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XLK On the Cosmogony of Moses; in reply to JDr. Prichard. 

 By F. E s. 



-p^ To Mr. Tilloch. 



Sir, — JL/ocTOR Pricliard confesses that he ascribed to me a 

 declaration I had not uttered, and which he never supposed I 

 meant to make. Neither this confession, nor his ingenious at- 

 tempt, by what he calls ^'synonymous expressions," to extract 

 from my words something equivalent to the imputed declaration, 

 needs any commentary. Nor do I deem it necessary to offer 

 more than one or two short observations on the other parts of 

 his last communication. 



Although obliged to abandon tlie exclusion of the whole order 

 of testacea from the fifth day's creation. Doctor Prichard still 

 considers his coincidences safe, so long as it is not demonstrated 

 that the portion of the order which he persists in excluding, en- 

 joyed the power of creeping, or progressive motion. Itvvould seem, 

 however, that it was incumbent on him to have proved the want 

 of this species of motion in the excluded testacea, before he 

 assigned it as the reason of their exclusion. But even the ac- 

 complishment of this not easy task* would avail him little : 

 much less equivocal dietinctions than that founded on particular 

 modes of motion, preclude testacea from a place in the third 

 day's creation, in which nothing in the waters, nor any thing 

 animate on the land, is said to have been called into existence. 

 It will scarcely be contended that between land and water, 

 between animate and inanimate, the distinctions are not infi- 

 nitely wider and more important, than between dissimilar 

 modes of animal motion. Nor can it be maintained that the 

 testacea which the coincidences of Doctor Prichard require to be 

 excluded from the Jlfth and included in the third day's creation, 

 do not bear an incomparably closer analogy to those testacea, 

 which he is obliged to acknowledge cannot be excluded from the 

 fj'lh day, thantheydoto the grass, seed-bearing herbs, andfruit' 

 (jcaring trees of the third day's creation. 



Here I am willing the discussion should close, being content 

 to submit to the decision of those who may have attended to its 

 origin and progress, whether I have exhibited the captious cavil- 

 ling spirit, and other estimable (|ualities,with which the liberality 

 of my opponent hab endued me. I am, sir. 



Your very obedient servant, 



Madi, nth Sept. 1816. ■- P- E S, 



f Had the s>calh)p (for iiifetaiice) Iiappened to he wliat is, perhaps not 

 ftry properly, termed an <jcc.iiiic slicll, it may he prtMimed that from its 

 JUipectioii Dr. Prichiinl never could infer the powers of pro^refisive mo- 

 tion wliicli that bivalve ib known to enjoy. ' 



XLII. On 



