THE LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND OF SCIENCE. 641 



the substitution of the adjective partial for universal will save 

 the credit of the Pentateuch, and permit them, after all, without 

 too many blushes, to declare that the progress of modern science 

 only strengthens the authority of Moses. Nowhere have I found 

 the case of the advocates of this method of escaping from the dif- 

 ficulties of the actual position better put than in the lecture of 

 Prof. Diestel to which I have referred. After frankly admitting 

 that the old doctrine of universality involves physical impossibili- 

 ties, he continues : 



All these difficulties fall away as soon as we give up the universality of the 

 deluge, and imagine a partial flooding of the earth, say in western Asia. But 

 have we a right to do so? The narrative speaks of "the whole earth." But what 

 is the meaning of this expression? Surely not the whole surface of the earth ac- 

 cording to the ideas of modem geographers, but, at most, according to the con- 

 ceptions of the biblical author. This very simple conclusion, however, is never 

 drawn by too many readers of the Bible. But one need only cast one's eyes over 

 the tenth chapter of Genesis in order to become acquainted with the geographical 

 horizon of the Jews. In the north it was bounded by the Black Sea and the 

 mountains of Armenia ; extended toward the east very little beyond the Tigris ; 

 hardly reached the apex of the Persian Gulf; passed, then, through the middle of 

 Arabia and the Red Sea; went southward through Abyssinia, and then turned 

 westward by the frontiers of Egypt, and inclosed the easternmost islands of the 

 Mediterranean (p. 11). 



The justice of this observation must be admitted, no less than 

 the further remark that, in still earlier times, the pastoral He- 

 brews very probably had yet more restricted notions of what con- 

 stituted " the whole earth." Moreover, I, for one, fully agree with 

 Prof. Diestel that the motive, or generative incident, of the whole 

 story is to be sought in the occasionally excessive and desolating 

 floods of the Euphrates and Tigris. 



Let us, provisionally, accept the theory of a partial deluge, 

 and try to form a clear mental picture of the occurrence. Let 

 us suppose that, for forty days and forty nights, such a vast 

 quantity of water was poured upon the ground that the whole 

 surface of Mesopotamia was covered by water to a depth cer- 

 tainly greater, probably much greater, than fifteen cubits, or 

 twenty feet (Gen. vii, 20). The inundation prevails upon the 

 earth for one hundred and fifty days ; and then the flood gradu- 

 ally decreases, until, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month 

 the ark, which had previously floated on its surface, grounds upon 

 the "mountains of Ararat" * (Gen. viii, 34). Then, as Diestel has 

 acutely pointed out (Sintflut, p. 13), we are to imagine the further 

 subsidence of the flood to take place so gradually that it was not 

 until nearly two months and a half after this time (that is to say, 



* It is very doubtful if this means the region of the Armenian Ararat. More probably 

 it designates some part, either of the Kurdish range or of its southeastern continuation. 

 vol. xxxvii. — 47 



