the universal organization of crude matter was effected: the other is, that a very wide organization of crude matter took place prior even to the first of the six days; that the six days themselves are six natural days; and that during their lapse was effected that subsequent organization, of which alone, in his cosmogony, Moses is to be understood as treating. Of these two theories, I have adopted the first: and the reason of my preference is, because it quadrates at once both with the actually ascertained order of fossil stratification, and with the most obvious interpretation of the sacred narrative. (1.) As for the order of fossil stratification, it is found exactly to agree with the order observed in the work of the six days: so that the alleged productions of an earlier day are constantly discovered beneath the alleged productions of a later day. Now this remarkable coincidence affords, so far as I can judge, a physical demonstration, that the order of the six days and the order of fossil stratification stand immediately connected together in the way of cause and effect. For, unless this be admitted, we must ascribe, not very philosophically, the uniform coincidence in question to mere unmeaning chance. (2.) With a deduction, thus natural, from the order of fossil stratification, corresponds the most obvious interpretation of the sacred narrative. Moses, as the Hebrew doctors uniformly contend, and as indeed is sufficiently plain from the whole tenor of his discourse, teaches us, that God first created the rude indigested matter of the heaven and the earth; and that afterwards, in the course of what are styled six days, he reduced this indigested matter into regular form or meet organization. Two distincts acts, then, are ascribed to God: the one, the act of creation properly so called, by which the materials of the universe were produced out of nothing; the other, the act of formation out of the previously created materials,—which act of formation is said to have continued operating through six successive days. Now I will venture to assert, that any person, perusing the Mosaical narrative and at the same time carefully bearing in his mind the two distinct acts of creation and formation, will clearly perceive, that the theory of an organization or formation of crude matter ANTECEDENT to the first of the six days, is not only unauthorised by the scriptural history, but is altogether contradictory to it. For, when a writer tells us, that God first created rude matter, and that afterwards in the course of six days he reduced that rude matter into regularly organized forms, we are, I think, obliged to conclude, unless we make such a writer gratuitously violate the most obvious rules of intelligible composition, that no act of formation took place prior to the first of the six days. How long a time matter might remain in a chaotic state, we are not instructed: but certainly, according to the plain unsophisticated language of Moses, the formation or extrication of light on the first day IMMEDIATELY succeeded the chaotic state of the universe; so that, ANTECEDENT to the formation of light, there had been no formation whatsoever. Hence it follows, that, consistently with Scripture, we cannot admit a period of organization or formation PRIOR to the period of the six days. But, if this conclusion be valid, then it will also follow, since an extension of time is required by the existing phenomena of our earth, that the six days must be extended into six periods each of of vast though undetermined amplitude. 6. The extension of the six demiurgic days into six very long periods most effectually nullifies the infidel objection drawn from the ancient eruptions of Mount Etna. 1829.1 Faber on the Mosaic Cosmogony. In penetrating through the surface of the neighbouring ground, it has been discovered, that there are many different strata of lava, and that between each two strata of lava there is a stratum of earth. Now the time requisite for the deposition of each stratum of earth upon a stratum of lava, ere that stratum of earth was covered by a new stratum of lava, has been laboriously calculated on principles which may or may not be just: and the result of this calculation has been, that the earliest eruption of Mount Etna must have taken place many thousand years before the era of the formation of man according to the Mosaical account. Hence the conclusion is, that the Mosaical history of the creation cannot be true, and therefore that Moses cannot have been an inspired prophet. I am perfectly ready to concede to the infidel the full benefit of this argument, though there are positions in it which might well be disputed. Let it however be granted, that many eruptions of Etna took place anterior to the formation of man, and that some of those eruptions may have occurred (we will say) 30,000 years ago: what then? Does such a concession at all tend to disprove the scriptural chronology of man's formation? Most assuredly not: for, if the six demiurgic days each exceeded a term of six thousand years, we shall have quite time enough for the eruptions even prior to the formation of man without there being any need to impugn the scriptural chronology of that event. The high antiquity of the eruptions of Etna is indisputable: for Thucydides mentions one, which occurred in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war, or in the year A. C. 425, and which itself was the third that had happened since Sicily was colonized by the Greeks; and I strongly suspect, from the poetical machinery employed by Jeremiah, who flourished from the year A. C. 628 down to the Babylonian captivity, that he was by no means ignorant CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 262. of the existence of that burning As there is nothing to forbid the extension of the six demiurgic days to six periods, each of vast though indefinite length; by which one of the objections of not a little satisfactory to observe the infidelity is effectually removed; so it is by the masterly conclusions deduced by equally complete destruction of another Mr. Cuvier from existing facts and circumstances. It has been not unfrequently the humour of unbelievers to maintain that man must have existed during a much greater space of time than that allotted to him even by the longest scriptural account, and to endeavour wholly to set pose, the immense retrospective chronoaside the fact of the deluge. For this purlogy of the Hindoos was eagerly caught at: and, when their literature was less known than it is at present, their total ignorance of the deluge was roundly asserted. Unfortunately for such objectors, when the matter was inquired into, it turned out, that the Hindoo tradition of the deluge was singularly full and exact, merely a retrograde astronomical calculaand that their retrospective chronology was tion largely interlarded with mythologic fables. Their cavils, however, have now received a final and decisive confutation from the labours of Mr. Cuvier. shews most satisfactorily, and at full length, both that "nature every where ment of the present order of things candistinctly informs us that the commencenot be dated at a very remote period, and language with nature, whether we conthat mankind every where speak the same sult their national traditions on this subject, or consider their moral and political state and the intellectual attainments which they had made at the time when 4 N He 7. In point probably of systematic arrangement, and certainly of liberal communicativeness, the ancients were very inferior to the moderns; for, whatever they did know, they delighted, as much as possible, to confine to the schools of philosophy and to hide beneath the veil of mysterious secrecy: yet I strongly suspect, that their physiological knowledge was by no means so confined as we may be apt to imagine. Moses, we are told, "was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts vii. 22): this wisdom is associated with "the wisdom of all the children of the east country" (1 Kings iv. 30): and the nature of this wisdom is clearly enough indi cated to be, in a high degree, physiological (1 Kings iv. 32, 33). To pretend to ascertain its amount would be idle and impertinent: yet, from a most curious passage in the old cosmogony of Chaldea, as preserved by Syncellus and Eusebius from Alexander-Polyhistor and Berosus, there is some reason to believe, that the philosophic Magi of they began to have authentic historical monun-ents." From a thorough review of the whole question, he at length draws the following inference: that if there is any circumstance thoroughly established in geology, it is, that the crust of our globe has been subjected to a great and sudden revolution, the epoch of which cannot be dated much farther back than five or six thousand years; that this revolution had buried all the countries, which were before inhabited by men and by the other animals that are now best known; that the small number of individuals, of men and other animals, that escaped from the effects of that great revolution, have since propagated and spread over the lands then newly laid dry; and, consequently, that the human race has only resumed a progressive state of improvement since that epoch, by forming established societies, raising monuments, collecting natural facts, and constructing systems of science and of learning. (See Essay on the Theory of the Earth. § 32-35. pp. 135-184.) Babylon were fully aware that many genera of animals had become extinct previous to the formation of man. In the fantastic style of mythologic fabulizing which ancient science so much affected, their account of the origin of all things is put into the mouth of the merman Oannes: who teaches his assembled auditors, that there was a time when the universe was darkness and water, in the midst of which resided various animals dissimilar in form to any of those which now exist. These mishapen creatures continued to live, until the hour of man's formation arrived. They were then annihilated; so that animals of such a description are no longer to be found in the present world. It is added by the authors to whom we are indebted for the history of this remarkable cosmogony, that the figures of the annihilated animals were painted on the walls of the temple of Belus. (Syncell. Chronog. p. 29; Euseb. Chron. p. 5.) Now, though many of these figures, such as the centaurs for instance, were no doubt symbols or hieroglyphics; yet, when the whole legend is considered, it is difficult to account for its origin except on the supposition, that the Magi had gathered from fossil remains the fact that whole genera of animals have become extinct, that they had enriched their hieroglyphics by copying the forms of these remains upon the walls of the temple dedicated to the creative Deity, and that (agreeably to the genius of ancient philosophy) they had disguised the whole matter in the dress of mythologic fiction. But, however this may be, the harmony, which has been found to subsist between the order of fossil strata and the Mosaic history of the creation, is truly wonderful; and it tends very greatly to increase our reverence for that extraordinary portion of God's inspired word. 1823.] REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. The Christian and Civic Economy of large Towns. By THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. vol. II. Nos. 14, 15, 16. Glasgow. 1823. DURING the considerable period which has elapsed since we last called the attention of our readers to the quarterly papers of Dr. Chalmers, our eye has by no means been withdrawn from the course of this distinguished adventurer in the field of political economy. It was impossible indeed to have watched the first without desiring to observe the further steps of his progress. The novelty of many of his speculations, the high importance of their objects, the unusual degree in which he has brought experiment to the aid of reasoning, the splendid success by which his experiments have been accompanied, all conspire to place his periodical essays among the most interesting productions of the day. We have believed from the first, nor is there any thing at the present moment to disturb the confidence of our persuasion, that the author is destined to effect a momentous change in the moral constitution of society, by developing and ultimately securing the adoption of principles which will issue not only in the temporal comfort, but in the everlasting welfare, of millions of mankind. The real matter of lamentation is, that so few, comparatively, should be acquainted with these disquisitions. Causes there are, and those of an obvious nature, which have contributed to narrow their circulation. With some it was enough that they had crossed the Tweed; with others, that the style of composition, though powerful and convincing, was occasionally redundant, uncouth, and inaccurate; with others, that they proposed something new; and with others, that the philosophical and economical theories of the author were not founded upon a denial of Christianity, but on prin- But, fully allowing these objec- statement, it has been fairly tried. What a the nation, Far from finding the minds of either thinking or practical men, of either economists or farmers, at rest on the subject, we never enter a vestry without discovering 30 many facts which go to corroborate the statements of Dr. Chalmers, as absolutely to force attention to the topics to which he so powerfully invites us, and to set the minds of all men, from the wielders of the pen to the brandishers of the pitchfork, to work on the expedients by which our poor are to be protected against the baneful influence of the laws framed professedly for their benefit; how the public morals are to be rescued, and the national character saved, from their injurious consequences; and how a large mass of our population are to be raised from a state of avowed and unblushing mendicity, and transformed into a body of free, self-dependent, grateful, and rejoicing labourers, plying the shuttle, or cultivating the hills and valleys of their native land. But before we conclude this review we shall have more to say to those who are disposed to get rid of the subject, either by the side-wind of contempt and indifference, or by the more manly instrument of fair reasoning, it being our intention to examine some of the objections brought against the reasonings of Dr. Chalmers. In the mean time, we are anxious to present our readers with as full an analysis as we are able of the three interesting chapters of his work that are before us. The author having insisted, in the previous chapters, at considerable length, both on the general principles of pauperism and the successful attempt to extirpate it in that part of Glasgow to which his own influence especially extended, takes for granted, in entering upon the subject of English pauperism, many of the principles and facts on which he had previously descanted. Should he however feel disposed to comply with a hint we are anxious to suggest to him, of immediately taking the most effectual means for putting the papers which especially respect the paupers of England into the possession of the members of both Houses of Parliament, he may think it right to connect with them a brief statement, not only of his general views, but of what has been done in Scotland. Such a statement, we are grieved to say, will be so new to many even distinguished persons in this country, as to make it of absolute necessity to their intimate acquaintance with the subject. The very elements of his plan are scarcely known among us. The author begins by stating, that it is by no means the heavy expense attached to English pauperism which he regards as the main evil of the system. Six millions of poor rates, though a heavy burden in the present state of the country, and especially of the farmers, would not, he thinks, be too high a price to pay for the increased comfort and improvement of the population of England, if that object were really attained by it. The great mischief of the system is, that it has in fact lessened their comfort and degraded their character. The mischief thus accomplished is well summed up in the few following sentences. the poor man has ceased to care for him "Under its misplaced and officious carė, self, and relatives have ceased to care for each other; and thus the best arrangements of Nature and Providence for the moral discipline of society have been most grievously frustrated. Life is no longer a school where, by the fear and foresight of want, man might be chastened into sobrie ty-or where he might be touched into and neighbours, which, but for the thwartsympathy by that helplessness of kinsfolk ing interference of law, he would have spontaneously provided for. The man stands released from the office of being his own protector, or the protector of his own household; and this has rifled him of all those virtues which are best fitted to guard and dignify his condition. That pauperism, the object of which was to emanciand only emancipated him from duty. An pate him from distress, has failed in this, utter recklessness of habit, with the profligacy, and the mutual abandonment of parents and children, to which it leads, |