So that the Earth, under that Form and Constitution it now hath, could no more be Eternal, than a Statue or Temple, or any Work of Art. BESIDES, that Form, which the Earth is under at present, is in some sort preternatural, like a Statue made and broken again; and so hath still the less Appearance or Pretence of being Eternal. If the Elements had lain in that Order to one another, as _Aristotle_ hath dispos’d them, and as seems to be their first Disposition; the Earth altogether in a Mass in the middle, or towards the Centre; then the Water in a Spherical Mass about that; the Air above the Water, and then a Sphere of Fire, as he fancied, in the highest Circle of the Air: If they had lain, I say, in this Posture, there might have been some Pretence that they had been Eternally so; because that might seem to be their Original Posture, in which Nature had first plac’d them. But the Form and Posture we find them in at present is very different, and according to his Doctrine must be look’d upon as unnatural and violent; and no violent State, by his own Maxim, can be perpetual, or can have been so. BUT there is still a more pressing Consideration against this Opinion. If this present State and Form of the Earth had been from Eternity, it would have long ere this destroy’d itself, and chang’d itself: The Mountains sinking by degrees into the Valleys, and into the Sea, and the Waters rising above the Earth; which Form it would certainly have come into, sooner or later, and in it continu’d drowned and uninhabitable, for all succeeding Generations. For ’tis certain, that the Mountains and higher Parts of the Earth grow lesser and lesser from Age to Age; and that from many Causes, sometimes the Roots of them are weaken’d, and eaten by subterraneous Fires, and sometimes they are torn and tumbled down by Earthquakes, and fall into those Caverns that are under them; and tho’ those violent Causes are not constant, or universal, yet if the Earth had stood from Eternity, there is not a Mountain would have escaped this Fate in one Age or other. The Course of these Exhalations or Fires would have reach’d them all sooner or later, if thro’ infinite Ages they had stood exposed to them. But there are also other causes that consume them insensibly, and make them sink by degrees; and those are chiefly the Winds, Rains, and Storms, and Heat of the Sun without; and within, the soaking of Water and Springs, with Streams and Currents in their Veins and Crannies. These two sorts of Causes would certainly reduce all the Mountains of the Earth, in tract of Time, to Equality; or rather lay them all under Water: For whatsoever moulders, or is wash’d away from them, is carried down into the lower Grounds, and into the Sea, and nothing is ever brought back again by any Circulation: Their Losses are not repair’d, nor any proportionable Recruits made from any other parts of Nature. So as the higher parts of the Earth being