106 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



Different causes were assigned for the vast changes 

 ranging over vast periods; one school believing in 

 the action of volcanic and such like catastrophic 

 agents; another in the action of aqueous agents, see- 

 ing, more consistently, in present operations the ex- 

 planation of the causes of past changes. But there 

 was no diversity of opinion concerning the exten- 

 sion of the earth's time-history and life-history to 

 millions on millions of years. 



So, when this was to be no longer resisted, theo- 

 logians sought some basis of compromise on such 

 non-fundamental points as the six days of creation. 

 It was suggested that perhaps these did not mean 

 the seventh part of a week, but periods, or eons, or 

 something equally elastic; and that if the Mosaic 

 narrative was regarded as a poetic revelation of the 

 general succession of phenomena, beginning with the 

 development of order out of chaos, and ending with 

 the creation of man, Scripture would be found to 

 have anticipated or revealed what science confirms. 

 It was impossible, so theologians argued, that there 

 could be aught else than harmony between the di- 

 vine works and the writings which were assumed to 

 be of divine origin. Science could not contradict 

 revelation, and whatever seemed contradictory was 

 due to misapprehension either of the natural fact, 

 or to misreading of the written word. But although 

 the story of the creation might be clothed, as so 

 exalted and moving a theme warranted, in poetic 

 form, that of the fall of Adam and of the drowning 



