62 ON CHANGES IN THE DISPOSITION 



tronomy, nor can mathematics admit that the diameter 

 of a circle is the third of its circumference : it is no ad- 

 dition to these scriptural difficulties, if injudicious per- 

 sons will think them such, that its words should prove 

 incapable of being reconciled to the facts of geology. 



But it is only for an antiquity prior to the creation 

 of man, that geology asks. From that moment it is re- 

 concileable to the sacred chronology. The Mosaic ac- 

 count is obviously drawn up with reference chiefly to 

 the human race, and there is nothing in the discoveries 

 and inferences of this science inconsistent with it. The 

 cause of truth can never be injured by the pursuit of 

 truth. But it is injured by ignorance, and violence, and 

 persecution : and even the cause of faith suffers in the 

 rash hands of those, who, by overweening zeal, attempt 

 to extend its reign over that, for a rule of which the 

 Scripture was not delivered. 



Yet, as there are persons who, from causes much less 

 pardonable than ignorance, or presumption, or vanity, 

 continue to cast the severest of reproaches, not only on 

 this science but on its cultivators, I may fairly enquire 

 whether even the words of that narrative are thus po- 

 sitive and exclusive. They who have attempted a con- 

 ciliation, by altering the lengths of the periods, have 

 taken an unnecessary, as well as an unwarrantable li- 

 berty of interpretation ; since they thus wrest the plain 

 words of Scripture to their own evil purposes ; too ig- 

 norant to perceive the unbounded hazard of such a prin- 

 ciple. And it may surprise v them to be told, boastful 

 as they have been, that they have not even read, with 

 understanding, the plainest passages of a Book which is 

 far more often read than considered, and much too often 

 read for the purpose of confirming a religious hypothe- 

 sis, not for discovering the truth. 



All that geology requires for the utmost scope of its 



