Of the delation of Tradition to Falcetiology, 263 



ceived tho occurrences of the Sacred Narrative in a particular 

 manner, they could not readily and willingly adopt a new modo 

 of conception ; and they resisted all attempts to recommend 

 it to them, as attacks upon the sacredness of the Narrative. 

 They had clothed their belief of the workings of Providence 

 in certain images ; and they clung to those images with the 

 persuasion that without them their belief could not subsist. 

 Thus they imagined to themselves that the earth was a flat 

 floor, solidly and broadly laid for the convenience of man, and 

 they felt as if the kindness of Providence was disparaged, 

 when it was maintained that the earth was a globe held toge- 

 ther only by the mutual attraction of its parts. 



The most memorable instance of a struggle of this kind is 

 to be found in the circumstances which attended the introduc- 

 tion of the Heliocentric Theory of Copernicus to general ac- 

 ceptance. On this controversy I have already made some re- 

 marks in tho History of Science,* and have attempted to draw 

 from it some lessons which may be useful to us when any simi- 

 lar conflict of opinions may occur. I will here add a few re- 

 flections with a similar view. 



6. Buck difficulties inetitaUe, — In the first place, I remark 

 that such modifications of the current interpretation of the 

 words of Scripture appear to be an inevitable consequence of 

 the progressive character of Natural Science. Science is con- 

 stantly teaching us to describe known facts in new language, 

 but the language of Scripture is always the same. And not 

 only so, but the language of Scripture is necessarily adapted 

 to the common state of man's intellectual development, in 

 which he is supposed not to be possessed of science. Hence 

 the phrases used by Scripture are precisely those which science 

 soon teaches man to consider as inaccurate. Yet they are not 

 on that account the less fitted for their proper purpose : for if 

 any terms had been used, adapted to a more advanced state 

 of knowledge, they must have been unintelligible among those 

 to whom the Scripture was first addressed. If the Jews had 

 been told that water existed in the clouds in small drops, they 

 would have marvelled that it did not constantly descend ; and 

 to have explained the reason of this, would have been to teach 



♦ Vol. i 401. 



