OF THE SEA AND LAND. 63 



groat investigations, is comprised in the time which is 

 included in the first and second verses of the history. 

 This is the undefined period with which it is alone con- 

 cerned ; and if the time he truly here indefinite, the 

 difficulty is solved. It was " In the beginning" that 

 "the heavens and the earth" were created ; but it is not 

 said that the production of light, and the commence- 

 ment of order in the vacant and shapeless mass, were 

 simultaneous or immediately consequent. The histo- 

 rian has left the interval between the creation of the 

 universe, and that of light indefinite ; as he is silent on 

 what may have occurred : and here science is free to 

 pursue the investigation by its own rules. There might 

 have been many worlds, and animals in those worlds, 

 before the chaotic state described, because that is not 

 excluded by his silence ; and this is precisely what geo- 

 logy is capable of proving. 



This interpretation is obvious, even in our own trans- 

 lation : it appears still more so in the original. " In the 

 beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth." 

 This is a completed period, in the sense ; and the very 

 term itself seems equally to refer to a period which is 

 not defined. " And the earth was without form, and 

 void." This is a subsequent condition, distinct from the 

 act of creation, the mention of which seems only a ge- 

 neral acknowledgement of the Almighty power ; and it 

 is that state whence the habitable world is to be made 

 or prepared. And it must be remarked, that in the se- 

 cond chapter, the word prepared, or fitted, is as appli- 

 cable to the original as the term made ; as if implying 

 that the chaotic earth had been adapted, not produced, 

 at that period. 



That the original creation, and the subsequent ar- 

 rangement, were viewed as different by the historian 

 himself, seems also to follow from the expressions used ; 



