THE DECLINE OF BIBLIOLATRY. 60 1 



Gospels would be as severely tested ; and that the evidence in 

 favor of the veracity of many of the statements found in the 

 Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be op- 

 posed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so 

 far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential 

 strength of these conclusions ventures now to say that the biblical 

 accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural 

 sense of the words of the narratives. The most the modern rec- 

 onciler ventures upon is to affirm that some quite different sense 

 may be put upon the words ; and that this non-natural sense may, 

 with a little trouble, be manipulated into some sort of non-contra- 

 diction of scientific truth. 



My purpose, in the essay (XVI) * which treats of the narrative 

 of the Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such 

 event as that described ever took place ; to exhibit the untrust- 

 worthy character of the narrative demonstrated by literary criti- 

 cism ; and, finally, to account for its origin, by producing a form 

 of those ancient legends of pagan Chaldea, from which the bib- 

 lical compilation is manifestly derived. I have yet to learn that 

 the main propositions of this essay can be seriously challenged. 



In the essays (II, III) on the narrative of the Creation, I have 

 endeavored to controvert the assertion that modern science sup- 

 ports, either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or 

 any interpretation which is compatible with the general sense 

 of the narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first 

 chapter of Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present 

 forms of life ; modern science teaches that they have come about 

 by evolution. The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive 

 origin firstly, of all the plants ; secondly, of all the aquatic and 

 aerial animals ; thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals which now 

 exist during distinct intervals of time ; modern science teaches 

 that, throughout all the duration of an immensely long past, so 

 far as we have any adequate knowledge of it (that is, as far back 

 as the Silurian epoch), plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial ani- 

 mals have coexisted ; that the earliest known are unlike those 

 which at present exist ; and that the modern species have come 

 into existence as the last terms of a series, the members of which 

 have appeared one after another. Thus, far from confirming the 

 account in Genesis, the results of modern science, so far as they 

 go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly discordant with it. 



Yet. if the pretensions to infallibility thus set up, not by the 

 ancient Hebrew writings themselves, but by the ecclesiastical 

 champions and friends from whom they may well pray to be 



* [The Roman numerals in this article refer to the author's Essays upon some Contro- 

 verted Questions. Editok.] 

 vol. xli. 44 



