409 
“ The Ptolemaic system contemplated the whole visible universe, from the 
earth, as the immovable centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of 
view, and, placing the observer in the sun, reduced the earth to an incon- 
spicuous globule, a merely subordinate member of a family of planets. . 
The Hebrew records, the basis of religious faith, manifestly countenanced 
the opinion of the earth’s immobility, and other views of the universe, very 
incompatible with those propounded by Copernicus. It can scarcely be 
said that the first chapter of Genesis is not intended in part to convey some 
physical truth ; and, taking its words in their plain sense, it manifestly 
gives a view of the universe adverse to that of modern science. It repre- 
sents the sky as a watery vault, in which the sun, moon, and stars are set. 
But the discordance of this description with facts does not appear to have 
been so palpable to the minds of the seventeenth century. The brilliant 
progress of astronomical science subdued the minds of men. The doctrine 
of the earth’s mobility found its way into children’s catechisms, and the 
limited views of the nature of the universe in the Old Testament ceased to 
be felt as religious difficulties.” 
Such is the first main charge of scientific error brought 
against the Bible. Some say that our proper course, as honest 
Christians, is frankly to concede its truth. The Bible espouses the 
Ptolemaic doctrine of the earth’s immobility. But the Copernican 
doctrine, which makes the sun, and not the earth, the immovable 
centre of our system, is alone true. So the Bible has adopted and 
endorsed popular errors, instead of scientific truth. 
20. Now, first of all, the competing varieties of conception are 
four at least, and not two only ; and may be named after Ptolemy, 
Copernicus, Newton, and Herschel. In the first the earth is taken 
as a fixed centre; in the second the sun ; in the third the centre of 
gravity of the solar system ; in the fourth, resulting from Herschel’s 
discovery of the solar motion, no fixed point is clearly defined, but 
one is assumed to lie in some distant part of infinite space. On 
this Madler has grafted his conjecture, that it may perhaps be 
Alcyone, one of the Pleiades. The only fact, however, even pro- 
bably ascertained, is a motion of our whole system, at the rate of 
about 150 millions of miles yearly, or five miles a second, towards 
a point not far from the bright star of Lyra. But whether 
there be any fixed centre of this wider stellar system, and if 
there be, in what direction it lies, and at what distance, remains, 
in the Herschellian theory, wholly vague and uncertain. Astronomy, 
as a science of observation and exact inference, can at present give 
these questions no answer whatever. 
21. Let us, then, condemn the Bible as erroneous, and revolu- 
tionize all customary speech, to satisfy the alleged claims of 
scientific accuracy and truth, and what result will follow ? We shall 
have ceased to be intelligible to the common people, and nearly all 
