This warfare among explanatory systems had great impact upon approaches to the Earth. Where problems of fossils, land forms or minerals could previously be solved within assured philosophies of Nature, the latter part of the century saw the situation upset. The community possessed no watertight paradigms of natural explanation, and individuals themselves were often slithering between systems Evidence from the Earth was pressed into service in the struggle between warring philosophies of Nature . It is historically significant that few ventured comprehensive theories of the Earth before i69os when ascendant Newtonianism could begin to offer a programme of explanation by simple universal laws.