1588. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 143 
this chapter, it must be in some part of verses 11 to 25. In 
verses 11 and 12 we read that, at God’s command, ‘‘ the earth 
brought forth grass, herbs, and fruit trees.” In verse 21, after 
these, we read that God ‘‘created great whales and other living 
creatures which the waters brought forth abundantly, and fowl 
to fly in the firmament of heaven.” Yet later we read in verse 
25, ‘‘God made cattle, beasts,” and other living land animals. 
That is all as to the order of life. It does not say that no 
plants existed before fruit-trees, no animals before ‘‘ whales” 
and fowls, no land animals before cattle. If the account is re- 
sponsible only for what it says, then it has no responsibility for 
Professor Huxley’s ‘‘ central idea,” and can neither stand or fall 
by it. 
Moses (or whoever wrote the account) speaks of certain im- 
portant matters, and as to all else is silent. But Professor 
Huxley fills the gap with what he supposes Moses would have 
said—but did not—and then exclaims, how impossible that this 
account is inspired! Four distinct and vitally important errors 
of fact in three brief sentences! Errors indeed, but not one of 
them in the story itself. It may be said, however, if these errors 
are not actually in the narrative, they are what the writer must 
have meant. In other words, he intended to go wrong, but 
somehow was prevented. 
It is not necessary to consider what was intended. We have 
to do only with what is written, and keep clear of that ‘ flexi- 
bility ” which is so obnoxious to our critic. 
After a most careful examination of the words of Moses, we 
are, as it seems to me, justified in the conclusion that what 
Professor Huxley regards as ‘‘the central idea by which the 
account must stand or fall,” has no place in it, but is an inter- 
polation which he has too readily accepted, a figure of straw 
which his logical hammer has demolished. 
What, then, is the true ‘‘ central idea” of the story ? 
It is God’s creatorship of all things. 
No other cosmogony has risen to that height. The Chaldean, 
from which it is the fashion to say this account was taken, says 
that heaven, earth, and sea preceded the gods. The ‘first tab- 
let ” declares that ‘‘at this time ” (when the story begins) ‘‘ the 
great gods were not made any one of them.” 
In Genesis, God’s creatorship is clearly set forth from first to 
last. In the beginning He created the heavens and the earth, 
and in every stage it is God that does what is done. 
If Genesis does not teach what Professor Huxley says it does, 
it may be asked, what may we learn from it as to the grand 
procession of life? 
First, then, it says nothing about the first plants and animals. 
