4. " Dr. Pye .Smith, in his (ieolocpj nnd Scripture, suggested that the chaotic period had been confined and limited to one particular portion of tlie earth's surface, viz. that part Avhich God was adapting for the dwelliug-i)lace of man and the animals connected with him. This section of the earth he designates as 'a part of Asia lying between the Caucasian range, the Caspian Sea, and Tartary on the north, the Persian and Indian seas on the south, and the mountain ridges wliich run, at considerable distances, on tlie eastern and western flanks;' and he suggests that this region was brought by atmospheric and geological causes into a condition of superficial ruin, or some kind of general disorder. This theory left to the geoloy:ist his unbro- ken series of plants and animals in all ]iarts of the world, with tlie exception of this particular locality. But tlie explanation was never received with favor, and was obviously inconsistent with the language of
Scripture, inasmuch as the term 'the earth,' in the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis, embraces the whole of the terrestrial globe, and ' the earth' that is, in the next verse, described as ' without form and void,' cannot be more restricted in its meaning and extent." This theory, however, is maintained liv one of the latest expositors of this portion of Scripture (]\Iurphy, Commentary on Genesis, ad loc).
5. Another scheme of reconciliation of Scripture and geology has for its foundation the assumption that the Mosaic days designate periods of vast and undefined extent — that the six days of creation portray six long periods of time, which commenced with "the begin- ning," and have succeeded each other from thence through the various scenes depicted by Moses, up to and inclusive of the creation of man ; and that the seventh day, on which God rested from his work of creation, is still current. Against such a construction of the word " f/o^" in the Mosaic record. Dr. Buck- land, who was one of the advocates for the natural-day interpretation, asserts that "there is no sound critic- al or theological objection ;" an admission, however, which there is aVuindant leason to dispute. Sec Day.
"Long before the question had assumed the import tance and interest which the discoveries of geology have given to it, many well-informed philologists ad- vocated the opinion that the Mosaic daj's were periods of long duration. Among the Jews, Josephus and Philo, and of Christians, AVhiston, Des Cartes, and De Luc, have so expressed themselves ; while of those who have Avritten with full knowledge of geological facts, we have Cuvier, Parkinson, Jameson, Sillinian, and Hugh Miller — all of them holding the opinion that the Mosaic days of creation were successive periods of long duration." Nevertheless, in a hermeneutical point of view, this theory is open to the gravest objec- tions. See Cosmogony, Mosaic.
The statement of Prof. Taj'ler Lewis is perhaps the most finished form of this fashionable theorizing, name- 1}', that, as St. Augustine expresses it, "common solar days are mere ricissiivdincs call, mere changes in the position of the heavenly bodies, and not spatia mora- riim, or evolutions in nature belonging to a higher chro- nology, and marking their epochs by a law of inward change instead of incidental outward measurements. .... This is not a metaphorical, but the real and proper sense of the word 'day'- — the most real and proper, the original sense, in fact, inasmuch as it con- tains the essential idea of cyclicity or rounded perio- dicity, or self-completed time, without any of the mere accidents that belong to the outwardly measured solar
or planetary epochs, be thej' longer or shorter
Wonderful things are told out of the common use of language, and therefore common terms are to be taken in their w idest compass, and in their essential instead of their accidental idea. . . . No better term could be used for the creative morcr, pauses, or successive nat- ures, as Augustine styles them ; and so no better words than ' evening' and ' morning' could be used for the antithetical vicissitudes through which these succes- sions were introduced" (Lange's Genesis, p. 131). This appears to us a gratuitous assumption of the whole question in debate, and tliat in a form so nearly akin to pure transcendentalism as to be beyond tlie reach of sober criticism. Its acceptance or rejection will de- pend upon the subjective condition of tlie inquirer's own mind. But this interpretation, whether true or false, does not, in fact, at all touch tlie real difhculty be- tween the geologists and Moses ; it rather occasions that difficulty, for it essentially identifies the creative roras of the two schemes. Now the discrepancy in question, as we shall see, relates not so much to the absolute or comparative length of the several creative processes, as to their relative order and character. These are unmistakably fixed in the most marked and indelible characters in the respective records of geol- ogy and Genesis, and, unfortunately for the theory in
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question, they altogether fail to tally. However in- definite an extension, tlierefore, we may give to the word " day" in the sacred narrative, this will avail lit- tle so long as the successive events themselves so ■\videh- ditler from those of the scientific system. More- over, tlie creations of the geological world overlap each other, and vary in their relative position in dif- ferent regions, whereas tliosc of the Biblical cosmog- ony are strictl^v consecutive and universal.