The Testimony of the Rocks Part 15

"The mighty ark Rests upon Ararat; but nought around Its inmates can behold, save o'er the expanse Of boundless waters the sun's orient orb Stretching the hull's long shadow, or the moon In silence through the silver-curtained clouds Sailing, as she herself were lost and left In hollow loneliness."

Let me further remark, that in one important sense a partial Flood, such as the one of which I have conceived as adequate to the destruction, in an early age, of the whole human family, could scarce be regarded as miraculous. Several of our first geologists hold, that some of the formidable cataclysms of the remote past may have been occasioned by the sudden upheaval of vast continents, which, by displacing great bodies of water, and rolling them outwards in the character of enormous waves, inundated wide regions elevated hundreds of feet over the sea level, and strewed them over with the rock boulders, clays, gravels, and organic debris of deep sea bottoms. And these cataclysms they regard as perfectly natural, though of course very unusual, events. Nor would the gradual depression of a continent, or, as in the supposed case, of a portion of a continent, be in any degree less natural than the sudden upheaval of a continent. It would, on the contrary, be much more according to experience. Nay, were such a depression and elevation of the great Asiatic basin to take place during the coming twelvemonth as that of which I have conceived as the probable cause of the Deluge, though the geologists would have to describe it as beyond comparison the most remarkable oscillation of level which had taken place within the historic period, they would certainly regard it as no more miraculous than the great earthquake of Lisbon, or than that exhibition of the volcanic forces which elevated the mountain of Jorullo in a single night sixteen hundred feet over the plain. And why have recourse, in speculating on the real event of four thousand years ago, to supposit.i.tious miracle, if an event of apparently the same kind would not be regarded as miraculous now? May we not in this matter take our stand beside the poet, who, when recognizing a Providence in the great Calabrian earthquake, and in the overwhelming wave by which it was accompanied, pertinently inquired of the skeptics,--

"Has not G.o.d Still wrought by means since first he made the world?

_And did he not of old employ his means To drown it?_ What is his creation less Than a capacious reservoir of means, Formed for his use, and ready at his will?"

The revelation to Noah, which warned him of a coming Flood, and taught him how to prepare for it, was evidently miraculous: the Flood itself may have been purely providential. But on this part of the subject I need not dwell. I have accomplished my purpose if I have shown, as was attempted of old by divines such as Stillingfleet and Poole, that there "seems to be no reason why the Deluge should be extended beyond the occasion of it, which was the corruption of man," but, on the contrary, much reason against it; and that, on the other hand, a Flood restricted and partial, and yet sufficient to destroy the race in an early age, while still congregating in their original centre, cannot be regarded as by any means an incredible event. The incredibility lies in the mere human glosses and misinterpretations in which its history has been enveloped. Divested of these, and viewed in its connection with those wonderful traditions which still float all over the world regarding it, it forms, not one of the stumbling-blocks, but one of the evidences, of our faith; and renders the exercise a not unprofitable one, when, according to the poet,--

"Back through the dusk Of ages Contemplation turns her view, To mark, as from its infancy, the world Peopled again from that mysterious shrine That rested on the top of Ararat."

LECTURE NINTH.

THE DISCOVERABLE AND THE REVEALED.

It seems natural, nay, inevitable, that false revelations, which have descended from remote, unscientific ages, should be committed to a false science. Natural phenomena, when of an extraordinary character, powerfully impress the untutored mind. In operating, through the curiosity or the fears of men, upon that instinct of humanity--never wholly inactive in even the rudest state--which cannot witness any remarkable effect without seeking to connect it with its producing cause, they excite into activity in the search the imaginative faculty,--always of earlier development than the judgment in both peoples and individuals, and which never fails, when so employed, to conduct to delusions and extravagances. And this state of mind gives birth simultaneously to both false religion and false science. Great tempests, inundations, eclipses, earthquakes, thunder and lightning, famine and pestilence, the births of monsters, or the rare visitation of strange fishes or wild animals, come all to be included in the mythologic domain. Even the untutored Indian "sees G.o.d in clouds, and hears him in the wind." And when an order of priesthood springs up, a portion of the leisure of the cla.s.s is usually employed in speculating on these phenomena; and to their speculations they give the form of direct revelation. Thus almost all the false religions of the old world--not grafted, like Mohammedanism, on the true one--have their pretended revelations regarding the form, structure, and origin of the earth, the mechanism of the heavens, the electric and meteoric phenomena, and even the arrangement of oceans and continents on the surface of our planet.

The old extinct forms of heathenism,--Etrurian, Egyptian, Phoenician, and Babylonian,--had all their cosmogonies.[32] In the wild mythology of ancient Scandinavia, of which we find such distinct traces in the languages and superst.i.tions of northern Europe, and which even in our own country continues to give the names of its uncouth deities to the days of our week, there is a strange genesis of not only the heavens and earth, but of the G.o.ds also. It has, besides, its scheme of the universe in its great mundane tree of three vast roots,--celestial, terrestrial, and infernal,--which supports the land, the sea, the sky, and all things. The leading religions of the East which still survive, such as Buddhism, Brahminism, and Pa.r.s.eeism, have all their astronomy, geography, meteorology, and geology, existing as component parts of their several systems. Nor have there been wanting ingenious men who, though little tolerant of the various attempts made to reconcile the Mosaic account of creation with the discoveries of modern science, have looked with a favorable eye on the wild science of the false religions, and professed to detect in it at least striking a.n.a.logies with the deductions of both the geologist and the astronomer. When the skeptical wits of the last century wished to produce, by way of foil, a morality vastly superior, as they said, to that of Christianity, they had recourse to the Brahmins and the Chinese. And though we hear less of the ethics of these people since we have come to know them better, we are still occasionally reminded of the superiority of their science.

Hinduism has been regarded as furnishing examples of the geologic doctrine of a succession of creations extended over immensely protracted geologic periods; and Buddhism represented as charged with both the geologic doctrine and the perhaps less certain astronomic deduction of a plurality of worlds. And before entering on our general argument, it may be well to show by specimen what mere chance hits these are, and how enormous the amount of the nonsense and absurdity really is in which they are set.

When Brahma, wearied with the work of producing and maintaining the universe, goes to sleep, say the Hindus,--an occurrence which happens at the end of every four millions of years,--a deluge of water rises high above the sun and moon, and the worlds and their inhabitants are destroyed. When he awakes, however, he immediately sets himself to produce anew; and another universe springs up, consisting, like the former one, of ten worlds placed over each other, like the stories of a tall building, and replenished with plants and animals. Of these our own world is the eighth in number, reckoning from the ground floor upwards; there are seven worlds worse than itself beneath it, and two better ones above; with a few worlds more higher up still, to which the destroying flood does not reach, save once or twice in an eternity or so; and which, in consequence, have not to be re-created each time with the others. The special forms which the upper and nether worlds exhibit do not seem to be very well known; but that which man inhabits is "flat, like the flower of the water-lily, in which the petals project beyond each other;" and it has in all, including sea and land, a diameter of several hundred thousand _millions_ of miles. It has its many great oceans,--one of these (unfortunately the only one in contact with man's place of habitation) of salt water, one of sugar-cane juice, one of spirituous liquor, one of clarified b.u.t.ter, and one of sour curds. It has, besides, its very great ocean of sweet water. And around all, forming a sort of gigantic hoop or ring, there extends a continent of pure gold. Of all the luminaries that rise over this huge world, the sun is the nearest: the distance of the moon is twice as great; the lesser fixed stars occur immediately beyond; then Mercury, then Venus, then Mars, then Jupiter, then Saturn; and finally, the great bear and the polar star. And such is that cosmogony and astronomy of the Brahmins to which their religion, in its character as a revelation, stands committed, and in which a very lenient criticism has found the geologic revolutions. Let me draw my next ill.u.s.tration from Buddhism, the most ancient and most widely spread religion of the East; for, though partially overlaid in the great Indian peninsula by the more modern monstrosities of Brahminism, it extends in one direction from the Persian Gulf to Formosa and j.a.pan, and in the other from the wastes of Siberia to the Gulf of Siam. Scarce any of the other forms of heathenism darken so large a portion of the map as Buddhism,--a superst.i.tion which is estimated to include within its pale nearly one third of the whole human species.

It has been held, I need scarce say, by most astronomers since the times of Newton, that the universe consists of innumerable systems of worlds, furnished each with its own sun; and held by most geologists during the last fifty years, that the past duration of our earth was divided into periods of vast extent, each of which had a creation of its own. And certainly in Buddhism we find both these ideas,--the idea of the existence of separate systems, each with its own sun; and the idea of successive periods, each with its own creation. We ascertain on examination; however, that in the superst.i.tion they are not scientific ideas at all, but mere chance guesses, set, like those of Brahminism, in a farago of wild and monstrous fable. Each of the many systems of which the universe is composed consists, say the Buddhists, of three worlds of a circular form, joined together at the edges, so that there intervenes between them an angular inters.p.a.ce, which const.i.tutes their common h.e.l.l; and to each of these systems there is a sun and moon apportioned, that take their daily journeys over them, returning at night through a void s.p.a.ce underneath. And each of the bygone successive creations was a creation originated, it is added, out of chaos, through the stored-up merits of the Buddhas, and the effects of a life-invigorating rain, and which sank into chaos again when the old stock of merit, acc.u.mulated in the previous period, was exhausted. The creatures of each period, too, whether brute or human, were animated by but the souls of former creatures embodied anew. In the centre of each of the three worlds of which a system or _sackwala_ consists, there is a vast mountain, more than forty thousand miles in height, surrounded by a circular sea, which is in turn surrounded by a ring of land and rock.

Another circular sea lies outside the ring, and a second solid ring outside the sea; and thus rings of land and water alternate from the centre to the circ.u.mference. According to the geography of the Buddhas, a model of our own earth would exactly resemble that old-fashioned ornament,--a work of the turning-lathe,--which some of my auditors must have seen roughening the upper board of the ornate parlor bellows of the last century, and which consisted of a large central k.n.o.b, surrounded by alternate circular rings and furrows. And as in the old-fashioned bellows each ring flattened, and each furrow became shallower, in proportion as it was removed from the centre, so in the Buddhist earth, the seas, from being many thousand miles deep in the inner rings, shallow so greatly, that in the outer rings their depth is only an inch; while the continents, from being forty thousand miles high, sink into mere plains, almost on the level of the surrounding ocean. Such is the geography to which this religion pledges itself. Its astronomy, on the other hand, is not quite so bad as that to which Father Cullen has affixed his imprimatur, seeing that, though it gives the same sort of diurnal journey to the sun, it confers upon it a diameter, not of only six feet, but of four hundred miles. Nor is its geology a great deal worse than that of many Christians. It makes the earth consist, reckoning from its foundations upwards, of a layer of wind, a layer of water, a layer of substance resembling honey, a layer of rock, and a layer of soil. Such is a small portion of the natural science of Buddhism: the minute details of its monstrous cosmogony, with its descriptions of fabulous oceans, inhabited by fishes thousands of miles in length, and of wonderful forests abounding in trees four hundred miles high, and haunted by singing lions that leap two miles at a bound, occupy many chapters of the sacred volumes. Every form of faith has its heretics; and there are, it would seem, heretics among even the Buddhists, who, instead of adopting the nonsense of the priests in this physical department, originate a nonsense equally great of their own.

The error of concluding that the worlds of the universe are finite in number, say the sacred books, is the heresy _antawada_; the error of concluding that the world itself is infinite is the heresy _anantawada_; the error of concluding that the world is finite vertically but infinite horizontally is the heresy _anantanantawada_; and the error of concluding the world to be neither finite nor infinite is the heresy _nawantanantawada_. A name equally formidable would be, of course, found for the students of modern astronomy and the other kindred sciences, among the professed believers in Buddh, did not these contrive to get over the difficulty by observing, "that certain things, as stated in the _Sastras_, must have been so formerly; but great changes have taken place in these in latter times; and for astronomical purposes astronomical rules must be followed."

Believers in Buddhism may be still found by tens of millions on the sh.o.r.es of the Yellow Sea. Let me select my third specimen of a universe-fashioning mythology from a faith, long since extinct, that had its seat on the opposite side of the Old World, along the coasts of the Northern Atlantic. The old Teutonic religion professed to reveal, like that of Buddh and of Brahma, _how_ the heavens and earth were formed, and of _what_. Ymir, the great frost-giant, a being mysteriously engendered out of frozen vapor, was slain by the G.o.d Odin and his brothers; and, dragging his body into the middle of the universe, they employed the materials of which it was composed in forming the earth. Of his blood they made the vast ocean, and all the lakes and rivers; of his flesh they constructed the land, placing it in the midst of the waters; of his bones they built up the mountains; his teeth and jaws they broke up into the stones and pebbles of the earth and sh.o.r.e; of his great skull they fashioned the vault of the heavens; and, tossing his brains into the air, they became the clouds. Earth, sea, and sky, however, thus made, were supported by the great ash-tree Yggdrasill, which, with its roots anch.o.r.ed deep in the primordial abyss, rose up through the vast central mountains of the world, and, stretching forth its branches to the furthest heaven, bore the stars as its fruit. Encircling the whole earth like a ring, lay the huge snake Midgard,--always hidden in the sea, save when half drawn forth on one occasion by the G.o.d Thor; outside the snake a broader ring of ice-mountains swept round both land and ocean, and formed the outer frame of the world,--for there lay only blank s.p.a.ce beyond; and over all, the sun and moon performed their journeys, chased through the sky by ravenous wolves, that ever sought to devour them. Such was the wild dream of our Scandinavian ancestors,--a dream, however, that occupied as prominent a place in their Edda as any of their other religious beliefs, and which, with the first dawn of science, would not only have fallen itself, but would have also dragged down the others along with it.

Now this physical department has ever proved the vulnerable portion of false religions,--the portion which, if I may use the metaphor, their originators could not dip in the infernal river. The ability of drawing the line, in the early and ignorant ages of the world, between what man can of himself discover and what he cannot, is an ability which man cannot possibly possess. The ancient Chaldeans, who first watched the motions of the planets, could not possibly have foreseen, that while on the one hand men would be one day able of themselves to measure and weigh these bodies, and to determine their distances from the earth and from each other, men might never be able of themselves to demonstrate the fact of their authorship, or to discover the true character of their author. Nay, if they could have at all thought on the subject, the latter would have seemed to them by much the simpler discovery of the two. To know at such a time what was in reality discoverable and what was not, would be to know by antic.i.p.ation what is not yet known,--the limits of all human knowledge. It would be to trace a line non-existent at the period, and untraceable, in the nature of things, until the history of the human race shall be completed. It was held by even the sagacious Socrates, that men cannot arrive at any certainty in questions respecting the form or motion of the earth, or the mechanism of the heavens; and so he set himself to elucidate what he deemed much simpler matters,--to prove, for instance, as we find in the Phedon, that human souls existed ere they came to inhabit their mortal bodies, and retained faint recollections of great misfortunes that had overtaken them ere their embodiment as men, and of sufferings to which they had been subjected in a primevous state. And lacking this ability of distinguishing between the naturally discoverable and what cannot be naturally discovered, the originators of the old mythologic beliefs obtruded into provinces in which ultimately the lawless nature of the obtrusion could not fail to be detected; and thus, by making their false science a portion of their false religion, they created what was afterwards to prove its weakest and most vulnerable part. We absolutely know that the course at present pursued by enlightened Christian missionaries in India is to bring scientific truth into direct antagonism with the monstrously false science of the pretended revelations of Pa.r.s.eeism, Brahminism, and Buddhism; and that by this means the general falsity of these systems has been so plainly shown, that it has become a matter of doubt whether a single educated native of any considerable ability in reality believes in them. They seem to have lost their hold of all the minds capable of appreciating the weight and force of scientific evidence.

Let us further remark, that since it seems inevitable that pretended revelations of ancient date should pledge themselves to a false science, the presumption must be strong that an ancient revelation of great multiplicity of detail, which has _not_ so pledged itself, is not a false, but a true revelation. Nay, if we find in it the line drawn between what man can know of himself and what he cannot know, and determine that this line was traced in a remote and primitive age, we have positive evidence in the circ.u.mstance, good so far as it extends, of its Divine origin. Now, it will be ultimately found that this line was drawn with exquisite precision in the Hebrew Scriptures,--not merely the most ancient works that profess to be revelations, but absolutely the most ancient of all writings. Unfortunately, however, what G.o.d seems to have done for his Revelation, influential theologians of both the Romish and Orthodox Churches have labored hard to undo; and, from their mistaking, in not a few remarkable pa.s.sages, the scope and object of the vouchsafed message, they have at various times striven to pledge it to a science as false as even that of Buddhist, Teuton, or Hindu. And so, not only has the argument been weakened and obscured which might be founded on the rect.i.tude of the line drawn of old between what ought and what ought not to be the subject of revelation, but even a positive argument has been furnished to the infidel,--ever ready to identify the glosses of the theologian with the enunciations of revelation itself,--similar to that which the Christian missionary directs against the false religions of India. It may be well briefly to inquire how this unlucky mistake has originated.

It is of first importance often to the navigator that he should have a good chronometer, seeing that his ability of determining his exact position on wide seas, and, in consequence, of determining also the exact place and bearing of the rocks and reefs which he must avoid, and of the lands and harbors on which he must direct his course, must very much depend upon the rect.i.tude of his instrument. But it may be of very little importance to him to know how chronometers are made. And so a friend may reveal to him where the best chronometers are to be purchased, with the name of the maker, without at the same time revealing to him the principle on which they are constructed. Let us suppose, however, that from some peculiarity in the mode of the revelation, the navigator has come to believe that it includes both items,--an enunciation regarding the place where and the maker from whom the best chronometers are to be had, and a further enunciation regarding the true mechanism of chronometers. Let us suppose further, that while the good faith and intelligence of his friend are unquestionable, the supposed revelation regarding the construction of chronometers, which he thinks he owes to him, is altogether erroneous and absurd. The chronometer mainly differs from the ordinary watch in being formed of a mixture of metals, which preserve so nice a chemical balance, that those changes of temperature which quicken or r.e.t.a.r.d the movements of common time-pieces fail to affect it. Now, let us suppose that the friend and adviser of the sailor had said to him,--using a common metonymy,--there are no chronometers anywhere constructed that so _completely neutralize the temperature_ as the ones I recommend to you; and that the sailor had at once leaped to the conclusion, that the remark was authority enough for holding that it is the principle of chronometers, not to be composed of such counteractive combinations of metals as that the expansion of one shall be checked by the contraction of another, but to keep up an equal temperature within through a heat-engendering quality in the amalgamated metals. Such a mistake might be readily enough originated in this way; and yet it would be a very serious mistake indeed; seeing that it would subst.i.tute an active for a pa.s.sive principle,--a principle of equalizing the temperature by acting upon it, for a principle of inert impa.s.sibility to the temperature. And of course not only would the sailor himself be in error in taking such a view, but he might seriously compromise the intelligence or integrity of his friend in the judgment of all who held, on his testimony, that it was with his friend, and not from his own misconception of his friend's meaning, that the view had originated. And how, let us ask, ere dismissing our lengthened ill.u.s.tration, is an error such as the supposed one here to be tested, and its erroneousness exposed? There can be but one reply to such a query. It might be wholly in vain to fall back upon the _ipsissima verba_ of the revelation made by the sailor's friend. Though in reality but an enunciation regarding the _authorship_ of certain chronometers, it might possibly enough appear, from its metonymic character, to be also a revelation regarding the _construction_ of chronometers. The sailor's error respecting the construction of chronometers is to be tested and exposed, not by any references to what his friend had said, but by the art of the chronometer maker. The demonstrable principles of the art, as practised by the makers of chronometers, must be the test of all supposed _revelations_ regarding the principles and mechanism of chronometer making.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 114.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF COSMAS.[33]

(_From a reduced facsimile of the original print in the British Museum._)]

Now, it will be found that those mistakes of the theologians to which I refer have been exactly similar to that of the navigator in the supposed case, and that they are mistakes which must be corrected on exactly the same principle. The departments in which the mistakes have been made, have, as in the false religious, been chiefly three,--the geographic, astronomic, and geologic provinces. The geographic errors are of comparatively ancient date. They belong mainly to the later patristic and earlier middle ages, when the monk Cosmas, as the geographer of the Church, represented the earth as a parallelogrammical plain, twice longer than it was broad, deeply indented by the inland seas,--the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf,--and encompa.s.sed by a rectangular trench occupied by the oceans. Some of my audience will, however, remember that of the council of clergymen which met in Salamanca in 1486 to examine and test the views of Christopher Columbus, a considerable portion held it to be grossly heterodox to believe that by sailing westwards the eastern parts of the world could be reached. No one could entertain such a view without also believing that there were antipodes, and that the world was round, not flat,--errors denounced by not only great theologians of the golden age of ecclesiastical learning, such as Lactantius and St. Augustine, but also directly opposed, it was said, to the very letter of Scripture.

"They observed," says Washington Irving, in his "Life of Columbus,"

"that in the Psalms the heavens are said to be extended like a hide,--that is, according to commentators, the curtain or covering of a tent, which among the ancient pastoral nations was formed of the hides of animals; and that St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, compares the heavens to a tabernacle or tent extended over the earth, which they thence inferred must be flat." In the sectional view of Cosmas the heavens are represented as a semicircular vault or tent raised on perpendicular walls; a vast mountain beyond the "Great Sea," lofty as the innermost continent of the Buddhist cosmogony, rises immediately under it; when the sun pa.s.sed behind this mountain it was night, and when it emerged from it, it was day. And certainly under the crystal box of the monk it would be in vain to attempt, by pa.s.sing westwards, to arrive at the far east. The cosmogony of Cosmas was also that of the doctors of Salamanca; and the views of Columbus were denounced as heterodox because they failed to conform to it. Such was one of the earlier mistakes of the theologians. When merely told regarding the authorship of the chronometer, they held that they had been told also respecting the mechanism of the chronometer. Attaching literal meanings to what we now recognize as merely poetic or oratorical figures, they believed that not only was it revealed to them that G.o.d had created the heavens and earth, but also that he had created the earth in the form of an extended plain, and placed a semi-globular heavens over it, just as one places a semi-globular case of gla.s.s over a piece of flower-plot or a miniature thicket of fern. And how, I ask, was this error ultimately corrected? Simply by that science of the geographer which demonstrates that the earth is not flat, but spherical, and that the heavens have not edges, like a skin-tent or gla.s.s-case, to come anywhere in contact with it, but consist mainly of a diffused atmosphere, with illimitable s.p.a.ce beyond.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 115.

THE HEAVENS AND EARTH OF COSMAS.[34]

(_Sectional View._)]

The second great error to which the theologians would fain have pledged the truth of Scripture was an error in the astronomical province. I need scarce refer to the often-adduced case of Galileo. The doctrine which the philosopher had to "abjure, curse, and detest," and which he was never again to teach, "because erroneous, heretical, and contrary to Scripture," was the doctrine of the earth's motion and the sun's stability. But to the part taken by our Protestant divines in the same controversy,--men still regarded as authorities in their own proper walk,--I must be allowed to refer, as less known, though not less instructive, than that enacted by the Romish Church in the case of Galileo. "This, we affirm, that is, that the earth rests, and the sun moves daily around it," said Voetius, a great Dutch divine of the middle of the seventeenth century, "with all divines, natural philosophers, Jews and Mohammedans, Greeks and Latins, excepting one or two of the ancients, and the modern followers of Copernicus." And we detect Heideggeri, a Swiss theologian, who flourished about half an age later, giving expression, a few years ere the commencement of the last century, to a similar view, as the one taken by himself and many others, and as a view "from which," he states, "our pious reverence for the Scriptures, the word of truth, will not allow us to depart." A still more remarkable instance occurs in Turrettine, whom we find in one of his writings arguing in the strictly logical form, "in opposition to certain philosophers," and in behalf of the old Ptolemaic doctrine that the sun moves in the heavens and revolves round the earth, while the earth itself remains at rest in the midst. "_First_," he remarks, "the sun is said in Scripture to move in the heavens, and to rise and set. 'The sun is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race.' 'The sun knoweth his going down.' 'The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down.' _Secondly_, The sun by a miracle stood still in the time of Joshua; and by a miracle it went back in the time of Hezekiah. _Thirdly_, The earth is said to be fixed immovably. 'The earth is also established that it cannot be moved.' 'Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth.' 'They continue this day according to their ordinance.' _Fourthly_, Neither could birds, which often fly off through an hour's circuit, be able to return to their nests. _Fifthly_, Whatever flies or is suspended in the air ought (by this theory) to move from west to east; but this is proved not to be true, from birds, arrows shot forth, atoms made manifest in the sun, and down floating in the atmosphere." The theologian, after thus laying down the law, sets himself to meet objections. If it be urged that the Scriptures in natural things speak according to the common opinion, Turrettine answers, "_First_, The Spirit of G.o.d best understands natural things. _Secondly_, That in giving instruction in religion, he meant these things should be used, not abused. _Thirdly_, That he is not the author of any error. _Fourthly_, Neither is he to be corrected on the pretence of our blind reason." If it be further urged, that birds, the air, and all things are moved with the earth, he answers, "_First_, That this is a mere fiction, since air is a fluid body; and _secondly_, if so, by what force would birds be able to go from east to west?"

Now this I must regard as a pa.s.sage as instructive as it is extraordinary. Turrettine was one of the most accomplished theologians of his age; nor is that age by any means a remote one. Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, had all finished their labors long ere he published this pa.s.sage; nay, at the time when his work issued from the Amsterdam press (1695), Isaac Newton had attained his fifty-third year; and fully ten years previous, Professor David Gregory, nephew of the inventor of the Gregorian telescope, had begun to teach, from his chair in the University of Edinburgh, the doctrine of gravitation and the true mechanism of the heavens, as unfolded in the Newtonian philosophy. The learned theologian, had he applied himself to astronomical science, could have found at the time very enlightened teachers; but falling into exactly the mistake of the sailor of my ill.u.s.tration, or that into which, two centuries before, the doctors of Salamanca had fallen, he set himself, instead, to contend with the astronomers, and, to the extent of his influence, labored to pledge revelation to an astronomy as false as that of the Buddhist, Hindu, or old Teuton. His mistake, I repeat, was exactly that of the sailor. Though in the Scriptures only the fact of the _authorship_ of the great chronometer set in the heavens "to be a sign for seasons, and for days and years," is revealed, he regarded himself as also informed respecting the principles on which the chronometer was constructed, or at least respecting the true nature of its movements; and several very important deductions may, I think, be drawn from the carefully constructed pa.s.sage in which he so unwittingly records his error, and the grounds of it. In the first place, we may safely hold that the texts of Scripture quoted by so able a theologian are those which have most the appearance of being revelations to men respecting the motions of the heavenly bodies. We may conclusively infer, that if _they_ do not reveal the character of those motions, then nowhere in Scripture is their character revealed. In the second place, it is obvious that the cited texts do _not_ reveal the nature of the motions. It would be as rational to hold that our best almanacs reveal the Ptolemaic astronomy. In the scientific portion of our almanacs there occur many phrases which are perfectly well understood, and indicate very definitely what the writer really intends to express by them, that yet, taken literally, are not scientifically true. The words, "Sun rises," and "Sun sets," and "Moon rises," and "Moon sets," occur in every page; there are two pages--those devoted to the months of March and September--in which the phrase occurs, "Sun crosses the equinoctial line;" and further, in the other pages, such phrases as "Sun enters Aries," "Sun enters Taurus," "Sun enters Gemini," &c., &c., are not unfrequent. The phrase, "new moon," is also of common occurrence. And these phrases, interpreted after the manner of Turrettine, and according to their strict grammatical meaning, would of course imply that the sun has a motion round our planet,--that the moon moves round it every twenty-four hours,--and that the earth is provided every month with a new satellite. And yet we know that none of these ideas are in the mind of the writer who, in compiling the almanac, employs the phrases. He employs them to indicate, not the nature of the heavenly motions, but the exact time when, from the several motions of the earth, the sun and moon are brought into certain apparent positions with respect to either the earth itself or to the celestial signs; or to indicate the time at which the moon completes its monthly revolution, and presents a wholly darkened disk to the earth. The commentator skilful enough to pledge the almanac, in virtue of the literal meaning of the specified phrases, to the old Ptolemaic hypothesis, would pledge it to a false science, which its author never held. And such, evidently, has been the part enacted by Turrettine and the elder theologians. The Scriptural phrases are in no degree more express respecting the motion of the sun and the other heavenly bodies than those of the almanac, which, we know, do not refer to motion at all, but to time. Nor are we less justified in holding that the cited Scriptures do not refer to _motion_, but to _authorship_. In the third place, however, it is not by any mere reconsideration of the adduced pa.s.sages that the error, once made, is to be corrected. In a purely astronomic question the appeal lies, not to Scripture, but to astronomic science. And in the fourth place, the reasonings of Turrettine, when, quitting his own proper walk, he discourses, not as a theologian, but as a natural philosopher, are such as to read a lesson not wholly unneeded in the present day. They show how in a department in which it demanded the united life-long labors of a Kepler, Galileo, and Newton to elicit the truth, the hasty guesses of a great theologian, rashly ventured in a polemic spirit, gave form and body to but ludicrous error. It is not after a fashion so impetuous and headlong that the elaborately wrought key must be plied which unlocks the profound mysteries of nature. But of this more anon.

Let me remark in the pa.s.sing, that while Turrettine, one of the greatest of theologians, failed, as we have seen, to find in Scripture the fact of astronomic _construction_, La Place, one of the greatest of the astronomers, failed in a manner equally signal to find in his science the fact of astronomic _authorship_. The profound Frenchman (whom Sir David Brewster well characterizes as "the philosopher to whom posterity will probably a.s.sign the place next to Newton "), by demonstrating that certain irregularities in the motion of the heavenly bodies, which had been supposed to indicate a future termination to the whole, were but mere oscillations, subject to periodic correction, and indicative of no such termination in consequence, demonstrated also that, from all that appears, the present astronomical movements might go on forever. And as he could find in the solar system no indications of an end, so was he unable, he said, to find in it any trace of a beginning. He failed in discovering in all astronomy the fact of authorship, just as Turrettine had failed in finding in all Scripture the fact of astronomic construction. And here lies, I am inclined to think, the true line between revelation and science,--a line drawn of old with a G.o.d-derived precision, which can be rightly appreciated neither by mere theologians like Turrettine, nor by mere men of science like La Place, but which is notwithstanding fraught with an evidence direct in its bearing on the truth of Scripture. That great fact, moral in its influence, of the authorship of the heavens and earth, which the science of La Place failed of itself to discover, and which was equally unknown to the ancient philosophers, G.o.d has revealed. It is "through faith we understand that the worlds were formed by the word of G.o.d, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

And, on the other hand, the great truths, physical in their bearing, to the discovery of which science is fully competent, G.o.d did not reveal, but left them to be developed piecemeal by the una.s.sisted human faculties. And that ability of nicely drawing the line between the two cla.s.ses of truths in a very remote age of the world, which we find manifested in the oldest of the Scriptural books, I must regard as an ability which could have been derived only through inspiration, and from G.o.d alone.

Let us, however, pursue our argument. Questions of geography, such as those entertained by the theologians of Salamanca, must be tested, we conclude, not by a revelation never intended by its Divine Author to teach geography, but by the findings of geographic science. Questions in astronomy, such as those which Turrettine and the opponents of Galileo entertained, must be tried, we hold, not by a revelation never intended to teach astronomy, but by the findings of astronomic science. But how deal, I next ask, with the theologian who holds that geologic fact has been revealed to him? Geology is as thoroughly a physical science as either geography or astronomy. Its facts are equally capable of being educed and established by the una.s.sisted human intellect. It seems quite as unlikely that it should have been made a special subject of revelation, in its character as a science, as either of these sciences; or that the line so nicely maintained with respect to _them_ should have been transgressed with regard to _it_. In short, in order satisfactorily to answer our query, it seems but necessary satisfactorily to answer another, namely, What, in this special department, are truth and fact scientifically ascertained?

There are, however, certain texts that appear to have a more direct bearing on the successive periods of the geologist than any of those that were once held to refer to the form of the earth, or to the nature of the heavenly bodies, are now believed to have on geography or astronomy. No one now holds that there is a geography revealed in Scripture, or regards the cavils of the Salamanca doctors as other than mere aberrations of the human mind. Nor, save mayhap in the darker corners of the Greek and Romish Churches, are there men in the present day who hold that there is a revealed astronomy. The texts so confidently quoted by Turrettine, such as "The sun also ariseth and the sun goeth down," are regarded in every Protestant Church as simply tantamount, in their bearing on the question at issue, to the "Sun rises" and "Sun sets" of the almanac. But while the Scriptures do not reveal the form of the earth or the motions of the planets, they do reveal the fact that the miracle of creation was effected, not by a single act, but in several successive acts. And it is with the organisms produced by successive acts of creation, and the formations deposited during the periods in which these acts took place, that the geologist is called on by his science to deal. And hence, while there are now no attempts made to reconcile geographic or astronomic fact with the Scripture pa.s.sages which refer, in the language of the time, to the glory of the heavens or the stability of the earth, just because it is held that there is really nothing geographic or astronomic in the pa.s.sages to conflict with the geographic or astronomic facts, we still seek to reconcile the facts of geologic science with what is termed the Mosaic geology. We inquire whether, in its leading features, the Mosaic does not correspond with the geologic record; and whether the _days_ of the retrospective prophecy of creation are to be regarded as coextensive with the vast periods of the geologist, or as merely representative portions of them, or as literal days of twenty-four hours each? But though we thus seek to harmonize the two records, we continue to regard their grounds and objects as entirely different. The object of geology is simply the elucidation of the history of the earth, and of the story of its various creations; and its grounds are, like those of astronomy or geography, or of any other physical science, facts and inferences scientifically determined or deduced; while, on the other hand, the grounds of the Mosaic record are those on which the other Scriptures rest, and which have been so well laid down in what we may term the higher literature of the "Evidences," while at least some of its objects,--for who shall declare them all?--seem to be, first, to establish the all-important fact of the Divine authorship of the universe, and to show that all its various forces are not self-existent, but owe their origin to a Great First Cause; next, to exhibit the progressive character of G.o.d's workings,--a character which equally applies to his works of creation and providence; and, in the third place, to furnish a basis and precedent, in the Divine example, for that inst.i.tution of the Sabbath which bears not only a prophetic reference to the great dynasty to come,--last of all the dynasties, and of which re-created men are to be the happy subjects, and the Divine Man the adorable Monarch,--but which has also been specially established in order that right preparation may be made for the terminal state which it symbolizes and foreshadows. Here, as certainly as in the other physical sciences, the line has been drawn with perfect precision between what man could and what he could not have known of himself. What he could have known, and in part already knows, is geologic science; what in all probability he never could have known is the fact of the Divine authorship of the universe, and the true nature of the inst.i.tution of the Sabbath, as a time of preparation for the final state, and as alike representative of G.o.d's workings in the past, and of his eternally predetermined scheme for the future. "Is it not certain," Socrates is represented as inquiring, in "the first Alcibiades," of his gay and confident pupil, "that you know nothing but what has been told you by others, or what you have found out for yourself?" There is at once exquisite simplicity and great terseness in this natural division of the only modes in which men can acquire knowledge; and we find it wonderfully exemplified in all revelation. Scripture draws practically a broad line between the two modes; and while it tells man all that is necessary to his wants and welfare as a religious creature, it does not communicate to him a single scientific fact which he is competent to find out for himself.

About an age previous to the times of Turrettine, the danger of "corrupting philosophy through an intermixed divinity" was admirably shown by Bacon in his "Novum Organum;" and the line indicated was exactly what we now find was laid down of old with such precision in Scripture. "To deify error and to adore vain things," said the great philosopher, "may be well accounted the plague of the understanding.

Some modern men, guilty of much levity, have so indulged this vanity, that they have essayed to find natural philosophy in the first chapter of Genesis, the Book of Job, and other places of holy writ, seeking the living among the dead. Now this vanity is so much the more to be checked and restrained, because, by unadvised mixture of Divine and human things, not only a phantastical philosophy is produced, but also an heretical religion. Therefore it is safe to give unto Faith, with a sober mind, the things that are Faith's." The pa.s.sage, partially quoted, has been not unfrequently misapplied, as if it bore, not against theologians such as Turrettine and the Franciscans, but against theologians such as Chalmers, Dr. Bird Sumner, and Dr. Pye Smith,--not against the men who derive a false science from Scripture, into which G.o.d never introduced natural science of any kind, but against the men who, having sought and acquired their science where it is alone to be found, have striven to bring Scripture, in the misinterpreted pa.s.sages, into harmony with its findings. Taken, however, as a whole, its true meaning is obvious. It is the men who have "essayed to find natural philosophy" positively revealed in Genesis and the other sacred books,--not the men who have merely shown that there is nothing in Scripture which conflicts with the natural philosophy legitimately found elsewhere,--that are obnoxious to the censure conveyed in the remark. It is they only, and not the others, that are "_phantastical_" in their philosophy and "_heretical_" in their religion. I say heretical in their religion. The Ptolemaic doctrine which ascribed to the earth a central place in the universe was only scientifically false, whereas the same doctrine in Turrettine and the Franciscans, from the circ.u.mstance that they pledged the Scripture to its falsity, and professed to derive it direct from revelation, was not only scientifically false, but a heresy to boot. And, in like manner, it is the cla.s.s who term themselves the "Mosaic geologists,"--men such as the Granville Penns, Moses Stewarts, Eleazar Lords, Dean c.o.c.kburns, and Peter Macfarlanes,--who essay to "find natural philosophy in the first chapter of Genesis," and that too a demonstrably false natural philosophy, who are obnoxious to the Baconian censure now. No true geologist ever professes to deduce his geology from Scripture. It is from the earth's crust, with its numerous systems, always invariable in their order, and its successive groups of fossil remains, always (in accordance with their place and age) of a certain determinable character,--not in a revelation never intended by its Divine Author to teach any natural science as such,--that he derives the materials with which he builds. Had there been no Divine Revelation, geology would be as certainly what it now is as either geography or astronomy. That it comes in the present time more in contact with revealed truth than either of these sciences, is, as I have shown, merely a consequence of the fact that there is a history given in the opening pa.s.sages of Scripture, for far other than geological purposes, of the authorship of the heavens and earth, and of the successive stages of creation; and further, from the circ.u.mstance that, from various motives, men are ever and anon inquiring how the geologic agrees with the Scriptural record. It may be well here to remind the anti-geologists, in connection with this part of my subject, of what at the utmost they may hope to accomplish. Judging from all I have yet seen of their writings, they seem to be as certainly impressed by the belief that they are settling textually the geologic question of the world's antiquity, as the doctors of Salamanca held that they were settling textually the question of the world's form; or Turrettine and the Franciscans, that they were settling textually the question of the world's motion, or rather want of motion. But the mistake is quite as gross in their case as in that of Turrettine and the doctors. Geology rests on a broad, ever extending basis of evidence, wholly independent of the revelation on which they profess, very unintelligently, in all the instances I have yet known, to found their objections. What they need at most promise themselves is, to defeat those attempts to reconcile the two records which are made by geologists who respect and believe the Scripture testimony,--not a very laudable feat, even could it be accomplished, and certainly worthy of being made rather a subject of condolence than of congratulation. And though, of course, men should pursue the truth simply for its own sake, and independently either of the consequences which it may be found to involve, or of the company with which it may bring them acquainted, the anti-geologists might be worse employed than in scanning the character and aims of the a.s.sociates with whom they virtually league themselves when they declare war against the Christian geologist.

There are three different parties in the field, either directly opposed, or at least little friendly, to the men who honestly attempt reconciling the Mosaic with the geologic record. First, there are the anti-geologists,--men who hold that geological questions are to be settled now as the Franciscans contemporary with Galileo held that astronomical questions were to be settled in the seventeenth century, or as the doctors of Salamanca contemporary with Columbus held that geographic questions were to be settled in the fifteenth. And _they_ believe that geology, as interpreted by the geologists, is entirely false, because, as they think, irreconcilable with Scripture; further, that our planet had no existence some seven or eight thousand years ago,--that the apparent antiquity of the various sedimentary systems and organic groups of the earth's crust is wholly illusive,--and that the very oldest of them cannot be more than a few days older than the human period. In fine, just as it was held two centuries ago by Turrettine and the Franciscans, that the Bible as interpreted by _them_ was the only legitimate authority in astronomic questions, so this cla.s.s now hold that the Bible as interpreted by _them_ is the only legitimate authority in geologic questions; and further, that the Bible being, as they contend, wholly opposed to the deductions of the geologist, these deductions must of necessity be erroneous. Next, there is a cla.s.s, more largely represented in society than in literature, who, looking at the general bearings of the question, the character and standing of the geologists, and the sublime nature of their discoveries, believe that geology ranks as certainly among the sciences as astronomy itself; but who, little in earnest in their religion, are quite ready enough, when they find theologians a.s.serting the irreconcilability of the geologic doctrines with those of Scripture, to believe them; nay, not only so, but to repeat the a.s.sertion. It is not fashionable in the present age openly to avow infidelity, save mayhap in some modified rationalistic or pantheistic form; but in no age did the thing itself exist more extensively; and the number of individuals is very great who, while they profess an outward respect for revelation, have no serious quarrel with the cla.s.s who, in their blind zeal in its behalf, are in reality undermining its foundations. Nor are there avowed infidels awanting who also make common cause with the party so far as to a.s.sert that the results of geologic discovery conflict irreconcilably with the Mosaic account of creation. But there is yet another cla.s.s, composed of respectable and able men, who, from the natural influence of their acquirements and talents, are perhaps more dangerous allies still, and whom we find represented by writers such as Mr. Babbage and the Rev.

Baden Powell. It is held by both these accomplished men, that it is in vain to attempt reconciling the Mosaic writings with the geologic discoveries: both are intimately acquainted with the evidence adduced by the geologist, and entertain no doubt whatever regarding what it establishes; but though in the main friendly to at least the moral sanctions of the New Testament, both virtually set aside the Mosaic cosmogony; the one (Mr. Babbage) on the professed grounds that we really cannot arrive with any certainty at the meaning of that old Hebrew introduction to the Scriptures in which the genesis of things is described; and the other (Mr. Powell) on the a.s.sumption that that introduction is but a mere picturesque myth or parable, as little scientifically true as the parables of our Saviour or of Nathan the seer are historically so. Now, I cannot think that the anti-geologists are quite in the place in which they either ought or intend to be when engaged virtually in making common cause with either of these latter cla.s.ses.[35]

Be this as it may, however, it may be not uninstructive, and perhaps not wholly unamusing, to examine what the claims really are of some of our later anti-geologists to be recognized as the legitimate and qualified censors of geologic fact or inference. It will be seen, that in the pa.s.sage which I have quoted from Turrettine, the theologian, in three of his five divisions, restricts himself to the theologic province, and that when in his own proper sphere even his errors are respectable; but that in the two concluding divisions he pa.s.ses into the province of the natural philosopher, and that there his respectability ceases for the time, and he becomes eminently ridiculous. The anti-geologists,--men of considerably smaller calibre than the ma.s.sive Dutch divine of the seventeenth century,--also enter into a field not their own. Pa.s.sing from the theologic province, they obtrude into that of the geologist, and settle against him, apparently after a few minutes' consideration, or as mere special pleaders, questions on which he has been concentrating the patient study and directing the laborious explorations of years. And an exhibition by specimen of the nonsense to which they have in this way committed themselves in their haste, may not be wholly uninstructive. But I must defer the display till another evening. I shall do them no injustice; but I trust it will be forgiven me should I exhibit, as they have exhibited themselves, a cla.s.s of writers to whose a.s.saults I have submitted for the last fourteen years without provocation and without reply.

LECTURE TENTH.

THE GEOLOGY OF THE ANTI-GEOLOGISTS.

It has been well remarked, that that writer would be equally in danger of error who would a.s.sign very abstruse motives for the conduct of great bodies of men, or very obvious causes for the great phenomena of nature.

The motives of the ma.s.ses,--on a level always with the average comprehension,--are never abstruse; the causes of the phenomena, on the other hand, are never obvious. And when these last are hastily sought after, not from any devotion to scientific truth, or any genuine love of it, but for some purpose of controversy, we may receive it as a sure and certain fact that they will not be found. Some mere plausibility will be produced instead, bearing on its front an obviousness favorable mayhap to its reception for the time by the vulgar, but in reality fatal to its claims in the estimate of all deep thinkers; while truth will meanwhile lie concealed far below, in the bottom of her well, until patiently solicited forth by some previously unthought of process, in the character of some wholly unantic.i.p.ated result. Such, in the history of science, has been the course and character of error on the one hand, and of actual discovery on the other: the error has been always comparatively obvious,--the discovery unexpected and abstruse. And as men descend in the scale of accomplishment or intellect, a nearer and yet nearer approximation takes place between their conceptions of the causes of the occult processes of nature, and the common and obvious motives which influence large ma.s.ses of their fellows; until at length the sublime contrivances of the universe sink, in their interpretation of them, into the clumsy expedients of a bungling mechanism.

Tested by their reading of the phenomena on this principle, we find curious gradations between the higher and the humbler orders of minds.

The vortices of Descartes, for instance, involve but a simple idea, that might have been struck out by almost any individual of a tolerably lively fancy, who had walked by the side of a winding river, and seen sticks and straws revolving in its eddies. But no fancy, however active, or no reach of mere common sense, however respectable, could have originated, or conducted to a successful conclusion, that profound contemplation into which Newton fell in the garden of Woolsthorpe, when he saw the loosened apple drop from the tree, and succeeded in demonstrating that the planets are retained in their orbits by the same law which impels a falling pebble towards the ground. So little obvious, indeed, was the Newtonian scheme, that most of the contemporary generation of philosophers,--some of them, such as Fontenelle and his brother academicians of France, men of no mean standing,--died rejecting it. And the objections of Turrettine to the motion of the earth on its axis are, we find, still more obvious than even the idea of the vortices. It does at first seem natural enough to suppose, that if the earth's surface be speeding eastwards at the rate of several hundred miles in the hour (a thousand miles at the equator), the birds which flutter over it should be somewhat in danger of being left behind; and that atoms and down flakes floating in the atmosphere in a time of calm, instead of appearing, as they often do, either in a state of rest, or moving with equal freedom in every direction, ought to be seen hurrying westwards, as if puffed by the breath of a tornado. Such an objection must for a time have appeared as just as it seems obvious, especially in one's study on a Sat.u.r.day night, with much of one's lecture still to write, and the Sabbath too near to permit of verification or experiment.

Fontenelle, however, though he could not get over the difficulty of conceiving how the same gravitation which made a stone fall also kept the moon in its place, fairly surmounted that which puzzled Turrettine; and in his "Plurality of Worlds,"--a publication of the same age as the "Compendium Theologica,"--he makes his Marchioness surmount it too.

"'But I have a difficulty to solve,' he represents the lady as saying, 'and you must be serious. As the earth moves, the air changes every moment; so we breathe the air of another country.' 'Not at all,' replied I; 'for the air which encompa.s.ses the earth follows with us, and turns with us. Have you not seen the labors of the silkworm? The sh.e.l.l or coc.o.o.n which it weaves around itself with so much art is of a down very loose and soft; and so the earth, which is solid, is covered, from the surface twenty leagues upwards, with a kind of down, which is the air, and, like the sh.e.l.l of the silkworm, turns along with it.'" Even Turrettine, however, was as far in advance of some of our contemners of science in the present day, as Fontenelle was in advance of Turrettine, or Newton in advance of Fontenelle. The old theologian could scarce have held, with a living ecclesiastic of the Romish Church in Ireland, Father Cullen, that the sun is _possibly_ only a fathom in diameter; or have a.s.serted with a most Protestant lecturer who addressed an audience in Edinburgh little more than three years ago, that, though G.o.d created all the wild animals, it was the devil who made the flesh-eaters among them fierce and carnivorous; and, of course, shortened their bowels, lengthened their teeth, and stuck formidable claws into the points of their digits.[36] Further, the error of Turrettine was but that of his age, whereas our modern decriers of scientific fact and inference are always men greatly in the rear of theirs, and as far inferior to the ancient a.s.sertors of the same errors as the few untutored peasants and fishermen of our own time, located in remote parts of the country, who still retain the old faith in witchcraft, are inferior to the great lawyers, poets, and divines,--the Fairfaxes, Henry Mores, Judge Haleses, and Sir George Mackenzies,--who in the seventeenth century entertained a similar belief. And so it may seem somewhat idle work to take any pains in "scattering" such a "rear of darkness thin" as this forlorn phalanx composes. "Let them alone," said a lunatic in the lucid fit, to a soldier who had told him, when asked why he carried a sword, that it was to kill his enemies,--"let them alone, and they will all die of themselves." But though very inconsiderable, there is a comparatively large proportion of the cla.s.s perilously posted, on both sides of the Atlantic, in what used to be termed of old in Scotland "the chair of verity;" and there they sometimes succeed in doing harm, all unwittingly, not to the science which they oppose, but to the religion which they profess to defend. I was not a little struck lately by finding in a religious periodical of the United States, a worthy Episcopalian clergyman bitterly complaining, that whenever his sense of duty led him to denounce from his pulpit the gross infidelity of modern geology, he could see an unbelieving grin rising on the faces of not a few of his congregation. Alas! who can doubt that such ecclesiastics as this good clergyman must virtually be powerful preachers on the skeptical side, to all among their people who, with intelligence enough to appreciate the geologic evidence, are still unsettled in their minds respecting that of the Christian faith. And so on this consideration alone it may be found not uninstructive to devote the address of the present evening to an exposure of the errors and nonsense of our modern anti-geologists,--the true successors and representatives, in the pa.s.sing age, of the Franciscan and Salamanca doctors of the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Let me first remark, that no one need expect to be original simply by being absurd. There is a cycle in nonsense, as certainly as in opinion of a more solid kind, which ever and anon brings back the delusions and errors of an earlier time: the follies of the present day are transcripts, unwittingly produced, and with of course a few variations, of follies which existed ce