n. The Orgcade SrOL 4th Day.— Light, from the son. 5ih Day.— Creation of the lower orden of ■«*"»«'■ A»i. rk.» / !■ Greatloii of mammala 6th Day.-| ^ creation of Man.
In addition, the last day of each era indnded one wofk typical of the era, and another related to it in essen- tial points, but also prophetic Vegetation, wliik foe physical reasons a put of the creation of the third day, was also prophetic of the future Organic era, in wkich the progress of life was the grand characteristic. The record of Moses thus accords with the fundamental principle in history, that the characteristic of an sge has its beginnings witliin the age preceding. So, again, man, while like other mammals in stmcture^ even to the homologies of every bone and muscle, was endowed with a spiritual nature, which looked forward to another era — that of spiritual existence. The "«»- enth" " day"— the day of rest from the work of crea- tion— is man's period of preparation for that new ex- istence ; and it is to promote this special end that, ia strict parallelism, the Sabbath follows man*!s nx days of work.
Some "interpreters contend that the whole sc- count is to be taken together; that the days are to be understood as literal days ; but that the whole, how- ever, is to be interpreted as referring to a more re- mote period than is commonly ima^ned, and as not intended to describe the existing species of plants and animals, but various other species, now extinct^ which have been, by stdfseguent convulsions of natnre, de- stroyed, while others have been successively, by fre^ acts of creation, introduced in their place."
" Another interpretation, that of Dr. J. P^re Smith, in hu volume on the Relations of Scriptmre to Ge- ology, etc., is briefly this : the separation of the first verse he adopts as above : this refers to the original universal creation ; and in the vast undefined ioter- yal an almost unlimited series of changes In the stroc- ture and products of the earth may have taken place. After this, at a comparatively recent epodi, a ai^ portion of the earth's sur&ce was brought into a state of disorder, ruin, and obscuration, out (tf which tl^ creation of the existing species of things, with the re- call of light, and the restored presence oi the heaveolr bodies, took place literally, accerding to the Mosaic narrative, in six natural days."
"Lastly, others hare thought that the whde de- , scription must be taken literally as it stands; but yet, (f found contradicted by fiacts, may, without rio^
CREATIONISM
657
CREATURE
lence to its obvioiu design and oonBtraction, be re- garded as rather intended for a mythic poetical com- position, or religious apologue, than for a matter-of- fact history." (See Kitto's Jour, iii, 159; t, 186; LU. and Tkeol, Rev, ir, 626 ; New Englander^ ix, 510 ; Meth, Rev. tI, 292 ; zil, 497 ; De Bow's Sev, iv, 177 ; Hitchcock's Religion and Geology, § 2 ; BibUoth, Sacra, zii, 83, S28 ; ziii, 748 ; Jour, Sac IM, 1855 ; Amer, BibL Repos, yi, 286.) See Geology.
To sum up, there are three theories of creation : 1. The old orthodox view. This has been most recently defended by Kell. It claims that the world was cre- ated in six ordinary, literal days. 2. The Restitution' Hypothesis. According to it, the theosophic declara- tion of the Tohu va Bohu is accepted. The geological epochs which extend f^om the first earth-formations down to the diluvinm form an incalculably long pe- riod before the creation of light, And before the oth- er creative acts recorded in Genesis i, 8, etc. There- fore the Mosaic six days* work is but the restitution of a preceding organic creation which had been previ- oosly many times disorganized and overwhelmed. Chalmers and Buckland were the first to advocate this hypothesis. They have been followed by Hengsten- berg, Korts, Andr. Wagner, and partially by Delitzsch. 8. The view of the Harmomists or Conajrdists, such as Cnvier, De Serres, Hugh Miller, Ebrard, and others. They hold that the six days are periods of great in- definite length, and are th»efore reconcilable with the creative epochs of geology. Parallel with these days are the long geologic formations. Schultz has just written in advocacy of this theory. His work is one of the most satisfSftctory and exhaustive of all the writ- ings on this important branch of scientific theology.
See, in addition to the works already cited, Hugh Miller, TesHmong of the Rocks; Dana, Manual of Gtd- ogg ; Richers, Die SchdjfunffsgeschichteX^^V^^Si 1854, 8vo) ; Keerl, die Schopfungsgtschichte u, d. Lehre vom Parodies (reviewed by Warren, BtbHotheca Sacra, Oct. 1868, art. iii) ; Nath. Bdhner, Naturforschung u, Cubwr- y)en, 2d ed. 1863 ; Giov. Pianciani, Cosmogonia nautrale eomparaia col Genesi (Roma, 1862) ; P. Laurent, Etudes GMogiques sur la Coemogonie de Moise (Paris, 1863) ; F. H. Reusch, Bibel md Natwr (Freiburg, 1862) ; F. Mi- chelis, the chief advocate of the Restitution theory, in his journal, Natwr und Offenbarung; F. W. Schultt, Die Schopfimgageschichte nach Naturwissmschafl und Bibel (Gotha, 1865) ; Baltzer, Die hibUsche SchSjfmgsge- KhidUe (Leips. 1867, vol. i) ; Wolff, Bedeuiung der Welt- idi5ffung na(A Natwr und Schrifl (Frankfort, 1866) ; Zfickler, in Der Beweis des Gkmbens, No. 1, translated inMeth. Quart. Rev. April, 1866, art 2; Tayler Lewis, Six Days of Creation, See Genesis ; Man ; Species. Creationlsm, or (in the German mode of spelling <rom a supposed adjective) Creatianism, is a tech- nical term (very common among German philosoi^ers and divines, but not yet fblly naturalized in English) for one of the three or four theories concerning the or- igin of the human soul. It derives not only the soul of Adam, but every rational soul, directly from God, though not by way of an ema$tation in a Gnostic or pantheistic sense, but by an act of creation ; and sup- poses that the soul is united to the body at the moment of its generation or afterwards. It differs from tra- dueiamsm or generaHonism, so called, which teaches that the soul is propagated, together with the body, through the process of generation from age to age, and from the theory of pre-eaastence^ which assumes that each soul descends from another world, and a previous mode of existence, into the body, to leave it again at the dose of its earthly pagrimage. Creationlsm is traced 1>^ to Aristotle, who made an essential distinction between the animal soul (^xH) '^^ ^® rational prin- ciple (vouf), and derived the former, together with the body, from generation, the latter frt>m without or ^ove, as a part or reflex of the general reason of God. Plato, on the other hand, taught the theory of pro-ex-