226 LIGHTS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE vi 



say, 4000 feet above the sea-level over Palestine, 

 without covering the rest of the globe to the same 

 height. Even if, in the course of Noah's six 

 hundredth year, some prodigious convulsion had 

 sunk the whole region inclosed within " the 

 horizon of the geographical knowledge " of the 

 Israelites by that much, and another had pushed 

 it up again, just in time to catch the ark upon 

 the " mountains of Ararat," matters are not much 

 mended. I am afraid to think of what would 

 have become of a vessel so little seaworthy as the 

 ark and of its very numerous passengers, under 

 the peculiar obstacles to quiet flotation which such 

 rapid movements of depression and upheaval 

 would have generated. 



Thus, in view, not, I repeat, of the recondite 

 speculations of infidel philosophers, but in the face 

 of the plainest and most commonplace of ascer- 

 tained physical facts, the story of the Noachian 

 Deluge has no more claim to credit than has 

 that of Deucalion ; and whether it was, or was 

 not, suggested by the familiar acquaintance of 

 its originators with the effects of unusually great 

 overflows of the Tigris and Euphrates, it is 

 utterly devoid of historical truth. 



That is, in my judgment, the necessary result 

 of the application of criticism, based upon assured 

 physical knowledge, to the story of the Deluge. 

 And it is satisfactory that the criticism which is 



