a few devoted friends, saw his teachings
everywhere received with persistent misrepresentation, theological
vituperation or contemptuous neglect. Even in Edinburgh itself, one of
Werner's pupils dominated the teaching of the University for half a
century, and established a society for the propagation of the views
which Hutton so strongly opposed.

When it is remembered that Hutton wrote at a time when 'heresy-hunting'
in this country had been excited to such a dangerous extent, through the
excesses of the French Revolution, that his contemporary, Priestley, had
been hounded from his home and country for proclaiming views which at
that time were regarded as unscriptural, it becomes less difficult to
understand the prejudice that was excited against the gentle and modest
philosopher of Edinburgh.

We have employed the term 'Catastrophism' to indicate the views which
were prevalent at the beginning of last century concerning the origin of
the rock-masses of the globe and their fossil contents. These views were
that at a number of successive epochs--of which the age of Noah was the
latest--great revolutions had taken place on the earth's surface; that
during each of these cataclysms all living things were destroyed; and
that, after an interval, the world was restocked with fresh assemblages
of plants and animals, to be destroyed in turn and entombed in the
strata at the next revolution.

Whewell, in 1830, contrasted this teaching with that of Hutton and Lyell
in the following passage:--'These two opinions will probably for some
time divide the geological world into two sects, which may perhaps be
designated the "Uniformitarians" and the "Catastrophists." The latter
has undoubtedly been of late the prevalent doctrine.' It is interesting
to note, as showing the confidence felt in their tenets by the
'Catastrophists' of that day, that Whewell