V MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS 101 



But Mr. Gladstone informs us that Professor 

 Dana and Professor Guyot are prepared to prove 

 that the "first or cosmogonical portion of the 

 Proem not only accords with, but teaches, the 

 nebular hypothesis." There is no one to whose 

 authority on geological questions I am more 

 readily disposed to bow than that of my eminent 

 friend Professor Dana. But I am familiar with 

 what he has previously said on this topic in his 

 well-known and standard work, into which, 

 strangely enough, it does not seem to have 

 occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look before he set out 

 upon his present undertaking ; and unless Pro- 

 fessor Dana's latest contribution (which I have 

 not yet met with) takes up altogether new ground, 

 I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate myself, 

 by its help, from my present difficulties. 



It is a very long time since I began to think 

 about the relations between modern scientifically 

 ascertained truths and the cosmogonical specula- 

 tions of the writer of Genesis ; and, as I think that 

 Mr. Gladstone might have been able to put his 

 case with a good deal more force, if he had thought 

 it worth while to consult the last chapter of 

 Professor Dana's admirable " Manual of Geology," 

 so I think he might have been made aware that 



sufficient time without the intervention of any influence at 

 present known to us " (The Story of the Heavens, p. 5 06). 



Would any prudent advocate base a plea, either for or against 

 revelation, upon the coincidence, or want of coincidence, of the 

 declarations of the latter with the requirements of an hypothesis 

 thus guardedly dealt with by an astronomical expert ? 



