20 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGICAL 



limity of the objects of which it treats, undoubtedly ranks in 

 the scale of sciences next to astronomy;" and the history of 

 the structure of our planet, when it shall be fully understood, 

 must lead to the same great moral results that have followed 

 the study of the mechanism of the heavens; Geology has 

 already proved by physical evidence, that the surface of 

 the globe has not existed in its actual state from eternity, 

 but has advanced through a series of creative operations, 

 succeeding one another at long and definite intervals of 

 time; that all the actual combinations of matter have had a 

 prior existence in some other state; and that the ultimate 

 atoms of the material elements, through whatever changes 

 they may have passed, are, and ever have been, governed 

 by laws, as regular and uniform, as those which hold the 

 planets in their course. All these results entirely accord 

 with the best feelings of our nature, and with our rational 

 coviction of the greatness and goodness of the Creator of 

 the universe; and the reluctance with which evidences, of 

 such high importance to natural theology, have been ad- 

 mitted by many persons, who are sincerely zealous for the 

 interests of religion, can only be explained by their want of 

 accurate information in physical science ; and by their un- 

 grounded fears lest natural phenomena should prove incon- 

 sistent with the account of the creation in the book of Ge- 

 nesis. 



It is argued unfairly against Geology, that because its fol- 

 lowers are as yet agreed on no complete and incontroverti- 

 ble theory of the earth ; and because early opinions advanced 

 on imperfect evidence have yielded, in succession, to more 

 extensive discoveries; therefore nothing certain is known 

 upon the whole subject ; and that all geological deductions 

 must be crude, unauthentic, and conjectural. 



It must be candidly admitted that the season has not yet 

 arrived, when a perfect theory of the whole earth can be 

 fixedly and finally established, since we have not yet before 

 us all the facts on v/hich such a theory may eventually be 



