118 PKEADAMITE MAN. 



word < duplicity ' exactly represents it. Thousands of topics 

 exist, nevertheless, in respect of which an equal amount of 

 duplicity is shown. I am not concerned here to show the 

 reason. 



Of late various causes have conspired to bring phases of 

 private thought more into the foreground of public opinion 

 than heretofore. Amongst these may be mentioned the free 

 outspokenness of the Bishop of Natal, and the license of non- 

 natural interpretations claimed and taken by certain theo- 

 logians. With these examples before them, lay philosophers 

 might well take heart of grace; saying each to himself, 'What 

 need of this reticence for peace and quietness' sake, lest dog- 

 matic theology should be disturbed, seeing that it already is 

 disturbed 1 The acquiescence of theologians was only a pre- 

 tence, after all a lie, to be plain. At least, then, will not I 

 be in complicity.' 



Relative to the question to be discussed whether the 

 Mosaic account of the creation of man be or be not literally 

 true we have first to give attention to the eminent of time. 

 If true as to time, then up to the present year 1870 (inas- 

 much as the creation is fixed at 4004 years before Christ), 

 man will have been a denizen of this planet for just 5874 

 years. To simplify the case, we will, for the present, consider 

 the 1 element of time exclusively ; asking ourselves, in how far 

 does the assumption of less than six thousand years accord 

 with the teaching of evidence ? In treating of this, it will be 

 well to begin at a point at which theologians and naturalists, 

 with some rare exceptions, coincide. The point to which I 

 would refer is that marking the concurrence of men of science 

 and theologians in the belief that the Mosaic account of crea- 

 tion can only be held to signify rearrangement; and that, 

 granting, for the sake of argument, the creation of man to 

 have happened at the time evolved from the Mosaic account, 

 still the fossil remains of bone, turning up, demonstrate the 

 existence of animals upon our planet before the conceded ad- 



