limits. His caution is, in itself, only an enforcement of the first principle of the Baconian philosophy. But for this application of it, he gives us nothing but his own assertion. The undistinguishing application of good general principles is one of the most frequent causes of human error, and that to the most dangerous extent. I question whether there is any error or heresy, which may not be traced to this as one of its principal causes. Speculations may indeed be indulged and theories constructed, upon subjects in which we have no data for the support of our conclusions; and in which therefore all the materials are the offspring of imagination. But that is not the case here. In Geology and every other part of physical science, the objects of investigation are substantial realities, things presented to our eyes and all our other bodily organs; and the phenomena of change are in many cases perfectly similar, and in others analogous, to what is continually passing before our eyes. True philosophy is not an "intruding into things which we have not seen," the vain inflation of a carnal mind. (Col. ii. 19.) It is the patient ascertaining of actual things and actual events, of which our own senses and those of other men are the witnesses; and it then seeks to find out the connexion. of those facts with each other. Such is Geology. It deals in realities, diligently ascertained and faithfully reported: and the reasonings against which this author, pious and amiable as he is, directs his assault, are in all christian uprightness intended to protect the cause of religion against the injuries to which it is exposed from the misunderstanding of natural facts, and from what we believe to be the misinterpretation of the sacred Scriptures. What right has he to say, that "events which took place before the birth of man or the date of revelation, belong to a forbidden province?" He brings no reason in support of his assertion: he adduces no evidence in its favour from the divine oracles: he does not pretend to give us any ground whatever for the reception of it. Can he have expected that any man will receive this dictate, upon his pronouncing of it? Geology unrolls to the eyes of men a glorious book of the works and ways of divine power and providence. Are we to behold these objects; and then turn aside refusing to inquire, or to hear other persons inquire concerning their nature and relations, their causes and consequences? Can we persuade our fellow-men to yield obedience to such a prohibition? Will the unbelieving and irreligious submit to it? Will

they retire from the threshold of the temple, after they have been permitted to look in and gain a glance of its grandeur; and will or can they repress every desire of entering to explore its treasures? There are, unhappily, men well acquainted with the natural sciences, but who are disgracefully, because wilfully, ignorant of the real nature of religion, and the grounds of claim which it has on their understandings and their hearts: how will such as they treat this ban of an unproved authority? Will they not regard the futile prohibition as involving an unequivocal confession, that the book of revelation will not endure to be confronted with the book of nature? Or will religious persons, the sincere believers in the authority of the Bible, give in their adherence to it? Will they, can they, shut their eyes and silence their understandings; and suppress the risings of reason and admiration and piety? Can they strike dead the desire for knowledge which the wise and good Creator has implanted in man? Widely different is a simple desire of knowledge, regulated by rational and religious considerations, from that principle of the first transgression with which some unreflecting persons profess to identify it. That was the hankering after a gratification of animal appetite, in despite of a prohibition which the transgressors knew to have proceeded from infinite goodness; it was the giving credit to an unknown pretender, in contempt of the divine veracity: but the studies of Natural Philosophy, (though, like every other of God's benificent gifts, they may be and awfully are abused by ungrateful men,) are, in themselves, only a proceeding in the spirit of the divine declarations; "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.-Remember that thou magnify his work which men behold.-Through desire, a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom." Bible, in numerous places, directs us to the contemplation of God, under the especial aspect of displaying his perfections by his doings; and it affixes no limitations of time or place to the objects of such contemplation. The works which the Infinite Being has wrought, and the ways in which he governs his own creation,

The

* Ps. cxi. 2. Job xxxvi. 24. Prov. xviii. 1. This last passage is one of those in the Old Testament which, on account of the extremely elliptical character of the Hebrew style, is attended with difficulty. The following paraphrastic translation is submitted as strictly conveying the sense of the original. "For gratifying a laudable desire, a recluse student diligently explores and zealously contends for all elevation of knowledge."

may, in a sound and obvious sense sanctioned by the inspired apostle, be called a revelation of HIM; "because that which may be known of God (rò præoτòv rov Oɛov) is manifest in them." (Rom. i. 19.) It cannot be held excusable, in any to whom he has given the means of studying this manifestation of himself, to neglect that duty, or to oppose and decry those who endeavour to perform it. This study is, not the rival, but the valuable assistant, of the manifestation which God has granted us in positive revelation; and which is to us practically of infinitely the greatest importance. "All nature joins to show thy praise. Thus God in every creature shines. Fair is the book of nature's lines:

But fairer is the book of grace."

Watts.

PART II.

II. THERE is another and very different class of men, who are not only aware of the difficulties which we have undertaken to discuss, as producing some appearance of contradiction, but who affirm, without hesitation, that there is a real and insuperable discrepancy between the demonstrated facts of science and the unambiguous declarations of the Mosaic writings; and their method of resolving the difficulty is not like that of others who deny the geological facts, (for this, their knowledge makes impossible for them,) but they take the opposite course. The two leaders in this course are Mr. Babbage and Professor Baden Powell. The former of these philosophers, thinks himself compelled to resort to a desperate kind of hypothesis, which is really cutting the knot. He is of opinion that we cannot so depend upon our ability to construe the ancient Hebrew language, as to be sure that we have correctly interpreted the archaic documents before us. Thus, to speak the plain truth, an opening is made for treating the written records of the creation as if they had no existence; or, in the same manner as would be our conduct with regard to some antique marble, inscribed with characters which we might believe

to express the words of a lost language, but that language one which we could never hope to recover. We might admire the elegance of its form and the beauty of its sculptured figures; we might lay it up as the most interesting treasure of a museum; but we should not spend our time in attempting to decipher its characters, persuaded beforehand that the attempt would be vain.

The second of those distinguished mathematicians and philosophers goes farther. He has no difficulty in admitting the perfectly intelligible character of the commencement of Genesis and the Fourth Commandment; but he considers it incumbent upon him to maintain that, in both cases, the statement was not intended for an HISTORICAL narrative; and if the representation cannot have been designed for literal history, it only remains to regard it as having been intended for the better enforcement of its objects in the language of figure and poetry; and to allow that the manner in which the Deity was pleased to reveal himself to the Jews as accomplishing the work of creation was (like so many other points of their dispensation,) veiled in the guise of apologue and parable; and that only a more striking representation of the greatness and majesty of the Divine power and creative wisdom was intended, by embodying the expression of them in the language of dramatic action.*

*

I offer a few remarks upon each of these hypotheses.

Mr. Babbage is careful to state that he has not "any acquaintance with the language in which the sacred volume" of the old Testament is written. This deficiency is much to be regretted. Had it not existed, the acute investigator would never have taken

* Connexion of Nat. and Div. Truth; by the Rev. Baden Powell, F. R. S. &c. Savil. Prof. Geom. Oxford: p. 260. A work which I regard as of great value; and cannot but earnestly recommend to those who wish to search deeply and accurately into philosophical subjects and their moral relations: notwitstanding the author's deplorable mistake in his notion of Calvinism, and the appearance of some serious theological errors. But I cannot surrender him to the self-styled Rationalists; men whose just claim would be to a very different appellation. The learned Professor has, more recently, done excellent service to the cause of religion by his masterly exposure of a system, which comes forwards indeed with lofty pretensions, uniting in itself the lamb and the dragon (Rev. xii. 11,) but which he rightly characterizes "as involving in entire ambiguity the land-marks of christian truth:-by neutralizing it destroys the whole evidence of the gospel." Tradition Unveiled; p. 68. Deeply also are the friends of Scriptural religion and just liberty indebted to him for another contribution to their cause. State Education, considered with reference to Prevalent Misconceptions on Religious Grounds: 1840: and more recently still the Supplement to Tradition Unveiled.

up his hypothesis, or any approach to it. He would have felt himself assured that, as a consequence of the uninterrupted use of the Hebrew language by the Jews, and the constant public reading of these very writings, from the days of Moses down to our own, we have in fact as firm a hold upon the meaning as we have in regard to the Greek and Latin; that, from its being one of a family of languages, all of which possess literary monuments and those of great antiquity, we are furnished with aids and guarantees, in the comparison of the cognate tongues, by which the correct understanding of Hebrew is made sure to those who will rationally study it; and that, by the aid of the Greek Version, all or most of which was made in the third century before Christ, we have a still further ground of satisfaction for the intelligence of the Hebrew Scriptures. There are oriental scholars, especially in Germany, and of whom some are awfully hostile to the truth and the authority of revelation, who would inform Mr. Babbage that the fact of a clear and certain understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures is above all reasonable doubt. The construction of the language is the most simple and luminous that can well be imagined; its peculiar idioms are well ascertained and illustrated; few very difficult passages occur; the principal obscurities lie in the determination of a small number of words referring to natural objects and operations of art; and the text is settled to a degree of purity more satisfactory than we dare affirm of many of the Greek and Latin classics. All competent scholars, of whatever opinions and parties they may be in other respects, will agree to reject any imputation of uncertainty with respect to the means of ascertaining the sense of the language.

Professor Powell's scheme appears, at first sight, to be a reproduction of the mythic hypothesis which the German Antisupernaturalists generally hold; and which we could not consistently adopt unless we went with them to the infidel length of denying any positive revelation. This I am persuaded that the Professor would not do. But as a divine, he has involved himself in serious difficulty. His notion, that we have here "the language of figure and poetry,” is palpably erroneous. The whole is in the style of plain narrative, evidently intended to be understood as a simple, straightforward, unadorned history. The dramatic form, introducing the Creator as speaking, to command an effect; and then stating that the effect followed, and that he was pleased with the