Mécanique .Celeste. The 'blunder is -where he conceives that AUK; “ light,” andlOM, “ day”
( Gen. i. 14—18), could liave been physically possible three whole days before the “ two great
luminaries,” Sun and Moonfytare created. These venial errors deducted, his majestic song
beautifully illustrates the simple process of ratiocination through which often without the
slightest historical proof of intercourse—different “ Types of Mankind,1 at distinct epochas,
and in countries widely apart, had arrived, naturally, at cos,mogonic conclusions similar to
the doctrines of that Hebraioal school of which Ms harmonic and melodious numbers remain
a magnificent memento.
That process seems to have been the following. The ancients knew, as we do, that man
is upon the earth; and they were persuaded, as we are, that his appearance was preceded
by unfathomable depths of time. Unable (as we are still) to measure periods antecedent-
to man by any chronological standard, the ancients rationally reached the tabulation of
some events anterior to man, through induction— a method not original with Lord Bacon, because
known to St. Paul; “ for his unseen things from the creation of the world, his eternal
power and godhead, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made [Rom. i. 20).
Man, they felt, could not have lived upon earth without animal food; ergo, 11 cattle” preceded
him; together with birds, reptiles, fishes, &c. Nothing^ living, they knew, could have
existed without light and heat; ergo, the solar system antedated animal life, no less than
the vegetation indispensable for animal support. But terrestrial plants cannot grow without
♦ earth ; ergo, dry land had to be separated from pre-existent “ waters.” Their geological
speculations inclining rather to the Neptunian than to the Plutonian theory — for Werner
ever preceded Hutton—the ancients found it difficult to “ divide the waters from the
waters ” without interposing a metallic substance that “ divided the waters which were
ufider the firmament from the waters that were above the firmament;” so they inferred,
logically, that a firmament must have been actually created for this object. [M. g., “ The
windows of the skies” (Gen. vii. 11); “ the waters above the skies” (Pa. cxlviii. 4).] Before
the “ waters” (and here is the peculiar error of the genesiacal -bard),- some of the
ancients claimed the pre-existence of light (a view adopted by the writer of Genesis 1st);
whilst others asserted that “ chaos ” prevailed. Both schools united, however, in the
conviction that darkness ■— Erebus 678 —■ anteceded all other created things. What, said
these ancients, can have existed before the “ darkness?” Ens éntium, .th^ CREATOR,
was the humbled reply. ELoHIM is the Hebrew vocal expression of that climax; to
define whose attributes, save through the phenomena of creation, is an attempt we leave
to others more presumptuous than ourselves.
“ .God , ” nobly exclaims De Bretonne; “ has no need to strike our ears materially to make
himself heard, our eyes to make himself seen. The first act of triumph of the spirit over
matter is the discredit of emblems that have disguised the infinite God; and the. first step
towards truth is to recognize him without image, after having, for so long a period, modelled
him after our own.” 879 .
What definition of the Godhead more sublime than that in the Hindoo Vedas ? —
“ He who surpasses speech, and through the power of whom speech is expressed,
• ‘ know, 0 thou! that- He is B r a h m a , and not these perishable things that man adores.
“ He who cannot be comprehended by intelligence, and he alone, say the sages,
“ through the power of whom the nature of intelligence can be understood, know,
“ 0 thou! that He is B r a h m a , and not these perishable things that man adores.
“ He who cannot be seen by the organ of vision, and through the power of whom the
“ organ of seeing sees, know, 0 thou! that He is B r a h m a , and not these perishable
' • “ things that man adores. f ' '
“ He who cannot be heard by the-organ of audition, and through the power-of
" whom the organ of hearing hears, know, 0 thou! that He is B r a h m a , and not
“ these perishable things that man adores. s ■ ■
“ He who cannot be perceived by the organ of scent, and through, the power of
' “ whom the organ of sm'elling smells, ..know, 0 thou ! that He is B r a h m a , »and not
“ these perishable things that man a d o r e s .” ®
Phoenician, Chaldsean, and many other nations’ cosmogonies present both striking resemblances
ana divergence's. Some of them are compared with Genesis, very ably, by
Palfrey;681 from whom we borrow these words of the Alexandrian cosmogony of Diodorus
Bicni.es — “ This is not unlike what Euripides says, who was a disciple of Anaxagoras;
For this is his language in the Melanippe :
‘ T h e r e w a s o n e a s p e c t t o s k y - a n d e a r th ;
T h e n t h e s e c r e t p o y e r s d o in g t h e i r o ffice
P r o d u c e d a l l t h in g s u n t o t h e r e g io n s o f l ig h t ,
B e a s t s , b ir d s , t r e e s , t h e se a -flo ck ,
Finally, m e n t h em s e lv e s .’ ”
But that -which ancient philosaphers attained through the laws of inductive reasoning, if
to themselves clear and satisfactory, could not be conveyed in a form so indefinite to the intelligence
of the illiterate, nor to children. Such undeveloped minds require dogmatical
tuition. The teachers, so to say, had inductively ascended along an imaginary ladder,
fromman as its basis; until, having established some facts in nature antecedent to his
terrestrial advent, they reached its top, when they recognized that there must be a F irst
Cause anterior to the “ beginning:” but, so soon as these scientific results were to be conveyed
to pupils, the dogmatical method became necessary : wherefore the preceptors reversed
the order; and, commencing at the top of the supposititiousJadder, they taught —
“ In the beginning ELoHIM created .” Each rung, as they came down, marked, like degrees
on a scale, the order in which previous induction had established the relative places of
events ; and thus every intellectual nation possessed a “ Genesis.” That of the Hebrew
Elohistic writer possesses the superior merit of being a. scientific hymn,682 arranged in true
accordance with the septenary scale of numerical harmonies. '
Viewed as a literary, work of ancient humanity’s loftiest conception of Creative Power,
it is sublime beyond all cosmogonies known in the world’s history. Viewed as a narrative
inspired by the Most High, its conceits would be pitiful and its revelations false ;
because telescopic astronomy has ruined its celestial structure, physics have negatived its
cosmic organism, and geology has stultified the fabulous terrestrial mechanism upon which
its assumptions are based. How, then, are its crude and juvenile hypotheses about Human
Creation to be received ?
Before answering .this interrogatory, it may be instructive to peruse some Fathers of the
Church :
1st. Origen.—“ To what man of sense, I beg of you, could one make believe, that the
first, the second, and the third day of creation, in which notwithstanding an evening
and a morning are named, could have existed without sun, without moon, and without
stars ? —that, during the first day, there was not even a sky ! Who shall be found so
idiotic as to admit that God delivered himself up like a man to agriculture, by planting
trees in the garden of Eden situate towards the East ; that one of those trees was
that of life, and that another could give the science of good and evil ? No -one, I think,
can hesitate to regard these things as figures, beneath which mysteries are hidden.” 683
The same patristic scholar adds elsewhere—“ Were it necessary to attach ourselves to
the letter, and to understand that which is written in the Law after the manner of the
Jews or the populace, I should blush (enibesco dicere) to ^say aloud that it is God who
has given us such laws : I should find even more grandeur and reason in human
legislations; for example, in those of the Athenians,, of Romans, or of Lacedaemonians.”
684
2d. Clemens Alexandrinus — “ For your Genesis in ’particular was never the work of
Moses.”685 “ Horum ergo scripta (Orphei*et Hesiodi) in duas partes intelligenti©
dividuntur ; id est, secundum litteram sunt ignobilis vulgi turba confluxit, ea vero quse
$ secundum allegoriam constant omnis philosophorum et enuditorum loquacitas admi-
rata èst.” 686 St. Clement applies'exactly the same principles to Genesis i.), where
he ¿exclaims — 0 divine jesting ! It is the same that Heraclitus attributes to Jupiter.