tely, a gratuitous assumption, contrary to the probable date of
the documents, as deduced from internal evidence and from comparison
with the Assyrian and other cosmogonies; and it also completely
ignores the other manifest uses mentioned under our first head. If
proved, it would give to the whole the character of a pious fraud, and
would obviously render any comparison with the geological history of
the earth altogether unnecessary. While, therefore, it must be freely
admitted that the Mosaic narrative can not be history, in so far at
least as history is a product of human experience, we can not admit
that it is a poetical mythus, or, in other words, that it is destitute
of substantial truth, unless proved by good evidence to be so; and,
when this is proved, we must also admit that it is quite undeserving
of the credit which it claims as a revelation from God.

Since, therefore, the events recorded in the first chapter of Genesis
were not witnessed by man; since there is no reason to believe that
they were discovered by scientific inquiry; and since, if true, they
can not be a poetical myth, we must, in the mean time, return to our
former supposition that the Mosaic cosmogony is a direct revelation
from the Creator. In this respect, the position of this part of the
earth's Biblical history resembles that of prophecy. Writers _may_
accurately relate contemporary events, or those which belong to the
human period, without inspiration; but the moment that they profess
accurately to foretell the history of the future, or to inform us of
events which preceded the human period, we must either believe them to
be inspired, or reject them as impostors or fanatics. Many attempts
have been made to find intermediate standing-ground, but it is so
precarious that the nicest of our modern critical balancers have been
unable to maintain themselves upon it.

Having thus determined that the Mosaic cosmogony, in its grand general
features, must either be inspired or worthless, we have further to
inquire to what extent it is necessary to suppose that the particular
details and mode of expression of the narrative, and the subsequent
allusions to nature in the Bible, must be regarded as entitled to this
position. We may conceive them to have been left to the discretion of
the writers; and, in that case, they will merely represent the
knowledge of nature actually existing at the time. On the other hand,
their accuracy may have been secured b