1876.] 
Notices of Books . 
203 
primum mobile is the universally felt power of light.” Fie will 
also “ endeavour to reconcile scientific discoveries with the ac- 
count given in the Bible of all natural phenomena.” As might 
be expeCted, from this declaration, we find in the book not a few 
remarkable statements. Thus the history of electricity, we are 
told, “ dates back to the creation of the world.” Electricity he 
seems to view not as a mode of force, but as a “ fluid ” capable 
of being decomposed into two elements. In the first Essay, 
entitled “A Retrospective Glance at Meteorology,” we are parti- 
cularly struck with the following passage : — “ Whatever direction 
future inquiry may take it will ever be found, by the student of 
meteorology, that the Old Testament Scriptures contain more 
valuable data to go upon, leading nearer to the actual origin and 
cause of meteorological phenomena, than any other book in 
existence, but the allusions to the laws of Nature , their opera- 
tions, and effects, as contained in the Bible, are so masked and 
wrapped up in peculiar phraseology that the meaning, though 
peeping out all the while, yet lies concealed, and remains so until 
the light of Science is thrown upon it, when it bursts out and 
strikes us with remarkable force, causing us to pause and ponder, 
and then to ask ourselves whether it be not true that ‘ that which 
hath been, it is that which shall be ?’ ” We beg to call the espe- 
cial attention of the reader to the words we have italicised, and 
which are, substantially, a confession that those men who receive 
the Bible as a physical revelation see in it whatever they wish, 
and in faCt “ read between the lines.” This is a truth fully 
demonstrated by the history of Science. When the geocentric 
theory of the universe was still in vogue, divines — Protestant* no 
less than Catholic — proclaimed it to be a scriptural truth. When 
the Copernican theory triumphed, it too was held to be shadowed 
forth in the Bible. Even the nebular theory of Kant and Laplace, 
so long denounced as atheistic, is now declared — by no lower 
authorities than the authors of the “ Unseen Universe ” — to 
be involved in the sacred volume. 
Perusing further this “ Retrospect,” we read of the Ethiopian 
merchants, who visited Judaea of old, sitting in an evening 
“ enjoying the cool breeze, and, whilst smoking their chibouk , 
narrating the dangers through which they had passed in collecting 
those very goods that they had come to Palestine to sell, and 
thus instruct the Israelites.” We were certainly not aware that 
the use of tobacco was at all known to the ancient Hebrews. 
Another historical mis-statement is to be found in the same 
section : — “ After conquering the Gauls, the Roman legions 
under Caesar invaded Anglia, as England was then called.” The 
name Anglia was not applied to any part of Britain until after 
the withdrawal of the Romans. 
* For instance, Dean Wren, the father of the distinguished Sir Christopher 
Wren. 
