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
"The law which seemed to govern this series fails at the one hundred
million and second term. That term is larger than we expected by ten
thousand. The next term is larger than was anticipated by thirty thousand.
If we still continue to observe the numbers presented by the wheel, we
shall find that for a hundred, or even for a thousand terms, they continue
to follow the new law relating to the triangular numbers; but after
watching them for twenty-seven hundred and sixty-one terms, we find that
this law fails in the case of the twenty-seven hundred and sixty-second
term. If we continue to observe, another law then comes into action. This
will continue through fourteen hundred and thirty terms, when a new law is
again introduced, which extends over about nine hundred and fifty terms;
and this, too, like all its predecessors, fails, and gives place to other
laws, which appear at different intervals. It is also possible so to
arrange the engine, that at any periods, however remote, the first law
shall be interrupted for one or more times, and be superseded by any
other laws, after which the original law shall be again produced, and no
other deviation shall ever take place.
"Now, it must be remarked that the law that each number presented by the
engine is greater by unity than the preceding number, which law the
observer had deduced from an induction of a hundred million of instances,
was not the true law that regulated its action; and that the occurrence of
the number one hundred million ten thousand and two at the one hundred
million and second term was as necessary a consequence of the original
adjustment as was the regular succession of any one of the intermediate
numbers to its immediate antecedent. The same remark applies to the next
apparent deviation from the new law, which was founded on an induction of
two thousand seven hundred and sixty-one terms; and to all the succeeding
laws, with this limitation only, that whilst their consecutive
introduction at various definite intervals is a necessary consequence of
the mechanical structure of the engine, our knowledge of analysis does not
yet enable us to predict the periods at which the more distant laws will
be introduced."--_Ninth Bridgewater Treatise._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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