THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



revelation to anybody, he passes on to ex- 

 amine its contents. It contains, he says, 

 scientific errors, of which (p. 4*2, 71.) he 

 specifics three. His charges are that (1) it 

 speaks of the heaven as a solid vault; (2) 

 it places the creation of the stars after that 

 of the earth, and so places them solely for 

 its use ; (3) it introduces the vegetable king- 

 dom before that kingdom could be subjected 

 to the action of solar light. All these con- 

 demnations are quietly enunciated in a note, 

 as if they were subject to no dispute. Let 

 us see. 



As to the first : if our scholars are right 

 in their judgment, just made known to the 

 world by the recent revision of the Old 

 Testament, the " firmament " is, in the He- 

 brew original,* not a solid vault, but an ex- 

 panse. As to the secend (a), it is not said 

 in the sacred text that the stars were made 

 solely for the use of the earth ; {b) it is true 

 that no other use is mentioned. But we 

 must here inquire what was the purpose of 

 the narrative ? Not to rear cosmic philoso- 

 phers, but to furnish ordinary men with 

 some idea of what the Creator had done in 

 the way of providing for them a home and 

 giving them a place in nature. The advan- 

 tage afforded by the stars to them is named 

 alone, they having no interest in any other 

 purpose for which the stars may exist. 



The assertion that the stars are stated 

 to have been " created " after the earth is 

 more serious. But here it becomes neces- 

 sary first of all to notice the recital in this 

 part of the indictment. In the language of 

 Dr. Reville, the Book speaks of the creation 

 of the stars after the formation of the earth. 

 Now, curiously enough, the Book says noth- 

 ing cither of the " formation " of the earth, 

 or of the " creation " of the stars. It says 

 in its first line that " in the beginning God 

 created the heaven and the earth." It says 

 further on,f " He made the stars also." Can 

 it be urged that this is a fanciful distinction 

 between creating on the one hand and mak- 

 ing, forming, or fashioning on the other? 

 Dante did not think so, for, speaking of the 

 Divine Will, he says : 



" CI6 ch' Ella cria, e cho Natnra fece." } 



• The trTtpiiaiJ.a. of the Septuaglnt is construed 

 In coDformlty with the Hebrew. 

 + Oen. 1, 16. 

 X " Paradlso," lil, 87. 



I Luther did not think so, for he uses schuf 

 I in the first verse, and machte in the six- 

 teenth. The English translators and their 

 revisers did not think so, for they use the 

 words " created " and " made " in the two 

 passages respectively. The main question, 

 however, is, What did the author of the 

 Book think, and what did he intend to con- 

 vey ? The LXX drew no distinction, prob- 

 ably for the simple reason that, as the idea 

 of creation proper was not familiar to the 

 Greeks, their language conveyed no word 

 better iha.npoiein to express it, which is also 

 the proper word for fashioning or making. 

 But the Hebrew, it seems, had the distinc- 

 tion, and by the writer of Genesis i it has 

 been strictly, to Dr. R6ville I might also say 

 scientifically, followed. He uses the word 

 "created" on the three grand occasions (1) 

 of the beginning of the mighty work (v. 1); 

 (2) of the beginning of animal life (v. 21), 

 "And God created great wh'ales," and every 

 living creature that peoples the waters ; (3) 

 of the yet more important beginning of ra- 

 tional and spiritual life ; " so God created 

 man in his own image" (v. 27). In every 

 other instance, the simple command is re- 

 cited, or a word implying less than creation 

 is employed. 



From this very marked mode of use, it 

 is surely plain that a marked distinction of 

 sense was intended by the sacred writer. I 

 will not attempt a definition of the distinc- 

 tion further than this, that the one phrase 

 points more to calling into a separate or in- 

 dividual existence, the other more to shaping 

 and fashioning the conditions of that exist- 

 ence ; the one to quid, the other to quale. 

 Our Earth, created in v. 1, undergoes struct- 

 ural change, different arrangement of ma- 

 terial, in V. 9. After this, and in the fourth 

 day, comes not the original creation, but the 

 location in the firmament, of the sun and 

 the moon. Of their "creation" nothing 

 particular has been said ; for no use, palpa- 

 ble to man, was associated with it before 

 their perfect equipment. Docs it not seem 

 allowable to suppose that in the " heavens " * 



♦ In our translation, and in the recent revision, 

 the sinjjular is used. But wo are assured that the 

 Hebrew word is plural (Bishop of Winchester on 

 Genesis 1, 1, in the Speaker's Hlblc). If so taken, 

 we have the creation, visible to us, treated conjointly 

 in versos 1-5, distributively in verses 6-19 ; surely 

 a most orderly arrangement. 



