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the church, he ought either to harbour his dubious sentiments within his own breast; or, at least to keep as closely as consistency will allow, to the ancient landmarks. But he has chosen a different track, and has set himself prominently forth to uphold the speculations of Geology at the expense of holy writ. We would ever make full allowance for a free scope in verbal criticism; and had the Doctor kept himself within these bounds, we would only have suggested a little modesty in his method of assertion; but, as it is, some of his positions are quite untenable along with the sentiments of inspired writers.

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Dr. Smith grounds his argument for a partial deluge on the occasionally limited use of the terms "earth" and "the whole earth" in the sacred volume, to denote the known regions of the globe, or even the land of Judea only. This is readily granted; for the same Hebrew word means "land," "country," and "earth; and the true distinction between these terms has not always been kept up in our translation. It is impossible for one original word to give all the shades of signification denoted by several English words. The distinctions in Hebrew are therefore marked by suitable adjuncts, or by a general reference to the subject in hand. When we read that "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered," we feel that the strongest language possible has been used on the occasion. Besides, from the known laws of hydrostatics, the "high mountains" of Asia Minor could not be overwhelmed without an inundation of the whole planet. Dr. Pye Smith believes the low hills only of that small region to have been inundated; but he must first prove that the words "all the high are interpolations; or else he flatly contradicts the narrative of Moses. Let geologists allow that the high mountains of Asia have been elevated since the flood, or at the close of that event, and we shall be prepared to meet them half-way; for we would not attach any bigoted meaning to such a phrase as "all the earth," when unaccompanied by any modifying or explanatory terms.

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But this would not serve the purpose of our theorists. Their object is to exempt the major part of the brute creation from the destruction which came upon man and the animals in the vicinity of his narrow dwelling-place. Calculations, however, have been made to show that much of the earth must have been peopled before the flood; a fact which would utterly destroy this theory. Nor is it for man to assign any reason for the extent of a deluge, since the punishment of sin remains

with a righteous Lawgiver. "And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air." "The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth." (Gen. vi. 7, 13.) In these passages, the destruction of men, beasts, and the earth, is spoken of in the same language; nor can we understand how the extirpation of the animals of "one region," (the one hundred and thirtieth part of the globe,) is compatible with the following emphatic language: "And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.” (Gen. vii. 21—23.)

St. Peter's language, also, respecting the deluge is very strong: "God spared not the old world." "By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water : whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." We fear that Dr. Pye Smith must adopt a new mode of biblical interpretation, quite unintelligible to common minds, before he can harmonize these passages with his diluvian theory. Does "the face of the ground" mean the country of Asia Minor? What is signified by "the fowl of the heaven?" Why did not the birds fly over the "low hills" and escape? They seem to have had little instinct in those days.

Another important item in the new geological scheme requires observation. Should we admit a limited inundation to have taken place, the necessity for a miraculous interposition of Deity would be excluded, and the whole catastrophe might be easily attributed to a "natural occurrence," according to the well-known course of nature's operations. We believe this to be the end that is aimed at by modern philosophy. If the deluge in any way resembled one of the ordinary catastrophes by fluvial or volcanic agency, it could not have been any special mark of God's anger against sin, not being signally connected with a token of his displeasure. Accordingly, Dr. Pye Smith regards

it as one of a series of local floods which have devastated many separate regions of the globe. He doubtlessly acknowledges it to have happened in consequence of human guilt; but we can perceive no midway position between a miraculous display of Divine vengeance, and the ordinary routine of providential working. If the former be entertained, we must renounce the latter, by regarding nature's usual laws as having been temporarily suspended, to permit of a special intervention of Deity. This is a point of great weight in the argument: for the moment that we admit the interference of Almighty Power, all minor difficulties in the transaction must vanish. When He takes a matter in hand, none can limit his agency, or say in what particulars He may choose to exert an unwonted influence. Now, if we receive the account furnished by Moses, as being divinely correct in all its minutiæ, we must infer that the deluge, and every thing connected with it, was miraculous; and this would be a sufficient answer to the "cavils" of Dr. Pye Smith upon some accompaniments of the transaction.

Amongst other things, he finds fault that there was not sufficient water to drown the whole world, as at present constituted. This argument is fallacious in several respects. First, he assumes that the surface of the globe was then similar to that which now appears; but this was the very thing that ought to have been proved. How does he know what was the former height of the mountains? Secondly, he proceeds upon a supposition that he is acquainted with the depth of the sea. His authority is the calculation, or rather the conjecture, of Laplace, who defined the average depth of the ocean to be about three miles. But this was a mere assumption. He took it for granted that the depressions of the earth are similar to the elevations, the greatest being about five miles. We might, however, on the same ground, form an opposite opinion, with more apparent reason, by supposing that the cavities or converse hills of the earth are proportionately larger than the eminences; by so much as the extent of the sea is greater than that of the land; in which case, there would be oceanic depths to the extent of twelve or fifteen miles. So that, by upheaving this bed of waters, there would be abundance of fluid to overwhelm our mountains, especially if they have risen in height since that epoch, as we shall show to be highly probable. It is too bad for Dr. Smith to oppose scriptural narrative on the ground of one of Laplace's hypotheses! Thirdly, he denies the existence of large caverns of

water, because this would not suit his theory of an inward fire. Here, again, his assertion is altogether gratuitous; for if we should maintain the contrary, we should be quite as much deserving of credit; especially, as it is well known that mining operations cannot be carried to a great depth under ground, through an immoderate influx of water, which prevents men from penetrating far beneath the surface. Fourthly, Dr. Smith supposes that the deluge took place without any great disruption of the earth's strata; an opinion propounded by several recent authors; but, like the rest, it is a mere affirmation of the point which ought to have been proved. The fallacy lies here: they have discovered certain alluvial deposits and beds of gravel, which they declare to be antediluvial, (though, a few years ago, they thought them to be undoubted proofs of the deluge!) which they say the flood would doubtlessly have removed from their present locality. Let us give a specimen of Dr. Smith's logic upon this subject. He argues, that some loose ashes on an old French volcano could never have resisted the force of a general flood; and his proof of their vast antiquity is the negative one of Julius Cæsar not having recorded any tradition of an eruption, which, be it observed, might have happened, according to Dr. Hales, two thousand years before Cæsar's time, and yet have been posterior to Noah! If cosmologists are obliged to rake up such evidence as this, it is a poor sign of the goodness of their cause. A true philosopher would disdain to use such trumpery sophisms.

Dr. Pye Smith farther asserts, that in case of a general inundation, all the fish must have perished, from a mixture of salt and fresh water. But fresh-water fish have been found to live in briny fluids; and the inhabitants of the ocean are equally accommodating in their habits. Besides, we do not know how salt the sea then was: or what might have been done by Almighty Power in miraculously preserving the fish as He did the landanimals. Leuwenhoek counted 9,384,000 eggs in a middle-sized cod, and a carp lays 20,000 eggs; so that it would only require a few of each kind to re-people the waters. Does Dr. Smith acknowledge the miracle which our Saviour wrought about the tributemoney, which was taken out of a fish's mouth? If so, he need find no difficulty about the flood. We suspect that he wishes to prove too much; for it is a fact that there are fresh-water fish in Judæa and Asia Minor at the present time, and so there were fish in the days of King David :—how did they come there, if all

had perished by a local inundation through the upheaving of the beds of the neighbouring seas? Who re-stocked the Asiatic rivers?

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Our cosmological divine only plunges into greater theological difficulties every new step that he takes in the argument. Moses tells us explicitly that the earth was covered with water when God first called forth the dry land, and separated it from the mighty seas. Hence it is evident that at the beginning there was enough of fluid to cover the globe and if the geologist should be able to prove that this was not the case at the deluge, he would thereby acknowledge that a mighty change in the whole system had taken place in two thousand years; which would be a practical refutation of his own hypothesis of the stability of nature and her laws. In accordance, also, with Dr. Smith's argument, as above discussed, there must have been an entire destruction of animal life, marine as well as terrestrial, at the time of the six days' creation; because the world was then covered with water, and there were no living creatures in its wide expanse. There is no escape from this dilemma. If Moses be right in his record of the pristine inundation and its immediate consequences, Dr. Smith is wrong in some part of his theory.

A similar "cavil" has been raised about the vegetable world. Dr. Smith is sure that all trees and herbage must have died during the deluge, if it had been universal: but, he relates that a boabab has been discovered in India of the age of five thousand two hundred and thirty-two years. That is, it lived two hundred and thirty-eight years before the flood, according to Hales's chronology. A taxodium, also, has been found by Professor Henslow, to which he gives a date of from four to six thousand years. The latter has nothing to do with the argument, and we wonder why it was introduced; for four thousand years is within the post-diluvian era: and if the learned professor cannot be sure as to two thousand years of its age, it is a poor sign of the accuracy of this botanical evidence. If the case of the boabab be at all similar to that of the taxodium, we may at least allow one thousand years for variation of conjecture, and then the difficulty has vanished! Besides, in so great a diversity of opinion about ancient dates, perhaps even Dr. Hales may be in advanee about two hundred and forty years, which would make the matter all right. For, in either of these events, we might turn round upon Dr. Smith, and on his own grounds prove the fact of a 'universal deluge, from the universal destruc

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