supported by geological facts; since it appears
that the most ancient marine animals occur in
the same division of the lowest transition strata
with the earliest remains of vegetables ; so that
the evidence of organic remains, as far as it
goes, shows the origin of plants and animals to
have been contemporaneous: if any creation of
vegetables preceded that of animals, no evidence
of such an event has yet been discovered by the
researches of geology. Still there is, I believe,
no sound critical, or theological objection, to the
interpretation of the word “ day,” as meaning a
long period ; but there will be no necessity for
such extension, in order to reconcile the text of
Genesis with physical appearances, if it can be
shown that the time indicated by the phenomena
of Geology* may be found in the undefined
interval, following the announcement of the first
verse.
In my inaugural lecture, published at Oxford,
1820, pp. 31, 32, I have stated my opinion in
* A very interesting treatise on the Consistency of Geology
with Sacred History has recently been published at Newhaven,
1833, by Professor Silliman, as a supplement to an American
edition of Bakewell’s Geology, 1833. The author contends that
the period alluded to in the first verse of Genesis, “ In the beginning,”
is not necessarily connected with the first day, and that
it may be regarded as standing by itself, and admitting of any
extension backward in time which the facts may seem to require.
He is further disposed to consider the six days of creation as
periods of time of indefinite length, and that the word “ day” is
not of necessity limited to twenty-four hours.
favour of the hypothesis, “ which supposes the
word ‘ beginning-,’ as applied by Moses in the
first verse of the book of Genesis, to express an
undefined period of time, which was antecedent
to the last great change that affected the surface
of the earth, and to the creation of its.present
animal and vegetable inhabitants; during which
period a long series of operations and revolutions
may have been going on; which, as they are
wholly unconnected with the history of the
human race, are passed over in silence by the
sacred historian, whose only concern with them
was barely to state, that the matter of the universe
is not eternal and self-existent, but was
originally created by the power of the Almighty.”
I have great satisfaction in finding that the
view of this subject, which I have here expressed,
and have long entertained, is in perfect accordance
with the highly valuable opinion of
Dr. Chalmers, recorded in the following passages
of his Evidence of the Christian Revelation,
chap. v i i . “ Does Moses ever say, that when
God created the heavens and the earth he did
more, at the time alluded to, than transform
them out of previously existing materials? Or
does he ever say that there was not an interval
of many ages between the first act of creation
[described in the first verse of the Book of Genesis,
and said to have been performed at the