So M. tVay89inoub''s BefBice of CliruttanUy. 



teena which have changed their order dr inchhation, are anterior 

 fo the eJcistence of man. • 



^ God, as M. de Fray ssinous has observed, could certainly, by 

 ail act of his will, have created at once the whole consolidated 

 earth, and alt thfe beings which embellish it; but as nothing pre- 

 vents us from thinking that the will of the Creator might have 

 received its accomplishment by a concatenation or succession of 

 effects, more or less rapid, or slow, with reference to the duration 

 of human life, and as orthodoxy makes no opposition to the six 

 days' work being considered as six indeterminate periods of time; 

 and, nioreover, as Moses has not entered into a detail of the first 

 causes by which God determined this succession of effects, and 

 as the only circumstances which he relates agree with observa- 

 tion, or with the inference which the laws of nature authorise, 

 we can without difficulty admit this succession or concatenation 

 of effects, dependent upon first and pre-existing causes, which has 

 successively, and in the way of consequence, brought about the 

 formation of the earth, and the modifications which its surface 

 has undergone. 



Following, according to the Bishop of Hermopolis, the series 

 of the six days' work, we shall briefly make known the rest of 

 this conference. 



On the first day, God created the heavens and the earth. At 

 first the earth was covered with water, presenting the appear- 

 ance of a dark abyss ; hut God said, let there be light, a7id 

 there was light. With regard to the creation of light before the 

 sun shone in the firmament, M. de Frayssinous demonstrates 

 that the objections which have been made on this subject are of 

 no vahdity ; admitting, always with the learned prelate, that 

 Moses meant less to say visible and produced light, than the 

 creation of the substance which may develope light. He founds 

 his opinion on the researches of Dr Young, and those of M. 

 Fresnel, which have made the theory of vibrations prevail over 

 that of emission, which Newton supported. According to the first 

 of these theories, the creation of the fluid which was to become lu- 

 minous, was independent of the creation of the sun, that star 

 being even considered, since the time of Herschel, as an opaque 

 body, and therefore light may have been in fact produced from 

 the beginning. 



