one writer after another, who knows perfectly well as a geologist that the opening chapter of Genesis cannot be a true scientific account of the origin of the earth's structure, should be so in awe of the worn-out prejudices which he despises in his heart, as to talk deferentially of the authority of Scripture on these points, and pretend to think that the inspired record may yet be made to speak true geology by some new interpretation? How gentlemanly, but how severe, is Mr. Kenrick's rebuke to conforming philosophers and scientific Church dignitaries of this class, for their temporizing duplicity!

"The difficulty is not fairly met by alleging that there are obscurities in all ancient writings, and that the high antiquity of those in question makes their interpretation especially uncertain. The apparent flexibility which Scripture has exhibited in the hands of its commentators, and the contradictory opinions which have been deduced from it, may have led those who are not conversant with Hebrew philology and biblical hermeneutic, to suppose the meaning much more uncertain than it really is. No doubt the Hebrew language and literature present greater difficulties to an interpreter than those of Greece and Rome. Job and Hosea are not of such simple and obvious construction as Homer and Euripides. It happens, however, that the portion of Scripture which relates to cosmogony and primæval history is remarkably free from philological difficulties. The meaning of the writer, the only thing which the interpreter has to discover and set forth, is every where sufficiently obvious: there is hardly in these eleven chapters a doubtful construction, or a various reading of any importance; and the English reader has, in the ordinary version, a full and fair representation of the sense of the original. The difficulties which exist arise from endeavouring to harmonize the writer's information with that derived from other sources, or to refine upon his simple language. Common speech was then, as it is now, the representative of the common understanding. This common understanding may be confused and perplexed by metaphysical cross-examination, respecting the action of Spirit upon matter, or of Being upon nonentity, till it seems at last to have no idea what creation means; but these subtilities belong no more to the Hebrew word than to the English. "These remarks are rendered necessary by the very vague manner in which the phrase interpretation of Scripture is used. We are not surprised to find a popular writer like the author of the Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' (p. 407), asking, May not the sacred text, on a liberal interpretation or with the benefit of new light reflected from nature or derived from learning, be shewn to be as much in harmony with the novelties of this volume as it has been with geology and natural philosophy?' Similar language, however, is held by Professor Whewell, who cannot be ignorant that the interpretation of the Bible is governed by rules as little arbitrary as that of any other ancient book. In his chapter of the 'Relation of Tradition to Paletiology,' which is really a discussion of the most advisable mode of reconciling Geology and Paleontology with Scripture, he speaks repeatedly of the necessity of bringing forward new interpretations of Scripture to meet the discoveries of science. When,' he asks, 'should old interpretations be given up; what is the proper season for a religious and enlightened commentator to make a change in the current interpretation of sacred Scripture? At what period ought the established exposition of a passage to be given up and a new mode of understanding the passage, such as is or seems to be required by new discoveries respecting the laws of nature, accepted in its place? He elsewhere speaks† of the language of Scripture being invested with a new meaning,' quoting with approbation the sentiment of Bellarmine, that when demonstration

"Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. II. Ch. iv. pp. 147, 8, 9. "Idem. p. 146.

shall establish the earth's motion, it will be proper to interpret the Scriptures otherwise than they have hitherto been interpreted, in those passages where mention is made of the stability of the earth and movement of the heavens.' It is difficult to understand this otherwise than as sanctioning the principle, that the commentator is to bend the meaning of Scripture into conformity with the discoveries of science. Such a proceeding, however, would be utterly inconsistent with all real reverence for Scripture, and calculated to bring both it and its interpreters into suspicion and contempt; and we must suppose the author to have meant, that our ideas of the authority of certain portions of Scripture are to be modified, when we find their obvious meaning to be at variance with scientific truths. If this were his intention, we must regret that he has not expressed himself with more precision, and given to a most important but obnoxious truth the weighty sanction of his name.

Λόγος γὰρ ἐκ τ' αδοξούντων ἰὼν

Κἀκ τῶν δοκούντων αὐτὸς, οὐ ταυτὸν σθένει.

Eur. Hec. 294."-Preface, pp. xiii-xviii.

Sharper than two-edged sword is Mr. Kenrick's finely-tempered steel. There is no hacking and hewing with him. He cuts clean, and so he cuts deep. May he be the means of suggesting a higher morality to some of those who are wont to " speak wickedly for God and talk deceitfully for Him"! We have no sympathy with such dissemblers. They are unworthy alike of Science and of Religion. They are the great supporters, instead of becoming the destroyers, of the current bigotry and hypocrisy. They undermine the moral sense of a nation, while supporting the "established religion." O for more individuality of religious conviction, and with it more vitality of faith, worship and obedience! Conformity and creed-belief are the great obstructions alike to intellectual and to moral improvement;-the incubus of Religion, the torpedo of Science. Nor is it merely within the Establishment that these obstructions operate; they are co-extensive with the sway of "Orthodoxy." No orthodox man is a geologist except by connivance; no geologist is orthodox except on sufferance. His creed emasculates his science, or his science makes him lay up his creed in a napkin. Ardently do we hope that Mr. Kenrick's noble and candidminded book will shame many, and encourage many more, to speak their convictions and their doubts, whether theological or scientific, in a spirit of scientific truth and religious faith.

We have already given two long extracts, the one from the Preface, the other from the Essay. The Preface is itself an essay of high order, describing the successive conflicts of science with theology and their various temporary reconciliations, and vindicating for the Christian philosopher a higher and more comprehensive point of view than has usually been assumed. We learn from it that" the substance of the Essay was intended to form an Introduction to a larger work on the ancient history of Egypt, Assyria, Phoenicia, and the other oriental countries, whose civilization constitutes the earliest series of connected historical facts which has come down to us." But the author found, in endeavouring to "begin with the beginning," that as he saw reason to depart from the customary track of blind tradition, what he had to say in justification of this course necessarily became more controversial than suited the character of historical writing," and he has therefore published it separately. The way will thus, we trust, be prepared in the public mind for an intelligent and hearty reception of

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something worthy the name of ancient history, in which fact and theory will be kept distinct, the doubtful not put on a level with the clearly ascertained, and tradition will be allowed its proper place as evidence of the state of knowledge and opinion. The whole character of Mr. Kenrick's mind and attainments, as shewn in this Essay, (and as known to those who have had larger and better opportunities of knowing it,) is a voucher for the reliableness of his promised history. With most exact scholarship and amplest learning, the fruit of wide research and unwearied industry, he unites a severity of criticism, a comprehensiveness of view and calmness of judgment, that peculiarly fit him for the office of philosophical historian. Perfectly free from prejudice, wholly unaddicted to theorizing, one might expect to find such a mind deficient in feeling and fancy, till undeceived by the tasteful elegance which pervades the whole style of thought and expression. The book before us is quite of this character; rigid yet graceful in thought and argument, concise yet full in its easy utterance. There is not a sentence-no, not a word-redundant, deficient or misplaced. A style like this is not mere style; it is the natural expression of clear and orderly thought, when full of matter.

Though tempted here to give an outline of the contents of the Essay, and disposed to follow such a guide step by step with trust akin to reverence, we forbear, through the impossibility of condensing materials already so compactly presented, and the difficulty of selecting. Suffice it to say, by way of inducing to the perusal of the book, that among its varied subjects are Cosmogonies Heathen and Hebrew, the Unity and Varieties of the Human Race, the Era of Man's Creation, the Deluge of Scripture and those of other Ancient Histories, the Golden Age, the Origin of Language, the Origin of Government, Religion in its various forms,-all treated with the freedom and candour, the caution and judgment of a scientific scholar. The nature and use of Tradition are carefully investigated, and an intelligible idea of Mythic fiction is presented, in contrast to that mere word, Myth, which has of late seemed potent enough for some to conjure with, when historical or biographical difficulties occur.

There is one part of the volume-perhaps it is the only one-in which we venture to think some qualification of the author's views, or at least some modification in their statement, necessary. It is contained in pages 35 to 40, headed" Speculation the Origin of Tradition." This passage may be taken to mean, and by its unqualified tone it is very naturally taken to mean, what we do not think Mr. Kenrick's discriminative mind ever contemplated, that speculation has been the sole origin of tradition. The passage occurs in connection with the traditions of a Deluge variously held by various nations; and if limited to this connection, it seems most philosophically to account for those traditions. And we have no doubt that Mr. Kenrick designed so to limit it, by the sentences which introduce and conclude it. He begins the subject thus (p. 35):

"However high we may be warranted to carry up the existence of this tradition in Asia, it will not necessarily follow that it was founded upon a real fact. A tradition is a popular belief, and must, like every thing else, have a cause; and for its special character, a special cause. But that it is not in itself evidence of the truth of the fact which it assumes, may be seen

in almost every case in which the popular belief can be confronted with scientific, monumental and documentary evidence. There is hardly a remarkable remnant of antiquity," he pursues, "to which it has not attached some false explanation."

And the observations that follow seem thus to be generalized beyond their occasion and beyond their due limits, till we are brought back, on the 40th page, to the Deluge traditions as the designed application:

"The decisive proof, however, that the traditions of the Deluge are rather a very ancient hypothesis than the reminiscence of a primæval fact, is that they accord not with the phenomena, but with such a partial knowledge, and such conceptions of their cause, as prevailed in ancient times. They explain what is obvious, that water has once covered the summits of the present dry land, but not the equally certain, though less obvious fact, that long intervals of time and a great variety of circumstances must have existed. This want of conformity concludes much more strongly against an historical tradition, than a general and vague conformity in favour of it."

We have no doubt Mr. Kenrick considered the remarks in question to be sufficiently limited by the application he has made of them, and not as implying that every tradition of ante-historic times originated in speculation. There are many traditions of a neutral or non-scientific character, which speculation could never suggest; there are others which stand opposed to the state of science prevalent in their own day, but which have been proved credible as facts by later science. As an instance of the former class,-the Menai Strait is traditionally said to have been once a valley containing many happy villages, since swept away by the irruption of the sea; a tradition memorialized in the local name given to the strait, implying the valley of tears. Now it might easily be supposed that scientific speculation had conjectured the disruption of the island of Anglesea from Britain, in the spirit of many other speculations on other islands, as instanced by Mr. Kenrick. But what speculation should people the now lost land with villages? Or how could that poetical name have originated so naturally as from a calamitous fact? As an instance of the latter class, where old traditions defy old science, nothing can be more appropriate or striking than the Egyptian tradition of the circumnavigation of Africa, mentioned by Herodotus, and by him discredited because inconsistent with the then existing state of science; the tradition being, that the navigators had, in the remotest part of their course, had the sun on their north, which Herodotus says was impossible. That one part of the story which discredited it to him, proves it to us. Ancient speculation could not have invented that tradition. The tradition existed, while science so called arraigned it as incredible. Speculation, then, has plainly been one great source of ancient tradition, but not absolutely and universally "the origin of tradition." We have dwelt on this point, as we happen to know that Mr. Kenrick has been understood to mean more than his argument requires or the case will warrant. It is the page-heading, after all, that chiefly requires correction.

We revert, in conclusion, to the Scriptural bearings of this Essay on Primæval History. Mr. Kenrick has spoken without reserve his conviction of the traditionary character of the early chapters of the book of Genesis. But he is too just and discriminating to allow any such character to spread over the properly historical parts of Scripture. He

finds a tolerably well-defined line in the Jewish annals, at which the properly historic times of the nation begin, namely, the call of Abraham, as recorded in the twelfth chapter of Genesis. Here properly begins the Jewish history; the eleven preceding chapters contain the Jewish opinions (whencesoever derived) on cosmogony and primæval events. The line is marked to the intelligent reader by the nature of the case. Not that all beyond it is authentic and true without mistake or exaggeration, and all preceding it unworthy of trust. The careful theologian will discriminate again and again, with the varied character of the multifarious books which compose these Scriptures. But he will see at once that the very reasons which require us to view the early chapters of Genesis as mere evidence of opinion long subsequent to their alleged events, forbid us so to regard the histories of later times. Primæval history is written retrospectively; and it is done theoretically, mythically, traditionally, as the case may be. The annals of historic times are contemporaneous or nearly so. They may not be free from errors, but their errors are not myths. They may need criticism, but it must be from a different point of view. The line, too, may not be very definite which separates the primæval and the historic times. It is not likely it should be. But it will be found in each nation somewhere about the time of the introduction or invention of writing.

As regards the authenticity and historical credibility, then, of the Scriptures in general, this assignment of the early part of Genesis to the criticism due to primæval history, leaves the character of the rest unchanged. The historical books must be treated as all other records of historic times; the poetry, as all other poetry; the didactic and ethical, as such compositions are treated elsewhere. The revealed knowledge, whatever it be, that was taught by the Jewish and the Christian religions respectively, will evince itself characteristically in these various writings; but there is no claim made by the Scriptures themselves to any other inspiration than that of the prophet or the lawgiver in announcing his original message. What he is inspired to announce may be put in writing, without any further act of inspiration. And the Scriptures lay no claim to inspiration as writings. They contain the inspiration by recording it; but no how else. As writings, they have on them the unmistakeable marks of distinct times and individual authorship, by which, if any writings can be identified, most of these can. And each book is to be taken in its own identity. The Scriptures are a collection of books; they are not (as the orthodox notion of inspiration will have it) one book written word by word in heaven, and sent complete at once-bound and gilt-edged even-as the word of God to man on earth. Collected as we have them in one volume, the unlettered reader is very apt to regard them as one book; and even the more intelligent do not always discriminate sufficiently among writings, the authorship of which extends over a period of fifteen hundred years.

We repeat, then, that the traditionary character which is proved to belong to the early part of Genesis does not affect the admitted historical character of other parts of the Old Testament. Mr. Kenrick's book is in this view wisely conservative. He distinguishes between things that differ. It is a false liberalism that would extend the same kind of interpretation beyond its proper limit. If, then, the Neologist