Chapter X: Book I (8)

AS to _Jupiter_, that Planet without doubt is also turn’d about its Axis, otherwise how should its four Moons be carried round him? And this is also collected from the Motion of that permanent Spot (if it be found to be so) that is upon its Body. Which Spot I take to be either a Lake or a Chasm and _Hiatus_ into the Abyss of the Planet: That is, part of the Abyss open or uncover’d, like the Aperture we made in the Seventh Figure, _C. 6. p. 184._ And this might either have been left so by Providence, at first, for some Reasons and Causes fitting that Earth: Or it may have fallen in afterwards, as _Plato_’s _Atlantis_, or as _Sodom_ and _Gomorrah_, for some Judgment upon part of that World.

TO conclude, seeing all the Planets that are plac’d in this Heaven, and are the Foster-Children of this Sun, seem to have some Affinity one with another, and have much what the same Countenance, and the same general _Phænomena_; it seems probable, that they rise much what the same way, and after the like manner as our Earth, each one from its respective Chaos; and that they had the same Elementary Regions at first, and an exteriour Orb form’d over their Abyss: and lastly, That every one of them hath suffer’d, or is to suffer its Deluge, as our Earth hath done. These, I say, are probable Conjectures according to the Analogy of Reason and Nature, so far as we can judge concerning Things very remote and inaccessible.

AND these things being thus, and our Theory of the Deluge, and the Dissolution which brought it, having such a general Agreement both with our Heavens and our Earth, I think there is nothing but the Uncouthness of the Thing to some Men’s Understandings, the Custom of thinking otherwise, and the Uneasiness of entring into a new set of Thoughts, that can be a Bar or Hindrance to its Reception. But it may be improv’d, I doubt not, in many Respects, and in some Particularities rectified. The first Attempts in great Things are seldom or never perfect: Such is the Weakness of our Understandings, and the want of a full Natural History. And in assigning Causes of such great Effects, fair Conjectures are to be allow’d, till they be displac’d by others more evident and more certain. Accordingly I readily submit to these Terms, and leave this, and all other Parts of the Theory, to further Examination and Enquiries.

THE THEORY OF THE EARTH.