ON ORGANIZED BODIES, &c. 



81 



or the alluvial and volcanic, are still formino^, and have been, ever since the great 

 work of creation was completed, the precise duration of the last two days of 

 creative labour can have no influence upon this question. But to a plain yet 

 attentive reader of the Mosaic account even these two days must, I think, 

 appear to have been of a far more protracted length than that of twenty-four 

 hours each, and especially the sixth day ; for it is difficult to conceive how 

 the first parent of mankind could have got through the vast extent of work 

 assigned to him within the short term of twelve or fourteen hours of day- 

 light, without a miracle, which is by no means intimated to us, and as diffi- 

 cult to suppose that he was employed through the night. On this last day 

 were created, as we learn from Gen. i. 24 — 28, all the land-animals after their 

 kind, cattle, and wild beasts, and reptiles ; then Adam himself, but alone ; who 

 was next, as we learn from ch. ii. 15 — 22, taken and put into the garden of 

 Eden, to dress it and to keep it ; where he had explained to him the trees he 

 might eat of, and the tree he might not ; after which were brought to him, 

 that he might make himself acquainted with their respective natures, every 

 beast of the field and every fowl of the air ; to all of whom he gave names as 

 soon as their respective characters became known to him. Subsequently to 

 which (for at this time, v. 20, there was not found a help-meet for him), he 

 was plunged into a deep sleep, when the woman was formed out of a part of 

 himself, which completed the creative labour of this last day alone. 



That the same Almighty Power who created light by a word, saying 

 niN ^n^t 'ilf? Tl'' " be light ! and light was,"* could have ruled the whole of this, 

 or even formed the universe, by a word, as well, is not to be doubted ; but as 

 both the book of revelation and the book of nature concur in telling us 

 that such was not the fact, and that the work of creation went on progres- 

 sively, and under the influence of a code of natural laws, we are called upon 

 to examine into the march of this marvellous progress by the laws of nature 

 referred to, and to understand it by their operations. Nor is it more deroga- 

 tory to Him with whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a 

 thousand years, to suppose that He allotted six hundred or six thousand 

 years to the completion of his design, than that He took six solar days for 

 the purpose ; and surely there is something far more magnificent in conceiv- 

 ing the world to have gradually attained form, order, and vitality, by the meic 

 operation of powers communicated to it in a state of chaos, through a single 

 command, which instantly took effect and commenced, and persevered and 

 perfected the design proposed, than in conceiving the Almighty engaged in 

 personal and continuous exertions, though for a more limited period of time. 



Thus, in progressive order, uprose the stupendous system of the world : 

 the bright host of morning stars shouted togetlier on its birth-day; and the 

 eternal Creator looked down with complacency on the finished fabric, and 

 *' saw that it was good." 



LECTURE VIII. 



ON ORGANIZED BODIES, AND THE STRUCTURE OF PLANTS COMPARED WITH THAT 



OF ANIMALS. 



From the unorganized world, which has formed the main subject of our 

 last two lectures, let us now rise a step higher in the scale of creation ; and 

 ascend from insentient matter to life, under the various modifications it as- 

 sumes, and the means by which it is upheld and transmitted. 



If I dig up a stone, and remove it from one place to another, the stone will 

 suffer no alteration by the change of place ; but if I dig up a plant and remove 

 it, the plant will instantly sicken, and perhaps die. What is the cause of this 



♦ Gen. i. 3. 



F 



