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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



in their final forms, when the completion of 

 the process of light-collection and concen- 

 tration in the sun, and the due clearing 

 of the intervening spaces, had enabled the 

 central orb to illuminate us both with direct 

 and with reflected Hght (verses 14-19). 



6. So far, we have been busy only with 

 the adjustment of material agencies. We 

 now arrive at the dawn of animated being ; 

 and a great transition seems to be marked 

 as a kind of recommencement of the work, 

 for the name of creation is again introduced. 

 God created — 



(a) The water-population ; 



(6) The air-population. 

 And they receive His benediction (verses 

 20-23). 



6. Pursuing this regular progression 

 from the lower to the higher, from the 

 simple to the complex, the text now gives 

 us the work of the sixth " day," which sup- 

 plies the land-population, air and water 

 having already been supplied. But in it 

 there is a subdivision, and the transition 

 from (c) animal to {d) man, like the transi- 

 tion from inanimate to animate, is again 

 marked as a great occasion, a kind of re- 

 commencement. For this purpose the word 

 " create " is a third time employed. " God 

 created man in His own image," and once 

 more He gave benediction to this the final 

 work of His hands, and endowed our race 

 with its high dominion over what lived and 

 what did not live (verses 24-31). 



I do not dwell on the cessation of the 

 Almighty from the creating and (ii, 1) "fin- 

 ishing " work, which is the " rest " and 

 marks the seventh " day," because it in- 

 troduces another order of considerations. 

 But, glancing back at the narrative which 

 now forms the first chapter, I offer perhaps 

 a prejudiced, and in any case no more than 

 a passing, remark. If we view it as popu- 

 lar narrative, it is singularly vivid, for- 

 cible, and effective ; if we take it as a poem, 

 it is indeed sublime. No wonder if it be- 

 came classical and reappeared in the glori- 

 ous devotions of the Hebrew people,* pur- 

 suing, in a great degree, the same order of 

 topics as in the Book of Genesis. 



But the question is not here of a lofty 



• Ps. civ. a-20, cxxxvl, 6-9, and the Song of the 

 Three Children in verses 57-fiO. 



poem, or a skillfully constructed narrative : 

 it is whether natural science, in the patient 

 exercise of its high calling to examine facts, 

 finds that the works of God cry out against 

 what we have fondly believed to be His 

 Word, and tell another tale ; or whether, in 

 this nineteenth century of Christian progress, 

 it substantially echoes back the majestic 

 sound which, before it existed as a pursuit, 

 went forth into all lands. 



First, looking largely at the latter por- 

 tion of the narrative, which describes the 

 creation of living organisms, and waiving 

 details, on some of which (as in verse 24) 

 the Scptuagint seems to vary from the 

 Hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division, 

 set forth in an orderly succession of times 

 as follows : on the fifth day — 



1. The water-population ; 



2. The air-population ; 

 and, on the sixth day, 



3. The land-population of animals ; 



4. The land-population consummated in 

 man. 



Now this same fourfold order is under- 

 stood to have been so affirmed in our time 

 by natural science, that it may be taken as 

 a demonstrated conclusion and established 

 fact. Then, I ask, how came Moses, or, 

 not to cavil on the word, how came the au- 

 thor of the first chapter of Genesis, to 

 know that order, to possess knowledge 

 which natural science has only within the 

 present century for the first time dug out 

 of the bowels of the earth ? It is surely 

 impossible to avoid the conclusion, first, 

 that either this writer was gifted with facul- 

 ties passing all human experience, or else 

 his knowledge was divine. The first branch 

 of the alternative is truly nominal and un- 

 real. We know the sphere within which 

 human inquiry toils. We know the heights 

 to which the intuitions of genius may soar. 

 We know that in certain cases genius an- 

 ticipates science ; as Homer, for example, 

 in his account of the conflict of the four 

 winds in sea-storms. But even in these 

 anticipations, marvelous, and, so to speak, 

 imperial as they are, genius can not escape 

 from one inexorable law. It must have 

 materials of sense or experience to work 

 with, and a irov crw from whence to take 

 its flight; and genius can no more tell, 

 apart from some at least of the results at- 



