38 THE NO A CHI AN FLOOD. 



But, on either assumption, what conceivable warrant 

 have we for imagining that he was deprived of common 

 sense ? Either he knew the contradictions which natural 

 science offers to the belief in a recent universal deluge, 



O * 



or he did not know them. If he knew them, we may 

 infer from his silence that his narrative was not open to 

 those contradictions ; in other words, that the deluge of 

 which he speaks was not universal. If he did not know 

 them, his ignorance points to the same conclusion : 

 otherwise, we shall have a divine miracle, intended for 

 the warning and the benefit of the human race, yet so 

 contrived that all its most surprising circumstances 

 should be absolutely unknown to one half of mankind, 

 and as absolutely incredible to the other half. 



The historical account informs up that 'the waters 

 prevailed exceedingly upon the earth ; and all the high 

 hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. 

 Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail ; and the 

 mountains were covered.' But Europe possesses moun- 

 tains rising to a height of more than 10,000 cubits or 

 15,000 feet one peak in Asia is 29,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea so that, on the common interpretation, 

 the waters of the flood must have risen to a thickness 

 above the ordinary sea-level of nearly 30,000 feet over 

 the whole of the globe. But, on this supposition, the 

 narrative is not only bewildering and morally impossible, 

 but positively untruthful, for it declares the physical 

 means employed in the production of the flood to be the 

 fountains of the great deep and the rain from heaven 

 means entirely sufficient to produce a partial flood over 



