On the Mosaic Cosmogom/. 577 



though repeatedly corrected, and reminded of his injustice to the 

 •author, persists in urging his vcmucidnr prnojs, that Shakespear 

 is a mere playwright, destitute of genius and truth in every plot 

 and character. Had the anti-co&niologist understood hut a lit- 

 tle of the language in M'hich the cosmogony is >vritten, the pages 

 of the Philosophical Magazine never would have heen the record 

 of the following unphilosophical conclusion : ' Neither forest 

 trees, shrubs, nor lichens come under the description oi' grass, 

 seed-hmring herbs, or fruit-trees.' In this reflection he relies 

 upon the common version, which makes !^!i^U"I a generic noun, 

 contrary to the analogy of the Genesis:' tlie terms that charac- 

 terize organized beings, except where the rational species is de- 

 signated, are all general. The eleventh verse literally runs 

 thus: ' God said. Let the earth shoot forth the vegetable {^"^IVi 

 hiin yit^il), the herb making seed, the tree producing fruit 

 for its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth.' The ob- 

 jection that, if this account were fact, we should have no forest- 

 trees, is extremely vulgar; as if the oak and the beech came not 

 under the denomination of ' fruit-bearing trees,' merely because 

 their mast and acorns are never found among the nuts aihi 

 oranges, grapes and nectarines, that decorate the dessert -tnhk. 



The inference, so pertinaciously defended, — that Moses iias 

 confined the existence of the aquatic animals to the fifth day, — is 

 C(jually unfortunate. Moses informs us that, at the commence- 

 ment of this period, ' God said. Let the waters bring forth ubnn- 

 danthj the moving creature tliat hath life.' Gen. chap.i. ver. 20. 

 The author of the Cosmogony never designed here to be under- 

 stood as if IK) species of aiiimated beings had before existed. 

 His language is very different from that in which he descril)es 

 the first production of laud animals. — We have the authority of 

 Moses himself, in another instance, for the import of his lan- 

 guage in the present case. 



In the foriowing passage (Exod. cliap. viii. ver. 3.) the njodeof 

 expression is btre precisely the same with that above mentioned 

 in the Genesis : ^ The river shall bring forth frogs abundantly' 

 Would it not be a monstrous absurdity to argue I'rom this pass- 

 age that, because Moses sa\^ nothing of their previous existence, 

 therefore there must have been no frogs in the Nile before this 

 event? though it would be very difficult perhaps to prove the 

 fact. But as there certainly were frogs in Egypt before this 

 period ; so, if the same words have the same meaning, there were 

 * living creatures' in the waters previous to theyf/zZt day; though 

 till then they did not so abundantli/ exist. J'esides, a physical 

 cause cnn be assigned for the peculiar expression Moses uses, 

 which also contains a sufficient reason for the a(|uatic animals 

 xeniaining ^noticed till this period. The waters had hitherto 

 S 3 bcci^ 



