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history. Since we cannot attribute this failure entirely to ignorance of
principles unknown in his day, Hutton's curiously limited use of these data
does reflect his resolutely ahistorical perspective.
Hutton on fossils
Although paleontological data provided crucial information toward validating
several parts of the world machine, we find in Hutton's writing not a shred of
a suggestion that fossils might record a vector of historical change, or even
distinctness of moments in time. Fossils, to Hutton, are immanent properties
of time's cycle.
The encasing of marine fossils in continental strata illustrates two essential
parts of the world machine: first, their incorporation into hard strata proves
that piles of sediment can be consolidated to rock by heat and pressure;
second, their present status as parts of elevated continents demonstrates that
consolidated sediments are then uplifted by restorative forces. "In all the
regions of the globe, immense masses are found, which, though at present in
the most solid state, appear to have been formed by the collection of the
calcareous exuviae of marine animals" (1788, 219).
But how can we know that these marine sediments formed from eroded
materials of continents in a former cycle? Here, Hutton invokes petrified
wood and other plant fossils (1788, 290-292) as direct proof for vanished
continents. In other words, both examples use fossils only as ecological signs
in judging sources and places for deposition of sediments, not as historical
evidence for distinctive changes in time. Hutton denies that any change at all
has accompanied life's passage through time's cycle:
In order to be convinced of that truth, we have but to examine the strata of
our earth, in which we find the remains of animals. In this examination, we
not only discover every genus of animal which at present exists in the sea,
but probably every species, and perhaps some species with which at present
we are not acquainted. There are, indeed, varieties in those species, compared
with the present animals which we examine, but no greater varieties than may
perhaps be found among the same species in the different quarters of the
globe. (1788, 290)
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