[ 10 4 
XXIV. On the Cosmogon y of Moses; in Answer to the Stric- 
iures of F. E s*, By J. C. Pricuarp, Esq. 
To Mr, Tillach. 
Sir, — I FEEL it incumbent upon me to reply to some stric- 
tures contributed by a correspondent to the last number of your 
Magazine, on a paper of mine which you did me the honour of 
inserting in the Philosophical Magazine for October, and which 
contained an attempt to illustrate the wonderful and striking 
conformity that exists between the series of events recorded in 
the beginning of Genesis, and the result of geological researches 
into the crust of our globe. 
The question turns upon the sense we ought to affix to the 
words interpreted the ‘‘ days’ of the creation. I have en- 
deavoured to show that, if we receive the expression as desig~ 
nating indefinite periods of time, the whole account bears the 
most important relations to the epochs of nature. I will add 
that, if we pay no regard to the genius of Hebrew literature, but 
are determined to interpret the writings of Moses according to 
the strictest rules which the idioms of our western languages 
impose, we shall distort the sense of many sublime passages ; and 
in this particular instance, in the place of a true detail of events, 
which we know tq have really happened, shall substitute a rela- 
tion improbable in itself, and wholly irreconcilable with the cer- 
tain results of sensible evidence. 
But to proceed to the argument, Your correspondent seems 
willing to allow that the word “day” might properly bear the 
sense I have affixed to it, did it not occur in conjunction with 
the terms which designate the natural commencement and ter- 
mination of a day, viz. morning and evening. Now, this cir- 
cumstance appears to me to occasion no difficulty whatever. 
Nothing is more common than this mode of expression, even in 
Janguages of so stiff and unbending a texture as the modern 
European dialects. If we use the word day to signify a portion 
of time, and have oecasion to allude to the beginning or end of ~ 
the period designated, we always carry on the metaphor, and 
adopt the corr esponding terms. We continually hear such phrases 
in rhetorical or poetical language as ‘* the evening of our days,” 
3 
the “ morning,” “ noontide,” and ‘‘ evening” of human life. 
The poet Gray uses the very terms in dispute, when alluding in ~ 
one of his poems to the beginning and termination of Richard 
the Second’s reign. He says “* Fair laughs the morn,” &c.— 
* See our last number, p. 9 
& the 
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