ly_, Having found a cause for the fracture and separation of the
solid masses, we must also tell from whence the matter with which those
chasms are filled, matter which is foreign both to the earth and sea,
had been introduced into the veins that intersect the strata. If we fail
in this particular, What credit could be given to such hypotheses as are
contrived for the explanation of more ambiguous appearances, even when
those suppositions should appear most probable?

_Sixthly_, Supposing that hitherto every thing had been explained in the
most satisfactory manner, the most important appearances of our earth
still remain to be considered. We find those strata that were originally
formed continuous in their substance, and horizontal in their position,
now broken, bended, and inclined, in every manner and degree; we must
give some reason in our theory for such a general changed state and
disposition of things; and we must tell by what power this event,
whether accidental or intended, had been brought about.

_Lastly_, Whatever powers had been employed in preparing land, while
situated under water, or at the bottom of the sea, the most powerful
operation yet remains to be explained; this is the means by which the
lowest surface of the solid globe was made to be the highest upon the
earth. Unless we can show a power of sufficient force, and placed in
a proper situation for that purpose, our theory would go for nothing,
among people who investigate the nature of things, and who, founding on
experience, reason by induction from effect to cause.

Nothing can be admitted as a theory of the earth which does not, in a
satisfactory manner, give the efficient causes for all these effects
already enumerated. For, as things are universally to be acknowledged
in the earth, it is essential in a theory to explain those natural
appearances.

But this is not all. We live in a world where order every where
prevails; and where final causes are as well known, at least, as those
which are efficient. The muscles, for example, by which I move my
fingers when I write, are no more the efficient cause of that motion,
than this motion is the final cause for which the muscles had been made.
Thus, the circulation of the blood is the efficient cause of life; but,
life is the final cause, not only for the circulation of the blood,
but for the revolution of the globe: Without a central luminary, and a
revolution of the planetary body, there could not