Mr. Gladstone and Genesis | Page 8

after all, Mr.
Gladstone is of opinion that the "Mosaic record" was meant to give
moral, and not scientific, instruction to those for whom it was written,
they may be disposed to think that I must be misleading them. But let
them listen further to what Mr. Gladstone says in a compendious but
not exactly correct statement respecting my opinions:--

He holds the writer responsible for scientific precision: I look
for nothing of the kind, but assign to him a statement general, which
admits exceptions; popular, which aims mainly at producing moral
impression; summary, which cannot but be open to more or less of
criticism of detail. He thinks it is a lecture. I think it is a sermon" (p. 5).

I note, incidentally, that Mr. Gladstone appears to consider that the
differentia between a lecture and a sermon is, that the former,
so far as it deals with matters of fact, may be taken seriously, as
meaning exactly what it says, while a sermon may not. I have quite
enough on my hands without taking up the cudgels for the clergy, who
will probably find Mr. Gladstone's definition unflattering.
But I am diverging from my proper business, which is to say that I have
given no ground for the ascription of these opinions; and that, as a
matter of fact, I do not hold them and never have held them. It is Mr.
Gladstone, and not I, who will have it that the pentateuchal cosmogony
is to be taken as science.
My belief, on the contrary, is, and long has been, that the pentateuchal
story of the creation is simply a myth. I suppose it to be an hypothesis
respecting the origin of the universe which some ancient thinker found
himself able to reconcile with his knowledge, or what he thought was
knowledge, of the nature of things, and therefore assumed to be true.
As such, I hold it to be not merely an interesting, but a venerable,
monument of a stage in the mental progress of mankind; and I find it
difficult to suppose that any one who is acquainted with the
cosmogonies of other nations--and especially with those of the
Egyptians and the Babylonians, with whom the Israelites were in such
frequent and intimate communication--should consider it to possess
either more, or less, scientific importance than may be allotted to these.
Mr. Gladstone's definition of a sermon permits me to suspect that he
may not see much difference between that form of discourse and what I
call a myth; and I hope it may be something more than the slowness of
apprehension, to which I have confessed, which leads me to imagine
that a statement which is "general" but "admits exceptions," which is
"popular" and "aims mainly at producing moral impression,"
"summary" and therefore open to "criticism of detail," amounts to a
myth, or perhaps less than a myth. Put algebraically, it comes to this,

x=a+b+c; always remembering that there is nothing to show the
exact value of either a, or b, or c. It is true that
a is commonly supposed to equal 10, but there are exceptions,
and these may reduce it to 8, or 3, or 0; b also popularly means
10, but being chiefly used by the algebraist as a "moral" value, you
cannot do much with it in the addition or subtraction of mathematical
values; c also is quite "summary," and if you go into the details
of which it is made up, many of them may be wrong, and their sum
total equal to 0, or even to a minus quantity.
Mr. Gladstone appears to wish that I should (1) enter upon a sort of
essay competition with the author of the pentateuchal cosmogony; (2)
that I should make a further statement about some elementary facts in
the history of Indian and Greek philosophy; and (3) that I should show
cause for my hesitation in accepting the assertion that Genesis is
supported, at any rate to the extent of the first two verses, by the
nebular hypothesis.
A certain sense of humour prevents me from accepting the first
invitation. I would as soon attempt to put Hamlet's soliloquy into a
more scientific shape. But if I supposed the "Mosaic writer" to be
inspired, as Mr. Gladstone does, it would not be consistent with my
notions of respect for the Supreme Being to imagine Him unable to
frame a form of words which should accurately, or, at least, not
inaccurately, express His own meaning. It is sometimes said that, had
the statements contained in the first chapter of Genesis been
scientifically true, they would have been unintelligible to ignorant
people; but how is the matter mended if, being scientifically untrue,
they must needs be rejected by instructed people?
With respect to