We have, however, no positive proof of such a theory, and it is subject to many grave objections. The narrative itself makes no pretension to a scientific origin, it quotes no authority, and it is connected with no philosophical speculations or deductions. It bears no internal evidence of having been the result of inductive inquiry, but appeals at once to faith in the truth of the great ultimate doctrine of absolute creation, and then proceeds to detail the steps of the process, in the manner of history as recorded by a witness, and not in the manner of science tracing back effects to their causes. Farther, it refers to conditions of our planet respecting which science has even now attained to no conclusions supported by evidence, and is not in a position to make dogmatic assertions. The tone of all the ancient cosmogonies has in these respects a resemblance to that of the Scriptures, and bears testimony to a general impression pervading the mind of antiquity that there was a divine and authoritative testimony to the facts of creation, distinct from history, philosophical speculation, or induction. One of the boldest and simplest methods of this kind is that followed by the authors of the "Types of Mankind," in the attempt to assign a purely human origin to Genesis 1st. These writers admit the greater antiquity of the first chapter, though assigning the whole of the book to a comparatively modern date. They say: "The 'document Jehovah'[13] does not especially concern our present subject; and it is incomparable with the grander conception of the more ancient and unknown writer of Genesis 1st. With extreme felicity of diction and conciseness of plan, the latter has defined the most philosophical views of antiquity upon _cosmogony_; in fact so well that it has required the palaeontological discoveries of the nineteenth century--at least 2500 years after his death--to overthrow his _septenary_ arrangement of 'Creation;' which, after all, would still be correct enough in great principles, were it not for one individual oversight and one unlucky blunder; not exposed, however, until long after his era, by post-Copernican astronomy. The oversight is where he wrote (Gen. i. 6-8), 'Let there be _raquie_,' _i. e._, a _firmament_; which proves that his notions of 'sky' (solid like the concavity of a copper basin, with _stars_ set as brilliants in the metal) were the same as those of adjacent people of his time--indeed, of all men before the publication of Newton's 'Principia' and of Laplace's 'Mecanique Celeste.' The blunder is where he conceives that _aur_, 'light,' and _iom_, 'day' (Gen. i. 14-18), could have been physically possible _three whole days_ before the 'two great luminaries,' _Sun_ and _Moon_, were created. These venial errors deducted, his majestic song beautifully illustrates the simple process of ratiocination through which--often without the slightest historical proof of