CHAPTER VI.

LIGHT AND CREATIVE DAYS.

"And God said, Let light be, and light was; and God saw the light that it was good, and separated the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day; and the darkness he called Night. And Evening was and Morning was—Day one."— Genesis i., 3-5.

I have said that the Hebrew word translated "light" includes the vibratory movements which we call heat and electricity as well. I make this statement, not intending to assert that the Hebrews experimented on these forces in the manner of modern science, and would therefore be prepared to understand their laws or correlations as fully as we can. I give the word this general sense simply because throughout the Bible it is used to denote the solar light and heat, and also the electric light of the thunder-cloud: "the light of His cloud," "the bright light which is in the clouds." The absence of "aur," therefore, in the primeval earth, is the absence of solar radiation, of the lightning's flash, and of volcanic fires. We shall in the succeeding verses find additional reasons for excluding all these phenomena from the darkness of the primeval night.

The light of the first day can not reasonably be supposed to have been in any other than a visible and active state. Whether light be, as supposed by the older physicists, luminous matter radiated with immense velocity, or, as now appears more probable, merely the undulations of a universally diffused ether, its motion had already commenced. The idea of the matter of light as distinct from its power of affecting the senses does not appear in the Scriptures any farther than that the Hebrew name is probably radically identical with the word ether now used to express the undulating medium by which light is propagated; and if it did, the general creation of matter being stated in verse 1, and the notice of the separation of light and darkness being distinctly given in the present verse, there is no place left for such a view here. For this reason, that explanation of these words which supposes that on the first day the matter of light, or the ether whose motions produce light, was created, and that on the fourth day, when luminaries were appointed, it became visible by beginning to undulate, must be abandoned; and the connection between these two statements must be sought in some other group of facts than that connected with the existence of the matter of light as distinct from its undulations.

What, then, was the nature of the light which on the first day shone without the presence of any local luminary? It must have proceeded from luminous matter diffused through the whole space of the solar system, or surrounding our globe as with a mantle. It was "clothed with light as with a garment,"

"Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun was not."

We have already rejected the hypothesis that the primeval night proceeded from a temporary obscuration of the atmosphere; and the expression, "God said, Let light be," affords an additional reason, since, in accordance with the strict precision of language which everywhere prevails in this ancient document, a mere restoration of light would not be stated in such terms. If we wish to find a natural explanation of the mode of illumination referred to, we must recur to one or other of the suppositions mentioned above, that the luminous matter formed a nebulous atmosphere, slowly concentrating itself toward the centre of the solar system, or that it formed a special envelope of our earth, which subsequently disappeared.

We may suppose this light-giving matter to be the same with that which now surrounds the sun, and constitutes the stratum of luminous substance which, by its wondrous and unceasing power of emitting light, gives him all his glory. To explain the division of the light from the darkness, we need only suppose that the luminous matter, in the progress of its concentration, was at length all gathered within the earth's orbit, and then, as one hemisphere only would be illuminated at a time, the separation of light from darkness, or of day from night, would be established. This hypothesis, suggested by the words themselves, affords a simple and natural explanation of a statement otherwise obscure.

It is an instructive circumstance that the probabilities respecting the early state of our planet, thus deduced from the Scriptural narrative, correspond very closely with the most ingenious and truly philosophical speculation ever hazarded respecting the origin of our solar system. I refer to the cosmical hypothesis of La Place, which was certainly formed without any reference to the Bible; and by persons whose views of the Mosaic narrative are of that shallow character which is too prevalent, has been suspected as of infidel tendency. La Place's theory is based on the following properties of the solar system, which will be found referred to in this connection in many popular works on astronomy: 1. The orbits of the planets are nearly circular. 2. They revolve nearly in the plane of the sun's equator. [43] 3. They all revolve round the sun in one direction, which is also the direction of the sun's rotation. 4. They rotate on their axes also, as far as is known, in the same direction. 5. Their satellites, with the exception of those of Uranus and Neptune, revolve in the same direction. Now all these coincidences can scarcely have been fortuitous, and yet they might have been otherwise without affecting the working of the system; and, farther, if not fortuitous, they correspond precisely with the results which would flow from the condensation of a revolving mass of nebulous matter. La Place, therefore, conceived that in the beginning the matter of our system existed in the condition of a mass of vaporous material, having a central nucleus more or less dense, and the whole rotating in a uniform direction. Such a mass must, "in condensing by cold, leave in the plane of its equator zones of vapor composed of substances which required an intense degree of cold to return to a liquid or solid state. These zones must have begun by circulating round the sun in the form of concentric rings, the most volatile molecules of which must have formed the superior part, and the most condensed the inferior part. If all the nebulous molecules of which these rings are composed had continued to cool without disuniting, they would have ended by forming a liquid or solid ring. But the regular constitution which all parts of the ring would require for this, and which they would have needed to preserve when cooling, would make this phenomenon extremely rare. Accordingly the solar system presents only one instance of it—that of the rings of Saturn. Generally the ring must have broken into several parts which have continued to circulate round the sun, and with almost equal velocity, while at the same time, in consequence of their separation, they would acquire a rotatory motion round their respective centres of gravity; and as the molecules of the superior part of the ring—that is to say, those farthest from the centre of the sun—had necessarily an absolute velocity greater than the molecules of the inferior part which is nearest it, the rotatory motion common to all the fragments must always have been in the same direction with the orbitual motion. However, if after their division one of these fragments has been sufficiently superior to the others to unite them to it by its attraction, they will have formed only a mass of vapor, which, by the continual friction of all its parts, must have assumed the form of a spheroid, flattened at the poles and expanded in the direction of its equator." [44] Here, then, are rings of vapor left by the successive retreats of the atmosphere of the sun, changed into so many planets in the condition of vapor, circulating round the central orb, and possessing a rotatory motion in the direction of their revolution, while the solar mass was gradually contracting itself round its centre and assuming its present organized form. Such is a general view of the hypothesis of La Place, which may also be followed out into all the known details of the solar system, and will be found to account for them all. Into these details, however, we can not now enter. Let us now compare this ingenious speculation with the Scripture narrative. In both we have the raw material of the heavens and the earth created before it assumed its distinct forms. In both we have that state of the planets characterized as without form and void, the condensing nebulous mass of La Place's theory being in perfect correspondence with the Scriptural "deep." In both it is implied that the permanent mutual relations of the several bodies of the system must have been perfected long after their origin. Lastly, supposing the luminous atmosphere of our sun to have been of such a character as to concentrate itself wholly around the centre of the system, and that as it became concentrated it acquired its intense luminosity, we have in both the production of light from the same cause; and in both it would follow that the concentration of this matter within the orbit of the earth would effect the separation of day from night, by illuminating alternately the opposite sides of the earth. It is true that the theory of La Place does not provide for any such special condensation of luminous matter, nor for any precise stage of the process as that in which the arrangements of light and darkness should be completed; but under his hypothesis it seems necessary to account in some such way for the sole luminosity of the sun; and the point of separation of day and night must have been a marked epoch in the history of the process for each planet. The theory of accretion of matter which has in modern times been associated with that of La Place would equally well accord with the indications in our Mosaic record. [45]

It is further to be observed that so long as the material of the earth constituted a part of the great vaporous mass, it would be encompassed with its diffused light, and that after it had been left outside the contracting solar envelope, it might still retain some independent luminosity in its atmosphere, a trace of which may still exist in the auroral displays of the upper strata of the air. The earth might thus at first be in total darkness. It might then be dimly lighted by the surrounding nebulosity, or by a luminous envelope in its own atmosphere. Then it might, as before explained, relapse into the darkness of its misty mantle, and as this cleared away and the light of the sun increased and became condensed, the latter would gradually be installed into his office as the sole orb of day. It is quite evident that we thus have a sufficient hypothetical explanation of the light of the first of the creative æons; and this is all that in the present state of science we can expect. "Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and know the way to the house thereof?"

For the reasons above given, we must regard the hypothesis of the great French astronomer as a wonderful approximation to the grand and simple plan of the construction of our system as revealed in Scripture. Nor must we omit to notice that the telescope and the spectroscope reveal to us in the heavens gaseous nebular bodies which may well be new systems in progress of formation, and in which the Creator is even now dividing the light from the darkness. Still another thought in connection with this subject is that the theory of a condensing system affords a measure of the aggregate time occupied in the work of creation. Sir William Thomson's well-known calculations give us one hundred millions of years as the possible age of the earth as a planetary globe; but calculations of the sun's heat as produced by gravitation alone would give a much less time. We have, however, a right to assume an original heated condition of the vaporous mass from which the sun was formed. Still the date above given would seem to be a maximum rather than a minimum age for the solar system.

"God saw the light that it was good," though it illuminated but a waste of lifeless waters. It was good because beautiful in itself, and because God saw it in its relations to long trains of processes and wonderful organic structures on which it was to act as a vivifying agency. Throughout the Scriptures light is not only good, but an emblem of higher good. In Psalm civ. God is represented as "clothing himself with light as with a garment;" and in many other parts of these exquisite lyrics we have similar figures. "The Lord is my light and salvation;" "Lift up the light of thy countenance upon me;" "The entrance of thy law giveth light;" "The path of the just is as a shining light." And the great spiritual Light of the world, the "only begotten of the Father," the mediator alike in creation and redemption, is himself the "Sun of Righteousness." Perhaps the noblest Scripture passage relating to the blessing of light is one in the address of Jehovah to Job, which is unfortunately so imperfectly translated in the English version as to be almost unintelligible:

"Hast thou in thy lifetime given law to the morning,
Or caused the dawn to know its place,
That it may enclose the horizon in its grasp,
And chase the robbers before it:
It rolls along as the seal over the clay,
Causing all things to stand forth in gorgeous apparel." [46]
Job xxxviii., 12.

The concluding words, "Day one," bring us to the consideration of one of the most difficult problems in this history, and one on which its significance in a great measure depends—the meaning of the word day, and the length of the days of creation.

In pursuing this investigation, I shall refrain from noticing in detail the views of the many able modern writers who, from Cuvier, De Luc, and Jameson, down to Hugh Miller, Donald McDonald, and Tayler Lewis, have maintained the period theory, or those equally numerous and able writers who have supported the opposite view. I acknowledge obligations to them all, but prefer to direct my attention immediately to the record itself.

The first important fact that strikes us is one which has not received the attention it deserves, viz., that the word day is evidently used in three senses in the record itself. We are told (verse 5th) that God called the light, that is, the diurnal continuance of light, day. We are also informed that the evening and the morning were the first day. Day, therefore, in one of these clauses is the light as separated from the darkness, which we may call the natural day; in the other it is the whole time occupied in the creation of light and its separation from the darkness, whether that was a civil or astronomical day of twenty-four hours or some longer period. In other words, the daylight, to which God is represented as restricting the use of the term day, is only a part of a day of creation, which included both light and darkness, and which might be either a civil day or a longer period, but could not be the natural day intervening between sunrise and sunset, which is the ordinary day of Scripture phraseology. Again, in the 4th verse of chapter ii., which begins the second part of the history, the whole creative week is called one day—"In the day that Jehovah Elohim made the earth and the heavens." Such an expression must surely in such a place imply more than a mere inadvertence on the part of the writer or writers.

To pave the way for a right understanding of the day of creation, it may be well to consider, in the first place, the manner in which the shorter day is introduced. In the expression, "God called the light day," we find for the first time the Creator naming his works, and we may infer that some important purpose was to be served by this. The nature of this purpose we ascertain by comparison with other instances of the same kind occurring in the chapter. God called the darkness night, the firmament heaven, the dry land earth, the gathered waters seas. In all these cases the purpose seems to have been one of verbal definition, perhaps along with an assertion of sovereignty. It was necessary to distinguish the diurnal darkness from that unvaried darkness which had been of old, and to discriminate between the limited waters of an earth having dry land on its surface and those of the ancient universal ocean. This is effected by introducing two new terms, night and seas. In like manner it was necessary to mark the new application of the term earth to the dry land, and that of heaven to the atmosphere, more especially as these were the senses in which the words were to be popularly used. The intention, therefore, in all these cases was to affix to certain things names different from those which they had previously borne in the narrative, and to certain terms new senses differing from those in which they had been previously used. Applying this explanation here, it results that the probable reason for calling the light day is to point out that the word occurs in two senses, and that while it was to be the popular and proper term for the natural day, this sense must be distinguished from its other meaning as a day of creation. In short, we may take this as a plain and authoritative declaration that the day of creation is not the day of popular speech. We see in this a striking instance of the general truth that in the simplicity of the structure of this record we find not carelessness, but studied and severe precision, and are warned against the neglect of the smallest peculiarities in its diction.

What, then, is the day of creation, as distinguished by Moses himself from the natural day. The general opinion, and that which at first sight appears most probable, is that it is merely the ordinary civil day of twenty-four hours. Those who adopt this view insist on the impropriety of diverting the word from its usual sense. Unfortunately, however, for this argument, the word is not very frequently used in the Scriptures for the whole twenty-four hours of the earth's revolution. Its etymology gives it the sense of the time of glowing or warmth, and in accordance with this the divine authority here limits its meaning to the daylight. Accordingly throughout the Hebrew Scriptures yom is generally the natural and not the civil day; and where the latter is intended, the compound terms "day and night" and "evening and morning" are frequently used. Any one who glances over the word "day" in a good English concordance can satisfy himself of this fact. But the sense of natural day from sunrise to sunset is expressly excluded here by the context, as already shown; and all that we can say in favor of the interpretation that limits the day of creation to twenty-four hours, is that next to the use of the word for the natural day, which is its true popular meaning, its use for the civil day is perhaps the most frequent. It is therefore by no means a statement of the whole truth to affirm, as many writers have done, that the civil day is the ordinary meaning of the term. At the same time we may admit that this is one of its ordinary meanings, and therefore may be its meaning here. Another argument frequently urged is that the day of creation is said to have had an evening and morning. We shall consider this more fully in the sequel, and in the mean time may observe that it appears rather hazardous to attribute an ordinary evening and morning to a day which, on the face of the record, preceded the formation and arrangement of the luminaries which are "for days and for years." [47]

But it may be affirmed that in the Bible long and undefined periods are indicated by the word "day." In many of these cases the word is in the plural: as Genesis iv., 3, "And after days it came to pass," rendered in our version "in process of time;" Genesis xl., 4, "days in ward," rendered "a season." Such instances as these are not applicable to the present question, since the plural may have the sense of indefinite time, merely by denoting an undetermined number of natural days. Passages in which the singular occurs in this sense are those which strictly apply to the case in hand, and such are by no means rare. A very remarkable example is that in Genesis ii., 4, already mentioned, where we find, "In the day when Jehovah Elohim made the earth and the heavens." This day must either mean the beginning, or must include the whole six days; most probably the latter, since the word "made" refers not to the act of creation, properly so called, but to the elaborating processes of the creative week; and occurring as this does immediately after the narrative of creation, it seems almost like an intentional intimation of the wide import of the creative days. It has been objected, however, that the expression "in the day" is properly a compound adverb, having the force of "when" or "at the time." But the learned and ingenious authors who urge this objection have omitted to consider the relative probabilities as to whether the adverbial use had arisen while the word yom meant simply a day, or whether the use of the noun for long periods was the reason of the introduction of such an adverbial expression. The probabilities are in favor of the latter, for it is not likely that men would construct an adverb referring to indefinite time from a word denoting one of the most precisely limited portions of time, unless that word had also a second and more unlimited sense. Admitting, therefore, that the phrase is an adverb of time, its use so early as the date of the composition of Genesis, to denote a period longer than a literal day, seems to imply that this indefinite use of the word was of high antiquity, and probably preceded the invention of any term by which long periods could be denoted.

This use of the word "day" is, however, not limited to cases of the occurrence of the formula "in the day." The following are a few out of many instances that might be quoted: Job xviii., 20, "They that come after him shall be astonished at his day;" Job xv., 32, "It shall be accomplished before his time;" Judges xviii., 30, "Until the day of the captivity of the land;" Deut. i., 39, "And your children which in that day had no knowledge of good and evil;" Gen. xxxix., 10, "And it came to pass about that time" (on that day). We find also abundance of such expressions as "day of calamity," "day of distress," "day of wrath," "day of God's power," "day of prosperity." In such passages the word is evidently used in the sense of era or period of time, and this in prose as well as poetry.

There is a remarkable passage in the Psalms, which conveys the idea of a day of God as distinct from human or terrestrial days:

"Before the mountains were brought forth,
Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction,
And sayest, Return, ye children of men;
For a thousand years are in thy sight as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night." [48]

It is a singular coincidence that the authorship of this Psalm is attributed to Moses, and that its style and language correspond with the songs credited to him in Deuteronomy. It is farther to be observed that the reference is to the long periods employed in creation as contrasted with the limited space of years allotted to man. Its meaning, too, is somewhat obscured by the inaccurate translation of the third line. In the original it is, "From olam to olam thou art, O El"—that is, "from age to age." These long ages of creation, constituting a duration to us relatively eternal, were so protracted that even a thousand years are but as a watch in the night. If this Psalm is rightly attributed to the author of the first chapter of Genesis, it seems absolutely certain that he understood his own creative days as being Olamim or æons. The same thought occurs in the Second Epistle of Peter: "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day."

That the other writers of the Old Testament understood the creative days in this sense, might be inferred from the entire absence of any reference to the work of creation as short, since it occupied only six days. Such reference we may find in modern writers, but never in the Scriptures. On the contrary, we receive the impression of the creative work as long continued. Thus the divine Wisdom says in Prov. viii., The Lord possessed me "from the beginning of his way before his works of old, from everlasting, before the antiquities of the earth." So in Psalm cxlv., God's kingdom relatively to nature and providence is a kingdom "of all ages." In Psalm civ., which is a poetical version of the creative work, and the oldest extant commentary on Genesis i., it is evident that there was no idea in the mind of the writer of a short time, but rather of long consecutive processes; and I may remark here that the course of the narrative itself in Genesis i., implies time for the replenishing of the earth with various forms of being in preparation for others, exactly as in Psalm civ.

Perhaps one of the most conclusive arguments in favor of the length of the creative days is that furnished by the seventh day and the institution of the Sabbath. In Genesis the seventh day is not said to have had any evening or morning, nor is God said to have resumed his work on any eighth day. Consequently the seventh day of creation must be still current. Now in the fourth commandment the Israelites are enjoined to "remember the Sabbath-day," because "in six days God created the heavens and the earth." Observe here that the Sabbath is to be remembered as an institution already known. Observe farther that the commandment is placed in the middle of the Decalogue, a solitary piece of apparently arbitrary ritual amid the plainest and most obvious moral duties. Observe also that the reason given—namely, God's six days' work and seventh day's rest—seems at first sight both far-fetched and trivial, as an argument for abstaining from work in a seventh part of our time. How is all this to be explained? Simply, I think, on the supposition that the Lawgiver, and those for whom he legislated, knew beforehand the history of creation and the fall, as we have them recorded in Genesis, and knew that God's days are æons. The argument is not, "God worked on six natural days, and rested on the seventh; do you therefore the same." Such an argument could have no moral or religious force, more especially as it could not be affirmed that God habitually works and rests in this way. The argument reaches far deeper and higher. It is this. God created the world in six of his days, and on the seventh rested, and invited man in Eden to enter on his rest as a perpetual Sabbath of happiness. But man fell, and lost God's Sabbath. Therefore a weekly Sabbath was prescribed to him as a memorial of what he had lost, and a pledge of what God has promised in the renewal of life and happiness through our Saviour. Thus the Sabbath is the central point of the moral law—the Gospel in the Decalogue—the connection between God and man through the promise of redemption. It is this and this alone that gives it its true religious significance, but is lost on the natural-day theory. It would farther seem that this view of the law was that of our Lord himself, and was known to the Jews of his time, for, when blamed for healing a man on the Sabbath, he says, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work"—an argument whose force depended on the fact that God continues to work in his providence throughout his long Sabbath, which has never been broken except by man. Farther, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews takes this view in arguing as to the rest or Sabbatism that remains to the people of God. His argument (chap. iv., 4) may be stated thus: God finished his work and entered into his rest. Man, in consequence of the fall, failed to do so. He has made several attempts since, but unsuccessfully. Now Christ has finished his work, and has entered into his Sabbath, and through him we may enter into that rest of God which otherwise we can not attain to. This does not, it is true, refer to the keeping of a Sabbath-day; but it implies an understanding of the reference to God's olamic Sabbath, and also implies that Christ, having entered into his Sabbatism in heaven, gives us a warrant for the Christian Sabbath or Lord's day, which has the same relation to Christ's present Sabbatism in heaven that the old Sabbath had to God's rest from his work of creation. [49]

We may add to these considerations the use of the Greek term Ai[=o]n in the New Testament, for what may be called time-worlds as distinguished from space-worlds. For example, take the expression in Heb. i., 2: "His Son, by whom he made the worlds," or, literally, "constituted the æons"—the long time-worlds of the creation. For God's worlds must exist in time as well as in space, and both may to our minds alike appear as infinities. If, then, we find that Moses himself seems to have understood his creative days as æons, that the succeeding Old Testament writers favor the same view, that this view is essential to the true significance of the Sabbath and the Lord's day, and that it is sustained by Christ and his apostles, there is surely no need for our clinging to a mediæval notion which has no theological value, and is in opposition to the facts of nature. On the contrary, should not even children be taught these grand truths, and led to contemplate the great work of Him who is from æon to æon, and to think of that Sabbatism which he prepared for us, and which he still offers to us in the future, in connection with the succession of worlds in time revealed by geology, and which rivals in grandeur and perhaps exceeds in interest the extension of worlds in space revealed by astronomy. In truth, we should bear in mind that the great revelations of astronomy have too much habituated us to think of space-worlds rather than time-worlds, while the latter idea was evidently dominant with the Biblical writers as it is also with modern geologists. Viewed as æons—divine days, or time-worlds—the days of creation are thus a reality for all ages; and connect themselves with the highest moral teachings of the Bible in relation to the fall of man and God's plan for his restoration, begun in this seventh æon of the world's long history, and to be completed in that second divine Sabbatism, secured by the work of redemption, the final "rest" of the "new heavens and new earth," which remains for the people of God.

But supposing that the inspired writer intended to say that the world was formed in six long periods of time, could not he have used some other word than yom that would have been liable to fewer doubts. There are words which might have been used, as, for instance, eth, time, season, or olam, age, ancient time, eternity. The former, however, has about it a want of precision as to its beginning and end which unfits it for this use; the latter we have already seen is used as equivalent to the creative yom. On the whole, I am unable to find any instance which would justify me in affirming that, on the supposition that Moses intended long periods, he could have better expressed the idea than by the use of the word yom, more especially if he and those to whom he wrote were familiar with the thought, preserved to us in the mythology of the Hindoos and Persians, and probably widely diffused in ancient Asia, that a working day of the Creator immeasurably transcends a working day of man. [50]

Many objections to the view which I have thus endeavored to support from internal evidence will at once occur to every intelligent reader familiar with the literature of this subject. I shall now attempt to give the principal of these objections a candid consideration.

(1.) It is objected that the time occupied in the work of creation is given as a reason for the observance of the seventh day as a Sabbath; and that this requires us to view the days of creation as literal days. "For in six days Jehovah made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; therefore Jehovah blessed the Sabbath-day and sanctified it." The argument used here is, however, as we have already seen, one of analogy. Because God rested on his seventh day, he blessed and sanctified it, and required men in like manner to sanctify their seventh day. [51] Now, if it should appear that the working day of God is not the same with the working day of man, and that the Sabbath of God is of proportionate length to his working day, the analogy is not weakened; more especially as we find the same analogy extended to the seventh year. If it should be said, God worked in the creation of the world in six long ages, and rested on the seventh, therefore man, in commemoration of this fact, and of his own loss of an interest in God's rest by the fall, shall sanctify the seventh of his working days, the argument is stronger, the example more intelligible, than on the common supposition. This objection is, in fact, a piece of pedantic hyperorthodoxy which has too long been handed about without investigation. I may add to what has been already said in reference to it, the following vigorous thrust by Hugh Miller: [52]

"I can not avoid thinking that many of our theologians attach a too narrow meaning to the remarkable reason attached to the fourth commandment by the divine Lawgiver. "God rested on the seventh day," says the text, "from all his work which he had created and made; and God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." And such is the reason given in the Decalogue why man should rest on the Sabbath-day. God rested on the Sabbath-day and sanctified it; and therefore man ought also to rest on the Sabbath and keep it holy. But I know not where we shall find grounds for the belief that the Sabbath-day during which God rested was merely commensurate with one of the Sabbaths of short-lived man—a brief period measured by a single revolution of the earth on its axis. We have not, as has been shown, a shadow of evidence that he resumed his work of creation on the morrow; the geologist finds no trace of post-Adamic creation; the theologian can tell us of none. God's Sabbath of rest may still exist; the work of redemption may be the work of his Sabbath-day. That elevatory process through successive acts of creation, which engaged him during myriads of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character; but when the term of his moral government began, the elevatory process peculiar to it assumed the divine character of the Sabbath. This special view appears to lend peculiar emphasis to the reason embodied in the commandment. The collation of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by a species of retranslation, to make it enunciate as its injunction, "Keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to a past fact, but also as a day of co-operation with God in the work of elevation, in relation both to a present fact and a future purpose." "God keeps his Sabbath," it says, "in order that he may save; keep yours also that ye may be saved." It serves besides to throw light on the prominence of the Sabbatical command, in a digest of law of which no jot or tittle can pass away until the fulfillment of all things. During the present dynasty of probation and trial, that special work of both God and man on which the character of the future dynasty depends is the Sabbath-day work of saving and being saved.

"The common objection to that special view which regards the days of creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. It first takes for granted that the Sabbath-day during which God rested was a day of but twenty-four hours, and then argues from the supposition that, in order to keep up the proportion between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these previous days must also have been twenty-four hours each. It would, I have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and be at least equally in accordance with Scripture, to reverse the process, and argue that because God's working days were immensely protracted periods, his Sabbath also must be an immensely protracted period. The reason attached to the law of the Sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion: the objection to which I refer is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion, and certainly were the reason to be divested of proportion, it would be divested also of its distinctive character as a reason. Were it as follows, it could not be at all understood: "Six days shalt thou labor, etc.; but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labor, etc.; for in six immensely protracted periods of several thousand years each did the Lord make the heavens and the earth, etc.; and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore the Lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours and hallowed it." This, I repeat, would not be reason. All, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the reason, in its character as such, is that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. God's periods may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantities, and man's periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known; but if God's Sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man's Sabbath equal to one of his six working days, the integrity of proportion is maintained."

Not only does this view of the case entirely remove the objection, but, as we have already seen, it throws a new light on the nature and reason of the Sabbath. No good reason, except that of setting an example, can be assigned for God's resting for a literal day. But if God's Sabbath of rest from natural creation is still in progress, and if our short Sabbaths are symbolical of the work of that great Sabbath in its present gray morning and in its coming glorious noon, then may the Christian thank this question, incidentally raised by geology and its long periods, for a ray of light which shines along the whole course of Scripture history, from the first Sabbath up to that final "rest which remaineth for the people of God." [53]

(2.) It is objected that evening and morning are ascribed to the first day. This has been already noticed; it may here be considered more fully. The word evening in the original is literally the darkening, the sunset, the dusk. Morning is the opening or breaking forth of light—the daybreak. It must not be denied that the explanation of these terms is attended with some difficulty, but this is not at all lessened by narrowing the day to twenty-four hours. The first operation of the first day was the creation of light; next we have the Creator contemplating his work and pronouncing it to be good; then we have the separation of the light and darkness, previously, it is to be presumed, intermixed; and all this without the presence of a sun or other luminary. Which of these operations occupied the evening, and which the morning, if the day consisted of but twenty-four hours, beginning, according to Hebrew custom, in the evening? Was the old primeval darkness the evening or night, and the first breaking forth of light morning? This is almost the only view compatible with the Hebrew civil day beginning at evening, but it would at once lengthen the day beyond twenty-four hours, and contradict the terms of the record. Again, were the separated light and darkness the morning and evening? If so, why is the evening mentioned first, contrary to the supposed facts of the case? why, indeed, are the evening and morning mentioned at all, since on that supposition this is merely a repetition? Lastly, shall we adopt the ingenious expedient of dividing the evening and morning between two days, and maintaining that the evening belongs to the first and the morning to the second day, which would deprive the first day of a morning, and render the creative days, whatever their length, altogether different from Hebrew natural or civil days? It is unnecessary to pursue such inquiries farther, since it is evident that the terms of the record will not agree with the supposition of natural evening and morning. This is of itself a strong presumption against the hypothesis of civil days, since the writer was under no necessity so to word these verses that they would not give any rational or connected sense on the supposition of natural evening and morning, unless he wished to be otherwise understood.

But what is the meaning of evening and morning, if these days were long periods? Here fewer difficulties meet us. First: It is readily conceivable that the beginning and end of a period named a day should be called evening and morning. But what made the use of these divisions necessary or appropriate? I answer that nature and revelation both give grounds at least to suspect that the evening, or earlier part of each period, was a time of comparative inaction, sometimes even of retrogression, and that the latter part of each period was that of its greatest activity and perfection. Thus, on the views stated in a former chapter, in the first day there was a time when luminous matter, either gradually concentrating itself toward the sun, or surrounding the earth itself, shed a dim but slowly increasing light; then there were day and night, the light increasing in intensity as, toward the end of the period, the luminous matter became more and more concentrated around the sun. So in our own seventh day, the earlier part was a time of deplorable retrogression, and though the Sun of Righteousness has arisen, we have seen as yet only a dim and cloudy morning. On the theory of days of vision, as expounded by Hugh Miller, in the "Testimony of the Rocks," in one of his noblest passages, the evening and night fall on each picture presented to the seer like the curtain of a stage. Secondly: Though the explanation stated above is the most probable, the hypothesis of long periods admits of another, namely, that the writer means to inform us that evening and morning, once established by the separation of light from darkness, continued without cessation throughout the remainder of the period—rolling from this time uninterruptedly around our planet, like the seal cylinder over the clay. [54] This explanation is, however, less applicable to the following days than to the first. Nor does this accord with the curious fact that the seventh day, which, on the hypothesis of long periods, is still in progress, is not said to have had an evening or morning.

(3.) It is objected that the first chapter of Genesis "is not a poem nor a piece of oratorical diction," but a simple prosaic narrative, and consequently that its terms must be taken in a literal sense. In answer to this, I urge that the most truly literal sense of the word, namely, the natural day, is excluded by the terms of the narrative; and that the word may be received as a literal day of the Creator, in the sense of one of his working periods, without involving the use of poetical diction, and in harmony with the wording of plain prosaic passages in other parts of the Bible. Examples of this have already been given. It is, however, true that, though the first chapter of Genesis is not strictly poetical, it is thrown into a metrical form which admits of some approach to a figurative expression in the case of a term of this kind.

(4.) It has been urged that in cases where day is used to denote period, as in the expressions "day of calamity," etc., the adjuncts plainly show that it can not mean an ordinary day. In answer to this, I merely refer to the internal evidence already adduced, and to the deliberate character of the statements, in the manner rather of the description of processes than of acts. The difficulties attending the explanation of the evening and the morning, and the successive creation of herbivorous and carnivorous animals, are also strong indications which should serve here to mark the sense, just as the context does in the cases above referred to.

(5.) In Professor Hitchcock's valuable and popular "Religion of Geology," I find some additional objections, which deserve notice as specimens of the learned trifles which pass current among writers on this subject, much to the detriment of sound Scriptural literature. I give them in the words of the author. 1. "From Genesis ii., 5 compared with Genesis i., 11 and 12, it seems that it had not rained on the earth till the third day; a fact altogether probable if the days were of twenty-four hours, but absurd if they were long periods." It strikes us that the absurdity here is all on the side of the short days. Why should any prominence be given to a fact so common as the lapse of two ordinary days without rain, more especially if a region of the earth and not the whole is referred to, and in a document prepared for a people residing in climates such as those of Egypt and Palestine. But what could be more instructive and confirmatory of the truth of the narrative than the fact that in the two long periods which preceded the formation and clearing up of the atmosphere or firmament, on which rain depends, and the elevation of the dry land, which so greatly modifies its distribution, there had been no rain such as now occurs. This is a most important fact, and one of the marked coincidences of the record with scientific truth. The objection, therefore, merely shows that the ordinary day hypothesis tends to convert one of the finest internal harmonies of this wonderful history into an empty and, in some respects, absurd commonplace. 2. "This hypothesis (that days are long periods) assumes that Moses describes the creation of all the animals and plants that have ever lived on 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 Palæontology, 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 plants, not flowerless and seedless algæ. Again, reptiles are described in Genesis as created on the fifth day; but reptilia and batrachians existed as early as the time when the lower carboniferous and even old red sandstone were in course of deposition, as their tracks on those rocks in Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania evince. [56] In short, if we maintain that Moses describes fossils as well as living species, we find discrepancy instead of correspondence between his order of creation and that of geology." In this objection it is assumed that the geological history of the earth goes back to the third day of creation, or, in other words, to the dawn of organic life. None of the greater authorities in geology would, however, now venture to make such an assertion, and the progress of geology is rapidly making the contrary more and more probable. The fact is that, on the supposition that the days of creation are long periods, the whole series of the fossiliferous rocks belongs to the fifth and sixth days; and that for the early plant creation of the third day, and the great physical changes of the fourth, geology has nothing as yet to show, except a mass of metamorphosed eozoic rocks which have hitherto yielded no fossils except a few Protozoa; but which contain vast quantities of carbon in the form of graphite, which may be the remains of plants.

I have much pleasure in quoting, as a further answer to these objections, the following from Professor Dana: [57]

"Accepting the account in Genesis as true, the seeming discrepancy between it and geology rests mainly here: Geology holds, and has held from the first, that the progress of creation was mainly through secondary causes; for the existence of the science presupposes this. Moses, on the contrary, was thought to sustain the idea of a simple fiat for each step. Grant this first point to science, and what farther conflict is there? The question of the length of time, it is replied. But not so; for if we may take the record as allowing more than six days of twenty-four hours, the Bible then places no limit to time. The question of the days and periods, it is replied again. But this is of little moment in comparison with the first principle granted. Those who admit the length of time and stand upon days of twenty-four hours have to place geological time before the six days, and then assume a chaos and reordering of creation, on the six-day and fiat principle, after a previous creation that had operated for a long period through secondary causes. Others take days as periods, and thus allow the required time, admitting that creation was one in progress, a grand whole, instead of a first creation excepting man by one method, and a second with man by the other. This is now the remaining question between the theologians and geologists; for all the minor points, as to the exact interpretation of each day, do not affect the general concordance or discordance of the Bible and science.

"On this point geology is now explicit in its decision, and indeed has long been so. It proves that there was no return to chaos, no great revolution, that creation was beyond doubt one in its progress. We know that some geologists have taken the other view. But it is only in the capacity of theologians, and not as geologists. The Rev. Dr. Buckland, in placing the great events of geology between the first and second verses of the Mosaic account, did not pretend that there was a geological basis for such an hypothesis; and no writer since has ever brought forward the first fact in geology to support the idea of a rearrangement just before man; not one solitary fact has ever been appealed to. The conclusion was on Biblical grounds, and not in any sense on geological. The best that Buckland could say, when he wrote twenty-five years since, was that geology did not absolutely disprove such an hypothesis; and that can not be said now.

"It is often asserted, in order to unsettle confidence in these particular teachings of geology, that geology is a changing science. In this connection the remark conveys an erroneous impression. Geology is a progressive science; and all its progress tends to establish more firmly these two principles: (1) The slow progress of creation through secondary causes, as explained; and (2) the progress by periods analogous to the days of Genesis."

I have, I trust, shown that the principal objections to the lengthening of the Mosaic days into great cosmical periods are of a character too light and superficial to deserve any regard. I shall now endeavor to add to the internal evidence previously given some considerations of an external character which support this view.

1. The fact that the creation was progressive, that it proceeded from the formation of the raw material of the universe, through successive stages, to the perfection of living organisms, if we regard the analogy of God's operations as disclosed in the geological history of the earth and in the present course of nature, must impress us with a suspicion that long periods were employed in the work. God might have prepared the earth for man in an instant. He did not choose to do so, but on the contrary proceeded step by step; and the record he has given us does not receive its full significance nor attain its full harmony with the course of geological history, unless we can understand each day of the creative week as including a long succession of ages.

2. We have, as already explained, reason to believe that the seventh day at least has been of long duration. At the close of the sixth, God rested from all his work of material creation, and we have as yet no evidence that he has resumed it. Neither theologians nor evolutionists will, I presume, desire to maintain that any strictly creative acts have occurred in the modern period of geology. We know that the present day, if it is the seventh, has lasted already for at least six thousand years, and, if we may judge from the testimony of prophecy, has yet a long space to run, before it merges in that "new heaven and new earth" for which all believers look, and which will constitute the first day of an endless sabbatism.

3. The philosophical and religious systems of many ancient nations afford intimations of the somewhat extensive prevalence in ancient times of the notion of long creative periods, corresponding to the Mosaic days. These notions, in so far as they are based on truth, are probably derived from the Mosaic narrative itself, or from the primitive patriarchal documents which may have formed the basis of that narrative. They are, no doubt, all more or less garbled versions, and can not be regarded as of any authority, but they serve to show what was the interpretation of the document in a very remote antiquity. I have collected from a variety of sources the following examples:

The ancient mythology of Persia appears to have had six creative periods, each apparently of a thousand years, and corresponding very nearly with the Mosaic days. [58] The Chaldeans had a similar system, to which in a previous chapter we have already referred. The Etruscans possessed a history of the creation, somewhat resembling that of the Bible, and representing the creation as occupying six periods of a thousand years each. [59]

The Egyptians believed that the world had been subject to a series of destructions and renewals, the intervals between which amounted to 120,000 years, or, according to other authorities, to 300,000 or 360,000 years. This system of destruction and renewal the Egyptian priests appear to have wrought out into considerable detail, but though important truths may be concealed under their mysterious dogmas, it will not repay us to dwell on the fragments that remain of them. There can be no doubt, however, that at least the basis of the Egyptian cosmogony must have been the common property of all the Hamite nations, of which Egypt was the greatest and most permanent; and therefore in all probability derived from the ideas of creation which were current not long after the Deluge. The Egyptians appear also, as already stated, to have had a physical cosmogony, beginning with a chaos in which heaven and earth were mingled, and from which were evolved fiery matters which ascended into the heavens, and moist earthy matters which formed the earth and the sea; and from these were produced, by the agency of solar heat, the various animals. The terms of this cosmogony, as it is given by Diodorus Siculus, indicate the belief of long formative periods. [60]

The Hindoos have a somewhat extended, though, according to the translations, a not very intelligible cosmogony. It plainly, however, asserts long periods of creative work, and is interesting as an ancient cosmogony preserved entire and without transmission through secondary channels. The following is a summary, in so far as I have been able to gather it, from the translation of the Institutes of Menu by Sir W. Jones. [61]

The introduction to the Institutes represents Menu as questioned by the "divine sages" respecting the laws that should regulate all classes or castes. He proceeds to detail the course of creation, stating that the "Self-existing Power, [62] undiscovered, but making this world discernible, He whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external senses, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even the soul of all being, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person."

After giving this exalted view of the Creator, the writer proceeds to state that the Self-existent created the waters, and then an egg, from which he himself comes forth as Brahma the forefather of spirits. "The waters are called Nara because they are the production of Nara, the spirit of God, and since they were his first Ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named Narayana, or moving on the waters. In the egg Brahma remained a year, and caused the egg to divide, forming the heaven above and the earth beneath, and the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the receptacle of waters between. He then drew forth from the supreme soul mind with all its powers and properties." The rest of the account appears to be very confused, and I confess to a great extent unintelligible to me. There follows, however, a continuation of the narrative, stating that there is a succession of seven Menus, each of whom produces and supports the earth during his reign. It is in the account of these successive Menus that the following statement respecting the days and years of Brahma occurs:

"A day of the Gods is equal to a year. Four thousand years of the Gods are called a Critya or Satya age. Four ages are an age of the Gods. One thousand divine ages (equal to more than four millions of human years) are a day of Brahma the Creator. Seventy-two divine ages are one manwantara. * * * The aggregate of four ages they call a divine age, and believe that in every thousand such ages, or in every day of Brahma, fourteen Menus are successively invested with the sovereignty of the earth. Each Menu they suppose transmits his authority to his sons and grandsons during a period of seventy-two divine ages, and such a period they call a manwantara. Thirty such days (of the Creator), or calpas, constitute a month of Brahma; twelve such months one of his years, and 100 such years his age, of which they assert that fifty years have elapsed. We are thus, according to the Hindoos, in the first day or calpa of the fifty-first year of Brahma's life, and in the twenty-eighth divine age of the seventh manwantara of that day. In the present day of Brahma the first Menu was named the Son of the Self-existent, and by him the institutes of religion and civil duties are said to have been delivered. In his time occurred a new creation called the Lotos creation." Of five Menus who succeeded him, Sir William could find little but the names, but the accounts of the seventh are very full, and it appears that in his reign the earth was destroyed by a flood. Sir William suggests that the first Menu may represent the creation, and that the seventh may be Noah. The name Menu or Manu is equivalent to "man," and signifies "the intelligent." [63]

In this Hindoo cosmogony we have many points of correspondence with the Scripture narrative: for instance, the Self-existent Creator; the agency of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit; the absolute creation of matter; the hovering of the Spirit over the primeval waters; the sevenfold division of the creative process; and the idea of days of the Creator of immense duration. If we suppose the day of Brahma in the Hindoo cosmogony to represent the Mosaic day, then it amounts to no less than 4,320,000 years; or if, with Sir W. Jones, we suppose the manwantara to represent the Mosaic day, its duration will be 308,571 years; and the total antiquity of the earth, without counting the undefined "beginning," will be either more than twenty-five or than two millions of years. It would be folly, however, to suppose that these Hindoo numbers, which are probably purely conjectural, or based on astronomical cycles, make any near approximation to the facts of the case. The Institutes of Menu are probably in their present form not of great antiquity, but there are other Hindoo documents of greater age which maintain similar views, and it is probable that the account of the creation in the Institutes is at least an imperfect version of the original narrative as it existed among the earliest colonists of India. [64] It corresponds in many points with the oldest notions on these subjects that remain to us in the wrecks of the mythology of Egypt and other ancient nations, and it aids in proving that the fabulous ages of gods and demigods in the ancient mythologies are really pre-Adamite; and belong not to human history, but to the work of creation. It also shows that the idea of long creative periods as equivalents of the Mosaic days must, in the infancy of the postdiluvian world, have been very widely diffused. Such evidence is, no doubt, of small authority in the interpretation of Scripture; but it must be admitted that serious consideration is due to a method of interpretation which thus tends to bring the Mosaic account into harmony with the facts of modern science, and with the belief of almost universal antiquity, and at the same time gives it its fullest significance and most perfect internal symmetry of parts. It is also very interesting to note the wide diffusion among the most ancient nations of cosmological views identical in their main features with those of the Bible, proving, almost beyond doubt, that these views had some common and very ancient source, and commanded universal belief among the primitive tribes of men.

I have hitherto in this part of the discussion avoided detailed reference to what may be regarded as the "prophetic day" view of the narrative of creation. This may be shortly stated as follows: In the prophetical parts of Scripture the prophet sees in vision, as in a picture or acted scene, the events that are to come to pass, and in consequence represents years or longer periods by days of vision. Now the revelation of the pre-Adamite past is in its nature akin to that of the unknown future; and Moses may have seen these wondrous events in vision—in visions of successive days—under the guise of which he presents geological time. Some things in the form of the narrative favor this view, and it certainly affords the most clearly intelligible theory as to the mode in which such a revelation may have been made to man. It is advocated by Kurtz, by the author of an excellent little work, the "Harmony of the Mosaic and Geological Records," by Hugh Miller, and more recently by Tayler Lewis. To these writers I must refer for its more full illustration, and for the grand pictorial view which it gives of the vision of the creative week.

In reviewing the somewhat lengthy train of reasoning into which the term "day" has led us, it appears that from internal evidence alone it can be rendered probable that the day of creation is neither the natural nor the civil day. It also appears that the objections urged against the doctrine of day-periods are of no weight when properly scrutinized, and that it harmonizes with the progressive nature of the work, the evidence of geology, and the cosmological notions of ancient nations. I do not suppose that this position has been incontrovertibly established; but I believe that every serious difficulty has been removed from its acceptance; and with this, for the present, I remain satisfied. Every step of our subsequent progress will afford new criteria of its truth or fallacy.

One further question of some interest is—What, according to the theory of long creative days and the testimony of geology, would be the length and precise cosmical nature of these days? With regard to the first part of the question, we do not know the actual value of our geological ages in time; but it is probable that each great creative æon may have extended through millions of years. As to the nature of the days, this may have been determined by direct volitions of the Creator, or indirectly by some of those great astronomical cycles which arise from the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, or the diminution of the velocity of its rotation, or by its gradual cooling.

With reference to these points, science has as yet little information to give. Sir William Thomson has, indeed, indicated for the time since the earth's crust first began to form a period of between one and two hundred millions of years; but Professor Guthrie Tait, on the other hand, argues that ten or fifteen millions of years are probably sufficient, [65] and Lockyer has suggested an hypothesis of successive rekindlings of the solar heat which might give a more protracted time than that of Thomson. Some of the hypotheses of derivation current, but which are based rather on philosophical speculation than on scientific fact, would also require a longer time than that allowed by Thomson; and it is to be regretted that some geologists, by giving credence to such hypotheses of derivation, and by loose reasoning on the time required for the denudation and deposition of rocks, have been induced to commit themselves to very extravagant estimates as to geological time. On the whole, it is evident that only the most vague guesses can at present be based on the facts in our possession, though the whole time required has unquestionably been very great, the deposition of the series of stratified rocks probably requiring at least the greater part of the minimum time allowed by Thomson. [66]

As to the cosmical nature of the periods, while some geologists appear to regard the whole of geological time as a continuous evolution without any breaks, it is evidently more in accordance with facts to hold that there have been cycles of repose and activity succeeding each other, and that these have been of different grades. In the succession of deposits it is plain that periods of depression and upheaval common to all the continental masses have succeeded each other at somewhat regular intervals, and that within these periods there have been alternations of colder and warmer climates. These, however, are not equal to the creative days of our record, for they are greatly more numerous. They are but the vastly protracted hours of these almost endless days. Beyond and above these there is another grade of geological period, marked not by mere gradual elevation and depression of the continental areas, but by vast crumplings of the earth's crust and enormous changes of level. Such a great movement unquestionably closed the Eozoic period of geology. Another of less magnitude occurred in what is termed the Permian age at the end of the Palæozoic. A third terminated the Mesozoic age, and introduced the Tertiary or Kainozoic. Perhaps we should reckon the glacial age, though characterized by far less physical change than the others, as a fourth. The possible physical causes which have been suggested for such greater disturbances are the collapses of the crust in equatorial regions, which may be supposed to have resulted at long intervals of time, from the gradual retardation of the earth's rotation caused by the tides, or the similar collapses and other changes due to the shrinkages of the earth's interior caused by its gradual cooling, and to the unequal deposition of material by water on different parts of its surface. [67] The more full discussion of these points belongs, however, to a future chapter.

These greater movements of the crust, would, as already stated, coincide to some extent with the later creative days in the manner indicated below: