T BUT IIS MUST II A E M O BT I Z E . 151 



given alarm to many theologians, who have considered them 

 as conflicting with the Mosaic account of creation, as recorded 

 in the first chapter of Genesis. This account has by them 

 been considered as circumscribing the period of creation to six 

 literal days, during which it is supposed, that not only the 

 earth and all it contains, but the sun and planets, if not even 

 the fixed stars, were brought into being. They have hence 

 looked upon the statements and speculations of geologists 

 with disfavor, supposing that their tendency was to under- 

 mine the authority of the Bible. The present treatise, there- 

 fore, would be incomplete were I pass over entirely unnoticed 

 the question pending between geologists and theologians. 

 This question, however, I can now only consider in brief, ex- 

 hibiting merely the general aspects of the controversy as they 

 appear to me. 



But before entering directly into the merits of the question, 

 I would premise that all truths must be consistent with each 

 other, whether found in the Bible or in Nature. If, therefore, 

 there is any conflict unmistakably manifest between the teach- 

 ings of these two authorities, it inevitably follows that one or 

 the other must be untrue ; and the untruth is most rationally 

 predicable of that which is most liable to be tinctured by 

 human invention. 



Now, the system of creation, though subjective and phe- 

 nomenal when considered in relation to God, is positive and 

 independent when considered in relation to man. The pages 

 of the rocky book were inscribed by no human amanuensis, 

 and contain none of the whims and errors of perverted human 

 thought. When correctly interpreted, therefore, they are to 

 be relied on as infallible, and no theological teachings which 

 contradict them can be considered as the teachings of the 

 same God who wrote those imperishable pages with his own 



