Contents

1.     The Discovery of Deep Time 1
        Deep Time     1
        Myths of Deep Time     3
        On Dichotomy 8
        Time's Arrow and Time's Cycle     10
        Caveats     16
2.     Thomas Burners Battleground of Time 21
        Burnet's Frontispiece     21
        The Burnet of Textbooks    23
        Science versus Religion?     24
        Burnet's Methodology     26
        The Physics of History     30
        Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Conflict and Resolution     41

        Burnet and Steno as Intellectual Partners in the Light of Time's Arrow and Time's Cycle     51
3.     James Hutton's Theory of the Earth: A Machine without a History 61
        Picturing the Abyss of Time     61
        Hutton's World Machine and the Provision of Deep Time     63
        The Hutton of Legend     66
        Hutton Disproves His Legend     70
        The Sources of Necessary Cyclicity     73

        Hutton's Paradox: Or, Why the Discoverer of Deep Time Denied History     80
        Borges's Dilemma and Hutton's Motto     92
        Playfair: A Boswell with a Difference     93
        A Word in Conclusion and Prospect     96
4.     Charles Lyell, Historian of Time's Cycle 99
        The Case of Professor Ichthyosaurus     99
        Charles Lyell, Self-Made in Cardboard     104
        Lyell's Rhetorical Triumph: The Miscastingof Catastrophism     115
        Lyell's Defense of Time's Cycle     132
        Lyell, Historian of Time's Cycle     150
        The Partial Unraveling of Lyell's World View     167
        Epilogue     178
5.     Boundaries 181
        Hampton's Throne and Burners Frontispiece 181
        The Deeper Themes of Arrows and Cycles 191
 
    Bibliography 211
    Index 217