Essentially the same remark will apply to the limestone, gypsum, rock salt, and several other mineral products of the earth, which are almost indispensable to man in a civilized state. For these, too, were produced by slow processes, during those vast periods of duration that preceded man’s existence. Limestone has been chiefly elaborated by the organs of animals, many of them of microscopic littleness. Yet lofty ranges of mountains and immense deposits in the intervening valleys have been the result. Nearly one seventh part of the crust of the globe, it has been said, is thus constituted of the works or remains of animals. And can we doubt but that these rocks are thus spread over the surface of the globe because they are needed by all mankind, like air and water? It must have been benevolence that so arranged the agencies by which they were produced, during the revolution of primeval ages, that they have this wide diffusion. Gypsum and fossil salt are more sparingly diffused; but still enough is always to be found to meet the demand. Nor is it reasonable to doubt that the same prospective goodness which provided for coal and limestone, commissioned other agencies to lay up a store of gypsum, salt, bitumen, clay, and other substances dug out of the earth for man’s benefit.
My eighth geological argument for the divine benevolence is based upon the perfect adaptation of the natures of animals and plants to the varying condition of the globe through all the periods of its past history.
The very slight changes in climate, situation, and food, that will destroy most species of animals and plants, is hard to be realized by man, whose nature will sustain very great changes of this kind. So will most of the animals and plants that have been domesticated by man, and which accompany him into every soil and climate. But the great mass of animals and plants would perish by such a transplantation. They are adapted to a particular region, often of narrow limits; and to remove them from thence, even to one slightly diverse, is to cause their deterioration and final destruction. In other words, their natures are exactly adapted to the place of habitation assigned them. And it must have required infinite wisdom thus to fit the delicate machinery of animal and vegetable organization to the great variety of circumstances on the globe in which it is placed. But we find that same wisdom to have been manifested in all the vast periods of organic life. We have the most unequivocal evidence that the condition of the earth has undergone important changes. We cannot examine the remarkable flora and fauna of the older rocks, the gigantic sauroid fishes, the huge orthoceratites and ammonites, the heteroclitic trilobites, and the strange sigillaria and lepidodendra, calamites and asterophyllites, the lofty coniferæ, and the anomalous cycadeæ,—we cannot examine these without realizing that a state of the globe very different from the present must have existed when they had possession of it. And when we contemplate also the enormous saurians and batrachians of the middle secondary rocks, and the colossal quadrupeds of the tertiary strata, we cannot doubt that a tropical or an ultra-tropical climate must have prevailed in high northern latitudes during their existence. We perceive that there has been a gradual decrease of temperature on the surface from the earliest times. In each successive race of organized beings which have been placed on the globe, there must have been, therefore, some change of constitution to adapt them to the altered state of the climate and productions of the earth. And we find this alteration to have been always made with consummate skill, so as to secure the most complete development of organic beings, and the greatest enjoyment to sensitive natures. Malevolence would not have done this; for it might with infinite knowledge at command, have filled each successive period of the world with natures unadapted to the mutable condition of things, capable, indeed, of a prolonged existence, not to enjoy, but only to suffer. But infinite benevolence was fitting up this world by slow secondary agencies for the elevated races which now occupy it, especially for one species, rational and immortal; and it lavished its kindness and wisdom by filling the world, during those preparatory ages, with multitudes of happy beings, fitted exactly to each altered condition of the air, the water, and the soil.
My ninth and last geological argument for the divine benevolence is founded upon the permanence and security of the world, in spite of the mighty changes it has undergone, and the powerful agencies to which it is now subject.
When we learn from the records of geology, as they are inscribed upon the rocks, how numerous and thorough have been the revolutions of the surface and the crust of the globe in past ages; how often and how long the present dry land has been alternately above and beneath the ocean; how frequently the crust of the globe has been fractured, bent, and dislocated,—now lifted upward, and now thrown downward, and now folded by lateral pressure; how frequently melted matter has been forced through its strata and through its fissures to the surface; in short, how every particle of the accessible portions of the globe has undergone entire metamorphoses; and especially when we recollect what strong evidence there is that oceans of liquid matter exist beneath the solid crust, and that probably the whole interior of the earth is in that condition, with expansive energy sufficient to rend the globe into fragments,—when we review all these facts, we cannot but feel that the condition of the surface of the globe must be one of great insecurity and liability to change. But it is not so. On the contrary, the present state of the globe is one of permanent uniformity and entire security, except those comparatively slight catastrophes which result from earthquakes, volcanoes, and local deluges. Even the climate has experienced no general change within historic times, and the profound mathematical researches of Baron Fourier have demonstrated that, even though the internal parts of the globe are in an incandescent state, beneath a crust thirty or forty miles, the temperature at the surface has long since ceased to be affected by the melted central mass; that it is not now more than one seventeenth of a degree higher than it would be if the interior were ice; and that hundreds of thousands of years will not see it lowered, from this cause, more than the seventeenth part of a degree. And as to the apprehension that the entire crust of the globe may be broken through, and fall into the melted matter beneath, just reflect what solidity and strength there must be in a mass of hard rock from fifty to one hundred miles in thickness, and your fears of such a catastrophe will probably vanish.
Now, such a uniformity of climate and security from general ruin are essential to the comfort and existence of animal nature. But it must have required infinite wisdom and benevolence so to arrange and balance the mighty elements of change and ruin which exist in the earth, that they should hold one another in check, and make the world a quiet, unchanged, and secure dwelling-place for so many thousands of years. Surely that wisdom must have been guided by infinite benevolence. And it would seem from geology that the same union of wisdom and benevolence have always arranged the past conditions of the earth. For, during each of the periods of organic existence, uniformity and security seem to have prevailed so long as the purposes of the Deity required. In early times, indeed, when animals were mostly confined to the waters, it was not necessary that the dry land should be as exempt as at present from catastrophes; and probably they were then more frequent; and it may be that, while there were uniformity and security in one portion of the globe, or in one element, there might have been disturbance and desolation in others. And it is doubtful whether such general quiet has ever prevailed for so long a time as during the present, or historic period. We see a reason for this in the fact that never before were so many animals in existence, with a structure so delicate and complicated.
Such are the evidences of divine benevolence, drawn from a field at first view most unpromising. And yet, when we come to look beyond the surface, where do we find more decisive or more numerous indications of God’s beneficence? They are not like many hasty generalizations, which superficial examination has often brought from natural phenomena in proof of this same truth, but which, although beautiful at first view, must be abandoned upon careful research. But these, though repulsive at first, gain solidity and beauty by examination. And they are the more interesting because they come from an unexpected quarter. Men have been accustomed to search among the drift piled up by water and ice, among dislocated and rent strata of rocks, among mountains overturned and fields made desolate by volcanic eruptions, for the mementoes of penal inflictions; but they have not imagined that divine benevolence might be seen among these disturbances and desolations; and that simply because they confined their views to the immediate effect of geological agencies, and did not enlarge their views to take in their connection with the great system of the universe. But now that we find the stamp of benevolence even here, we learn an instructive lesson. Every reflecting mind is aware that the doctrine of divine benevolence lies at the foundation of all natural and revealed religion, and that until this be established we labor in vain to erect a superstructure. It is well known, also, that the existence of natural and moral evil has been considered a strong objection to this great truth. Now, geology furnishes us with many examples, in which agencies, often fraught with terrific evils, are nevertheless eminently beneficial when the whole extent of their operation is taken into account. Why is it not a fair inference that, in all other cases where evils stand out prominently, they are only incidental results of some wide system of operations, of which our limited vision embraces only a part, but whose tendencies as a whole are eminently salutary, and whose incidental evils do, in fact, increase the salutary effects? If so, what reason have we to believe that, when the light of eternity shall clarify our mental eye, and enlarge our knowledge of the present system of the universe, we shall find all “partial evil to be universal good,” and that our narrow views alone threw obscurity and difficulty over this subject in this life? O, if even here so many rays of divine love find their way into our narrow prison-house, what will be their brightness when they pour in upon us from the unveiled glories of the heavenly world!