Rough Notes on the controversy against Geologists. 485 



earth with all its present appearances at once, and at the 

 first, for the trial of the faith of its inhabitants, whether 

 they would rely in preference upon the moral evidence sup- 

 porting his revealed word, or upon the evidence of the 

 senses and faculties with which he had endowed them for 

 judging of these appearances, according to the laws, under 

 which matter is found to act, and be acted on, in the usual 

 course of his natural providence. This supposition is just 

 within the limits of possibility, certainly beyond the verge of 

 probability ; for, though God may often try those who are 

 his in severe moral discipline, whether they will believe 

 in his word even against hope ; it seems most unlikely, that 

 he would thus lay for men a perpetual stumbling block 

 in the contradiction between the work of his hands, and the 

 contents of the revelation in which he requires an undoubt- 

 ing faith. 



There are, however, two systems or hypotheses yet to be 

 brought under review, on which all the general appearances 

 may be satisfactorily accounted for, in a manner which is in 

 accordance with geological evidences, and yet not at variance 

 with the words of Scripture when properly understood, far 

 less in absolute contradiction to them, as has been often 

 asserted. One of these proceeds on the assumption that 

 the Scriptural account of creation includes the whole period 

 during which the world we inhabit has been in existence, 

 and has been a place of abode for animated beings of any 

 description; but it asks as a postulate, that the days of 

 creation shall be held not to be strictly and literally days of 

 24f hours only, but every one of them to be a period of great 

 and unknown length, the evening and morning of which, 

 according to the eastern mode of computing the day, or 

 morning and evening according to European custom, meta- 

 phorically, or rather according to the poetical style of eastern 

 language, denote the beginning and ending. Such a sense 

 of the word day is understood by theologians to be not 



