But it is urged--and this is the second argument,--that, whatever may be the meaning of the word word יוֺם (_yom) elsewhere, in the first chapter of Genesis it must mean a day of twenty-four hours. For we are not merely told that there was a First Day, and a Second Day, and a Third Day; but each day is in a manner analyzed by the sacred writer, and its component parts set forth for our instruction. _There was evening and there was morning_, he says, the First Day; _there was evening and there was morning_ the Second Day; _there was evening and there was morning_ the Third Day; and so on. Now if the word were understood of those indefinite periods we have been speaking about, there would be no meaning in this analysis: for it could hardly be maintained that each of those periods had but one evening and one morning like an ordinary day. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a peculiar appropriateness in this phrase, which goes far to confirm the common interpretation. Amongst the Jews it was usual to compute the civil day from sunset to sunset. The civil day began then with the evening. And accordingly Moses, in describing the Days of Creation, puts the evening first, and says: There was evening and there was morning the First Day; there was evening and there was morning the Second Day; and so for the rest. All this reasoning seems to us unsatisfactory and inconclusive. In the first place, it is not a fact, as would seem to be supposed, that the civil day is made up of evening and morning. The evening and the morning do not make the whole day; they are only certain periods of the day. Neither do they mark the limits of the day: for, though it is quite true that, in the computation of the Jews, the civil day began with the evening, it certainly did not end with the morning. If, then, by the word Day, Moses here meant the civil day of twenty-four hours, how is this clause to be understood, There was evening and there was morning the First Day? It cannot mean that the evening and the morning put together made up the First Day: for this is not a fact. It cannot mean that the evening marked the beginning of the day, and the morning marked its close: for the period included between the evening and the morning is not the day but the night. What does it mean, then?