60 THE NOACHIAN FLOOD. 



useless to speculate, if, after all that has been urged 

 upon other points, there are some who still think that 

 the description in Genesis is the description of a Flood 

 that prevailed over all the world, and intend still to 

 believe in such a Flood, and to teach it as a part of 

 religious doctrine, notwithstanding any argument or 

 scientific proof to the contrary. For them we can do no 

 more than commend to their daily reflection a few lines 

 from the lives of two famous men : ' In spite/ says 

 Dr. Wilson, ' alike of the science and the devout religious 

 spirit of Columbus, the Salamanca divines pronounced 

 the idea of the earth's spherical form heterodox, and 

 a belief in antipodes incompatible with the historical 

 traditions of our faith : since to assert that there were 

 inhabited lands on the opposite side of the globe would 

 be to maintain that there were nations not descended 

 from Adam, it being impossible for them to have passed 

 the intervening ocean. This would therefore be to dis- 

 credit the Bible, which expressly declares that all men 

 are descended from one common parent 1 / And thus 

 another author describes a well-known incident in the 

 life of Galileo : ' Clad in a penitent's sackcloth, the 

 mighty, self-relying philosopher and genius fell upon his 

 knees, and, with his hands laid on the Holy Evangelists, 

 declared that he abjured, detested, and would never 

 again teach, the doctrine of the sun's stability and the 

 earth's motion. Having confirmed his oath in writing, 

 and promised to perform the enjoined penance, he rose 

 from his knees a pardoned man ; and turning about 

 1 ' Prehistoric Man/ Dr. Daniel Wilson, p. 101. 



