uccession, under the
operation of an eternal law of development? No, answers geology,
species are immutable, except within narrow limits, and do not pass
into each other, in tracing them toward their origin. On the contrary,
they appear at once in their most perfect state, and continue
unchanged till they are forced off the stage of existence to give
place to other creatures. The origin of species is a mystery, and
belongs to no natural law that has yet been established. Thus, then,
stands the case at present. Scripture asserts a beginning and a
creation. Science admits these, as far as the objects with which it is
conversant extend, and the notions of eternal succession and
spontaneous development, discountenanced both by theology and science,
are obliged to take refuge in those misty regions where modern
philosophical skepticism consorts with the shades of departed
heathenism.[148]

2. Both records exhibit the progressive character of creation, and in
much the same aspect. The Almighty might have called into existence,
by one single momentary act, a world complete in all its parts. From
both Scripture and geology we know that he has not done so--why we
need not inquire, though we can see that the process employed was
that best adapted to show forth the variety of his resources and the
infinitely varied elements that enter into the perfect whole.

The Scripture history may be viewed as dividing the progress of the
creation into two great periods, the later of which only is embraced
in the geological record. The first commences with the original chaos,
and reaches to the completion of inorganic nature on the fourth day.
Had we any geological records of the first of these periods, we should
perceive the evidences of slow mutations, tending to the sorting and
arrangement of the materials of the earth, and to produce distinct
light and darkness, sea and land, atmosphere and cloud, out of what
was originally a mixture of the whole. We should also, according to
the Scriptural record, find this period interlocking with the next, by
the intervention of a great vegetable creation, before the final
adjustment of the earth's relations to the other bodies of our system.
The second period is that of the creative development of animal life.
From both records we learn that various ranks or gradations existed
from the first introduction of animals; but that on the earlier stages
only certain of the lower forms of animals were presen