250 W. p. JAMES, ESQ. 



more clearly does one see how the men who wrote them must have studied 

 nature.* The confusion of darkness is the beginning of all things ; there 

 is the necessity for light for the existence of all nature. These things stand 

 out distinctly from the Indian, Greek, and Persian traditions on the very point 

 which the author of the paper has so well emphasised, namely, their simplicity. 

 The paper is one which I am glad to have had the opportunity of seeing, be- 

 cause it has opened up a rich ground. The subject it treats with, is one of great 

 importance, and it is one on which a great deal of light is at the present 

 moment flowing in. It has been dealt with by two of our greatest minds, and 

 from almost all points of view the first chapters of Genesis are now being dis- 

 cussed in every part of the world. There are articles on the subject in the 

 American theological reviews, and, generally, it is under discussion at the 

 present moment in such a way, and aided by such an armoury of facts and 

 critical material, as it was impossible to bring to bear upon it some years 

 ago when the Vestiges of Creation and books of that character were written. 

 This paper is one which shows a large amount of reading ; but I cannot 

 help saying that the matter might be much more largely developed, and the 

 coincidences between the Hebrew and Chaldean accounts, and even the 

 Phoenician, much more fully brought out than has yet been done. There 

 is one other point which I ought here to mention. It is very remarkable 

 that in the Egyptian accounts, of which there are a few extracts here, we get 

 no trace of the old traditions of the Creation or the Deluge. It is curious 

 that the African races, almost without exception, tire void of these 

 traditions ; and it is still more remarkable that where these traditions 

 are strongest and clearest and most simple, it is the Semitic family 

 in whose hands was placed the duty of handing down the Revelation 

 that finds its purest utterance in the earliest chapters of Genesis. There 

 is one point in the paper to which I should like to refer, and that is where 

 the author alludes to its being premature to speak of these Tablets as a 

 record of the six days' Creation. I think it is, for we have only pieces 

 of the 1st, 5th, and 6th Tablets ; but there is an indication on those 

 Tablets that there was a division into periods, and as the last fragment seems 

 to point to the creation of man, it is just possible that the same division of 

 time as that given in Genesis may have existed. There are one or two 

 matters on which, although they are not mentioned in the paper, I may, 

 perhaps, be allowed to speak. I allude to what is found on the 5th Tablet, 

 for it is on this that the whole question of the value of Tablets and their 

 dates turns. The 5th Tablet is remarkable as showing the careful study of 

 nature the writers of that Tablet must have made, and how they had watched 

 even the phases of the moon, the divisions of time, and the seasons. Just as 



* For the purposes of argument Mr. Boscawen has dealt with the 

 subject on the lowest ground, viz., that even if one regards the account in 

 Uenesis as a tradition, one must see its great superiority over what are 

 acknowledged by all to be simply ti'dditions. — [Ed.] 



