For instance, it is insisted that the "sea-monsters" of the second group included _sirenia_ and _cetacea_ (dugongs, manatees, and whales, dolphins, &c.), which are mammals. In that case a portion of the command would not have been obeyed--a number of the designed forms would have been kept in abeyance--for a long time. And the same is still more true if bats--a highly placed group of mammals--were included in "winged fowl." But both these interpretations are distinctly arbitrary, incapable of holding good, and also entirely ignore the conditions of a Revelation. The narrative is not discussed or defended as an ordinary secular narrative, which is true according to the _writer's uninspired intention or the state of his personal knowledge_. It is defended as a Revelation. The distinction is as obvious as it is important, directly a moment's consideration is accorded. If we assume, for a moment, that God _did_ (on any theory whatever of Inspiration) instruct, direct, or enable the writer in making the record, then it is obvious that the writer either put down what he saw in a vision, or what was in some other manner borne on his mind. In any case, he could have had no critical knowledge, and no historical knowledge as an eye-witness, of the actual facts; and he may very well therefore have used language the full meaning of which he did not apprehend.[1] What alone is essential is, that the narrative as it stands, on an ordinary critical, linguistic, and grammatical interpretation, should not contain anything which is untrue. Suppose, for example, the word "tannînîm" to be _incapable_ of bearing any other meaning linguistically than "cetacean," then the narrative might be objected to; but if it will bear a meaning which is consistent with fact, then it is no matter that the writer at the time had an erroneous, or (what is more likely) no defined, idea in his own mind of the meaning. And so with "winged fowl"--the objection fails entirely, unless it can be shown, not only that the writer might have thought "bats" to be included, _but_ that linguistically the word _cannot have_ any other meaning than one which would include bats.[2] [Footnote 1: As is constantly the case in prophetic writings. Revelation tells of the remote past sometimes as well as the future, and in neither case could the inspired writer fully understand the meaning that was wrapped up in his sentences.]