INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. THE very high interest and importance of the history of the Globe which we inhabit, will be admitted by all whose minds are capable of entering beyond a mere superficial consideration of the objects around us; and the principles of curiosity, and the innate love of truth, so inherent in the human mind, lead us, step by step, from the consideration of objects themselves, to the GREAT FIRST CAUSE from whence all things have originally sprung. I have always felt an ardent desire to study, and endeavour to follow up, the theories which, from time to time, have been formed by philosophy, respecting the original formation and subsequent changes of the globe which sustains us; and for many years of my life I have regularly studied almost every thing that has been advanced on those important subjects. In the course of repeated travels over a great part of Europe, I have also had many opportunities of practically forming a judgment of the more B visible and tangible evidences adduced in support of those theories. I have never felt, however, either on the subject of the primitive or secondary formations of geology, that firm conviction of the truth of the doctrines taught by the great leaders in science, which is the necessary consequence to be looked for in. sound and truly logical reasoning. In the very opening of the subject, in treating of the mode of first formations, and in the numerous revolutions which are said subsequently to have left unquestionable traces upon the earth, I have never found any argument advanced, which did not leave the mind in a bewildered and uncertain state; and in but too many of the theories of philosophy on these subjects, we find opinions broached by the very ablest men, so extraordinary, and so repulsive to our reason and common sense, that we are compelled at once to reject them, and not without losing, at the same time, some portion of that high respect, with which a sound philosophy ought always to inspire us. In the course of these studies, I have never been able to exclude from my mind those lights and beacons held out, as it were, for our guidance, in tracing the more obscure portions of the history of the earth, by the inspired writings, of the truth of which, on other sub jects, the unprejudiced mind can entertain not a shadow of doubt, strengthened as they are by the great and wonderful events which have been foretold in prophecy, and, subsequently, literally fulfilled in history. "The great problem of creation has been "said to be, MATTER and MOTION given, to form a world;' and the presumption of man "has often led him to attempt the solution of this absurd problem. At first, philosophers "contented themselves with reasoning on the "traditional or historical accounts they had "received; but it is irksome to be shackled by authority, or for the learned to be con"tent with the same degree of information on 66 66 66 so important a subject as the most ignorant of the people. After having acquired, therefore, a smattering of knowledge, philosophy began to imagine that it could point out a "much better way of forming the world than "that which had been transmitted by the con 66 66 66 66 senting voice of antiquity. Epicurus was "most distinguished among the ancients, in this work of reformation, and produced a theory on the principle of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, the extravagant absurdity of which, "has alone preserved it from oblivion. From "his day to the present time, there has been a constant succession of systems and theories 66 66 of the earth, which are now swallowed up by those of a chaotic Geology, founded on Chemistry; the speculations of which have been "attended with many useful results, in so far 66 as they proceed on the principles of induc"tion; but when applied to solve the problem "of creation, or the mode of first formations, "will only serve, like the systems of their "forerunners of antiquity, to demonstrate the ignorance and presumption of man."* 66 Unfortunately for the cause of truth, and of sound philosophy, the study of Geology was begun, at no very distant period, in a School where the only history which could be consulted on such a subject, was neglected and despised, on points incomparably more important than scientific enquiries. We cannot, ' therefore, feel surprise, that the philosophy of that period should have excluded from its view the concise but most important Geological information given us in the first part of the Mosaical history. Misled by the theories of the earth set forth by the Continental philosophy and infidelity, theories so wild and absurd, that sober reason now looks upon them with contempt; many zealous and able men of our own country have been hurried away by the torrent, and have * Edinburgh Encyclopedia. |