2 THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. 



others which should appear in bold relief. He must 

 in this judge for himself; and if the writer's impres- 

 sions do not precisely correspond with those of others, 

 he trusts that they will allow something for difference 

 of vision and point of view. 



The difficulty above referred to perhaps rises to its 

 maximum in the present chapter. For how can any 

 one paint chaos, or give form and filling to the form- 

 less void ? Perhaps no word-picture of this period 

 of the first phase of mundane history can ever equal 

 the two negative touches of the inspired penman 

 "without form and void" a world destitute of all 

 its present order, and destitute of all that gives it life 

 and animation. This it was, and not a complete and 

 finished earth, that sprang at first from its Creator's 

 hand ; and we must inquire in this first chapter what 

 information science gives as to any such condition of 

 the earth. 



In the first place, the geological history of the earth 

 plainly intimates a beginning, by utterly negativing 

 the idea that "all things continue as they were from 

 the creation of the world." It traces back to their 

 origin not only the animals and plants which at present 

 live, but also their predecessors, through successive 

 dynasties emerging in long procession from the depths 

 of a primitive antiquity. Not only so; it assigns to 

 their relative ages all the rocks of the earth's crust, 

 and all the plains and mountains built up of them. 

 Thus, as we go back in geological time, we leave 

 behind us, one by one, all the things with which we 



