The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences Part 1

The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences.

by Edward Hitchc.o.c.k.

TO MY BELOVED WIFE.

Both grat.i.tude and affection prompt me to dedicate these lectures to you.

To your kindness and self-denying labors I have been mainly indebted for the ability and leisure to give any successful attention to scientific pursuits. Early should I have sunk under the pressure of feeble health, nervous despondency, poverty, and blighted hopes, had not your sympathies and cheering counsels sustained me. And during the last thirty years of professional labors, how little could I have done in the cause of science, had you not, in a great measure, relieved me of the cares of a numerous family! Furthermore, while I have described scientific facts with the pen only, how much more vividly have they been portrayed by your pencil! And it is peculiarly appropriate that your name should be a.s.sociated with mine in any literary effort where the theme is geology; since your artistic skill has done more than my voice to render that science attractive to the young men whom I have instructed. I love especially to connect your name with an effort to defend and ill.u.s.trate that religion which I am sure is dearer to you than every thing else. I know that you would forbid this public allusion to your labors and sacrifices, did I not send it forth to the world before it meets your eye. But I am unwilling to lose this opportunity of bearing a testimony which both justice and affection urge me to give. In a world where much is said of female deception and inconstancy, I desire to testify that one man at least has placed implicit confidence in woman, and has not been disappointed. Through many checkered scenes have we pa.s.sed together, both on the land and the sea, at home and in foreign countries; and now the voyage of life is almost ended. The ties of earthly affection, which have so long united us in uninterrupted harmony and happiness, will soon be sundered. But there are ties which death cannot break; and we indulge the hope that by them we shall be linked together and to the throne of G.o.d through eternal ages.

In life and in death I abide Your affectionate husband, EDWARD HITCHc.o.c.k.

PREFACE.

Most of the following lectures were written as much as eight or ten years ago, though additions and alterations have been made, from time to time, to adapt them to the progress of science. They were undertaken at the suggestion of my friend, Rev. Henry Neill, then of Hatfield, now of Lenox.

I had no definite intention as to the use to be made of the lectures; but having for many years turned my attention to the bearings of science, and especially of geology, upon religion, I felt a desire to put upon paper the final results of my examinations. I threw them into the lecture form, that I might, if best, deliver them to the geological cla.s.ses which I should instruct in the college with which I am connected. This I have done for many years, and also have used them in various places before lyceums.

They are at length published, from a conviction that something of the kind, from some quarter, is needed. Many of the thoughts, indeed, which, at the time they were put upon paper, were original, have since been brought out by other writers. Yet enough of this description probably remain to expose me to severe criticism. I beg the intelligent Christian, however, before he condemns my views, to settle it in his mind what he can subst.i.tute for them that will be more honorable to religion. It is much easier to find fault with a mode of defending the truth than to invent a better method. We may not be pleased with certain views in vindication of religion, and yet the alternative of rejecting them may be so much worse as to lead us at least to be silent. Would that Christian critics had always kept this fact in mind when writing upon the views of geologists!

They would find often that they are straining at a gnat and must swallow a camel.

If my views are erroneous, as exhibited in these lectures, I cannot plead that they have been hastily adopted. Most of them, indeed, have been the subjects of thought occasionally for thirty years. I hope, however, that all my suggestions will not be thought of equal importance in my own estimation; since some of them are merely hypothetical hints thrown out for the consideration of abler minds.

This work does not exhibit quite so much of logical exactness as I could wish. But my leading object has been fully carried out, viz., to exhibit all the religious bearings of geology. Several of the lectures, however, have been written as if independent of all the rest; and, therefore, the reader will find some leading thoughts repeated, but always in different connections.

After acknowledging that more than a quarter of a century has elapsed since this subject first engaged my attention, it may be useless for me to ask any indulgence from criticism. But really, I feel less prepared to write upon it than I did during the first five years in which I studied it. I have learnt that it is a most difficult subject. It requires, in order to master it, an acquaintance with three distinct branches of knowledge, not apt to go together. First, an acquaintance with geology in all its details, and with the general principles of zology, botany, and comparative anatomy; secondly, a knowledge of sacred hermeneutics, or the principles of interpreting the Scriptures; thirdly, a clear conception of the principles of natural and revealed religion.

As examples of efforts made by men who were deficient in a knowledge of some of these branches, I am compelled to quote a large proportion of the works which, within the last thirty or forty years, have been written on the religion of geology; especially on its connection with revealed religion. I am happy to except such writers as Dr. J. Pye Smith, Dr.

Chalmers, Dr. Harris, Dr. Buckland, Professor Sedgwick, Professor Whewell, Dr. King, Dr. Anderson, and Hugh Miller; for they, to a greater or less extent, acquainted themselves with all the subjects named above, before they undertook to write. But a still larger number of authors, although men of talents, and familiar, it may be, with the Bible and theology, had no accurate knowledge of geology. The results have been, first, that, by resorting to denunciation and charges of infidelity, to answer arguments from geology which they did not understand, they have excited unreasonable prejudices and alarm among common Christians respecting that science and its cultivators; secondly, they have awakened disgust, and even contempt, among scientific men, especially those of sceptical tendencies, who have inferred that a cause which resorts to such defences must be very weak.

They have felt very much as a good Greek scholar would, who should read a severe critique upon the style of Isocrates, or Demosthenes, and, before he had finished the review, should discover internal evidence that the writer had never learnt the Greek alphabet.

On the other hand, prejudices and disgust equally strong have been produced in the mind of many a man well versed in theology and biblical exegesis by some productions of scientific men upon the religious bearings of geology, because they advanced principles which the merest tyro in divinity would know to be false and fatal to religion, and which they advocated only because they had never studied the Bible or theology.

And here I would remark that it does not follow, because a man is eminent in geology, that his opinion is of any value upon the religion of geology.

For the two subjects are quite distinct, and a man may be a Coryphus in the principles of geology, who is an ignoramus in its religious applications. Indeed, many of the ablest writers upon geology take the ground that its religious bearings do not belong to the science.

These statements, instead of pleading my apology for the following work, may only show my temerity and vanity. Nevertheless, they afford me an opportunity of calling the attention of the religious public to the great inadequacy of the means now possessed of acquiring a knowledge of the different branches of natural science. I refer especially to comparative anatomy, zology, botany, and geology, in our literary and theological seminaries. The latter, so far as I know, do not pretend to give any instruction in these branches. And in our colleges that instruction is confined almost entirely to a few brief courses of lectures; often so few that the students scarcely find out how ignorant they are of the subjects; and hence those who are expecting to enter the sacred ministry vainly imagine that, at almost any period of their future course, they can, in a few weeks, become sufficiently acquainted with physical science to meet and refute the sceptic. In all our seminaries, however, abundant provision is made, as it ought to be, for the study of intellectual philosophy and biblical interpretation.

So well satisfied are two of the most enlightened and efficient Christian denominations in Great Britain--the Congregationalists and the Scottish Free Church--of the need of more extensive acquaintance with the natural sciences in ministers of the gospel, that they have attached a professorship of natural history to their theological seminaries. That in the New College in Edinburgh is filled by the venerable Dr. Fleming; that in the New College in London by Dr. Lankester. From a syllabus of Dr.

Fleming's course of lectures, which he put into my hands last summer, I perceive that it differs little from the instruction in natural science in the colleges of our country. This being the case, it strikes me that this is not exactly the professorship that is needed in the theological seminaries of our country. But they do need, it seems to me, professorships of natural theology, to be filled by men who are practically familiar with the natural sciences. If any such chairs exist in these seminaries, I do not know it. They are amply provided with instruction in the metaphysics of theology, hermeneutics, and ecclesiastical history; and I should be sorry to see these departments less amply provided for. But here is the wide field of natural theology, large enough for several professorships, which finds no place, save a nook in the chair of dogmatics. This might have answered well enough when the battle-field with scepticism lay in the region of metaphysics, or history, or biblical interpretation. But the enemy have, within a few years past, intrenched themselves within the dominions of natural science; and there, for a long time to come, must be the tug of the war. And since they have subst.i.tuted skeletons, and trees, and stones, as weapons, in the place of abstractions, so must Christians do, if they would not be defeated. Let me refer to a few examples to show how inadequately furnished the minister must be for such a contest, who has used only the means of instruction provided in our existing seminaries, literary and theological.

Take the leading points discussed in the following lectures. How can a man who has heard only a brief and hurried course of thirty lectures on chemistry, twenty on anatomy and physiology, fifteen upon zology, ten upon botany, ten upon mineralogy, and twenty upon geology, at the college, with no additional instruction at the theological seminary,--how can he judge correctly of points and reasoning difficult to be mastered by adepts in these sciences? How certain to be worsted in an argument with an accomplished naturalist who is a sceptic!

Suppose the sceptic takes the ground advocated by Oken and the author of the "Vestiges." Let the clergyman, whom I have supposed, read the works of Miller and Sedgwick in reply to the development hypothesis, and see whether he can even understand their arguments without a more careful study of the sciences on which they rest.

A subject of no small importance in its religious bearings has recently excited a good deal of sharp discussion in this country. I refer to the questions of the specific unity and unity of origin of the human race. To a person who has never studied the subject, it seems a matter easy to settle; yet, in fact, it demands extensive research even to understand.

And we have seen one of the most accomplished zologists and anatomists of the present age take ground on these points in opposition to the almost universal opinion. The result has been that not a few talented replies to his arguments have appeared, mostly, I believe, from ministers. I have not seen them all. But in respect to those which I have read it has seemed to me, without having the least sympathy with the views of Professor Aga.s.siz, that the authors have not the most remote conception of the princ.i.p.al arguments on which he relies, derived from zology and comparative anatomy; nor do I believe that they can understand and appreciate them until they have studied those sciences.[1]

Although I fear that theologians are not aware of the fact, yet probably the doctrines of materialism are more widely embraced at this day than almost any other religious error. But in which of our schools, save the medical, is there any instruction given in physiology and zology, that will prepare a man to make the least headway against such delusions? The arguments by which materialism is defended are among the most subtle in the whole range of theology and natural science; and without a knowledge of the latter they can neither be appreciated nor refuted. The mere metaphysical abstractions by which they are usually met excite only the contempt of the acute physiologist who is a materialist.

I might refer, in this connection, to the whole subject of pantheism, in its chameleon forms. The rhapsodies of spiritual pantheism must, indeed, be met by metaphysics equally transcendental. But, after all, it is from biology that the pantheist derives his choicest weapons. He appeals, also, to astronomy, zology, and geology; nor is it the superficial naturalist that can show how hollow is the foundation on which he rests.

These are only a few examples of the points of physical science on which scepticism at this moment has batteries erected with which to a.s.sail spiritual religion. Will the minister but slightly familiar with the ground chosen by the enemy be able not only to silence his guns, but, as every able defender of the truth ought to do, to turn them against its foes? Surely it needs a professor of natural theology in our theological seminaries, (and if such chairs existed in our colleges they would be serviceable,) to teach those who expect to be officers in the sacramental host how to carry on the holy war. I do not see how much more time can be given to the natural sciences in our colleges than is usually done, without encroaching upon other indispensable branches. If, therefore, provision be not made for studying the religious bearings of these sciences in our theological seminaries, our youthful evangelists must go forth to their work without the ability to vindicate the cause of religion against the a.s.saults of the sceptical naturalist. Would not, then, those wealthy and benevolent individuals be great public benefactors, who should endow professorships of natural religion in our schools of the prophets?

But I must not pursue this subject farther. I commit my work to the public with no raised expectations of its welcome reception. I have a high opinion of the enlightened candor of, the educated cla.s.ses of our country, especially those in the ministry. Yet I know that many prejudices exist against science in its connections with religion. And, therefore, my only hope of any measure of success in this effort rests upon the divine blessing. But if the work be not pleasing to Infinite Wisdom and Benevolence, why should I desire for it an ephemeral success among men?

AMHERST COLLEGE, May 1, 1851.

EXPLANATION OF THE FRONTISPIECE.

This section of the earth's crust is intended to bring under the eye the leading features of geology.

1. _The relative Position of the Stratified and the Unstratified Rocks._

The unstratified rocks, viz., granite, sienite, porphyry, trap, and lava, are represented as lying beneath the stratified cla.s.s, for the most part, yet piercing through them in the centre of the section, and by several dikes or veins, through which ma.s.ses have been protruded to the surface.

The unstratified cla.s.s are all colored red, to indicate their igneous origin. Granite seems to have been first melted and protruded, and it continued to be pushed upward till the close of the secondary period of the stratified rocks, as is shown by the vein of granite on the section.

Sienite and porphyry seem to have been next thrust up, from below the granite; next, the varieties of trap were protruded from beneath the porphyry; and last, the lava, which still continues to be poured out upon the surface from beneath all the rest.

2. _The Stratified Rocks._

The stratified rocks represented on both flanks of the granite peak in the section, appear to have been deposited from water, and subsequently more or less lifted up, fractured, and bent. An attempt is made, on the right hand side of the section, to exhibit the foldings and inclination of the strata. The lowest are bent the most, and their dip is the greatest; and, as a general fact, there is a gradual approach to horizontality as we rise on the scale.

3. _The right hand side of the Section._

The strata on the right hand are divided into five cla.s.ses: first and lowest, the _crystalline_, or _primary_, dest.i.tute of organic remains, and probably metamorphosed from a sedimentary to a crystalline state, by the action of subjacent heat. 2. The _palozoic cla.s.s_, or those containing the earliest types of animals and plants, and of vast thickness, mostly deposited in the ocean. 3. _The secondary cla.s.s_, reaching from the top of the lower new red or Permian system, to the top of the chalk. 4. _The tertiary strata_, partially consolidated, and differing entirely from the rocks below by their organic contents. 5. _Alluvium_, or strata now in a course of deposition. This cla.s.sification is sometimes convenient, and frequently used by geologists.

4. _The left hand Side._

On the left hand side of the section the strata are so divided as to correspond to the six great groups of animals and plants that have appeared on the globe. The names attached to the groups are derived from [Greek: zos] (_vivus_, living,) with the Greek numerals prefixed. The lowest group, being dest.i.tute of organic remains, is called _azoic_, (from [Greek: a] privitive and [Greek: zos],) that is, wanting in the traces of life; and corresponds to the crystalline group on the other side of the section, embracing gneiss, mica slate, limestone, and clay slate, of unknown thickness. The _protozoic group_ corresponds to the palozoic of the right hand side, and embraces lower and upper Silurian, Devonian, or old red sandstone, the carboniferous group, and the Permian, or lower new red; the whole in Great Britain not less than thirty-three thousand feet thick. The _deutozoic group_ consists only of the tria.s.sic, or upper new red sandstone, and is only nine hundred feet thick, but marks a distinct period of life. The _tritozoic_ embraces the lias and olite, with the Wealden, and is three thousand six hundred feet thick. The _tetrazoic_ consists of the chalk and green sand, one thousand five hundred feet thick. The _pentezoic_ embraces the tertiary strata of the thickness of two thousand feet. The _hectozoic_ is confined to the modern deposits, only a few hundred feet thick, but entombing all the existing species of animals.

5. _Characteristic Organic Remains._

Had s.p.a.ce permitted, I should have put upon the section a reference to the most characteristic and peculiar mineral, animal, or plant, in the different groups. Thus the azoic group is _crystalliferous_, or crystal-bearing. The lower or Silurian part of the protozoic group is _brachiopodiferous_, _trilobiferous_, _polypiferous_, and _cephalopodiferous_; that is, abounding in brachiopod and cephalopod sh.e.l.ls; in polypifers, or corals; and in trilobites, a family of crustaceans. The middle part, or the Devonian, is _thaumichthiferous_, or containing remarkable fish. The upper part, or the coal measures, is _carboniferous_; that is, abounding in coal. _The deutozoic group_ is _ichniferous_, or track-bearing, from the mult.i.tude of its fossil footmarks. The _tritozoic group_ is _reptiliferous_, or reptile-bearing, from the extraordinary lizards which abound in it. The _tetrazoic_ is _foraminiferous_, from the abundance of coral animalcula, called foraminifera, or polythalmia, which it contains. The _pentezoic_ is _mammaliferous_, because it contains the remains of mammalia, or quadrupeds. The _hectozoic_ is _h.o.m.oniferous_, or man-bearing, because it embraces human remains.

There is no one place on earth where all the facts exhibited on this section are presented before us together. Yet all the facts occur somewhere, and this section merely brings them into systematic arrangement.