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himself a subject meriting psychological investigation. Science, it is true, is so far conceptionless as to clip the wings of fancy in world-making; but it is not a fault that should send her to purgatory.

It can hardly be doubted by our readers that the "Cosmology" of Professor Lewis fails of exhibiting the spirit of the original. And we believe it will soon appear, if not so already, that it indicates no adequate comprehension of the philosophy or divine features of that record. It may be good Platonism; but it is, in our view, neither scriptural theism, nor true naturalism.

Having in our first part presented a general sketch of science, its aims and its laws, or the laws of Nature, as a basis of comparison with the opinions of Prof. Lewis, we have considered, in our second part, the "Cosmology" brought forward by him as an interpretation of Genesis. It now remains, as our third part, to mention those points in which science has thrown light on the Mosaic account; light which could have come from no other source. We pursue this method of meeting the views of Professor Lewis on the legitimate uses of science in Biblical interpretation, rather than that of direct argument and criticism.

As introductory, we would first offer a few thoughts on the authority of the Mosaic record, and then endeavor to correct some misunderstandings with respect to geology.

Since geology began to be a science, believers in the Sacred record have gradually divided off into four classes.

1. Those who hold, on exegetical grounds, that the account in Moses admits only of a strictly literal interpretation, and denounce all geological conclusions.

2. Those who take the same view of the record, but admit in the main the results of geological research, and regard the record as a myth, correct in making God the creator, and in the general notion of progress.

3. Those who adopt a liberal interpretation of the record as most consistent with its spirit and truth, and believe both the written word and the testimonies which are gathered from the study of Nature.

4. Those who adopt the liberal interpretation of the last, but with denunciations of geology, while at the same time accepting its main conclusions.

The truthfulness of the Mosaic record is admitted by all the classes here referred to, excepting the second. These, on the ground that the early part of Genesis bears evidence of being a collection of two or three distinct accounts, suppose that Moses adopted that particular ancient or traditional story which acknowledged God as the Creator; and they do not insist upon its being correct in details. It would at first seem as if this liberality of view were a consequence of a firm and well-defined belief in the deductions of science. This is so with some; but with many, it is just the other way there is a vague opinion that geological facts cannot be set aside; and as the literal rendering of the Hebrew, in their view, is also inflexible, they consequently let the record go, we can hardly say, as the least of two evils. They thus obtain a sufficient ground for rejecting all attempts to reconcile science and the Bible.

The fact, if it be a fact, that the account was a tradition which Moses adopted, would not necessarily prove it incorrect in any of its statements. The acts in creation had no human witness, and therefore the tradition either was originally from the Being who had before given man a living soul, or else it was only a human conception of world-evolution. If the former, it might still be, throughout, truthful; while at the same time we should naturally infer, in the case of such a tradition, that the exact literality might yield a little to research, provided the spirit of the whole were sustained. If the latter, then the whole is hardly better than a fable, except the grand pervading truth- God in creation. In this last case, the Divine signet is stamped on a false or suspicious document, and thus opens the Sacred Book - false not in mere drapery, for the account is peculiarly free from adjuncts or symbols, presenting a series of definite assertions as to the acts of the Deity himself. Admitting the account as thus untrustworthy, science becomes the only true record. of the history of creation; and its facts should hence

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have a vastly enhanced interest, especially to the religious world.

But we do not believe in this fabulous origin, as we show beyond. And if but little flexibility is allowed to the Hebrew by the exegetical student, the record will stand firm, sustained by Nature and the God of Nature. We call it flexibility; yet we have the authority of some learned Biblical scholars for concluding that the liberal rendering, required by science, is the only correct rendering of the original words of Moses. Our own faith in both records is the more confirmed, the deeper we pursue our investigations.

We cannot believe that Moses had a full comprehension of the events he narrates, any more than the Jewish prophets, of the spiritual kingdom of Christ which they foretold. The account is but an epitome of creation, in a few comprehensive enunciations. The details God had before inscribed in the earth itself; and science fulfils its end in reading those records and receiving the lessons they teach.

Accepting the account in Genesis as true, the seeming discrepancy between it and geology rests mainly here: geology holds, and has held from the first, that the progress of creation was mainly through secondary causes; for the existence of the science presupposes this. Moses, on the contrary, was thought to sustain the idea of a simple fiat for each step. Grant this first point to science, and what further conflict is there? The question of the length of time, it is replied. But not so; for if we may take the record as allowing more than six days of twenty-four hours, the Bible then places no limit to time. The question of the days and periods, it is replied again. But this is of little moment in comparison with the first principle granted. Those who admit the length of time and stand upon days of twenty-four hours, have to place geological time before the six days, and then assume a chaos and reordering of creation, on the six-day and fiat principle, after a previous creation that had operated for a long period through secondary causes. Others take the days as periods, and thus allow the required time, admitting that creation was one in progress, a grand whole,

instead of a first creation excepting man by one method, and a second with man by the other. This is now the remaining question between the theologians and geologists; for all the minor points, as to the exact interpretation, of each day, do not affect the general concordance or discordance of the Bible and science.

On this point, geology is now explicit in its decision, and indeed has long been so. It proves that there was no return to chaos, no great revolution, that creation was beyond doubt one in its progress. We know that some geologists have taken the other view. But it was only in the capacity of theologians and not as geologists. The Rev. Dr. Buckland, in placing the great events of geology between the first and second verses of the Mosaic account, did not pretend that there was a geological basis for such an hypothesis; and no writer since has ever brought forward the first fact in geology to support the idea of a rearrangement just before man ;-not one solitary fact has ever been appealed to. The conclusion was on biblical grounds, and not in any sense on geological. The best that Buckland could say, when he wrote twenty-five years since, was, that geology did not absolutely disprove such an hypothesis; and that cannot be said now.

It is often asserted, in order to unsettle confidence in these particular teachings of geology, that geology is a changing science. In this connection, the remark conveys an erroneous impression. Geology is a progressing science, and all its progress tends to establish more firmly these two principles. (1) The slow progress of creation through secondary causes, as explained, and (2) the progress by periods analogous to the days of Genesis.1

1 The various uses of the word day in the Mosaic account of creation are not all mentioned by Prof. Lewis. First, in verse 5, the light in general is called day, the darkness, night. Second, in the same verse, evening and morning make the first day, before the sun appears. Third, verse 14, day stands for twelve hours or the period of daylight, as dependent on the sun. Fourth, same verse, in the phrase "days and seasons," day stands for a period of twenty-four hours. Fifth at the close of the account, in verse 4, of the second chapter, day means the whole period of creation. These uses are the same that we have in our own language. VOL. XIII. No. 49.

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What other points science in its present state establishes or elucidates, we shall now consider. The best views we have met with on the harmony between Science and the Bible, are those of Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT, a philosopher of enlarged comprehension of nature and a truly christian spirit; and the following interpretations of the sacred record are, in the main, such as we have gathered from personal intercourse with him.'

The first thought that strikes the scientific reader is the evidence of Divinity, not merely in the first verse of the record, and the successive fiats, but in the whole order of creation. There is so much that the most recent readings of science have for the first time explained, that the idea of man as the author becomes utterly incomprehensible. By proving the record true, science pronounces it divine; for who could have correctly narrated the secrets of eternity but God himself?

Moreover, the order or arrangement is not a possible intellectual conception, although we grant to man, as we must, the intuition of a God. Man would very naturally have placed the creation of vegetation, one of the two kingdoms of life, after that of the sun, and next to that of the other kingdom of life, especially as the sunlight is so essential to growth; and the creation of quadrupeds he would as naturally have referred to the fifth day, leaving a whole day to man, the most glorious of all creations. Prof. Lewis, in making no allusion to the creation of quadrupeds on the sixth day, writes as if it were a mistake that this was not so done. Man, again, would never have separated the creation of light so far from that of the sun, to us the source of light; neither would he have conceived of the creation of the firmament, as that word is usually understood, and was under

The meaning of the words "evening and morning" we believe to be correctly given by Prof. Lewis.

1 The views of Prof. Guyot have been presented at some length in this journal by Rev. J. O. Means (numbers for January and April, 1855). They are here brought forward from a different point of view with other illustrations, and additional deductions from the science.

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