,1 WW moment ^ PRINCETON, N. J. SM/ BS 657 .D3 1888 Dawson, John William, 1820- 1899. Modern science in Bible 1 p*nHf=: MODERN SCIENCE IN BIBLE LANDS. IVONKS BY THE SA.UE AUTHOR. I. FOSSIL MEN AND THEIR MODERN REPRESENTATIVES. An attempt to illustrate the Cliir.icters and Condition of Pre- historic Men in Europe, by those of the American Races. With numerous Illustrations. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, js. 6d. II. THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD, ACCORDING TO REVELATION AND SCIENCE. Fifth Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth, js. 6c/. 111. THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. Ninth Edition, Revised, with Twenty Illustrations. Crown 8vo. dolh, 7S.6J. London: HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, P-VTEknosticr Row. MOOeRN SCIENCE AND BIBLE LANDS Ol'TLINK MAP »howiuv Ccoloy-iiiil St iiul iiri- oC EGYPT AND PALESTINE itllOM IITTII. umttr MULL AND OPICINtL NOTIS: + ■mil ar MUra ..'♦"' >}i. EXPLANATION Nilt Jllluiium.OU I Nvm Tert/MJ-y H O a O I— t oq Q o »— I 02 w Oh First Cue.vtive Day. Formless and Void. Second Creative Day. Division of the Waters, e ;< o Q = JJ .2 * Q '^ 5 C jT '~ 5c"E 5g S 5-2 br S^ a 5 S 55 i S ^ H J ;? g '-^ ^ .E , i^ o 1 8\ Sixth CitKAiivE Day. Mammals. Antediluvian Man,— SkvextoDat. Post-diluvian Man. S Protogens (in Graphite beds) Algic and Protogens Acrogens and Gymnosperms Reptiles Cycails and Pines and Palms and Birds Angiosporms Mammals Angiosperms Man and Recent Existing Animals Vegetation Protozoa Invertebrates Fishes Amphibians "5 o Nebulous State Incandescent State Primitive Crust Univereal Ocean Earliest Land (Lower Laurentian) Laurcntian Huron ian Cambrian Ordovician Silurian Erian Carboniferous Permian Triassic Jurassic Cretaceous Eocene Miocene Pliocene Pleistocene Palanthropic Neanthropic 0!^oi099-8J(i ■dmo'i •DiozoaeiPd •DI0Z0S9W -J.IOZOnjB)! CHAPTER I. I N T R 0 D U C T 0 E Y . The present work is not intended to discuss general questions as to the relations of the Bible to science. These I have treated of elsewhere.^ Its special ob- ject is to notice the light which the scientific explor- ation, of the countries of the Bible may throw on the character and statements of the book. More especi- ally it will relate to observations made by the writer as a traveller in Bible lands, supplemented, however, by the work previously or subsequently done by others, and with a somewhat extensive application of the term '' Bible lands," more particularly in refer- ence to those older portions of the Bible Avhich are not specially Palestinian. Very much has undoubtedly been already done in this fruitful field, and a long aiTay of scientific and biblical students might be cited, who have worked in it ; but many valuable gleanings still remain, more especially as every explorer discovers some new facts ; and I trust that the reader, whether scientific ' " Ori<;in of tlio World," Luiuloii, third edition, 1880. MODF.RX SriKXCE or theological, or neither, will find in the following ])ages mnch that is at least suggestive. Tt will fortunately not be necessary for us to de- vote much time to disputed questions of biblical literature or criticism, however important in some respects these may be. It need not concern us veiy much when or by whom the biblical books were written, or what may be the precise character of their claims to inspiration, or the nature of their spiritual teaching. We shall merely take them as we find them, and ask to what extent their state- ments, as to matters ot natural fact, correspond with what the prying eyes of scientific travellers discover in our time. "VVe cannot, however, altogether escape from the consideration that the antiquity and genuineness of these books, it established, add to their interest, and give importance to their study. AVe may, therefore, in this chapter, note some preliminary facts and conclusions bearing on these points. AVe shall also find many incidental corroborations of biblical statements, many explana- tions of difficulties, man}' reasons to re.spect not merely the integrity but also the accuracy and in- telligence of the writers of the books of tlit- Old and Nt'W Testament. These will, however, be incidental to our work, and will afford such coiToboration as may proceed from undesigned coincidences, rather than from attempts at reconciliatictn. In connection with this, we may not** that one of the characteristic exctdU'uces of the books of the IN BIBLE LANDS, Bible, which renders their treatment in the manner proposed here very agreeable and interesting, is the eminent truthfulness of the writers in their refer- ences to nature, as it existed around them. That this is the case is, I think, the conclusion of all com- petent students. In this point of view, indeed, the Bible unquestionably stands pre-eminent, even in its poetical portions, over all other literature, ancient and modern. It has no theories to support, except the general doctrine of an Almighty Creator. Its notions are not warped by any superstitions born of myth or idolatry. Nature is to it neither a goddess nor a sport of chance, nor a mere field for the excur- sions of unbridled fancy, but an ordered cosmos working out the designs of its Maker. Hence a reverence for natural truth, a love of nature, a trust in it and its laws, which one fails to find in other literatures. One can scarcely read a page of any ordinary poem or literary work, ancient or modern, without finding incorrect statements as to natural facts, or false hypothetical views, or quaint, imagina- tive superstitions. The Bible is notably free from such peculiarities : and, independently of its claims to inspiration, this property gives to it a high degree of estimation in the eyes of a naturalist who is able to follow accurately its statements as to the world in which its writers moved. This environment of the writers presents local differences in particular books of the Bible. The Book of Genesis, up to the migration of Abraham b MopKRX sfiExrp: into Canaan, is cosmopolitan rather than Palestinian. So far as it has local colouring, this belongs to the P^uphratean valley and its surrouuflings, rather than to any other country; and the Chaldean literature which has survived furnishes the best terms of com- parison with it. In the time of Abraham and the early patriarchs it becomes primitive Palestinian, referring to Canaan and its people at a time when both were very different from what they became in subsequent times. With Jacob and Joseph it goes down into Egypt, and the later books of the Penta- teuch have a decided flavour ot that wonderful countr}'. Exodus is, in its opening, especially an Egyptian book, but it soon takes us out into the Arabian desert, and the aspects of desert life prevail, mixed with Egyptian ideas, till the settlement in Canaan. Henceforth the Old Testament is conver- sant with the geological structure, the climate, the animals and plants of Palestine. The New Testa- ment opens with a later phase ot Palestinian lile, and then launches forth into the wider area of the Eastern Mediterranean, from which much of its local colouring is taken. In treating, then, of the Bible lands, we have to attend to these special characteristics of different books, belonging to different times and places; and we shall find a great variety of (questions arising from these, which relate to various regions, from the original home of man and the conditions of ante- diluvian times and of the deluge, down to the local IN BIBLE LANDS. relations of the early Christians, and the symbols derived from natural facts by means of which the apocalyptic seer of the first Christian century pictures the final destinies of the world. It will not be possible, however, for us to consider these in any very definite chronological or topographical order ; but rather in the arrangement deduced from their general natural connections with one another, adhering, however, as closely as possible to a geo- graphical sequence. The necessity throughout all this of careful atten- tion to facts, sometimes apparently unimportant, will strike us everywhere, and we shall find the observa- tion of every relevant local circumstance of the utmost value. Examples of the necessity of this from modern literature might be given in profusion. I have on my shelves a library of books on questions relating to the Bible and science, and to historical criticism of the Bible, and it would scarcely be too much to say that hardly one of them is free from gross errors arising from inattention to or ignorance of natural facts which the writers of the Bible well knew and rightly used. As an illustration which strikes me at the moment, and to which we shall have to return in another connection, I may refer to the recent elaborate, learned and, in the main, wise and thoughtful attempt of Prof. Fried. Delitzsch to fix the site of Eden, where it unquestionably was in the view of the author of Genesis, on the Lower -Euphrates : a theory which 8 MODERN SriEXCE has been adopted by Mr. Baden-Puwell and other recent writers. The one weak point in this theory is, that while the author knows that in early post- diluvian times the Persian Gulf extended farther north than at present and the Tigris and Euphrates ran separately into the sea, instead of being branches of the same river, as stated by the writer in Genesis, he is ignorant of another geological fact of even greater importance. This is, that in the antediluvian time, the post-glacial continental period of geology, in which man seems to have appeared, the Persian Gulf was smaller than at present, and the united Tigris and Euphrates a longer stream than now, while the surrounding district must have been elevated aurevent them from being even more ancient than tiu- lime of Moses, and IN BIBLE LANDS, 11 belonging to a period before the Hebrew race had separated from the main Turanian and Semitic stocks. The probabiUty of this is strengthened by their connection, as to the matter of their state- ments, with the primitive Chaldean documents re- cently discovered, and even with the remnants of the creation myths of American races. To a scien- tific mind these are prima facie evidences of their antiquity and genuineness. These statements apply to the so-called Jahvist as well as to the Elohist portions of Genesis. At one time it was the fashion to regard the Elohist as the elder. Now the tide sets in the other way. But all the documents of antiquity are full of cases where distinctions of this kind are made, as between the Godhead and persons thereof, or as between differ- ent aspects of God.^ It is curious in this connec- tion that, in some instances, as in the history of the Flood, the Jahvist portion is nearer to the ancient Chaldean legend than the Eloliist passages, and therefore, if there is any difference, is apparently older, though the name Jahveh is the more especially monotheistic- The attempt to separate these old records into distinct documents of late date, even if it were not greatly discredited by the extreme ' Schroder, Chaldean Documents. - The IJook of Genesis undoubtedly represents the name Jaliveh as in use in antediluvian times (Gen. iv. 1 and iv. 26 ; and the statement of Reville, that Exodus vi. 2, 3, contradicts this, is altogether supei'ticial and inaccurate, as might easily Ije shown were there time to state the arguments in the case. 12 MODERN SCIENCE differences of its upholders among themselves, does not commend itself on general grounds to the scientific student. "We are familiar in palaeontology with animals and plants of very generalized struc- ture; but instead of regarding this as evidence that they are composite creatures artificially put together, we rather consider it as proving their primitive and unspecialized character. The oldest air-breathing vertebrates known to us are certain reptilian or semi-reptilian creatures of the Carboniferous age, to which the name of Stegocephala has been given. Now, if I find that one of these animals has a head resembling that of a frog, vertebni3 like tliose of a fish, and scales and limbs resembling those of a lizard, I do not separate these into distinct portions and place them in separate cases of my collection, and invent a hypothesis that they are of different ages. I recognise in the apparently composite and undifferentiated character of the remains, evidence that they belong to a very primitive animal. So. in like manner, the older Palaeozoic insects are generalized forms. The same fact applies to the early Mammals of the Mesozoic age and to the Un- gulates ot the Eocene ; and in all these cases we regard this as ai)propriate to older forms. I believe this is the really scientific view to take of tlie Pentateuch, except in so far as it is probable tliat the earlier portions of it consist of old records of the Abramidae existing anterior to the Exodus. In any case we must regard the early chapters of Genesis IN BIBLE LANDS. 13 as one homogeneous document, and the evidence as to its age will develop itself in the sequel, when we place it in relation to local peculiarities. A like infirmity in what may be called " accurate learning," is shown in the innocent ignorance of the fact that the great antiquity of the earth and its preparation for long ages in the interest of man, is an idea as old as the oldest literary monuments of our race, and that in placing this in the definite form of creative days, the Old Testament is not deviating from the uniform tradition of antiquity, or ranging itself by the side of mediaeval divines, whom some modern scholars seem to venerate more than they do either ancient literature or modern science. What if the writer of Genesis intended, and his successors in Hebrew literature understood, that the creative days are days of God, or Divine ages — Olamini as they are elsewhere called — or, which amounts to the same thing, that they represent such periods of time. The writer of Genesis i. obviousl}- sees no incongruity in those early days which passed before there were any arrangements for natural days — '■' dies inefiPabiles," as Augustine calls them — nor in the fact that the day in which the Creator rests goes on until now without any termination ; nor in the statement that the whole work could be comprehended in one day, " the day when Jahveli- Elohim made the earth and the heavens; " and if this last summary be called later and Jahvistic, it will have the additional value of being the comment of 14 MODERN SnEXCE an editor who may be supposed to have understood the documents he had to do with. It we are to attribute the decalogue to a later period than the first chapter of Genesis, which the whole tenor and consistency of the history seem to require, the argument is rendered conclusive by the position of the fourth commandment in the midst of the " ten words," and by the reason attached to it, the whole of which would otherwise be inexplicable and even trifling. A later writer, in the Epistle to the He- brews (chap, iv.), explains this. "When God entered into His rest He gave that rest also as an eternal Sabbath to man in Eden. But man fell, and lost the j)prpetual or olamic sabbatism. There remained to him in the weekly sabbath a memento ot the lost rest and an anticipation of its recovery by a Re- deemer in the future. Hence the Sabbath was not only the central point of the moral law, but of all religion, the pledge and the commemoration of the Divine promise, and the means of keeping it before men's minds from age to age, till the promised Re- deemer should come. It is this that causes the Sab- bath to be insisted on as the most essential point of religion by the Hebrew prophets"; and this is the reason of its connection with the days of creation. This also caused the necessity of its change by (Jhristians to the Lord's Day without any new en- actment, for on this day Christ arose to enter on His sabbatism, " as God did into His.'' The Lord's Day now has the same significance to Christians, as the IN BIBLE LANDS. 15 type o± the rest into which the Saviour has entered, and which has continued for 1800 years, and of that eternal Sabbath which remains to the people of God. In truth, independently of all considerations of cos- mogony, the long seventh day of Creation and the long heavenly rest of the Saviour constitute the only valid reasons either for the Jewish or Christian Sabbath. That Jesus Himself held this view we learn from His answer to the Pharisees who accused Him of breaking the Sabbath. " My Father worketh until now, and I work."^ That the apostolic Church had the same view of the creative days and the Creator's rest, we learn from the Pauline use of the words aion and aidnios with reference to God's ages of working, and from the passages in the Epistle to the Hebrews already referred to.^ The creative days are the " antiquities of the earth " spoken of in Proverbs viii. They are the Olamim^ or ages, noticed as equal to God's creative days in Psalm xc, for which even the Revised Ver- sion retains the unmeaning '' from everlasting to everlasting." This Psalm, too, is a very archaic one, resembling in its diction the songs attributed to Moses in Deuteronomy. Psalm civ. is a poetical ver- sion of Genesis i., and in it the work marches on in ' John V. 17 (Revised Versiou). ■ 1 Cor. ii. 7; Ej)!!. iii. 9; 1 Tim. i. 17 ; John i. 2, etc. ; Heb. i. 2 ; iv. 4 to 12. In some of these passages the sense is ob- scured in our version by the use of the term " world," which is an incorrect translation unless understood in the sense of time-ioorhls. Ifi MOPEUX SriEXCK slow and solemn grandeur, without any reference to days. Again, there is not anywhere in the Bible a hint that the work of creation was remarkable as being done in a short time. Some of us have no doubt been taught in childhood that God's power was wonderfully shown by His creating the world in the short space of six days; but there is nothing of this in the Old or New Testament. Lastly, the idea of long prehuman periods exists in nearly all the traditions of ancient nations, and is contained in the Chaldean record, though it wants the division into days. Yet the Chaldeans had a week of seven days, and regarded the seventh as unlucky with reference to work, and as a day of rest. That this idea of long creative, periods has l)een obscured in our time, is one of the lamentable inheritances of the darkness of the Middle Ages. It is time now to revive it, not only in learned discus- sions, but in popular teaching. Every school child should know the pre-adamite age of the world, and should understand that the belief of this is necessary to the harmony of tlie biblical books and tlie com- prehension of the Bible history. Children of larger growth might profitably have their attention directed to the details of the development of the earth as dis- closed by science, and pictured beforehand in Genesis, in the manner indicated in the table prefaced to this chapter. Our modern wranglers over (-rcnesis seem all to be staggered by the bold statement that vegetable life IN BIBJiK LANDS. 17 appeared on the earth a whole period before animals, and even before the final arrangement of the phj'si- cal details of our earth's relation to the sun. But this is a trite conclusion to natural science. The constitution of the atmosphere and relations of the sun and moon to the earth, were in some respects different from what they are now, long after the beginning of life. Vegetation in some form must have existed before there could be animal life. Vegetation on the land must have existed before there could be air-breathing animals. This neces- sity may not have been known to the writer of Genesis, but it is well known to us. The most start- ling point in the old record is, that the primitive vegetation includes not only the humbler cryptogams (•' Deshe," not '' grass," as in the authorized version), it also contained seed-bearing herbs, and trees bear- ing fruit. So far as geological discovery has yet reached into the older layers of the earth's crust, it has found abundant remains of animals as low as the Lower Cambrian ; and it has traced land A'egetation of arboreal forms, though of very peculiar organization, nearly as far ; but below this there is a vast tluck- ness of both crystalline and fragmental rock, in which Eozoon of the Laurentian stands out as the sole representative of animal life ; and its claim to be an animal is still in question. But land plants are not known to reach so far back. None are known so old as the Lower Cambrian, so that c J8 MODERN SCIENCE marine animals, and probably' marine plants, appear to have existed long before land plants. Yet the geologist cannot safely deny the existence of land vegetation even in the old Laiirentian period. We know that there was land at that time ; and in the middle of the Laurentian series there exist in Canada immense bedded deposits of carbon, in the form of graphite with ores of iron, which cannot be accounted for on any known principles of chem- ical geology, except by supjDosing the existence of abundant vegetation. It is true that Eozoon exists in these beds, but it is in any case a mere precursor or foreshadowing of animal life, while the quantity of Laurentian carbon which it would seem must owe its accumulation to the deoxidizing agency ot plants, is enormous. AVhether we shall ever find Laurentian rocks in a condition to yield up the actual forms and structures of this old vegetation is uncertain : but we know on strictly scientific evidence, as certainly as we can know anything inlerentially, that it existed ; and we can even by analogy know something of its probable character. Of its precise relations to modern plants we have no information except the record in Genesis. If it was given to the primitive prophet of creation to see in his vision the forms of Laurentian vegetation, he saw what no geologist has yet seen, but what some geologist of the future may possibly see. In any case he has to thank the discoveries of Sir AVilliam Logan and his confri re.s iu Canada, lor establishing IN BIULE LANDS. l9 at least a probability on scientific grounds tliat lie was right ; and until these discoveries were made, the fact of pre-Cambrian vegetation rested on his sole authority. It may be said that such vegetation would be useless ; but the same remark may be made as to the lower animals which existed so long before man, or as to the exuberant vegetation of some oceanic islands untenanted b}'' the higher animals. The points on which the recent controversies to which I have referred principally turned are, how- ever, those relating to the order of the introduction of animal life, which occupies the two last days of the Mosaic creative week. Here, fortunately, we have ample material for comparison of the two records ; and if they do not agree, it is here that their divergence must appear. But to give fair play to the old historian, it will be necessary to examine his method and to weigh well his words. The method of the writer of Genesis, in describing the work of the fifth and sixth days, is similar to that employed in reference to the previous periods, but in some respects more complex, as befits the higher theme. He states first the Divine purpose or decree under the formula " God said "' ; next the actual production of the objects intended — " God created " ; next the contemplation of the work and its subsequent development — " God saAv." Let us put down these stages in order, as given for the fifth day. 20 MODERN SCIENCE (1) " God said, 'Let the waters swarm swarmers having life (animal life;, and let fowl • Hy over the earth on the surface of the expanse of heaven." (2) " God created great reptiles - and every living moving animal with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged animal alter its kind." (3) " God saw that it was good, and God blessed them, saying, ' Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, and let fowl multiply in the earth.' " This is, I think, a sufficiently literal rendering of the record, as it stands in the Hebrew text, so far as the English tongue suffices to represent its words ; but some of these terms require consideration. The word sherefz^ used for the first group of creatures, literally " swarmers '' or swarming animals, is pre- cisely defined in the law respecting animal food in Leviticus xi. There it is used as a comprehensive term, to include all the lower animals of the waters, with the fishes and batracliians, as well as certain animals of the land, viz., the land snails, insects, spiders, and scorpions, along with small reptiles aufl perhaps, though tliis last is not quite certain, some small quadrupeds usually regarded as vermin. The precise definition given in the law respecting unclean animals leaves no doubt as to the meaning of the word. "We thus learn that the creatiun of the fifth day included all the marine invertebrates, and the ' Used in tlic old >ciim- oi "tlyiii'i aiiiiiial." ' 'Taniiinim, that it<, crocodile*. IX BIBLE LAXPS. 21 fislies and batracliians, with the insects and their allies, or at least all such as could be held to be pro- duced from the waters. The link of connection which binds all these creatures under this compre- hensive word is theh teeming oviparous reproduction, which entitles them to be called swarming animals, in connection with their habitat or origin in the waters, and no term could better express that in- swarming of lower forms of marine life which meets us in the Cambrian age of geology. Thus this one word covers all the animals known in the Palseozoic and Mesozoic periods of geology, with three notable exceptions — the birds, the true reptiles, and the marsupial mammals. But singularly, and as if to complete his record, this old narrator adds two of these groups, as though they had specially attracted his attention. The word Oph^ fowl, bird, or winged animal, is the usual word for birds in general, though in Leviticus it includes the winged insects and the bats, which are winged mammals. As it is a very primitive and widely diifused word, and pro- bably onomatopoetic and derived from the sound ot wings, it may in early times have served to denote all things that fly, though applied to birds chiefly. The second group speciall}'' singled out is designated by the word Tannin^ which, like oph^ is a very old and generally diffused word,^ denoting primitive!}^ any animal long and' extended. In the Hebrew Bible it is, however, used in almost every place ' Sausc, Tan; Greek, Teino ; Latin, Tendo, etc. 22 MODEKX sriEXCE where it occurs, either for tlie crocodile^ or for the larger serpents. In Exod. vii. 9, the next place where it appears, it represents the gi*eat serpent produced from the rod of Moses. There is no war- rant for the rendering " great whales," borrowed from the Septuagint, and still less for the '• great sea monsters " of the Revised Version.- If we ask what animals the writer can have meant by ianninim the answer must be, either crocodiles or large serpents or creatures resembhng them. Tlius our author does not overlook altogether tlie •• age of reptiles," tliough he does altogether omit the " whales."' a lapsus to which we must revert imme- diately. There are, however, known to us in tlie Mesozoic period a few small insectivorous and marsupial mammals, humble and insignificant pre- cursors of the age of mammalia. These our author has apparently overlooked ; but he has an excuse for this in the fact tliat most of tliese creatures do not occur in mod«M'n times, except in Australia or America : and even if known to him. he may have had no special word by which thej- could be desig- ' Soc, for oxaiiiplo. Ezok. xxix. :? niul xxxii. 2. Jciciniali pomparos tho kinji; of Ualtylon to n Tdunhi, aiul may rt'fcr to a En])liratcaii ororodilo. now ajijiavontly oxtiiift (.Tor. li. '.\\). ■ The word is usually rcndorod in tho Sept. Drnko)/ ; hut another word, Tav, a name apparently of the jaekal, ]>as been confounded with it in tliat version. When the later Hebrew- writers had occasion to refer to the whales, they used the word Leviathan, thouu'h in earlier writers this also is ajiplied to the crocodile. Compare Ps. civ. 20 and Joli xli. IN BIBLE LANDS. 23 nated, or tlieir appearance may have been too insignificant to attract liis attention. Even with the above deduction, it must be con- fessed that this history of the fifth creative da}' presents a marvellous approximation to the two earlier periods of animal life as known to geologists — the age of invertebrates and fishes, and the age of reptiles. It is a curious point, that just as modern systema- tists have been disposed to insist on the affinities of the batrachians with the fishes, and of the birds with the true reptiles, this ancient writer, if he had the batrachians before his mind, includes them with the fishes, and singles out the birds and higher reptiles as companion groups, at the summit of the animal kingdom in their day. It may be somewhat unfair to test so popular and general a statement by such details ; but if an author who lived so long before the dawn of modern science is to be tested at all by our present systems, it is proper at least to give him the benefit of the consummate skill which he shows in avoiding all inaccuracy in the few bold touches with which he sketches the introduction of animal life. The argument in favour of the scientific precision of the writer of Genesis, as compared with the inac- curacies of his modern commentators, might perhaps be closed here, without fear as to the verdict of reasonable men. But there is a positive side as well as a negative to this vindication, and we must not 24 MODEIJX SriF-NTE rest content witli a bare verdict of '• Not guiltj-," lest we should fall into the condemnation of being mere " reconcilers.'' Our ancient author has some- thing to say respecting that formidable word evolu- tion so constantly ringing in our ears, and which while some regard it as opposed to Genesis, is by others believed to be consistent with revelation, or at the least with the argument of design. ^Vith reference to the origin and becoming of things, legitimate science is conversant with two ideas, that of causation and that of development. Causation may either be primary as proceeding from a creative will, or secondary as referring to natural law and energies. Development may be direct, as in that ot a chick from an egg. or indirect, as in the production of varieties of animals by human agency. Now it so happens that by the school of Spencer and Darwin the word evolution is used as covering all these kinds of causation and development ; and by what Mr. Gladstone calls a " fallacy of substitution,'' or what I have elsewhere termed a scientific sleight- of-hand or jugglery, we are carried from one to the other almost without perceiving it. until we can scarcely distinguish between a causal evolution, which is a mere figure of sjieech, and a modal evolu- tion, which may be an actual process going on under ascertained laws and known forces. So diificult has the discrimination of these things become, that it is a serious question wliether sober men of science should not discard altogether the term evolution, IX BIBLE LAXDS. 25 and insist on tlie use of causation and development each in its proper place, a course wliicli I propose to follow in the subsequent chapters. These questions were living issues in the time when Genesis was written. It was then a grave question, not at all decided in the minds of the most learned priests of Chaldea and Egypt, whether one God had made all things, or whether they had arisen spontaneously, or were the work of a conflict- ing pantheon of deities. How does our ancient authority stand in relation to this great question ? He recognises causation in the one creative will — " God said," " God created " ; and thereby affirms a first cause and the unity ot nature. Secondary causes he also notices in the agency of the waters, the atmosphere, and the land, and in the law of continuity implied in the words " after their species." Development he sees in one form in the progress of the creative plan, in another in the power of fruitfulness and multiplication. Yet these several ideas are distinctly and clearly defined in his mind, and are so expressed, even in the briet statements which he makes, that each is kept in its proper place relatively to the end which he has in view. It is not too much to say, that any plain man reading and pondering the history of the develop- ment of the creative plan in Genesis may obtain clearer and more correct views as to the origin and history of animal life, than it would be possible to reach by any amount of study of our modern popular 2fi MOI)EI?N' sriF.xrE evolutionaiy pliilosophy. How did tliis ancient writer escape the mental confusion which clouds the minds of so many clever men in our time ? It may be said it was because he knew less of scientific detail ; but possibly he had a higher source ot enlightenment. It is also interesting to note the strangely unemng instinct with which he seizes the relative importance of dilFerent kinds of creative work. He had selected the word Bara, '"create,"^ to express the most absolute and original kind of making in the produc- tion of the materials of the heavens and the earth. He is content with the less emphatic Asa^ '• made/" when he speaks of the expanse, the great lights, and even the later animals. But he signalizes the first appearance of animal life by a repetition of "create,'' as if to affirm the great gulf which we know separates the animal from dead matter. In like manner he repeats this great word when he has to deal with the new fact of the rational and moral nature of man. Should man ever be able to produce a new living animal from dead matter, or should the spontaneous development of the higher nature ot man from the instinct of the brute become a proved fact of science, we may doubt his wisdom in tlie selection of terms, but not till tlien. • This statement is siiflicioiit to viiidicatc the translation •'create," for Bara; but it could l)e confirined. if necessary. I»y citinp; every |)assni?e in wliicli the word ooeurs in the Hehrew I KMiks. whether in literal or figurative ajjplications. rx BIBLE LANDS. 27 Obsei've also how, without in the least derogating from this idea of creation, in the words, " God said, Let the waters swarm swarming animals, after their kinds," he combines the primar}'- Almighty fiat with the prepared environment and its material and laws, the reproductive power and the unity and diversity of type. Here again he proves himself not only a terse writer but an accurate, and, may we not add, scientific thinker. I have little space for the consideration of the Sixth creative day ; but what has been already said will render less comment necessary. Here the state- ment is longer, as befits the introduction of man ; and the day is divided into two separate portions, in each of which occurs the threefold fiat, act, and development. It is interesting in this connection io note, that wliile man is introduced in the same creative day with the higher animals nearest to him in structure, his greater importance is recog- nised by giving him a distinct half-day to himself. The land is here commanded to bring forth its special animals, but these are no longer sherdtziin, birds and reptiles, but the mammalian quadrupeds. The tlu-ee terms used to denote these creatures are translated, even in the Revised Version, by the notably incorrect words — " cattle, creeping things, and beasts of the earth." It requires no special scholarship, but only tire industry to use a Hebrew concordance, to discover the simple and familiar use of these words in the Old Testament. Behemah, 28 >rODF,l{X SCIENTF. tliougli including '• cattle,"' is; a general name for all the larger herbivorous quadrupeds ; and in Job the hippopotamus is characterized as the chief of the group. These animals appropriately take the lead, as culminating first in the age of mammals, which is also the geological fact. Reme>i^ " creeping things," is applied in a very indiscriminate yv&y to all small quadrupeds, whether mammalian or reptilian, and may here be taken to represent the smaller quadrupeds of the land. The compound word Haytho-eretz^ " beast of the land," though very general in sense, is employed everywhere to desig- nate what we would call " wild beasts," and especially the larger carnivora. This first half of the sixth day is therefore occupied in the introduc- tion of the mammalia of the land. This completes the animal population of the world with the ex- ception of the whales and their allies, which strangely are not included in the narrative. Per- haps it was this apparent omission that induced the Septuagint translators to insert these marine mammals, instead of the crocodile, as the representa- tive of the ianmuiiiir The omission has, however, a curious significance, in connection with the proba- - 'riicro is a ])a.ssagc in tlic Autliorizocl W-ision of tlie Bihh' which seems to give countenance to the mammalian idea of tliis word: "Even the sea-monsters draw out the Itreast " (Lam. iv. M). But the correct reading here is undoisto