Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

Philip Henry Gosse

Omphalos: An Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot

I

THE CAUSE

"Is there not a cause?" – 1 Sam. xvii. 29

An eminent philosopher has observed that "nothing can be more common or frequent than to appeal to the evidence of the senses as the most unerring test of physical effects. It is by the organs of sense, and by these alone, that we can acquire any knowledge of the qualities of external objects, and of their mutual effects when brought to act one upon another, whether mechanically, physically, or chemically; and it might, therefore, not unreasonably be supposed, that what is called the evidence of the senses must be admitted to be conclusive, as to all the phenomena developed by such reciprocal action.

"Nevertheless, the fallacies are numberless into which those are led who take what they consider the immediate results of sensible impressions, without submitting them to the severe control and disciplined analysis of the understanding."1

If this verdict is confessedly true with regard to many observations which we make on things immediately present to our senses, much more likely is it to be true with respect to conclusions which are not "the immediate results of sensible impressions," but are merely deduced by a process of reasoning from such impressions. And if the direct evidence of our senses is to be received with a prudent reserve, because of this possibility of error, even when we have no evidence of an opposing character, still more necessary is the exercise of caution in judging of facts assumed to have occurred at a period far removed from our own experience, and which stand in contradiction (at least apparent, primâ facie, contradiction) to credible historic testimony. Nay, the caveat acquires a greatly intensified force, when the testimony with which the assumed facts are, or seem to be, at variance, is no less a testimony than His who ordained the "facts," who made the objects of investigation; the testimony of the Creator of all things; the testimony of Him who is, from eternity to eternity, "Ὁ 'ΑΨΕΥΔΗΣ ΘΕΟΣ"!

I hope I shall not be deemed censorious in stating my fear that those who cultivate the physical sciences are not always sufficiently mindful of the "Humanum est errare." What we have investigated with no little labour and patience, what we have seen with our eyes many many times, in many aspects, and under many circumstances, we naturally believe firmly; and we are very prone to attach the same assurance of certainty to the inferences we have, bonâ fide, and with scrupulous care to eliminate error, deduced from our observations, as to the observations themselves; and we are apt to forget that some element of error may have crept into our actual investigations, and still more probably into our deductions. Even if our observations be so simple, so patent, so numerous, as almost to preclude the possibility of mistake in them, and our process of reasoning from them be without a flaw, still we may have overlooked a principle, which, though perhaps not very obvious, ought to enter into the investigation, and which, if recognised, would greatly modify our conclusions.

In this volume I venture to suggest such a principle to the consideration of geologists. It will not be denied that Geology is a science that stands peculiarly in need of being cultivated with that salutary self-distrust that I have above alluded to. Though a strong and healthy child, it is as yet but an infant. The objects on which its senses have been exercised, its τα βλεπομενα, are indeed plain enough and numerous enough, when once discovered; but the inferences drawn from them, its βεβαια, find their sphere in the most venerably remote antiquity, – an antiquity mensurable not by years or centuries, but by secula seculorum. And the dicta, which its votaries rest on as certitudes, are at variance with the simple literal sense of the words of God.

I am not assuming here that the Inspired Word has been rightly read; I merely say that the plain straightforward meaning, the meaning that lies manifestly on the face of the passages in question, is in opposition with the conclusions which geologists have formed, as to the antiquity and the genesis of the globe on which we live.

Perhaps the simple, superficial sense of the Word is not the correct one; but it is at least that which its readers, learned and unlearned, had been generally content with before; and which would, I suppose, scarcely have been questioned, but for what appeared the exigencies of geological facts.

Now while there are, unhappily, not a few infidels, professed or concealed, who eagerly seize on any apparent discrepancy between the works and the Word of God, in order that they may invalidate the truth of the latter, there are, especially in this country, many names of the highest rank in physical (and, among other branches, in geological) science, to whom the veracity of God is as dear as life. They cannot bear to see it impugned; they know that it cannot be overthrown; they are assured that He who gave the Word, and He who made the worlds, is One Jehovah, who cannot be inconsistent with Himself. But they cannot shut their eyes to the startling fact, that the records which seem legibly written on His created works do flatly contradict the statements which seem to be plainly expressed in His word.

Here is a dilemma. A most painful one to the reverent mind! And many reverent minds have laboured hard and long to escape from it. It is unfair and dishonest to class our men of science with the infidel and atheist. They did not rejoice in the dilemma; they saw it at first dimly, and hoped to avoid it.2 At first they believed that the mighty processes which are recorded on the "everlasting mountains" might not only be harmonized with, but might afford beautiful and convincing demonstrations of Holy Scripture. They thought that the deluge of Noah would explain the stratification, and the antediluvian era account for the organic fossils.

As the "stone book" was further read, this mode of explanation appeared to many untenable; and they retracted their adherence to it. To a mind rightly constituted, Truth is above every thing: there is no such thing as a pious fraud; the very idea is an impious lie: God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all; and that religion which can be maintained only by dissembling or denying truth, cannot proceed from "Him that is Holy, Him that is True," but from him who "is a liar, and the father of it."

Many upright and ardent cultivators of the young science felt that truth would be compromised by a persistence in those explanations which had hitherto passed current. The discrepancy between the readings in Science and the hitherto unchallenged readings in Scripture, became manifest. Partisans began to array themselves on either side; some, jealous for the honour of God, knew little of science, and rushed into the field ill-prepared for the conflict; some, jealous for science, but little conversant with Scripture, and caring less for it, were willing to throw overboard its authority altogether: others, who knew that the writings were from the same Hand, knew therefore that there must be some way of reconciling them, and set themselves to find it out.

Have they succeeded? If I thought so, I would not publish this book. Many, I doubt not, have been convinced by each of the schemes by which the discrepant statements have been sought to be harmonized. Each of them has had sufficient plausibility to convince its propounder; and, probably, others too. And some of them have attained a large measure of public confidence. Yet if any one of them is true, it certainly has not commanded universal assent. Let us examine how far they agree among themselves, who propose to reconcile Scripture and Science, "the Mosaic and the Mineral Geologies."

And first, it is, perhaps, right to represent the opinions of those who stand by the literal acceptation of the Divine Word. There have been some, indeed, who refuse to entertain the question of reconciliation, taking the high ground that, as the Word of God is and must be true, it is impious to set any evidence in competition with it. I cannot but say, my sympathies are far more with these than with those who, at the opposite pole of the argument, would make scientific deduction paramount, and make the Word go to the wall. But, then, we ought to be quite sure that we have got the very Word of God; and, so far from being impious, it seems highly proper and right, when conflicting evidence appears to flow out of what is indubitably God's work, to examine afresh the witnesses on both sides, that we may not make either testify what it does not.

Those good men who merely denounce Geology and geologists, I do not quote. There are the facts, "written and engraven in stones," and that by the finger of God. How can they be accounted for?

Some have recourse to the assumption that the natural processes by which changes in the earth's surface are now going on, may have operated in antediluvian times with a rapidity and power of which we can form little conception from what we are cognisant of. The Rev. J. Mellor Brown takes this ground, adducing the analogies of steam-power and electricity, as effecting in a few moments or hours, what formerly would have required several days or weeks to accomplish.

"God's most tremendous agencies may have been employed in the beginning of his works. If, for instance, it should be conceded that the granitic or basaltic strata were once in a state of fusion, there is no reason why we should not call in the aid of supposition to produce a rapid refrigeration. We may surround the globe with an atmosphere (not as yet warmed by the rays of the newly kindled sun) more intensely cold than that of Saturn. The degree of cold may have been such as to cool down the liquid granite and basalt in a few hours, and render it congenial to animal and vegetable life; while the gelid air around the globe may have been mollified by the abstracted caloric."3

A writer in Blackwood (xli. 181; xlii. 690), in like manner, adheres to the literal sense of Genesis and the Decalogue, and alludes to "the great agencies – the magnetic, electrical, and ethereal influences – probably instrumental in all the phenomena of nature," as being far more powerful than is generally suspected.

Mr. Macbrair – who does not, however, appear, from the amount of his acquaintance with science, competent to judge of the physical evidence – supposes stratification to have proceeded with immense rapidity, because limestone is now deposited in some waters at the rate of six inches per annum. Because a mass of timber, ten miles in length, was collected in the Mississippi, in thirty-eight years, he considers that a "capital coal field" might be formed in a single century. Alluvial strata are mud lavas ejected from volcanoes. The whole difficulty of fossil remains is got rid of by ignoring the distinctions of species, and assuming that the ancient animals and the recent ones are identical. The Pterodactyle and the Plesiosaurus he does not allude to.4

According to Dr. Ure, – "The demiurgic week … is manifestly composed of six working days like our own, and a day of rest, each of equal length, and, therefore, containing an evening and a morning, measured by the rotation of the earth round its axis… Neither reason nor revelation will justify us in extending the origin of the material system beyond six thousand years from our own days. The world then received its substance, form, and motions from the volition of the Omnipotent."

His theory of the stratification extends over the whole antediluvian era. He supposes that successive irruptions of the central heat broke up the primitive strata and deposited the secondary and tertiary. "The basaltic or trap phenomena lead to the conclusion that such upheavings and subversions were not confined to one epoch of the antediluvian world, but that, coeval with its birth, they pervaded the whole period of its duration… The Deluge – that universal transflux of the ocean – was the last and greatest of these terraqueous convulsions."5

Another class of this school of interpreters refers the stratification of the earth, either to the deluge alone, or to that convulsion conjoined with the one which is considered to have taken place on the third day of the Mosaic narrative. Perhaps the most eminent writer of this class is Mr. Granville Penn, whose opinions may be thus condensed.

He supposes that this globe has undergone only two revolutions. The first was the violent rupture and depression of the surface to become the bed of the sea, and the simultaneous elevation of the other portion to become dry land, – the theatre of terrestrial existence. This first revolution took place before the creation of any organized beings. The second revolution was at the Noachic Flood, when the former bed of the sea was elevated to become the dry land, with all its organic accumulations of sixteen centuries, while the former land was correspondingly depressed and overflowed. "The earth must, therefore, necessarily exhibit manifest and universal evidences of the vast apparent ruin occasioned by its first violent disruption and depression; of the presence and operation of the marine fluid, during the long interval which succeeded; and of the action and effects of that fluid in its ultimate retreat."6

Mr. Fairholme7 so nearly agrees with the above, that I need not quote his opinions in detail.

Another class, represented by Dr. Young and the Rev. Sir W. Cockburn, Dean of York, have maintained with considerable power, backed by no mean geological knowledge, that the deluge is a sufficient vera causa for the stratification of the globe, and for the fossilization of the organic remains.

Dr. Young supposes that an equable climate prevailed all over the globe in the antediluvian period. "Were the highest mountains transferred to the equatorial regions, the most extensive oceans removed towards the poles, and fringed with a border of archipelago, – while lands of moderate height occupied most of the intermediate spaces, between these archipelagos and the equatorial mountains; then a temperature, almost uniform, would prevail throughout the world." This "perpetual summer" would account for the prodigious quantities of animal and vegetable remains: – every region teemed with life.

At the Flood, "the bed of the ocean must have been elevated, and the dry land at the same time depressed," an expansive force acting from below to heave up the ocean's bed. To this agency are attributed the vast masses of granite, gneiss, basalt, and other rocks of igneous origin, which seem to have been forced upwards in a state of fusion, into their present lofty stations. The ancient bed of the ocean may have consisted of numerous layers of sand, clay, lime, and other substances, including corals and marine shells, – to a certain degree consolidated into rocks. By the progressive rising of the waters and the currents so made, fresh materials would be conveyed to the depths of the ocean, so that the magnesian limestone, the saliferous beds, the lias, &c., would be deposited.8

The Dean of York, in like manner, considers that the convulsions produced by the Deluge, are sufficient to account for all the stratification and fossil remains. That the gradual rise of the waters, and their penetration into the recesses of the rocks, would cause successive volcanic eruptions; the earlier of which would inclose marine fishes and reptiles; then others in turn, the pachyderms and great reptiles of the plains; and, finally, the creatures more exclusively terrestrial. That these repeated heavings of mighty volcanoes raised great part of what had been the bottom of the sea, above its level, and that hence the present land had been for sixteen centuries under water. That the animals which entered the ark, were not selected till after many species had already perished in the earlier convulsions, and hence the number of extinct species now exhumed.9

My reader will kindly bear in mind that I am not examining these opinions; I adduce them as examples of the diversity of judgment that still prevails on a question which some affect to consider as settled beyond the approach of doubt.

A totally different solution of the difficulty has been sought in the hypothesis, that the six "days" of the Inspired Record signify six successive periods of immense though of undefined duration. This opinion is as old as the Fathers at least,10 and not a few able maintainers of it belong to our own times. It has been put forth, however, with most power, by a late lamented geologist, whose wonderful vigour of description and felicity of illustration, have done, perhaps, more than the efforts of any other living man, to render his favourite science popular.

Perhaps I can scarcely set his views in a more striking light than he himself has done in his own peculiarly graphic report of a conversation, which he sustained with some humble inquirers in the Paleontological Gallery of the British Museum.

"I last passed," says Mr. Hugh Miller, "through this wonderful gallery at the time when the attraction of the Great Exhibition had filled London with curious visitors from all parts of the empire; and a group of intelligent mechanics, fresh from some manufacturing town in the midland counties, were sauntering on through its chambers immediately before me. They stood amazed beneath the dragons of the Oolite and Lias; and, with more than the admiration and wonder of the disciples of old, when contemplating the huge stones of the Temple, they turned to say, in almost the old words, 'Lo! master, what manner of great beasts are these?' 'These are,' I replied, 'the sea-monsters and creeping things of the second great period of organic existence.' The reply seemed satisfactory, and we passed on together to the terminal apartments of the range appropriated to the tertiary organisms. And there, before the enormous mammals, the mechanics again stood in wonder, and turned to inquire. Anticipating the query, I said, 'And these are the huge beasts of the earth, and the cattle of the third great period of organic existence; and yonder in the same apartment, you see, but at its farther end, is the famous fossil Man of Guadaloupe, locked up by the petrifactive agencies in a slab of limestone.' The mechanics again seemed satisfied; and, of course, had I encountered them in the first chamber of the suite, and had they questioned me respecting the organisms with which it is occupied, I would have told them that they were the remains of the herbs and trees of the first great period of organic existence. But in the chamber of the mammals we parted, and I saw them no more."11

A large and influential section of the students of Geology regard this hypothesis as untenable. Generally they may be described as holding that the history which is recorded in the igneous and fossiliferous strata does not come into the sacred narrative in any shape. As, however, that narrative commences with "the beginning," and comes down to historic times, the facts so recorded must find their chronology within its bounds. Their place is accordingly fixed by this school of interpretation between the actual primordial creation (Gen. i. 1), and the chaotic state (ver. 2).

Let us hear an able and eloquent geologist, Professor Sedgwick, on the hypothesis just mentioned of the elongation of the six days: —

"They [certain excellent Christian writers on the subject of Geology] have not denied the facts established by this science, nor have they confounded the nature of physical and moral evidence; but they have prematurely (and, therefore, without an adequate knowledge of all the facts essential to the argument) endeavoured to bring the natural history of the earth into a literal accordance with the Book of Genesis; first, by greatly extending the periods of time implied by the six days of creation; and secondly, by endeavouring to show that under this new interpretation of its words, the narrative of Moses may be supposed to comprehend, and to describe in order, the successive epochs of Geology. It is to be feared that truth may, in this way, receive a double injury; and I am certain that the argument just alluded to has been unsuccessful." – "We must consider the old strata of the earth as monuments of a date long anterior to the existence of man, and to the times contemplated in the moral records of his creation."12

Many able theologians, who, though well acquainted with natural science, can scarcely be considered as geologists, have been satisfied with this solution of the problem.

Thus Sharon Turner: —

"What interval occurred between the first creation of the material substance of our globe, and the mandate for light to descend upon it, whether months, years, or ages, is not in the slightest degree noticed [in the Sacred Record]. Geology may shorten or extend its duration, as it may find proper."13

Thus the present Archbishop of Canterbury: —

"We are not called upon to deny the possible existence of previous worlds, from the wreck of which our globe was organized, and the ruins of which are now furnishing matter for our curiosity."14

Thus Dr. Chalmers: —

"The present economy of terrestrial things was raised about six thousand years ago on the basis of an earth then without form and void; while, for aught of information we have in the Bible, the earth itself may before this time have been the theatre of many lengthened processes, the dwelling-place of older economies that have now gone by, but whereof the vestiges subsist even to the present day, both to the needless alarm of those who befriend Christianity, and the unwarrantable triumph of those who have assailed it."15

Thus Dr. Harris: —

"The first verse of Genesis was designed to announce the absolute origination of the material universe by the Almighty Creator; and, passing by an indefinite interval, the second verse describes the state of our planet immediately prior to the Adamic creation; and the third verse begins the account of the six days' work."16

Thus Mr. Gray: —

"That an antecedent state of the earth existed before the recorded Mosaical epoch, will clearly come out to view by the consideration of the terms used in the second verse. There was at that period, according to the express Mosaic record, anterior to the six days' reduction into order, existing earth and existing water."17

Probably the majority of our ablest geologists, men who have devoted their lives to the study and elucidation of geological phenomena, are to be found among those who advocate this scheme of reconciling those phenomena with the statements of the Holy Scriptures. Thus one of the earliest cultivators of the science, the Rev. Dr. Conybeare: —

"I regard Gen. i. 1 as an universal proposition, intended to contradict all the heathen systems which supposed the eternity of matter or polytheism; and ver. 2 I regard as proceeding to take up our planet in a state of ruin from a former condition, and describing a succession of phenomena effected in part by the laws of nature (which are no more than our expression of God's observed method of working), and in part by the immediate exercise of Divine power in directing and creating."18

Dr. Hitchcock, President of Amherst College, U.S., gives in his adhesion to this principle. After summing up the evidence in favour of the earth's high antiquity, he inquires, "Who will hesitate to say that it ought to settle the interpretation of the first verse of Genesis, in favour of that meaning which allows an intervening period between the creation of matter and the creation of light? This interpretation of Genesis is entirely sufficient to remove all apparent collision between Geology and revelation. It gives the geologist full scope for his largest speculations concerning the age of the world. It permits him to maintain that its first condition was as unlike to the present as possible, and allows him time enough for all the changes of mineral constitution and organic life which its strata reveal. It supposes that all these are passed over in silence by the sacred writers, because irrelevant to the object of revelation; but full of interest and instruction to the men of science who should afterwards take pleasure in exploring the works of God.

"It supposes the six days' work of creation to have been confined entirely to the fitting up the world in its present condition, and furnishing it with its present inhabitants. Thus, while it gives the widest scope to the geologist, it does not encroach upon the literalities of the Bible; and hence it is not strange that it should be almost universally adopted by geologists, as well as by many eminent divines."19