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the extravagances of each, and throw out the truth between 
them. The careful study of both leads to the belief of neither 
of their systems fully ; and yet it leads to the perception of 
that grand doctrine which may be said to find a resting-place 
partly in both. In their almost incredible researches, these 
men have each seen something true ; and they have each, too, 
fancied something untrue; but when the chaff is blown off, 
and the good grain gathered, it will mingle harmoniously and 
yield a satisfactory faith. 
And what shall that faith be? Shall it be that taught by 
Moses in the Book of God ? It is not unfrequently said that 
the Bible was not meant to teach us science. Perhaps there 
is a sense in which the statement is true ; but such is not the 
sense in which it is frequently used. When, for example, it 
is insisted that the Book of Genesis is not to be at all 
considered in a scientific discussion on creation, and this 
negation is upheld by the statement in question, it is untrue. 
What are those grand philosophic principles around which the 
labours of Darwin and Agassiz gather ? They are those very 
principles laid down with divine simplicity and truthfulness in 
the Bible. Let us glance at them. 
There is “ the beginning And do not both the great 
naturalists before us found all their speculations on this very 
idea of a beginning ? There, again, is the chaotic state, in 
which life was not; — and do not both recognize this ? They at 
least fancy that they find “ scientific 33 evidence of it ; and, 
whether real or fanciful, they hold the idea as an essential 
part of their natural history. There, again, are the separa- 
tions of the atmosphere from the watery surface, and of the 
dry land from the ocean ; and assuredly we have principles of 
natural science there. More than geology, with the aid of all 
the other sciences involved, has yet wrought out, is thus laid 
down clear and full in the Bible. It is too bad to say that 
this is not meant to teach us natural science, when so-called 
science has failed to bring us near to the point of knowledge 
at which this Book places the humblest reader ! But here 
comes the order of life, and vegetation covers the land. That 
vegetation is divided into such as propagates itself by its 
rootlets, and that which does so by its seed-bearing powers. 
It is not the seed, nor the budding rootlets that come first in 
order, but those plants which so propagate themselves, each 
“ after its kind.-” Darwin would take this creation in a more 
limited sense than Agassiz ; but both hold “ inheritance 33 as 
of the last importance in the science of life. Both really 
accept this fundamental teaching of Moses, given so long 
before their day. 
