Herschel, speaking of the transmission of light from starry nebulæ in the Galaxy, may infer that it travelled so many thousands of years in its progress to our solar system; it is not needful to oppose him in defence of sacred Scripture; for had he extended his luminous theories to as many myriads of years, the Mosaic account of the creation would still allow him to proceed. The sacred historian, while having to convey to mankind a revelation peculiarly (if not altogether) relating to our globe, gives only a very brief account of the creation in general, stating that "the triune God," who " in the beginning created the elementary structure of the heavens, and the elementary structure of the earth," at length vouchsafed material light to our solar system, and thence, (by the first revolution of the earth on her axis in presence of that light,) the commencement of terrestrial days. Had not Canonico Recupero been so ably refuted, as in the extract given from Bishop Watson's Apology,-we might reply to all such Ætnean speculators that, let them imagine any mountain on the earth to be ever so ancient, (although originally lying beneath the dark billows of the chaotic deep,) they cannot suppose it to be too old for scriptural authority; so great is the latitude they might claim even from the Mosaic account. "The dry land," it is true, did not appear above the originally mundane ocean, till the third day; but that circumstance need not have prevented the mineral substances of the earth from working in her chaotic bowels for myriads of years before that period, or occasionally overflowing with lava some submerged mountain, as Ætna; which event might have then taken place under, as well as afterwards above, the sea. Hence, ultimately, it is deducible, that neither astronomical nor mineralogical researches could assign to any phenomenon of nature an antiquity, howsoever remote, that would exceed the freedom of retrogression they might derive from the Mosaic account of the creation. APPENDIX, No. III. (1.) In conclusion, the writer feels desirous to inform the reader that, under the terms elementary structure, no species of imperfection whatever is to be inferred. With respect to matter, these words certainly imply something not unfolded or developed in its origin; yet only so far as relates to operations or effects depending merely on modification. So remote, then, is he from designing to intimate the slightest defect in the original structure of the universe, that (on the contrary) his opinion is diametrically opposed to any such groundless insinuation; well knowing that, without the greatest possible perfection in the elementary state, there could not be an appropriate basis for that almost endless diversity of modification which belongs to the material world. Whether, therefore, we meditate on the elementary structure of light, (as in Gen. i. 4,) or of the stars, (as in Gen. i. 16,) or of any other part of the creation; we invariably contemplate, in that very elementary structure, the greatest degree of perfection that could respectively pertain to it. (2.) There is another subject to which, at present, it may be desirable to revert, the already discussed quotation from Job; even the learned Parkhurst having been led away by a fanciful exposition of that text, calling "the morning stars," there introduced, "holy angels, glorious, and shining like the morning star." It is tolerably evident that, if he had compared it (as in Disser. parag. 22) with Gen. i. 16, so judicious a critic would have arrived at a more rational solution of that passage; in which also the term morning appears to be simply a poetical adjunct expressive of the primeval duration of those stars, or that period of their duration which preceded the given six days of the completion of our solar system. (3.) Respecting measures applicable to duration, Locke states, that "the notion of an hour, day, or year, being only the idea I have" (said he)" of the length of certain periodical regular motions, neither of which motions do ever all at once exist, but only in the ideas I have of them in my memory, derived from my senses, or reflection, I can with the same ease, and for the Q same reason, apply it in my thoughts to duration, antecedent to all manner of motion, that at this moment the sun is in." When, therefore, (as in Disser. parag. 7,) we admit that the period of the earth's chaotic darkness may have been measured by time in other solar systems, we do not differ with this extract. For whether that portion of past duration had or had not been actually measured by periodical revolutions, would make no difference whatever as to the actual duration itself; the mere circumstance of its being measured or not measured not rendering the given duration the less certain. In reference to the antecedent period mentioned in Part the First, it is manifest that we have fully entered into Locke's view, where we suppose any finite period whatever comprehensible within the antecedent period, or before any actual revolution could have taken place. As to his imagining "that light existed three days before the sun was, or had any" apparent "motion;" it is evident he viewed "the history of the creation given by Moses," in a different aspect from that in which we have placed it. But in his contemplation of the subject, the former three days must have been differently produced from the latter three; the latter three having been actually generated by the apparent motion of the sun, or the real diurnal revolution KB. |