CHITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 319 



by shouting I can but rouse attention to the sappers and miners be- 

 neath our walls, I shall be no * vain babbler.' " 



So much for his preface, to which alone the above quotations re- 

 fer. Now for his work ; in which he starts by assuring his readers 

 that Moses " tells us all that is necessary to be known of the crea- 

 tion of the globe we inhabit." This is, surely, not quite fair to 

 Moses; for we have generally understood, on the authority of 

 almost every biblical critic, that Moses told us very little relating to 

 the physiology of the globe ; for this obvious reason — that he was 

 writing for an entirely different purpose, addressing himself to the 

 Jewish nation, who were not deeply read in natural philosophy, in 

 order to instruct them on those points chiefly that had reference to 

 the origin and moral existence of the human race. When Mr. F., 

 therefore, speaks of the " folly and presumption" to which geolo- 

 gians have exposed themselves, we leave it to his maturer consider- 

 ation, whether it may not strike him that a good deal of {C folly and 

 presumption" ought not in equity and fairness to be transferred to 

 his own quarters. If he would condescend to take a particle of 

 advice from such humble authorities as ourselves, we would earnest- 

 ly recommend him to erase from his next edition the following pas- 

 sage : — " I must lay down my theology when I take up science," 

 since, for reasons which may not yet have come across him, but 

 which cannot but most forcibly strike every one who has the most 

 moderate power of reflection, this cutting asunder all relationship 

 between Religion and Science may, at no very distant day, lead to 

 some very disagreeable results, by no means favourable to the per- 

 manent value or utility of that church itself of which he is no doubt 

 a zealous and consistent member. 



In the next page he quarrels with the geologists for hinting that 

 the earth was ever in a state of " chaos" and confusion. " Chaos," 

 with keen irony and a sort of Io triwnpke, he observes, " may be 

 a classical term — but not, as he humbly thinks, a scriptural one." 

 Now, really, we do think, that were the terms, " without form, and 

 void" to be condensed into one word, the word above all others suit- 

 ed to, and conveying the sense and meaning would be, unquestion- 

 ably, chaos. 



We thought that not a single individual acquainted with the 

 laws of motion acting upon fluids, remained to deny the geological 

 position, that this earth must have been once in a fluid state. We 

 were, however, quite wrong; the Rev. Mr. Fennell being of a 

 different opinion, and to such a degree as to assert that " this fluid 

 state would destroy the whole fabric of modern geology ." We re- 

 frain, after such an assertion, to enter into any discussion on the 

 oblate spheroidical form of the earth, which those who know any 

 thing about mechanical science, admit as an unanswerable proof of 

 the reverse of his position. The opinion forced upon us by almost 

 every operation of Nature, that the Creator effects his purpose by 

 gradual processes, marvellous to say, strikes him as absolutely he- 

 retical and heathenish : — " I cannot divest myself of the idea that 



