302 Strictures on Professor Buckldnd's Inaugural Lecture. [Nov. 1 
ought to give implicit credit to the 
whole of the revelation by Moses ; for 
to disbelieve any part would be to les¬ 
sen the value of all; and to those 
whose reason compels them to admit 
the omnipotence of the Creator, it ap¬ 
pears quite rational. 
Allow me therefore to proceed, with 
all due deference to other men’s opi¬ 
nions, to give my motives for this be¬ 
lief; and as I founded my conviction 
of the universality of the Noatic de¬ 
luge on the evidence of vision, so I 
think, by analogy, to be able to make 
the process of the creation of the world, 
and even its inhabitants, correspond 
with all that tradition teaches. 
To commence then with this earthly 
planet itself. I presume even our pre¬ 
sent very imperfect knowledge of its 
constituent parts (which only extends 
to its upper surface) is quite sufficient 
to convince us that the whole operation 
of its consolidation might have been, in 
the order of nature, effected in a very 
short space of time — for the areolite 
would of itself teach us that lesson ; 
but we have all of us seen that the 
slightest species of crystallization, 
freezing is always a rapid process from 
fluid to solid matter, and only more or 
less so as the productive or creative 
means are more accommodated to the 
effect, and what high mechanical power 
these crystals acquire in their progress, 
so as to be able to divide the most com¬ 
pact bodies. We have also beheld, and 
ail know how the crystals of salts and 
alum are produced and re produced, 
by their chemical association with hot 
water; and the instantaneous effect of 
compressed air, of gunpowder, electri¬ 
city, galvanic gas, and magnetism are 
ready to obey even our calls with all 
their terrible effects. Can we then for 
a moment doubt that there are laws 
in Nature, (mercifully, perhaps, hi¬ 
therto withheld from our inquisition, 
to be communicated possibly hereafter, 
for any thing we know) whereby inert 
nature (if such be) can not only be 
made to re-construct other forms from 
its own integral paits, but solid masses 
be created from fluid or vaporous exha¬ 
lations—and even portions of the atmo¬ 
sphere itself, be fused, as iron is, and 
rendered perfectly and permanently 
solid — for almost continually we be¬ 
hold it already in our chemical labora¬ 
tories ; and always when it hails, in 
the great laboratory of the universe. 
Now that this planet on which we 
move, and live, and think, is altogether 
a work of concretion and crystallization, 
it will not be difficult to exhibit by 
analysis ; and if any one species of 
crystallization of a regular construction 
can any day be made apparent to the 
simplest understanding, and that after¬ 
wards be shewn to assume a compacted 
solid, stratified body, whose fracture is 
by mechanical laws determined, as in 
ice, hail, and other crystals, where a 
concrete, irregular mass, is to outward 
appearance exhibited ; but which, were 
we able to examine them closely, would 
be seen to spring from very decided 
molicular forms. Not to go an y further, 
I think no one can safely deny that by 
the operation of similar and even more 
sudden causes, every part of our solid 
globe might have been evolved and 
compacted—and that out of a chaos or 
the matter of a decomposed sphere, (for 
Nature probably annihilates nothing) 
set in motion by the Omnipotent, and 
by the agency of cohesion, attraction, 
and affinity (which we already know 
his will has destined to be in operation 
here) such a world as ours (or such a 
universe as that of which it forms only 
a part) might very well be constructed 
and come forth in all its finished beauty, 
instantaneously , if that had been neces¬ 
sary ; or, as expeditiously as a cannon 
is cast in our petty founderies, when 
the metal is previously prepared. 
And here it will not be amiss, per¬ 
haps, to enquire generally what are the 
probable constituent parts of our world 
—when I think we shall agree that all 
its solid contents subsist by the laws of 
expansion, compression, crystallization, 
conglomeration, attraction, cohesion, 
and gravity, in which the great and 
mysterious power of magnetism and 
electricity come into action, and per¬ 
haps opposition ; and that steam, ex¬ 
pansive and acidulous gases, from 
combined vapours, (and many other 
causes still prohibited to our enquiries) 
have been all employed in the tremen¬ 
dous operation, the very sound of 
which no human organs could bear, 
nor any man see and live; yet whose 
termination was probably like the 
clearing up of a thunder-storm, har¬ 
mony, beauty and utility united—and 
whose end may, as our great poet ex¬ 
presses it, be “ to dissolve and like the 
baseless fabric of a vision, leave not a 
wreck behind.” 
Let us then commence with the exa¬ 
mination of what are called primitive 
rocks. The cohesion of attraction ap¬ 
pears to have been their origin, as we 
see 
