this be looked upon as a piece of greater art, than if the workman came at that time prefixed, and with a great hammer beat it into pieces? (89)

Only late in the book, when he must specify the earth's future following the conflagration, does Burnet admit that reason must fail—for how can one reconstruct the details of an unobservable future? Yet he abandons reason with much tenderness and evident regret:

Farewell then, dear friend, I must take another guide: and leave you here, as Moses upon Mount Pisgah, only to look into that land, which you cannot enter. I acknowledge the good service you have done, and what a faithful companion you have been, in a long journey: from the beginning of the world to this hour . . . We have travelled together through the dark regions of a first and second chaos: seen the world twice shipwrecked. Neither water nor fire could separate us. But now you must give place to other guides. Welcome, holy scriptures, the oracles of God, a light shining in darkness. (327)

The Physics of History

I have already presented the content of Burner's scenario in outline by discussing his frontispiece; but what physics did he invoke to produce such an astonishing sequence of events?

Burnet viewed the flood as central to his methodological program. The Sacred Theory, therefore, does not proceed chronologically, but moves from deluge to preceding paradise, for Burnet held that if he could find a rational explanation for this most cataclysmic and difficult event, his method would surely encompass all history. He tried to calculate the amount of oceanic water (Figure 2.2), grossly underestimating both the average depth (100 fathoms) and