REVIEWS. 



155 



REVIEWS. 



Creation Redemptive ; a Contrihutioii to Theological Science. By Rev. S. Lucas, 

 I^.G.S. Helston : R. Cunnack. 1858. 



Although we rarely, and then but briefly, make any remarks on theological 

 topics in connection with geology, we by no means regard in an unfavourable 

 aspect the numerous treatises and works published witli the view to bring into 

 comparison or reconciliation the passages of Holy Writ with the doctrmes or 

 teachings of purely physical science. Such attempts are generally in themselves 

 very praiscAvorthy, both for the incentive that causes them to be produced as well 

 as for the spirit in which most of them are pemied. In the unpretentious work, 

 whose title heads these remarks, the order and incidents of Creation are re- 

 garded as exhibiting a special design in special relation towards the appearance 

 of the Saviom- and the redemption of man. 



Tre-adamite Man ; or the Stori/ of our Old Planet and its Inhahitants told by 

 Scripture and Science. London : Saunders, Otley, and Co., Conduit-street. 

 1860. 



As we have already said, we are by no means averse to books of a theologico- 

 geological tendency. We know, alas, how much bad theology, and how much 

 bad geology there is in them ; but we know, also, and appreciate the motives 

 of the writers, and as such books are usually upon topics in which the mass of 

 mankind take an interest they are likely to be, and indeed are, much read. 

 For our part, be they right or wrong, we like them to be read ; for out of the 

 numbers of this class which have been written, there are many, very many, of 

 good quality, wliilst of the inferior productions, surely there are but few in- 

 deed which do not contain some appreciable amount of geological knowledge ; 

 some germs of truth which by these means dispersed, may providentially some- 

 where take root in favourable soil. Hardly have geologists agreed as to the 

 possible existence of men amongst the mammoths, than the subject is regarded 

 in its theological bearing, and a volume, by no means unpretentious, is placed 

 on our table. The author of " Pre-adamite Man" writes incog. ; and although 

 personally we do not go the length of his views in respect to a double creation 

 of man — the extinction of a pre-adamite race, and the adding an eighth day to 

 the seven commonly accepted days of creation, we are not by any means dis- 

 posed to speak unfaTOurably of his book. 



Undoubtedly he falls into some errors in respect to certain former geological 

 phases and changes in the physical condition of our planet ; but many of these 

 are popular errors which have been too long favoured even by geologists them- 

 selves. Amongst such is one especially requiring contradiction, or at any rate 

 considerable modification and restriction, namely, that granite always forms the 

 basis of the stratified crust of the earth ; that it is an igneous rock ; that it 

 was originally the fi.rst-formed crust, or pellicle of a globe of molten matter. 

 We have already more than once in this magazine, as well as elsewhere, drawn 

 attention to these fallacies. First, then, granite is at most only an eruptive, 

 not an erupted, rock in the sense only that it has sometimes burst, or been 

 forced through the consolidated stratified rocks reposing upon it. In all cases 

 granite has been formed under the dense pressure of a superincumbent mass, 

 and never at the open atmosphere of air or of earth-enveloping vapours, as 



