on 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.

____

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 difficulti