The Religion of Geology and Its Connected SciencesHitchcock, Edward
Religion
The Religion of Geology and Its Connected Sciences
Hitchcock, Edward
Bible and geology; Religion and science
If I mistake not, we are indebted to Bishop Butler for the germ of these
views; but Professor Babbage has illustrated them by reference to an
extraordinary machine of his own invention, called "The Calculating
Engine." It is adapted to perform the most extensive and complicated
numerical calculations, of course with absolute certainty, because its
parts are arranged by certain laws. And he finds that precisely such
effects, on a small scale, can be produced by this machine, as have been
imputed above to the divine agency in creation. It is moved by a weight
and a wheel which turns at a short interval around its axis, and prints a
series of natural numbers,--1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c.,--each exceeding its
antecedent by unity. "Now, reader, let me ask you," says Professor
Babbage, "how long you will have counted before you are firmly convinced
that the engine, supposing its adjustments to remain unaltered, will
continue, whilst its motion is maintained, to produce the same series of
natural numbers. Some minds, perhaps, are so constituted that, after
passing the first hundred terms, they will be satisfied that they are
acquainted with the law. After seeing five hundred terms, few will doubt;
and after the fifty thousandth term, the propensity to believe the
succeeding term will be fifty thousand and one, will be almost
irresistible. That term will be fifty thousand and one; the same regular
succession will continue; the five millionth and the fifty millionth term
will appear in their expected order, and one unbroken chain of numbers
will pass before you, from one up to one hundred millions. True to the
vast induction which has thus been made, the next succeeding term will be
one hundred millions and one; but after that, the next number presented by
the rim of the wheel, instead of being one hundred millions and two, is
one hundred millions ten thousand and two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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