But with respect to the precise origin of this cosmogony, the question now arises, Is it really in substance a revelation from God to man? We must not disguise from ourselves that this deliberate statement of an order of creation in so far challenges comparison with the results of science, and this in a very different way from that which applies to the incidental references to nature in the Bible. Further, inasmuch as it relates to events which transpired before the creation of man, it is of the nature of prophecy rather than of history. It is, in short, either an inspired revelation of the divine procedure in creation, or it is a product of human imagination or research, or a deliberate fraud. To no part of the Bible do these alternatives more strictly apply than to its first chapter. This "can not be history" in the strict acceptation of the term. It relates to events which no human eye witnessed, respecting which no human testimony could give any information. It represents the creation of man as the last of a long series of events, of which it professes to inform us. The knowledge of these events can not have been a matter of human experience. If at all entitled to confidence, the narrative must, therefore, be received as an inspired document, not handed down by any doubtful tradition, but existing as originally transfused into human language from the mind of the Author of nature himself. This view is in no way affected by the hypothesis, already mentioned, that the first chapters of Genesis were compiled by Moses from more ancient documents. This merely throws back the revelation to a higher antiquity, and requires us to suppose the agency of two inspired men instead of one.