Then how does (Jefferson) account for the 5 mass extinctions that preceded? Or the 6th we are currently in — the Anthropocene — which came after Jefferson’s time?
Of course, Jefferson died in July 1826. In 1859 Charles Darwin’s book “On the Origin of Species” was published; espousing a controversial theory about the origins of all species, including Man, that would set the world spinning in a whole other direction concerning science, religion and theology, and critical thinking about either.
