Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/821

Rh There is no one to whose authority on geological questions I am more readily disposed to bow, than that of my eminent friend Professor Dana. But I am familiar with what ho has previously said on this topic in his well-known and standard work, into which, strangely enough, it does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look before he set out upon his present undertaking; and unless Professor Dana's latest contribution (which I have not yet met with) takes up altogether new ground, I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate myself, by its help, from my present difficulties.

It is a very long time since I began to think about the relations between modern scientifically ascertained truths and the cosmogonical speculations of the writer of Genesis; and, as I think that Mr. Gladstone might have been able to put his case with a good deal more force if he had thought it worth while to consult the last chapter of Professor Dana's admirable "Manual of Geology," so I think he might have been made aware that he was undertaking an enterprise of which he had not counted the cost, if he had chanced upon a discussion of the subject which I published in 1877.

Finally, I should like to draw the attention of those who take interest in these topics to the weighty words of one of the most learned and moderate of Biblical critics:

À propos de cette première page de la Bible, on a coutume de nos jours dc disserter, à perte de vue, sur l'accord du récit mosaïque avec les sciences naturelles; et comme celles-ci, tout éloignées qu'elles sent encore de la perfection absolue, ont rendu populaires et en quelque sorte irréfragables un certain nombre de faits généraux ou de thèses fondamentales de la cosmologie et de la géologie, c'est le texte sacré qu'on s'évertue à torturer pour le faire concorder avec ces données.

—[Pertinently to this first page of the Bible, it has been customary in our days to descant to an extreme on the accord of the Mosaic recital with the