74 Does the Mosaic Cosmogony 



coercenda, quia ex divinorum et humanorum, male sanaadmix- 

 tione, non solum educitur, philosopliia phantastica, sed etiam 

 religio haeretica." We have only endeavoured to illustrate and 

 point out the consequences of the statement of Baron Cuvier, 

 " that the order which the cosmogony of Moses assigns to the 

 different epochs of creation, is precisely the same as that which 

 has been deduced from geological considerations." We have 

 been guilty of no improper mixing up of divine and human 

 things. We have examined the meaning of the terms in the 

 first chapter of Genesis, in consistency with the acknowledged 

 rules of criticism, and only by the light contained within itself, 

 or that thrown upon it by the other books, in the same lan- 

 guage with which it is associated. The human science we have 

 not extracted from any part of the Holy Scriptures ; we have 

 taken it simply as we find it in the works of eminent geologists. 

 As the latter is not a philosophia phantastica, but a deeply in- 

 teresting science, constructed by that method of careful obser- 

 vation and cautious induction, which Bacon was himself the first 

 to recommend ; so neither can the sense of the Scriptures present 

 to us a religio haeretica. If our science, thus constructed, and 

 our religion speak so obviously the same language, as we have 

 seen they do on one important point, what else, in the strictest 

 application of Bacon"*s philosophy, can we deduce from the cir- 

 cumstance, but that both are certainly true ? 



It does not come under our present subject to discuss the his- 

 torical and moral evidences of the divine revelation of the Scrip- 

 tures ; but both are so full, even to overflowing, and impose 

 upon us so many insuperable difficulties, in the way of our be- 

 ing able to account for the quality and consistency of these re- 

 markable books, excepting on the ground which has been all 

 along assumed by themselves, that they are of more than hu- 

 man origin, that in estimating the accuracy of any part of the 

 matters contained in them, the fastidiousness of human science 

 appears to be carried to an unreasonable extent, not to take 

 these evidences into calculation. In this country, where for a 

 long period we have had the Scriptures in our hands as a popu- 

 lar book, they among us who have been the most eminent for 

 human learning and science, and whose fame has been in every 

 view the most unsullied, have been so convinced by the force of 



