"

tin des Sciences, after admitting the general analogy subsisting between the order of creation, as manifested by geology, and as stated by the sacred historian, expresses himself as follows respecting the productions of the fifth day" or period:-" With regard to the fifth day, the order of creation therein enumerated is in perfect accordance with that in which the fossil remains of the various races of animals occur. Animal life was first developed in the bosom of the seas; then in the air, reptiles followed, quadrupeds next, [in the sixth day and lastly man '."

On this close correspondence subsisting between the order of fossil strata and the Mosaic history of the creation, the following judicious observation is made by Mr. Faber: "This remarkable coincidence affords, so far as I can judge, a physical demonstration, that the order of the six days and the order of fossil stratification stand immediately connected together in the way of cause and effect. For; unless this be admitted, we must ascribe, not very philosophically, the uniform coincidence in question to mere unmeaning chance 2."

A rapid view has thus been given of the fundamental propositions advanced in De Luc's theory of the earth, in their connection with the sacred writings. The assemblage of undoubted facts, he observes, supplied by the attentive study of natural objects, is altogether independent of a pre-existing history, as

1 See M. de Férussac's review of the "Défense du Christianisme," by M. de FRAYSSINOUS, inserted in the Edinb. New Phil. Journal, Vol. v. p. 89. 1828.

* Treatise of the Three Dispensations, Vol. i. p. 157.

well of what was the order of things in their creation, as of the principal events that have happened at the earth's surface since mankind has existed. The Mosaic narrative is of so peculiar a nature, that the circumstances which it relates could not have been discovered previously to our times, in which the scientific observations of the phenomena have furnished adequate means of comparison. In respect to traditional knowledge, mankind must have been ignorant of what had happened in the universe and upon the globe, before their own existence; and geology makes it evident that they existed only after all the classes of animals, of which they could not consequently know the history. Yet the recital of Moses we find is impressed with the seal of truth. Now if, before geology was prosecuted as a science, the sacred historian recorded truths which mankind could not of themselves discover by any other means, he could do so only by immediate Divine inspiration'.

1 Correspondance entre le Dr. Teller et J. A. de Luc, pp. 38, 39. The following sound remarks, connected with the above train of argument, are made by the author in his Lettres sur l'Histoire de la Terre, &c. Vol. v. Part ii. p. 637. "Stating to mankind the great fact of the creation, Moses enters only into such details as were necessary to mark the real succession of the distinct parts of the sensible universe: a succession which, in as far as concerns the earth in particular, is actually ascertained from the inspection of the phenomena, with regard to every natural object the traces of which are not as yet obliterated. We at the same time perceive why that order of the process of creation, is that which is most fully detailed, namely, because it was the only part which had a direct interest for man; and in order that by gratifying his thirst after knowledge, he might arrive so far by the study of the phenomena, and thus come to understand, that what revelation had taught him beyond, was indu

"It would indeed, have been impossible for the human mind to have embraced the mysteries of creation; or to have followed the history of the moving atoms, from their chaotic disorder into their arrangement in the visible universe; to have seen dead matter assuming the form of life and animation, and light and power arising out of death and sleep. The ideas therefore transmitted to, or presented by Moses, respecting the origin of the world and of man. though general and simple truths, were Divine truths1."

The geological propositions themselves will be found developed and established in the following Letters; and their general truth has been admitted by the most distinguished naturalists. It was with a confident, yet modest anticipation of such an acknowledgment, that in his preface to his earliest geological work, De Luc hesitated not to express his belief that although some subordinate parts of that theory should prove to be defective, still the foundations of it would remain unshaken 2.

bitably true." See likewise Letter VI. of the present work, § 52. For a striking and unexpected character of truth in the Book of Genesis, as evidenced by the progress of natural knowledge, the reader is referred to Letter IV. §§ 19, 20.

1 "Consolations in Travel; or the last days of a Philosopher," by Sir H. Davy, late president of the Royal Society.

2 Some errors into which the author has fallen, but which are not considerable enough to affect the fundamental points of his theory, will be noticed as they occur in the work, and rectified from recent and more accurate observations.

SECTION VII.

General Inferences. A true Theory in Geology not undiscoverable.

THAT a true theory of the earth is not discoverable, will now scarcely be asserted ;-a theory, such as shall not only have for its aim to "discover the laws that regulate the changes on the surface, or in the interior of the globe," (to which object Prof. Playfair would limit every investigation in the history of the earth) but such as at the same time shall not set aside enquiries respecting a primitive constitution of our planet, whence those changes might follow; nor exclude the light resulting from certain well determined origins. While no one was more aware than De Luc of " the folly of attempting to explain the first origin of things," and of the necessity of trusting for a knowledge of it to the only source from which man can derive such knowledge2; yet he was well assured

1 "Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory."

........

2 "Can man apply the idea of origin to any thing besides what his observation shows him to exist? And can he form any idea with respect to the mode of first existence? By no means; and for that reason, God has revealed to him as a fact, that the heavens and the earth began to exist by his will Man is a finite being, and every thing that is infinite, is above his understanding. God, therefore, in his supreme wisdom, revealed to him those things only which he could understand as facts, his own existence, and that the universe proceeded from Him." This passage is extracted from De Luc's review of Dr. Hutton's Theory of the Earth. See the British Critic, for October, 1796.

that by "tracing with the necessary attention the characters of geological monuments, a succession is clearly discernible, by means of which it is possible to go back to some epoch, at which none of them did as yet exist; and to determine what was then the state of things upon our globe, and what are the causes from which its actual state has proceeded 1." This was the principal object which Bacon had in view in his physical researches, viz. the being enabled to ascend up to the origin of the phenomena of the universe; inasmuch as the different successions which he perceived there, did not allow him to imagine that it had always existed 2.

The author thus drew a broad line of distinction between what is discoverable by an attentive study of the phenomena, and what manifestly exceeds the reach of human capacity. He observes, after pursuing a train of reasoning, characterised at once by novelty and power, (in his Précis de la Philosophie de Bacon, Vol. ii. p. 112. et seq.) that there are different origins to which it is evident a cause must be assigned not belonging to the universe—a cause altogether distinct from matter, and to which we must have recourse for

1

1 Elementary Treatise of Geology, § 16. "If it be necessary to divide into distinct groupes the different kinds of strata presented at the earth's surface, and to ascertain their superposition, it must still be remembered that this is not the whole of geology. Such divisions are too often arbitrary: the knowledge of the superposition of the formations is moreover one of the means only which we possess for arriving at the much more important knowledge of the origin of those formations; of the nature and structure of the earth we inhabit, and of its history." Bibl. Univ. Tom. xli. p. 82. * Précis de la Philosophie de Bacon, Vol. ii. p. 101.