20 On the Cosmogony of' Moses. 



tainiiig any pretensions to which it can allude. I acquiesce in 

 his estimate of the superior weight of " fair inference from his- 

 torical facts," to that of " hypotheses concerning sorts of in- 

 spiration." The points in discussion do not, however, require 

 that I should offer any opinion on the historical facts which de- 

 termine him to believe that Moses was not the original author 

 of the Cos7?iogony ;" it is sufficient that 1 have shown some of 

 the consequences which result from such a supposition. I shall 

 only add, that his hypothesis, which gives the Hebrew, Hindoo, 

 and Etruscan Cosmogonies a common but unascertained origin 

 of higher antiquity than Moses, vvill scarcely be thought calcu- 

 lated to induce any very strong belief that the hidden source of 

 this common origin was Heaven. 



I am charged with having unfoundedly insbmatcd that Dr. 

 Priclrard rested iiis interpretation of the word day, solely on the 

 authority of Josephus and Philo. If what I have written admit 

 such a construction, I most explicitly disavow it ; but if it be 

 found that what I said, so far from containing such an alisurd 

 insinuation, contains no insinuation whatever, Dr.Prichard may 

 possibly retract his imputation. I had replied to some of his ar- 

 guments adduced in supj)ort of the figurative sense of the word 

 day, when he reminded rae that I had overlooked the authority 

 of Josephus and Philo. Mv answer to this contained nothing 

 that it did not directly. express : " If," said I, " he rest the me- 

 taphorical sense of the word day on their authority, he must 

 also on the same authority admit a figurative sense of the 

 ivlwlejirst chapter nj Genesis." V/hy this answer should have 

 the misfortune to displease him I know not, since he avows that 

 it has been his " endeavour to sliow that every part of the first 

 chapter of Genesis is more or less metapliorical." 1 really have 

 no distinct conception of the modification here intended by the 

 words " more or less;" but if "every part" be metaphorical, 

 the whole it may be ])resun>ed call be neitlier more nor less than 

 allegorical. 



In his zeal to establish his coincidences, and to apply to some 

 laseful purpose his discovery of the true sense of the 20th verse of 

 the first chapter of Genesis, Dr. Prichard with the stroke of a 

 pen deprived nivriads of animals of locomotioa. When it was 

 afterwards objected to him, that even his own version of this 

 verse "does not exclude lestaceafrom the Jijth day's creation," 

 a con.^iderable portion of the order being i/idiipatably endued 

 with locomotion;" instead either of acknowledging or defending 

 his error, he is pleased to say, that he " shall not enter J^iirther 

 into the inquiry what place cokals and bivalves hold in the scale 

 of creation, whether THEY are, as F. E. declares, locomotive 

 ANiMA.r.s, or aj)proach to the character of vegetables:" gravely 



adding 



