It is not in our purpose here to treat of moral causes; but this author having endeavoured to fortify his system by observing, that the world certainly cannot be ancient, since men have not ceased as yet to quarrel and fight, (Lettre 34.) it may be proper to observe, that the absolute rest of land, like the peace among mankind, will never happen till those things are changed in their nature and constitution, that is to say, until the matter of this globe shall be no more a living world, and man no more an animal that reasons from his proper knowledge, which is still imperfect.  If man must learn to reason, as children learn to speak, he must reason erroneously before he reasons right; therefore, philosophers will differ in their opinions as long as there is any thing for man to learn.  But this is right; for, how are false opinions to be corrected, except in being opposed by the opinions of other men?  It is foolish, indeed, for men to quarrel and fight, because they differ in opinion.  Man quarrels properly, when he is angry; and anger perhaps is almost always ultimately founded upon erroneous opinion.  But, in nature, there is no opinion; there is truth in every thing that is in nature; and in man alone is error.  Let us, therefore, in studying nature, learn to know the truth, and not indulge erroneous notions, by endeavouring to correct, in nature, that which perhaps is only wrong in our opinion.

Having shown that every thing, which is moveable upon the surface of the land, tends to the sea, however slowly in its pace, we are now to examine, what comes of those materials deposited within the regions of the waves, still however within the reach of man, and still subservient more immediately to that soil on which plants grow, and man may dwell.

As, from the summit of the land, the natural tendency of moveable bodies is to fall into the water of the sea, so, from the borders of the land or coast, there being a declivity towards the deepest bottom of the sea, and there being currents in the waters of the ocean occasionally rendered more rapid on the shore, every moveable thing must tend to travel from the coast, and to proceed alone; the shelving bottom of the sea into the unfathomable deep, when they are beyond the reach of man or the possibility of returning to the shore.

But it is not every where upon the coast that those materials are equally delivered; neither is it every where along the shore that the currents of the ocean are equally perceived, or operate with equal power in moving bodies along the shelving bottom of the sea.  Hence in some places deep water is found washing rocky coasts, where the waste of land is only to be perceived from what is visibly wanting in the continuity of those hard and solid bodies.  In other places, again, the land appears to grow and to encroach upon the space which had been occupied by the sea; for here the materials of the land are so accumulated on the coast, that the bottom of the sea is filled up, and dry land is formed in the bafon of the sea, from those materials which the rivers had brought down upon the shore.[12]