The Creation Account in the Book of Genesis| OKWAVE

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'The second verse may describe the condition of the earth on the evening of this first day(for in the Jewish mode of computation used by Moses each day is reckoned from the beginning of one evening to the beginning of another evening). This first evening may be considered as the termination of the indefinite time which followed the primeval creation announced in the first verse, and[may be considered]as the commencement of the first of the six succeeding days in which the earth was to be filled up and peopled in a manner fit the reception of mankind. .We have in this second verse a distinct mention of earth and waters as already existing and involved in darkness ;their condition also is described as a state of confusion and emptiness (tofu bofu), words which are usually interpreted by the vague and indefinite Greek term 'chaos',and which may world. At this intermediate point of time the preceding undefined geological periods had terminated, a new series of events commenced, and the work of the first morning of this new creation was the calling forth of light from a temporary darkness which had overspread the ruins of the ancient earth'.

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We venture to think that the world at large will continue to consider the account in the first chapter of Genesis to be a cosmogony. But as it is here admitted that it does not describe physical realities, but only outward appearances, that is, gives a description false in fact, and one which can teach us no scientific truth whatever, it seems to matter little what we call it. If its description of the events of the six days which it comprises be merely one of appearances and not of realities, it can teach us nothing regarding them. Dissatisfied with the scheme of conciliation which has been discussed, other geologists have proposed to give an entirely mythical or enigmatical sense to the Mosaic narrative, and to consider the creative days described as vast periods of time. This plan was long ago suggested, but it has of late enjoyed a high degree of popularity, through the advocacy of the Scotch geologist Hugh Miller, an extract from whose work has been already quoted. Dr. Buckland gives the following account of the first form in which this theory was propounded, and of the grounds upon which he rejected it in favour of that of Chalmers:

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It should be borne in mind,' says Dr. Buckland, that the object of the account was, not to state in what manner, but by whom the world was made.' Every one must see that this is an unfounded assertion, inasmuch as the greater part of the narrative consists in a minute and orderly description of the manner in which things were made. We can know nothing as to the object of the account, except from the account itself. What the writer meant to state is just that which he has stated, for all that we can know to the contrary. Or can we seriously beleive that if appealed to by one of his Hebrew hearers or readers as to his intention, he would have replied, My only object in what I have written is to inform you that God made the world; as to the manner of His doing it, of which I have given so exact an account, I have no intention that my words should be taken in their literal meaning? We come then to this, that if we sift the Mosaic narrative of all definite meaning, and only allow it to be the expression of the most vague generalities, if we avow that it admits of no certain interpretation, of none that may not be shifted and altered as often as we see fit, and as the exigencies of geology may require, then may we reconcile it with what science teaches. This mode of dealing with the subject has been broadly advocated by a recent writer of mathematical eminence, who adopts the Bucklandian hypothesis, a passage from whose work we shall quote.

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In truth,however,if we refer to the plans of conciliation proposed,we find them at variance with each other and mutually destructive.The conciliators are not agreed among themselves,and each holds the views of the other to be untenable and unsafe, The ground is perpetually being shifted as the advance of geological science may require.The plain meaning of the Hebrew record is unscrupulously tampered with,in general the pith of the whole process lies in divesting the text of all meaning whatever.We are told that,Scripture not being designed to teach us natural philosophy,it is in vain to attempt to make out a cosmogony from its statements. If the first chapter of Genesis conveys to us no information concerning the origin of the world, it's statements can't indeed be contradicted by modern discovery.But it is absurd to call this harmony. Statements such as that above quoted are,we conceive, little calculated to be serviceable to the interests of theology ,still less to religion and morality .

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After all,' says Buckland, it should be recollected that the question is not respecting the correctness of the Mosaic narrative, but of our interpretation of it,' proposition which can hardly be sufficiently reprobated. Such a doctrine, carried out unreservedly, strikes at the root of critical morality. It may, indeed, be sometimes possible to give two or three different interpretations to one and the same passage, even in a modern and familiar tongue, in which case this may arise from the unskilfulness of the writer or speaker who has failed clearly to express his thought. In a dead or foreign language the difficulty may arise from our own want of familiarity with its forms of speech, or in an ancient book we may be puzzled by allusions and modes of thought the key to which has been lost. But it is no part of the commentator's or interpreter's business to introduce obscurity or find difficulties where none exist, and it cannot be pretended that, taking it as a question of the use of words to express thoughts, there are any peculiar difficulties about understanding the first chapter of Genesis, whether in its original Hebrew or in our common translation, which represents the original with all necessary exactness. The difficulties arise for the first time, when we seek to import a meaning into the language which it certainly never could have conveyed to those to whom it was originally addressed. Unless we go the whole length of supposing the simple account of the Hebrew cosmogonist to be a series of awkward equivocations, in which he attempted to give a representation widely different from the facts, yet, without trespassing against literal truth, we can find no difficulty in interpreting his words. Although language may be, and often has been, used for the purpose, not of expressing, but concealing thought, no such charge can fairly be laid against the Hebrew writer.

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The word beginning,' he says, as applied by Moses in the first verse of the book of Genesis, expresses an undefined period of time which was antecedent to the last great change that affected the surface of the earth, and to the creation of its present animal and vegetable inhabitants, during which period a long series of operations may have been going on; which as they are wholly unconnected with the history of the human race, are passed over in silence by the sacred historian, whose only concern was barely to state, that the matter of the universe is not eternal and self-existent, but was originally created by the power of the Almighty.' The Mosaic narrative commences with a declaration that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.' These few first words of Genesis may be fairly appealed to by the geologist as containing a brief statement of the creation of the material elements, at a time distinctly preceding the operations of the first day; it is nowhere affirmed that God created the heaven and the earth in the first day, but in the beginning; this beginning may have been an epoch at an unmeasured distance, followed by periods of undefined duration during which all the physical operations disclosed by geology were going on.' The first verse of Genesis, therefore, seems explicitly to assert the creation of the universe; the heaven, including the sidereal systems; and the earth, especially specifying our own planet, as the subsequent scene of the operations of the six days about to be described; no information is given as to events which may have occurred upon this earth, unconnected with the history of man, between the creation of its component matter recorded in the first verse, and the era at which its history is resumed in the second verse: nor is any limit fixed to the time during which these intermediate events may have been going on: millions of millions of years may have occupied the indefinite interval, between the beginning in which God created the heaven and the earth, and the evening or commencement of the first day of the Mosaic narrative.'

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The question of the meaning of the word bara,'create,'has been previously touched upon;it has been acknowledged by good critics that it doesn't of itself necessarily imply 'to make out of nothing upon the simple ground that it is found [to be]uesd in cases where such a meaning would be inapplicable . But the difficultly of giving to it the interpretation contended for by Dr Buckland and of uniting with this the assumption of a six days' creation, such as that described in Genesis, at a comparatively recent period, lies in this,that the heaven itself is distinctly said to have been formed by the division of the waters on the second day. Consequently , until. The first Mosaic day of creation, there was no sky, no local habitation for the sun,moon and stars, even supposing those bodies to have been included in the original material. Dr Buckland doesn't touch this obvious difficulty, without which his argument that the sun and moon might have been contemplated as pre-existing , although they aren't stated to have been set in the heaven until the forth day, is of no value at all.

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It is refreshing to return to the often-echoed remark, that it could not have been the object of a Divine revelation to instruct mankind in physical science, man having had faculties bestowed upon him to enable him to acquire this knowledge by himself. This is in fact pretty generally admitted; but in the application of the doctrine, writers play at fast and loose with it according to circumstances. Thus an inspired writer may be permitted to allude to the phenomena of nature according to the vulgar view of such things, without impeachment of his better knowledge; but if he speaks of the same phenomena assertively, we are bound to suppose that things are as he represents them, however much our knowledge of nature may be disposed to recalcitrate. But if we find a difficulty in admitting that such misrepresentations can find a place in revelation, the difficulty lies in our having previously assumed what a Divine revelation ought to be. If God made use of imperfectly informed men to lay the foundations of that higher knowledge for which the human race was destined, is it wonderful that they should have committed themselves to assertions not in accordance with facts, although they may have believed them to be true? On what grounds has the popular notion of Divine revelation been built up? Is it not plain that the plan of Providence for the education of man is a progressive one, and as imperfect men have been used as the agents for teaching mankind, is it not to be expected that their teachings should be partial and, to some extent, erroneous? Admitted, as it is, that physical science is not what the Hebrew writers, for the most part, profess to convey, at any rate, that it is not on account of the communication of such knowledge that we attach any value to their writings, why should we hesitate to recognise their fallibility on this head?

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While writing the first chapters of the present volume, I intended that the latter half of it should be devoted to a con sideration of this question, and therefore in " Animal Intelli gence " I said that such would be the case. But as the work proceeded it soon became evident that a full treat ment of this question would require more space than could be allowed in a single volume, without seriously curtailing both the consideration of this question itself and also that of mental evolution, as this is exhibited in the animal kingdom. I therefore determined on restricting the present essay to a consideration of mental evolution in animal, and on reserv ing for subsequent publication all the material which I have collected beaiing on mental evolution in man. I cannot yet say how long it will be before I can feel that I am justified in publishing my researches concerning this branch of my subject ; for the more that I have investigated it, the more have I found that it grows, as it were, in three dimensions— in depth, width, and complexity. But at whatever time I shall be able to publish the third and final instalment of my work, it will of course rest upon the basis supplied by the present essay, as this rests upon the basis supplied by the previous one.

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It might be thought to have been less easy to reconcile in men's minds the Copernican view of the opening chapter of Genesis.It can scarcely be aside that thin chapter is not intended in part to teach and convey at least some physical truth, and taking it's words in their plain sense,it manifestly gives a view of the universe adverse to that of modern sciences. It represents the sky as a watery vault in which the sun,moon and stars are set.But the discordance of this description with facts does not appear to have been so palpable to the minds of the seventeenth century as it is to us.The mobility of the earth was a proposition startling not only to faith but to the senses.The difficulty involved in this belief having been successfully got over ,other discrepancies dwindled in importance .The brilliant progress of astronomical science subdued the minds of men;the controversy between faith and knowledge fell to slumber ; the story of Galileo and the Inquisition become a school commonplace ,the doctrine of the earth's mobility found it's way into children's catechisms , and the limited views of the nature of the universe indicated in the Old Testment ceased to be felt as religious difficulties.

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The point is that, notwithstanding special difficulties in assigning this or that being to one or the other class, the psychological classification which I advocate resembles the zoological classification which I have cited ; it is a valid classification, inasmuch as it recognizes a distinction where there is certainly something to distinguish. For even if we take the most mechanical view of mental processes that is possible, and suppose that conscious intelligence plays no part whatever in determining action, there still remains the fact that such conscious intelligence exists, and that prior to certain actions it is always affected in certain ways. Therefore, even if we suppose that the state of things is, so to speak, accidental, and that the actions in question would always he performed in precisely the same way whether or not they were thus connected with consciousness, it would still remain desirable, for scientific purposes, that a marked distinction should be drawn between cases of activity that proceed without, and those that proceed with this remarkable association with consciousness. As the phenomena of subjectivity are facts at any rate no less real than those of objectivity, if it is found that some of the latter are invariably and faithfully mirrored in those of the former, such pheno mena, for this reason alone, deserve to be placed in a distinct scientific category, even though it were proved that the mirror of subjectivity might be removed without affecting any of the phenomena of objectivity.

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The Hebrew race, their works, and their books, are great facts in the history of man; the influence of the mind of this people upon the rest of mankind has been immense and peculiar, and there can be no difficulty in recognising therein the hand of a directing Providence. But we may not make ourselves wiser than God, nor attribute to Him methods of procedure which are not His. If, then, it is plain that He has not thought it needful to communicate to the writer of the Cosmogony that knowledge which modern researches have revealed, why do we not acknowledge this, except that it conflicts with a human theory which presumes to point out how God ought to have instructed man? The treatment to which the Mosaic narrative is subjected by the theological geologists is anything but respectful. The writers of this school, as we have seen, agree in representing it as a series of elaborate equivocations -- a story which palters with us in a double sense.' But if we regard it as the speculation of some Hebrew Descartes or Newton, promulgated in all good faith as the best and most probable account that could be then given of God's universe, it resumes the dignity and value of which the writers in question have done their utmost to deprive it. It has been sometimes felt as a difficulty to taking this view of the case, that the writer asserts so solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority. But this arises only from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion which the spirit of true science has taught us. Mankind has learnt caution through repeated slips in the process of tracing out the truth.

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It is, then, adaptive action by a living organism in cases where the inherited machinery of the nervous system does not furnish data for our prevision of what the adaptive action must necessarily be — it is only in such cases that we recognize the element of mind. In other words, ejectively con sidered, the distinctive element of mind is consciousness, the test of consciousness is the presence of choice, and the evidence of choice is the antecedent uncertainty of adjustive action between two or more alternatives. To this analysis it is, however, needful to add that, although our only criterion of mind is antecedent uncertainty of adjustive action, it does not follow that all adjustive action in which mind is con cerned should be of an antecedently uncertain character; or, which is the same thing, [it does'nt follow] that because some such action may be of an antecedently certain character, we should on this account regard it as non-mental. Many adjustive actions which we recognize as mental are, nevertheless, seen before hand to be, under the given circumstances, inevitable ; but analysis would show that such is only the case when we have in view agents whom we already, and from independent videuce, regard as mental.

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The early speculator was harassed by no such scruples, and asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities. But we are not on that account to doubt his perfect good faith, nor need we attribute to him wilful misrepresentation, or consciousness of asserting that which he knew not to be true. He had seized one great truth, in which, indeed, he anticipated the highest revelation of modern enquiry -- namely, the unity of the design of the world, and its subordination to one sole Maker and Lawgiver. With regard to details, observation failed him. He knew little of the earth's surface, or of its shape and place in the universe; the infinite varieties of organized existences which people it, the distinct floras and faunas of its different continents, were unknown to him. But he saw that all which lay within his observation bad been formed for the benefit and service of man, and the goodness of the Creator to his creatures was the thought predominant in his mind. Man's closer relations to his Maker is indicated by the representation that he was formed last of all creatures, and in the visible likeness of God. For ages, this simple view of creation satisfied the wants of man, and formed a sufficient basis of theological teaching, and if modern research now shows it to be physically untenable, our respect for the narrative which has played so important a part in the culture of our race need be in nowise diminished. No one contends that it can be used as a basis of astronomical or geological teaching, and those who profess to see in it an accordance with facts, only do this sub modo, and by processes which despoil it of its consistency and grandeur, both which may be preserved if we recognise in it, not an authentic utterance of Divine knowledge, but a human utterance, which it has pleased Providence to use Providence a special way for the education of mankind.

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In positing the evidence' of Choice as my objective (or ejective) criterion of Mind, I do not think it necessary to enter into any elaborate analysis of what constitutes this evidence. In a subsequent chapter I shall treat fully of what I call the physiology or objective aspect of choice ; and then it will be seen that from the gradual manner in which choice, or the mind element, arises, it is not practically possible to draw a definite line of demarcation between choosing and non-choosing agents. Therefore, at this stage of the enquiry I prefer to rest in the ordinary acceptation of the term, as implying a distinction which common sense has always drawn, and probably always will draw, between mental and non-mental agents. It cannot be correctly said that a river chooses the course of its flow, or that the earth chooses an ellipse wherein to revolve round the sun. And similarly, however complex the operations may be of an agent recog nized as non-mental — such, for instance, as those of a calcu lating machine — or however impossible it may be to predict the result of its actions, we never say that such operations or actions are due to choice ; we reserve this term for operations or actions, however simple and however easily the result may be foreseen, which are performed, either by agents who in virtue of the non-mechanical nature of these actions prove themselves to be mental, or by agents already recognized as mental — i.e., by agents who have already proved themselves to be mental by performing other actions of such a non- mechanical or unforeseeable nature as we feel assured can only be attributed to choice. And there can be no reasonable doubt that this common-sense distinction between choosing aud non-choosing agents is a valid one. Although it may be difficult or impossible, in particular cases, to decide to which of the two categories this or that being should be assigned, this difficulty does not affect the validity of the classification — any more, for instance, than the difficulty of deciding whether Limulus should be classified with the crabs or with the scorpions affects the validity of the classification which marks off the group Crustacea from the group Arachnida.

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On entering so wide a field of enquiry as that whose limits I have now indicated, it is indispensable to the continuity of advance that we should be prepared, where needful, to supple ment observation with hypothesis. It therefore seems desira ble to conclude this Introduction with a few words both to explain and to justify the method which in this matter I intend to follow. It has already been stated that the sole object of this work is that of tracing, in as scientific a manner as possible, the probable history of Mental Evolution, and therefore, ofcourse, of enquiring into the causes which hare determined it. So far as observation is available to guide us in this enquiry, I shall resort to no other assistance. Where, however, from the nature of the case, observation fails us, I shall proceed to inference. But though I shall use this method as sparingly as possible, I am aware that criticism will often find valid ground to object — ' It is all very well to map out the sup posed genesis of the various mental faculties in this way, but we require some definite experimental or historical proof that the genesis in question actually did take place in the order and manner that you infer.'

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Or, again adopting the convenient terminology of Clifford, we must always remember that we can never know the mental . states of any mental beings other than ourselves as objects ; we can only know them as ejects^ or as ideal projections of our own mental states. And it is from this broad fact of psycho logy that the difficulty arises in applying our criterion of mind to particular cases — especially among the lower animals. For if the evidence of mind, or of being capable of choice, must thus always be ejective as distinguished from objective, it is clear that the cogency of the evidence must diminish as we recede from minds inferred to be like our own, towards minds inferred to be not so like our own, passing in a gradual series into not-minds. Or, otherwise stated, although the evidence derived from ejects is practically regarded as good in the case of mental organizations inferred to be closely analogous to our own, this evidence clearly ceases to be trust worthy in the ratio in which the analogy fails ; so that when we come to the case of very low animals — where the analogy is least — we feel uncertain whether or not to ascribe to them any ejective existence. But I must again insist that this fact — which springs immediately but of the fundamental isolation of the individual mind — is no argument against my criterion of mind as the best criterion available; it [it=the fact] tends, indeed, to show that no better criterion can be found, for it shows the hopelessness of seeking such.

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Now, in answer to this objection, I have only to say that no one can have a more lively appreciation than myself of the supreme importance of experimental or historical veri fication, in all cases where the possibility of such verification is attainable. But in cases where such verification is not attainable, what are we to do ? We may clearly do either of two things. We may either neglect to investigate the sub ject at all, or we may Jo our best to investigate it by employ ing the only means of .investigation which are at our disposal. Of these two courses there can be no doubt which is the one that the scientific spirit prompts. The true scientific spirit desires to examine everything, and if in any case it is refused the best class of instruments wherewith to conduct the examination, it will adopt the next best that are available. In such cases science clearly cannot be forwarded by neglect ing to use these instruments, while her cause may be greatly advanced by using them with care. This is proved by the fict that, in the science of psychology, nearly all the con siderable advances which have been made, have been made, not by experiment, but by observing mental phenomena and reasoning from these phenomena deductively. In such cases, therefore, the true scientific spirit prompts us, not to throw away deductive reasoning where it is so frequently the onlyinstrument available, but rather to cany it with us, and to use it as not abusing it.

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But the first clear view which we obtain of the early condition of the earth presents to us a ball of matter,fluid with intense heat,spinning on its own axis and revolving round the sun. How long it may have continued in this state is beyond calculation or surmise. It can only be believed that a prolonged period,beginning and ending we know not when, elapsed before the surface became cooled and handened and capable of sustaining organized existences. The water, which now enwraps a large portion of the face of the globe, must for ages have existed only in the shape of steam, floating above and enveloping the planet in one thick curtain of mist. When the cooling of the surface allowed it to condense and descend, then commenced the process by which the lowest stratified rocks were formed and gradually spread out in vast layers. Rains and rivers now acted upon the scoriaceous integument, grinding it to sand and carrying it down to the depths and cavities. Whether organised beings coexisted with this state of things we know not, as the early rocks have been acted upon by interior heat to an extent which must have destroyed all traces of animal and vegetable life, if any such ever existed. This period has been named by geologists the Azoic or that in which life was not. Its duration no one presumes to define. And it is in the system of beds which overlies these primitive formations that the first records of organisms present themselves .

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Now assuredly we have here a most important issue, and as it is one the discussion of which will constitute a large element of my work, it is perhaps desirable that I should state at the outset the manner in which I propose to deal with it . The question, then, as to whether or not human intelli gence has been evolved from animal intelligence can only be dealt with scientifically by comparing the one with the other, in order to ascertain the points wherein they agree and the points wherein they differ. Now there can be no doubt that when this is done, the difference between the mental faculties of the most intelligent animal and the mental faculties of the lowest savage[savage=wild beast] is seen to be so vast, that the hypothesis of their being so nearly allied as Mr. Darwin's teaching implies, appears at first sight absurd. And, indeed, it is not until we have become convinced that the theory of Evolution can alone afford an explanation of the facts of human anatomy that we are prepared to seek for a similar explanation of the facts of human psychology. But wide as is the difference between the mind of a man and the mind of a brute, we must remember that the question is one, not as to degree, but as to kind ; and therefore that our task, as serious enquirers after truth, is calmly and honestly to examine the character of the difference which is presented, in order to determine whether it is really beyond the bounds of rational credibility that the enormous interval which now separates these two divisions of mind can ever have been bridged over, by numberless inter mediate gradations, during the untold ages of the past.

The Creation Account in the Book of Genesis

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The Creation Account in the Book of Genesis

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