| | ANIMALS and | and Aquatic | REPTILES, | | | | BIRDS. | Reptiles and | BIRDS. | MESOZOIC. | | | | Birds. | | | |----+-------------+----------------+----------------+------------------| | | Vers. 24-31.| Appearance of | Age of | | |VI. | Creation of | Mammals and | MAMMALS. | CÆNOZOIC. | | | LAND-ANIMALS| MAN. | | | | | and MAN. | | | | |----+-------------+----------------+----------------+------------------| | |Gen. ii. 2,3.| Reign of Man. | Age of | | |VII.| Sabbath | The Sabbath of | MAN. | PHRENOZOIC. | | | of GOD. | Creation. | | | +----+-------------+----------------+----------------+------------------+ 2. Creation was _cumulative_--that is, it was a succession of beginnings or creative epochs, in which new entities or new forces were inserted into the already existing sphere of nature, carrying it forward toward a nobler end. This, we think, is the natural impression which the reading of Gen. i. makes on the unbiased mind. Each creative word appears as the dynamical basis of a real _principium_--a beginning of something intrinsically new, and which can not be conceived as the physical result of any pre-existing condition of things.[201] A new entity or a new force was, as it were, inserted in the order of nature; a new impulse was given to matter, or a new direction to existing forces, and from that initial point a new series of developments, which go on in accordance with law--a new succession of births and growths--flows on as a part of the grand totality of effects we call "nature." This is, obviously, the Biblical conception. Here creation does not present itself as a necessary evolution from a first matter or a first force in unbroken continuity, and without any supernatural interposition. Here are clearly defined creative epochs, new beginnings, which have their origin in the creative will and word of God. What these beginnings were is a question of the deepest interest. A careful study of Gen. i. and ii. has led us to the conclusion that there is something fundamental and radical in the distinction between the creative words with _bara_ (בָרָא) and those with _yetsar_ (יָצַר) and _aysah_ (עָשָׂה). It is, in reality, the distinction between Origination _de novo_ and Formation out of pre-existing materials. There are three instances in which _bara_ occurs in Gen. i. We are fully convinced that in each case it denotes the origination of a new entity--a real addition to the sum of existence.