M. Scheutzer, in a Dissertation, addressed to the Academy of Sciences in 1728, attributes, like Woodward, the change, or rather the second formation of the globe, to the universal deluge; to explain that of mountains, he says, that after the deluge, God chusing to return the waters into subterraneous reservoirs, broke and displaced with his all-powerful hand a number of beds, before horizontal, and raised them above the surface of the globe, which was originally level. The whole Dissertation is composed to imply this opinion. As it was requisite these eminences should be of a solid consistence, M. Scheutzer remarks, that God only drew them from places where there were many stones; from hence, says he, it proceeds that those countries, like Switzerland, which are very stony, are also mountainous; and on the contrary, those, as Holland, Flanders, Hungary and Poland, have only sand or clay, even to a very great depth, and are almost entirely without mountains.[147:A]
This author, more than any other, is desirous of blending Physic with Theology, and though he has given some good observations, the systematical part of his works is still weaker than those who preceded him. On this subject he has even made declamations and ridiculous witticisms, as may be seen in his _Visciam quærelæ_, &c. without speaking of his large work in many folio volumes, _Physica Sacra_, a puerile work, which appears to be composed less for the instruction of men than for the amusement of children.
Steno, and some others, have attributed the cause of the inequalities of the earth to particular inundations, earthquakes, &c. but the effects of these secondary causes have been only able to produce some slight changes. We admit of these causes after the first cause, the motion of the flux and reflux, and of the sea from east to west. Neither Steno, nor the rest, have given theory, nor even any general facts on this matter.[148:A]
Ray pretends that all mountains have been produced by earthquakes, and he has composed a treatise to prove it; we shall shew under the article of Volcanos what little foundation his opinion is built upon.
We cannot dispense with observing that Burnet, Woodward, Whiston, and most of these other authors, have committed an error which deserves to be cleared up; which is, to have looked upon the deluge as possible by the action of natural causes, whereas scripture presents it to us as produced by the immediate will of God; there is no natural cause which can produce on the whole surface of the earth, the quantity of water required to cover the highest mountains; and if even we could imagine a cause proportionate to this effect, it would still be impossible to find another cause capable of causing the water to disappear: allowing Whiston, that these waters proceeded from the tail of a comet, we deny that any could proceed from the great abyss, or that they all returned into it, since the great abyss, according to him, being surrounded on every side by the crust, or terrestrial orb, it is impossible that the attraction of the comet could cause any motion to the fluids it contained; much less, as he says, a violent flux and reflux; hence there could not be issued from, nor entered into, the great abyss, a single drop of water; and unless it is supposed that the waters which fell from the comet have been destroyed by a miracle, they would still be on the surface of the earth, covering the summits of the highest mountains. Nothing better characterises a miracle, than the impossibility of explaining the effect of it by natural causes. Our authors have made vain efforts to give a reason for the deluge; their physical efforts, and the secondary causes, which they made use of, prove the truth of the fact as reported in the scriptures, and demonstrate that it could only have been performed by the first cause, the will of the Almighty.