PART I.

CHAP, VII.

66

"at the FIRST CREATION by the counsels of an Intelligent Agent," and, for the same reason, we find no difficulty in supposing this operation to have taken effect" at the poles and at the

equator, by the same means, and at the same "time," because it is the very conclusion of Newton's philosophy, and of unsophisticated reason; which teach, Universal Primitive Formation, by the Creative Act.

64

What, then! (it will perhaps further ex"claim,) has God introduced appearances into "His works, to mislead and to deceive His moral " and intellectual creatures? Has He affixed

66

phænomena, which should seduce them into "error?"-Mn yEVOLTO, God forbid! Great was the authority which warned; μη κρίνετε κατ' οψιν, αλλα την δίκαιαν κρισιν κρινετε— judge not according to appearance (only), but judge a right judgment." And although this precept was certainly not addressed to the mineral geology, yet it is of universal force, in every subject which may engage the reason. Those phænomena cannot mislead, deceive, or seduce any one, who faithfully and diligently exercises his moral and intellectual faculties by the rule which God has supplied for their governance; but only those, who neglect to exercise them by that rule. For, those very faculties, while they direct us to infer universal first formation by the immediate act of God, caution

CHAP. VII.

us not to be misled by the phænomena which that PART I. act must occasion. They warn us, that all first formations of the material works of God must have received a specific form of their substance, and, therefore, must have exhibited to the visual sense specific characters, even at the moment when they were first called from nonexistence into being. Whether it were the first formed bird, or the first formed shrub on which that bird rested, or the first formed rock on which that shrub grew, each must have instantly exhibited sensible phænomena; the first, of ossification; the second, of lignification; and the third, of crystallization. Yet, the phænomena would not have been truly indicative of actual ossification and actual lignification in the two first cases; and therefore, they would not have been indicative of actual crystallization in the last; that is, of those subjects having passed through any of these gradual processes. There is no possibility of escaping from the self-evident certainty of this principle; which extends équally to all the three kingdoms of terrestrial matter. And the uniformity, regularity, and simplicity of all the works of God, direct us to believe; that the texture, and consequent phænomena, of first formations in all those three kingdoms, would have manifested a direct correspondence with the laws which He was then

G

CHAP. VII,

PART I. providing for His new system. It would have done so in the first bone, it would have done so in the first wood; therefore, it would have done so in the first rock. The bone, and the wood, have passed away; but the rock still remains, and we contemplate it at the present hour, in the east and in the west, in the north and in the south. If crystalline composition is the property, which, by the laws appointed at the creation, constitutes the greatest hardness and solidity in mineral substances, we shall expect, that the primitive mineral masses will be" stamped with a character altogether crys"talline1;" just as we conclude, by parity of reason, that the bones of the first animals must have been stamped with a character altogether calcareous.

Those persons, therefore, who rightly use the faculty of reason, will be in no danger of being deceived by primitive phænomena; but will ascribe them, by rational induction, to the immediate design and act of God. To others, indeed, they may become a judicial snare; to "take the wise "in their own craftiness; and to make foolish the "wisdom of science, falsely so called."

De Luc, in his "Letters on the Earth," observed: "Neither natural history, nor physical

See above, p. 71.

"science, lead us to believe, that ourglobe has ex- PART I. "isted from all eternity; whenever, therefore, it

acquired its first existence, the matter of which "it was composed must, in all necessity, have "been of some nature, and under some first integrant form1." His mind was, for a moment, sensible of this great truth; and he was then nearer to "a solid basis for geology"," than he ever was afterwards. But, it was only for a moment; for, from that period his philosophy retrograded, while he imagined that it was advancing. He wanted either the ability, or the resolution, to trace back all the links of the chain, which connected the actual phænomena of mineral matter with that great remote principle. He vacillated; he could not stand the intermediate sarcasms of the celebrated physical philosophers who were his contemporaries, and some of them his distinguished fellow countrymen; and, resorting to his fatal system of compromise and concession, he sought to conciliate the good fellowship of physical science, by surrendering that high and solid principle to the chemical geology of Saussure. In my "letters on the History of the Earth," says he, "I acknowledged, that I saw nothing as yet "that could lead me to conceive the formation

CHAP. VII.

PART I.

CHAP. VII.

of primordial substances, the masses of which "were unintelligible to me. Since the publica"tion of that work, that of the observations " and remarks of M. de Saussure, has become for me a compass by which to steer.—From that "time the observations of mineralogists, together

with my own, have placed beyond all doubt "this great geological fact; that all the visible "mass of our continents, except volcanic sub

66

stances, formed itself in successive beds, or "strata, of different kinds, beginning with granite. It is impossible to deny this, after reading the "Voyages des Alpes," of M. de "Saussure; in which that great observer has "so accumulated the proofs of this truth, that "no one can doubt it, and retain any right to "the title of geologist1:" that is, of mineral geologist. Thus, the importunity of sensible phænomena fascinated his judgment; and drew away his view from the great truth, of which he had caught a glimpse. He went back from the path of Newton, and plunged into the chaos of chemical first formations; and he thereby reduced himself to the necessity of seeking, by a daring and inerudite tampering with texts of Scripture, that visionary and arbitrary chronology for the effects of Creation, which he had before strenu

Lettres Géal. p. 73, 74. Note.