mass which contains a potential solar system.

Until some further enlightenment comes to me, then, I confess
myself wholly unable to understand the way in which the nebular
hypothesis is to be converted into an ally of the
"Mosaic writer."<8>

But Mr. Gladstone informs us that Professor Dana and Professor
Guyot are prepared to prove that the "first or cosmogonical
portion of the Proem not only accords with, but teaches, the
nebular hypothesis." There is no one to whose authority on
geological questions I am more readily disposed to bow than that
of my eminent friend Professor Dana. But I am familiar with what
he has previously said on this topic in his well-known and
standard work, into which, strangely enough, it does not seem to
have occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look before he set out upon
his present undertaking; and unless Professor Dana's latest
contribution (which I have not yet met with) takes up altogether
new ground, I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate myself,
by its help, from my present difficulties.

It is a very long time since I began to think about the
relations between modern scientifically ascertained truths and
the cosmogonical speculations of the writer of Genesis; and, as
I think that Mr. Gladstone might have been able to put his case
with a good deal more force, if he had thought it worth while to
consult the last chapter of Professor Dana's admirable "Manual
of Geology," so I think he might have been made aware that he
was undertaking an enterprise of which he had not counted the
cost, if he had chanced upon a discussion of the subject which I