published books, and it is evidently of the greatest consequence, that if the 
views are inaccurate which the author enunciates, they should be met with 
adverse comments such as we have had to-night. But, as Dr. Thornton 
has already observed, several of the points noticed by Dr. Baylee have been 
previously discussed here, though Dr. Baylee has not thought it necessary 
to notice those discussions. I think, however, that any gentleman sending 
us a paper, should, as a rule, take up the subject from the point at which we 
have left it, and either accept or refute what appears before to have been 
put forward ; for it is only by pursuing such a course that we can make any way 
at all. Dr. Baylee has probably had little time at his command, or he may 
have thought it preferable not to notice our former discussions upon these 
subjects. In one portion of his paper an extraordinary remark is made about 
the shape of the earth, assuming that there was once a theory that the earth 
was a flat, four-cornered body. But the earth, even if supposed to be flat, is 
obviously circular, and I do not know that those who believed it to be flat 
ever believed that it was four-cornered 
Mr. Warington. — There was such a theory at one time. 
Mr. Reddie. — Well, at any rate, it is not in Scripture. This is a subject 
dealt with in some of our previous discussions,* when it was pointed out 
that in the book of Job the expression occurs “God stretcheth out the 
north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing” — thus 
showing that the inspired writer considered the earth to be a suspended 
globe. After the criticisms we have had from Mr. Warington there is not 
much left to add to the discussion. Dr. Baylee seems to think that the 
earth is called in the Hebrew “ a runner,” because it runs round the sun ; 
but even so lately as his own time, Lord Bacon did not believe this, and I 
am not at all sure that we shall go on believing it. Some of the author’s 
arguments are peculiar. For instance, with regard to the sun standing still, 
he says : — 
“ By manifesting His power in that remarkable manner over the sim and 
moon, He gave public evidence, not only to Israel, but to all nations, that He 
was supreme over all nature. Who can tell the amount of preservation to 
Israel, and of instructive admonition to all nations, from the Pillars of 
Hercules to the remote east, which resulted from that one transaction ? ” 
Now who, indeed, can tell ? I never knew that any nation except the 
J ews ever heard anything about it ; and I do not know whether even the 
Talmudists wrote, of the sun standing still. One interpretation, however, of 
the passage is, that God merely suspended the light of the sun by obscuring 
it in darkness.f With regard to the creation of chaos, I think Dr. Baylee 
has involved himself in manifest contradictions. In one part of his paper he 
states that we had light created, and then that thohn and bohu meant a 
changed condition, and that the consequent darkness would be a change 
from the previous state of light. Yet he goes on to tell us that light was 
created afterwards. But I will not go on with these minute criticisms. I 
* Vide Journal of Transactions . vol. I. p. 410. 
t Ibid., vol. II. p. 162. 
