sh and the early Christian
records would be treated in the same manner; that the authorship of
the Hexateuch and of the Gospels would be as severely tested; and that
the evidence in favour of the veracity of many of the statements found
in the Scriptures would have to be strong indeed, if they were to be
opposed to the conclusions of physical science. In point of fact, so
far as I can discover, no one competent to judge of the evidential
strength of these conclusions, ventures now to say that the biblical
accounts of the creation and of the deluge are true in the natural
sense of the words of the narratives. The most modern Reconcilers
venture upon is to affirm, that some quite different sense may he put
upon the words; and that this non-natural sense may, with a little
trouble, be manipulated into some sort of noncontradiction of
scientific truth.

My purpose, in the essay (XVI.) which treats of the narrative of the
Deluge, was to prove, by physical criticism, that no such event as
that described ever took place; to exhibit the untrustworthy character
of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism; and, finally, to
account for its origin, by producing a form of those ancient legends
of pagan Chaldaea, from which the biblical compilation is manifestly
derived. I have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay
can be seriously challenged.

In the essays (II., III.) on the narrative of the Creation, I have
endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports,
either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or any
interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the
narrative, quite apart from particular details. The first chapter of
Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of
life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution.
The first chapter of Genesis teaches the successive origin--firstly,
of all the plants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals,
thirdly, of all the terrestrial animals, which now exist--during
distinct intervals of time; modern science teaches that, throughout
all the duration of an immensely long past so far as we have any
adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the Silurian epoch),
plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that
the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that
the modern species have come into existence as the last terms of a
se