C.—_ GEOLOGY. 59 
238. THEOLOGICAL INFLUENCE ON GEOLOGY. 
The invariability of species was a belief imposed on Geology in 1831 
by theological authority, which was still dominant, and many geologists 
sought peace by maintaining the agreement of Geology and Genesis. 
Thus, in 1833, Benjamin Silliman wrote on the ‘ Consistency of the Dis- 
coveries of Modern Geology with the Sacred History of the Creation and 
the Deluge,’ and during the same decade was issued a library of such works 
as J. Pye Smith’s ‘ The Relation between Holy Scriptures and some facts 
of Geological Science’ (1839 and many later editions)—the book recom- 
mended to me when I turned to Geology for an explanation of the erratic 
courses of Essex rivers. Dr. Chalmers repeated his ‘ geological argument 
on behalf of a Deity’ in his ‘ Natural Theology’ (1835, I, p. 229). The 
geological standpoint of the day was shown in Buckland’s Bridgewater 
Treatise (1836, p. 414). He argued that living Zoophytes and their 
extinct predecessors ‘all are so similarly constructed on one and the 
same general type and show such perfect Unity of Design throughout the 
infinitely varied modifications, under which they now perform, and ever 
have performed the functions allotted to them, that we can find no 
explanation of such otherwise mysterious Uniformity, than by referring 
it to the agency of one and the same Creative Intelligence.’ He extended 
this argument to the whole organic world (ibid., pp. 581-2), as “such a 
systematic recurrence of analogous Designs, producing various ends by 
various combinations of Mechanism, multiplied almost to infinity in their 
details of application, yet all constructed on the same few common 
fundamental principles which pervade the living forms of organised 
Beings that we reasonably conclude all these past and present contrivances 
to be part of a comprehensive and connected whole, originating in the Will 
and Power of one and the same Creator.’ Hence, the persistence of the 
same structural plans and the absence of those freak animals, which 
might be expected if animals had arisen by special Creation—instead of 
being regarded as evidence of evolution—was by Buckland claimed as 
proof of special creation by one Creator ; and, therefore, as equal evidence 
against atheism and polytheism. The facts on Buckland’s hypothesis 
indicate that the Almighty did all his designs Himself, and had no drawing 
and designing office where angels of different grades planned organisms 
of different degrees of importance. 
Buckland admitted the considerable antiquity of the earth but 
defended the creation of man (ibid., p. 597) at 4004 B.c., and declared in 
regard to the six days of creation, ‘ I see no reason for extending the length 
of any of these beyond a natural day.’ 
Buckland was, nevertheless, too heterodox for some members of the 
Association. His view that the earth is indefinitely older than the creation 
of man was vehemently attacked by Dean Cockburn, the Dean of York, 
in 1838, and at the meeting of the Association there in 1844. The general 
feeling was in support of Buckland, but it was not until about thirty years 
later that geology secured the independence claimed in 1832 by its 
doughty champion, Murchison,'* in his assertion of the ‘entire dis- 
connexion of our science with the inspired writings.’ 
4 Proc, Geol. Soc., vol. I, 1832, p. 377. 
