134 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



habit of resorting to the Scriptures for information 

 in physical science, he had valued its early pages for 

 the pure and sublime theism which they inculcated. 

 Yet he felt certain that they could not be in contra 

 diction to the truth which is derived, by the sure 

 path of induction, from the study of nature. He 

 was not at all satisfied with the hypothesis that the 

 present earth was formed from the ruins of an earlier 

 world, rearranged and set in order during the six 

 days of the creation. The supposition of such an 

 earlier world, and of a great catastrophe causing its 

 destruction, seemed to him to be neither consonant 

 with our ideas of the Divine wisdom, nor sustained 

 by geological evidence. He was impressed with the 

 observation of Cuvier, that the cosmogony in Genesis, 

 " considered in a purely scientific view, is extremely 

 remarkable, inasmuch as the order which it assigns 

 to the different epochs of creation is precisely the 

 same as that which has been deduced from geological 

 considerations." At the same time, Professor Silli- 

 man judged that it was no part of the object of the 

 sacred writer " to enter further into details than to 

 state that the world was the work of God ; and thus 

 he was naturally led to mention the principal divis 

 ions of natural things, as they were successively 

 created." Nor did he deem it necessary to suppose 

 that the author of Genesis, however instructed by a 

 higher light, was himself cognizant of the truths of 

 geology, especially the truth of the great antiquity 

 of the globe, and the length of time consumed in 

 the geological changes. In the defence of geology 

 against the assaults and objections from the side 

 of theologians, he sympathized with his friend, Dr. 



