e admitting the Bible to contain the record of a true
supernatural revelation, do not consider it to be without positive error
of historical fact, not without false coloring from popular legend and
tradition, but nevertheless a record as good as human hands could make a
truly divine revelation."[19]

There is, though, a class of thinkers that altogether reject the Bible;
that is to say, refuse to believe it to be a divine revelation. Hume,
whom Huxley calls "the most acute thinker of the eighteenth century,"
thus ends one of his essays: "If we take in hand any volume of divinity
or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, _Does it contain any
abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?_ No. _Does it contain
any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?_ No.
Commit it, then, to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry
and illusion." To this Huxley says: "Permit me to enforce this wise
advice, Why trouble ourselves about matters of which, however important
they may be, we do know nothing, and can know nothing? We live in a
world which is full of misery and ignorance, and the plain duty of each
and all of us is to try to make the little corner he can influence
somewhat less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it was before he
entered it. To do this effectually, it is necessary to be fully
possessed of only two beliefs: the first, that the order of nature is
ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which is practically
unlimited; the second, that our volitions count for something as a
condition of the course of events. Each of these beliefs can be verified
experimentally, as often as we like to try. Each, therefore, stands upon
the strongest foundation upon which any belief can rest, and forms one
of our highest truths."

The first words in the Mosaic account are:[20] "In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth."[21] It is seen, then, that the
so-called revelation points to a beginning. The beginning referred to is
an absolute beginning, for we find: "In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God."[22] * * * "All things were
made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made."[23]
Science points also to a beginning.

Geology points to a time when man did not inhabit the earth; when for
him there was a beginning. So, too, for lower organisms; so, too, for
the rocky minerals; so, too, for the round world itself. B