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statement appears with more force or frequency than his insistence that any
proper theory of the earth must explain its dual status— as a mechanism
maintained by physical processes, and as an object constructed for a definite
purpose. The opening paragraph of his first treatise calls the earth "a machine
of a peculiar construction by which it is adapted to a certain end" (1788,
209). In 1795, he continues to unite means (or mechanisms) with ends (or
purposes): "The theory of the earth shall be considered as the philosophy or
physical knowledge of this world, that is to say, a general view of the means
by which the end or purpose is attained; nothing can be properly esteemed
such a theory unless it lead, in some degree, to the forming of that general
view of things" (I, 270).
By mechanism, Hutton understands the cycling world machine itself. For the
purpose of this cycling, he advances an unswerving conviction that we might
brand as crass hubris today, but that seemed self-evidently true in his age.
The earth was constructed as a stable abode for life, in particular for human
domination. Again uniting means and ends, Hutton speaks of "this
mechanism of the globe, by which it is adapted to the purpose of being a
habitable world" (1788, 211). Extending the argument to human life, he
writes of "a world contrived in consummate wisdom for the growth and
habitation of a great diversity of plants and animals; and a world peculiarly
adapted to the purpose of man, who inhabits all its climates, who measures its
extent, and determines its productions at his pleasure" (1788, 294-295).
No notion is more alien to modern science than Hutton's insistence—as a
pivot of his entire system, not peripheral verbiage—that physical objects
have purposes shaped in human terms. Aristotle insisted that phenomena
have at least four distinct kinds of causes—material for their substance,
efficient for the pusher or builder, formal for the blueprint, and final for the
purpose. A house, in the ancient parable, finds its material cause in stones or
bricks, efficient in masons and carpenters, formal in architectural sketches
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