The Christian conception of the creation rests largely upon the Hebrew account. The uncritical way in which this was studied and accepted, previous to the rise of modern science and the higher criticism, remains a marvel to those who are not acquainted with the psychology of religion. Sanctioned by religion, idealized myth naturally held its own until something positive arose to dispute it. The Church Fathers, the scholastics, and the leaders of the Reformation accepted the stories in Genesis as revelations. They believed that there was a God and that he had revealed to man what he had done and what his plan of salvation was. These myths fitted into their view of the world as an essential and harmonious ingredient of it. What motive would there be for skepticism? Luther states that "Moses is writing history and reporting things that actually happened." "God was pleased," says Calvin, "that a history of the creation should exist." Of course, no really educated man of to-day can accept this attitude unless he wishes to sin against his reason. It is {41} unfortunate that there has not been sufficient openness of mind to make possible a wider extension of the knowledge which scholars have been accumulating. The only candid thing to do is to class these Hebrew stories of the creation with the myths which grew up in other parts of the world. All represent attempts to picture a beginning of things as they are, by appeal to a magnified and magical personal agency. Those early thinkers did the best they could do with the ideas they had at hand. They were innocent of our modern understanding of nature as a scene of impersonal, causal processes. To try to find science in mythology is like looking upon Dante's _Divine Comedy_ as a tale of real adventure. It is interesting to study the speculations which Christian thinkers have evolved upon the question of creation. Usually, the idea of a creation of the physical world out of nothing by a fiat has been favored. "I am the Lord, that maketh all things; that stretches forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth." Such is the natural goal of the idea of a creation. Yet a moment's reflection makes us realize that the position is entirely deductive and without a shred of evidence. To assign to a hypothetical agent called God powers sufficient to produce what experience tells us exists explains nothing. The primary assumption, of course, is that there must have been a creation. But the conception of evolution has attacked that assumption at its very foundation.