LETTER VI. A Physical Commentary on the eleven first Chapters of Genesis. Windsor, September, 1794. SIR, 1. In my last Letter I collected together the prinIN cipal features of a numerous class of phenomena, tending to demonstrate that the birth of our continents must have been preceded by a sudden revolution, during which the ancient continents sinking down, formed a new bed for the sea; and, that the epoch of this revolution is not more remote than that of the deluge, according to the Mosaic computation. What then becomes of that immense antiquity, to which certain Asiatic nations lay claim, and of which some geologists have availed themselves, to ground systems as fabulous as these chronologies? 2. While geology has made advances in illustrating the history of our globe, it has been strongly supported by the enquiries of learned men into the mythological fables, which had contributed to its obscurity. In the year 1776, Mr. BRYANT published a valuable work, (the Analysis of Ancient Mythology), in which, tracing by a most laborious and learned analysis, the mythologies of Greece and Rome, up to their Egyptian and Asiatic sources, he proves that they all allude to the history of the deluge, as related by Moses; marking by the distinct characteristic circumstances of this event, the epoch of a renovation of the human race, by a personage conspicuously described, who was miraculously preserved with his family, in a vessel'. These results, as far as they relate to the nations of Asia, have been since confirmed in the three volumes hitherto published of the Asiatic Researches, the fruits of the learned enquiries of a most important literary society established at Calcutta, under the presidency and direction of the late Sir WILLIAM JONES. Lastly, in Mr. MAURICE'S 1 For striking coincidences of Chaldæan, Grecian, Phrygian, and Hindu traditions, with the Mosaic account of the deluge, see the first volume of Burder's Oriental Customs. See also Philip Howard's Scriptural History of the Earth and of Mankind, Letter I. with the Notes and Illustrations. The following observations on a work entitled "Diluvium cum tribus aliis Mahábhárati præstantissimis Episodiis," are extracted from the Foreign Review, No. VII. p. 216. "A particular interest is attached to the episode on the Mythos of the deluge, the agreement of which, with the reports given in the first book of Moses, is, in some instances, really striking. The substance of the Hindu account is this:—The Lord of the universe once appeared to the pious King Manu, acquainted him with the general imminent inundation, and ordered him to build a vessel, to enter it at the time of danger, and to take with him the seeds of all the various plants. Manu obeyed. The vessel, led and protected by the Deity, floated many years on the summit of the Himavan mountain, where it was tied at the commands of the Deity; and that point is, until this day, called Naubandhanam, or the tying of the ship...... The grand and truly majestic simplicity with which the episode on the deluge is written, imparts to it such an air of high antiquity, that we do not hesitate to place it amongst the oldest relics of Sanscrit composition."-ED. publication on The History of Hindostan, we have a recapitulation of all that has, through a length of time, been discovered on this important subject, connected with the modern discoveries, and accompanied with many very interesting remarks. 3. Hitherto, however, we have only ascertained with more precision, a resemblance, which unbelievers had already noticed between the Pagan mythologies and the book of Genesis, whence they had concluded, that the latter was also a mythology compiled by the Hebrews from notions which they had adopted, during their captivity in Egypt, and from the opinions of the several nations by which they were surrounded. However this resemblance might formerly have tended to such a conclusion, notwithstanding the absurdities of the Pagan mythologies, compared with the simplicity of the Mosaic narrative, notwithstanding, especially, the monstrosity of their polytheism, so contrary to the sublime doctrine of one only God, the Creator and Preserver of the universe, professed by the Hebrews at their departure from Egypt; still the history of the earth must necessarily, at this day, destroy for ever the illusion. Those Pagan mythologies were all connected, although in different ways, with the notion of an unfathomable antiquity of their respective nations; each of them reckoning dynasties, in which ages were accumulated by thousands. Moses, however, addressing himself to his own people, who had recently quitted a country where those notions prevailed, and tracing down the history of the new race of mankind, from the same physical epoch, common to all the mythologies of the Pagans, connects that history with that of a small number of generations successively characterised by distinguished personages, sprung from one another. How widely different is the supposed imitation from the models assigned to it? How shall we impute to the leader of the Hebrews, who in other respects manifests such wisdom, the folly of contradicting so grossly the opinions which they must have learned from the Egyptians, if it was from that source that he had himself drawn his fabulous accounts? The contrast is too great to admit of a doubt that Moses, narrating with such simplicity to the Israelites all that was of importance for them to retain respecting their origin, traced out a chronology with which they were themselves acquainted:-but we have at the present day a yet more decisive consequence to deduce from that contrast. It is most certain that of the compared histories, the one which describing the events of the new race of mankind, from the same physical epoch of the globe, places that epoch at its true distance, is that which contains the truth on all the other points. That distance of time must necessarily coincide with the antiquity of the new continents on which that new race established itself; accordingly, the question is resolved into that of the antiquity of those continents. Now, I have shown in my preceding Letter, by the concurrence of numerous phenomena of the same kind, that it is not possible to assign to them a greater antiquity than the Mosaic chronology assigns to them. Here, then, we have the greatest character of veracity impressed upon the book of Genesis; and it is the more important, that it alone overthrows both the fabulous chronologies intermingled with such great truths in the heathen mythologies, and the geological systems by which infidels have attempted to support those chronologies against the MOSAIC REVELATION. 4. The deluge, which, in all the ancient traditions, is the physical epoch marking the commencement of a new race of men, is described by Moses with circumstances so precise, that if they are true, they must be impressed upon the whole of our globe as forcibly as its chronology: and now, in proving that they are so, I shall not confine the character of Moses to that of a faithful historian, but shall make it manifest, that he must necessarily have been directed in his narrative by God himself. 5. No account of events so important as those of which Genesis treats, could be more simple than this of Moses: the history of mankind is the chief object which he is desirous to impress on the memory of the people entrusted to his direction. He first, therefore, expounds to them, in a succinct manner, the principal operations by which, at the word of God, the earth was prepared for the reception of man: then, continuing their history, and arriving at the era when the human race was renewed after a deluge, in which God granted his protection to Noah and his family, he relates some circumstances of that event: after which he confines himself to the history of that family which repeopled the globe. In this narration, Moses does not stop to explain or prove the events he treats of, but simply relates them; the Israelites knew, from tradition, the truth of many of these circumstances; and they admitted, without hesitation, those with which they were unacquainted, because Moses exercised a supernatural power, which manifested him to be the minister of God. We have not now the benefit of |