G E 



science, that it fosters in its culti- 

 vators an undue and overweening 

 self-conceit, leads them to doubt 

 the immortality of the soul, and to 

 scoff at revealed religion. Its 

 natural effect on every well regu- 

 lated mind is, and must be, directly 

 the reverse. Minds which have 

 long been accustomed to date the 

 origin of the universe, as well as 

 that of the human race, from an 

 era of about six thousand years 

 back, receive reluctantly any infor- 

 mation, which, if true, demands 

 some new modification of their 

 present ideas of cosmogony, and, as 

 in this respect, geology has shared 

 the fate of other infant sciences, in 

 being for a while considered hostile 

 to revealed religion, so, like them, 

 when fully understood, it will be 

 found a potent and consistent aux- 

 iliary to it, exalting our conviction 

 of the power, wisdom, and goodness 

 of the Creator. The consideration 

 of the evidences afforded by geolog- 

 ical phenomena may enable us to 

 lay more securely the very founda- 

 tion of natural theology, inasmuch 

 as they clearly point out to us a 

 period antecedent to the habitable 

 state of the earth, and consequently 

 antecedent to the existence of its 

 inhabitants. When our minds 

 become thus familiarized with the 

 idea of a beginning and first crea- 

 tion of the beings we see around 

 us, the proofs of design, which the 

 structure of those beings afford, 

 carry with them a more forcible 

 conviction of an intelligent Creator, 

 and the hypothesis of an eternal 

 succession of causes, is thus at once 

 removed. 



" It may fairly be asked," says 

 Chalmers, "of those persons who 

 consider physical science a fit sub- 

 ject for revelation, what point they 

 can imagine short of a communica- 

 tion of omniscience, at which such a 

 revelation might have stopped, 

 without imperfection or omission, 



[ 190 ] G E 



less in degree, but similar in kind, 

 to that which they impute to the 

 existing narrative of Moses. A 

 revelation of so much only of 

 astronomy as was known to Coper- 

 nicus, would have seemed imperfect 

 after the discoveries of Newton ; 

 and a revelation of the science of 

 Newton would have appeared 

 defective to Laplace. And unless 

 human nature had been constituted 

 otherwise than it is, the above sup- 

 posed communication of omniscience 

 would have been imparted to crea- 

 tures utterly incapable of receiving 

 it, under any past or present moral 

 or physical condition of the human 

 race. Does Moses even say, that 

 when God created the heavens and 

 the earth he did more, at the time 

 alluded to than transform them out 

 of previously existing materials ? 

 Or does he ever say that there was 

 not an interval of many ages be- 

 tween the first act of creation, de- 

 scribed in the first book of Genesis, 

 and said to have been performed 

 * in the beginning,' and those more 

 detailed operations, the account of 

 which commences at the second 

 verse, and which are described as 

 having been performed in so many 

 days? 



" Let no one, therefore, be check- 

 ed in his enquiries into the history 

 of the globe by anything but the 

 good rules of philosophical induc- 

 tion, which are essential to the 

 right use of the intellectual strength 

 which God has conferred upon 

 man, to be exercised on the mighty 

 works of nature ; and least of all 

 let him be deterred from the pur- 

 suit of truth by the vain and im- 

 pious dread that he may go too far, 

 and penetrate too deeply into those 

 mysteries, which, among their other 

 uses have this one, namely, ^that 

 they continually excite to activity 

 the soul of man; and, the more 

 they are studied, lead to deeper 

 delight, aud mere awful contem- 



