are obvious, they bear their own meaning on
the surface;" a moment's analysis will scatter such an idea to the
winds. Yet the terms _are_ passed by. The commentators set themselves
right earnestly to compare and to collate, to argue and to analogize, on
the meaning of the term "days;" the other term "created" they take for
granted without--as far as I am aware--single line of explanation, or so
much as a doubt whether they know what it really means!

The interpretation that I would propose to the judgment of the Church is
just the very opposite. It seems to me that the word _day_ as used in
the narrative needs no explanation; it seems to me that the other does.
As regards the term "day," it is surely a rule of sound criticism never
to give an "extraordinary" meaning to a word, when the "ordinary" one
will give good and intelligible sense to a passage. And looking to the
fact that, after all, when the days of Genesis _are_ explained to mean
periods of very unequal but possibly enormous duration, that explanation
is not only quite useless, but raises greater difficulties than ever, I
should think it most likely that the "day" of the narrative should be
taken in the ordinary sense. But of this hereafter.

On the other hand, with regard to the terms "creation,[1]" "created,"
"Let there be," and so forth, I find ample room for the most careful
consideration and for detailed study before we can say what is meant.
Even then there remains a feeling of profound mystery. For at the very
beginning of every train of reflection and reasoning on the subject, we
are just brought up dead at this wonderful fact, the existence of
_matter_ where previously there had been _nothing_. The phrase "created
_out of_ nothing" is of course a purely conventional one, and, strictly
speaking, has no meaning; but we adopt it usefully enough to indicate
our ultimate fact--the appearance of matter where previously there had
been nothing. Nor is the difficulty really surmounted by alleging such a
mere _phrase_ as "matter is eternal," for we have just as little mental
conception of self-existent, always--and _without beginning_--existent
matter, as we have of "creation out of nothing."

[Footnote 1: The entire silence of commentators regarding the doubtful
meaning of "creation" is so surprising, that I have had the greatest
difficulty in persuading myself that the explanation I propose is new.
Yet certainly I have never come across it anywhere.]

Th