142 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [APR. 2, 
ignores it. We can get no help from him in answering it. He 
says Genesis so teaches, but offers no proof. We must look to 
the account itself. Glosses and commentaries cannot take its 
place, nor can they so attach themselves to it as to make it re- 
sponsible for their errors. The story itself is the best possible 
and only authoritative witness as to what it teaches. ‘To that, 
then, I appeal. 
I think no one—certainly no scientist—will object when I say 
that, in the study of this account, the meaning of words ought 
not to be forced, nor the order changed; and that no one has a 
right to put into the story what is not there, nor to leave anything 
out of it. Nor can any opponent justly find fault, if we assume 
that this chapter means just what it says. I shall, therefore, 
consider grass, herbs, and fruit-trees as meaning what every- 
body would understand by these words elsewhere. And, since 
they are placed together by the writer, in the same division of 
the creative account, I shail treat them as intended to refer to 
one synchronous flora, one horizon, as geologists say. In like 
manner, I take the water creatures of the fifth period to be the 
marine fauna of one special horizon, and so also of the animals 
of the sixth period. In other words, we have here three distinct 
and successive geological horizons characterized by the presence 
of these organisms. 
In briefest form, then, I take as my rules of exegesis: 
1st. The story means what it says. 
2d. It is not responsible for what it does not say. 
3d. We may not add to it. 
4th. Silence neither affirms nor denies. 
Professor Huxley will surely welcome such an exegesis, since 
he has repeatedly lashed the ‘‘ reconcilers of Genesis and Sci- 
ence” for their readiness to change and twist the meaning of 
words to meet the supposed demands of science. See his vigor- 
ous castigation of these unfortunate gentlemen in the paper 
under consideration; see also his first New York lecture. 
These rules rigidly adhered to will, if I am not mistaken, lead 
to results surprising for their novelty, and even more surprising 
for their relation to truths which have been regarded as pecu- 
liarly within the domain of science. 
I propose, then, to treat this first chapter, say to the end of 
the twenty-seventh verse, as literal history. The reader will 
bear in mind that I am now speaking solely of the creative 
account in the first chapter, and not of the Bible in general. 
‘That is composed of prose and poetry, ranging from the genealo- 
gies in Chronicles to the visions of the Apocalypse, and each 
part must be treated according to its own character. 
If Professor Huxley’s ‘‘central idea” is found anywhere in 
