the Grand Duke of Tuscany,-"Most Serene Duke, it often befalls travellers in unknown countries, that, hastening through a mountainous tract unto a town standing on the top of a hill, they think it hard by, as soon as they come in sight of it; the manifold turnings and windings of the ways thereto retard their hopes unto a trouble. For [at first] they have only a view of the nearest tops, but they cannot guess what is hidden by the interposition of those high places; whether they be lower hills or deep valleys, or plain fields, because with their flattering hopes they measure the distances of places by the eagerness of their desires." It is not the sight of the hilltops, nor even that of the town beyond them, that gives. the traveller difficulty and the danger of error, but the effort to infer, or to form the thought which will truly represent the unseen distances between. "So," says this learned Dane, "Having once or twice seen those grounds out of which are digged up shells and other such-like things cast up by the sea, and found that those earths were the sediments of a turbid sea, and that everywhere we might estimate the number of times how often the sea had been troubled here and there, I hastily not only imagined by myself, but confidently affirmed to others, that the whole business [of accounting for them would be an inquiry and work but of a very short time." There was no difficulty to Steno as to the facts; but when he undertook to produce the true thoughts which would represent the relations of those facts, he found himself encountering the real labour of science.

And yet it is not in the field of patient inference from facts that either great difficulty or danger may be said to lie. If we are satisfied to accept the certain thought which fairly compared facts gradually give us, and to wait patiently for the increase of such true light, we may learn an incalculable amount of relative truth. Much that cannot be seen will be as real to us, and even far more powerful and precious in its influence over us, than anything that is seen. For example, we may observe how a shellfish lives and dies in the bed of the sea at the present time, leaving its shell in the sand, and observe also the form of a similar shell imbedded in a rock, which is now high above the level of the sea. We may note that this shell-form is so imbedded as to indicate that the creature to which the shell belonged lived and died in the very sand of which that rock is composed, just as the modern one lived and died under the present waters of the ocean. We

* I quote from an interesting old volume entitled "The Prodromus to a Dissertation concerning Solids contained within Solids, &c. By Nicolaus Steno. Englished by H. O. 1671;" pp. 1 to 4.

have now got a great amount of relative thought, and we may go on till we believe, without difficulty and without danger of error, that the sea at one time flowed over the rock in which this shell-form lies imbedded. So long as the facts are duly observed, and the inferential thoughts derived from their comparison are manifestly related to the facts, and beyond reasonable doubt, so long we are gathering real science in its two great branches of trustworthy instruction.

But, as we have indicated, there is a third kind of geological thought, which is of a value very different from that of the other two. This consists of speculation, which, so far as discovery has gone, has no realities to represent. The universe of waking dreams, to which this introduces us, consists of all the possibilities of falsehood as well as of all those of truth. It is the region from which, we humbly think, true science warns us away. That which is, and so may be known, as distinguished from that which is not, but may be conceived, is the proper object of science. It is very important, when we would trace the relations of geological science to the Sacred Scriptures, to consider whether we mean the relations of our first two divisions of thought, or the relations of that so-called Geology, which is chiefly composed of conjecture. Because of the extremely speculative tendencies of scientific men, it has become painfully necessary that we should sift most carefully that which is presented, even by the highest authorities, as geological science; so that we may be able to distinguish between truth which is the logical result of real discovery, and doctrine held as above all price, but which may be abandoned to-morrow by those who are to-day its most earnest advocates. Because of the fond partiality, too, with which favourite hypotheses are almost worshipped, and on account of which every opposing idea is disliked, it is needful that we take up, and examine with great care, views that have been scouted by scientific leaders and their followers as worthless.

Almost all truth has been thus treated for a time by the rulers of public opinion during whose reign it has been discovered. To those who have not yet attended to the evidence from which it really springs, and who are more in love with speculation than with real science, every new truth will appear conjectural, it may be even preposterous; while conjecture, which has no evidence whatever to support it, may seem highly reasonable, only because it happens to accord with some preconceived notion.

It is in connection with this part of our subject that we come upon the phrase "negative evidence." At first sight one would naturally imagine that this means really "evidence."

But it means nothing of the kind. Such evidence as could, with any degree of propriety, be called "negative," must be such as would nullify some apparently positive evidence opposed to it. That to which we are geologically introduced has no such effect. The "negative evidence" of popular geology is only that to which we are told the Irishman appealed, when, on being confronted with a witness who saw him commit the crime laid to his charge, said he could bring a dozen who did not see him do it! For example, what were called the "oldest rocks" were termed azoic, because it was held that no relics of And, as it was held also that life had been found in them.

no relics of life had yet been found beneath them, it was concluded that there was no life on the surface of the globe when they were formed. The support of this great doctrine was "negative evidence." In other words, it was not known that there were no relics of life in such rocks-there was no evidence of such a negative; on the contrary, very worthy testimony had been borne to the effect that such relics had been found-still less was it known that there never had been such relics of life in these old rocks; there is now, at least, pretty strong evidence that such relics existed, though they have been obliterated in the alterations of the strata in which they were inclosed. It was only generally unknown whether or not there were such relics of life in these rocks, or under them. We need scarcely say that all conclusions built on ignorance, under the name of "evidence," are utterly unworthy of science.

We have only too strong reason to dwell on this conjectural aspect of the fashionable geology of our day. It is not as if only details, here and there, were turning out false, while grand principles remain evidently sound. If we do not err greatly, the speculative geological mind is escaping out of one great mistake in principle, and that only by leaping into another as great, because its leaders are careless as to the true nature of their reasoning. When their evidence is not "negative," or, in plain words, not nothing, it is so utterly inadequate as to leave the ideas supposed to be proved by it, as purely conjectural as if they were altogether matters of fancy. For example, look at the measurement of time believed to be required for the upheaval of land. "Two feet and a half in a century" is a scale of upheaval adopted for the whole world during all time! Why? Only because there is apparently some reason to think that the coast of Norway, taking the north and south of that coast together, and striking the average, is rising at that two-and-a-half-feet rate! The observation of this mere scrap of the earth's surface, and that during a very brief period, is taken as if it furnished a sufficient standard for measuring the

rate of upheaval over all portions of the surface of the globe, during all ages! Such is a grand instance of conjectural chronology as given by one of the greatest of geologists.*

As another instance, I take the following from the same high authority; in this case, an estimate of time required for the growth of strata. A mass of rock, sixty feet thick, is described as composed of layers so thin, that "thirty are sometimes contained in the thickness of an inch." Observe the " sometimes;" for we notice in the same description, that there are "occasionally" layers of flint, carbonaceous matter and marl, each, as it seems from the statement, "about an inch thick." We have no means given of estimating the "sometimes," nor the "occasionally," that are manifestly of so much importance in the case. Between the layers, of which thirty occupy an inch, there are marks of plants that have been flattened and carbonized, and "sometimes myriads of small Paludine and other fresh-water shells.". Here again we observe the "sometimes." For these thin leaves are spoken of as each "a page of history representing a certain period of the past." And we are evidently expected to draw the inference that these rocks that have grown in ancient lake-bottoms, were formed "with extreme slowness." We are also told that masses of the same sort of rock, two hundred feet thick, are found in the neighbouring hills. Well, how shall we calculate? Say that we give each bed of shells a year to grow, and forget the "sometimes," and the "occasionally" also. One inch of rock gives thirty years; a foot of rock, 360 years; sixty feet, 21,600 years; 200 feet, 72,000 years! Here, then, is a magnificent idea. But what if a bed of such very small snail-shells should not take a month to grow? What, if some of the flattened plants might be floated and laid on the surface of the lake-bottom every day? What, if the heat at noon and the cold at night, affecting the muddy water, might account for the layers? Each of them would then represent but a day, and thirty of them only a month. What if the "sometimes," in which the snail-shells occur, should be very few times, and the "occasionally," which qualifies the occurrence of layers an inch in thickness, should be really very often. How do our 72,000 years dwindle down into a very brief period indeed! If we take for example any pond into which muddy streams are flowing, it is surely anything but according to experience and observation among those who should clean such places out, that they take ages to

Lyell's Antiquity of Man, edition 1863, pp. 58, 178. Sir Charles advances this two-and-a-half-feet scale in exceedingly cautious language, but argues upon it as if it might be fairly assumed.

Lyell's Elements of Geology, edition 1865, page 229.

silt up. The slightest change in the inflowing water, or in the temperature of the pond itself, causes a change in the character of the silt, and, consequently, a layer in the mass forming in the bottom. As to larger bodies of water, Page says that the clayey mud of the great Chinese rivers is estimated as borne down at the rate of two million cubic feet in an hour! The Ganges alone carries 700,000 cubic feet every hour into the Bay of Bengal!* Must such work take tens of thousands of years to deposit sixty feet of muddy strata? In the face of the most common facts, it is surely anything but scientific to magnify duration into measureless vastness, when looking at a rock which has been formed by such means.

So much for the three great divisions of what is generally understood to be geology. It seems well that we should have the true nature of that which passes as the science clearly before us, ere we attempt to trace its relations in any direction.

Sacred Scripture is the Word of God. It is a word which He speaks, rather than one spoken concerning Him. It is the expression of thoughts which He desires to communicate to men. It is, we think, really an expression of a portion of His own thoughts, although that expression is necessarily cast in the mould of human language, and these thoughts are necessarily made to take a form such as allows them to enter the human mind. When thus viewed, the Sacred Scriptures present us with several divisions of very important matter for consideration.

First of all, we think it necessary to note a very important distinction between what is called "the Book of Nature," and the written revelation contained in the Bible. The created universe is, no doubt, in a certain sense, an expression of divine thought, and as such, it is a "Book" which may, and ought to be "read;" but it is not such an expression as that which takes the form of human language, and comes near, in that language, with the treasures of the divine heart, to the human soul, as man comes near in speech, and opens his heart to his fellow-creature. If, for example, we observe attentively what a man does, we may generally so far learn what that man thinks and feels. If we note what he does to us, we may generally so far learn his state of heart towards us. Man's works are, in this sense, an expression of his thoughts which may be read. So far, we may speak of his doings as the Book of his deeds; and we may also thus far speak of the "Book" of God in nature. But this is very different from

*Page's Advanced Textbook of Geology, edition 1856, page 31.