15 
lie would speak as plainly about science as about the Scriptures 
—be must now know never to have been “ facts ” at all,” but 
“ rash deductions,” founded, at best, “ upon mere negative 
evidence and he might well be asked, Whether, in his zeal 
for the truths he thinks are “ revealed by science,” he will be 
as anxious to make the Zulus, on going back to his late diocese, 
acquainted with these now acknowledged blunders in geologv 
as he . has been to let them know of the alleged blunders 
he thinks may be discovered in the Pentateuch as to the 
creation ?* 
I venture to^ say that neither Dr. Colenso, nor any sceptical 
geologist on his behalf, can point to a single geological fact, 
or even to . any respectable theory entertained and taught in 
any geological work now extant, which any great number of 
geologists would say they accept, that can in the least be con- 
sidered as contradictory to the Mosaic account of the creation. 
There is not a geological text-book at the present time- in 
existence that gives any other foundation for the science than 
the igneous theory of the earth's nucleus which Sir Charles Lyell 
considers “ may now be dispensed with,” — a very gentle 
euphemism for a frank admission that the theo-rv has no 
foundation at all to which it can appeal in the facts of 
geology, since the constitution of granite has been better 
understood. That we may have another theory, and another 
which may, like the last, contradict Scripture, is very possible, 
perhaps only too probable ; but what I say is, there is no such 
theory yet invented. The theories that did contradict the 
Scriptures, as regards the original formation of the earth and 
its azoic rocks and ages, are pronounced ex cathedra scientice , 
to be “ altogether delusive.” . That is the present state of the 
case. ^ As regards the Creation, that is the only revelation 
of science which Dr. Colenso can honestly teach at present to 
his “ Zulu philosopher ! ” 
But no doubt Dr. Colenso might yet retort, in modern style 
“What about the Deluge?” He might still appeal to the 
“ volcanic cones of loose ashes in the valleys of Auvergne,” 
and maintain that Sir Charles Lyell has not given up his 
former scientific teaching about these. He may still with 
Sir Charles believe that they “must have been formed 
ages before the Noachian deluge,” and that had the deluge 
been universal, the light and loose substances that cover these 
cones “ must have been swept away.” 
My object not being to refute the geological views of Sir 
Charles Lyell or Bishop Colenso, I may content myself with 
* See Postscript, pp. 32 , et seq. 
