182 REV. A. IRVING, D.SC., B.A. ON 
One more point may, I hope, be permitted here. The more 
one compares the Genesis poem with the 90th Psalm, the 
more one finds of community of thought in the two. The latter 
has been described as “perhaps the most sublime of human 
compositions.”* 
If we want to get behind the narrative of Genesis at the 
thoughts of God floating in the mind of the author of it, it is 
to this 90th Psalm that we may, I think, fairly look. An 
impartial perusal of Bishop Perowne’s introduction to this 
psalm will enable anyone to see how feeble is the case that has 
been made out by the critics against the traditional heading, “ A 
Prayer of Moses, the man of God”; and we may fairly claim 
that the same lofty conception of tlhe Divine Immanence with 
the Divine Transcendence behind it all, which characterises the 
psalm, may be found in the Genesis poem. 
The case against the Mosaic authorship of the psalm may be 
said to be “ not proven”; and a close comparison of the internal 
evidence found in the community of the ideas, which run 
through the two documents, ought in common fairness to be 
taken into account by those who would assign a later—even an 
Exilic date—to the Genesis document. 
The dogmatic style which characterises the assertion of the 
“higher critics,” must be taken for what it is worth; more 
especially after the collapse of the contentions of that school in 
the matter of the historicity of the Acts of the Apostles.’t 
II. SomME GENERAL POINTS FURTHER CONSIDERED. 
(A) The Geocentric Conception of the Universe. 
In the controversy, to which reference has been made 
Professor Driver§ had the hardihood to say that the Genesis 
account of creation is geocentric, and therefore “ false.” How on 
earth could it be otherwise than geocentric ? That however does 
not make it false, unless it can be shown that those observations 
of the heavenly bodies which were fitted into that conception 
were false. Hmpirical it certainly is; but empiricism is a 
matter of degree; and we might equally say of such a dogma 
as the Lyellian uniformitarian doctrine, which long dominated 
* See Perowne, Zhe Psalms, vol. ii, p. 157. 
+ See letter from Dr. Dukinfield Astley, Guardian, Nov. 6th, 1907. 
+ See Sir Wm. Ramsay’s Paper, “ Exploration of Asia Minor,” etc., 
Trans. Vict. Inst., vol. xxxix. 
§ Guardian, Nov. 20th, 1907. 
