I PROLOGUE 35 



come into existence as the last terms of a series, 

 the members of which have appeared one after 

 another. Thus, far from confirming the account 

 in Genesis, the results of modern science, so far as 

 they go, are in principle, as in detail, hopelessly 

 discordant with it. 



Yet, if the pretensions to infallibility set up, 

 not by the ancient Hebrew writings themselves, 

 but by the ecclesiastical champions and friends 

 from whom they may well pray to be delivered, 

 thus shatter themselves against the rock of 

 natural knowledge, in respect of the two most 

 important of all events, the origin of things and 

 the palingenesis of terrestrial life, what historical 

 credit dare any serious thinker attach to the 

 narratives of the fabrication of Eve, of the Fall, 

 of the commerce between the Bene Elohim and 

 the daughters of men, which lie between the 

 c/eational and the diluvial legends ? And, if 

 those are to lose all historical worth, what be- 

 comes of the infallibility of those who, according 

 to the later scriptures, have accepted them, 

 argued from them, and staked far-reaching dog- 

 matic conclusions upon their historical accuracy ? 



It is the merest ostrich policy for contemporary 

 ecclesiasticism to try to' hide its Hexateuchal 

 head in the hope that the inseparable connec- 

 tion of its body with pre-Abrahamic legends may 

 be overlooked. The question will still be asked, 

 if the first nine chapters of the Pentateuch are 



