THE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE. loy 



of his descendants, eight persons excepted, must 

 be talcen in all its appalling literalness. Confirmation 

 of the Deluge story was found in the fossil shells on 

 high mountain tops; while as for the giants of ante- 

 diluvian times, there were the huge bones in proof. 

 Some of these relics of mastodon and mammoth were 

 actually hung up in churches as evidence that " there 

 were giants in those days " ! Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire 

 tells of one Henrion, who pubHshed a book in 1718 

 giving the height of Adam as one hundred and 

 twenty-three feet nine inches, and of Eve as one hun- 

 dred and eighteen feet nine inches, Noah being of 

 rather less stature. But to parley with science is 

 fatal to theology. Moreover, arguments which in- 

 volve the cause they support in ridicule may be left 

 to refute themselves. And while theology was hesi- 

 tating, as in the amusing example supplied by Dr. 

 William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (published 

 in 1863) wherein the reader, turning up the arti- 

 cle " Deluge," is referred to " Flood," and thence 

 to " Noah " ; archaeology produced the Chaldsean 

 original of the legend whence the story of the 

 flood is derived. With candour as commendable 

 as it is rare, the Reverend Professor Driver, from 

 whom quotation has been made already, admits 

 that " read .without prejudice or bias, the narra- 

 tive of Genesis i. creates an impression at vari- 

 ance with the facts revealed by science " ; all ef- 

 forts at reconciliation being only " different modes 

 of obliterating the characteristic features of Gene- 



