214 



THE GEOLOGIST, 



The captain had not allowed for the polar current. Then the planet Uranus would 

 not travel in its orbit, as it ought to have done, but at last the secret was found 

 out the astronomers had not allowed for the disturbances produced by Neptune. 

 And yet, after all, nature was right in all these instances. Man, himself, was 

 wrong. Now, Mr. Gosse's book is a nice book — a good book to look at, beautifully 

 printed, charmingly illustrated, just a little book worthy of Mr. Gosse in its 

 appearance and address, but very unworthy of Mr. Gosse, and indeed of anybody 

 else in its doctrine. Mr. Gosse has not allowed for the wind, or he bad been a 

 better shot ; he has forgotten the polar stream, and his argument is wrecked on 

 the blutf coasts of Nattu'e, and the rocks of facts ; be has not a,llowed for the 

 disturbances of Neptune, and his own course is erratic in consequence. 



The great feature of Mr. Gosse's book is the so-called "prochronic" theory; 

 that is to say, Mr. Gosse teaches the idea of a non-existent pre-existence for every 

 created thing and being. This is the plain English of the doctrine after all. Mr. 

 Gosse finds Scripturists and Geologists at variance about the seven days of 

 Creation ; and Mr. Gosse attempts to get out of the difficulty by assuming all the 

 evidences of creation to be delusions. He sets out with these principles, that 

 tlie evidence of the senses is often delusive ; that the deductions of human reason 

 are fallible ; that essential considerations are often overlooked ; that there is a 

 discrepancy between Scripture and Geology, and that this is a painful dilemma, to 

 escape from which none of the numerous efforts yet made have been successful. 

 He then reviews these various attempts from the " diluvial " theories of the older 

 writers, who attributed all geological phenomena to the deluge — to that modern 

 doctrine of progressive development which finds for Adam, as Mr. Gosse facetiously 

 writes, an immediate ancestor in a chimpanzee, and a remote ancestor in a maggot. 



He next passes under review the strata composing the crust of the 'earth — the 

 organic remains contained in them — the disturbances of the beds — internal heat 

 — fossil footprints — bone-caves- — volcanos — changes of level — and, in short, all 

 the well-known geological phenomena. 



But in all these matters — all these — geologists, Mr. Gosse says, are wrong; he 

 admits the grandeur of their evidence ; he acknowledges the shrewdness of their 

 reasonings ; he admires the intellect, and skill, and energy they have exhibited in 

 working out these subjects ; and after summing up the geological facts he is forced to 

 admit—" A mighty array of evidence it certainly is, and such as appears at first 

 to compel our assent to the sequent claimed for it. I must confess, however," he 

 adds, " that / have no sympathy with the reasonings of those, however I honour 

 their design, who can find a sufficient cause for these phenomena in the natural 

 operations of the antediluvian centuries, or in the convulsion that closed them ? 

 But is there no other alternative ?' Mr. Gosse believes there is. And, if geological 

 inferences be untrue, so do we ; but there is no alternative to truth — and truth 

 we can only know by the evidence of our senses. 



It is all very well to call geological facts only circumstantial evidence — we can 

 have no other evidence than circumstantial of what we have not seen — and it is 

 only by such circumstantial evidence that the case in dispute can be settled ; — and, 

 after all, is there a discrepancy between Geology and Scripture ? We must not 

 take up our Bibles and, with certain notions of our own, point out certain passages 

 and say the Bible says so and so, and, therefore, no evidence of the senses must be 

 allowed to contradict it. That is doing something not at all equal to circum- 

 stantial evidence — it is merely putting the theories or imaginings of an individual 

 against facts. It is not by taking our own views of what the Bible means, and 



