196 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA : 



Good, Herder, and other scholars ; leaving the interpretation 

 still very ambiguous. He seems himself to have quoted from 

 some translation which doubtfully takes half the sense from 

 the Septuagint (^vvfj/cas $s TOV Sso-fibv TlXetdSos) ; omitting 

 altogether the conception of a link or binding together, 

 which is kept in our authorised translation, and which so 

 happily applies to the close and beautiful aggregation of 

 stars in this group ; an aggregation of such kind that as- 

 tronomers have calculated the chances to be more than half 

 a million to one, that they could not have been thus set in 

 the heavens by accident alone. 



The latter part of the passage in question is also of doubt- 

 ful interpretation ; and we may well ask therefore, whether 

 this is a text upon which to establish or confirm a physical 

 fact? But, further, our author assumes in his argument 

 that Madler's conception of the Pleiades, as the centre of the 

 sidereal" system, is ' all but proved ; ' forgetting or ignorant 

 that few astronomers have recognised it as more than a mag- 

 nificent problem awaiting solution from future research. 

 Sir J. Herschel especially has given a distinct reason for 

 distrusting this opinion, in the distance of the Pleiades from 

 the plane of the Milky Way ; which plane must presumably 

 coincide with and define that of any general movement of 

 rotation in the stellar system, should such exist. The science 

 therefore of this comment is as doubtful as the scriptural 

 quotation to which it is appended. 



It may seem that we have dwelt too long on this matter ; 

 but we must repeat in justification our earnest desire that 

 the authority of Scripture should not thus rashly be pledged 

 to facts and opinions with which it has no concern, save in 

 so far as it describes the visible manifestations of creative 

 wisdom, beauty, and power. The example just given we 

 consider to be an apt illustration of the errors usually com- 

 mitted in this method of argument. Though less frequent 



