n our globe. But geology decides that the species now
living, since they are not found in the rocks any lower than man
is,[55] could not have been contemporaneous with those in the rocks,
but must have been created when man was--that is, in the sixth day. Of
such a creation no mention is made in Genesis; the inference is that
Moses does not describe the creation of the existing races, but only
of those that lived thousands of years earlier, and whose existence
was scarcely suspected till modern times. Who will admit such an
absurdity?" In answer to this objection, I remark that it is based on
a false assumption. The hypothesis of long periods does not require us
to assume that Moses notices all the animals and plants that have ever
lived, but on the contrary that he informs us only of the _first
appearance_ of each great natural type in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms; just as he informs us of the first appearance of dry land on
the third day, but says nothing of the changes which it underwent on
subsequent days. Thus plants were created on the third day, and though
they may have been several times destroyed and renewed as to genera
and species, we infer that they continued to exist in all the
succeeding days, though the inspired historian does not inform us of
the fact. So also many tribes of animals were created in the early
part of the fifth day, and it is quite unnecessary for us to be
informed that these tribes continued to exist through the sixth day.
If the days were long periods, the inspired writer could not have
adopted any other course, unless he had been instructed to write a
treatise on Palaeontology, and to describe the fauna and flora of each
successive period with their characteristic differences. 3. "Though
there is a general resemblance between the order of creation as
described in Genesis and by geology, yet when we look at the details
of the creation of the organic world, as required by this hypothesis,
we find manifest discrepancy. Thus the Bible represents plants only to
have been created on the third day, and animals not till the fifth;
and hence at least the lower half of the fossiliferous rocks ought to
contain nothing but vegetables. Whereas in fact the lower half of
these rocks, all below the carboniferous, although abounding in
animals, contain scarcely any plants, and these in the lowest strata
fucoids or sea-weeds. But the Mosaic account evidently describes
flowering and seed-bearing plant