key. Half a century before 1769, when William Smith was born, the notion that figured stones were just inorganic and petrified replicas, cunningly inserted inside rocks to prove the omnipotent genius of God, had been at last abandoned, conveniently forgotten, regarded if at all as a distant cosmic joke. A more modern and more reasonable science was on its way to being forged.
And if today the long survival of ideas about the flood, which must have colored and tainted the thinking of such an eighteenth-century observer as the young William Smith, seem more than a little ludicrous, then at least Smith was brought up free from having to believe that his pound stones and his pundibs were just minerals. He knew, as the thinking world was then coming to accept, that echinoids and terebratulids were not minerals at all, but, as Steno and Hooke had taught, had once been animals.
S o even though William Smith was brought up in a society still in the firm grip of purblind churchly certainty, his scientific training—such as it was—allowed for a measure of liberality. James Ussher was still there on the margins, to confuse; to deny his beliefs was to risk being branded a heretic. But in the later decades of the eighteenth century it was also possible, and moreover acceptable , for a thinking student to suppose that life, far older than humankind and perhaps far stranger than humankind could imagine, might once have existed on the planet.
The corollary to such thinking was that the earth must in turn be far, far older than James Ussher had supposed. That, for the time being, had to remain unsaid. But that it could be thought , and that there was evidence to prove it, was for the young Oxfordshire man, a liberating realization—a realization that helped in no uncertain manner to foster the new science that he was soon, and at first almost unwittingly, to help establish.
4
The Duke and the Baronet’s Widow
Harpoceras falciferum
A fully equipped English duke, grumbled Lloyd George to what he knew would be a sympathetic working-class Edwardian audience on Tyneside, cost as much as two dreadnoughts, was every bit as great a terror, and lasted a great deal longer.
Which was not, it has to be said, an exact description of the third duke of Bridgewater. Francis Egerton, who was born in 1736, succeeded to the title when he was only twelve, gave much of his money and his collections to the government, and allowed the dukedom to die with him in 1803. He was a startling exception to Lloyd George’s general argument, in other words: This particular dukedom of Bridgewater cost precious little and lasted almost no time at all.
Yet in one sense the prime minister was right, for Bridgewater was very much a terror—in many ways, seen from today’s perspective, a quite appalling man. As a child he had been thought so stupid that his father, who was called Scroop, seriously considered making a codicil to his will to ensure that the boy, the second son, could never succeed to the title. The sudden andpremature death of Scroop’s oldest son, however, scuppered the plan—and the child, Francis, who would become a duke variously regarded as ignorant, awkward, and unruly, duly joined his fellow aristocrats in the House of Lords in 1748.
He was at first widely disliked. As a young man he was irredeemably philistine, with little regard for art or society. He dressed intolerably badly. He loathed flowers and all kinds of ornamentation. He smoked like industrial Manchester, consumed pounds of snuff, never wrote letters, and had arguments with everyone. Though in time he became a great collector of painting and sculpture—more for their value than for their beauty, critics sneered—he wasted little time on what he regarded as the fripperies of life. He was a curmudgeonly bachelor and a misogynist who so despised women that he would not even allow one to serve him at table. He had only two apparent interests—the racing and riding of horses
And if today the long survival of ideas about the flood, which must have colored and tainted the thinking of such an eighteenth-century observer as the young William Smith, seem more than a little ludicrous, then at least Smith was brought up free from having to believe that his pound stones and his pundibs were just minerals. He knew, as the thinking world was then coming to accept, that echinoids and terebratulids were not minerals at all, but, as Steno and Hooke had taught, had once been animals.
S o even though William Smith was brought up in a society still in the firm grip of purblind churchly certainty, his scientific training—such as it was—allowed for a measure of liberality. James Ussher was still there on the margins, to confuse; to deny his beliefs was to risk being branded a heretic. But in the later decades of the eighteenth century it was also possible, and moreover acceptable , for a thinking student to suppose that life, far older than humankind and perhaps far stranger than humankind could imagine, might once have existed on the planet.
The corollary to such thinking was that the earth must in turn be far, far older than James Ussher had supposed. That, for the time being, had to remain unsaid. But that it could be thought , and that there was evidence to prove it, was for the young Oxfordshire man, a liberating realization—a realization that helped in no uncertain manner to foster the new science that he was soon, and at first almost unwittingly, to help establish.
4
The Duke and the Baronet’s Widow
Harpoceras falciferum
A fully equipped English duke, grumbled Lloyd George to what he knew would be a sympathetic working-class Edwardian audience on Tyneside, cost as much as two dreadnoughts, was every bit as great a terror, and lasted a great deal longer.
Which was not, it has to be said, an exact description of the third duke of Bridgewater. Francis Egerton, who was born in 1736, succeeded to the title when he was only twelve, gave much of his money and his collections to the government, and allowed the dukedom to die with him in 1803. He was a startling exception to Lloyd George’s general argument, in other words: This particular dukedom of Bridgewater cost precious little and lasted almost no time at all.
Yet in one sense the prime minister was right, for Bridgewater was very much a terror—in many ways, seen from today’s perspective, a quite appalling man. As a child he had been thought so stupid that his father, who was called Scroop, seriously considered making a codicil to his will to ensure that the boy, the second son, could never succeed to the title. The sudden andpremature death of Scroop’s oldest son, however, scuppered the plan—and the child, Francis, who would become a duke variously regarded as ignorant, awkward, and unruly, duly joined his fellow aristocrats in the House of Lords in 1748.
He was at first widely disliked. As a young man he was irredeemably philistine, with little regard for art or society. He dressed intolerably badly. He loathed flowers and all kinds of ornamentation. He smoked like industrial Manchester, consumed pounds of snuff, never wrote letters, and had arguments with everyone. Though in time he became a great collector of painting and sculpture—more for their value than for their beauty, critics sneered—he wasted little time on what he regarded as the fripperies of life. He was a curmudgeonly bachelor and a misogynist who so despised women that he would not even allow one to serve him at table. He had only two apparent interests—the racing and riding of horses
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