V
References of English men of letters to the Sacred
Theory began to appear in the year of its publication.
On June 8, 1684, John Evelyn returned a copy of the
translation to Samuel Pepys with flattering remarks.
Both diarists were enthusiastic about the work, as at
first was Sir William Temple who read it at the same
time as a volume by Fontenelle. He thought highly
of both until he came to sections in which the writers
praised modern literature and learning above ancient.
As a result he wrote his essay on ancient and modern
learning which led him into the Battle of the Books.
Burnet was attacked or defended by nearly every im-
portant writer on theology, physico-theology, and sci-
ence, with the exception of Newton, to whom one
volume in the controversy was dedicated. Most of these
books and papers have been discussed in Mountain
Gloom and Mountain Glory. Only a few of the more
important will be mentioned here. Burnet made
England “mountain conscious” to an extent not hith-
erto known. John Ray, father of English natural history,
published in 1691 his Wisdom of God, which went
through many editions. His defense of mountains was
conventional, the old pragmatic and utilitarian argu-
ment. Some, he says, have considered mountains
“Warts and superfluous Excrescences.” He will devote
his energies to proving “the great Use, Benefit and
Necessity of them.” Much of what Ray said was old
convention—a reply to Lucretius as well as Burnet—
but on occasion he developed movingly the place of
mountains in a universe created by a God of overflow-
ing benignity who had expressed himself in the world
with all possible diversity.
In 1692 Richard Bentley delivered the first Boyle
Lecture, The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism
Demonstrated from the Origin and Frame of the World.
Men like Burnet, he says in effect, think that mountain,
valley, ocean are deformity, ruin or fortuitous con-
course of atoms rather than what they are—works of
Divine artifice. “They would have the vast body of a
planet to be as elegent as a factitious globe represents it.”
Interest in the Sacred Theory continued well into
the eighteenth century. Addison, discovering Burnet
in youth, addressed a poem to him and later showed
his influence in The Pleasures of the Imagination. Steele
devoted Spectator 146 to the work, quoting several
passages, particularly what he called Burnet's “Funeral
Oration over this Globe,” and his farewell to the
“mountains and Rocks of the Earth.” Burnet's theory
continued to dwell on the minds of travellers to the
continent. The mountain-experiences of John Dennis
and Lord Shaftesbury, were based to a large extent
on Burnet. James Thompson added to “Spring” a pas-
sage describing the Deluge in Burnetian mood, and he
and David Mallett in their companion-poems showed
Burnetian influence. A climax of the enthusiasm for
Burnet as a prose-poet came with Wordsworth and
Coleridge. The former read the Sacred Theory after
he had finished The Excursion and copied parts of the
Latin version to publish with his notes. References to
Burnet's work occur frequently in Coleridge's Note
Book. He proposed to turn the Telluris theoria sacra
into blank verse. He classed Plato and Burnet together
to show that “poetry of the highest order may exist
without metre.” The lines prefixed to The Ancient
Mariner were taken from a later work of Burnet.
The Sacred Theory was well known on the continent.
Buffon thought it a fine historical romance. Voltaire
satirized the work but the Encyclopedists took it very
seriously. It has been shown that Burnet was quoted
more often than any other English writer by Diderot,
Boulanger, Formey, and Jaucourt; Jaucourt classed him
with Descartes and Newton. The greatest philosopher
among Burnet's admirers was Leibniz, though the
Protogaea, in which Burnet was discussed, appeared
posthumously. Indeed, Burnet's work lived for nearly
a century after it was published.
