to be perfected by the operation of a law of development,
as fancied by some modern speculators. In this assertion of the
distinctness of species, and the production of each as a distinct part
of the creative plan, revelation tallies perfectly with the
conclusions of natural science, which lead us to believe that each
species, as observed by us, is permanently reproductive, variable
within narrow limits, and incapable of permanent intermixture with
other species; and though hypotheses of modification by descent, and
of the production of new species by such modification, may be formed,
they are not in accordance with experience, and are still among the
unproved speculations which haunt the outskirts of true science. We
shall be better prepared, however, to weigh the relations of such
hypotheses to our revelation of origins when we shall have reached the
period of the introduction of animal life.

Some additional facts contained in the recapitulation of the creative
work in Chapter II. may very properly be considered here, as they seem
to refer to the climatal conditions of the earth during the growth of
the most ancient vegetation, and before the final adjustment of the
astronomical relations of the earth on the fourth day. "And every
shrub of the land before it was on the earth, and every herb of the
land before it sprung up. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain
on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; but a mist
ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground."
This has been supposed to be a description of the state of the earth
during the whole period anterior to the fall of man. There is,
however, no Scripture evidence of this; and geology informs us that
rain fell as at present far back in the Palaeozoic period, countless
ages before the creation of man or the existing animals. Although,
however, such a condition of the earth as that stated in these verses
has not been known in any geological period, yet it is not
inconceivable, but in reality corresponds with the other conditions of
nature likely to have prevailed on the third day, as described in
Genesis. The land of this period, we may suppose, was not very
extensive nor very elevated. Hence the temperature would be uniform
and the air moist. The luminous and calorific matter connected with
the sun still occupied a large space, and therefore diffused heat and
light more uniformly than at present. The internal heat of th