On the relation between Holy Scriptures and some parts of Geological Science. By John Pye Smith, D.D., F.G.S. [pp. 368-394]

385 Relation betiteen Scripture and Geoio~. ~JULr
but in pbysical magnitude, by far the greatest of the Creator's
~vorks; arid that tl~e entire furniture of the heavens is solely
a provision for our coiivenieiice aiid comfort. Yet the actual truth is, that if not our earth merely; but tlie entire solar system, ~vere to be blotted out of existelice, it would be
no more missed ill the aspect of the universe, except to the
glorious Creator's eye, than a grain of sand blown away
from the sea shore." Smith, pp. 236-7.
Another leading poilit of colitact between geology and rerelation, is, that the doctri~~es of the former iniply "the dominioii of pain and death over the animal creation," ages
before the existence of man: while the latter is geiierally nil
derstood to teach, that, " before our first parents fell fiom innocei~ce and happiiiess, death and its harbingers had no place
in the inferior animal creation."
It is urged in reply, that it is only in relation to the human
family, that "death aiid its harbingers" are ascribed in the
Bible to the introduction of sin: that their previous existence
is supposed in tlie very threatniug which guarded the forbiddeti fi'uit, for otherwise that thieatning would have been
~inintelligible; and that the law of propagatio1~ established
in connexion ~vith the co~tntless tribes of atiimals, necessarily implied the existence of death, for otherwise they would
soon have exceeded in multitude, the limits of possible subsistence. The ~ame thitig is argued from the existence of
cArnivorous animal& It is one of the established ft~ndamental principles of comparative anatomy, that the character and
habits ot animals are displayed ii~ every boiie and musde of
the body. To suppose that the lion, e. g. was not cariiivo
roiis before the fall of man, would reqtiire not oiily a change
in the form of its teeth aiid the structure of its claws, but
that the fiinctioiis of its stomach, its nutritive powers, the
fon~ atid size of its hones the strength aiid fastenings of its
muscles, in a word almost every fibre of its body, must have
undergone, not modifications merely, but radical alterations.
It would in fact be tantamount to supposiug that carnivorous
animats were created since tlie fall;-of which the Bible
gives us no intimation, although they form so large a por
tion of the brute race The argument is still strengthened
by the consideration, that aninial subsistence, even upon
vegetable food, is impossible without amazing destruction of
a~imal life. Every otie knows that vegetables of all sorts
swarm with insects, and even the very juices of plants, and
the water we drink are full of animalcula. These m~ist have