158 Mr Babbage on the Account of the Creation 



But let us consider what would be the conclusion of every 

 reasonable being in a parallel case ; let us imagine a manuscript 

 written three thousand years ago, and professing to be a revela- 

 tion from the Deity, in which it was stated, that the colour of the 

 paper of the very book now in the reader's hand is black, and that 

 the colour of the ink in the characters which he is now reading 

 is white, — with that reasonable doubt of his own individual fa- 

 culties, which would become the inquirer into the truth of a 

 statement said to be derived from so high an origin, he would 

 ask of all those around him, whether, to their senses, the paper 

 appeared to be black, and the ink to be white. If he found the 

 senses of other individuals agree with his own, then he would 

 undoubtedly pronounce the alleged revelation a forgery, and 

 those who propounded it to be either deceived or deceivers. He 

 would rightly impute the attempted deceit to moral turpitude, 

 to the gross ignorance, or to the interested motives of the sup- 

 porters of it; and he certainly would not commit the impiety of 

 supposing the Deity to have wrought a miraculous change upon 

 the senses of our whole species, and to demand their behef in a 

 fact directly opposed to those senses; thus throwing doubt upon 

 every conclusion of reason which related to external objects, and, 

 amongst others, upon the very evidence by which the authenti- 

 city of that questionable manuscript was itself supported, and 

 even of its very existence when before their eyes. 



Thus, then, had those who attempt to shew that the account of 

 the creation in the book of Genesis is contradicted by the dis- 

 coveries of modern science, succeeded, they would have destroy- 

 ed the testimony of Moses, they would have uncanonized one 

 portion of Scripture, and, by implication, have thrown doubt on 

 the remainder. But minds which thus failed to trace out the 

 necessary consequences of their own argument, were not likely 

 to have laid very secure foundations for the basis on which it 

 rested ; and I shall presently prove that the contradiction they 

 have imagined can have no real existence, that, whilst the testi- 

 mony of Moses remains unimpeached, we may also be permit- 

 ted to confide in the testimony of our senses. 



Before entering on the main argument it may be remarked, 

 that the plainest and most natural view of the language employed 

 by the sacred historian of the Earth is, that his expressions ought 



