40 The discoveries of Geology, Sfc. 



the cosmogony of Moses assigns to the different epochs of creation, 

 is precisely the same as that which has been deduced from geologi- 

 cal considerations." We have been guilty of no improper mixing up 

 of divine and human things. We have examined the meaning of 

 the terms in the first chapter of Genesis, in consistency with the ac- 

 knowledged rules of criticism, and only by the light contained within 

 itself, or that thrown upon it by the other books, in the same lan- 

 guage with which it is associated. The human science we have not 

 extracted from any part of the Holy Scriptures; we have taken it 

 simply as we find it in the works of eminent geologists. As the 

 latter is not a philosophia phantastica, but a deeply interesting science, 

 constructed by that method of careful observation and cautious in- 

 duction, which Bacon was himself the first to recommend ; so nei- 

 ther can the sense of the Scriptures present to us a religio haeretica. 

 If our science, thus constructed, and our religion speak so obviously 

 the same language, as we have seen they do on one important point, 

 what else in the strictest application of Bacon's philosophy, can we 

 deduce from the circumstance, but that both are certainly true ? 



It does not come under our present subject to discuss the histori- 

 cal and moral evidences of the divine revelation of the Scriptures ; 

 but both are so full, even to everflowing, and impose upon us so many 

 insuperable difficulties, in the way of our being able to account for 

 the quality and consistency of these remarkable books, excepting on 

 the ground which has been all along assumed by themselves, that 

 they are of more than human origin, that in estimating the accuracy 

 of any part of the matters contained in them, the fastidiousness of 

 human science appears to be carried to an unreasonable extent, not 

 to take these evidences into calculation. In this country, where for 

 a long period we have had the scriptures in our hands as a popular 

 book, they among us who have been the most eminent for human 

 learning and science, and whose fame has been in every view the 

 most unsullied, have been so convinced by the force of these evi- 

 dences, that they have in general been the most strenuous defenders 

 of revelation. 



Will not human science, then, condescend to borrow some light, 

 to direct the steps of its own inquiries, from a record, the accuracy 

 of which it has itself proved, and which is supported by other proofs 

 of the highest order ? or, what should we say to the illustrator of the 

 relics of Pompeii and Herculaneum, who should reject the light 

 thrown on them by the letters of Pliny, authenticated as these are 



