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great deal of stupid nonsense ; yet we say we can put away all the nonsense, 
and sift the chaff from the wheat. For instance, he says on one occasion, that 
he had heard from the priests of Egypt that the waters of the Nile came 
from melting snow in regions farther south ; but how, he argued, could there 
be snow in a region where the sun was so hot that the people were blackened 
by it ? (Laughter.) He also says that the fish in the Nile were flat-ribbed 
on one side of the body, because as the stream took them down they rubbed 
against the banks, and when they came back they rubbed themselves on the 
same side on the opposite bank ! As sure as you quote a heathen author of 
antiquity, we must fall down and worship him ; but when you quote the 
writers of the Bible, it is thought that we had better not listen to them at 
all. Now I, for one, cannot see why we should not believe the cosmogony 
of the Bible as well as that of any heathen author, especially when we 
examine the cosmogonies of the latter. One thing that proves the inspiration 
of the Bible to me is, that in all other cosmogonies the greatest folly and 
nonsense is talked ; but in the Bible I find it sublimely stated that in the 
beginning God created all things. Now, where did Moses get that from ? 
(Cheers.) 
Mr. Bow. — I ought to have mentioned, before I sat down, that 
there has also been a tendency to development in the wrong direction in 
Mahommedanism. You have a system of pure theism in the Koran, but a 
sect of Mahommedans have sprung up in whose belief saint-worship holds 
an important place. Sir John Lubbock, to have proved anything at all, 
should have proved that his divisions correspond with the developments and 
enlargements of the human intellect, but he has not attempted that at all. 
Kev. T. M. Gorman. — I think the paper furnishes a striking corroboration 
of the truth, that Divine Kevelation is the primal source of a belief in One 
Supreme Being. The author has indicated a source of evidence from which 
it may be abundantly proved that the higher we ascend in the history of 
nations, the more clearly the idea of One God is seen to lie at the root of 
their various beliefs and modes of worship. I would, however, take the 
liberty of observing, that the form of the argument employed does not appear 
to do full justice to the principles of the Christian religion, so far as they are 
connected with the subject. Admitting that it may be valid and useful as 
far as it goes, it cannot, I think, be pronounced conclusive. We shall find, if 
I mistake not, that in the last analysis, the fact of prehistoric monotheism 
(to use the language of the day) can be reasonably and permanently esta- 
blished only by the aid of a true Christian theology. To carry on investi- 
gations on such transcendental subjects as the origin of civilization without 
the light of Divine Revelation, is an impossibility. Attempts of a similar 
kind have been made, of late years, to give an account of the origin of 
species, and to determine “ Man’s place in Nature v by methods and pro- 
cesses purely scientific. When carefully scrutinzied, as to their principles 
and results, these Essays explain nothing. They may be briefly characterized 
as new versions of the Oriental story of the elephant resting on the tortoise, 
