PART II.

THE ANTIQUITY OF THE EARTH CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO THE HISTORY OF GENESIS.

_CHAPTER XVIII._

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION AND EXPOSITION OF THE AUTHORS VIEW.

_The general principles of geological theory accepted by the author--These principles plainly import the extreme antiquity of the earth--Illustration from the coal, the chalk, and the boulder clay--This conclusion not at variance with the inspired history of creation--Chronology of the Bible--Genealogies of Genesis--Date of the creation not fixed by Moses--Progress of opinion on this point--Cardinal Wiseman, Father Perrone, Father Pianciani--Doctor Buckland--Doctor Chalmers, Doctor Pye Smith, Hugh Miller--Author’s view explained--Charge of rashness and irreverence answered--Admonitions of Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas._

The reader has now before him a general outline of Geological theory, together with some familiar illustrations of the evidence by which it is supported. We shall not attempt to enforce this evidence by any remarks of our own. Indeed it is of a kind that can derive but little aid from the arts of logic or rhetoric. It needs but to be fairly understood, and if it does not altogether compel our assent, it begets at least a presumption so strong as to leave little room for doubt or hesitation.

Nobody, so far as we know, has ever hesitated to believe that the Round Towers of Ireland are the work of human hands. And yet if some incredulous skeptic were to raise the cry against this common opinion, were to argue that it is a mere hypothesis, and call for proof, we should be embarrassed how to answer him. We could only say that these monuments have all the characteristic marks of man’s handiwork; and that buildings of this kind have never been known to come into existence except through the agency of Man. But should our vexatious skeptic contend that they were possibly produced by a freak of Nature; or that they were built in the beginning by the Creator of the World, who certainly might have made them had He been so minded, we should think him very unreasonable, and probably not feel much disposed to prolong the discussion. In like manner the theory of Geology which we are defending, cannot be established by a rigid demonstration; but we believe there is not one man of sense and judgment, who, being fully master of the evidence on which it rests, hesitates to accept that theory, at least in its more general outlines. No doubt many able and eminent men are to be found arrayed against Geology; but it would be easy to show from their writings that they have never thoroughly examined the facts about which they talk so flippantly, and which they often set aside so lightly.

For ourselves, therefore, we frankly avow that while we attach but little importance to the mere conjectures and speculations of Geological writers; while we look with doubt and suspicion on many plausible theories commonly enough adopted at the present day; and while we consider that the discoveries of modern times, wonderful though they are, have given rise to far more problems than they are yet able to solve; yet we do fully assent to those general principles which we have been attempting to develop and to illustrate in this Volume. Absolutely metaphysical certainty we have not; but we have a firm and rational conviction. We feel quite satisfied that the great Creator of the Universe did not bring suddenly into existence the withered remains and broken fragments of animals which had never lived; that He did not stamp upon the massive rocks, buried in the profound recesses of the earth, the impress of a luxuriant vegetation which had never flourished; that He did not, in short, create under millions of forms, the delusive appearances of things which had never been, and scatter them through this world of ours in wild profusion, well knowing that after many centuries they would come to light to bewilder human reason, and to lead it into error. This conclusion, of course, we are prepared to abandon if it should be found to clash with any certain truth or with any demonstrated fact. But, in the mean lime, it seems to us as well grounded and as fairly established as the conclusions we are accustomed to accept without hesitation in the matter of other sciences, and in the common business of life.

It is argued, however, that Geological theory is, in fact, at variance with the very highest order of truth; with that truth which comes to us on the authority of God Himself. The Bible tells us that the world first came into existence about six or eight thousand years ago: Geology, on the contrary, tells us that six or eight thousand years are but as yesterday in the history of the revolutions through which our Globe has passed. This is the argument to which we are now about to address ourselves; and it well deserves our best attention, not only from its intrinsic importance, but also from the interesting nature of the discussion to which it has given rise.

In the first place, we fully admit that the extreme Antiquity of the Earth is a necessary consequence of our theory. Setting out from the present stage of the world’s existence, Geology carries us back from epoch to epoch, through a long succession of ages, each extending over many thousand years, until the mind is lost in the seeming infinity of the past. It may be asked, perhaps, in what way Geology can testify to the great length of each successive period in the history of the Globe. A familiar example will furnish the most convenient reply to such a question.

Let the reader call to mind what we have already explained about the origin and formation of Coal; and then let him examine the structure of the Carboniferous Rocks. In the great Coal-fields of Wales, for instance, he will find, in a depth of 12,000 feet, from fifty to a hundred distinct beds of coals, spread out one above another, with intervening strata of clay several feet thick. Now each one of these beds represents an ancient forest which must have grown up and flourished and decayed; or else an immense and varied mass of Drift-wood, transported from a distance by the action of moving water, and deposited near the mouth of some great river. In either case a considerable lapse of time would have been necessary for such an accumulation of vegetable matter as would furnish the elements even of a single seam of Coal. And, when that period came to an end, only one little stage in the long series had been accomplished: one stratum of a few feet had been laid down in that great Formation which was to reach at length a height of more than two miles. A new condition of things then ensued. This layer of vegetable matter, sunk below the waters, was gradually covered over with a thick deposit of clay, which, in course of time, was to emerge, and become dry land, and give birth to a second forest, destined in its turn to wither and decay. Or, at least, when the stratum of clay had been deposited, it was to be overlaid, in some way or another, with a second layer of vegetable matter sufficient for the production of a second bed of coal. And so this process must have gone on, doubtless with many and long interruptions, for a hundred times in succession.

Then it must be remembered that the Coal-bearing strata represent but one of many periods, and that not the longest in the Geological Calendar. Before the age of the Coal, England was for centuries at the bottom of the sea, while the Old Red Sandstone was slowly spread out over its existing surface. And after the age of the Coal, England was again submerged, and gigantic Ichthyosaurs with their companions of the deep, sported in the waters that rolled over her plains and covered the tops of her mountains; and, when they had run their course, left their remains buried in the clays of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and Dorsetshire.

Furthermore, the beds in which these monstrous reptiles are entombed were overlaid by a stratum of calcareous ooze, now forming a solid mass of Chalk Rock, often a thousand feet in thickness. This Chalk, as we have seen, is nothing else than a vast accumulation of shells, so minute that millions of them would fit together on the blade of a small pen-knife, and hundreds of millions are carried about by every carpenter in his waistcoat pocket. How many generations of animalcules it took to pile up such an immense thickness of rock, by the action of their vital powers, and how many ages were consumed in the process it is beyond the reach of science to calculate, almost beyond the power of imagination to conceive. And yet the Chalk itself was followed by the various Formations of the Tertiary Age; while the last of these is separated by the Drift and Boulder Clay from the superficial deposits which correspond with the period of history, and which go by the name of Recent.

This topic has been illustrated in a lively and striking manner by Professor Huxley, in a Lecture delivered not long ago before the working-men of Norwich. “At Cromer,” he says, “one of the most charming spots on the coast of Norfolk, you will see the Boulder Clay forming a vast mass, which lies upon the Chalk, and must consequently have come into existence after it. Huge boulders of chalk are, in fact, included in the clay, and have evidently been brought to the position they now occupy by the same agency as that which has planted blocks of syenite from Norway side by side with them.

“The Chalk, then, is certainly older than the Boulder Clay. If you ask how much, I will again take you no further than the same spot upon your own coasts for evidence. I have spoken of the Boulder Clay and Drift as resting upon the Chalk. That is not strictly true. Interposed between the Chalk and the Drift is a comparatively insignificant layer, containing vegetable matter. But that layer tells a wonderful history. It is full of stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir-trees are there with their cones, and hazel-bushes with their nuts; there stand the stools of oak and yew trees, beeches and alders. Hence this stratum is appropriately called the Forest-bed.

“It is obvious that the Chalk must have been upheaved and converted into dry land before the timber trees could grow upon it. As the trunks of some of these trees are from two to three feet in diameter, it is no less clear that the dry land thus formed remained in the same condition for long ages. And not only do the remains of stately oaks and well-grown firs testify to the duration of this condition of things, but additional evidence to the same effect is afforded by the abundant remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and other great wild beasts, which it has yielded to the zealous search of such men as the Reverend Mr. Gunn.

“When you look at such a collection as he has formed, and bethink you that these elephantine bones did veritably carry their owners about, and these great grinders crunch in the dark woods of which the Forest-bed is now the only trace, it is impossible not to feel that they are as good evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings of the tree-stumps.

“Thus there is a writing upon the wall of cliffs at Cromer, and whoso runs may read it. It tells us with an authority which cannot be impeached, that the ancient bed of the Chalk sea was raised up and remained dry land until it was covered with forest, stocked with the great game whose spoils have rejoiced your Geologists. How long it remained in that condition cannot be said; but the ‘whirligig of time brought its revenges’ in those days as in these. That dry land, with the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived elephants hidden away among the gnarled roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, sank gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered it with huge masses of Drift and Boulder Clay. Sea-beasts, such as the walrus, now restricted to the extreme north, paddled about where birds had twittered among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How long this state of things endured we know not, but at length it came to an end. The upheaved glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once more, the wolf and the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant; and at length what we called the history of England, dawned.

“Thus evidence which cannot be rebutted, and which need not be strengthened, though, if time permitted, I might indefinitely increase its quantity, compels you to believe that the Earth from the time of the Chalk to the present day, has been the theatre of a series of changes as vast in their amount as they were slow in their progress. The area on which we stand has been first sea and then land for at least four alternations, and has remained in each of these conditions for a period of great length.

“Nor have these wonderful metamorphoses of the sea into land, and of land into sea, been confined to one corner of England. During the Chalk Period not one of the present great physical features of the Globe was in existence. Our great mountain ranges, Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, Andes, have all been upheaved since the Chalk was deposited, and the Cretaceous sea flowed over the sites of Sinai and Ararat.

“All this is certain, because rocks of Cretaceous or still later date have shared in the elevatory movements which gave rise to these mountain chains, and may be found perched up, in some cases, many thousand feet high upon their flanks. And evidence of equal cogency demonstrates that, though in Norfolk the Forest-bed rests directly upon the Chalk, yet it does so, not because the period at which the forest grew immediately followed that at which the Chalk was formed, but because an immense lapse of time, represented elsewhere by thousands of feet of rock, is not indicated at Cromer.

“I must ask you to believe that there is no less conclusive proof that a still more prolonged succession of similar changes occurred before the Chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved to us are sands and mud and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which were formed in still older oceans.”[105]

It is needless to pursue this subject further, or to seek for other illustrations. We may reject Geology if we will: but if we put any faith even in its main principles, we must believe that the Crust of the Earth has passed through an indefinite series of revolutions, during which the Stratified Rocks were slowly built up by the action of natural causes. And it would be utterly ridiculous to suppose that the history of these revolutions can be compressed into the narrow compass of six thousand years.

Turning now to the other side of the question, we maintain that this extreme Antiquity of the Earth, which we have learned from Geology, is perfectly consistent with the historical narrative of the Bible. The Bible, indeed, does fix the Chronology of the Human Race at a comparatively recent period; but as for the Chronology of the World itself, the Bible simply tells us that, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” For all that appears to the contrary, this Earth of ours may have been in existence for millions of years before man was introduced upon the scene; and during that time may have been peopled with those countless tribes of plants and animals which play so important a part in the records of Geology. This view, which is not only fully tolerated by the Church, but now largely supported by her Divines and Commentators, we hope to bring home clearly to our readers in the following pages; and thus to satisfy them that, as regards the Antiquity of the Earth, the discoveries of Geology can offer no prejudice to our religious belief.

At the outset it is of some importance to understand clearly the nature of that system of Chronology which is gathered from the Bible. Nowhere in the Sacred Text is the age of the human race explicitly set forth. But various data are found scattered here and there through the historical narrative, which afford us sufficient materials to compute the years that elapsed from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Christ. Unfortunately, however, these data are in some respects obscure, and in some respects uncertain. And thus it has come to pass that many different systems of Chronology have come into vogue, even amongst those who profess to be guided entirely by the authority of the Bible.

The whole period may be conveniently divided into two parts;--from the Creation of Adam to the Call of Abraham; and from the call of Abraham to the Birth of Christ. As regards the latter interval, the difference of opinion between Chronologists is not very substantial; the length of the period may be roughly set down at about 2,000 years. But in the computation of the former interval a very wide difference prevails, arising from a diversity of reading in the earliest versions of the Pentateuch.

The materials for the computation are derived from two genealogical lists, one extending from Adam to Noah,[106] the other from Noah to Abraham.[107] In these lists we have not only the direct line of descent from father to son, extending through the whole period in question, but, moreover, we have the age of each individual member of the genealogy at the time when the next in succession was born. As, for example:--“Adam lived _a hundred and thirty years, and begot a son_ to his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he had begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Seth also lived _a hundred and five years, and begot Enos_. And Seth lived, after he begot Enos, eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. And Enos lived _ninety years, and begot Cainan:_”[108] and so on. Now it is plain, according to this statement, that from the Creation of Adam to the birth of Seth was a hundred and thirty years; to the birth of Enos, a hundred and thirty, more a hundred and five years; to the birth of Cainan, a hundred and thirty, more a hundred and five, more ninety years. And in this way, following the genealogies of the Book of Genesis, we may easily compute the time from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Abraham. Adding seventy-five years to this period, we reach the epoch known as the Call of Abraham; for we are told that “Abraham was seventy and five years old when he went forth from Haran.”[109]

Now every one knows that when a long catalogue of names and numbers is copied and recopied from age to age, errors are very likely to creep in and be perpetuated. And so it has been in the present case. The three earliest versions of the Pentateuch are the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint: and between these three versions there is a very great discrepancy with regard to the figures in question; so great, indeed, as to make up, on the whole, a difference of 1500 years, or more, in the age of the human race. In the table that appears on the following page, for which we are mainly indebted to the work of a modern writer,[110] this diversity of reading is set forth in a very simple and intelligible form.

It is plain that of these three different versions, one only can represent the true age of the human race when Abraham went forth, at the command of God, from his country and his kindred and his father’s house, to go into the land of Canaan: and at this distance of time, it is impossible to determine with anything like certainty, which of the three has the greatest claim on our acceptance. The Church has not pronounced upon the subject; and the question is freely discussed among Biblical scholars. But the details of this controversy have little to do with our present argument. Enough it is for us to know that, from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Christ, cannot have been more than six thousand years at the highest computation, nor much less than four thousand at the lowest. Adding 1869 years of the Christian Era, the present age of the Human Race according to the data of the Bible would seem to lie between six and eight thousand years.

GENEALOGIES OF GENESIS.

LIST OF AGE OF EACH WHEN THE NEXT PATRIARCHS. WAS BORN.

ACCORDING TO Septuagint. Hebrew. Samaritan.

Adam, 230 130 130 Seth, 205 105 105 Enos, 190 90 90 Cainan, 170 70 70 Malaleel, 165 65 65 Jared, 162 162 62 Henoch, 165 65 65 Mathusala, 167 187 67 Lamech, 188 182 53 Noe, 500 500 500 Sem, 100 100 100 From the creation of Adam to the } ---- ---- ---- birth of Arphaxad, two years after } 2242 1656 1307 the Flood,[111] } ---- ---- ---- Arphaxad, 135 35 135 Cainan,[112] 130 -- -- Sale, 130 30 130 Heber, 134 34 134 Phaleg, 130 30 130 Reu, 132 32 132 Sarug, 130 30 130 Nachor, 79 29 79 Thare, 70 70 70 Abraham called by God, 75 75 75 ---- ---- ---- From the Flood to the Call of } 1145 365 1015 Abraham, } ---- ---- ---- From the Creation of Adam to } the Call of Abraham, } 3387 2021 2322

The Bible, then, does determine, though with some vagueness and uncertainty, the age of the Human Race. We have now to consider whether, in fixing the age of the Human Race, it fixes likewise the age of the World itself. For this purpose we must turn our attention to the first chapter of Genesis, in which is briefly set forth the origin and early history of our Globe from the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning to the Creation of Man at the close of the Sixth Day. If it should appear that these two events were comprised within a very narrow limit of time, as is not unfrequently supposed, then indeed the age of the world must agree pretty nearly with the age of the Human Race. But if on the other hand, between these two events the Sacred Record allows us to suppose an interval of indefinite length, then it plainly follows that the age of the Human Race, as set forth in the Bible Genealogies, can afford no evidence against the Antiquity of the Earth. The question is thus brought within very narrow limits. We have simply to take up the First Chapter of Genesis, and inquire whether or no it is there conveyed that the Creation of Man, which is described toward the close of the chapter, followed after the lapse of only a few days upon the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth, which is recorded in the first verse.

For many centuries this question received but little attention from the readers of the Bible. It was commonly assumed that, as the various events of the Creation are traced out in rapid succession by the Inspired Writer, and strung together into one continuous narrative, so did they follow one another, in reality, with a corresponding rapidity, and in the same unbroken continuity. The progress of Physical Science had not yet shown any necessity for supposing a lengthened period of time to have elapsed between the Creation of the World and the Creation of Man: nor was there anything in the narrative itself to suggest such an idea. Thus it was generally taken for granted, almost without discussion, that when God had created the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning, He _at once_ set about the work of arranging and furnishing the universe, and fitting it up for the use of man; that He distributed this work over a period of six ordinary days, and at the close of the sixth day, introduced our First Parents upon the scene: and that, therefore, the beginning of the Human Race was but six days later than the beginning of the World.

These notions about the history of the Creation continued to prevail almost down to our own time. It is to be observed, however, that they were not founded on a close and scientific examination of the Sacred Text. The hypothesis of a long and eventful state of existence prior to the Creation of Man may be said rather to have been overlooked, than to have been rejected, by our Commentators. There was no good reasons for entertaining such a speculation, and so they said nothing about it. But now that the world is ringing with the wonderful discoveries of Geology, which seem to point more and more clearly every day to the extreme Antiquity of the Earth, it becomes an imperative duty to examine once again with all diligence and care the Inspired narrative of the Creation, and to consider well the relation in which it stands with this new dogma of Physical Science.

We are not the first to enter upon the inquiry. Already it has engaged the attention and stimulated the industry of Theological writers for more than half a century. Many eminent men, distinguished alike for their extensive acquirements and for their religious zeal, have protested warmly against the opinion of Geologists, concerning the Antiquity of the Earth, as one that cannot be reconciled with the historical accuracy of the Bible. But, on the other hand, there are writers no less illustrious, and no less sincerely attached to the cause of religion, who contend that there is nothing in the Sacred Text to exclude the supposition of a long and indefinite interval--an interval if necessary of many millions of years--between the first creation of matter and the creation of man. Thirty years ago this opinion was defended by Cardinal Wiseman with great learning, and with great felicity of illustration, in his famous Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion. The eminent Roman Jesuit, Father Perrone, has followed the same line of argument in his Prælectiones Theologicæ, which, as every one knows, has long since become a classic work in schools of Theology. It has been yet more fully discussed, and supported by more elaborate reasoning, in a work entitled Cosmogonia Naturale Comparata col Genesi, lately published in Rome at the press of the Civiltà Cattolica, by another distinguished Jesuit, John Baptist Pianciani. Amongst Protestant writers, too, this view of the Mosaic narrative has found no inconsiderable number of able advocates. It is defended by Doctor Buckland, the eminent Geologist, in his celebrated Bridgewater Treatise, by Doctor Chalmers in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, by Doctor Pye Smith in his dissertations on Geology and Scripture, by the eloquent and original Hugh Miller in his interesting work on the Testimony of the Rocks; and by a host of others scarcely less distinguished than these.

But these learned writers are not altogether of one accord as to the precise point in the First Chapter of Genesis, at which we may suppose a long interval of time to have intervened. Some, with Doctor Buckland, Doctor Pye Smith, and Doctor Chalmers, consider that this interval may best be introduced between the beginning of all time, when God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the beginning of the First Day, when He set about preparing the world as a dwelling-place for man. Sacred Scripture, they say, simply records these two events, (1) that “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” and (2) that, at some subsequent time, “God said: Let there be light: and light was made.” But Sacred Scripture does not tell us what length of time elapsed between these two great acts of Divine Omnipotence. For aught we know from Revelation, it may have been but a single day, or it may have been a million of years. Others again, as for instance Pianciani, prefer to suppose that each one of the Six Days may have been itself a period of indefinite, nay of almost inconceivable duration. So that, between the beginning of the world and the creation of man six great ages of the Earth’s history may have rolled by, each one distinguished by a new manifestation of God’s power, and the introduction of new forms of life. These writers even fancy that they can discover a close analogy between the successive acts of creation recorded in Genesis, and the gradual development of organic life exhibited in the great Epochs of Geology.

To us it seems that either one or the other of these two systems, or both together, may be fairly admitted without any undue violence to the text of the Inspired narrative: and this, we would observe in passing, is the opinion to which Cardinal Wiseman appears to have inclined, thirty years ago, in his Lectures on the Connection between Science and Religion. We maintain, then, in the first place, that there is nothing in the Mosaic narrative, when carefully examined, at variance with the hypothesis of an indefinite interval between the creation of the world and the work of the Six Days. And, in the second place, we contend that it is quite consistent with the usage of Sacred Scripture to explain these Days of Creation as long periods of time.

* * * * *

It may appear, perhaps, to some of our readers that this is dangerous ground on which we are about to venture. They may have been accustomed all their lives to view the history of Creation through the medium of those notions that commonly prevailed before the discoveries of Geology: and from the influence of long association they may have come, in the end, to regard their own interpretation with scarcely less veneration than the Inspired Text itself. Such persons will naturally be disposed to look upon our undertaking with disfavor and suspicion. They will think us guilty of irreverence toward Holy Scripture when we seek to modify our views about its meaning, in deference to the conclusions of Physical Science; and they may be tempted even to charge us with putting the idle interpretations of men into the balance against the Inspired Word of God.

To this line of objection we would answer, that we cannot be guilty of irreverence to the Holy Scripture, when we are only striving, with due submission to the authority of the Church, to discover the true meaning of an obscure and difficult passage, on which the Church has pronounced no definite judgment. Nor can we be said to make light of the Word of God, when we are but attempting to defend its unerring veracity from the assaults of infidel writers. Furthermore we would add, that, if it is a dangerous thing to modify the received interpretation of certain parts of Scripture, when the progress of science enables us to see physical phenomena under a new light, it is a far more dangerous thing to persist in imputing to Scripture a doctrine that, in a very short time, may be proved to be false, beyond the possibility of contradiction.

These sentiments are not altogether our own. They have come to us, in great part, from an illustrious Doctor of the Church; and we are glad, at this early stage of our discussion, to be able to shelter our humble efforts under the authority of his venerable name. It is now more than fourteen centuries and a half since Saint Augustine set about the literal interpretation of Genesis, which he accomplished in a Treatise of twelve books. Toward the close of the first book he expatiates at some length on the difficulty of his undertaking, and on the variety of diverse interpretations, which prevailed even in his time. From this he takes occasion to warn his readers that, “if we find anything in Divine Scripture that may be variously explained without any injury to faith, we should not rush headlong by positive assertion either to one opinion or the other; lest, if perchance the opinion we have adopted should afterward turn out to be false, our faith should fall with it; and we should be found contending, not so much for the doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures as for our own; endeavoring to make our doctrine to be that of the Scriptures, instead of taking the doctrine of the Scriptures to be ours.”[113] And a little further on he again exposes the imprudence of such a proceeding, in words that cannot but be considered peculiarly applicable to our present subject:--

“It often happens that one who is not a Christian hath some knowledge derived from the clearest arguments or from the evidence of his senses about the earth, about the heavens, about the other elements of this world, about the movements and revolutions, or about the size and distances of the stars, about certain eclipses of the sun and moon, about the course of the years and the seasons, about the nature of animals, plants, and minerals, and about other things of a like kind. Now it is an unseemly and mischievous thing, and greatly to be avoided, that a Christian man speaking on such matters, as if according to the authority of Christian Scripture, should talk so foolishly that the unbeliever, on hearing him, and observing the extravagance of his error, should hardly be able to refrain from laughing. And the great mischief is, not so much that the man himself is laughed at for his errors, but that our authors are believed by people without the Church to have taught such things, and so are condemned as unlearned, and cast aside, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we are so much concerned. For, when they find one belonging to the Christian body falling into error on a subject with which they themselves are thoroughly conversant, and when they see him, moreover, enforcing his groundless opinion by the authority of our Sacred Books, how are they likely to put trust in these Books about the resurrection of the dead, and the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, having already come to regard them as fallacious about those things they had themselves learned from observation or from unquestionable evidence? And, indeed, it were not easy to tell what trouble and sorrow some rash and presumptuous men bring upon their prudent brethren, who, when they are charged with a perverse and false opinion by those who do not accept the authority of our Books, attempt to put forward these same Holy Books in defence of that which they have lightly and falsely asserted; sometimes even quoting from memory what they think will suit their purpose, and putting forth many words, without well understanding either what they say, or what they are talking about.”[114]

And many ages after, Saint Thomas, the great luminary of the schools, appeals to this wise admonition of Saint Augustine, and applies it to the circumstances of his own times. Writing about the work of the Second Day, he says that “in questions of this sort there are two things to be observed. First, that the truth of Scripture be inviolably maintained. Secondly, since Scripture doth admit of diverse interpretations, that we must not cling to any particular exposition with such pertinacity, that if what we supposed to be the teaching of Scripture should afterward turn out to be clearly false, we should nevertheless still presume to put it forward; lest thereby we should expose the Inspired Word of God to the derision of unbelievers, and shut them out from the way of salvation.”[115]

Under the sanction of two such illustrious Saints and Doctors we need not hesitate to proceed in our attempt to reconcile the Inspired narrative of the Creation with the doctrine of the Antiquity of the Earth, as set forth by the advocates of Geology. Let it be remembered, however, that we do not undertake to prove the extreme Antiquity of the Earth from the language of Scripture; but simply to show that the language of Scripture leaves the Antiquity of the Earth an open question. The Geologist holds that this Globe of ours has been in existence for hundreds of thousands, perhaps for millions of years; and our object is to show that, while maintaining this opinion, he may, nevertheless, accept the historical truth of the Bible narrative.

As before explained, two points arise for discussion: first, can we suppose an interval of indefinite length to have elapsed between the Creation of the World, and the work of the Six Days? and secondly, is it lawful to explain these Days in the sense of long periods? We shall take these two questions in succession, dealing with each upon its own merits; and if we fail to enforce conviction, we hope, at least, to vindicate our right to toleration.