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E. WALTER MAUNDER, F.R.A.S., ON 



it said that the business of man was to increase and multiply, and to 

 replenish the earth and subdue it. That was the revelation of the 

 function of man upon earth made in this chapter, and nowhere else ; 

 and he was proud to think there was one nation in the world which 

 had to a great extent lived up to it, and that was the Anglo- 

 Saxon race. It was because the Anglo-Saxon race had been 

 increasing and multiplying and replenishing the earth and sub- 

 duing it, that it had obtained the predominance it enjoyed. He 

 only hoped it would go on fulfilling that commandment in all 

 respects. He was bold enough to make another suggestion about 

 the second chapter of Genesis. There was a passage which very 

 much puzzled a good many people. It said Adam was entrusted 

 with the naming of the creatures. It seemed to some people a 

 curious function to be assigned to Adam, and they were puzzled to 

 know how he carried it out. He ventured to suggest that' that 

 description of Adam naming the creatures was an Oriental suggestion 

 of the function of man as a scientific creature. The function of all 

 science might to a large extent be described as that of naming things 

 which involved distinguishing, and classifying them. He ventured 

 to think that we were very prosaic people, in comparison with those 

 who wrote these books. He would suggest they were both poetry 

 and history — history couched in an Oriental, semi-allegorical style, 

 which it was very difficult for us to comprehend. He was sure that 

 many of our difficulties in the Bible, and even in the New Testament, 

 came from our taking in the cold blood of modern prose expressions 

 spoken, and meant to be understood, with the large meaning 

 conveyed in this Oriental language. At all events, apart from all 

 the details, the marvel of it was that we should have in our hands 

 a chapter which dated back beyond the dawn of literature, yet 

 which nevertheless contained the great central truths of man's nature 

 and of his relation to God and to the world. Looking at it from 

 that point of view, it affords conclusive testimony, at the very out- 

 set of the Holy Scriptures, that they came from the hand of God. 



Mr. W. Woods Smyth considered that Mr. Maunder had treated 

 his subject in a new and original way. And his opening words 

 rang out clearly the foundation truth, namely, that " there are only 

 two possible sources for the chapter, God, Himself, the Creator, 

 who knew the mode and order of creation, or man, who did not 

 know, but imagined it." 



