On the Cosmogony of Moses. 181 
time, and have occasion to allude to the beginning or end of the 
period designated, we always carry on the metaphor and adopt 
the corresponding terms.”” The truth of this position is ob- 
vious ; but its application, instead. of supporting the tropical 
sense contended for, affords an additional objection against it. 
In the day and night of Brama, the duration of the respective 
portions, the preceding and following twilight, the day, and the 
night, are all chronological periods; and a distinct notion is 
eonveyed in properly sustained figurative language of the re- 
lative time of the exertion of Brama, when it is said, “ At the 
close of his night, haviag long reposed, he wakes, and awaking 
exerts intellect’? Had the morning and the evening been 
thus used in Genesis, to mark precedence or subsequence of dif- 
ferent acts of creation in the same day; had it been said, The 
sun was made in the morning, the moon in the evening of the 
fourth day, the language would with equal propriety have borne 
a literal or figurative interpretation. But it is remarkable, thas 
neither the morning nor the evening is once alluded to for any 
such purpose: the acts of each day are enumerated, and the 
day itself is said to consist of an evening and a morning. This 
being so, if day be understood figuratively, there does not ap- 
pear to have been the slightest “ occasion to allude to the be- 
ginning or end of the period designated’’ by it; since no other 
information would be conveyed by the supposed allusions, than 
that an indefinite period was composed of a metaphorical evening 
and morning; or, in other words, that one indefinite period con- 
sisted of two indefinite periods, I do not, however, pretend to 
appreciate the value of this information, estimated ‘* aceording 
to the genius of Hebrew literature.” 
The other, and more weighty objection,—that it does not ap- 
pear that the Hebrew people ever understood the six days of the 
creation as equivalent to so many indefinite periods,—seems im- 
plicitly admitted by the remark, that had Moses read a lecture 
on geology to “‘ the shepherds of Goshen, and told them what 
space of time each oceanic deposit occupied, and by what or- 
ganic remains it is to be recognised, he would have spent his 
time to little purpose.” Moses, however, told “ the shepherds 
of Goshen” many things quite as difficult to comprehend as that 
each epoch of the creation had occupied an extensive period: 
nor does it seem at all easier to conceive creation the work of 
six days than of as many thousand years. With respect to suc- 
cessive oceanic deposits, each characterized by peculiar organic 
remains, no trace of such a series of events is discoverable in the 
Mosaic account. On the contrary, in that narrative, the waters 
retire previous to the existence of animated beings, and never 
again cover the earth until the days of Noah; and the work 
M3 of 
