compared with the Discoveries of the Modern Sciences. 267 
weight, and the number of atoms or molecules which com- 
pose them. Perhaps it was thus meant to specify the prin- 
cipal modes of regarding bodies, or the principal branches of 
natural science. Physics would, in this way, be represented 
by measure, the mathematical sciences by number, and che- 
mistry by weight. 
Scripture describes, in a few words, the principal proper- 
ties of bodies, and how we may sum up their different appear- 
ances and different characters. Thus God asks Job where 
he was when He laid the foundations of the earth, and when 
He established the measures thereof? where he was when He 
enclosed the sea with barriers, when it broke forth as a child 
which comes from the womb of its mother? or when, enve- 
loping the clouds as with a garment, He surrounded it with 
darkness like the swaddling-bands of infancy? Has man 
ever known the paths of light, or the place of darkness 2 
The details into which we have entered seem to prove, with 
some degree of evidence, that the physical truths most essen- 
tial to the knowledge of the material world, are almost all 
indicated in the first books of the Bible. They are never, in- 
deed, fully developed, because Moses and his successors were 
not called upon to write scientific treatises. While speaking 
of God, and the works which proclaim his power, they have, 
as if in spite of themselves, allowed some gleams of their 
superior knowledge to break through. Their object, and 
almost their sole object, has been to point out their duties to 
the people they were called upon to direct, and, particularly, 
to fill their minds with the fear of the Lord. It was sufficient 
to unveil to them the principal facts of this visible world, to 
convince them of the wisdom of the Most High. so clearly 
imprinted on the works he has produced. Explaining them, 
accordingly, with an admirable conciseness, the greater part 
of these facts have escaped the notice of the first interpreters 
of Scripture, who, from inability to comprehend them, have 
not given to the Sacred Books all the importance they now 
possess in our eyes. Their errors, altogether involuntary, 
~ are so much the less to be wondered at, since the Bible con- 
tains particulars for which we cannot yet assign a reason in 
the present state of our knowledge. The constant progress 
