We shall be told, perhaps, that there are Six Days assigned to the work of creation in the Mosaic narrative, and that we have accounted but for three. Let it be remembered, however, that Geology does not profess to give a complete history of our Globe. It can set before us those events only which have left their impress indelibly stamped upon the rocks that compose the Crust of the Earth. These events Geologists have attempted to reduce to the order of a chronological system; and in prosecuting this task they have been guided almost exclusively by the evidence of Organic Remains. Hence it was not to be expected that, in Geological Chronology, we should find a Period specially set apart as the Period in which Light was made; or another as the Period in which the Firmament was spread out over the Earth; or a Third as the Period in which the sun and moon and stars shone forth in the expanse of Heaven. Such phenomena had, indeed, a very important influence on the physical condition of our globe. But they must occupy a very secondary place, if indeed they are distinctly chronicled at all in the records of Geology. It is the formation of rocks and the embedding therein of Fossil Remains that constitute the main study of the Geologist, and that guide him in the distribution of Geological time.
Furthermore, we would observe that the scheme of Chronology which Geologists put before us, affords abundant room for each and all of the Mosaic Days. Let it be assumed for a moment that the Carboniferous Period corresponds with the Third Day of the Sacred narrative. The earlier Periods of the Palæozoic Age will then fit in with the First and Second Days of Scripture; and the Permian, which intervenes between the Carboniferous Period and the Secondary Age, may be supposed to correspond with the Fourth Day of Scripture. This adjustment between the Mosaic Days and the Periods of Geology will probably be made more intelligible to the general reader by the Table that appears on the following page.
The reader must not think it amiss, in this distribution of the Mosaic Days, that four out of six are crowded together into one Geological Age, while each of the other two has an entire Age assigned to itself. If the Days of Creation were indefinite periods, there is no incongruity in supposing that one may have corresponded to a longer, another to a shorter interval in the history of our planet. But, in truth, our scheme of distribution does not of necessity imply that the Mosaic Days were periods of unequal length. Geologists do not pretend that there is even a remote approximation to equality between the several divisions of Geological time. The three great Epochs are distinguished from each other by reason of the very marked difference in the character of their Fossil Remains. And the multiplication of Periods in each Epoch seems to depend rather upon the degree of completeness with which the strata of that Age have been examined, than upon any conjecture as to the probable length of its duration. Thus, for example, Sir Charles Lyell thinks that, as far as the present condition of Science affords the means of forming an opinion, almost any one of the Periods in the Palæozoic Age was as long as all the Periods of the Tertiary Age taken together.[175]
But there is another and a more serious objection against our hypothesis. It has been observed more than once that the periods of Geology are out of harmony with the Days of Genesis, even as regards the history of Organic life. According to the Scripture narrative no Organic life appeared upon the Earth previous to the Third Day. Now the Third Day of Scripture corresponds, in our scheme, with the Carboniferous Period of Geology. And yet there is abundant evidence in the Fossil Remains of the Devonian, the Silurian, and the Cambrian Formations, that Organic life—both plants and animals—prevailed upon the Earth for many ages before the Carboniferous Period began. Nay, it is now commonly held, since the discovery of the famous Eozoon Canadense, the oldest known Fossil, that life already existed during the deposition of the Laurentian Rocks, the earliest of all the Stratified Formations. Furthermore, in the Mosaic account, Fish are represented as having been created only on the Fifth Day, which we have fitted in with the Secondary Age of Geology: whereas in the Geological Record we find Fish as early as the Silurian Period, which is far back in the Primary Age. These considerations, and divers others of a like nature, have been regarded by some eminent writers as altogether fatal to the hypothesis for which we are contending.
| DAYS. DAY OF GOD’S REST. | PERIODS. RECENT. | EPOCHS. HISTORIC AGE. |
| SIXTH MOSAIC DAY. | POST-PLIOCENE. PLIOCENE. MIOCENE. EOCENE. | TERTIARY OR KAINOZOIC AGE. |
| FIFTH MOSAIC DAY. | CRETACEOUS. JURASSIC. TRIASSIC. | SECONDARY OR MESOZOIC AGE. |
| FOURTH MOSAIC DAY. THIRD MOSAIC DAY. FIRST AND SECOND MOSAIC DAYS. | PERMIAN. CARBONIFEROUS. { DEVONIAN. { SILURIAN. { CAMBRIAN. { LAURENTIAN. | PRIMARY OR PALÆOZOIC AGE. |
To us, however, it appears that such points of discrepancy involve no contradiction between the two Records. The Sacred Writer tells us, no doubt, that on the Third Day God created plants and trees: but he does not say, either expressly or otherwise, that previous to the Third Day the Earth was devoid of vegetation. Again, we read that reptiles, fish, and birds were created on the Fifth Day. But there is nothing in the language of the Inspired narrative from which it can be inferred that these several classes of animal life may not have been represented before that time, by many and various species: though probably, it was only on the Fifth Day that they were developed in such vast numbers, and assumed such gigantic proportions, as to become the most conspicuous objects of creation.
The first chapter of Genesis is but a brief summary of an inconceivably vast series of events. It is nothing more than a rapid sketch, exhibiting, as it were, to the eye the prominent features in the history of Creation. Moreover, we should remember that it was written with a specific end in view. The purpose of the Sacred Writer was plainly to impress upon the Hebrew people, naturally prone to idolatry, the existence of One Supreme Being, who has made all things. Hence we should naturally expect that, amid the boundless variety of God’s works, he would make choice of those that were most calculated to strike the mind with wonder and awe, and to bring home to a rude and uncultivated race of men the Almighty Power and Supreme Dominion of the Great Creator. Now the Zoophytes, and Graptolites, and Trilobites, of the Devonian and Silurian Periods, however curious and interesting they may be to men of science, would have had but little significance for the Jewish people. Let us suppose that these more humble forms of animal life had, in fact, existed during the First and Second Days of the Mosaic narrative, and where is the wonder that the Inspired Historian, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, should pass them by in silence, and choose rather to commemorate the more striking and impressive facts, that, at the bidding of God, Light shone forth from the midst of darkness, and the blue firmament of Heaven was expanded above the waste of waters?
We say, then, that events which are simply left unrecorded by the Sacred Writer are not, on that account, untrue:[176] that he describes to us, not all the works of Creation, which would have been an endless task, but only the more conspicuous objects in each successive stage; and that he sketches them, most probably, as they would have appeared to the eye of a human observer, if a human observer at the time had existed on the Earth. If this view be admitted, then it is not inconsistent with the Scripture narrative to suppose that plants may have existed before the Third Day, and fish before the Fifth. Each Day in its turn would have been rendered conspicuous to an observing spectator by those events which are recorded by Moses. But each Day, too, would have witnessed many other events, unnoticed by Moses, of which the memorials have been preserved, even to our time, in the Crust of the Earth.
We should observe, however, that though this scheme of adapting the Periods of Geology to the Days of Moses, may be defended as a legitimate hypothesis, it cannot be upheld as an established truth. The geological records that have hitherto been brought to light represent but the merest fragment of the Earth’s past history. Each year that passes over our heads is adding largely to the store of facts already accumulated. And it needs but little reflection to perceive that an hypothesis may be quite consistent with the knowledge we possess to-day, and yet may be found altogether inconsistent with the knowledge we shall possess to-morrow. We must be content, therefore, to suspend our judgment, and to await the progress of events. It may be that future discoveries shall bring to light new points of harmony between the Days of Genesis and the Periods of Geology; it may be they shall demonstrate that no such harmony exists. For us it is enough to have shown that this hypothesis is consistent, on the one hand, with the story of Genesis—on the other, with the actual discoveries of Geology; and, therefore, that it may be adopted, in the present condition of our knowledge, as a legitimate means of reconciling the established conclusions of that science with the truths of Revelation.