Page:Essays ethnological and linguistic.djvu/220

208 APPENDIX.

I. — ON THE SIX DAYS OF THE CREATION.

The mistaken translation of the Hebrew word yom, as "day" in our version has been peculiarly unfortunate in imbuing the generality of readers with an almost ineradicable impression that the periods of time referred to in the sacred narrative consisted merely of ordinary days, such as we now experience them, of twenty-four hours each. When, therefore, our geologists show us that this globe has evidently passed through a number of mutations, involving many long periods of time previous to its being rendered fit for the habitation of beings constituted as we are, such readers are unable to perceive that the sacred historian actually declared the same fact as occurring in the six periods to which his narrative refers.

Reason on this point would show us, that though the fiat of the Creator might unquestionably have called the whole creation into existence in a moment, as well as in one day or six days, yet that such instantaneous operations are not in accordance with the course of action which the Almighty is pleased to adopt in the ordinance of the world. Our daily experience shows us, that in the smallest items of creation, — in the growth of a shrub or the life of an insect, — a length of time is proportioned to the objects intended; and the slightest reflection would argue, that it was little consistent with the loftiness of Him who inhabiteth eternity, to suppose He would set Himself to the great creation of worlds as if to do a stated task within a stated limit of only a few hours' duration.

Dr. Buckland, in his "Bridgewater Treatise," though acknowledging, on the authority of the Hebrew professor Dr. Pusey, that "There is no sound critical or theological objection to the interpretation of the word 'day' as meaning a long period of time," seems as if he could not for one divest himself of the prevailing prejudice on the subject. Thus he suggests, by way of reconciling the error with the fact, that the changes obser-