350 Analysis of Scientific Books. 



now are, crMs ainsi? or are they the result of a chymlcHl crystallization from 

 a chaus, or heaven knows what ? De Luc would not undertake to say they 

 were created thiis, because it is an expression about which men are not 

 agreed ; that is, men are not agreed as to what is, and what is not, a 

 creation, and therefore he declined to use the terra. But whether Mr 

 Penn (and we with him) has or has not misunderstood De Luc, we are 

 sure that he has not inteidionaUy done liim injustice, (as indeed our cor- 

 respondent admits ;) and that the severity with which he felt it necessary 

 in several instances, to comment on his writings, was painful to his own 

 feelings. Witness the following passages, which we should have quoted in 

 our late review of the " Comparative Estimate," had our space admitted 

 of it. After another equally severe, and, in our opinion, equally just cen- 

 sure of De Luc's " daring and inerudite tampering with texts of Scripture," 

 by which he interprets ttie six days of creation not to be " days of twenty- 

 four hours, but periods of undetermined lengtli," Mr. Penn adds, "It is 

 not without sincere pain that I feel myself compelled thus strongly to 

 censure this particular work * of the able and amiable De Luc ; but in so 

 sacred a cause, there may be no complimentary reservation from man to 

 man. He has himself rendered it indispensably necessary that a strong 

 and effectual caution should accompany his writings ; because they tend 

 to dissolve the foundations of the edifice, which they officiously offer to 

 secure. They are calculated, therefore, to produce an evil which no hos- 

 tile assault could effect ; for they are calculated to attract a confidence, 

 which an hostile demonstration would repel. De Luc designed friendship ; 

 but unfortunately, the execution of his friendly design is real hostility. 

 He was eminently distinguished, and his memory is deservedly honoured, 

 in the department of physics ; he was great, also, in shewing the concord 

 of many nattiral phce^io/nena with the Mosaic record of the Deluge; but 

 there was the liynit of his true geology- As soon as he attempted to pro- 

 ceed farther, and to argue the mode of the first formatimi of this globe, his 

 mind lost its guide ; he strayed ultra crepiiiam ; and he brought iiimself 

 into the same predicament with those whom he had before refuted and con- 

 demned in the article oithe Deluge. Tlie measures of time which he had phi- 

 losophically denied to them, he now unphilosopliically and inconsistently 

 demanded for himself; they could not explain the reroiH^ion of this earthly 

 system without the aid of exorbitant measures of time which tlie Mosaical 

 record refused them ; and he himself could not understand the Mosaical de- 

 scription of the creation of this system, without exacting measures equally 

 exorbitant, and equally refused by the record."— P. 208. " The general 

 discernment and assertion of the great fact of the Deluge, was the bright 

 point in liis ' De Luc's) geology. So long as his view was confined to the 

 contemplation and exposition of that fact, his mind was collected and 

 concentred t. When he quitted it, to put Iiimself in searcli of the mode 

 by whicli secondary causes produced first formations, it became perplexed 

 and bewildered J. So long as he confined himself to the defence ot that 

 strong part, he evinced great skill, conduct, and resolution."— P. 273. 

 " Thus much it has been indispensably necessary to expose as a cau- 

 tionary distinction, and to insist upon, relative to this well-intentioned 

 but dani^erous instructor, lest his success in the one ftrgwHfnt should become 

 a snare "to draw his readers into his own failure in the otlta:"—V 274. 



We could quote many other passages in point, but it is unnecessary. We 

 highly respect the feelings that have induced our correspondent to stand 

 forward in defence of a man, at once eminent as a philosopher, and en- 

 deared by a long and ardent friendship. If we have joined with Mr. 

 Penn in censuring some of his opinions, it is because we feel with hir*, tliat 

 in so sacred a cause there may be ''no complimentary reservation from man 

 to man :" if those we entertain militate against the opinions ot some other 



erroneous. -, ,- „ •. ^ ^ . ,, ,.,, 



rative Estimate," we stdl retain, and shall continue to retain them till we 

 see hisaruumen'tsreluted by abler arguments, and his hypotliesis subverted 

 by one more consistent, physically and morally, with established facts, and 

 the sacred record of the Bible. 



* Lcttres GSolpgigiies- 

 t Lcttres sur VHistoire de la Tcrre. I Lcttres Geologiqves. 



