Page:Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology, 1837, volume 1.djvu/441

 Rh facts which the investigation of the structure of the Earth has brought to light.

"If I understand Geology aright, (says Professor Hitchcock,) so far from teaching the eternity of the world, it proves more directly than any other science can, that its revolutions and races of inhabitants had a commencement, and that it contains within itself the chemical energies, which need only to be set at liberty, by the will of their Creator, to accomplish its destruction. Because this science teaches that the revolutions of nature have occupied immense periods of time, it does not therefore teach that they form an eternal series. It only enlarges our conceptions of the Deity; and when men shall cease to regard Geology with jealousy and narrow-minded prejudices, they will find that it opens fields of research and contemplation as wide and as grand as astronomy itself."

"There is in truth, (says Bishop Blomfield) no opposition nor inconsistency between Religion and Science, commonly so called, except that which has been conjured up by injudicious zeal or false philosophy, mistaking the ends of a divine revelation." And again in another passage of the same powerful discourse, after defining the proper objects for the exercise of the human understanding, his Lordship most justly observes, "Under these limitations and corrections we may join in the praises which are lavished upon philosophy and science, and fearlessly go forth with their votaries into all the various paths of research, by which the mind of man pierces into the hidden treasures of nature;