Natural Table of the Correspondences Existing Between God, Man, and the Universe

But would the same doctrine of this great central heat not be enough to resolve these questions, without resorting to explanations that counteract the natural idea we have of the activity of the great Being, and which cannot be avowed by reason, because they present to it only works without goal and without object?

Without doubt, the central heat was greater than it is today; but one must not believe that it was to the point of rendering the earth uninhabitable; which would contradict the wisdom of Nature and the object of its existence. It suffices that it was sufficient to give sudden birth to the primitive productions, which in their turn could have given it to numerous secondary productions, in a shorter time than is needed today for the same facts.

It is this heat that was able to promptly consolidate minerals, vitrify granites, sandstones, jaspers, porphyry, bedrock, and quartz; in a word, to operate all the vitrifications that compose the summits of mountains and most rocks. It is this heat that was also able to calcine as rapidly this multitude of shells, from which resulted marbles, spars, chalks, stalactites, and all the productions that can be converted into lime. It is this same heat that could have bound to substances