1856.] Science and the Bible. 127
we
know from comparisons with the fossils of the preceding Mammalian age.
There was, at this time, no chaotic upturning, but only the opening of
creation to its fullest expansions : and so in Genesis, no new day is
begun, it is still the
sixth day.
The
continents long before had had their marked characteristics : the
Oriental (including Europe, Asia, and Africa) as the continent of Carnivora, the highest mammals; North America, of Herb ivora, a tribe inferior to the Carnivora; South America, of the sloth and armadillo tribes (Edentata) still lower in rank; Australia, of the Kangaroo tribe or Marsupials, the
lowest of all quadrupeds; for these were severally the characteristic
races of the continents in the Mammalian age. As the age of Man opens,
North and South America and Australia were still essentially the same
in their tribes of Mammals, though with new and smaller species ; there
is no sign of progress. The Oriental lands, on the contrary, which had
so prominently taken the lead in the age of Mammals, and even through
the whole Reptilian age preceding,—since the species of animals in
Europe as indicated by the fossils, were ten times more numerous than
in North America,— may be said to have been marked out for the Eden of
the world, ages previous to man's creation.
XVIII. Man, the new creation. In
the living beings of former ages, there had been intelligence and a low
grade of reason, affections as between the dam and her cub, and the
joyousness of life and activity in the sporting tribes of the land. But
there had been no living soul that could look beyond time to eternity,
from the finite towards the infinite, from the world around to the
world within and God above. This was the new creation, as new as when
life began; a spiritual element as diverse from the life of the brute
as life itself is diverse from inorganic existence.
The first great
period of history, was the period of mere material existence and
physical progress. Its beginning was far away in the dim indefinite
past, when light announced the work of progress begun; and even beyond,
in the forceless matter of preceding time; after many changes and
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