To set aside this testimony from usage as being inapplicable to the present case, it has been said――(a.) That here is a succession of days, “first day,” “second day,” “third day,” etc., and that this requires the usual sense of days of the week.――――To which the answer is that here are six special periods succeeding each other――a sufficient reason for using the word in the peculiar sense of a period of special character. Each of these periods is distinct from any and all the rest in the character of the work wrought in it.――――The reason for dividing the creative work into six periods――“days”――rather than into more or fewer lies in the divine wisdom as to the best proportion of days of man’s labor to the one day of his rest, the Sabbath. God’s plan for his creative work contemplated his own example as suggestive of man’s Sabbath and was shaped accordingly. This accounts for dividing the work of creation into six special periods, correlated to God’s day of rest from creative work.――――(b.) It will also be urged that each of these days is said to be made up of evening and of morning――“The evening and the morning were the first day,” etc. But the strength of this objection comes mainly from mistranslation and consequent misconception of the original. The precise thought is not that evening and morning composed or made up one full day; but rather this: There was evening and there was morning――day one, _i. e._, day number one. There was darkness and then there was light, indicating one of the great creative periods.[3] It is one thing to say――There were alternations of evening and morning――_i. e._ dark scenes and bright scenes――marking the successive periods of creation, first, second, third, etc.; and another thing to affirm that each of these evenings and mornings _made up_ a day. The point specially affirmed in the two cases, though somewhat analogous, is not by any means identical.――――Let it be considered moreover, that while in Hebrew as in English, _night_ and _day_ are often used for the average twelve-hour duration of darkness and of light respectively in each twenty-four hours, yet in neither language are the words _evening_ and _morning_ used in this sense, as synonymous with night and day. Indeed “evening” and “morning” are rather points than periods of time; certainly do not indicate any definite amount of time――any precise number of hours; but are used to denote the two great changes――_i. e._ from light to darkness and from darkness to light; in other words, from day to night and from night to day. Therefore to make evening and morning added together constitute one day is entirely without warrant in either Hebrew or English usage and can not be the meaning of these passages in Genesis.[4] (2.) _The showing of the narrative itself_, considered apart from the bearing of geological facts.