INTRODUCTION. THE formation and revolutions of the earth, are subjects of the highest interest to man, and have exercised inquisitive minds in every age. The first philosophy of Greece consisted of physical cosmogony, discussed, however, in a metaphysical manner. Ideal elementary powers and substances were assumed, to which a multitude of phenomena, ill-observed and falsely grouped, were referred. To deduce one efficient cause from the careful collation of analogous effects, was too humble and irksome a process, for the masters of the Ionic, Italian, or Attic schools. Their spirit was essentially dogmatic. Each arrogated supremacy and infallibility to his creed, using every artifice to kindle the zeal of proselytism in the breasts of his disciples. They, unconscious of the falsehood of their master's axioms, and the sophistry of his arguments, propagated the most absurd tenets without reserve. Visionaries of this stamp usurped the rank of philosophers, bringing the very name into contempt. Such were almost all the wranglers who infested Athens, and other celebrated cities of Ancient Greece, under the title of Sophists and Sages. After perverting, with impious speculations, the heads and hearts of their countrymen, they have bequeathed in their imperishable language, a legacy of vain imaginations to every coming age. These dreamers have supplied not only our modern metaphysicians with much of their syllogistic chicane, but they have afforded materials of many geological reveries. How humiliating is it to see the best powers of reason, and the holiest aspirations of the heart, still sacrificed by science falsely so called, to these B heathen phantoms; a century after Newton, and two centuries after Galileo, had laid open the true Temple of Nature, in which man is ordained and qualified to offer a reasonable service! How well this censure of Grecian learning is merited, we may judge from the account given by Brucker, of the philosophy of Leucippus. "The universe which is infinite, is in part a plenum, and in part a vacuum. The plenum contains innumerable corpuscles or atoms of various figures, which falling into the vacuum, struck against each other; and hence arose a variety of curvilinear motions, which continued till at length atoms of similar forms met together, and bodies were produced. The primary atoms being specifically of equal weight, and not being able, on account of their multitude, to move in circles, the smaller rose to the exterior parts of the vacuum, whilst the larger entangling themselves, formed a spherical shell, which revolved about its centre, and which included within it all kinds of bodies. This central mass was gradually increased by a perpetual accession of particles from the surrounding shell, till at last the earth was formed. In the meantime, the spherical shell was continually supplied with new bodies, which, in its revolution, it gathered up from without. Of the particles thus collected in the spherical shell, some in their combination formed humid masses, which, by their circular motion, gradually became dry, and were at length ignited, and became stars. The sun was formed in the same manner in the exterior surface of the shell; and the moon in its interior surface. In this manner the world was formed." According to Epicurus, those atoms which were lightest, mounted up and formed the air, the heavens, and the stars; whilst the more sluggish subsided, and formed the earth on which the human congeries of atoms move about. That men, by uttering such conceits, should gain the reputation of superior wisdom, would hardly be credited, IDOLS AND IDOLATRY OF THE LEARNED. xi did we not meet with modern speculations in Cosmogony no less extravagant, however they be disguised in the scientific language of the day. Our world-framers easily shake off the shackles of inductive logic, and run a fearless career. They will sneer at the pretended infallibility of papal dogmas, and the immutability of papal decrees on the mysteries of faith, but do not scruple to avow doctrines relative to objects of sense, as preposterous as any ever uttered from the Vatican. This persuasion of certainty in his judgments may be somewhat pardonable in the churchman, who believes himself guided by divine inspiration. The student of nature, however, knowing nothing of her attributes, but what he can decipher by vigilant observation of her multiform phases, or by experimental inquiry, should ever preserve the humble docility of a scholar. Like Galileo and Pascal, his only care should be, to arrange in a well ordered series, the record of facts, and collating them by the kindred rules of logic and geometry, to trace out their general results. Into a mind thus disciplined, the spirit of dogmatism can hardly enter. We may rest assured, therefore, that the eager systematist who would heap Ossa on Pelion, to complete his scheme, is no master architect in science. How Bacon was the first who clearly showed the danger of cherishing false notions, which became eventually so incorporated with the understanding, as to occupy it exclusively, to the admission or right perception of truth. His denunciation of these idols, as he justly termed them, is perhaps the most valuable part of the novum organum. dangerous such phantoms may become to man, when associated with the mystery of his being and destiny, the history of all Polytheism attests. When we contemplate idolatry, in the abominable rites of paganism, whether barbarous or civilized, we feel ashamed of our common nature thus debased beneath the level of the brute creation. So shocking indeed is the retrospect to the pride of man, that were the Sacred Scriptures the sole register of such superstitions, their testimony would be scornfully rejected by our modern Stoics, who, while surrounded by an almost universal empire of passion and appetite, have the effrontery to proclaim the innate goodness, perfectibility, and dignity of human nature. Now, though the worship of the molten statue, the block, the reptile, or the host of heaven, may have ceased among us, idolatry still prevails in more insidious forms. The philosopher fashions, after his own caprice, strange gods, he adorns their images with every meretricious art, and sets them up to the adoration of mankind. Such is the idolatry of a more refined age, which successive Idealists have remodelled from time to time. Each is eager to supersede or dethrone the governor of the universe, and to substitute in his stead mere physical forces, acting in a continuous or interrupted train, to suit their fantastic germs of organic and inorganic being. Metaphysical systems have had their day of fashion. The world will no longer be agitated with researches which move in a vortex, without visible progression. Under this impression, Pyrrhonists begin to fight with the more solid weapons of physics; though the principle of their warfare, the exclusion of divine agency, be still the same. Lightly esteeming, or disregarding altogether, the concerns of the unseen and future world, and concentring all their thoughts and affections round the present pleasures and vanities of life, they are willing to recognise matter as the only source of their being, and physical forces as the sole creative and conservative powers. Like the giants of mythology, they ransack every region of their mother earth, internal and external, for arms against the Invisible Omnipotence, and thence rise up with delusive vigour to the combat: "Cum tetigere parentem, Jam defecta vigent renovata robore membra " • Lucan, Lib. IV. v. 600. DOGMATISM TO BE DEPRECATED. xiii The structure and revolutions of the earth, as explored by Geology, have opened a vast field, in which the champions of scepticism and revelation have latterly waged incessant warfare. In this contest, however, passion and prejudice have too often usurped the place of knowledge, on both sides, and hence a victory has often been claimed by either party. Yet no truce between the combatants. can take place, far less a final discomfiture to the enemies of religion, till it be shown that the physical events appertaining to the creation and the deluge, as described by Moses, are not discordant with the legitimate deductions of physical science. Believing both systems of knowledge, that of Inspiration and Nature, to emanate from the same Author, we may rest assured that each, if rightly understood, will harmonize with the other. Whenever dissonance is produced between them, it may be traced to the touch of an unskilful or an unhallowed hand. However momentous the interests involved in this inquiry may be, it demands, however, the utmost delicacy and circumspection. Every approach to controversial acrimony should be deprecated. The advocates of religion do not always bear in mind that compassion is the only feeling which they are allowed to entertain towards those who unhappily want the faith essential to salvation. The more violent their rejection of the Christian doctrine, the more gentle should its teachers be in addressing unbelievers. Dogmatic virulence never made a convert. I am well aware that the Mosaic record of creation has been often expounded, in a manner equally hostile to science and religion. Many commentators on sacred writ have unwittingly afforded handles to argument and ridicule, against which the text itself was entirely proof. This blending of revealed and natural knowledge has been denounced by Professor Playfair, in the following terms, the poignancy of which might be more keenly felt by Theologians, had not the philosopher himself, carried back his |