440 CONSISTENCY OF GEOLOGY WITH SACRED HISTORY. 



That it differed greatly from the language of the Egyptians, we have 

 full proof in the Coptic remains of the latter, in the Egyptian proper 

 names preserved in the Hebrew writings, an4 also in the circumstance 

 that Joseph, when pretending to be an Egyptian, conversed with his 

 brethren by means of an interpreter. Yet, in the chapter in ques- 

 tion, we find no foreign terms, no appearance of its being translated 

 from any other tongue ; but, on the contrary, it bears every inter- 

 nal mark of being purely original, for the style is condensed and 

 idiomatical in the very highest degree. Had Moses derived his sci- 

 ence from Egypt, either by oral communication, or the study of Egyp- 

 tian writings, it is inconceivable that some of his terms, or the style of 

 his composition, should not, in some point or other, betray the plagi- 

 ary or copyist. 



But the conjecture that Moses borrowed his cosmogony from the 

 Egyptians, must rest, moreover, on a supposition that the order which 

 he assigns for the different epochs of creation, had been determined by 

 a course of observation and induction, and the correct application of 

 many other highly perfected sciences to the illustration of the subject, 

 equal at least in their accuracy and philosophical precision, to those 

 by which our present geological knowledge has been obtained. 

 Nothing less than this can account for Moses' teaching us precisely 

 what the modern geology teaches, if we allow knowledge to be mere- 

 ly human. How comes it to pass, then, that while he has given us 

 the perfect and satisfactory results, he has been enabled so totally to 

 exclude from his record every trace of the steps by which they were 

 obtained 1 The supposition of such perfection of geological knowl- 

 edge in ancient Egypt, implies a long series of observation by many 

 individuals, having the same object in view. It implies of necessity, 

 also, the invention and use of many defined terms of science, without 

 which there could have been no mutual understanding among the dif- 

 ferent observers, and of course no progress in their pursuit. These 

 terms have all totally disappeared in the hands of Moses. He trans- 

 lated, with precision, the whole science of geology into the language 

 of shepherds and husbandmen, leaving no trace whatever of any one 

 of its peculiar terms, any more than of the curious steps in its pro- 

 gress. 



But there is a phenomenon in his record still more unaccountable 

 upon any supposition that his science is merely human. His geolo- 

 gy, acknowledged by the highest authority in this age of scientific im- 

 provement to be thus accurate, dwindles down in his hands to be a 

 merely incidental appendage to an enunciation of the most rational 



