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rative rather to the influence of tradition, or the fancy of the 
writer, than to any real knowledge of the true state of the 
case. According to these, also, religious instruction was the 
great object of the cosmogony ; and this remaining true, even 
when the form in which it was conveyed has been proved to 
be false, the surrender of the latter is a matter of little con- 
sequence. 
flhe next section of Genesis to be considered is that con- 
taining the history of the Fall. This is said to involve the 
following contradictions : — 1st, in respect to the entrance of 
suffering and death ; Genesis regarding these as the result of 
the fall of man ; Geology teaching plainly that ‘they had existed 
ages before, and had, in fact, been the rule of creation throughout 
all time. 2nd, in respect to the curse on the serpent ; Genesis 
describing its crawling habit as the punishment awarded for 
its crime in tempting Eve ; Anatomy and Physiology proving 
that, on the contrary, it is the inevitable result of its organiza- 
tion ; and Geology showing that serpents always had crawled 
about as at present, hundreds of thousands of years before 
Adam could have lived upon the earth. 3rd, in respect to 
the curse on the ground; Genesis regarding the productions 
of thorns, thistles, &c., as the penalty of Adana’s transgression ; 
Science teaching that they are but the normal growth of the 
ground existing in full vigour for ag’es previous. 
To these objections we have, as before, three several groups 
of answerers : — 
First, those who deny the allegations of Science, who believe 
that physical suffering and death did come into the world 
through the Fall, and had not existed there previously; that 
serpents did then for the first time begin to crawl upon the 
ground ; that thorns and thistles did then for the first time 
spring up. 
Then, second, there are those who admit the allegations, 
but deny the contradiction. Some seek to explain the diffi- 
culties by limiting the suffering and death spoken of to man ; 
by regarding the curse upon the serpent as metaphorical, 
purporting disgrace and defeat to the spiritual tempter, not 
physical degradation to the agent ; and viewing the production 
of thorns, &c., either as a greater and more abundant produc- 
tion than heretofore, or as a new thing merely by contrast 
with the previous experience of Adam in the garden of Eden. 
Some prefer to get over the second objection by a new ren- 
dering of the Hebrew, regarding the tempter as an ourang- 
outang, or some other species of ape, rather than a serpent ; 
while others, again, interpret the whole narrative as an allegory, 
written to explain in pictorial and symbolical form the origin 
