1i2 On the Cosmogony of Moses. 
character of a contemporary and circumstantial narratives | 
confess that this opinion seems to me to be supported by several 
strong arguments: but in maintaining it I do not place the au- 
thor of the Pentateuch in the rank of common compilers of 
historical fragments possessed merely of natural intelligence; nor 
do I apprehend that the authority of the records themselves can 
be diminished by assigning them to an age as near as possible 
to the events recorded: neither do I regard them in their origin 
as common historical testimonies. The cosmogony cannot be 
a piece of common history resting on human testimony. It 
must certainly be either a fragment of the imagination, or a 
production which owed its origin to some supernatural intelli- 
gence; and that it is not a mere figment, I am convinced by the 
accuracy with which it details the succession of the epochs of 
nature. ‘ : 
The only argument which I shall notice in proof of the opinion 
above mentioned, is the great diversity of style which has been 
traced in various portions of the ante-Hebraic history, and the 
solution which this hypothesis affords of a phenomenon which 
is wholly inexplicable on any other; viz. the remarkable con~ 
nexion discovered between the primitive histories of the most 
remote nations on the earth, and these documents embodied in 
the Genesis. The facts I allude to are to be found in many 
authors, and I need not detail them here; though, as it will pre- 
sently appear, they bear a near relation to the subject of this pa-~ 
per. Itisin vain to attempt to account for this coincidence, 
in the manner which some of the Fathers and Hyde and Prideaux 
have pursued, as by converting Abraham into Brahma; or by 
making Zoroaster a renegado Jew; since not only the Asiatic 
nations, but the Runic sealds of Iceland and Scandinavia, and the 
ancient priests of Mexico, were equally in possession of the pri- 
mitive traditions; and the latter certainly never obtained them 
from Jerusalem. ° 
These phenomena can only be solved by going back to the 
first periods of human society. There are many circumstances 
which indicate that certain records were preserved from ante- 
diluvian times. That alphabetic characters were known before 
the deluge, is not very probable; but that hieroglyphic or per- 
haps picture writing was practised, does not seem inadmissible, 
when we consider that these arts are found among nations in a 
very rude state of society, as the Canadians and South American 
Indians. It may reasonably be supposed that the true interpre- 
tation of such memorials was preserved among some nations, 
aud lost or diversified among others; nor is it to be doubted 
that the Hebrews retained the genuine sense, as they also pre- 
served 
. 
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