THE GENESIS OF NATURE. 



61 



strongly to the word " Darwinism," which is often made to include ' 

 a great deal that Darwin never said or believed. He was far too 

 cautious for that. 



At the end of the paper I thank the author most heartily for 

 his mode of putting the right way of reading the 1st chapter of 

 Genesis. You may use the most accurate and scientific language of 

 100 years ago, and when you read it in the light of present 

 thought it is inconceivably less accurate than the language of the 

 Bible. At best you cannot escape from the finality of human 

 thought and human words, and if we read not the thoughts, but 

 the interpretations we are pleased to put upon the words, we must 

 remember they are translated from the Hebrew, and we are not 

 using the language from which they are translated. 



The Chairman then called on the Dean of Peterborough. 



The Very Rev. the Deax of Peterborough. — The one point ■ 

 that interested me — shall I say most of all '? — and which I want to j 

 pursue first, as far as possible, is the possibility of there having been 

 a marring of God's creation 1)efore the fall. I do not know where 

 my friend first got that idea. Was it originally your own, or is it 

 anything you have derived from another work ? 



Rev. G. F. Whidborxe. — I got it from our Lord's words, " The ' 

 devil was a murderer from the beginning." ^ 



The Dean of Peterborough. — It is your own thought then ? 



Rev. G. F. Whidborne. — Yes. 



The Dean of Peterborough. — If that can be proved and 

 brought home to us all, it will be to me a very great relief, and I 

 hope with your help to pursue it. 



I should not venture to speak further in this audience, coming as 

 I have done, unprepared to make observations on the paper ; but I 

 rejoice to think that one M^hom I have known now for thirty years is 

 so competent to write as he has on this matter. 



Rev. G. F. Whidborne. — Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I must 

 thank you most heartily for the very kind way in which you have 

 received my paper. 



I have to thank Dr. Walker for his criticism. 



I think the only point I need refer to at this late hour is what the 

 Dean of Peterborough said with regard to the existence of evil 

 before the fall. I wrote that paragraph at first without, I may say, 

 referring to any particular opinion. It seemed to come out in 



