assumed, though often urged, is, in reality, nothing to the purpose.* If it should ever be shown, for example, that supposing as many geological eras as the philosopher requires to have passed in the chasm between the first verse, which asserts the original dependence of all things on the fiat of the Creator, and the second, which is supposed to commence the human era, any imaginable condition of our system—­at the close, so to speak, of a given geological period—­would harmonise with a fair interpretation of the first chapter or Genesis, the objection will be neutralised.

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* Some admirable remarks in relation to the answers we are bound to give to objections to revealed religion have been made by Leibnitz (in reply to Bayle) in the little tract prefixed to his Theodicee, entitled ’De la Conformite de la Foi avec la Raison.’  He there shows that the utmost that can fairly be asked is, to prove that the affirmed truths involve no necessary contradiction.

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We have little doubt in our own minds that the ultimately converging though, it may be, transiently discrepant conclusions of the sciences of philology, ethnology, and geology (in all of which we may rest assured great discoveries are yet to be made) will tend to harmonise with the ultimate results of a more thorough study of the records of the race as contained in the book of Revelation.  Let us be permitted to imagine one example of such possible harmony.  We think that the philologist may engage to make out, on the strictest principles of induction, from the tenacity with which all communities cling to their language, and the slow observed rate of change by which they alter; by which Anglo-Saxon, for example has become English*, Latin Italian, and ancient Greek modern (though these languages have been affected by every conceivable cause of variation and depravation); that it would require hundreds of thousands, nay millions, of years to account for the production, by known natural causes, of the vast multitude of totally distinct languages, and tens of thousands of dialects, which man now utters.  On the other hand, the geologist is more and more persuaded of comparatively recent origin of the human race.  What, then, is to harmonise these conflicting statements?  Will it not be curious if it should turn out that nothing can possibly harmonise them but the statement of Genesis, that in order to prevent the natural tendency of the race to accumulate on one spot and facilitate their dispersion and destined occupancy of the globe, a preternatural intervention expedited the operation of the causes which would gradually have given birth to distinct languages?  Of the probability of this intervention, some profound philologist have, on scientific grounds alone, expressed their conviction.  But in all such matters, what we plead for is only—­patience; we wish not to dogmatise; all we ask is, a philosophic abstinence from dogmatism.  In relation to many difficulties,