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been visible during ages, they might have been absorbed into matter." If the light of those ages was visible, it must have been the light of the sun, as it is sunlight alone, either direct or reflected, that is visible to animals, and ministers to the life of plants. Who ever heard that animals see light that is latent? Who ever held that it is latent light, not the light of the sun, that is requisite to the growth of vegetables? The light which "modern science" has shown, exists "in all bodies," is invisible and latent, not radiated into the atmosphere, so as to be the medium of a sight of other objects. But if the light which was visible during those imagined ages was the light of the sun illuminating an atmosphere with its effulgence, as his supposition must imply, what are we to understand by the extraordinary representation that it "might have been absorbed into matter?" Does he imagine that matter became inbued with a susceptibility of absorbing light, so vast as to detach the luminiferous atmosphere from the sun, and attract it into itself? If not, if the sun continued to shed forth its light with undiminished radiance, as its rays must have passed through the atmosphere-if it is held that one then existed-in order to reach the matter that was to absorb it, how is it that it would not have continued to illuminate that atmosphere, and been as visible therefore as it is now? Does Dr. H. deem himself entitled, in disregard of the laws of light, to

assume that it might have lost its susceptibility of reflection from the surfaces on which it fell, or that "matter" might, in defiance of its established laws, have lost its power of reflecting it? What a splendid hypothesis for the reconciliation of his theory of an anterior existence of the world with the testimony of the Creator which it contradicts! But Dr. H. cannot, on the principles of geology, assume the existence of any physical fact that is not referable either to the chemical or mechanical forces that are now in activity, and acting with their present degree of energy. Is he aware, then, of any instances in which those forces have actually absorbed the light of the sun, so as to involve the world in absolute darkness? Are they now daily producing that stupendous effect? If not, his assertion that light, "after having been visible during ages, might have been absorbed into matter,” is as inconsistent with the axioms of geology as it is contradictory to the laws of optics. Was ever before such a "bundle" of astounding errors couched in so narrow a compass, and dignified with the title of facts and inferences drawn according to the strictest rules of the Baconian philosophy?

But we are not yet at the end of the series. It is raised to a towering climax in the representation that the light which was created after that absorption, and denominated by the Most High day, was the identical light which had become latent in matter, and was

developed by him out of the bodies by which it had been absorbed. "These facts show" that light and heat "might have been absorbed into matter, and that it required the power of Almighty God to develop them to such an extent as was necessary to the new state of the earth." It were in vain to attempt to lash such a blunder with the thong of ridicule. It transcends the power of satire. Optics, chemistry, physics, geology, are alike disregarded. Who ever before heard of a day, commencing with an evening and ending with a morning, being produced by a development of latent light from the matter of the earth's surface? As latent light is only developed from the matter in which it is absorbed by a chemical process by which that matter is resolved into its elements, or united in new combinations, that process must have. extended over the whole surface of the globe. Will Dr. H. be good enough to inform us how either the waters of the ocean, or the rocks and earths that then formed, as he assumes, the crust of the mountains, hills, plains, and valleys, throughout the earth, were put into that chemical activity? Whence were the exciting forces drawn? If they existed at every point before, why is it that they remained inactive till that great crisis? It will not meet the difficulty simply to say, that they were developed by an act of Almighty power, or that "it was rather a re-creation than an original production of

light." That is precisely the process of which we wish an explanation on the principles of chemistry. What is a development of latent light from matter in which it has been absorbed, that is rather a re-creation than an original production of it-while, in fact, by the terms, it can be neither-and on such a scale as to produce day at every point, like that of a brilliant sunshine? Is he aware of the existence in the immediate vicinity of each of the substances in the crust of the earth of elements that are capable of acting on them in such a manner? Was the globe dropped into a vast alembic, filled with powerful chemical agents that at once dissolved all the solids and fluids with which it came in contact, released their latent light, and radiated it into surrounding space? That would have made a "wreck" of the world undoubtedly, and rendered a new construction and a repopulation of it necessary. It is only by some process of that kind that such a result could have been produced. What an ingenious and philosophic conception to account for that illumination of the earth which God called Day! What a profound insight it indicates into the mysteries of nature! At what an infinite distance it is removed from "the crude speculations and airy hypotheses" in which theologians have indulged! And what glory it reflects upon the power of the Almighty! For what a delicate affair it must have been to form and adjust those forces in such a man

ner that they naturally, through three successive revolutions of the earth on its axis, intermitted their activity at every line of longitude at the proper moment for the commencement of evening, and resumed it again at the proper moment for the dawn of morning!

Such are the singular fancies by which these and other writers attempt to reconcile their theory of the world with the history which God has given us of its creation; such the strange absurdities, the infinite contradictions to the principles of their own science and the universal laws of matter, assent to which is, by their own showing, a necessary condition of faith in their system! Was such a farce ever before passed off under the dignified and imposing names of “inductive science" and "Baconian philosophy?" Did men of talent and learning ever before confound in so extraordinary a manner the principles of their own profession? How is it to be accounted for, except that, misled by an excessive enthusiasm, they have misconceived the proper sphere of geology and the import of its facts, and assuming it to be a veritable science of ascertained and infallible laws peculiar to itself, have mistaken their unauthorized inferences for demonstrated truths; and thence, losing in a measure their sense of the sanctity of the divine declarations, and persuaded that their natural cannot be their real meaning, have presumed that they may be legi