144 Proceedings of the Eoyal Society 
I say then the two parties, the scientific inquirer and the Mo- 
saical scholar, both earnest for truth, would have come to some 
understanding, not surely to conceal or shut out the truth, but to 
give each full license to inquire and experiment, and to draw all 
legitimate inferences from facts discovered ; for after all, the dis- 
putes between theologians and geologists relate rather to inferences 
from facts than to the reality of the facts themselves. The theo- 
logian infers certain truths from the words of the first chapter of 
G-enesis ; the geologist infers certain notions from what he sees in 
an open quarry. The inferences are mutually contradictory ; hut 
as the theologian and the geologist are both capable of drawing 
false inferences, such inferences may be contradictory and neither 
may be true. A new light on the meaning of the word “ Day ” 
in the Mosaic language might end the controversy ; so might some 
evidence that the best instances of hand-formed flint implements 
found in ancient drift were fictitious and fraudulent. 
We must suppose that a candid student of the Divine books will 
take what help is in his power for explaining their difficulties, and, 
be sure, he will not neglect the testimony of the rocks — the history 
of creation written in other letters but by the same Author. So a 
candid geologist, who reflects that the purpose of Moses was clearly 
not to teach natural philosophy, but to inculcate and enforce the 
worship of the true God, will acknowledge that the order of creation 
given in Genesis does agree marvellously with the inverse order of 
the fossils actually found — plants, marine or aquatic animals, birds, 
mammals, man. 
I say these disputants might have come to terms — explaining 
the Scripture history of the creation by the help of a careful and 
reverent study of the created universe. But a third party has 
lately rushed among the combatants, and now fight with two-edged 
weapons. These are theologians too— at least they are churchmen, 
and Hebraists, and mighty arithmeticians ; but, with a singular 
view of their duty to their Church, they cavil at the foundations of 
its history and doctrine, and think it necessary to tell the world so. 
These critics insist, that no interpretation, construing of a phrase, 
word, or numeral of the Mosaical books shall be admitted — that all 
shall stand or fall together ; and then, having picked out some 
words, especially some numbers, which they judge erroneous-- 
