The rising waters, White tells us, represent "the flood of increased knowledge and new thought"; the dam is dogmatic religion and unyielding convention (White then confesses the hope that his book might act as a mujik's channel to let light through gently). For if dogma stands fast, and the dam breaks (as truth cannot be fore- stalled forever), then the flood of goodness, by its volume alone, will overwhelm more than darkness: ". . . a sudden breaking away, distressing and calamitous, sweeping before it not only outworn creeds and noxious dogmas, but cherished principles and ideals, and even wrenching out most precious religious and moral foun- dations of the whole social and political fabric" (1896, vi).

Burnet, in White's view, was part of the dam—an example of religion's improper intrusion into scientific matters and, therefore, a danger to gentle enlightenment. This interpretation underlies the short-takes of our textbooks and classroom lectures. Modern scholars know better, but the world of textbooks is a closed club, passing its errors directly from generation to generation.

Burners Methodology

The Reverend Thomas Burnet was a prominent Anglican clergyman who became the private chaplain of King William III. Between 1680 and 1690, Burnet published, first in Latin then in English, the four books of Telluris theoria sacra, or The Sacred Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of all the General Changes which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo Till the Consummation of all Things. In Book I on the deluge, Book II on the preceding paradise, Book III on the forthcoming "burning of the world," and Book IV "concerning the new heavens and new earth," or paradise regained after the conflagration, Burnet told our planet's story as proclaimed by the unfailing concordance of God's words (the sacred texts) and his works (the objects of nature).

In previous hints of my affection for Burnet, I hope I did not convey the impression that I would defend him as a scientist under