it obviously follows, that all things must have been, from all eternity, precisely what we find them to be at present; in other words, owing their being to an inherent principle of self-existence, they could never have undergone any modification or change either from internal or external causes. Every fact, however, derived from the experiments of scientific men is directly at variance with this supposition. If there is one conclusion in philosophy more certain than another, it is that the universe around us, and the globe which we inhabit, must have had a beginning. Nor is this all with regard to the latter, we know not only that it has emanated from some creative power, but that it has received peculiar modifications from time to time, which, by the beneficial effects resulting from them, mark the continuing superintendence of a wise and benevolent mind. The present condition in which we find it, has evidently been produced at no very remote period from our own time. The several chronometers supplied by the regular operation of existing phenomena on the surface of the earth, all coincide most remarkably with the date of the creation, as recorded in the Mosaic writings. Every discovery of the geologist supplies the same inference, so far as it refers to the history of the human race. Be the antiquity of the material mass of the globe what it may, and allowing the utmost latitude to the calculations of those who conceive that the various stratifications of the earth must have been the result of an almost infinite succession of slow deposits and diluvian submersions, still it is admitted by all parties, that the first appearance of man must be considered as subsequent to all other formations of animals, and to all important modifications of the mineral world, with the exception only of one single diluvian action, which appears to have taken effect at a later period.

That there is a broad and general appearance of agreement between these facts and the Mosaic nar

rative, cannot be denied, whatever difficulty we may find in reconciling the scriptural account of a six days' creation with those longer epochs of time which geologists have generally considered necessary to account for the successive stratifications of the soil, and the production of the inferior animals. Now the question is, whether this general accordance be sufficient, even presuming the conclusions of geologists to be correct, to justify our belief in the Divine inspiration of the scriptural narrative of the creation? This question we may surely venture to answer in the affirmative, when we recollect that the exclusive object of revelation is to inculcate a moral lesson, by making us acquainted with the spiritual position of man, with reference to the Deity, and not with the comparatively unimportant facts of natural history. That Scripture, indeed, should wilfully falsify any narrative of circumstances, and gratuitously introduce fable, where the plain truth would be equally intelligible, it were impiety to suppose. But surely we may admit that there would be nothing inconsistent with the Divine perfections in touching only generally and incidentally, and with a certain allowance for the ignorance of an unphilosophical age, those portions of its narrative, which are rather necessary accompaniments than any integral and component part of the main subject matter. We may ask, moreover, if it be required of Scripture that it should always, when referring to merely physical phenomena, relate the real and precise fact, "with the received opinions of what age of the world would those facts accord?" Human theories, we should recollect, are continually changing in proportion to the progress of discovery; and what would appear to be a philosophical truth to-day, may, in many cases, be an exploded falsehood to-morrow. Had Moses, for instance, inculcated the doctrine of the Cartesian vortices, that circumstance, which in the seventeenth century would have been considered as the strongest proof of his inspiration,

would have been a decided refutation of it in the latter

part of the eighteenth. Were strict philosophical accuracy, therefore, to be required as a necessary test of an inspired narrative, it is obvious that it would really be in accordance with no one possible period of the state of human knowledge, unless we can suppose that the time will actually arrive in which experience will have no more to learn, and the whole process of investigation be completed. If, then, even revelation itself would be justified from the necessity of the case, in stopping short of this extreme point, why, it may be asked, should we expect it to do so at one period more than another; or rather, why should it not at once adapt itself, so far as it can do so consistently with the substantial communication of truth, to that state of knowledge which prevailed at the time when its communications were first made? Such would appear to be the course necessary to make itself practically intelligible to the parties addressed, and, as a choice of difficulties, would seem to be the least objectionable, because the most really useful mode of proceeding.

Still, however, after making due allowance for this necessary principle of accommodation, facts, we conceive, may be traced in the Mosaic narrative, which would seem to announce an acquaintance with some of the phenomena of the universe, as substantiated by subsequent discovery, which it would be difficult to account for in any other way than that of a presumed express inspiration. It is true that speculation upon these points, where the subject matter is confessedly so mysterious, and upon so vast and intricate a scale, ought to be indulged in with extreme caution, as liable to the exaggerations and false conclusions of an excited imagination. Experimental science, which is always progressive, must ever be an equivocal auxiliary to the fixed and immovable truths of revelation. Still, however, as infidelity has for the furtherance of its object, availed itself of pre

sumed inaccuracies in the scriptural records of the creation, there cannot surely be an impropriety in pointing out, with all due diffidence, a few of the facts there asserted, which would seem to accord in a striking manner with the discoveries of modern science; or with what might be conjectured as probable with reference to the early condition of a world such as ours, and the condition of human nature, when existing under strange and unwonted circumstances. In addition, then, to the preceding general remarks on this subject, we may observe, in the first place, that the surface of the globe immediately after the time of its first formation, is asserted by Moses to have been nearly that of semi-fluidity. Now that such must have been the case is considered by geologists as a matter of perfect certainty. But it may be urged that the proofs of this circumstance are so visibly impressed upon the whole surface of the earth that Moses might easily have arrived at that conclusion, even though we suppose him to have had no more than the common knowledge of a tolerably careful observer of nature.-Be it so. Still it remains to be shown by what happy coincidence it was that the order of the successive productions of the Creator, commencing in the inferior races of animals, and advancing onward from fishes and birds to quadrupeds, and from quadrupeds to man, should have been asserted by him in a series so nearly, if not exactly, corresponding with that in which the discoveries of geology have shown them to have occurred. It is impossible to suppose him to have been possessed of facts, gleaned solely by a regular process of scientific induction, sufficient for the establishment of this theory. Was it then a mere fortunate guess, or are we not rather justified in referring his knowledge to the higher source of inspiration?

Another remarkable seeming accordance, to say the least of it, with the recent discoveries of science, in a branch of philosophy which depends, for its very

existence, upon the perfection of our modern optical instruments, occurs almost at the very commencement of the Mosaic narrative. Let it, however, be here again observed, that we allude to these facts as primâ facie coincidences merely. Ignorant as mankind are, and as they are probably for ever destined to remain, of the real nature of the remote heavenly bodies, it is evidently impossible that we can venture to found upon the assumptions of modern science any thing more than a vague general surmise, with regard to what may be the true theory of that mysterious portion of the universe. It is, we repeat, only because infidelity has let pass no opportunity of directing the presumed discoveries of science against revelation, that we feel ourselves justified in using arguments of the same description in its defence, so far as they may be fairly available. The coincidence to which we now allude, appears to us a striking one; let the reader attach to it what degree of credit he may conceive that it deserves. Every person conversant with the scriptural account of the creation must have been to a certain degree perplexed by the fact that Moses asserts light to have been called into existence on the first day, and yet expressly declares that the sun and moon were not created as luminaries until the fourth. This statement, at first sight, has the air of singular and glaring inconsistency, which it would seem to be impossible to reconcile with truth. If we consider the writer of the Book of Genesis as an impostor, or a fanatical theorist, attempting to impose his own wild speculations upon the world, we cannot possibly imagine a statement less likely to suggest itself to the author himself, or less calculated to secure proselytes. And yet the observations of the late Sir W. Herschell afford us reason to believe, as is well known, that a process is at this moment going on in the system of the heavenly bodies precisely analogous with this statement of the Mosaic writings. That celebrated astronomer, in his paper addressed to the Royal