[ 258 j 
LV. Onthe Cosmogony of Moses. By Dr. PRricHarD; in 
Reply toF. E Ss. 
To Mr. Tilloch. 
Sir, — LR the last number of the Philosophical Magazine I ob- 
serve a second attack upon my paper on the Mosaic Cosmogony. 
I had declined entering into any further controversy on this 
subject ; but on mature consideration it appears to me a matter 
of so mueh importance to prove that the exordium of the He- 
brew Scriptures is capable of a rational ars! philosophical inter- 
pretation, instead of one which gives it very much the air of a 
piece of mythology, that I have resolved to reply to the stric- 
tures of your correspondent. 
He has detected me in one error, to which I must ppere 
plead guilty; viz. that of citing Laplace’s Syst@me du Monde 
by a designation not quite accurate. I wrote in great haste, 
and had not leisure for correcting my composition; and I could 
even point out to my keen-sighted adversary some other verbal 
imaccuracies equally important, which I discovered in looking 
over my paper since I received the number of the Philosophical 
Magazine which contains it; but as these matters have little 
relation to the argument before us, I shall proceed to consider 
on what grounds I am accused by Mr, F. E s of contradict- 
ing my own statements. 
I observed in my first paper, that the speculations of heathen 
philosophers on the Cosmogony were founded on some fanciful 
analogy with natural processes that are daily observed ; and in 
my last communication I have said that the historical docu- 
ments contained in the early part of Genesis may be traced 
among many remote nations ; and that not only the Asiatics but 
the Scandinavians and Mexicans * were equally in possession of 
the primitive traditions.” But I beg to have it observed, that 
in this latter instance [ made no allusion to the Cosmogony. 
Neither the Scandinavians nor the Mexicans had, as far as I 
remember, any ngtions on this subject which bore the slightest 
analogy to the account which we have in the Pentateuch. The 
former on thé contrary held that the earth was in the beginning 
the dead hody of a huge giant, while the latter imputed the 
origin of the human species to the fall of an aérolite. Yet in 
the mythological fables of both these nations there are many 
circumstances referriug to the history of mankind, which were 
evidently derived from the same source with some relations con- 
tained in the early Scriptures of the Hebrews; and it was only 
for the sake of proving this connexion, and the consequence 
which I deduced from it, that they were alluded to, I may-add 
that 
