Theory of Incrustation
4. We mention this theory only from memory, not because it has any scientific value, but only because it has some few adherents even today who have been seduced by it. The following is an abstract of it:
“God, according to the Bible, created the world in six days, four thousand years before the Christian era. This is what geologists contest by the study of fossils, and by numerous incontestable evidences of decay, which carries the origin of the Earth back a million of years. However, the scriptures have told the truth, and the geologists also; and it’s a simple peasant * who makes them agree by teaching us that our Earth is a very recently incrustrated planet, composed of very ancient materials.
“After the appearance of the unknown planet, after its having arrived at maturity in the place we now occupy, the spirit of the Earth received the order to bring together its satellites, in order to form our present globe according to the laws of progress. Four of these bodies alone consented to the association proposed to them, the moon alone persisted in its autonomy; for the globes have all their free will. In order to proceed with this fusion, the spirit of the Earth directed toward the satellites a magnetic attractive ray, which entranced all the animal, vegetable, and mineral properties which they brought to the community. To the operation there were no witnesses save the spirit of the Earth and the great celestial messengers who aided in this work by opening the globes in order to unite their contents. The joining together having been accomplished, the water ran into the voids left by the absence of the moon. The atmospheres were mingled; the awakening or resurrection of the entranced germs commenced. Man was the last object which was awakened from the magnetic sleep, saw around him the luxuriant vegetation of a terrestrial paradise, with animals feeding in peace around him. All that could be performed in six days with workmen as powerful as those which God had charged with this commission. The planet Asia brought us the yellow race, which belongs to the most ancient civilization; Africa, the black race; Europe, the white; and America, the red. The moon would perhaps have brought the green or blue.
Thus certain animals of which we find the remains may never have lived upon this present Earth, but may have been found in the portions received from other worlds which have decayed. Fossils, found in climates where they would not have been able to exist lived, no doubt, in very different zones upon globes where they were born. Such remains, as are found at the poles with us, must have existed at the equator on their own globes.
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M. Michel of Figagneres (Var), author of the “Key of Life.”
5. This theory has against it the most positive results of experimental science, added to which it leaves out entirely the question of origin, which it pretends to solve. It tells well how the Earth should be formed, but does not instruct us how the four worlds which constitute this have been formed.
If such things have taken place, why is it that we find no trace of this immense union in any depth which has been explored? If each one brought its own peculiarities of materials, then Asia, Africa, Europe, and America would each have a geology peculiar to themselves, which is not so. On the contrary, the first granite uniform crust of a homogeneous composition is in all parts of the globe without a breach of continuity. Then the geological beds of the same formation are identical in their constitution; everywhere in the same order superposed, continuing, without interruption, from one side to the other of the seas of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, and conversely. These beds are witnesses to the transformations of the globe, attesting that these transformations have been accomplished over its entire surface, and not upon one part alone. It shows us equally well the periods of the appearance, existence, and disappearance of the same species of animals and vegetables in different parts of the world; the fauna and flora of these remote periods, marching everywhere simultaneously under the influence of a uniform temperature, changing in character everywhere according as the temperature is modified. Such a state of things is irreconcilable with the theory of the formation of the Earth by the additions of many different worlds.
One would naturally inquire: What would become of the sea, which occupies the void left by the moon, if the latter had desired to join its sisters? Also what would become of the Earth if the moon should some day take a fancy to join the others, take its place, and expel the sea.
6. This belief has gained some adherents, because it seemed to explain the presence of the different races of men upon the Earth, and their localization; but, since these races have been able to germinate upon separate world, why would they not be able to have germinated upon different points of the same globe? That is trying to solve a difficulty by one much greater. Indeed, however great the rapidity and dexterity with which this operation may have been performed, this adjunction could not have been made without violent commotion. The more rapid it had been, the more disastrous had been the inundations. It seems then impossible that beings in a simple cataleptic sleep could have slept through it, awaking peacefully after all was over. If these beings were only germs, of what did they consist? How could perfectly formed beings be reduced to the state of a germ? The question would always arise: How were they developed anew? The miracle of a miraculous formation would again be brought forth, but by a method less poetic and grand than the biblical Genesis; whilst natural laws give an explanation of its formation much more complete, and above all more rational, deduced from experience and observation. *
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* When such ideas are added to a cosmogony, one wonders if the rest of it reposes upon a rational basis. The agreement which they pretend to establish by this system between the biblical Genesis and science is altogether an illusory idea, since it is contradicted by science itself. The author of the letter above, a man of great learning, having been for a time seduced by this theory, soon saw the vulnerable side, and delayed not to combat it with the arms of science.
