Transcribed from the 1870 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price. DARWINISM. * * * * * THE NOACHIAN FLOOD. A LECTURE DELIVERED BEFORE THE TORQUAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, JAN. 31ST, 1870, * * * * * BY THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, M.A., _Late Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College_, _Oxford_. * * * * * London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1870. * * * * * OXFORD: BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. GARDNER, E. P. HALL, AND H. LATHAM, M.A., PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. THE NOACHIAN FLOOD. DARWINISM implies almost throughout that no universal Deluge has drowned our globe, either within the last ten thousand years, or even within a period indefinitely longer. Let us speak with due respect of the contrary belief. It _seems_ to rest upon the testimony of a Volume the most precious in the world. It was taken for granted till a few years back as much in science as in religion. For a while, the arguments that began to be raised against it were met by counter-arguments so plausible, and the objectors differed so widely among themselves, that unscientific opinion had a kind of right and prudence in adhering to that which had been taught for centuries, and was still taught without deviation in nursery, and school, and pulpit. We should have asserted a better right and shown a higher prudence, had we waited, in a matter which concerned science full as much as it concerned religion, till, by learning facts and weighing arguments, we had become able to form an opinion no longer unscientific, or, at the very least, to appreciate the difficulties involved in the ancient belief. We are forced to take a controversy of this kind as it stands; otherwise, there is a simple principle which ought to make all controversy on the subject needless. All authors endowed with common sense, let alone divine inspiration, use language which their intended readers may be expected to understand, and language appropriate to the scope and design of their writings. Unless, therefore, we suppose that the Old Testament writers proposed to teach natural science to the Hebrew nation, we ought to expect from them what we actually find: as to natural phenomena, past and present, they use the language not of far-advanced knowledge and minute particular research, but simply the language current in their own day and nation.