Ir seems to be understood that geology | cessive varieties of life it has sustained, and theology stand opposed to each other that its origin must be thrown back unin a sort of armed neutrality, ready at any counted ages. They proved this so clearmoment to rush into war. From time to ly, that theologians were obliged to reëxtime geology has made fierce attacks on amine their own record, and acknowledge, theology, and forced its opponent to re- with some discomfiture, that it did not say cede from its former standing-ground. what they asserted it to have said. It is Sixty years ago, the theologians of this true, the creation of heaven and earth, country generally believed that the first "in the beginning," is referred to the chapter in Genesis contains the history of Almighty; but we are expressly told that the original creation of earth and heaven the existing earth was "without form in a period of six days, about six thousand and void" before the command was years since. This was the first point of spoken which began the work of the first attack. Geologists argued from the earth's day. Driven from one position, the theoown record of the long series of changes logians intrenched themselves in another. which have passed over it, and the suc-"It is true," they said, "the earth has passed through phases and ages of which the Bible gives no account; but our state of things, our forms of life, above all, our human inheritance in the earth, only date The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation. By SIR CHARLES LYELL. Illustrated by wood cuts. London: Murray. 1863. back six thousand years; and it is the beginning of this era that the first chapter of Genesis records." It is only within the last thirty years that theologians have slowly retreated to this position, and during that time geology has been gathering up its forces for a new attack. It now tells us that there is no trace of any line of separation between periods of disorder and order, of old and new forms of life; more than this, it tells us that during the last few years human relics have been found in deposits so old as to compel us to throw aside the chronology of the Bible, and assign to the human race an antiquity of tens of thousands of years. This is a serious affair. We know that the chronology of the Bible has not escaped errors of transcription; there can be no doubt that through this and other mischances the numbers are not always in harmony with themselves; we know the Septuagint adds fourteen hundred years to the chronology of the Hebrew; but this is a kind of error that does not shake our faith in the general historic accuracy of the book of Genesis. Could we, however, suppose that the human race is sixty or eighty thousand years old, and that the six day's creation must go for nothing, it would stamp on the book of Genesis that half-mythical, half-legendary, and wholly untrustworthy character which belongs to the unrevealed records of the origin of all ancient nations. Not without a struggle shall we yield that; not without clear and ample proof shall we grant that. On this point we are in a position which geologists do not understand. They impute it wholly to our ignorance that we will not be satisfied with the amount of evidence which satisfies them and truly, when we hear the absurd suggestions brought forward to meet the force of geological facts, we must be content to bear patiently the reproach of ignorance. But the difference between us is not so much our want of knowledge, as their want of belief. They come into the field unembarrasssed by belief, not asking and not caring what received truths their opinions may support or upset. If, of two classes of facts, one be stronger than the other-if, of two theories, one have less difficulties than the other-they can be satisfied to accept the better evidence and the easier theory. But it is otherwise with those who begin an investigation under the influence of It is not settled previous convictions. enough for them to find probabilities or plausibilities inclining rather to one side than another; they demand positive proof that the opinions which must uproot their old established beliefs come to them with all the sacred authority of truth. If one party is open to the accusation that previous conviction blinds them to the force of facts, the other is subject to the reproach that the want of such conviction makes them injure the cause of truth by hasty conclusions, and generalizations founded on insufficient data. It will be a question whether this reproach has or has not been deserved by the author of the book which now lies before us. Sir Charles Lyell comes forward as the advocate of the alleged antiquity of the human race. All that can be said in support of it, we may be certain he will say; all the facts that can be brought to bear on it, such a master of facts will unquestionably produce. It helps to clear the mind of many doubts and apprehensions, when one who is so high an authority enters the lists on this disputed subject; for, we may be sure, if such a champion does not overthrow our belief, we have nothing more to fear. Sir Charles Lyell divides his subject into three stages. First, he seeks to prove the great antiquity of the antiquarian or, as geologists call it, the recent periodthat in which man has existed with all his present surroundings. For this period alone he demands much more than six thousand years. Secondly, he endeavors to establish the far greater antiquity of a preceding age, during which man existed amidst other than his present surroundings. This period is counted by tens of thousands of years. Thirldy, he points out the immensely greater antiquity of a still earlier age, in which (though no remains of man have yet been found) part of the fauna and flora which are still contemporaneous with man were in existence. Of this period he only ventures to say that it can not be less than one hundred and eighty thousand years. To begin with the recent period. Let us think of the lapse of time revealed. 1. By the successive changes of vegetation attested by the Danish peat-beds. Low down in them are found trunks of the Scotch fir, a tree not now a native of the Danish islands; higher up, trunks of the common oak, which is now rare ; |