M. Frayssinous's Defence of Christianity. 85 



restrial globe, with its plants and animals, must be much older 

 than the human race, the Book of Genesis will have nothing to 

 say against such a discovery ; for in each of the six days you 

 are permitted to see so many indeterminate periods of time, and 

 then your discoveries will be the explanatory commencement of 

 a passage, the meaning of which is not perfectly determined."" 



Now, observation shews, that a long period of time elapsed, 

 \st, between the consolidation of the primitive strata of the globe 

 and the appearance of life at its surface ; 2c?, between the crea- 

 tion of the different species of plants, and the various races of 

 animals ; 3c?///, between the latter and the creation of man. The 

 proofs of these facts are undeniable, as these strata are the pro- 

 duct of a succession of slow effects, and the remains of plants and 

 animals which some of them contain, suppose a prodigious suc- 

 cession of distinct generations. The idea, therefore, of days like 

 ours is repelled by facts ; and we do not even yet possess any 

 means of estimating the duration of the epochs in question. It 

 is a calculation of the same nature, as that of the distance of the 

 fixed stars from the earth, and nothing is more ridiculous in the 

 eyes of one who is occupied in such investigations, than to hear 

 people speaking of the age of the world, the antiquity of tli^ 

 world, <Jt. 



As it is equally certain that the human species is the last in 

 the order of creation, since its remains do not occur among those 

 of the other living beings which abound in the solid strata, 

 even the most superficial, of the globe, it may be said that all 

 the phenomena, whatever they may be, to which the forma- 

 tions of these strata may be referred, belong to the scientific his^. 

 tory of the epochs, antecedent to the existence of man. From 

 this may be seen the emptiness of the expression which we every 

 day hear repeated, that the revolutions to which the globe bears 

 testimony are a proof of the universal deluge. It is evident, 

 from what has been already said, that it is at the surface of the 

 earth only, that we can look for, with some English geologists, 

 the traces of this great cataclysm ; and that the shells, the bones 

 of animals, and the impressions of plants, which are found in 

 the solid strata of the globe, have no connection with the deluge, 

 since the object for which it was produced was the destruction of 

 the human race, and as all these strata, as well as the pheno- 



