1 86 HUXLEY 



attempt to harmonise, by verbal legerdemain, Genesis 

 and Geology, contending, for example, that the six 

 days meant " six chapters in the history of the crea- 

 tion," liberal theologians were surrendering belief in 

 the historical character of the so-called " Mosaic " 

 writings. 



" I cannot deny," said Canon Bonney, speaking at 

 the Church Congress held in 1895 at Norwich, "that 

 the increase of scientific knowledge has deprived parts 

 of the earlier books of the Bible of the historical 

 value which was generally attributed to them by our 

 forefathers. The story of the creation in Genesis, 

 unless we play fast and 'loose either with words or 

 with science, cannot be brought into harmony with 

 what we have learned from geology. Its ethnological 

 statements are imperfect, if not sometimes inaccurate. 

 The stories of the flood and of the Tower of Babel 

 are incredible in their present form. Some historical 

 elements may underlie many of the traditions in the 

 first eleven chapters of that book, but this we cannot 

 hope to recover." 



In his essay on " Hebrew Authority " in Authority 

 and Archeology, Dr. Driver, Regius Professor of He- 

 brew in the University of Oxford, and sitting, there- 

 fore, in the chair of Pusey, says that — 



the general result of the archaeological and anthro- 

 pological researches of the past half-century has been 

 to take the Hebrews out of the isolated position 

 which, as a nation, they seemed previously to hold, 

 and to demonstrate their affinities with, and often their 



