GENESIS—THE GARDEN OF EDEN.
The custom of six days’ labor and one day’s rest is a human invention, and is based on the principles of economy, power-saving, labor-saving, and had been a recognized institution long before the date of the supposed creation. For if the statement of Baily be true (and we have no right to discredit it), human beings have existed, in one state or another, above 4,000,000 years. The record of the Hebrew race is insignificant in comparison.
The modern eight-hour movement is the outcome of the economic reforms of labor. Had the composers of the scripture known something of it at that time God might have worked only eight hours instead of from sunrise to sunset.
We cannot have the slightest doubt that the above first-given labor regulation existed long, long ago. The Chaldeans had their mode of government, their laws, their social rules and regulations; other neighboring nations had theirs; it was therefore nothing new. This six days’ labor clause was incorporated, but there was no need of a God to make it.
Verse 4: “And these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” What generations of heaven?
Verse 7: “And the Lord God [In this chapter an extra title is assigned to God—it is the Lord God! Why?] formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.”
This is a very grave error. Man is not made of dust of the ground. There is comparatively very little dust in his composition.
(1) Man contains no more dust than any other animal; the proportion of inorganic constituents in him and other animals is about the same.
(2) Animals are constructed anatomically and physiologically the same. They have the same organs, the same number of muscles, and same number of bones, with some few exceptions. They are built on the same general principles as man; or rather, as man came later, we will say that man is constructed on the same general principles as the animals.
(3) The same mechanism and functions are to be found in the one as in the other—respiration, circulation, digestion, etc.