CONNEXION OF RELIGION AND SCIENCE. 587 
*' If I understand Geology aright, (says Pro- 
fessor Hitchcock,) so far from teaching the eter- 
nity of the world, it proves more directly than 
any other science can, that its revolutions and 
races of inhabitants had a commencement, and 
that it contains within itself the chemical ener- 
gies, which need only to be set at liberty, by 
the will of their Creator, to accomplish its de- 
struction. Because this science teaches that the 
revolutions of nature have occupied immense 
periods of time, it does not therefore teach that 
they form an eternal series. It only enlarges 
our conceptions of the Deity ; and when men 
shall cease to regard Geology with jealousy and 
narrow minded prejudices, they will find that it 
opens fields of research and contemplation as 
wide and as grand as astronomy itself." *t 
'' There is in truth, (says Bishop Blomfield) 
no opposition nor inconsistency between Reli- 
gion and Science, commonly so called, except 
* Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts, P. 395. 
f " Why should we hesitate to admit the existence of our 
Globe through periods as long as geological researches require; 
since the sacred word does not declare the time of its original 
creation ; and since such a view of its antiquity enlarges our 
ideas of the operations of the Deity in respect to duration, as 
much as astronomy does in regard to space ? Instead of bringing 
us into collision with Moses, it seems to me that Geology fur- 
nishes us with some of the grandest conceptions of the Divine 
Attributes and Plans to be found in the whole circle of human 
knowledge." Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts, 1835, 
p. 225. 
