Copy 1, Volume 1
Natural history, general and particular / by the Count de Buffon, translated into English. Illustrated with above 300 copper-plates, and occasional notes and observations. By William Smellie.
- Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon
- Date:
- 1785
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Natural history, general and particular / by the Count de Buffon, translated into English. Illustrated with above 300 copper-plates, and occasional notes and observations. By William Smellie. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![that all the changes is earth me undergone have been hint ve by the tail of a comet. | For another hypothefis we are indebted to a heterodox divine *, whofe brain was fo fully i im- pregnated with Défi ce] illufions, that he ima- gined he had feen the univerfe created. After telling us the ftate of the earth when it firft _ fprung from nothing, what FAESS have been introduced by the deluge, what the earth has been, and what it now is, he aflumes the noue ftyle, and prediéts what will be its condition af- ter the deflruction of the human kind. A third writer f, aman of more extenfive obfervation than the two former, but equally crude and. confufed in his ideas, -explains the principal appearances of the globe by the aid of an immenfe abyfs in the bowels of the earth, which, in his eftimation, is nothing but a ire cruft inclofing this vaft ocean of fluid matter. ; Thefe ttes are all conftructed on tot- tering foundations.. ‘The ideas they contain are -indiftin@, the facts are confounded, and the whole is a motely jumble of phyfics and fable. They, accordingly, have never been adopted but by men who embrace opinions without exami- _mation, and who, incapable. of diftinguifhing the degrees of probability, are more deeply impref- {ed with marvellous chimeras than with the ge nuine force of truth. A à oy My * Burnet. See Brooks art. III. + Woodward. See proofs, art. IV..](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33282924_0001_0033.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
