that field were chiefly toward the Quarterly. It was believed that the honorable repute of the Quarterly for weight and scholarship might be maintained in connection with the broader and more practical treatment of current themes made possible by a more frequent issue. The reception accorded the Review has encouraged the Editors to think that their conjecture was right, and they have seen no reason to change or essentially modify the plan under which their thought took shape. This plan assigns the largest space to contributed articles on subjects of general interest which come within the scope of the Review, classifies the more critical articles under departments, and provides for the editorial discussion of current topics. It thus becomes possible to present month by month a magazine of from 112 to 120 pages, combining the more critical features of the older Reviews with the freer treatment of questions in Sociology, Education and Literature, so far as they have a bearing upon religious culture or theological thought. During the past year special attention has been given to the best methods of work in the church, and to the most complete presentation of missionary intelligence, and these subjects will receive equal attention during the coming year.

In the conduct of the Review in theological discussion the object is not controversy. The object sought is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"; and the pages of the Review are open to all who are seeking this end in matters of present contention, whatever may be the variation in opinion from that advocated on the editorial page. But in its editorial utterance the Review will not shrink from combating those assumptions which destroy the hope of Christian unity, or from exposing those contradictions and evasions in belief which tend so seriously to weaken the aggressive and working power of the Christian faith. The theological aim of the Review, as it is to-day, cannot be more fitly expressed than in the words which set forth its aim in its first issue: "The Editors of this Review will welcome to its pages the contributions of men of various schools of thought who are seeking with them to develop a truly Christian theology. We are the furthest possible from any conceit of leadership; we simply have convictions which have cost us something, and which we hope may be of help to others. We desire help from others. We seek to promote large-minded, large-hearted discussions of Christian truth, recognizing our own limitations, and the manysidedness and growing proportions of the truth as it is in Jesus. We desire especially to do what we may to confirm the faith of believers in the essential truths of the gospel, to unite them in intelligent and efficient Christian work, and for this end to aid in the development of a Christian theology which by its genuineness and purity, its reality and comprehensiveness, shall stimulate and sustain the highest endeavor for the advancement of Christ's kingdom. To our thought there is a preparation and demand for better statements of Christian doctrine in the religious life of our time. This is a missionary age. Never before has that enthusiasm for humanity, which is from the very heart of Christianity, so taken domin

ion of the Church. There is need of a more distinct theological recognition of the providential and spiritual leadership of the world by its Redeemer and Lord: of a theology which discerns his greatness, and which sets over against the terrible magnitudes of human misery and sin and guilt, the magnitudes of his person, his cross, his lordship, his final coming as the Judge of mankind. If this Review is helpful to the growth and diffusion of such beliefs, its theological purpose will be fulfilled."

BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL CRITICISM.

THE COSMOGONY OF GENESIS.

A DEFENSE AND A CRITIQUE.

IN a paper contributed by me to the "Sunday School Times" of December 18, 1886 (page 807), on the lesson taken from the first chapter of Genesis, I ventured to make the statement that "the order of creative events, as taught by science, was fundamentally different" from that affirmed in the cosmogony of Genesis. The limits of space at my disposal did not permit me to explain in detail the grounds upon which this conclusion rested; and there were doubtless some who, as they read it, condemned it as ill-considered and premature. Certainly, this was the position assumed by the writer of an article on "Genesis and Modern Science," in another part of the same paper (p. 802), who charged such theologians as had committed themselves to a similar opinion, with an impatient dogmatism, and plainly intimated that, in venturing to differ from authorities such as Professor Dana and Sir J. W. Dawson, they were, in his judgment, guilty of unpardonable temerity and presumption. As regards the charge of dogmatism-in so far as I may suppose that, though not, indeed, mentioned personally, I am implicated in it-I can only say that the conclusion expressed in my article was the result of a long and patient examination of the facts made some years since, and aided by all that the most competent authorities on both sides had written respecting them, an examination which left upon my mind no doubt that, upon this point, Professor Huxley in his " American Addresses" was substantially right, and that the advocates of the opposite view had not succeeded in establishing their case. I have never held any à priori theory of the "limitation of inspiration to purely spiritual truths," and would gladly have been brought, had the facts permitted it, to a different conclusion; but, even after making every allowance for the popular, non-scientific phraseology of Genesis, I found it simply impossible honestly and straightforwardly to compare the record in Genesis with the record as taught by geology and astronomy, and to say that the two, even approximately, coincided. The records differed; and by no legitimate method or artifice which I had seen applied to them could the differences be made to vanish, or even be shown to be insignificant. It is, perhaps, not unreasonable to hold that a theory of inspiration ought to be consonant with the facts of the Bible; and in so far as I accept the limitation indicated above, I accept it simply because the facts force it upon me. Is it then just that men who have obtained conclusions as to which, prior to investigation, they can honestly say that

they were conscious of no præjudicium whatever, and which they have arrived at only after careful and prolonged inquiry, should be accused of impatience or dogmatism because they venture to express and publish them?

Secondly, the charge is made— not, of course, any more than in the former case against me personally, but against those who think similarly — of temerity and presumption in differing from those who are acknowledged masters of science, such as Professor Dana and Sir J. W. Dawson. There seems here to be a little confusion of thought. To differ from such masters of science, on a point of geology or paleontology, would indeed be an act of presumption intolerable in one who was merely a Hebrew scholar or a philologist: but where, it may be safely asked, is the Hebrew scholar or philologist to be found who does so differ from them? We accept, gratefully and unreservedly, the facts of the past history of the earth, so lucidly and admirably expounded by these masters of science There is, and can be, no dispute here; the dispute arises only when the sequence thus expounded is compared with the sequence taught in the first chapter of Genesis, and the question is mooted, Do they agree? In differing from such scientists, in the answer given to this question, I am sensible of neither presumption nor temerity. In the first place, the question is no longer exclusively a scientific one: it is in part a philological one. Professor Dana and Sir J. W. Dawson have a right to speak with regard to the interpretation of the record of nature; as a Hebrew scholar, I claim a similar right to speak on the interpretation of the record in Genesis. It is impossible for me to judge of the evidence bearing on the nature of "Eozoon"; all that I can do (if I have occasion to refer to it) is to quote the opinions of eminent geologists who have discussed it: but I can judge of the meaning of a Hebrew word, and I deny the right of men who are not philologists to impose upon the text of Genesis, senses which Hebrew scholarship shows to be inadmissible. In the second place, scientists are themselves divided in the answer which they give to the question above stated. If Professor Dana and Sir J. W. Dawson declare the record in Genesis to be reconcilable with science, other scientists, of not inferior eminence to themselves, declare the contrary. I do not allude merely to Professor Huxley; the Rev. Charles Pritchard, formerly President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and now Savilian Professor of Astronomy at Oxford, the accomplished author of the "Hulsean Lectures" for 1867 on 66 Analogies in the Progress of Nature and Grace," expresses himself entirely in the same sense.1 Where the doctors in science thus 1 In an article in the London Guardian for February 10, 1886: "Taken, then, in this plain and grammatical sense, this majestic Proem, if regarded as an account of creation in fact, contains statements, which to my apprehension are irreconcilable with what we at present know of the constitution of nature; and there is offered no appreciable hope, that I can discern, of a reconciliation from future discoveries." And a little below: "That it (the Proem of Genesis) could not originally have been intended to give a scientific account of creation in its precise order, or method, or limitation of time, I am convinced, when I read of (1) the existence of waters before the appearance of the sun : (2) the clothing of the earth with fruit-trees and grass, each bearing its fruit, before the creation of the sun (3) the successive orders or stages of creation, occupying each one single day." It is right to add that Professor Pritchard is "fully convinced of the existence of a superhuman element running throughout the Proem from its beginning to its end," and that the main part of his article too long to transcribe is occupied with an eloquent exposition of what is sub

disagree, there is no greater presumption in differing from one than in differing from another; and the humblest layman must decide between them, to the best of his abilities. Nor, where the question, as has been explained, does not touch a point that could only be determined by minute technical knowledge, need he hesitate to do so. Respecting the facts disclosed by science there is, as has been said, no dispute. The dispute is whether these facts agree or do not agree with the description in Genesis. A person who, though he may not have acquired the geologist's mastery of details, nevertheless possesses an intelligent grasp of the past history of the solar system and of this earth, as it is taught by the sciences of astronomy and geology, may be not less capable of forming a judgment upon this point than Professor Dana or Sir J. W. Dawson. The British juryman lacks all special knowledge, both of the science of law and of the technicalities of the subject submitted to his decision; nevertheless, his general education enables him to discriminate between the arguments addressed to him by opposing advocates, and to determine upon which side the right lies. With not less justice may one who is at least not wholly unacquainted with the teachings and methods of science take upon himself to decide whether the sequence taught in a scientific manual agrees or not with the sequence of Genesis, and whether the advocacy of Professor Huxley and Professor Pritchard on the one side, or of Professor Dana and Sir J. W. Dawson on the other, is the more logical and conclusive. I venture to think that it would have been more dignified, as well as more advantageous to the cause which he had at heart, if the writer in the "Sunday School Times" had refuted the opposite view, instead of imputing faults of character and temper to those who held it.

" 1

The grounds for the conclusion expressed by me in the "Sunday School Times" were stated in an article in the "Expositor" for January, 1886; and it is not necessary to repeat them here. I need hardly say that before writing that article I had carefully studied Sir J. W. Dawson's view, as exhibited in his "Origin of the World according to Revelation and Science"; and was compelled to own (for reasons which were stated) that I could not accept it as satisfactory. I was not, however, I regret to say, acquainted with the article of Professor Dana in the "Bibliotheca Sacra,' to which my attention was first called by a notice in the "Sunday School Times" of December 11 last. The fame of Professor Dana's name led me to procure his article without delay: I was eager to know if, where so many had failed, he had succeeded. The criticisms which the perusal of it suggested to me must form my excuse for the present article. Will the reader bear with me while I endeavor to point out, as briefly as possible, and I hope, without "presumption," in what respects Professor Dana's attempt appears to me to have failed?

With the translation of the Cosmogony, contained in Professor Dana's article (except in one not very important particular, to be noticed presently), I have no fault to find. I am also ready to grant (p. 206) that man's comprehension of any idea communicated to him by another is conditioned by the amount and character of the knowledge and beliefs already possessed by him. But the accommodation which this principle implies must surely be restricted within reasonable limits. It cannot, for example, be regarded stantially a form of the "vision" theory-a theory which, if the objections urged against it by Delitzsch are not insuperable, would seem to be the one which it would be most reasonable to adopt.

as admissible to suppose that the idea communicated may be — not modified merely, but― transformed, so as to become in the mind of the recip ient something altogether dissimilar from the reality, and not recognizable as a representation of it. Our only means of learning what the nature of a communicated idea is, is the language used by the recipient for the purpose of expressing it; and if the idea has been transformed in his mind in the manner supposed, there is no revelation or communication of truth whatever. If that which the recipient expresses stands in no intelligible relation to the reality which it is the purpose of the revelation to communicate, the reality remains unknown. Even where things spiritual are denoted by material figures, there is some relation or analogy between the figure and the idea signified, which makes the figure an apt and suitable expression of it. Much more will this be the case when the truth to be communicated belongs to the physical universe. The following pages will show in what respects Professor Dana's application of his principle appears to exceed legitimate limits, and presupposes, in fact, that the reality has been so disguised, in the course of transmission through the mind of the recipienti. e., here, the inspired writer-that the idea which his words convey stands in no relation to it, and cannot be imagined to represent it.

Professor Dana accepts the nebular hypothesis of the origin of the solar system, and begins by seeking to accommodate it with the first five verses of Genesis. In order to accomplish this, he considers, following substantially Professor Guyot,' that the terms "earth" and "waters in ver. 2 do not denote anything which we should call by those names, but describe matter, while yet "inert," prior to its being endowed with "force" (page 210), and the power of molecular action (page 208). The endowment with such capacities he supposes, observing the convertibility, established by science, of light with heat and electrical and chemical action, to be signified by the work of the First Day. Thus he writes, page 209: "The fiat, Let light be, was consequently the beginning of light, heat, and chemical action in matter, which matter till then was inert." That "light" may have included, or involved, the capacity for other analogous molecular activities need not be disputed. Professor Dana does not, however, state what he conceives to have been the condition of "inert" matter. Yet we surely have a right to know what that was. For unless it was something which, at least approximately, resembled earth and water, it is impossible to grant that it could have been denoted by those words. Professor Guyot, indeed (page 38), imagines it to have been gaseous. I make bold here to ask a question, which perhaps some physicist will be able to answer. Is this correct scientifically? Is it a fact that the matter of which a gas is composed is inert? I read in Professor 1 Creation, 1884, p. 36: "The Hebrew word maïm does not necessarily mean waters, but applies as well to a gaseous atmosphere." I reply without the smallest misgivings, and in the assurance that every Hebrew scholar, on whichever side of the Atlantic his home is, will approve what I say: The meaning of the Hebrew maim is perfectly well established; and it can be applied to nothing to which the English word "water" could not also be applied. (The proof drawn by Professor Guyot from Ps. cxlviii. 5, is extraordinary. How could the Psalmist invoke a gaseous atmosphere to praise the Lord, which, ex hypothesi, had ceased to exist-being condensed into the different heavenly bodies countless ages previously?) The explanation of earth, p. 35, is not less strained who, except in the interests of a theory, could have supposed it to denote a formless (p. 38) sphere of gas, the primordial cosmic material, out of which the universe was ultimately formed?

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