116 On the Cosmogony of Moses. } 
obliged to adhere to the obvious meaning of the words? “ I 
will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between her 
seed and thy seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
his heel.” 
It being certain that we are to look for an esoteric sense in 
some passages, there is none which more evidently requires such 
an interpretation than the cosmogony. Had Moses read a 
lecture on geology to the shepherds of Goshen, and told them 
what space of time each oceanic deposit occupied, and by what 
organic remains it is to be recognised, he would have spent his 
time to little purpose. His object, doubtless, was to declare that 
the universe was the work of the Almighty Creator, and to set 
this truth in a point of view the most striking and impressive. 
At the same ‘time, by mentioning a series of events which really 
took place, in the exact order in which we are now assured that 
they actually happened, he has left us a proof that he was not 
uttering a rhapsody the mere offspring of his imagination. 
But if we are determined to adhere to the vulgar acceptation, 
we shall, as I said before, estallish a total and irreconcilable 
schism between the Mosaic relation and the evidence of indu- 
bitable facts. 
No man who has witnessed the proofs to which geology re- 
fers, and who is capable of putting two propositions together, 
can refuse to admit this conclusion. In traversing a mountainous 
district no idea forces itself more irresistibly on the mind, than 
the vast periods of time which must have elapsed during the 
gradual deposition and consolidation of the immense series of 
beds which constitute all the highest regions of the globe. These 
phenomena attest indisputably an era of inealculable extent be- 
fore the first efforts of living nature. The second epoch, viz. 
that of zoophytes and vegetables, must have comprehended a 
vast concourse of ages. Pallas mentions a succession of lime- 
stone beds containing encrinites and other zoophytes, which lie 
one upon another to the extent of 60 miles. The whole of 
Wales belongs to this era; for I have seen impressions of zoo- 
phytes and testacea on the summit of Snowdon, which is the 
oldest part of the district, and the newest part is occupied by 
the coal-formation. What a lapse of time must the successive 
deposition of all the rocky beds which form this district have 
occupied! Again, if we proceed from the centre of South 
Britain, in a direct line towards Paris, we tread at every step 
from older to newer beds. We begin with the oldest beds, which 
belong to the third epoch, and contain the remains of fishes; 
and we reach the Paris basifi before we discover the oldest ves- 
tiges of quadrupeds ; and there we only find the bones of Pal@- 
otheria and other Pachydermes, which seem to have lived their 
day, 
