“From the posterity of the most Ancient Church, Moses received what he wrote concerning the creation, the Garden of Eden, etc., down to the time of Abraham,” writes Swedenborg. Describing the method by which the people of that church expressed themselves, he adds: “When they mentioned earthly and worldly things, they thought of the spiritual and celestial things which they represented; so that they not only expressed themselves by representatives, but also _reduced their thoughts into a kind of series, as of historical particulars_, in order to give them more life; and in this they found their greatest delight.” Understanding this fully, we shall not be surprised to learn that the first eleven chapters of Genesis are _purely allegorical_; written not as a description of the creation of the material world, and its fortunes, but as a description of the internal life of the earliest people, of the development of their minds up to celestial perfection, and then of their gradual declension from purity, their love of the evil and the false, and finally the destruction of their souls, symbolized by the deluge overspreading the face of the whole earth. These chapters were thus written by the Lord in accommodation to the tastes of the men of the Ancient Church, who, as we read, had “their greatest delight in the expression of spiritual and celestial things in a series of historical particulars;” just as, in after times, He clothed His Wisdom in Jewish history and law, so that He might be with the Jews, and preserve within them some small remains of spiritual life. What a relief to the mind, torn and troubled with the thousand doubts which science has cast upon the early chapters of Genesis, is the acceptation of the truth of their entirely allegorical signification! And how plainly, in their spiritual sense, do we find testimony of their divine authorship! It should not be forgotten that the doctrine of the symbolical nature of these chapters, was set forth by Swedenborg long before science had demonstrated that their merely literal sense was wholly irreconcilable with the facts of nature; thus quite independently of any external pressure or necessity. It must be known to every one that geology—the science which, above all others, has brought the most weighty objections against the six days’ creation, and the deluge of the whole earth by a flood which covered the tops of the highest mountains,—is a new science. At the time when Swedenborg wrote, it was entirely undeveloped. The reconciling of the literal sense of these chapters with the facts of geology, has perplexed more minds, and engaged more intellect, than did ever perpetual motion and the squaring of the circle. The amount of speculation which has been expended upon this theme, is immense, as every one at all acquainted with the religious history of the last fifty years is aware; and still the labor is vigorously prosecuted. We have no inclination to undervalue the motives that prompt to it.