There is a knowledge which creates doubts that nothing but a larger knowledge can satisfy; and he who stops in the difficulty will be perplexed and uncomfortable for life. MR. SHARON TURNER. LONDON: R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD STREET HILL. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES AND SOME PARTS OF GEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. BY JOHN PYE SMITH, D.D. LL.D. F.R.S. & F.G.S. DIVINITY TUTOR IN THE PROTESTANT DISSENTING COLLEGE AT HOMERTON; MEMBER OF THE PHILOLOGICAL, ETHNOLOGICAL, MICROSCOPICAL, AND PALEONTOLOGICAL SOCIETIES; AND AND OF THE WASHINGTON U.S. NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR THE PROMOTION OF SCIENCE. LIBRARY DIVINITY COR HARVARD UNIVERSITY FOURTH EDITION, GREATLY ENLARGED. Οὐθὲν ἀνθρώπῳ λαβεῖν μείζον, οὐ χαρίσασθαι Θεῷ σεμνότερον, ἀληθείας. PLUTARCH. de Is. et Osir. "Than TRUTH, no greater blessing can man receive, or God bestow." JACKSON AND WALFORD, 18, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD. M DCCC XLVIII. DUDAAR HARVARD UNN GEOLOGY, in the magnitude and sublimity of the objects which it treats, undoubtedly ranks, in the scale of the sciences, next to Astronomy. SIR JOHN F. W. HERSCHEL. The conclusions of GEOLOGY have lent, in fact, a new evidence to revealed religion. They have broken the arms of the sceptic; and, when we ponder over the great events which they proclaim, the mighty revolutions which they indicate, the wrecks of successive creations which they display, and the immeasurable cycles of their chronology, the era of man shrinks into contracted dimensions; his proudest and most ancient dynasties wear the aspect of upstart and ephemeral groups; the fabrics of human power, the gorgeous temple, the monumental bronze, the regal pyramid, sink into insignificance beside the mighty sarcophagi of the brutes that perish. QUARTERLY REVIEW, vol. lxx. p. 57. PREFACE. THE following Lectures were prepared and delivered, by the appointment of the Committee of the Congregational Lecture, under some peculiarity of circumstances. The appointment was unexpected, and the notice unavoidably short. Several parts, therefore, and those referring to subjects of the greatest importance, were treated in a manner too brief, and, indeed, extemporaneously: but to the kind and attentive audience the promise was given that, if the publication should take place, the author would supply those deficiencies. This he has endeavoured to do partly by filling up the portions which, in the delivery, were but sketched, and partly by adding Notes, both on the immediate pages, and in a Supplementary Appendix. The reader will perceive that numerous citations are introduced. For this no apology is requisite: and, indeed, so richly interesting are the most of those passages, that it would have been a wrong to the subject and to the reader to have withheld them. Another circumstance |