258 Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 



tears away a page from what he has declared to be infallible, 

 occurs at p. 436. He has done wisely to place the passages 

 so far apart : had they been placed in juxtaposition, we appre- 

 hend few of his readers would have taken the trouble to 

 proceed farther. 



We cannot avoid the reflection, that there appears to 

 us a want of good taste, if not of good faith, in the party 

 that call themselves scriptural geologists : they know very 

 well that Moses was addressing a rude and obstinate people, 

 and was obliged to accommodate his language to meet the 

 grossness of their notions : he not only did this, but, by far 

 higher authority than that of Moses, we are assured he also 

 accommodated his doctrines, in some degree, to the grossness 

 of their habits and feelings. " Moses, because of the hardness 

 of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives." [Matthew, 

 xix. 8.) Knowing thus, from the most sacred authority, that 

 the language and doctrines of Moses were partly accom- 

 modated to suit the rude notions and feelings of the Israelites ; 

 yet the soi-disant scriptural geologists would force the ad- 

 mission of every word relating to geology, in its literal sense, 

 while at the same time they allow a free interpretation of the 

 words of Scripture relating to astronomy ; and, what is still 

 more inconsistent, they allow themselves the free use of tearing 

 away whole passages that happen to interfere with their own 

 crude notions of geology. 



Jameson, Professor, Conductor. The Edinburgh New Phi- 

 losophical Journal ; exhibiting a View of the Progressive 

 Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and the 

 Arts. 8vo, in quarterly numbers. London and Edinburgh. 

 Price 75. 6d. 



In the number published, April, 1833, Mr. Blackwall has 

 an interesting communication, twenty pages in length, on the 

 instinctive actions of bii^s. It appears to be there republished 

 from the fifth volume of the second series of the Memoirs of 

 the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester. The 

 number is rich in information on geology, and supplies some 

 on botany. Hewitt C. Watson, Esq., author of Outlines of 

 the Geographical Distribution erf' British Plants, communicates 

 an elaborate paper, entitled " Observations made, during the 

 Summer of 1832, on the Temperature and Vegetation of the 

 Scottish Highland Mountains, in connection with their height 

 above the Sea." M. De Candolle contributes an affectionate 

 eulogy on his deceased friend, Cuvier; and in another part of 

 the number is commenced a translation of the eloge pro- 

 nounced in the Chamber of Peers by Baron Pasquier, and 

 afterwards published, as noticed in our Magazine, p. 131. 



