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accidentally mingled with those of extinct animals ; others 
preferring to regard both implements and bones as belonging 
to a race of extinct apes, not men; others regarding both 
indeed as human, but intentionally buried in the places where 
they are found, in much later times ; others admitting the con- 
temporaneousness of the implements and bones with the 
formations and other remains in connection with which they 
are found, but contesting the antiquity assigned to these by 
geologists. The confirmatory arguments from Ethnology and 
Philology are commonly met by this class of replicants by re- 
ference to miraculous agency, or occasionally by the elaboration 
of counter- evidence. 
Under the second head three modes of answer have been 
adopted. First, it is urged that the Scriptural chronology 
refers only to the descendants from Adam, while at the same 
time hints are dropped, and indications given, of another class 
of men, inferior in character, and stretching back into much 
earlier times, to whom, no doubt, these implements and bones 
are to be ascribed. Secondly, stress is laid upon the diverg- 
ences in these genealogies between the Hebrew text and the 
Samaritan, the Septuagint version, and the statements of Jose- 
phus ; some adopting the longer chronology deducible from the 
last two, some regarding the whole question as in consequence 
hopelessly uncertain. Thirdly, it is pointed out that each of 
these genealogies contains exactly ten generations, — a number 
which may perhaps have been regarded as having a mystical 
significance, to obtain which some of the actual links in the 
chain were omitted, and so the chronology shortened un- 
naturally. 
Lastly, there are yet other defenders of Scripture who give 
up the genealogies altogether, regarding them as mere tradi- 
tions, having no bearing upon spiritual truth, or, at all events, 
none which is in any way affected by supposing them to be 
corrupt and defective in their chronological aspect. 
III. We pass on now to the third group of objections ; those, 
namely, which are brought against Scripture miracles , on the 
ground of their inconsistency with scientific principles. Parti- 
cular facts bearing on the miraculous events recorded in Scrip- 
ture the objector does not here in general produce, or need to 
produce ; his charge refers to the whole class as a class , and is 
based upon the widest of all the inductive conclusions which 
Science has elucidated — the absolute and unalterable uniformity 
of the laws of Nature. Here, therefore, we have no longer to 
deal with detailed interpretations, as in the two former groups, 
but with general views and principles. The objection in 
question presents itself in two forms, so different in character 
