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scientific language , since this, to people unacquainted with 
science, would have been unintelligible and misleading. 
Scientific language, moreover, is subject to serious modifica- 
tions, if not radical alterations, as science progresses ; while 
the narrative of Genesis was intended, as we have seen, for all 
time, and therefore must be couched in language not liable 
to such changes. The only language which possesses these two 
requisites of general intelligibility and non-liability to change, 
is the language of appearances. The facts set forth must be 
described as they would have seemed to be to the eye of man ; 
that is, in a word, phenomenally, or the cosmogony would fail 
in its purpose. All scrutiny or objection in the matter of un- 
scientific, or scientifically inaccurate language, then, must be 
put on one side at starting, as altogether irrelevant. The 
only thing that we have a right to demand of the cosmogony 
scientifically, is that the facts it asserts should be really facts, 
described in language phenomenally correct. 
Then, secondly, we have no right to expect more of nature 
to be treated of than was naturally known to men. The aim of 
the narrative was not to enlarge men’s views of nature as such, 
but, through nature, to teach them concerning nature’s God. 
Since, now, this was to be done independently of science and 
scientific discoveries, it was plainly essential that only those 
parts of nature should be touched upon with which unscientific 
men everywhere were sure to be acquainted. To have introduced 
anything beyond this would have required as a preliminary 
some amount of strictly scientific teaching, to make the sub- 
jects sufficiently familiar to be thus adopted as vehicles for 
conveying theological truth. But such scientific teaching is 
not pre-supposed ; while, to include it in the cosmogony would 
have been wholly inconsistent with its design. We conclude, 
therefore, that the only parts of nature which we have any 
right to expect to find treated of in the Biblical cosmogony, are 
those ordinarily known and familiar to the human race. 
Lastly, in dealing with these well-known parts and aspects 
of nature, we have no right to expect any scientific information 
from the cosmogony, except in respect to points of theologi- 
cal importance. Matters of pure science we should expect to 
find avoided rather than dwelt on, because irrelevant to the 
proper end in view. It cannot be too often insisted on that 
the Biblical cosmogony was never intended to be a manual 
of natural science, but only of natural theology. All ob- 
jections, therefore, on the score of partial or deficient views of 
nature, should be met at once with the frank admission that 
such exactly was what we had every reason to expect. The 
only thing that can be demanded under this head is, that the 
