Thomas Burnet, Theory of the Earth (London, 1684)
Thomas Burnet, a royal chaplain, classical scholar, and Cambridge Platonist, published Telluris theoria sacra in 1681. Its famous frontispiece first appeared in this English edition of 1684.
A circle of seven globes represents the Earth completing its journey through time.
Three habitable worlds include the paradise that was lost; the present world of wreck and ruin; and the millennium or paradise regained.
Four ‘Revolutions of our natural world,’ accomplished through natural causes, appear as transitions between them: the original chaos, Noah’s universal deluge, a future conflagration, and a final consummation when the Earth will be transformed into a fixed star.
With a scope as wide as Milton, Burnet set out to tell the epic story of the world, updated with the science of Descartes. In doing so, he created a tradition known as “Theories of the Earth.”
The long title of Burnet’s 1690 edition indicates the comprehensive temporal scope of Earth history—past, present, and future—encompassed by Burnet’s Theory:
The Theory of the Earth: Containing an Account of the Original of the Earth, and of all the General Changes Which it hath already undergone, or is to undergo, Till the Consummation of all Things. The Two First Books, Concerning The Deluge, and Concerning Paradise. The Two Last Books, Concerning the Burning of the World, and Concerning the New Heavens and the New Earth.
