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IGNORANCE, WHERE INEXCUSABLE.

ascertain what he has not read and considered, as what he has; a man whose knowledge may not be over-rated in point of amount, may yet fall into great mistakes as to what he really does not know. While there is no end to the things, that by diligent research, and curious investigation, may become known to any man, there may be a few after all that should be known by every man.

There can undoubtedly be no truths so important, as those which relate to heaven, the earth, and man its chief inhabitant; if these three be unconnected, it must be granted, that to "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die," may be suitable enough to the short time we have to spend here; but if there be a book extant, of high and known character, which treats largely and most seriously of such a connection; and which in most plain terms tells us, that it is indeed, "appointed unto all men once to die," but AFTER THAT, "the Judgment," surely such information demands attention, and none can wilfully turn away from it without great hazard. It has been said, I know, and by persons reputed wise, that no man is accountable for his belief; but surely any neglect of proffered information on points of unquestionable importance, may render any man accountable for his unbelief, or at all events for his ignorance.

PART III.

HAVING now said almost as much as I intended to say of the sacred history of man, deliberately received and assented to, by most learned pagans, on the authority of St. Paul, as the minister of Christ, to the Gentile nations generally, but more particularly to the wisest and most accomplished of the Gentile nations, in fact the Grecians and Romans; I proceed to that of the earth, having of course, in this portion of my work, some observations to make on the researches and labours of our modern geologists. Labours I take leave to call them, for though I have not heard of their actually going to the bottom of wells to bring up truth from her proverbial hiding place, I have certainly heard much of their going to the bottom of most hideous caverns, in search of her, and of their having carried their researches so far, as to be able to tell us, not only all that has passed on the "heights above," of this terraqueous globe, but almost all that is passing, at the present moment, in the "depths below."

No man can be less disposed than myself, to depreciate the very curious inquiries of this eminent class of naturalists, though I shall hold myself excused from any obligation to declare, how many of their conclusions I am disposed to adopt, and from how many I have hitherto been led to withhold all concurrence. In truth, though I have passed much of my

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DIFFERENCES AMONGST GEOLOGISTS.

time with geologists, been in communication with some of great celebrity, and even assisted them in making public the results of their inquiries, I must confess myself to be a still a learner. I am not sure, but that instead of getting on, I am going back; at least, I have to forget and unlearn much, that I cannot say I had implicitly taken for truth, but which not very long ago, had interested me a good deal, supposing it to be at the least something like the truth. So little agreement has there been of late years amongst geologists themselves, that it brings to my recollection what is said of the ancient philosophers, by one of the early Christian fathers, just referred to in the foregoing part of my book.

"Parmenides," says Hermias, "opposes Anaxagoras and Anaximenes; he who follows Empedocles, is drawn away by Protagoras; and from Protagoras by Thales, and from Thales by Anaximander. The fame of Archilaus is great, but Plato dissents from him, and Aristotle from Plato. Leucippus ridicules the doctrine of Pherecydes; those who follow the laughing Democritus, are called aside to a different system, by the wailing Heraclitus: Epicurus builds a world of atoms, and Cleanthes ridicules him for it. Carneades and Clitomachus, spurn preceding systems, and assert that the universe is incomprehensible; he notices further, the numerical mysteries of Pythagoras, and concludes from these discordant opinions of the heathen philosophers, that the truth was not to be found amongst them."

With a variation only of the names, I much doubt if I could not from my own shelves, produce as long a list of discrepancies from the writings of geologists. But such accounts are easily to be found elsewhere;

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most of our modern treatises on the subject, having sections expressly devoted to the consideration of former systems, older and more recent. (See Cuvier, Lyell, &c.) Some of these systems, as may be seen. in Cuvier, are little better than a mass of most extravagant conceptions, however ingeniously put together. His review of former systems is very judiciously succeeded by a section on the "diversities of all the systems;" but then follows his own, parts of which have already a hard task to maintain their ground. Mr. Lyell's account of former systems is more copious, and extremely interesting; but while he does justice to some, whose principles had been misrepresented, I much doubt whether he does not do injustice to others, by mistakes or misrepresentations of his own.

I must return to a maxim of the incomparable Paley, noticed before, to the following effect.

"True fortitude of understanding consists, in not suffering what we know, to be disturbed by what we do not know."

There certainly seems to be a great number of curious points in geology, which we do not know, though books upon books are written upon them, and brought before the notice of the public every day1.

Moses, in the mean while, is a good deal left to take his chance; he is pronounced to be no philosopher, and therefore no cosmogonist of any authority; but if, being no philosopher, he should have so written, three thousand, two hundred and eighty four years ago, as to derive in some remarkable instances, an extraordinary confirmation of the truth of what he wrote, from the discoveries of even our most modern

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MAN A RECENT INTRODUCTION

philosophers, it must surely be granted that he had preternatural help.

Whoever takes up, though it be only for his amusement, some of our most recent works on geology, Mr. Lyell's for instance, will find, that it is supposed to be perfectly ascertainable, that operations have been going forward upon this earth of ours, indicative of a past duration of "countless ages," and yet it is by the same authors fully admitted, from the absence of human reliquiæ up to a certain period, in the examination of our strata, that the introduction of the human race was comparatively a recent event.

I am quite pleased with this discovery and acknowledgment, because it must have been quite miraculous, that a writer so unacquainted with philosophy, particularly geology, as Moses was, should have been able to fix upon so low an era, for the commencement of human affairs, having evidently had it in his choice, if not inspired, to have fixed upon any other period, in the wide compass of "countless ages." Moses was no philosopher; probably not, nor do I think he was any thing of a sailor, much less a circumnavigator of the globe.

How then, I would ask, could he have ventured to say Adam was the first man, when, for what he could know, there might, in some regions of the globe, have been a succession of human creatures, for "countless ages?" This is a case exceedingly deserving of attention ; professor Playfair, in his illustrations of the Huttonian theory, admits that the objections raised against the high antiquity of the earth, "would be of weight, if it at all interfered with the Scripture chronology, which it does not."—" That the origin of mankind,”he adds, “ does not go back

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