with that phraseology to believe that plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of similar rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand by and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” (At these last words the audience is said to have laughed and applauded.) “In the third place, I have carefully abstained from speaking of this as a Mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics, and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence whatever that Moses ever wrote this chapter or knew anything about it. I don’t say—I give no opinion—it would be an impertinence upon my part to volunteer an opinion on such a subject; but that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is well for us, the laity, who stand outside, to avoid entangling ourselves in such a vexed question.”
Then the lecturer makes a short refutation of Milton’s hypothesis, and concludes his first lecture by promising to give in the following lectures the evidences in favor of the hypothesis of evolution.
It seems to us that the whole of the preceding reasoning is nothing but plausible talk, and that the explanations of the lecturer lack sincerity. First, he pretends that the “doctrine of creation” is a philosophical question, which cannot be solved by the historical method. Why can it not? Creation is no less a historical than a philosophical fact. The book in which we read it is a historical book, more than three thousand years old, whose high authority has been recognized by the wisest men of all past generations, and whose truthfulness has been confirmed by monuments of antiquity and by the study of profane histories. If, then, Prof. Huxley was truly anxious to follow the historical method, why did he not
compare the details given in Genesis about the manner and order of the origination of nature with the manner and order suggested by geological discoveries? On the other hand, if the question was to be treated by the historical method, was it wise to appeal to a poet as the best interpreter of history?
As to the philosophical treatment of the doctrine of creation, we are glad to see that the professor has had the good sense of abstaining from it. This forbearance on his part was imperative for many reasons, and especially because, as appears from some expressions of his, he was quite incompetent to judge of the doctrine on its philosophical side. He says that it is not his present business to investigate “the causes which have led to the origination of nature,” nor to inquire “why the objects which constitute nature came into existence”; as if there were any other why besides the will of the Creator, or any other causes besides his omnipotence. But Mr. Huxley seems afraid of a Creator; hence he does not speak of a God, but of “causes” and “external agencies”; nor does he mention creation, but only “origination.” Vain efforts! For, if nature has had an origination, it either originated in something or in nothing: if in nothing, then such an origination is a real creation; if in something, then such an origination was only a modification of something pre-existing contingently (for nothing but the contingent is modifiable), whose existence must again be traced to creation. Had the lecturer honestly followed the historical method, he would have boldly started with those profound words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth,” and he would have found a
solution, no less philosophical than historical, of his question.
These remarks go far to show that the professor’s reasons for ignoring the Biblical history (which he, of course, calls the “Biblical hypothesis”) are mere pretexts. Surely it was not his business to explain the Hebrew text; but this is no excuse. The only point which had a real importance in connection with the question at issue was whether the so-called days of creation were natural days of twenty-four hours or periods of a much greater length. Now, this point could have been investigated with the Latin or the English text as well as with the Hebrew. Moreover, since “many eminent scholars,” and even “men of science,” as he states, have absolutely denied that the doctrine of the six natural days is found in Genesis at all, was it not plain that the geological epochs, wholly unknown to Milton, could not be considered as contradicting the Biblical record, but might rather coincide with that narrative, and help us to clear up some obscure phrases which we read in it? Prof. Huxley pretends that, if we listen to these eminent scholars and men of science, “we must believe that what seem so clearly defined as days of creation are not days at all, but periods that we may make just as long as convenience requires.” This is, indeed, the conclusion we draw from a full discussion of the subject; but we should like to know on what ground the professor assumes that the Genesis speaks so clearly of natural days. It is the contrary that is clearly implied in the language of the sacred writer; for it is evident that the three days which preceded the creation of the sun could not be natural days of twenty-four hours; and since their
length has not been determined by the sacred writer, we are free “to make them just as long as convenience requires.” This reason, which may be strengthened by other expressions in the context, and by many other passages of the Bible where the word day is used indefinitely for long periods of time, led many old interpreters, St. Augustine among others, to deny what Prof. Huxley so confidently asserts about the clearness of the Scriptural testimony in favor of natural days. The professor evidently speaks of a subject which he has never studied, with the mischievous purpose of creating a conflict between science and faith.
What shall we say of his amusing hint at the “marvellous flexibility” of the Biblical language? Though greeted with applause and laughter (by an audience that knew nothing about the Hebrew language), such a hint was a blunder. It is not the flexibility of the language that has ever been appealed to as the ground of different interpretations; it is the extreme conciseness of the narration, and the omission of numerous details, which might have proved interesting to the man of science, but which had nothing to do with the object pursued by the sacred writer. For the aim of the writer was to instruct men, not on science, but on the unity of God and his universal dominion. On the other hand, all languages have numbers of terms which can receive different interpretations; and the very word day, which the lecturer takes to mean so clearly twenty-four hours, is used even by us in the sense of an indefinite length of time. We say, for instance, that to-day anti-Christianity is rampant, just as well as that to-day it has rained; and we hope that Professor Huxley will not on
this account find fault with the English language, or sneer at its “marvellous flexibility.”