DISCOVERIES WITH SACRED HISTORY. 25 



contemporaneous : if any creation of vegetables preceded 

 that of these most ancient animals, no evidence of such an 

 event has yet been discovered by the researches of geology. 

 Still there is, I believe, no sound critical, or theological 

 objection, to the interpretation of the word "day," as mean- 

 ing a long period ; but there will be no necessity for such 

 extension, in order to reconcile the text of Genesis with 

 physical appearances, if it can be shown that the time indi- 

 cated by the phenomena of Geology* may be found in the 

 undefined interval, following the announcement of the first 

 verse. 



In my inaugural lecture, published at Oxford, 1820, pp. 

 31, 32, 1 have stated my opinion in favour of the hypothesis, 

 " which supposes the word ' beginning,^ as applied by Moses 

 in the first verse of the book of Genesis, to express an 

 undefined period of time, which M-as antecedent to the last 

 great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to 

 the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants ; 

 during which period a long series of operations and revo- 

 lutions may have been going on; which, as they are wholly 

 unconnected with the history of the human race, are passed 

 over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only concern 

 with them was barely to state, that the matter of the uni- 

 verse is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally 

 created by the power of the Almighty." 



I have great satisfaction in finding that the view of this 

 subject, which I have here expressed, and have long enter- 



* A very interesting treatise on tlic Consistency of Geology with Sacred 

 History has recently been published at Nevvhaven, 1833, by Professor , 

 SiJliman, as a supplement to an American edition of BakewcU's Geology, 

 1833. The author contends that the period alluded to in the first verse 

 of Genesis, " In the beginning," is not necessarily connected with the 

 first day, and that it may be regarded as standing by itself, and admitting 

 of any extension backward in time which the facts may seem to require. 



He is farther disposed to consider the six days of creation as periods 

 of time of indefinite length, and that the word "day" is not of necessity 

 limited to twenty-four hours, 



VOL. I. — 3 



