648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



same thing of the story of the creation.* Between these two lies 

 the story of the creation of man and woman and their fall from 

 primitive innocence, which is even more monstrously improbable 

 than either of the other two, though, from the nature of the case, it 

 is not so easily capable of direct refutation. It can be demonstrated 

 that the earth took longer than six days in the making, and that 

 the deluge, as described, is a physical impossibility ; but there is 

 no proving, especially to those who are perfect in the art of clos- 

 ing their ears to that which they do not wish to hear, that a 

 snake did not speak, or that Eve was not made out of one of 

 Adam's ribs. 



The compiler of Genesis, in its present form, evidently had a 

 definite plan in his mind. His countrymen, like all other men, 

 were doubtless curious to know how the world began ; how men, 

 and especially wicked men, came into being, and how existing 

 nations and races rose among the descendants of one stock ; and, 

 finally, what was the history of their own particular tribe. They, 

 like ourselves, desired to solve the four great problems of cos- 

 mogeny, anthropogeny, ethnogeny, and geneogeny. The Penta- 

 teuch furnishes the solutions which appeared satisfactory to its 

 author. One of these, as we have seen, was borrowed from a 

 Babylonian fable ; and I know of no reason to suspect any differ- 

 ent origin from the rest. Now, I would ask, is the story of the 

 fabrication of Eve to be regarded as one of those pre-Abrahamic 

 narratives, the historical truth of which is an open question, in 

 face of the reference to it in a speech unhappily famous for the 

 legal oppression to which it has been wrongfully forced to lend 

 itself ? 



Have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them 

 male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, 

 and cleave to his wife ; and the twain shall become one flesh ? (Matthew, xix, 5). 



If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth 

 verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of lan- 

 guage ? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with 

 the story of the fall, as a " type " or " allegory/' what becomes of 

 the foundation of Pauline theology ? — 



For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 



* So far as I know, the narrative of the creation is not now held to be true, in the 

 sense in which I have denned historical truth, by any of the reconcilers. As for the at- 

 tempts to stretch the Pentateuchal days into periods of thousands or millions of years, the 

 verdict of the eminent biblical scholar, Dr. Riehm (Der biblische Schopfungsbericht, 1881, 

 pp. 15, 16), on such pranks of "Auslegungskunst " should be final. Why do the reconcilers 

 take Goethe's advice seriously ? — 



" Im Auslegen seyd frisch und munter ! 

 Legt ihr's nicht aus, so legt was unter.'" 



