The peculiar element in scripture is the spirit and religious atmosphere which permeate all its parts and give to the Bible a unique place among the literatures of the world. This is the divine element due to inspiration. It is this element which establishes a gulf between the Hebrew account of creation and the cosmologies of other nations. Though the biblical writers had very much the same idea about the form and general {60} arrangement of the visible world as we find among other peoples--ideas that have satisfied at all times the majority of men even among nations with a pretense to culture, namely, the cosmology of appearances--these ideas were all connected with their sublime faith in Jehovah: to his omnipotence they referred the existence of the world, and they made all its changes depend entirely on his will. In their monotheistic religion they secured the foundation of a clear and simple cosmology different from the grotesque cosmologies of other nations and yet not beyond the demands of men of a primitive type and of simple mind, who were full of a lively imagination, but not much accustomed to analyze phenomena or their causes. In this connection it may prove helpful to remember what, according to the biblical viewpoint and in the light of history, was the contribution of Israel to the development of the human race. "Israel," says G. W. Jordan,[33] "is comparatively young, politically it is provincial, socially it is not brilliant, in the realm of science it is narrow and dependent; yet when we lay stress on these limitations we only cause the peculiar glory of this nation's life to stand out more clearly; it has its own individuality; its real leaders are men of genius, their ambition is to speak in the name of the eternal king; they {61} hear the divine message and claim for it the supreme significance." This is the judgment of a Bible student. The same truth is expressed in the words of one who approaches the Bible from the viewpoint of the scientist, namely, the eminent Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli[34]: "Their [the Hebrews] natural gifts, as well as the course of events, carried them to a different mission [from that of Greece and Rome] of no smaller importance--that of purifying the religious sentiment and of preparing the way for monotheism. Of this way they mark the first clear traces. In the laborious accomplishment of this great task Israel lived, suffered, and completely exhausted itself. Israel's history, legislation, and literature were essentially coördinated toward this end; science and art were for Israel of secondary importance. No wonder, therefore, that the steps of the Jews' advance in the field of scientific conceptions and speculations were small and feeble; no wonder that in such respects they were easily vanquished by their neighbors on the Nile and the Euphrates."