{
  "apiVersion": "v1",
  "kind": "Source",
  "metadata": {
    "generated": "2026-09-12T06:52:38Z",
    "language": "en",
    "schemaUrl": "/v1/schema/source/"
  },
  "data": {
  "id": "theory-of-the-earth",
  "title": "Theory of the Earth",
  "description": {
    "en": "James Hutton's 1788 paper (expanded to a two-volume work in 1795) is the founding text of geological uniformitarianism — the principle that the same physical processes operating today have, over deep time, produced the present-day geological record. Hutton's famous formulation that the geological record displays 'no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end' is the conceptual displacement of the early-modern biblical-chronological framework by what would become the geological consensus. The displacement of Ussher's 4004 BCE chronology by Hutton's deep-time geology is the principal nineteenth-century transformation of the natural-philosophical context for the antediluvian world."
  },
  "authored_by": [
    "James Hutton"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Geology",
    "Deep Time",
    "Uniformitarianism",
    "Antediluvian"
  ],
  "stance": "neutral",
  "source_type": "academic_monograph",
  "publish_date": "1788",
  "source_family": "science",
  "relation_to_wheel": "scientific_context",
  "licensing_status": "public_domain",
  "follow_url": "https://archive.org/details/theoryofearthwit01hutt"
},
  "links": {
    "self": "/v1/sources/theory-of-the-earth/",
    "canonical_html": "https://www.wheelofheaven.world/sources/theory-of-the-earth/",
    "index": "/v1/sources/",
    "schema": "/v1/schema/source/",
    "traditions": "/v1/sources/traditions/"
  }
}
