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230 THE LEADER. [Saturday,
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NICARAGUA. Nicaragua: its People, Scener...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Science And Scriptube. The Relation Betw...
eternal ice , and a rigour of cold which no animal can endure for but a few hours , if not protected by the power and skill of man , excepting those which are ^ tted for it by a wise and wonderful variety in the forms arid functions of their bodily structure , internal as well as external . In all the species of animals , the entire anatomy , and the outward provision of covering , defence , and mode of obtaining f ood , are adapted to their indigenous locality , with a power and precision which richly display the inexhaustible resources of creative wisdqni . A few . species , int the animals readil
deed , are formed to enjoy a very wide range , hey being among y domesticated and the most serviceable to man . Yet even they , we have much reason to think , were originally indigenous in particular places : and it is worthy of observation that some of these species , by being brought into widely different circumstances as to climate and treatment , acquire , through the lapse of many generations , alterations of form so remarkable , that uninstructed persons might take them for specifically different animals : but that these differences constitute only varieties , and not species , is established by clear anatomical evidence , and by the
test of continuous progeny . It is the admitted conclusion of botanical science that vegetable creation must have had a variety of different centres , each of which was the original seat of a certain number of species , which first grew there and nowhere else ; and all we know of zoological distribution points to the game conclusion : for , indeed , what are species but differences resulting from thd differences in physical conditions , and their correlations with the organisms ? The Flood is examined by ; Dr . Smith with great care , and the discrepancies between the narrative and modern science fairly shown to be irreconcilable . He holds that the scriptural account is only the history of the Jewish people , and must not be extended to the whole world .
" Upon the supposition that the words of the narrative require to be understood in the sense of a strict and proper universality , another difficulty arises with respect to the preservation of animals . Ingenious calculations have been made of the capacity of the ark , as compared with the room requisite for the pairs of some animals , and the septuples of others : and it is remarkable that the well-intentioned calculators have formed their estimate upon a number of animals below the truth , to a degree which might appear incredible . They have usually satisfied themselves with a provision for three or four hundred species at most ; as in general they show the most astonishing ignorance of every branch of Natural History . Of the existing mammalia ( animals which nourish their young by breasts ) , considerably more than one thousand species are known ; of Birds , fully five
thousand : of Reptiles , very few kinds of which can live in water , two thousand ; and the researches of travellers arid naturalists are making frequent and most interesting additions to the number of these and all other classes . Of Insects ( using the word in its popular sense ) the number of species is immense ; to say one hundred thousand would be moderate : each has its appropriate habitation and food , nnd these are necessary to its life ; and the larger number could not live in water . Also the innumerable millions upon millions of animalcules must be provided for ; for they have all their appropriate and diversified places and circumstances of
existence . But all land animals have their geographical regions , to which their constitutional natures are congenial , and many could not live in any other situation . We cannot represent to ourselves the idea of their being brought into one small spot , from the polar regions , the torrid zone , and all the other climates of Asia , Africa , Europe , America , Australia , and the thousands of islands ; their preservation and provision ; and the final disposal of them ; without bringing up the idea of miracles more stupendous than any that are recorded in Scripture , even what appear appalling in comparison . The great decisive miracle of Christianity , the Resttebection of the Lord Jesus , sinks down before it . "
We need not recapitulate the did astronomical and geological objections : they must be familiar to the reader , and Dr . Pye Smith admits their validity . He does not attempt to attenuate their force as directed against the ordinary interpretation of Scripture , because he is ready with a theory of his own which frees theology from the dilemma without forcing it to give up either the Bible or science . Let us see how he approaches this dilemma . He begins by refuting , and satisfactorily too , the favourite notion of the language or Scripture being metaphorical . Speaking of the creation in six days , he says : —
" Upon the very face of the document , it is manifest that in the first chapter the word is used in its ordinary sense . For this primeval record ( terminating , as was remarked in a former lecture , with the third verse of the second chapter , ) is not a poem , nor a piece of oratorical diction ; but is a narrative , in the simple stylo which marks the highest majesty . It would bo an indication of a deplorable want of taste for the beauty of language , to put a patch of poetical diction upon this face of natural simplicity . But , one might think that no doubt would remain to any man who had before his eyes the concluding formula of each of the six partitions , ' And evening was , and morning was , day one ; ' nnd so throughout the sorica , repeating exactly the same form ; only introducing the ordinal numbers , till wo arrive at the last , ' And evening was , and morning was , day the sixth . '
"Ifthere wore no other reason against this , which I may call device of interpretation , it would appear quite sufficient to require its rejection , that it involves bo largo an extension in tho liberty , or liconce , of figurative speech . Pootry speaks very allowably of the day of prosperity or of sorrow , the day of a dynasty or of an empire : but tho case before us requires a stretch of hyperbole which would bo monstrouH . A few hundreds , or even thousands , of days turned into years , would not supply a period mifficiently ample to meet tho exigency of geological reasoning ; while this way of proceeding , to obtain tho object desired , is sacrificing the propriety and certainty of language , and producing a feeling of revolt in tho mind of a , plain reader of tho' Bible . " r
But , tho reader aalcs , if tho plain statements of Scripture are admitted to bo erroneous , and wo are not to understand its language as metaphorical , how are the contradictions to bo rodoncilej P Here Dr . ¥ yo Smith advances with his proposition—viz ., that when tho Deity spoke to man in Revelation , ho used such expressions as comported with the knowledge of the age in which they were delivered—and tho Jews being ignorant of geology , zoology , and astronomy , were spokon to in tho current languago of their ignorance . " Wo stand , therefore , on safe ground , " adds Dr . Smith , " and aro fully warranted by divine authority to translate tho language of tho Old Testament upon physical subjects into such modern expressions as shall bo agreeable to the reality of tho things spoken , of . "
This is Dr . Smith's position . He claims it as original , but it is as old as Giordano Bruno , who , in the fourth dialogue of ¦ Im Cena de le Ceneri { Opera Ital ., vol . i . p . 11 % -seq . ) , not only states the principle , but applies it . The Bible , he says , does not treat of science , as if it were a work of philosophy , but of morality ; and that being its purpose , physical tilings are spoken of in the language best understood by those it addressed . * On this principle we ' cannot but remark , — -I . It is derogatory to Infinite Wisdom to suppose that it could not have employed Truth for its revelations as easily as Error . II . If admitted , the same license must he extended to moral and religious expressions , and thus the morality and religion of the Bible become adapted to modern ideas , which is tantamount to throwing the Scrip tures aside . III . That it is a pure assumption . Dr . Pye Smith himself shall furnish us a passage in support of our second remark : —
"It is impossible to deny that the Scripture does use language , even concerning the highest and most awful of objects , God and his perfections and operations , which we dare not say is literally true , or that it is according to the reality of the things spoken of . I entreat renewed attention to the evidence which I have adduced . Will any man deny that the Scripture , in places innumerable , particularly in the earlier books , speaks of God as having the bodily form and members of a man , and the mental passions and imperfect affections of men ? Or will
any say that such descriptions and allusions are properly true ; that they are according to the reality of things ? Shall we , can toe , believe that the infinite , Eternal , and unchangeable Being , comes and goes , walks and flies , smells , hears , and sees , and has heart and bowels , hands , arms , and feet ? Or that he delibera tes , inquires , suspects , fears , ascertains , grieves , repents , and is prevailed upon by importunity to repent again and resume a rejected purpose ? Do not the same Scriptures furnish us amply with the proper exponents of those figurative , and , strictly speaking , degrading terms ?"
Thus we are thrown * upon our skill in Interpretation . But ^ whose Interpretation are we to stand by as the true ? The immense facilities given to such licence of reading the plain text of Scripture may be seen in the way Plato amuses himself with interpreting the Hellenic myths , and the way Bacon displays his ingenuity in his Wisdom of the Ancients . After a careful study of Dr . Pye Smith ' s book , the ingenuous reader might say , " It is here proved that . I am not to accept the plain language of Scripture on physical things , because science contradicts it j I am not not meant
to interpret the language as metaphorical , for it was certainly metaphorically . But although fact and science tell me this book is greatly in error on physical things , I am bound to believe-it implicitly on moral things , for it is revealed truth . What proof have I that it is a revelationP Theologians tell me so . But the pr iests say as much to the Mahometans of the JLoran ! Before I can believe a book , admitted to be crowded with errors , is a book to which I am to surrender my spiritual guidance , I demand some proof of its divinity . Dr . Pye Smith refers me to the internal evidence .
" Whether the original writer of this sacred archive was Moses , or whether he was placing at the head of his work a composition of an earlier patriarch , the calm majesty and simplicity of the declaration give , as a matter of internal evidence , the strong presumption that he spoke with authority : that he only repeated what the Omniscient Spirit had commanded him to say and write . The declaration is , in tho New Testament , adduced as an object of faith ; which implies a divine testimony . " But that which may be a strong presumption to Dr . Smith is none to me ; the internal evidence , so far from pointing to a divine authority , points to a Jewish author , whose conceptions of the universe I see to be those of barbarian ignorance , and whose conceptions of the Deity are repugnant to my moral sense . " , To sum up : The exp lanations of natural phenomena given by benpturo and those given by science aro irreconcileablo . Science or Scripturechoose between them , for you cannot ask the world to yield obedience to both !
230 The Leader. [Saturday,
230 THE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
Nicaragua. Nicaragua: Its People, Scener...
NICARAGUA . Nicaragua : its People , Scenery , Monuments , and the Proposed Inter-Oceanio Canal By & Q . Squier . 2 vols . Longman and Co . The author of these two very amusing volumes was the Charge" d'Aff ^ res of the United States to the llopublics of Central America , and had , consequently , great facilities of access to sources of information . To the aavantage of position , ho added tho advantage of a lively , open mind > a taste for antiquarianism and ethnology , and the power of treating grave suDjocts with a vivacity not gained at tho expense of his solidity . ii « re " somblos French travellers in this union of the serious with the gay , as also in his dislike of tho " Britishers" nnd admiration of the lair sex . What with the novelty of his subject , and the liveliness of his stylo , uo has produced two extremely pleasant volumes of travel . After nn elaborate introduction , which treats of the goograp hy , climato , Sic , of Contral Amorica in general , and tho topography , climate , population , ol \»
& c , of Nicaragua in particular , Mr . Squior narrates the incidents ms ou personal experience during the expedition . Ho then discusses the questio of an inter-oceanic canal , dissertates on tho aborigines of Nicaragua , an sketches tho history of tho Spanish American ltepublics , down to tii present time . Tho numerous illustrations which accompany tho text , ai > for tho most part , really illustrative , especially those very curious F ctul . of tho Nicaraguan antiquities . But the pagos aro crowded with pen . jr - lures .:, wo may almost dip ad ajperlaram , and bo certain to-. light u ]> something lilea this glimpse of San Juan : — ' . i " Tho population of tho town was nil there , many-hued and'fantastically attire Tho dims of tho urchhiH from twelve and fonrtenn downwimln , consisted K « " | J ^ of a hLiiiw hul ; anil a cigar , tho latter HomothnoH unUghted and stuck bolinic car , but oftoner lighted and Htuck in tho mouth ; a costume sufficiently »» ry a
picturesque , nnd , as U observed , ' excessively cheap . . " Moat of the women had a dimple white or Jloworod skirt ( nagua ) fastened aiw tho hipx , with a ' gulp if , ' or sort of largo vandyko , with holes , through W » ^ tho nnnH wcro passed , nnd which hung loosely down over tho breast . ^ cases the gnipil was rather short , and exposed ft dark strip of »& in , from on
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 6, 1852, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_06031852/page/18/
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