Thomas Burnet's Battleground of Time - Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle: Myth and Metaphor in the Discovery of Geological Time - page 59

step twice into the same river. History grants absolute uniqueness in toto ,
although timeless principles may regulate parts and abstractions.
Time's arrow must also destroy in due time the numerically rigid schemes of
both Burnet and Steno—a definite number of cycles with predictable
repetition of stages. A planer's history could obey Burner's circle or Steno's
parallel lines only if a wise agent of order governed the cosmos and
established laws that make the products of history unfold in such simple and
rigorous patterns. Darwin's idea of a truly contingent history—time's arrow in
its fullest sense— a quirky sequence of intricate, unique, unrepeatable events
linked in a unidirectional chain of complex causes (and gobs of randomness),
has made the numerological schemes of Burnet and Steno inconsistent with
any acceptable notion of earthly time. We can offer no more profound
refutation than "just history" to those who would seek such simple order in
the products of time. But time's cycle has its own, continuing power as well—
though we must seek it in other guises.