The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1850-03-09
Professor FOrshey's Closing Lecture.

| The lecturer said that the time had passed when
men of either science or ethics could write denun-
Citations of Geology because of its irregious ten
dency. The study of Nature was productive of
humility, and prompted the weak and erring mind
OF man to Fay homage to the omnipotent and ON
niscient Maker of the heavens and the earth. In
deed the field of combat has been changed. Science
has been turned with its heaviest batteries against
the enemies of Revelation.
The student of Nature could best appreciate the
Governor of the Universe, and measure the con-
trast between human and divine powers. Taken
as body, them they the humblest of men.
The analysis of his powers teaches man what is
the real relation of his powers to his Maker pow
ers. He finds that a small scale be can control
his body and other materials about him, and infers
that fntiaitatde of power and wisdom would make
him capable of controlling the Universe. Finding
by study that universe is moving in obedience to
law, and wise design, he infers designer and
thus without revelation would infer the existence
of a God.
But man cannot create matter from nothing, not
even On the smallest scale. He has no analysis,
then, for inlerrng that God himself created matter
from nothing.
The Professor then ventured to PROFOUND his
own philosophy, somewhat as follows " From all
eternity there two and only two Entities
SPIRIT and MATTER The one is an actor; the
other subject. The one lives and wills the
other is inert. Both alike indestructible. The
mind Is incapable of conceivng creation from
nothing, Or humiliation from something
He then applied his principles to the universe Of
Mind and Matter God, who is Spirit gave laws
to matter in its original chaotic form, and the ope-
ration OF these laws made worlds and clothed with
forests and peopled them with animals. These
laws once in motion, never require to be changed.
Creation is, and ever will be, progressing. " HUI
man observation, aided by human reason, has dis
covered few evidences of beginning--n6 symp-
tons OF an end" This is the eloquent language of
the greatest of living minds-Chares Babbage.
This application OF laws 10 matter, then, was " the
Beginning when God created the Heavens and the
Earth" He said this textile first verse of the
first chapter of Geness-had no necessary or close
connection with what followed, but between it and
the next verse there was all the vast cycles of time
so necessary to the explanation of Geological phe-
nomena.
The lecturer here left all other spheres and re-
viewed his Course and Geology, in sucenct man
ner as if seeking when, in the progress Of ages,
Man was created He found him neither in the
Primary, Transition Secondary, Tertiary pc
RODS, though other animal bodies srewed his path
way at every step. At the Diiuvial period he
paused, and said he would give it consideration
never yielded it by Biologists before, so far as he
knew. Not because man here appeared fossil,
but because it was the last great catechlysm the
earth had experienced, and he believed furnished
some more plausible explanation of the Scripture
account of Creation, than any other Geological age
he said MeteorOlOgy had taught us the effects of
volcanic eruptions and of rthquakes-always be-
ing attended by mlsts, rains darkness, and violent
storms OF thunder and lightning, and for obvious
causes, which he would not repeat having men,
toned them before
But suppose the Diluval epoch to have been but
the uPheava of portion of the earth hitherto sub
merged, and attended with the usual modern phe.