as GEOLOGY. 



71 



but for that of the universe ; and traces out a scheme by which every planet, 

 or system of planets, may be continued indefinitely, and perhaps for ever, 

 by a perpetual series of restoration and balance. 



With this system the Neptunian forms a perfect contrast. It is limited 

 to the earth, and to the present appearances of the earth. It resolves the 

 genuine origin of things into the operation of water ; and while it admits 

 the existence of subterranean fires to a certain extent, and that several of 

 the pheenomena that strike us most forcibly may be the result of such an 

 agency, it peremptorily denies that such an agency is the sole or universal 

 cause of the existing state of things, or that it could possibly be rendered 

 competent to such an effect. 



More especially should we feel disposed to adhere to this theory, from 

 its general coincidence with the geology of the Scriptures. The Mosaic 

 narrative, indeed, with bold and soaring pinions, takes a comprehensive 

 sweep through the vast range of the solar system, if not through that of 

 the universe ; and in its history of the simultaneous origin of this system 

 touches chiefly upon geology, as the part most interesting to ourselves ; 

 but so far as it enters upon this doctrine, it is in sufficiently close accord- 

 ance with the Neptunian scheme, — with the great volume of nature as now 

 cursorily dipped into. The narrative opens, as I had occasion to observe 

 in the lecture On Matter and a Material Word, with a statement *of three 

 distinct facts, each following the other in a regular series, in the origin of 

 the visible world. First, an absolute creation, as opposed to a mere re- 

 modification of the heaven and the earth, which constituted the earliest 

 step in the creative process. Secondly, the condition of the earth when 

 it was thus primarily brought into being, which was that of an amorphous 

 or shapeless waste. And, thirdly, a commencing effort to reduce the un- 

 fashioned mass to a condition of order and harmony. " In the beginning," 

 says the sacred historian, " God created the heaven and the earth. — And 

 the earth was mTHOUT form and void : and darkness was upon the face 

 of the deep (or abyss.) — And the spirit of God moved upon the face of 



THE WATERS." 



We are hence, therefore, necessarily led to infer that the first change of 

 the formless chaos, after its existence, was into a state of universal aqueous 

 solution ; for it was upon the surface of the waters that the Divine Spirit 

 commenced his operative power. We are next informed, that this chaotic 

 mass acquired shape, not instantaneously, but by a series of six distinct 

 days, or generations, (that is epochs,) as Moses afterwards calls them ;* 

 and apparently through the agency of the established laws of gravity and 

 crystaUization, which regulate it at the present moment. 



It tells us, that during the first of these days, or generations, was evolved, 

 what, indeed, agreeably to the laws of gravity, must have been evolved 

 first of all, the matter of light and heat ; of all material substances the 

 most subtle and attenuate ; those by which alone the sun operates and 

 has ever operated, upon the earth and the other planets, and which may 

 be the identical substances that constitute his essence-t And it tells us, 

 also, that the luminous matter thus evolved produced light without the as- 

 sistance of the sun or moon, which were not set in the sky or firmament, 

 and had no rule till the fourth day or generation : that the light thus prO' 

 duCed flowed by tides, and alternately intermitted, constituting a single 

 day and a single night of each of such epochs or generations, whatever 

 their length might be, of which we have no information communicated 

 to us. 



