Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot. Gosse Philip Henry

have no data in Scripture from which to gather certain information, and Adam may have lived unfallen one day, or millions of years." The years of the first man's mortal life began to be reckoned when his immortality ceased. He was nine hundred and thirty years old:21 he had been nine hundred and thirty years gradually decaying, slowly dying.

      "It may, indeed, be said that no man could have survived those convulsions of nature, of which traces have been discovered in the earth's crust. I would reply to this; – First, that we have no reason to suppose that these changes affected the whole globe at once; they may have been partial and successive; and the world's Eden may have been a spot peculiarly exempted from their influence. Secondly, that Adam's body before the fall was not constituted as ours now are; it was incorruptible and immortal: physical phenomena could have had no deleterious effect upon him." "Why should we find any difficulty in supposing that the geological changes which appear to have passed upon the globe, after its creation, and before its curse, were to the first man sources of ever-renewing admiration, delight, and advantage?

      "Inclining to the belief that both the animal fell and the animal curse were considerably antecedent to the sin of Adam, I see no difficulty in the admission, that animal death may also have prevailed prior to that event."22

      While all those writers whose opinions I have cited, feel it more or less incumbent on them to seek a reconciliation between the words of Inspiration and the phenomena of Geology, there are not a few who decline the task altogether. Some eminent in science seem, by their entire avoidance of the question, to allow judgment to go by default. Others more boldly deny that the two can be accommodated.

      Mr. Babbage appears to think the archaic Hebrew so insuperably obscure a language, that no confidence can be put in our constructions of its statements; an opinion which, if true, would make the revelation of God to us, with all its glorious types, and promises, and prophecies, more dubious than the readings of Egyptian papyri, or the decipherment of Assyrian cuneiforms.

      On this notion, however, Dr. Pye Smith observes: – "All competent scholars, of whatever opinions and parties they may be in other respects, will agree to reject any imputation of uncertainty with respect to the means of ascertaining the sense of the language."

      Others find no difficulty in understanding the Hebrew, but in believing it.

      Professor Baden Powell sees in the plain, unvarnished narrative of the Holy Spirit, only myth and poetry: it "was not intended for an historical narrative" at all; and he thinks (I hope incorrectly), that there is a pretty general agreement with his views.

      "Most rational persons," he says, "now acknowledge the failure of the various attempts to reconcile the difficulty [between Geology and Scripture] by any kind of verbal interpretation; they have learnt to see that the 'six days of thousands of years' have, after all, no more correspondence with anything in Geology than with any sane interpretation of the text. And that the 'immense period at the beginning,' followed by a recent literal great catastrophe, and final reconstruction in a week, is, if possible, more strangely at variance with science, Scripture, and common sense. Yet while they [viz. the 'rational persons,'] thus view the labours of the Bible-geologists as fruitless attempts, they often do not see – ," &c. &c.23

      Of course this gives up the authority of Scripture altogether; and, consistently enough, the author is severe upon the prevalent "indiscriminate and unthinking Bibliolatry." "If in any instance the letter of the narrative or form of expression may be found irreconcilably at variance with physical truth,24 we may allow, to those who prefer it, the alternative of understanding them either as religious truths, represented under sensible images, or as descriptions of events according to the preconceptions of the writers, or the traditions of the age."

      The author of "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" propounds a theory of organic origin much more worthy of God, than that "mean view," which supposes Him "to come in on frequent occasions with new fiats or special interferences." Coolly bowing aside His authority, this writer has hatched a scheme, by which the immediate ancestor of Adam was a Chimpanzee, and his remote ancestor a Maggot!

      In reviewing this array of opinions, is there not sufficient ground for regarding with caution the claim to certainty which has been boldly put forth for the conclusions of Geology? It cannot be denied that there is here room for a very considerable amplitude of choice among discordant hypotheses. All cannot be true, unless on the principle which was claimed for the Church by the Council of Trent – "Cum enim ecclesia duarum expositionum ubertate gaudeat, non esse eam ad unius penuriam restrigendam!" I do not for a moment intend to put all these hypotheses and assumptions on the same level. They vary widely as to their tenableness, and as to their prevalence. But if we leave out of view the fears of those who, from insufficient acquaintance with science, are not competent to adjudicate on its positions, and those who despise or decline Biblical authority altogether on this subject, we have still a somewhat wide range to choose from. Shall we accept the antediluvian, or the diluvian stratification? the six ages or the six days of creation? the irruptions of internal fire that occurred chiliads before Man was made– those during his protracted paradisaic state, or those at the time of the Flood? – the extension of the Mosaic record to universal nature, or its limitation to a region of south-western Asia?

      I am not blaming, far less despising, the efforts that have been made for harmonizing the teachings of Scripture and science. I heartily sympathise with them. What else could good men do? They could not shut their eyes to the facts which Geology reveals: to have said they were not facts would have been simply absurd. Granting that the whole truth was before them – the whole evidence – they could not arrive at other conclusions than those just recorded; and, therefore, I do not blame their discrepancy inter se. The true key has not as yet been applied to the wards. Until it be, you may force the lock, but you cannot open it. Whether the key offered in the following pages will open the lock, remains to be seen.

      II

      THE WITNESS FOR THE MACRO-CHRONOLOGY

      "You shall well and truly try, and a true deliverance make… and a true verdict give, according to the evidence." —

(Jury Oath.)

      A High Court of Inquiry has been sitting now for a good many years, whose object is to determine a chronological question of much interest. It is no less than the age of the globe on which we live. Counsel have been heard on both sides, and witnesses have been called, and most of the judges have considered that an overwhelming preponderance of testimony is in favour of an immeasurably vast antiquity. A single Witness on the other side, however, has deposed in a contrary sense: and, though he has said but little, some of those who have heard the cause attach such weight to his testimony, that they do not feel satisfied to let it be overborne. Counsel on the former side have, indeed, cross-examined the Witness, and dissected his testimony with much skill, and they contend that what he said has been misunderstood by the minority; and that, as his words may at least bear a sense which would not contradict those of the opposing witness, the clear, copious, and unvarying deposition previously made, ought to command the verdict of the Court.

      The minority are silenced, but not satisfied; they know not how to give up the Witness on whose veracity they have been wont to rely; but they are unable to answer the arguments brought against him.

      Counsel for the Brachy-chronology speaks. "We respectfully ask the Court for another hearing. Will our learned brother permit his witness briefly to recapitulate his testimony, and we will endeavour to examine it once more; for we think we shall be able to detect some flaw in it?" Rule granted.

      WITNESS FOR THE MACRO-CHRONOLOGY.

      The following, then, is the substance of what the witness deposes. He is not a living witness; his testimony, therefore, is not oral, but written – lithographed, in fact. It consists of a number of documents, which are couched in a language and character not to be understood without some previous study, but yet very capable of translation – very clear and unmistakeable. The following,

21

I am not replying to any of these conflicting opinions; else, with respect to this one, I might consider it sufficient to adduce the ipsissima verba of the inspired text. Not a word is said of Adam's being "nine hundred and thirty years old;" the plain statement is as follows: – "And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years." (Gen. v. 5.)

22

"Protoplast," pp. 58, 59; p. 325; 2d. Ed.

23

Unity of Worlds (1856), pp. 488, 493.

24

"A geological truth must command our assent as powerfully as that of the existence of our own minds, or of the Deity himself; and any revelation which stands opposed to such truths must be false. The geologist has therefore nothing to do with revealed religion in his scientific inquiries." —Edinb. Review, xv. 16.