[125] Gen. i. 26.
[126] "The difficulty," he says, (alluding to Gen. i. 1,) "lies in this, that the heaven is distinctly said to have been formed ... on the second day." (p. 226.) But this is the language of a man determined that there shall be a difficulty. "The Heavens and the Earth" clearly denote, (in the simple phraseology of a primitive age,) the sum of all created things; the great transaction which Nehemiah has so strikingly expounded:—"Heaven, the Heaven of Heavens, with all their host,—the Earth and all things that are therein;" including "the sea, with all that is therein." (Neh. ix. 6.) Whereas "the firmament" of ver. 6, (which God called "Heaven" in ver. 8,) can only indicate the blue vault immediately overhead, wherein fowls fly. (ver. 20.) If this be not the meaning of Gen. i. 1, one half of the phrase is "proleptical,"—the other half not: for the creation of Earth is nowhere recorded, if not in ver. 1.... But surely it is a waste of words to discuss such "difficulties" as these.
[127] Consider especially Heb. iv. 9 and 10; and consider, (besides Exod. xx. 11,) Deut. v. 15. See also Col. ii. 17.
[128] "There have been found within the area of these islands upwards of 15,000 species of once living things, every one differing specifically from those of the present Creation. Agassiz states that, with the exception of one small fossil fish, (discovered in the clay-stones of Greenland,) he has not found any creature of this class, in all the Geological strata, identical with any fish now living." (Pattison's The Earth and the World, p. 27.)
[129] I allude to such passages as the following,—all of which are to be found in Mr. Goodwin's Essay:—
"We are asked to believe that a vision of creation was presented to him (Moses) by Divine power, for the purpose of enabling him to inform the world of what he had seen; which vision inevitably led him to give a description which has misled the world for centuries, and in which the truth can now only with difficulty be recognized." (p. 247.) "The theories [of Hugh Miller and of Dr. Buckland] assume that appearances only, not facts, are described; and that, in riddles which would never have been suspected to be such, had we not arrived at the truth from other sources." (p. 249.) "For ages, this simple view of Creation satisfied the wants of man, and formed a sufficient basis of theological teaching:" but "modern research now shews it to be physically untenable." (p. 253.)
"The writer asserts solemnly and unhesitatingly that for which he must have known that he had no authority." But this was only because "the early speculator was harassed by no such scruples" as "arise from our modern habits of thought, and from the modesty of assertion (!) which the spirit of true science has taught us." He therefore "asserted as facts what he knew in reality only as probabilities.... He had seized one great truth.... With regard to details, observation failed him."—(pp. 252-3.)
[130] p. 329.
[131] pp. 307-309.
[132] Notice prefixed to Essays and Reviews.