Part 7 (2/2)
These views will seem very strange to those not familiar with the history of geology. But we shall find their origin, if a few facts be stated respecting what has been called the physico-theological school of writers, that originated with one Hutchinson, in the beginning of the eighteenth century. He was a disciple of the distinguished cosmogonist Woodward. But he attacked the views of his master, as well as those of Sir Isaac Newton on gravitation, in a work which he published in twelve octavo volumes, ent.i.tled ”_Moses's Principia_.” He there maintains that the Scriptures, when rightly understood, contain a complete system of natural philosophy.
This dogma, advocated by Hutchinson with the most intolerant spirit, const.i.tutes the leading peculiarity of the physico-theological school, and has been very widely adopted, and has exerted a most pernicious influence both upon religion and upon science. It is painful, therefore, to find so learned and excellent a man as Mr. Kirby so deeply imbued with it, so long after its absurdity has been shown again and again. It is devoutly to be wished that the cabalistic dreams of Hutchinsonianism are not to be extensively revived in our day. And, indeed, such is the advanced state of hermeneutical knowledge, that we have little reason to fear it.
Nevertheless, its leaven is yet by no means thoroughly purged out from the literary community.
It was one of the settled principles of the physico-theological school, that, since the creation, the earth has undergone no important change beneath the surface, except at the deluge, because it was supposed that the Bible mentions no other event that could produce any important change.
Hence all marks of changes in the rocks since their original creation must be referred to the deluge. And especially when it was found that most of the petrifactions in the rocks were of marine origin, not only were they supposed to be the result of the deluge, but a most conclusive proof of that event. And this opinion is even yet very widely received by the Christian world. The argument in its favor, when stated in a popular manner to those not familiar with geology, is indeed quite imposing. For if the land, almost every where, even to the tops of some of its highest mountains, abounds in sea sh.e.l.ls, this is just what we should expect, if the sea flowed over those mountains at the deluge. But the moment we come to examine the details respecting marine petrifactions, we see that nothing can be more absurd than to suppose them the result of a transient deluge. Yet this view is maintained in nearly all the popular commentaries of the present day upon Genesis, and in many respectable periodicals. It is taught, therefore, in the Sabbath school and in the family; and the child, as he grows up, is shocked to find the geologist a.s.sailing it; and when he finds it false, he is in danger of becoming jealous of the other evidences of Christianity which he has been taught.
Another branch of the modern physico-theological school, embracing men who have read too much on the subject of geology to be able to believe in the dissolution of the globe by the deluge, have adopted a more plausible hypothesis. They suppose that between the creation and the deluge, or in sixteen hundred and fifty-six years, according to the received chronology, all the present fossiliferous rocks of our continents, more than six miles in thickness, were deposited at the bottom of the ocean. By that event, they were raised from beneath the waters, and the continents previously existing sunk down and disappeared; so that the land now inhabited was formerly the ocean's bed. To prove that such a change took place at the deluge, Granville Penn and Fairholme quote the declaration of G.o.d, in Genesis, respecting the flood--_I will destroy them_, (i. e., men,) _and the earth, or with the earth_; also the statement of Peter--_The world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished_. The terms _earth_ and _world_ may mean either the solid globe, or the animals and plants upon it. If in these pa.s.sages they have the latter meaning, then they simply teach that the deluge destroyed the natural life of organic beings.
If they have the former meaning, then the inquiry arises, What are we to understand by the destruction here described? It may mean annihilation, or it may imply ruin in some respects. That annihilation did not result from the deluge is evident from the case of men, who suffered only temporal death, and even this was not universal; and we know, also, that the matter of the earth did not perish. We must resort, therefore, to the sacred history to learn how far the destruction extended That history seems very plain. There was a rain of forty days, and the fountains of the great deep were broken up; that is, as Professor Stuart happily expresses it, ”The ocean overflowed while the rain descended in vast quant.i.ties.” The waters gradually rose over the dry land, and after a hundred and fifty days, began to subside, and at the end of a year and a few days they were gone.
Such an overflowing could not take place without producing the almost entire destruction of organic life, and making extensive havoc with the soil, especially as a wind a.s.sisted in driving these waters from the land.
But there is nothing in the narrative that would lead us to suppose either a comminution or dissolution of the earth, or the elevation of the ocean's bed. The same land which was overflowed is described as again emerging.
Indeed, a part of the rivers proceeding out of the garden of Eden are the same as those now existing on the globe. We must then admit that our present continents--certainly the Asiatic,--are the same as the antediluvian, or deny that the account of Eden, in Genesis, is a part of the Bible. The latter alternative is preferred by Penn and Fairholme.
Surely such men ought to be cautious how they censure geologists for modifying the meaning of some verses in Genesis, when they thus, without any evidence of its spuriousness, unceremoniously erase so important a pa.s.sage.
I might add to all this that the facts of geology forbid the idea that our present continents formed the bed of the ocean at so recent a date as that of Noah's deluge, and that the supposition that all organic remains were deposited during the two thousand years between the six days' work and the deluge is totally irreconcilable with all correct philosophy. Why, during the time when the fossiliferous rocks were in a course of formation, four or five entirely distinct races of animals and plants successively occupied the land and the waters, and pa.s.sed away in regular order; and these races were so unlike, that they could not have been contemporaneous.
Who will maintain that all this took place in the short period of two thousand years? I am sure that no geologist will.
But modern geologists have, until recently, supposed that the traces of Noah's deluge might still be seen upon the earth's surface. I say its surface; for none of them imagined those effects could have reached to a great depth. Over a large part of the northern hemisphere they found extensive acc.u.mulations of gravel and bowlders, which had been removed often a great distance from their parent rocks, while the ledges beneath were smoothed and striated, obviously by the grating over them of these piles of detritus. How very natural to refer these effects to the agency of currents of water; just such currents as might have resulted from a universal deluge. But the inference was a hasty one For when geologists came to study the phenomena of drift or diluvium, as these acc.u.mulations of travelled matter are called, they found that currents of water alone would not explain them all. Some other agency must have been concerned; and the general opinion now is, that drift has been the result of the joint action of water and ice; and nearly all geologists suppose that this action took place before man's existence on the globe. Some suppose it to have been the result of oceanic currents, while yet our continents were beneath the waters; others think that the northern ocean may have been thrown southerly over the dry land by the elevation of its bed; and others maintain that vast ma.s.ses of ice may formerly have encircled high lat.i.tudes, whose glaciers, melting away, may have driven towards the equator the great quant.i.ties of drift and bowlders which have been carried in that direction. In short, it is now found that this is one of the most difficult problems in geology; and while most geologists agree that both ice and water have been concerned in producing the phenomena, the time and manner of their action are not yet very satisfactorily determined. They may have acted at different periods and in divers manners; but all the phenomena could not have been the result of one transient deluge.
From the facts that have now been detailed, it appears that on no subject of science connected with religion have men been more positive and dogmatical than in respect to Noah's deluge, and that on no subject has there been greater change of opinion. From a belief in the complete destruction and dissolution of the globe by that event, those best qualified to judge now doubt whether it be possible to identify one mark of that event in nature.
I shall now proceed to state, in a more definite form, the views of this subject entertained by the most enlightened judges of its merits at the present day.
_In the first place, most of the cases of acc.u.mulations of drift, the dispersion of bowlders, and the polish and stri upon rocks in place, occurred previous to man's existence upon the globe, and cannot have been the result of Noah's deluge._
From the arguments for sustaining this position I shall select only a part.
The first is, that the organic remains found in the alluvium considerably above the drift, which always lies below the alluvium, are many of them of extinct species. Whether the genuine drift--a heterogeneous ma.s.s of fragments, driven pellmell together--contains any organic relics, is to me very doubtful. But if the stratified deposits subsequent to the drift present us with beings no longer alive on the globe, much more would the drift. Now, the presumption is, that extinct animals and plants belong to a creation anterior to man, especially if they exhibit a tropical character,--as those do which are usually a.s.signed to the drift,--since we have no evidence of a tropical climate in northern lat.i.tudes till we get back to a period far anterior to man.
Secondly. No remains of man or his works have been found in drift, nor indeed till we rise almost to the top of the alluvial deposit. Even ancient Armenia has now been examined geologically, with sufficient care to make it almost certain that human remains do not exist there in drift, if drift is found there at all; of which there may be a question.
Thirdly. The agency producing drift must have operated during a vastly longer period than the three hundred and eighty days of Noah's deluge. It would be easy to show to a geologist that the extensive erosions which are referrible to that agency, and the huge ma.s.ses of detritus which have been the result, must have demanded centuries, and even decades of years. Nor will any supposed increase of power in the agency explain the results, without admitting a long period for their action.
Fourthly. Water appears to have been the princ.i.p.al agent in the Noachian deluge; but in the production of drift, ice was at least equally concerned.
Finally. The phenomena of deltas, terraces, and ancient sea-beaches, make the period of the drift immensely more remote than the deluge of Noah, since these phenomena are all posterior to the drift period. I need not go into the details of this argument here, since I have drawn them out in my second lecture. But of all the arguments ever adduced to prove the great length of time occupied in geological changes, this--which, so far as the terraces are concerned, has never before, I believe, been adduced--seems to me the most convincing to those who carefully examine the subject.
We may be sure, then, that the commencement of the drift period, and the deluge of Noah, cannot have been synchronous. But the drift agency, connected, as nearly all geologists seem now to be ready to admit, with the vertical movements of continents, may have operated, and undoubtedly has, at various periods, and very possibly, in some parts of the world, long posterior to the period usually called the drift period. I agree, therefore, in opinion with one of the most eminent and judicious of the European geologists, Professor Sedgwick of Cambridge, when he says, ”If we have the clearest proofs of great oscillations of sea level, and have a right to make use of them, while we seek to explain some of the latest phenomena of geology, may we not reasonably suppose, that, within the period of human history, similar oscillations have taken place in those parts of Asia which were the cradle of our race, and may have produced that destruction among the early families of men, which is described in our sacred books, and of which so many traditions have been brought down to us through all the streams of authentic history?”--_Geology of the Lake District_, p. 14.
_Secondly. Admitting the deluge to have been universal over the globe, it could not have deposited the fossil remains in the rocks._
This position is too plain to the practical geologist to need a formal argument to sustain it. But there are many intelligent men, who do not see clearly why the remains of marine animals and plants may not be referred to the deluge. And if they could be, then all the demands of the geologist for long periods anterior to man are without foundation. But they cannot be, for the following reasons:--
First. On this supposition the organic remains ought to be confusedly mingled together, since they must have been brought over the land promiscuously by the waters of the deluge; but they are in fact arranged in as much order as the specimens of a well-regulated cabinet. The different rocks that lie above one another do, indeed, contain some species that are common; but the most are peculiar. It is impossible to explain such a fact if they were deposited by the deluge.
Secondly. On this theory, at least, a part of the organic remains ought to correspond with living animals and plants, since the deluge took place so long after the six days of creation. But with the exception of a few species near the top of the series, the fossil species are wholly unlike those now alive.
<script>