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gate theories introduced by former great names." The Dean afterwards addressed the President of the Geological Society, sending copies of his letters to Professor Sedgwick. He wrote as follows:

"The members of the British Association have always been accustomed to act in strict unison. They discountenance all difference of opinion, and seem bound jurare in verba magistri. Professor Sedgwick could not, therefore, with propriety appear publicly in opposition to the nebulous theory; and at the same time considerations for his own character would not allow him to stand up in support of what he knew to be an absurdity."

The Dean, after challenging objections to his own theory and arguments, agreeing with the Mosaic Cosmogony, goes

on :

"You say that there are geological facts which prove the long existence of the world through many ages. I say there are no such facts. Here we are completely and plainly at issue. Produce, then, some one or more of these facts; and if I cannot fairly account for them without supposing the very long duration of the earth, I am beaten! I am silenced! But if you do not produce such facts, and retreat, like Professor Sedgwick, from the challenge, confess, or let your silence confess, that the whole doctrine of a pre-Adamite world has been a mistake, too hastily adopted by men of talent and learning, and too apt, like all other persons, to draw general conclusions from a few particular facts."

In a subsequent passage, which need not be quoted, the Dean refers to the Geological Society as a "valuable body," adding, in a foot note, "Most valuable, as having furnished us with unexpected and unanswerable proofs of the waters having once covered the existing earth." So that it would appear, that at that time, the "orthodox" geologists taught that the facts of geology proved the universality of the deluge, which Bishop Colenso, on May 16th, 1865,-drawing his inspiration, no doubt, from what he now regards as geological science-declared to be "an impossibility" in such absolute terms, as even to draw forth a disclaimer from the president of the Anthropological Society of London.

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But it may be said that the nebular theory has now been given up by Sir Charles Lyell, not on account of arguments such as those adduced by Dean Cockburn, but because it has been found, from the constitution of granite, that its formation must have proceeded from a watery crystallization, and not from the fiery, dry heat, which the nebulous theory ignorantly ascribed to it. That is very true. Even in the absence of a knowledge of the constitution of granite, and for various other and more obvious reasons, Dean Cockburn was enabled to declare "the nebulous theory is really nonsense." But if, nevertheless, it was really believed in, merely or chiefly

because of a blunder as to the formation of granite, surely, then, earlier attention ought to have been paid to the matter of which granite is composed, before "adopting" such a physical theory as the very basis of the geology of the earth.

But even this plea will not serve as a justification for such an inveterate adherence to this now abandoned theory. Even before the Dean of York attacked it, namely, in 1843, a fellow of the Geological Society, Mr. Evan Hopkins-also now a member of the Victoria Institute-put forth a theory of the earth adverse to the nebular and plutonic hypotheses; and one of the main "facts" to which he appealed was, that granite was a water formation, or a true crystallization, and could never have been formed by dry heat as the nebular theory required. But his voice was not regarded, and not his facts, as against the great name and gratuitous assertions of Laplace, unfortunately accepted by Dr. Buckland. In giving up the theory, Sir Charles Lyell does not even notice him, although two years before the then President of the Geological Society, Professor Ramsay, had distinctly done so. At that time, also, I may observe, i.e. in 1862, Professor Ramsay said "that he believed that the science of geology was on the eve of a great revolution "the "science" that Bishop Colenso but a short time before had been preaching to his Zulus as the certain "revelations" of truth! and to which, even since then, he dares once more to appeal as unquestionable truth, and as upsetting the statements of Scripture !

But if any doubt whether all that Dean Cockburn said, under somewhat provoking circumstances, was quite deserved, as to the disposition of the Geological Society to yield too much to the argumentum ad verecundiam, or as to the unwillingness of the British Association to listen to contradictions to theories put forward by great names; I can cite another witness, a Professor at Cambridge, with reference even to a mathematical discovery of his own, which will place in a still stronger light the fact that, in his opinion, the present organizations among the scientific rather serve to retard the advancement of science, and to foster the maintenance of established dogmas in science than to admit new truths; while, at the same time, we know that all that may appear opposed to Scripture may be very freely put forward in scientific societies, and by some men even in the pulpit! Professor Challis thus expresses himself:-"I know enough of the history of physical science to be aware that an advance of this kind in an abstruse department of science can be expected to make its way only by slow degrees." This was said but a few years ago, and notwithstanding the existence of the British Association!

But not to multiply instances of this kind in further detail; it is surely a fair argument, for those who are anxious not to see science put unfairly or unwarrantably forward as at issue with Holy Scripture, to say that, after all this recent experience of theories rashly adopted and authoritatively upheld, while facts and arguments, adduced by numerous assailants, have been disregarded, refused a hearing, and despised, they are anxious to see a freer discussion of scientific dogmas in a new arena, and especially anxious to invite an immediate and rigid investigation and discussion of such scientific facts and theories that are yet said to be adverse to scriptural statements, which they regard to be the revealed truth of God.

What they may well say is this: that just as Dean Cockburn and others opposed the nebular theory twenty years ago, but were not heard; so that now other competent persons dispute other quasi "facts" in geology and other theories in science which now pass for true; and they are anxious to give these investigators a hearing, which they cannot expect to secure in existing scientific societies. They say that this must be for the real interest, and that it will tend to the real advancement, of true science; and that it has become a necessity in the interest of revealed truth, which it is so important should not be allowed to remain liable to be ever rashly impugned by crude theories in the name of science, without any independent organization of a scientific kind composed of men able and willing to watch, as it were, over the outworks of religion in this respect.

Let us revert, moreover, to the remark of Professor Sedgwick, that the nebular theory was adopted by the geologists from the astronomers, while indifferent whether it was true or false ! And only consider what must be the effect of thus carelessly adopting a hypothesis in science, without raising the question whether it is probably true or utterly absurd, and then going on for years, collecting and arranging in the mind all newly discovered facts, with sole reference to such a groundlessly assumed hypothesis. In what other way could a mere unreasoning prejudice be better instilled and made to grow inveterate in the human mind? Adopted thus at first, as we are told, with indifference, in time the nebular theory became, what Mr. Goodwin called "the first clear conception " of the origin of the world; and even now, when the intensely scarlet tint of the earth's imagined central fire and of the welling up molten granite must be obliterated in all the future graphic representations of the earth's sections, the cosmographists, so long accustomed to this false basis, will indeed be puzzled what

else to substitute in its room! We really have no "science" of the world's origin at present!

Consider, too, how much valuable time has been lost for science, and how much talent has been wasted, while this untenable theory has thus been blindly entertained; and while men have generally thus been discouraged and even debarred from seeking after a true interpretation of the numerous and most important newly discovered facts made known by geological research.

But we must be content with these few brief instances of how the progress of true science has been hampered and retarded, through the mischievous influence of imperative theories and the authority of great names, to attend to some still more important considerations, which I apprehend in themselves alone constitute a sufficient ground for the establishment of the Victoria Institute; and which will further and at the same time account, in great measure, for inductive science having already acquired some of the worst vices of the false system of philosophising, which it was Bacon's great object to root out for ever from scientific inquiry.

While we have been obliged to appeal to the fact, that there is an openly alleged opposition in our day between the so-called discoveries of modern science and the statements of Scripture, especially as to the creation and deluge, I think we may also find evidence, that this is not solely if at all to be accounted for, by any desire on the part of scientific men generally, at least in this country, to establish any such opposition, or any disposition to pervert scientific research, so as to make it antagonistic to religion. If Halley was infidel in his opinions, still we know that Newton was devout. If Laplace was atheistic in his views, and applying Sir W. Herschel's speculations as to the nebulæ to the first formation of this world, was thus furnished with an hypothesis which enabled him, as he supposed, "to dispense with God throughout; "-still we must remember that that hypothesis was first put forth in England, as an interpretation of geological appearances, in one of the Bridgewater Treatises, by Dr. Buckland, some thirty years ago, intentionally to exhibit God's power in His works of creation. Professor Sedgwick, also, no doubt expressed an opinion entertained by many other men of science besides himself, when he declared that the theories now admitted to be "altogether delusive" by Sir Charles Lyell,—but which some may then have believed to be true theories founded upon sufficient facts ascertained by geological science,-were confirmatory of revelation. It is very true that in saying this, it was with the understanding that considerable modification might

fairly be made as to the meaning usually gathered from the scriptural statements. But what I wish to point out is, that while many infidels and atheists have from time to time made a handle of scientific theories to cast discredit upon revelation, there have also been many earnest men of science who have adopted the same scientific theories, but have not considered them incompatible with the revelations of Scripture. Very numerous attempts were made by Hugh Miller and other eminent writers, to reconcile the Scriptural statements with every fresh scientific discovery or supposed discovery in geology.

But, unfortunately, in all these efforts, "the science" of the day was always apparently adopted with too much readiness, as if it required no probable essential correction, while Scripture alone was constantly tampered with, in order to get it to mean something different from what its plain language had previously seemed to imply. "Science," it may be said, was allowed to pass uncriticised; while Scripture was ever being subjected to fresh and far-fetched interpretations. But this could not, of course, go on. Professor Baden Powell, in Kitto's Cyclopædia, in his article on "Creation," rejected the 1st chapter of Genesis as "not being history;" and Mr. C. W. Goodwin ridiculed all such "attempts to reconcile the Scriptures with science" as "failures ;" and he, not without some good reason, pointed to "the trenchant way in which these theological geologists overthrow one another's theories." The mischief, however, it will thus be seen, had been done. Science. had been taken on trust, the Scriptures had been sceptically handled; all, it may be, with the best intention on the part of many, but not the less with fatal results-results not less fatal to true science than to religious faith. And we have to account for these results. The scientific, no less than the religious, are interested in the inquiry. For what do we now find is the case? We find that it is science that ought to have been more narrowly watched and criticised; and that it would really have been to the credit of scientific men if they had applied to "science "" somewhat of that vigilance to detect its possible errors, its contradictions, and fallacies, which has been freely enough and too exclusively exercised in our day upon the statements of the Scriptures, by those who have accepted without the least examination and with an almost absolute credulity, often at second hand, all that has been passing for science upon the authority of a few names of great scientific repute. Now, I venture to say, the explanation is not far to seek why science has thus "drifted" into contradictions and delusive theories and fallacies, which have become a scandal

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