ONY.
3. A still more recent and plausible schedule is pro- pounded by Prof. C. H. Hitchcock, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, July, 1867, as follows :
Order
Order of Geology.
of
Scripture.
When Introdnred.
Prodomi-
of
Formations.
6.
Man. Mammals.
Man. Large Mammals.
Small ^Mammals. Birds.
Reptiles, Fishes,
Articulata,
Mollusra, and
Radiata.
Protozoans.
Plants,
Dry land, and
■ Ocean. Development of
Atmosphere.
Gradual cooling
aud condensation
of earth.
Day and nipht. Igneous fluidity. Nebular 8t;lte'.
Light. Creation of mat- ter.
Man. Mammals.
Reptiles and
Reptilian
birds.
Plants.
Amphibians.
Fishes, Plants,
MolUisks.and
Trilobites.
i
1
1
J Alluvium. j Tertiary.
1 Cretaceous. -( Jurassic. 1 Triassic.
Permian. Carboniferous. ^ Devonian. Silurian.
fHuronian. 1 Labradorian.
[ Laurentian.
Previous
to
the
formation
of
Strata.
5.
Birds.
-Water. Animals.
4.
Sun,
Moon,
and Stars.
3.
Plantj.
Dry land, and seas.
•2.
Clouds and water sepa- rated. Atmosphere,
1.
Day aud night.
Lidlt.
Creation of
mattiT.
The author carries out the parallel between the Mo.saic narrative and the geological phenomena at considera- ble length under each Aay, and makes a closer approx- imation to a harmony in the details than anj' previous writer. He wisely abstains, however, from a minute examination of the sacred text in comparison with the scientilic elements ; for hero, like all his predecessors in this direction, his exegeds would inevitablj' have broken down. The obvious jjiirport of the account in Genesis is sacrificed to the geological tlicory, and its phraseology is forced into the geological formulaa. There is no natural or critical agreement. Nearl_y all the above strictures apply with more or loss force to this new version : we have space to point out but a few special discrepancies: "day and night" are only provided for at the close «f the first "day," and tlicn as an indefinite si'ries of alternations between light and darkness, not as a single inix^iiiJ.i{)OV ; each day in the
geological order laps over into the other, instead of being sharply defined as in the scriptural statement ; it is the "plants" of the fourth geological "day," rather than those of the third, that correspond with the vegetable productions of the scri]itural progres- sion ; the marine creatures of the fifth Scripture day are only to be recognised in tlie "amphibians" and "fishes" of the fourth geological cycle; indeed, the fourth of the Scripture days, which is occupied onlj'' with the appearance of the heavenly luminaries, is the most active of the geological periods in the production of every form of animated existence, heijinning with trilobites and running up to complete vegetation.
But, most of all, we object to the general view under which this is set forth as an interpretation of the Bib- lical passage in question, namely, that it is a " picto- rial" description, or "symbol," or "vision," "retro- spectively prophetic :" wliereas it seems to us a plain literal history, utterh' destitute of the least semblance of imagery or seer-like import beyond the mere use of a few anthropomorphisms familiar to the Hebrews. If such liljerties are allowable in hermeneutics, that is the end of all meaning in words. For instance, when the successive scenes in the Mosaic narrative are com- pared {l\[eth. Quart. Rev. April, 1868, p. 298) with the regularly numbered emblems of the Apocalypse (the seven seals, trumpets, angels, vials, etc.), the very im- portant fact is overlooked that the latter are avowedly set forth as aymholical representations of ecclesiastical import, while the former are unaccompanied In' any intimation of an ulterior significance. Indeed, this comparison is suicidal to the interpretation which it is put forth to support ; for, as the visions of John in the Revelation could onl}' have authority as premonitions of the future on the concession of their actual occur- rence in the manner related \>y himself, so the descrip- tion of Moses in tlie opening chapters of Genesis must be accepted as literal statements of real phenomena, in the most obvious and bona-Jide sense, before thej' can be made the basis of a symbolical application. See Cosmology, p. 5'28.
This much only may, however, be granted as true in the hypothesis upon which these and similar explana- tions are based : that the geological and the Jlosaic cre- ations being, like all of God's acts in a given line, mu- tually typical of each other, inasmuch as they proceed upon a nniformity in the divine plan — the development of an archetypal idea — were in their great outlines, ofcour.se, similar, and hence may, to a considerable ex- tent, be justly compared together, and even portraj'- ed in the same general terms ; but on this very account interpreters of the Bilile ought to be the more careful not to confound the two, and especially not to substi- tute the distant and more dimly shadowed event for the one directly in the mind of the sacred writer. See Double Sense (of Scr^ipture). In the present in- stance, moreover, there is eminentlj' a natural ground of necessity for the coincidences above discernible : al- though no amount of ingenuity has been able to dram- atize the facts of geology into precisely six acts, yet the aboriginal creation of matter is of course tlie first scene in each case ; light is a prerequisite of vegeta- tion, and this, again, must be the antecedent food for the animal tribes, while man forms the fit outcome of the entire plot : the incidental details of the two schemes might be expected to varj', as, in fact, they are found to do.