Of those Notes peculiar to this edition, I have to regret the not having, in due time, adopted a uniform mode of designation. Some of them have a date, or imply a reference to time; others are included in brackets; and to others, the words Fourth Edition are prefixed. I should feel it not becoming to relate the expressions of approbation with which this book has been favoured by eminent men of science, in our own country and in the North American States; or, what is a more exalted gratification, the testimonies of usefulness in relation to its religious element. But it would be a failing to the great cause for which I plead, if I did not avail myself of a communication which, to well-informed persons, will have the appropriate interest in a very high degree. It is a part of a letter with which SIR JOHN HERSCHEL honoured me in the summer of 1843. Abstractedly, one might have thought that such wild and 'vehement denunciations' as those you cite from **** and others, were hardly worth very seriously handling. Yet, in effect, I am disposed to regard it as doing good service not only to science but to religion and moral feeling, to put down, as you havẹ done, with a strong (though not a cruel) hand, that sort of barking and yelping. There cannot be two truths in contradiction to one another: and a man must have a mind fitted neither for scientific nor for religious truth, whose religion can be disturbed by geology, or whose geology can be distorted from its character of an inductive science, by a determination to accommodate its results to preconceived interpretations of the Mosaic cosmogony. "I should hope that, on this painful and troublesome point, your work will prove final, and put an end, once and for ever, to the sort of outcry in question; or at least so far crush it, that this and the next generation may be allowed to pursue their geological researches in peace." It is my duty to add that these citations from private letters are thus made public, with the kind assent of the writers. HOMERTON COLLEGE, J. P. S. CONTENTS. PSALM CXI. 2. The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them Object, design, utility, and importance of geological science. Re- quisites and method of the study. Harmony of all science with the announcements of Revelation. Truth. Evidence. The world. The SUPREME BEING. Accountableness. Authority of Scripture. Ne- cessity of ascertaining its genuine sense. Danger of presumption. DEUTERONOMY XXXIII. 13, 15, 16. Blessed of the Lord be his land; for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath,- and for the chief things of the ancient moun- tains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills, and for the pre- cious things of the earth and the fulness thereof. Change in the material universe, constant, but according to law. A series of Propositions, describing the most general facts relating to the crust of the earth. Internal condition. Pyrogenous rocks. Stra- tified formations. Remains of creatures which once had life. Their distinct periods, and areas. Separate creations. Uniformity of ROMANS XI. 36. Of HIM, and through HIM, and to HIM, are all things : Recital of opinions which are by many assumed to be asserted or GENESIS VI. 17. And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon · the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven: and every thing that is in the earth shall die. Continuation of apparent discrepancies between geological doc- 2 PETER II. 5. God spared not the old world,-bringing the flood upon Continuation. More accurate and discriminating inquiry. Inves- 1 THESSALONIANS V. 21. Prove all things: hold fast that which is Examinations of various methods which have been proposed for II. Sacrificing the Mosaic records, as unintelligible, or as being the language of mythic poetry. III. Regarding the Mosaic six days as designed to represent indefinite periods. IV. Attributing stratifi- cation and other geological phænomena to the interval between the Adamic creation and the Deluge, and the action of the diluvial Examination continued of the Diluvial Theory. |