with the obvious tenour of the whole style of description, and destructive to the matchless sublimity of the terms in which it is conveyed. Those to whom such a version can appear satisfactory, who can believe that this is what Moses really intended to say,-must entertain notions of the use and application of language of a kind which I cannot appreciate. It seems to me only necessary to turn for a moment from the paraphrase to the plain text, from the critical refinements to the simple language of this magnificent composition; from the philosophical theory to the obvious tenour and train of this most sublime imagery, to be fully satisfied as to the meaning intended to be conveyed: a meaning totally distinct from anything philosophical, or bearing the most remote reference to any anticipations of geological discoveries.

Another view of the matter has been proposed by an eminent philosopher, which amounts to an admission that it is impossible at the present day to fix any certain meaning on compositions of such antiquity, and so entirely destitute of all elucidation from contemporary writings, as the Mosaic records*. Such an idea, of course, has called forth no small censure. But surely even this is scarcely more destructive to all definite interpretation than versions like those we have just mentioned;-such an idea, honestly avowed, is surely preferable to the indirect

* See Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, chap. 4 and 5,

introduction of principles which, fairly carried out, enable us to fix upon any given passage, any may required sense.

I am assuming that the inquirer and interpreter are both sincere seekers of truth. If indeed the object be, instead of discovering truth, to say something plausible to satisfy prejudice, and avoid giving offence to popular belief, there is no limit to the inventions which men will not readily swallow down, if only made palatable to their prepossessions.

Admission of Contradictions.

LET the appeal be made to any reader of ordinary sense, not prepossessed in favour of a theory, and it seems to me impossible that he can understand the description, (whether in the shorter form of the Decalogue, or the more expanded of Genesis,) considered simply as to its terms, otherwise than as presenting a magnificent picture of Almighty power, and embodying the representation of one, original, entire, simple, universal act of Divine interposition, at once, and for the first time, framing and calling into being and operation, out of previous universal darkness and confusion, the heavenly bodies, as well as the earth, and all the races of organized beings upon it, in the actual progressive stages assigned to the six days specially described as literally such. Even if we allow the separation of the first verse as a distinct account of an earlier creation, (which, to my appre

hension, seems a very forced dissociation of the members of a sentence,) still, in the second verse, the entire tenour of this unrivalled imagery seems incapable of conveying any other impression than that of the total absence of all organized existence, and the prevalence of universal confusion and total darkness, until the work of the first day commenced*.

Now when we refer to geology, (as indeed has already been rendered sufficiently manifest,) the sure monuments which we derive from the study of organic remains, disclose to us evidences of a series of gradual changes and repeated creative processes, going on without any one sudden universal intervention or creation of the existing world out of the ruins of a former. Geology shows that in none of its epochs, least of all in the later, has any universal elemental change occurred, or any trace been left of even a temporary chaos, followed by a simultaneous universal restitution of things.

Comparing then these indisputable conclusions with the representations in the Hebrew Scriptures, to whatever extent critical skill may stretch the meaning, there is an insuperable discrepancy in the most material points of the description. We, in truth, gain nothing whatever by critical refinements so long as the passage be admitted to describe a sudden universal interposition of Divine power for

* See Note Q.

the formation out of previous confusion of a world peopled with organized life in its existing forms, at a period corresponding to the origin of the human race according to the received chronology.

The contradiction is scarcely less palpable in these more refined and far-fetched versions than in the vulgar sense.

Surely then, instead of attempting to tamper with all rules of common sense in the interpretation, it would be far better at once honestly to allow that we cannot reconcile the description to the facts, nor find the original of the picture in nature. Surely, looking as well at the plain and obvious sense in which any unprejudiced reader would of necessity view the Scriptural representations, as at the forced and unsatisfactory nature of the interpretations, as also at the manifest unreasonableness of the very principle on which any such interpretation can be rendered desirable,-on every consideration, we shall see the better and wiser course of openly acknowledging the contradiction, and allowing the impossibility of making out an accordance between the literal six days' work of creation, and the visible evidences and existing monuments of it,-between the letter of the representation (either as given in the delivery of the Decalogue to the Israelites, or as subsequently expounded by Moses in the book of Genesis,) and the perceptible and observable order of the works of the same Divine Being from whom the Judaical dispensation emanated.

I have been particular in stating plainly and unreservedly the exact nature and extent of the contradiction between the language of the Word or God delivered to the Hebrews and that of the monuments which we now extract from his works. It seems to me peculiarly needful so to set it forth, and not to shrink from the open and honest avowal of it;-especially while we recollect that the physical evidence which thus palpably contradicts the letter of the Scriptural representation, is the very same which establishes the truth of the Divine perfections, and proves the fact of creation, however different in its mode of accomplishment from what our preconceived opinions would suggest, and however little we may be able to trace the precise means employed in carrying it on.

Adaptations to the Ideas of the Jews.

Now, so far as regards the first chapter of Genesis, we may remark, that even those divines who adopt the most approved views of the nature of inspiration may and do allow, that an inspired teacher might, in irrelevant points, be left to his own unassisted convictions, and on such matters would be no more enlightened than his contemporaries. Many eminent divines have even admitted that current opinions and prejudices, though erroneous, might yet be adopted and turned into a vehicle of moral and religious instruction to those to whom they were