to such truths must be false. The geologist has, therefore, nothing to do with revealed religion in his scientific inquiries. It is the office of the divine to interpret the Sacred Canon ; and if he does this with the discrimination and learning it demands, he will never find it at variance with the deductions of science. If Scripture, on the contrary, be studied by instalments, and viewed from insulated points, and interpreted literally in its detached passages, we shall find it at variance with itself, and shall reproduce all the heresies which have disgraced the history of the Christian Church. But if we look at the sacred scheme as a whole, and generalize its individual propositions, we shall find in it a unity of doctrine," &c.

In the general excellence of these remarks I fully acquiesce. The observation in the first sentence is undeniable ;-truth cannot be contrary to itself; I would merely notice that this seems a singular reason why the geologist should " therefore have nothing to do with revealed truth" in his researches. That he has not is very true; not for this reason, but on account of the essential independence of scientific inquiry into the works of God, as I have before explained.

But further, it is worthy of notice with how much skill the precise point of the contradiction is eluded under the eloquent and undeniable generalities by which the responsibility is shifted on to the shoulders of the divine. His business it is to interpret Scripture; which, when rightly understood, will never be found at variance with geology: -And why? Because when comprehensively studied it furnishes a unity of doctrine, a spiritual law, &c., all which great objects of revelation the writer proceeds to dilate upon in the powerful language of just encomium through the remainder of the paragraph.

In a general sense nothing can be more just than the remarks here made on the principles of Scripture interpre

tation ; yet this appears to me not a little at variance with the literal philology before recommended.

In a more particular sense, however, I cannot but regard the indiscriminate adoption of this "generalizing" system, by which all the different parts of the Sacred Records are amalgamated into one, and the distinction of their separate applications lost sight of, as the very source of the difficulty and objection felt on the ground of the geological discrepancies.

There is no doubt a plausibility in the vague assertion that geological conclusions cannot really come into collision with religious truths:-but the facts show that in the present instance there is such a collision ;-since the literal history of the creation involves the primæval institution of the Sabbath; a collision which no philology can prevent, no generalities disguise ;-but it can become an objection only from the prevalence of that system which mixes up Christianity with older dispensations.

309

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE,

ON THE GEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF FORMER CONDITIONS OF ORGANIZED LIFE, AND ITS UNBROKEN

SUCCESSION.

IN corroboration of my remarks on the unbroken series of changes by which the existing order of things on the globe has been introduced, I have peculiar satisfaction in being permitted to present my readers with the following extract from a letter with which I have been favoured by PROFESSOR PHILLIPS, of King's College, London:

"The origin of organic life upon the globe, it may, perhaps, be impossible for geologists to fix, either with reference to the successive times disclosed by the examination of the earth's crust, or the geographical position; but it is certain that in descending the series of strata, i. e., in ascending the stream of time, we arrive at epochs continually less and less fertile of animal life, and finally reach a terminus of this life, as judged of by the organic remains in the rocks, before attaining the limit of geological time, estimated in terms of the thickness and nature of stratified deposits. This is the true geological definition of the origin of organic life on the globe.

"If it should be asked, as is natural, were there any previous systems of life on the globe? I reply, this is a matter to be considered on the evidence collected by geologists as to the physical conditions under which the earlier strata of the globe were deposited in the primeval ocean. Perhaps the balance of evidence, including of course that derived from general physical considerations, is in favour of

the hypothesis that the globe was in a state unfavourable to the development of organic life by reason of the greater influence then exercised by its proper heat upon the phenomena at the surface, than after a considerable thickness of non-conducting materials (the earlier strata,) had become effectual in retarding the flow of heat from within. At all events, for us, reasoning from facts observed, the origin of our system of organic life is to be placed in the midst of the period of primary strata.

"The earliest forms of life known to geology are not, as might perhaps be expected, plants, but animals; they are not of the lowest grade of organization merely; zoophyta far advanced in structure, (lamelliferous corals); brachiopodous bivalves, of three genera, were found by myself on Snowdon, but no distinct traces of plants. The number of species of this early fauna is extremely small, but there is about them no mark of inferiority,-no extraordinary simplicity.

"From this origin of organic life there is no break in the vast chain of organic development till we reach the existing order of things: no one geological period, long or short, no one series of stratified rocks, is everywhere devoid of traces of life; the world once inhabited has apparently never for any ascertainable period, been totally despoiled of its living wonders; but there have been many changes in the individual forms, great alterations in the generic assemblages, entire revolutions in the relative number and development of the several classes. Thus the systems of life have been varied from time to time to suit the altered condition of the planet, but never extinguished; the earth once freed from its early inadequacy to support life according to the appointed laws of life, has since been prolific of vegetable and animal existence.

"The proportionate number of organic forms has gone on

even gradually (see my Guide to Geology,) augmenting from the dozen species of the Snowdon slates, through the twelve hundred and more species of the oolite, the four thousand forms of the tertiary eras, to the multitudes of existing things. The change of organic structure is also, in some degree, proportioned to the time elapsed; tried by the cephalopodous mollusca, we see perish first the orthoceratites, then the Belemnites and Ammonites, while nautilus and sepia exist to represent this class in existing nature. The development of the different classes of animals is usually thought to exhibit a similar relation, as if nature had been continually improved from the moment of the origin of life; but this opinion is, if taken generally, one of the least certain of all the general notions now current, because of a radical defect in the reasoning. This defect consists in assuming into one induction the terrestrial and marine races of animals. Now, as the higher forms of life are terrestrial, and the remains of terrestrial things are only by accident mixed with the spoils of the sea, it is no wonder that mammalia and birds are rarely suspected even to occur among the buried spoils of the ocean. However, the Didelphis of Stonesfield is enough to cast a doubt on this notion, which should be more critically examined by a logical process. It should be inquired what is the order of development among the marine races on one hand, and the terrestrial groups on the other. The latter are too few, in a fossil state, to justify any decision; the former supply certain evidence. The order of development is, zoophyta and brachiopodous conchifera; the same groups, with the addition of plagimyonous conchifera, gasteropoda, cephalopoda, fishes; the same, with the addition of reptiles; the same, with one solitary didelphis; the same, without didelphis or any other quadruped; the same, with marine and terrestrial quadrupeds; existing creation.