(160) For a candid summary of the proofs from geology, astronomy, and zoology, that the Noachian Deluge was not universally or widely extended, see McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical Theology and Ecclesiastical Literature, article Deluge. For general history, see Lyell, D'Archiac, and Vezian. For special cases showing the bitterness of the conflict, see the Rev. Mr. Davis's Life of Rev. Dr. Pye Smith, passim. For a late account, see Prof. Huxley on The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science, in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1890. But the steady work of science went on: not all the force of the Church--not even the splendid engravings in Scheuchzer's Bible--could stop it, and the foundations of this theological theory began to crumble away. The process was, indeed, slow; it required a hundred and twenty years for the searchers of God's truth, as revealed in Nature--such men as Hooke, Linnaeus, Whitehurst, Daubenton, Cuvier, and William Smith--to push their works under this fabric of error, and, by statements which could not be resisted, to undermine it. As we arrive at the beginning of the nineteenth century, science is becoming irresistible in this field. Blumenbach, Von Buch, and Schlotheim led the way, but most important on the Continent was the work of Cuvier. In the early years of the present century his researches among fossils began to throw new light into the whole subject of geology. He was, indeed, very conservative, and even more wary and diplomatic; seeming, like Voltaire, to feel that "among wolves one must howl a little." It was a time of reaction. Napoleon had made peace with the Church, and to disturb that peace was akin to treason. By large but vague concessions Cuvier kept the theologians satisfied, while he undermined their strongest fortress. The danger was instinctively felt by some of the champions of the Church, and typical among these was Chateaubriand, who in his best-known work, once so great, now so little--the Genius of Christianity--grappled with the questions of creation by insisting upon a sort of general deception "in the beginning," under which everything was created by a sudden fiat, but with appearances of pre-existence. His words are as follows: "It was part of the perfection and harmony of the nature which was displayed before men's eyes that the deserted nests of last year's birds should be seen on the trees, and that the seashore should be covered with shells which had been the abode of fish, and yet the world was quite new, and nests and shells had never been inhabited."(161) But the real victory was with Brongniart, who, about 1820, gave forth his work on fossil plants, and thus built a barrier against which the enemies of science raged in vain.(162) (161) Genie du Christianisme, chap.v, pp. 1-14, cited by Reusch, vol. i, p. 250. (162) For admirable sketches of Brongniart and other paleobotanists, see Ward, as above.