the theories, and how miserably strained the verbal interpretations, which are necessary in order to effect the accordance, the whole attempt must appear yet more manifestly futile. For let us only dwell for a moment on the nature of these interpretations.

When a commentator of the present day sets about to put a particular interpretation on a passage in an ancient author, he may, upon an examination of the critical sense of the words, and the construction of the sentence, make out a meaning which to him is plausible, and in itself consistent. But there is another question entirely distinct from this, too often quite overlooked, but essentially impotant to a true interpretation: viz., whether it is probable, from concurrent circumstances, that this was the sense, in point of fact, actually intended by the author. It is one thing to make out such a sense as, to our apprehension, the words may bear, quite another to infer that this was the sense really in the mind of the writer.

Now, in the geological interpretation of Scripture, this consideration seems strangely overlooked. Allowing for a moment that the verbal construction, or the proposed sense, is one which the passage may be made to bear, where is the probability that it was the intended signification?

Supposing it granted that by some critical process these descriptions may be brought to take a verbal sense, accordant with the facts elicited by geology, still the question is, Can we soberly bring ourselves

to conceive that this was the sense actually designed and contemplated as that in which the words were to be understood? and if it was NOT, what is the coincidence worth?

If but a moment's consideration be bestowed on the circumstances of the case, can it be seriously imagined that the delivery of the Judaical law was really intended to embrace the doctrines of geology, and this too under the guise of expressions which, in their obvious sense, are directly contradictory to those doctrines? Is it on any ground conceivable that such a purpose could have been in view in the delivery of any divine revelation? and much less in that vouchsafed to the Israelites. And if it were, could any method be devised more adverse to its accomplishment? For we are thus driven to suppose a design of revealing certain truths by effectually concealing them: since we know that, in point of fact, the hidden sense was not disclosed: and from the time of Moses downwards, no one has ever imagined the secret meaning of the description till the present day, and when disclosed it affords no instruction, since it cannot be so much as understood till the facts have been learnt from geological study, and when they have been, it is superfluous,

Representation of the Creation in Genesis.

WITH a total disregard to all such considerations as those last adduced, we find a certain school of interpreters of Scripture continually labouring to make out some sense of the terms in which the creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis, to make it square with truths which could not have been in contemplation in the delivery of the narrative; and exhausting every resource of critical skill to force the language of the representation into accordance with facts now attested by the organic remains of former orders of existence, which could not have been intended to be represented.

Formerly the geological interpreters were engaged in taxing to the utmost the powers of philology, to convert the six days into periods of millions of years; notwithstanding that they are described precisely as alternations of day and night; and that this is absolutely implied is the very purpose of the whole description, since the six days must manifestly be taken in the same sense as the seventh. On the other hand they had to exert not less ingenuity to make the order of geological epochs accord with these periods. This scheme, however, was at length found to answer the views of neither party. The theological critic could not admit such strained and dangerous interpretation, and the advance of geological research soon showed every one that there were, in fact, no such marked epochs in the successive

formations, or in the introduction of the races of organized beings.

At the present day another view has received the sanction of some eminent names, and has obtained considerable currency. It has been conceived that the narrative in Genesis is intended to describe separately, in few words, (in the first verse,) the original creation of all things; after this the indefinitely long history during which all the changes indicated by geology took place, is passed over in silence; a new period then commences, which may be understood according to the literal order of the narrative, provided some latitude be allowed in the interpretation of the terms. A state, if not of darkness and chaos, yet at least temporary disorder and obscurity, was produced; and the work of the existing creation, or at least reproduction and arrangement, then commenced, and was continued as described in the following part of the chapter, and perfected in six natural days*.

Now, without entering upon the grounds of such an interpretation, I will merely observe (looking only to the verbal construction,) how very wide a latitude in the meaning of words must be allowed before we can affix such a sense as this to a representation so precise and circumstantial; and every reader of the slightest taste and discernment will surely at once exclaim against it as totally at variance

*See Note P.

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,