The position of the learned theologian did good service throughout the years in which the science of geology was attaining to its present stature and state of development, and emancipating itself from the errors and imperfections of the days of its in fancy. . But time rolled on, and geological science, in its progress to maturity, accumulated facts that proved the proposition of Dr. Chalmers to be based on a fallacy; and the evidence became abun dant, and sufficient to establish, as a well-ascer tained truth, that between the animal and vegetable existences of the primeval or pre-Adamite world and those of our own era, no interruption or blank has occurred, inasmuch as many of the existing spe cies were contemporaneous with some of these that we know to have become extinct long before man was an inhabitant of the globe. Thus the position of Dr. Chalmers, which requires a complete inter ruption of pre-existing organisms, falls to the ground.
To avoid this difficulty, Dr. Pye Smith, in his Geology and Scripture, suggested that the chaotic period had been confined and limited to one parti cular portion of the earth's surface, viz., that part which God was adapting for the dwelling-place of man and the animals connected with him. This section of the earth he designates as ' a part of Asia lying between the Caucasian range the Cas pian sea and Tartary, on the north, the Persian and Indian seas on the south, and the mountain ridges which run, at considerable distances, on the eastern and western flanks ;' and he suggests that this region was brought by atmospheric and geolo gical causes into a condition of superficial ruin, or some kind of general disorder. This theory left to the geologist his unbroken series of plants and animals in all parts of the world, with the excep tion of this particular locality. But the explanation was never received with favour ; and was obviously inconsistent with the language of Scripture, inas much as the term the earth,' in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, embraces the whole of the terrestrial globe, and `the earth' that is, in the next verse, described as `without form and void,' cannot be more restricted in its meaning and extent.
But, while the accumulation of scientific facts took from the champions of the authenticity and inspiration of the Mosaic record the position they had so long maintained against their adversaries, those facts, at the same time, furnished materials for the foundation of an argument of a more sound and satisfactory character, which operates, not only to rescue the Mosaic account of the creation from the imputation of positive misrepresentation (which was all that the propositions of Chalmers and Pye Smith assumed to do), but has added con firmation to the truth of the details which are pre sented to us in the first chapter of the Bible— supplying evidence that must satisfy every reflect ing mind desirous of truth, that the pen that wrote the biblical history of the creation must have been guided by the omniscient Spirit of the most High.
The scheme of reconciliation of Scripture and geology to which we refer, has for its foundation the assumption that the Mosaic days designate periods of vast and undefined extent—that the six days of creation portray six long periods of time, which commenced with ' the beginning,' and have succeeded each other from thence through the various scenes depicted by Moses, op to and inclu sive of the creation of man ; and that the seventh day, on which God rested from his work of crea tion, is still current. Against such a construction of the word day,' in the Mosaic record, 'there is no sound critical or theological objection.' This is the admission of Dr. Buckland, who was one of the advocates for the natural day interpretation, and who would undoubtedly have adopted the word in its extended sense, if he could have recon ciled the order of the creation as it appeared on the geological record which was in existence when the Bridgewater Treatise was written, with the order of the creation recorded by Moses. Long before the question had assumed the importance and in terest which the discoveries of geology have given to it, many well-informed philologists advocated the opinion that the Mosaic days were periods of long duration. Among the Jews, Josephus and Philo, and of Christians, Whiston, Des Cartes, and De Luc, have so expressed themselves ; while of those who have written with full knowledge of geological facts, we have Cuvier, Parkinson, Jame son, Silliman, and Hugh Miller—all of them hold ing the opinion that the Mosaic days of creation were successive periods of long duration.
The argument against this interpretation of the word ' day,' derived from the language of the law giver in the institution of the Sabbath, has not been considered by the best biblical philologists as of weight sufficient to induce the rejection of an interpretation that will be found to satisfy all the requirements of geological science. The learned commentators, to whose opinions we have already referred, did not estimate the objection as of a serious, much less insurmountable, nature ; and they evidently considered the allusions made by Moses, in the loth chapter of Exodus, to the six days of creation, to have been by way of illustra tion or example, and not as the enunciation of a physical truth—that as God had made and fur nished the world in six of His periods of time, and rested from his work, so man is to labour for his six periods of time, and to rest on the seventh.