Chapter 4 CHAPTER 2 EARLY EARTH THEORY

Although Copernicus published his heliocentric astronomy in 1543, it was only in the early 17th century that a new cosmology challenged traditional views of nature.Galileo and Kepler, in different ways, set out to explore the implications of the new idea (the new theory of the sun), and provided auxiliary hypotheses that made the new idea a sound philosophy of the universe.It was Descartes, however, who for the first time combined the new astronomy with the new physics and formed a complete worldview based on mechanistic principles.The solar system, and indeed the entire universe, became one big machine, a system of matter whose motion was governed by the laws of mechanics.At that time it became increasingly clear that the sun itself was nothing more than a star, a tiny component in the vast fabric of the universe.Bernard de Fontigny, in Les Many Worlds (1688), emphasized how insignificant the human home seemed in the material world, and he raised the disturbing prospect that other worlds might also have people live.Fontigner realized that, on the large scale of cosmic activity, the number of years a human lifespan pales into insignificance.The stars themselves may also change, but the changes are too slow for us to notice, so we assume that the universe is static.Once it is admitted that physical forces can produce such changes, the grandeur in the magnitude of events requires expanding the scale of time, which is no longer just a few thousand years since the creation of the world as originally imagined.By the middle of the 18th century, some scholars, such as Kant (1755; English translation, 1969), conjectured that the formation of the solar system was caused by the process of cosmic evolution, and believed that the formation of the solar system was just a part of the great cycle of cosmic development. Very small episode. ## The new cosmology provides a clear framework for discussing the origin of the earth.If the formation of planetary systems is a physical process, then the Earth itself must have formed according to similar natural pathways.So some people will propose that the current surface structure is caused by land changes.But the causes that lead to the concept of geological change are not just in the pattern of cosmological conjectures.The scientific revolution rekindled the importance of people's reliance on observation, an empirical method of obtaining information, and Francis Bacon believed that humans could gain knowledge through observation.When those who followed this approach turned their attention to the Earth, they found obvious problems in the multitude of Earth structures.Many "fossils" (fossil originally meant something that was dug up) look similar in shape to living things, but turned into stone.How did these things form in the rock?Why do some rocks exist regularly in certain rock formations or formations?Why are there signs of volcanic activity in some areas, but there is no record of volcanic activity in human history?To answer these questions, naturalists in the decades around 1700 focused on the long-term physical forces that determine the shape of the Earth's crust. ## Both theory and observation must shake the static view of creation.But what kind of process formed the surface?Faced with many problems, there is a simple solution, which is to believe that the great flood described in the Bible caused the formation of sedimentary layers of rocks containing fossils.Other changes could also be explained by exploiting the long-held notion that the Earth is closely related to living things, which go through periods of growth and decline.For example, erosion of rocks may be part of this gradual degradation process (Davies, 1969).The mechanistic view of the new science would probably no longer accept this vitalist analogy, and naturalists began to organize their observations into a system more and more in terms of physical changes.While there has been intense debate about the nature of physical change, a wealth of information and technology has been used to develop a conceptual framework within which theories have been developed. The eighteenth century was not the century of conjecture; rather, it was the century that laid the groundwork for the heroic age of geology that would follow (Porter, 1977). ## There was a larger trend in intellectual circles at the time, calling into question traditional explanations of human origins, a trend that helped expand the view of Earth's history (Rossi, 1984).Some scholars have come to believe that the "Bible" cannot explain the history of all human races, and that some civilizations are older than Judeo-Christian culture.This in turn makes it easier to believe that the world itself has undergone a longer period of development.By 1700, these new perspectives were already causing trouble for the Christian worldview.At first, however, no one believed in abandoning the old rules entirely.People just want to use science to detail how God created the world for humans without disturbing the basic picture.Christianity survived at least as an integral part of the intellectual structure that most seventeenth-century scientists hoped to build, although most scientists were of course divided on what was the best way to reconcile with Christianity. The Bible certainly gives them the general purpose of the Creator, but it is an open question how to interpret the details of the Biblical Genesis story.If the Bible is inspired by God, does it mean that all the details in the Bible are true?Galileo already faced this problem when it came to passages in the Bible that implied that the sun revolves around the earth.Although he recognized the authority of the Church in dealing with spiritual matters, he still insisted that the language of the Gospel—mainly concerned with private society—should not bind all subsequent thinking about nature.Geologists also recognize that it is impossible to take certain passages of the biblical creation story literally.Of course, Protestants are more concerned with the meaning of what God said, but they are free to come up with their own interpretations on this complex issue.Revelation in the Bible does not contradict natural phenomena if properly understood.And people gradually developed the skill of reconciling the story of Genesis with the demands of the new science. ## Mechanistic philosophy also poses difficulties.It is possible to imagine that God created the structure of the universe as we see it today, and that God endowed nature with powerful laws to preserve the original picture of nature.But Descartes proposed through research that the structure of nature has undergone mechanical evolution, which is different from its earlier state.As long as we believe that the original form of the universe was created by God, then it is possible to admit that the universe has changed according to God's will.But this was overlooked by many of Descartes' followers, who focused on the mechanical process itself.It's hard to imagine that God really controls or cares about the trivial things that happen in the world every day, because he has transferred all responsibility to the laws of nature.At best, people think that God outlines the general outlines of how things happen, and there is no reason to believe that every detail of natural activities is pre-arranged by God.Thus came the image of a deistic watchmaker-like God, and it was increasingly suspected that such a God would interfere in human affairs.  This new science was only part of a much deeper revolution that eventually cleared up many old theological views (Hazard, 1953; Wade, 1971).Importantly, Descartes and Newton may have expressed the link between science and religion, but for posterity their achievement marked the power of reason to challenge ancient prejudices. The "philosophy of the Enlightenment" of the eighteenth century was based on the belief that reason could change the human condition (Cassirer, 1951; Gay, 1966, 1969).The triumph of the new physical sciences was only the precursor to a complete renewal of beliefs about man and nature.In this climate of thought it was destined to undo the obsolete shackles that religion had imposed on science in the late seventeenth century.Accompanying the beginning of a new insight into how God created the world was the idea that it was within the human capacity to understand how nature works and put an end to the superfluity of a Creator.

mechanistic philosophy of the universe When Galileo advocated freedom of thought, he thought of the Copernican system and the use of mathematics to study physics. Later, it was based on these two that he proved the rationality of the earth's motion.The science of mechanics, especially the science of mechanics integrated into the Cartesian thought system, soon took on a broader meaning.The so-called mechanistic philosophy emerged, according to which belief all phenomena can be explained as the result of the motion of matter.Clinging to medieval thought simply does not open up as wide a range of possibilities as does a focus on cosmic physics.According to the traditional world view, it is impossible to think that the earth may be formed by the extended matter in the original universe.The basis of the geocentric theory is Aristotle's hierarchical division of the earth and the sky, and because of the fundamental difference between the earth and the sky, it is impossible to conceive of one generating the other (Kelly, 1969).And the structure of the universe must either exist eternally as Aristotle imagined, or it must be what it is now when the Creator built it.But the mechanistic philosophy holds that the matter distributed in the universe is the same, so there is no absolute difference between the earth and the sky.It is thus possible to imagine that the earth or the whole solar system was formed in some other way from the matter originally distributed in the universe.The "creation" of the earth may have become a purely physical process, and the resulting theory of the origin of the earth has become one of the foundations of geological thought.

Fontignac made his point about the insignificance of the Earth easy to understand by pointing out that the stars themselves are not eternal—occasional dimming and shining.He was simply following the ideas of Descartes.The natural philosophy of the Cartesian school is dedicated to explaining the origin of all things from the perspective of physics, and does not invoke supernatural creation.God does not design the structure of individual things in the universe, he just establishes the basic natural laws, and the subsequent development is controlled by the natural laws.Descartes believed that the planets revolved around the sun in vortexes of transparent atmospheres, and he maintained that some vortices might cease to function and disappear, while new ones formed elsewhere.Thus, individual suns and planets can be formed in the constantly moving material universe.

The journey from the emergence of new vortex origin theories to explaining the formation of planets such as Earth is short.Descartes, in his Principles of Philosophy, published in 1644, did propose a mechanism by which the Earth was formed by the cooling of a star into a gray ball that was then drawn into the vortex of the sun.In order to avoid the criticism of the church, Descartes admitted that his theory only showed how the universe could be formed mechanically, while we know through revelation that God actually created the earth directly.As the influence of the Cartesian system grew, it is not surprising that his followers insisted on strictly mechanistic explanations.Descartes thus established a tendency which had a major influence on the history of geology.Many of the later Earth theories deliberately attempted to expand the mechanistic philosophy into a full cosmology, or physical history of the universe.Later, the details of Cartesian physics were superseded by that of Newton, but as Aram Vartanian (1953) points out, the basic scheme of the Cartesian school remained the central one envisioned by the materialists of the Enlightenment. source. (For earlier theories, see Haber, 1959; Greene, 1959a; Roger, 1974; Jaki, 1978b; and Laudan, 1987. See also some treatises on the history of geology: Adam, 1938; Geikie, 1897; and von Zittel, 1901.)

This new trend began with an attempt to reinterpret the creation story of Genesis in terms of physics rather than miracles, and in fact some of the earliest theories offered only plausible explanations for the creation of Genesis. Events in the Bible smoothed over.This is more evident from the first attempt to develop the Cartesian system in detail into a complete account of creation: Thomas Bonnet's The Sacred Theory of the Earth (Burnet, 1691; Gould, 1987).Bonnet exploited an outlandish idea conceived by Descartes himself: As the Earth cooled, a solid layer formed on top of the water surrounding its core.Bonnet suggests that the outer layer was once extremely smooth, so the earth was originally "created" to provide an ideal place to live for originally noble people.When man finally turned away from God, he was punished by the sudden flood.But the Flood at this time was a purely natural event, caused by the collapse of the outer layers of the earth into the inner waters.Only some irregular land fragments on the original surface stood upright on the water, forming the mountains on our current continent.The punishment for humanity is permanent, not only the tragedy of the Flood itself, but the craggy and ugly mountains that still exist today show that this is a devastated planet fit only for sinful beings like us .

Bonnet's attempt to explain the events of Genesis in terms of physics has been criticized by many who want to preserve the story's true meaning.But his work was also troubled by its reliance on Cartesian vortex theory, which was soon superseded by Newton's system of universal gravitation.Newton himself tried to defend his theory by avoiding the question of origins on a mechanistic basis, but privately he could not help guessing how the earth came to be (Letter to Bonney, quoted in Brewster, 1855).Vartanian (1953) argues that although Newton publicly refuted this conjecture, his system of physics was quickly absorbed into Cartesian basic schemes. Most views on the origin of the earth in the 18th century were based on Newtonian physics rather than Cartesian physics. However, on the other hand, they continued Descartes's mechanistic approach to the origin of the problem. discuss.Of course, Newton's public warnings about the possible dangers of such conjectures were largely ignored, and his own private thoughts on the formation of the Earth soon appeared in the published literature of his followers.

These ideas of Newton's cosmology first appeared in William Whiston's (1696) book A New Theory of the Earth.Whiston, like Bonnet, used Newton's physical system to explain the sequence of events in Genesis, but he replaced Descartes' "sacred theory" with Newton's.He proposed that the Earth might have formed when a comet — a cloud of dust — condensed into a solid body under the influence of gravity.The Flood was formed when another comet grazed the Earth and dumped large amounts of water onto the surface.Edmund Halley had already explained the formation of the Flood in this way, but his views were published later (Halley, 1724-25).Whiston elaborated on this idea, arguing that comets passing by the Earth not only caused floods, but also caused the Earth to deviate from its original circular orbit around the sun.As in Bonnet's theory, the Flood was a purely natural event, accompanied by the permanent destruction of the state of the earth and the corresponding denomination of man.

While Bonnet and Whiston were keen to provide a new foundation for the Biblical Genesis story, the implications of their writings were potentially dangerous for religion.With the popularization of science, future workers will discard the words and spirit of the Bible and focus on the material process itself.Attempts to reconcile Genesis with geology proved to be a temporary expedient, which was soon broken down as scientists demanded freedom to follow the logic of their own systems.A serious question arises regarding the age of the Earth.Bonnet and Whiston, confined to the limited time period formally recognized by Christians, still believed in the sheer suddenness of the creation of the earth and of man.Bonnet at least recognized that the erosion of wind, rain, and rivers, if acted over a long period of time, could wear away mountains; but according to his theory, mountains were formed by a single event and could not be reconstructed after formation.The fact that the mountains are still there proves that they were formed a short time ago.Bonnet paid little attention to the empirical study of rocks and fossils, and failed to recognize the artificial character of his views.Others will soon be doing the same research, challenging the entire timescale of Genesis.

Another dangerous implication of the new theories is that they undermine traditional beliefs in divine intervention.Christians have always believed that God continued to be interested in the world after creation, even intervening, to some extent, miraculously, through the laws of nature he established.The Flood was interpreted as an event with moral implications—mankind being punished for disobeying God, and it was believed that the Flood was the direct (i.e., miraculous) effect of God's wrath.According to the new theory, the Flood was only a physical event, the inevitable product of the mechanical action of nature.Bonnet had already proposed that an omniscient God foresaw the moral history of mankind, and thus designed the physical world to undergo upheavals in due time to punish mankind; but his views represented the first step toward deism, the Believe that God has no need to care about the universe since he created it.Newton believed in miracles primarily because he believed in the existence of a God who cared about the world (Al exander, 1956).But the deists of the Enlightenment made the denial of miracles an integral part of their massive campaign against Christianity (Torrey, 1930); Interested in the moral significance of material events.

This materialistic implication was already evident in the later Cartesian theory of the earth.This is Benoit de Maillet's Terjemede, published in 1748 but probably written between 1692 and 1718 (English translation, 1968; see Carozzi, 1969).De Meyet sketched a universe of Cartesian vortices, but he was really interested in the formation of Earth in our solar system.He made no effort to harmonize his system with the story of Genesis, and for this reason he thought it best to present the book as the work of an Indian philosopher whose name was his own, Just read backwards.De Meyet imagined that the original Earth was covered with deep water.The ocean floor of the ancient ocean formed what the mountains look like now, and as the water level gradually lowered, the tops of the mountains finally appeared, forming the first dry land.The erosion of seawater along the coast gradually washes away the mountain debris washed down by these mountains and falls to the seabed, forming sedimentary rocks.As the sea recedes further, these rocks are exposed, forming newer mountains.In de Meyet's conception of Earth's history, the gradual lowering of sea level became the main directional factor.Even now, he argues, the ocean is receding at a slow rate every year.

Regression theory was popular in the 18th century, but proponents of the theory did not like de Meyet's refusal to harmonize with the biblical story. "Tjemed" does not talk about the modern flood, but mentions that the history of the earth has gone through a long time before the emergence of human civilization.De Meyet even proposed the idea of ​​the natural origin of living things.Just from the perspective of believing in Cartesian mechanistic philosophy, it is still impossible to explain why De Meyet is so resolutely willing to break with the traditional view of time scale.Descartes, Bonnet, and Whiston all conceived of the physical mechanisms and explained the origin of the Earth in terms of its present state with everyday familiarity, without the trouble of referencing other factors.But De Meyert's ideas about rock formation seem to come from secondary research itself, and it is this empirical basis that underpins his bold stretching of the boundaries of conventional timescales. empirical tradition For those who adopted Bacon's philosophy of scientific empiricism, the rocks on the earth's surface became natural objects to study.But once you pay close attention to some types of rock, you can find some unusual features. "Sedimentary rocks" lie in the corresponding rock formations, or formations that indicate that they were actually formed from material deposited in water.This is confirmed by the discovery of stratified rocks containing fossil marine organisms in typical mountain ranges (Haber, 1959; Rudwick, 1972).Attempts were first made to show that fossils are not the remains of living things, but further observations soon convinced most naturalists that this view was untenable.Nicholas Steno (1669; English translation, 1916) and John Woodward (1695) further helped to establish that fossils are indeed the fossilized remains of organisms in rock layers.This means that some of what is now dry land areas were once under the ocean, and that the material that formed the layered rocks was deposited.Explaining how the land rose from the ocean after these rocks formed became a central question for most 18th-century theories about Earth. Fossils also challenge conventional wisdom from another angle.In any case, fossils show that there were once unknown species of life on earth.Is it possible that some of the life forms originally created became extinct?Religious naturalists, like John Ray, found it impossible to believe that a wise and benevolent God would allow his creatures to be so casually extinct.First, Ray gave some hope that unknown creatures could still be found in remote parts of the earth (John Ray, 1692).Ray paid more attention to this issue in later life, so much so that he completely doubted that fossils were of biological origin; he, like his friend Edward LeWide, believed that fossils were purely mineral structures that could only "grow" in rocks (Ray , 1713).On this point he departed from the consensus of most of his contemporaries, but as Enlightenment naturalists more openly challenged biblical views, Ray's fears became more sensitive. question. Once it is recognized that fossils are real, the only hope of reconciling them with the biblical story is to assume that the rocks that still have fossils were formed from debris from the surface of the earth at the time of Noah's flood.Woodward proposed this explanation in On the Natural History of the Earth (Wo odward, 1695).While Woodward's description of the fossil itself is important, his theory lacks convincing power.It is difficult to comprehend that a single cataclysmic event can form extensive stratigraphic sequences.To produce the complex surface conditions we see today, the Earth must have undergone a series of developments.With this more dynamic view of the past, the most obvious question is: How did sedimentary rocks become exposed as dry land?About this question.There are only two possible solutions, either the water level is lowered, or the land must rise to expose the ocean.The first possibility is implicit in Woodward's proposal that rocks survived the Great Flood, but this view would have to be significantly adjusted to be more consistent with the long-term, serial, complex nature of stratigraphic history. consistent with the concept of development.The result was the regression theory, first proposed by de Meyet in "Terjemede".Regression theory holds that when the Earth first formed, the surface was covered with deep water, some of which slowly evaporated into the air.Sedimentary rocks were also impossible to reveal when the entire Earth was submerged in water, and were only exposed as dry land when water levels fell. Another approach is to assume that the amount of water remains constant, and that the movement of the Earth can lift new dry land from what used to be the seabed.This idea appeared in Steno's book published in 1669, and the gas under the ground was regarded as the cause of the uplift of the land.Steno also proposed that flowing water caused the erosion of subsurface lava and caused the collapse of overwhelmed rocks.The idea that the force of earthquakes causes the land to rise also appears in Robert Hooke's Treatise on Earthquakes (1705) and John Ray's Treatises (1692; on Ray's work , see Raven.1942). Whichever theory is accepted, the question then arises of how to determine the timescales that are commensurate with such profound changes.Steno, Hooke, and Ray all found it impossible to escape the traditional view that the Earth was only a few thousand years old.In this case, acknowledgment of the observed results requires that the degree of change in the past is greater than what we have experienced in modern times.Hooker and Ray, in particular, had to assume that past earthquakes were more intense than those we experience today, since modern Earth motions played only a minor role in causing the total land uplift.Hooker cites the sinking of Atlantis and other ancient legends as evidence that in the distant past, the effects of changes on the earth were indeed large.Of course, the great flood in the Bible can be another basis for the upheaval in ancient times.Thus, the reluctance of early naturalists to extend the biblical timescales gave rise to what became known as cataclysmic views of Earth's history.In order to compress all necessary changes into a not too long time frame, it is then assumed that past events occurred with a degree of violence which cannot be observed today. In 1691, the philosopher G.W. Leibniz published Protagaea, in which he explained this decline in terms of the level of action and suggested that the Earth was once hot, an early view that we call the Earth cooling theory.In Hooke's view, the decline in earthquake intensity indicates that the earth has entered a period of aging, but Leibniz's point of view marks the beginning of a new materialistic approach to this issue. Geology during the Enlightenment A growing disinterest in biblical stories was typical of the new intellectual sphere of the Enlightenment.A new generation of materialist philosophers was ready to shed any artificial limitations on the power of human reason, at least those imposed by Christianity.Conservative thinkers still write books arguing that all geological problems can be solved in terms of the biblical flood, but those who study the rocks themselves demand freedom to follow the logic of their ideas, whatever they may be.The influence of tradition persisted enough to force Buffon to withdraw his theory, and Buffon attempted to propose a theory of the earth that openly challenged the view of Genesis.But years after no one took Buffon's retraction seriously, Buffon revised and republished his theory with only superficial concessions to orthodoxy.As the eighteenth century progressed, the spread of deism and the rise of atheism prompted more naturalists to take a duplicity approach to the creation and flood legends. The victory of Newton's science laid a new foundation for the hypothesis of the origin of the earth.Whiston's early attempts focused only on Earth, but for many, a particular planet is just part of the overall solar system.The simplest explanation for the solar system is that the planets originated from the sun.This formulation appears in the first volume of Buffon's Natural History in 1749.Buffon hypothesized that the comet separated the Sun and flung some hot, dense matter into space.The gravity of the sun prevents these objects〖TPJH1, 15#〗〖TS(〗〖HT5”SS〗〖JZ〗Figure 1. Buffon’s planetary origin theory A comet collided with the surface of the sun, throwing many hot spherical objects into space.Those spheres, pulled by the sun's gravity, remained in orbit and eventually solidified into planets.A similar theory was popular for a time in the early 20th century, in which some planets were pulled away from the sun by the gravitational pull of a passing planet.The greatest difficulty with such theories is the inability to explain why orbiting planets have observable eccentricities. The mass escapes, allowing it to cool to form a planet.Unfortunately, this theory doesn't fit with the relatively low eccentricity of the planet's orbits, and doesn't explain the origin of the sun itself.Both of these problems were resolved in the "Nebula Hypothesis", first proposed by the philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1755 (English translation, 1969).Kant proposed that the original solar system was a cosmic dust cloud, and under the action of its own gravity, the cosmic dust cloud condensed and gradually acquired the tendency of rotation.Small clouds of dust condensed into solids and swirled around a large center, which was hot, to form the Sun.Because Kant's book was not popular, his views did not attract much attention, but later, the astronomer Pierre-Simon Laplace's "The System of the World" (Laplace, 1796; English translation, 1830) A similar view was raised in .This theory seems to be supported by observations with the William Herschel telescope (Hoskin, 1964).Using greatly improved equipment, Herschel was able to observe nebulae and cloudy clouds of dust visible only at night, which were composed of clouds of gas or dust apparently condensed into a central star, thus proving that the nebular hypothesis could be established. Figure 2. Nebula Hypotheses for the Origin of the Solar System (1) A nebula, a gigantic cloud of slowly rotating dust and gas, begins to collapse under its own gravitational pull. (2) Most of the matter begins to condense into a central body, but the lighter parts begin to form rings, which revolve around the center, and at this time they themselves begin to condense. (3) So far, the central body has been collapsing and releasing enough energy to make it glow hot, forming the sun.Smaller bodies solidified into planets, which orbited the sun continuously. The nebular hypothesis posits that all stars condense in the same way, and that, therefore, most stars have planets orbiting them.The gradual formation or "evolution" of planets thus became a perfectly natural phenomenon.Such a belief does not necessarily rule out the possibility that the whole process was created by God, after all he may have created the original dust cloud in such a way that the formation of certain kinds of planets would follow his laws of nature.But Laplace sees little reason to keep traces of the old line of thinking.If the universe is a physical system that has developed in a certain way in the long past, it is unnecessary to imagine that the details of the development of the universe were predesigned by the Creator.Thus, to end with a fully mechanistic cosmology is to gradually diminish the role of God until the connection between God and the universe becomes increasingly irrelevant and apparently negligible.Newton's worst fear was finally clear: to abandon supernatural explanations was to inevitably lead to deism and atheism. By the time Laplace reworked the nebula hypothesis, the spirit of the Enlightenment had waned under the influence of the French Revolution.Buffon's less inclusive theory developed into the basis of a complete geological system ("Natural History" I and "Natural Periodization", Buffon, 1778; ed.Roger, 1962). In order to avoid the criticism of the theological circles, Buffon divided the history of the earth into 6 periods, which can also be considered to correspond to the 6 days of creation. Many subsequent geologists have also used this strategy.His real intention is to explain the entire history of the earth and its creatures in accordance with the complete Newtonian philosophy of the universe and the principles of materialism.His theory of the origin of the earth from the sun led him to establish a classical "directional" view to explain the development of the earth after its origin.Because the Earth started out hot, the Earth must have cooled steadily over time, and cooling became a critical stage in Earth's development.The initial molten state was the Earth's first period, followed by a second period when cooling made the Earth's exterior solid.Like De Meyet, Buffon saw the need to invoke a vast ancient ocean to explain the formation of sedimentary rocks.In what he called the third period, he thus imagined that vast quantities of water vapor condensed and fell to the surface in the form of rain, forming extensive oceans.During the fourth period, as the oceans receded, parts of the seabed were finally exposed.And the temperature at this time was still much hotter than today, so that in the fifth period tropical creatures lived even in the north.It was only during the last period that the earth became what it is now, and man first appeared. Compared with the schools of thought that geologists later divided, Buffon's theory was surprisingly mixed.On the one hand, his theory is based on the Earth cooling hypothesis, which in turn is connected to the "igneous theory", which believes that the heat in the ground is the main cause of the change of the earth.On the other hand, he does not develop this aspect of his theory further.He believed that volcanic eruptions were caused by the burning of deposits of coal, not by heat left over from the original melting conditions of the earth.He didn't try to suggest that the higher internal temperature of the early Earth would have produced more violent earthquakes than it does today.Therefore, he did not lay the foundation for the later so-called cataclysmic theory. On the contrary, he turned to the regression theory. As water dwindled and dry land was exposed, what happened?布丰知道地球很古老，他在已出版的论著中估计有7万年的历史，但是在私下却承认这个数值太低了。陆表一定裸露了相当长的时间，其间，侵蚀的力量在起作用。我们看到的地表可能在某种力量的长期作用下发生过完全的变化，我们知道这种作用依然在起作用。布丰通过提出这种可能性，从而部分地预见了后来被叫做“均一论”的观点，均一论相信，我们今天可以观察的动因，是唯一可以用来解释导致地球成为目前状态的动因，这种动因仍然在起作用。但是，他的关于地球起源的理论，防碍了他提出地球经过可观察原因的重塑，可能已经完全消除了它最初状态的痕迹。特别要指出的是，他认为花岗岩是早期岩石，是由于熔化地球的最初冷却形成的，并且不受后来变化的影响。 水成论与火成论 19世纪后期，在研究岩石和研究持续影响地表过程方面取得了很多进展。这些研究越来越独立于关于行星起源的详细理论。罗杰已经提出（Buffon，1962；引言），这时《自然的分期》已经问世，但是，由于人们重新对纯观察感兴趣，因而（布丰的）猜想式研究被视为过时。即使已经对地球最终起源的问题不太感兴趣，然而，依然在追问关于决定岩石形态的力量的问题。最后，这个问题导致地质学分化成两个阵营，每一个阵营侧重于有希望用来解释事实的两种主要力量中的一种。 当时，所有地质学理论所面临的根本问题是：曾经是水中沉积形成的沉积岩如何现在位于干燥的陆地上？对此问题，只出现过两种可能的解答，一种根据的是洋面的绝对降低，另一种根据的是地震导致陆地的隆起。有一种信念，相信所有的沉积岩沉积在广阔的古海洋底，这种古海洋已经消失，这就是水成论理论，水成论这个词来自古罗马海神的名字。 图3.18世纪晚期和19世纪早期提出的不同地质学理论 德梅耶特和布丰都采纳了水成论的观点，而且他们试图从他们的地球起源理论的角度为他们所信奉的古海洋普遍存在的观念辩护，但是18世纪后期的水成论者不再尝试性地去证实这种基本的假设，转而赞成经验性地研究岩石本身。沉积岩是在水下形成的，这已经成为不言自明的真理，这样海洋当然曾经覆盖过整个大地。由于放弃对事物原初状态的猜测性研究，真正对岩石进行科学研究的障碍也就清除了。这种做法在德国很流行，而且关注地质学的实用价值又对此起到了推动作用。约翰·勒曼和阿伯拉罕·格特勒堡·维尔纳都是矿物学校大教师，他们充分认识到矿物学和地层学对找矿的重要性。 1756年，勒曼发表了对山体结构的分析，将山体区分为最初形成的山，在生命出现之前从原初海洋沉积成的山，在《圣经》中记载的大洪水期间新形成的、岩石中含有化石的山，以及最近的或在大洪水以后时期形成的具有第三纪结构的山。勒曼利用大洪水作依据表明，他至少不太同情启蒙运动时期非常激进的精神。然而维尔纳却不是这样，他是水成论发展中的领袖，1775年起他在弗莱堡矿物学校教书。维尔纳主要是位矿物学家，对分类构成地壳的物质感兴趣。他通过构想出他的分类系统，作出了自然的假设，在地质序列底层发现的矿物质是先形成的。根据这一点，他根据由巨大的古海洋沉积成的不同的地层，精心设计了一个完整的水成论学说。 维尔纳只写了少量著作来解释他的系统（Werner，英译本，1971），但是他是一个出色的教师，他将欧洲各地的学生吸引到弗莱堡，启发他们在回到家乡以后运用水成论原理来研究他们祖国的岩石。一些历史学家一直对为什么海退理论能那么流行迷惑不解，在人们的印象中那显然是一个荒谬的理论，史学家很难理解为什么人们对这个理论还很在意（Geikie ，1897；Gillispie，1951）。然而正如亚利山大·奥斯波万特（Ospovat，1969）表明的那样，支持这个理论有一定的理由，最近出现了对此问题更合理的解释（如Hallam，1983）。因为维尔纳将海退理论与一个非常有用的矿物分类系统联系了起来，因此这个理论就给了地质学家们一个概念框架，以便他们把握所搜集到的大量数据。这个理论并不像有些史学家认为的那样简单。这个理论并没有认为在古海洋中沉积的一系列均一的岩石层包裹着地球，就像洋葱外面包裹着洋葱一样。通过承认原初的地表并不均匀，水的退去并不规则，维尔纳能够解释为什么在不同的地区形成的岩石不一样。他并没有期望在水平地层总是均匀地分布着同样的岩石。火山的广泛存在是主要的障碍，这一点最终要动摇水成论。在这期间，维尔纳的水成论起到了有价值的作用，它使地质学家认识到有大量的数据存在，这些数据可能会带来混淆。 后来反对水成论的人一直在追问，所有的水来自何方，如何消失的。维尔纳绕过了这些恼人的问题，他宣称，这些问题不属于科学地质学（或者按他的叫法，岩石学）范畴。没有证据表明地震可以使山隆起；因此我们必须设想整个地球曾经被水覆盖。我们通过研究现存的岩石无法得知这个星球本身是如何形成的，真正的科学家应该不考虑这些猜测性的问题，而应该去更加详细地研究我们所能观察到的地层中岩石的序列。 维尔纳对《圣经》中关于创世和大洪水的解释不感兴趣，他并不相信地球的历史才有几千年。然而，他的追随者却不得不面对18世纪末产生的新的保守氛围。特别是在英国，由于害怕法国大革命，人们不再相信启蒙运动时期的无神论哲学。地质学家重新关注能否将他们的系统与《圣经·创世纪》协调起来。在这方面水成论提供可能性，而维尔纳本人则没有预料到这一点。有人提出，地球历史的明确开始等同于创世，而利用远古的水可以解释《圣经》中的大洪水。于是，通过后来的水成论者，如让·安德雷·德鲁克，将维尔纳的理论与圣经地质学的复活联系了起来（Gillispie，1951）。 维尔纳及其学生提出了两个重要的假定。第一个假定是，在整个地质史上，火山的活动相对来说比较微弱。他们认为火山是地下煤床燃烧引起的区域效应。因此，大面积的岩石的起源不可能是火成的，整个地壳一定是直接来自水中的沉积。有人甚至提出，花岗岩和玄武岩也是在水中结晶形成的，尽管事实上这种岩石根本就不溶解。维尔纳理论的核心是，具有结晶的岩石一定来自于水中的溶解，因为熔化岩石（例如火山岩）冷却并不能导致结晶化的发生。到了18世纪末，越来越多的证据支持花岗岩的火成起源，甚至维尔纳的追随者也开始拒绝接受他们的导师在这一点上的教诲。如果花岗岩是火成岩石，随着冷却而结晶，构成现在地表的岩石中有多少可能是火成的起源，而不是水成的起源？ 图4.维尔纳的理论：水成论（1）最初，广袤的海洋覆盖着地球，导致大量的物质悬浮或溶解。随着海平面的降低，原岩通过结晶化沉积在海床上。这种岩石的形成具有普遍性，覆盖了最初地球的整个表面。（2）经过一段时间之后，海平面的降低使最早的陆地暴露出来。从这时起，不再存在普遍性的地表形成。过渡岩石出现，部分来自于海洋结晶化产生出的物质，而且也来自陆表侵蚀形成的沉积层。（3）海洋继续退去，暴露出更大的陆地区域。过渡岩石这时暴露出来，但是山脉中还含有原岩。大面积的侵蚀将大量的沉积冲到海洋中，在那里形成了次级岩或弗洛茨岩。有时，存在着巨大的暴风雨，甚至海平面的暂时上升，二者都导致这些岩石的沉积不规则。最终，随着海平面的进一步降低，暴露出了一些次级岩，随着最近的冲积形成，进一步的侵蚀开始形成物质沉积。只是到了现在，海平面的进一步降低暴露出一些冲积岩，所以只能在深处发现冲积岩。 水成论的第二个假定是，没有什么力量能使地表隆起。现代的地震似乎不能引作这种力量，因为一旦地震最初的震荡平息了，岩石的位置并没有根本的改变。胡克已经提出，在过去可能有更剧烈的地震，也许能够隆起新的陆地。这对于沉积岩如何隆起形成新的干燥陆地提供了另一种解释，但是这种观点要求人们相信在地球深部有很强的力量在起作用。后来，有证据表明过去的火山活动更加广泛，从而为这种信念奠定了基础，因此将地震和火山视为同一种基本现象的体现。于是，火成论应运而生。 1740年，安东拉扎洛·莫洛形成到那时为止唯一完整的火成论学说。他认为，沉积岩地层是广泛的火山喷发期形成的火山灰层。少量岩石确实是这样产生的，但是无法解释为什么在许多沉积岩地层中发现石化的海洋生物遗迹。逐渐发展起来的一个更有效的火成论学派采纳了一种不太极端的观点：多数层化的岩石是在水中形成的，不过是由火山的力量抬升起来的。然而，首先必须要证明地球的中心确实非常热。这点最终得到了证明，途径是认识到火成（即曾经是熔化的）岩石在地壳上分布的程度。如果更加频繁地发现火成岩，超出了水成论者的预见，那么就不能将火山喷发仅仅地看成是一种局部现象，而应该视为是地球内部重要力量的显示。 在18世纪中叶，许多博物学家开始猜测火山喷发曾经对地球的大部分地区造成影响。据让埃迪恩·盖塔报告（Guettard，1752），在法国中部，许多山都呈现出火山的圆锥形状，虽然在人类历史时期尚无记载那里的火山活动。尼古拉·德马雷坚持认为，诸如爱尔兰的贾恩茨考斯韦角等地区圆柱形片岩，是从熔化状态固化的，因此起源于火山喷发。虽然德马雷准备承认地球的历史很悠久，但是他仍然不能相信过去时代的火山喷发是决定整个地壳形状的力量（Taylor，1969）。只是到了18世纪末，苏格兰地质学家詹姆斯·赫顿才创立了第一个真正完整的火成论学说。在这个学说中，他综合了各种证据，提出地球的内部非常热，而且他用这种热作为他的造山机制的基础。为了将这种地球中心非常热的学说与仅仅强调火成论区分开来，前者常又称作“深层论”（plutonism，是火成论的另一种叫法）。 赫顿理论的早期解释发表在1788年爱丁堡皇家学会的《学报》上，接着于1795年又出版了两卷本的《地球的理论》（Bailey，1967；Gerstner，1968，1971；Dott，1969；Gou ld，1987）。赫顿自己的著述非常繁冗，不过不久之后，约翰·普雷菲尔出版了一本非常通俗的《赫顿学说的简述》（Playfair，1802）。对于沉积岩是在水中形成的这一基本假设，赫顿的学说并没有予以挑战，但是对于那种认为所有形成沉积岩的物质都曾悬浮在广阔的原始海洋的看法，赫顿的学说却断然否定。赫顿坚持认为。陆地受到风、雨和河流的不断侵蚀，侵蚀下来的碎片被冲到大海中，并沉积在大洋底。赫顿假设这时地球中心的热穿透沉积物，使之变硬，形成岩层。新的岩石可能随后在地震力量的作用下，隆起形成干燥的陆地，而地震则一再受地核的热和压力的驱动。对火山喷发的解释则是假定地球内部的熔岩偶尔找到了通向地表的途径。赫顿通过发现在一些地区的沉积岩层中存在着花岗岩和玄武岩，从而证明证明这两种岩石是火成的。然而，在这种情况中，熔岩并没有达到地表，而是在地下深处慢慢地冷却了。在这种环境中，玄花岗岩和玄武岩依然可以获得结晶的性质，维尔纳曾经以结晶作为它们是从水中沉积的证据。詹姆斯·霍尔通过一系列熔岩实验的演示，支持了赫顿关于花岗岩和玄武岩性质的观点。 假如我们现在要求一个从来没有阅读过赫顿著作的人重新建立赫顿理论的可能基础，他的最符合逻辑的方法就是将地球中心热的观点与布丰的地球冷却理论结合起来。这样大概可以解释地表现在比地球内部冷得多这一事实，而且可能得出胡克的古代地震比现在的地震更有威力的看法。如果过去的地球内部温度更高，地壳更薄，地震的威力显然要更剧烈。然而这却不是赫顿方案的逻辑。相反，这是剧变论学说的基础，剧变论过了几十年后才开始流行。有一种悖论清楚地表明，科学并不呈现清晰的发展序列，赫顿的学说也来自不同的方向。他并不相信地球中心的热度是缓慢降低的，他也并不认为过去的地震就比现在的剧烈。相反，他将他的火成论与一种稳态的世界观联系了起来，因而建立的系统被查尔斯·赖尔在均一论的名义下作了修改。 赫顿在方法论的基础上维护了他的稳态观。的确有人提出他的学说是他的基本经验主义哲学的扩展（ORourke，1978）。他认为，科学的地质学家应该最大限度地通过他现在能够观察到其运行的原因的运作，来解释地球的结构。这就是自然均一性原理，或更恰当的叫法，“现实论”方法（Hooykaas，1970）。根据我们不可能再观察到的程度设想剧变，是不科学的，根据已知的原因以可观察到的强度在起作用，才能解释现象。因为我们现在观察到的缓慢变化，只有经过长时间的积累，才可以产生出明显的效果，因此赫顿要求地球的历史非常悠久。经过一定的时间，正常原因导致的侵蚀才能产生非常深的峡谷，或使一个大陆变得平坦。同样经过很长时间，一系列小的地震，虽然比今天的地震大不了多少，也能使山脉从海洋深处隆起。 图5.赫顿的学说：火成论或均一论（1）受席卷陆表的风、水和霜侵蚀；河流携带着流向大海，在海底沉积。来自地球深层的压力和热“烘烤”着地层，形成次级岩。注意，不同的岩层可以一层一层地形成，因为沉积的性质依赖于在陆地上受到什么样的侵蚀。（2）最终，通过一系列的地震，作用于海床上的压力使海床隆起，直至形成现在的干燥陆地，并暴露出次级岩。在这个过程中，这些岩石已经遭到了扭曲。地球深处的熔岩可能通过裂缝涌现出来。如果熔岩达到地表，可能会形成火山，但是当火成岩慢慢冷却，形成结晶状岩石时，如花岗岩，可能会挤入沉积岩地层。新形成的陆表还是要经受侵蚀。（3）这时，侵蚀可能会洗刷一些沉积岩，使花岗岩裸露出来。在海床正在形成新的沉积岩层；最终，由于地球运动，这些新形成的沉积岩层可能也会隆起，形成新的干燥陆地。注意，因为赫顿的体系是稳态的体系，所以（1〕中显示的最初陆地在低于海面时，会被形成的沉积岩所覆盖。 这种立场是一个重要的创新，而且因为现代地质学家依然倾向于怀疑剧变，所以赫顿被奉为这门科学之父。在许多方面，他确实预见到了现代的观点——唯一的不同是人们认识到陆地并不是从深深的海床隆起的，而是随着板块运动形成的，板块由相对较轻的岩石组成，附着在致密的物质上。然而通过赫顿体系的一个侧面，我们不能将他纯粹当作科学的地质学家。有一个问题可能会给现实论的方法带来挑战：我们怎能确定在岩石中没有地球最初形成时的痕迹？那时的条件与今天的相比可能有很大的不同。现代的地质学家的确相信他所获得的一些岩石属于远古时期。但是，在赫顿看来，不可能找到任何真正的“远古”岩石。他认为地球最初形成的问题不属于我们研究的范畴，我们只能发现类似事件的不定循环，“没有开始的痕迹，没有结束的征兆。”尽管维尔纳拒绝猜想地球的起源，但是他的理论的基础却是假设地球形成时的条件与现在的截然不同。赫顿为了用一种只是建立在可观察原因基础上的体系取代海退学说，不得不将地球起源假说完全放在科学地质学考虑范围之外。因此，赫顿放弃了既从传统角度又从唯物论的角度去设想“创世”。然而他却仍然相信，虽然我们无法确定地球历史的周期何时开始，但地球是由一个智慧和仁慈的造物主〖HT H〗设计的。地球不是由物质偶然堆积而成的，地球是一个结构严密的系统，永远能够自我更新，这正是地球造物主完美技巧的写照。地球所有活动的目的就是要为生物创造一个惬意的永久居住地，从中我们可以发现赫顿体系的神学基础。永远自我更新的地球概念并不很明白，现代地质学不接受这个概念。然而，虽然赫顿预见了许多现代地质学的细节，但是我们要想理解赫顿体系的形成，只有认识到这个体系不仅基于经验论的只利用可观察原因的欲望，而且基于有关上帝与自然之间相互关系的一个特定的假设。赫顿的学说具有自然神论的基础，而不是基督教的基础：信奉设计了这个世界、但是并不决定道德或物质史上一系列事件的上帝。其他自然神论者也有这样的观点，赫顿的同事斯各特、乔治·霍加特·图尔明更详细地阐明了这种观点（Hooykaas，1966；Porter，1978）。 赫顿相信地球非常古老，这导致他对18世纪后期英国新的保守氛围很怀疑（Gillispi e，1951）。新的信奉《圣经》观点的地质学家仍然接受维尔纳的体系，因为这个体系承认“创世”，它提到原始海洋的首次形成，而且可以用这个体系解释大洪水。然而赫顿的地球完全是永恒的信念可以被视为是对创世的否定，因而是一种无神论的迹象。这样看并不公平。德鲁克（Deluc，1790-91，1798）和理查德·科万(Kirwan，1799)从宗教和地质学的角度对赫顿的体系进行了攻击。特别需要指出的是，德鲁克修改了维尔纳的学说，以支持《圣经》故事，将沉积的六个时期与创世的六天和比较近的大洪水对应起来。在赫顿的故乡爱丁堡，这种水成论通过罗伯特·詹姆森（Jameson，1808）而得到进一步的发展。由于普莱菲尔的捍卫，赫顿的火成论才不至于被反对者所击溃。即使在水成论衰落之后，19世纪早期信奉剧变论的地质学家，至少部分是基于正统的立场，仍然坚持稳态的世界观。但是有些启蒙运动时期的地质学家所确立的观点实在是太牢固了，无法被抛弃。这个地球曾经是非常古老（并不像赫顿设想的那么古老），而且经历了许多变化。否定赫顿的方法并不意味着是完全的倒退：19世纪的剧变论在本质上是方向论者的框架，它像赖尔复兴的均一论体系一样，在现代地质学的兴起中，起到了自己的作用。