"And all the first-born males [of Israel] ... were twenty and two thousand two hundred and three score and thirteen" (Num. iii, 43). As the population of Israel was about 3,000,000, this would give 130 persons to each family and an average of 128 children to each mother. Faith may accept this, but physiological science rejects it. Chemistry. "And he lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river, ... and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood" (Ex. vii, 20). "Jesus saith unto them, Fill the water-pots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine," etc. (John ii, 7-9). "But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt" (Gen. xix, 26). "And he took the [golden] calf which they had made and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it" (Ex. xxxii, 20). Turning a river into blood, water into wine, flesh into salt, and burning and grinding gold into powder and holding it in solution, cannot be harmonized with the teachings of science. But it is not merely to a few Biblical passages, to a few so-called miraculous changes in the elements of nature, that the science of chemistry is opposed. It is opposed to the entire Bible as a divine revelation. The central ideas of this book, a Creator, a Providence, and a Mediator, are all overthrown by this science. Referring to this, Comte truthfully observes: "However imperfect our chemical science is, its development has operated largely in the emancipation of the human mind. Its opposition to all theological philosophy is marked by two general facts, ... first the prevision of phenomena, and next our voluntary modification of them" (Positive Philosophy, Book IV., chap. i). "In this way, Chemistry effectually discredits the notion of the rule of Providential will among its phenomena. But there is another way in which it acts no less strongly: by abolishing the idea ... of creation in nature" (Ibid). Physics. "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood, to destroy all flesh" (Gen. ix, 13-15). The Bible writer did not know that it was the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays on the drops of water which produced the prismatic colors of the rainbow; he did not know that the phenomenon was as old as rain and sunshine, but believed it to be a postdiluvian sign thrown on the dark canvas of clouds by the Almighty.