There are some questions, simple enough in themselves, respecting the general character and object of the references to nature and creation in the Scriptures, which yet are so variously and vaguely answered that they deserve some consideration before entering on the detailed study of the subject. These are: (1) The object of the introduction of such subjects into the Hebrew sacred books--the _why_ of the revelation of origins. (2) The origin, character, and structure of the narrative of creation and other cosmological statements in those books--the _how_ of the revelation. (3) The character of the Biblical cosmogony, and general views of nature to which it leads--the _what_ of the revelation. (1) _The Object of the Introduction of a Cosmogony in the Bible._--Man, even in his rudest and most uncivilized state, does not limit his mental vision to his daily wants. He desires to live not merely in the present, but in the future also and the past. This is a psychological peculiarity which, as much as any other, marks his separation from the lower animals, and which in his utmost degradation he never wholly loses. Whatever may be fancied as to imagined prehistoric nations, it is certain that no people now existing, or historically known to us, is so rude as to be destitute of some hopes or fears in reference to the future, some traditions as to the distant past. Every religious system that has had any influence over the human mind has included such ideas. Nor are we to regard this as an accident. It depends on fixed principles in our constitution, which crave as their proper aliment such information; and if it can not be obtained, the mind, rather than want it, invents for itself. We might infer from this very circumstance that a true religion, emanating from the Creator, would supply this craving; and might content ourselves with affirming that, on this ground alone, it behooved revelation to have a cosmogony.