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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 fitted for it by a wise and wonderful variety in the forms and functions of their bodily structure , internal as well as external . In all the species of animals , the entire anatoiny , and the outward provision of covering , defence , and mode of obtaining food , are adapted to their indigenous locality , with a power and precision ^ which rid ly display the inexhaustible resources of creative wisdom , A few species , indeed , are formed to enjoy a very wide range , they being among the animals readily 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 same conclusion : for , indeed , what are species but differences resulting from the differences in physical conditions , and their correlations with the
organisms P The Flood is examined by Dr . Smith with great care , and the discrep ancies between the narrative and modern science fairly shown to be irreconcileable . 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 j as in general
they show the most astonishing ignorance of every branch of Jtfatural 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 and 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 , and 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 Resttkbection of the Lord Jesus , sinks down before it . "
"We need not recapitulate the old 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 or 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 of 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 , aa 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 style which marks the highest majesty . It would be 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 ; ' and so throughout the scries , repeating exactly the same form ; only introducing the ordinal numbers , till we arrive at the last , ' And evening was , and morning was , day the sixth . '
" If there were no other reason against this , which I may call device of interpretation , it would appear quito sufficient to require its rejection , that it involvos bo largo an extension in the liberty , or licence , of figurative speech . Poetry speaks very allowably of tho 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 monstrous . A few hundreds , or even thousands , of days turned into years , would not supply a period sufficiently ample to meet tho exigency of geological reasoning ; while thin way of proceeding , to obtain tho object desired , is sacrificing tho propriety and certainty of language , and producing a fooling of revolt in the mind of a plain reader of the Bible . * ' .
But , tho reader asks , if tho plain statements of Scripture are admitted to bo erroneous , and wo are not to understand its language as metaphorical , how are tho contradictions to bo reconciled P Here Dr .. I ' ve Smith advances with his proposition—viz ., that when tho Deity spoko to man in llovolation , 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 spoken to in tho current language of their ignorance . " Wo stand , therefore , on safe ground , " adds Dr . Smith , " and are fully warrantod by divine authority to translate the language of tho Old Testament upon physical Bubjects into such modern expressions as shall bo agreeable to the reality of tho things spokou 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 La Cerw , de le Ceneri ( Opera Hal ., vol . i . p . 172 , 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 things 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 supposej that it could not have employed Truth for its revelations as easily as Error . II . If admitted , the same license must be 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 Scriptures 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 bodil y 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 we , 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 deliberates , 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 . JBut whose Interpretation are we to stand by as the true P 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 Bis 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 ; I am not to interpret the language as metaphoricalfor it was certainly not meant ¦ ¦
, (^^^ q ^ ly /^ ¦ p ^ Vs V * f *^ j * m ^ v Km . v % ^ wfcfc ^* wr ^ ^^* *^ vm ?^ y^^— ^^ ^ ^ . ^^ w^—^ — - ~ — - i ¦ r v - ¦ - — - — 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 revelation ? Theologians tell me so . But the priests say as much to the Mahometans of the Koran ! 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 the 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 explanations of natural phenomena given by Scripture and those given by science are ; irreconcileable . Science or Scripturechoose between them , for you cannot ask the world to yield obedience to both !
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NICARAGUA . Nicaragua : its People , Scenery , Monuments , and the Proposed Inter-Oceanio Canal By E . G . Squior . 2 vols . Longman and Co . The author of these two very amusing volumes was the Charge" d'Affaires of the United States to the ^ Republics of Central America , and had , consequently , great facilities of access to sources of information . To the advantage of position , ho added the advantage of a lively , open mind , a taste for antiquarianism and ethnology , and the power of treating grave subjects with a vivacity not gained at the expense of his solidity . He resembles French travellers in this union of tho serious with the gay , as also in his dislike of tho . " Britishers" and admiration of the fair sex . What with the novelty of his subject , and the liveliness , of his style , ho has produced two extremely pleasant volumes of travel . After nn elaborate introduction , which treats of the geography , climate ,
< kc , 01 Uentral America in general , and the topography , climate , popuinuuu , &c , of Nicaragua in particular , Mr . Squier narrates theincidents of his own personal experience during the expedition . Ho then discusses the question of an inter-oceanic canal , dissertates on the aborigines of Nicaragua , and sketches the history of tho Spanish American Jtopublics , down to tho present time . Tho numerous illustrations which accompany the text , are , for tho most part , really illustrative , especially those very curious pictures of tho JSTicarftguan antiquities . But tho pages arc crowded with pen pictures : wo may almost dip ad aperturam , and bo certain to light upon something like this glimpse of San Juan : — ' . " The population of the town was all there , many-hued and fantastically attired . Tho dresa of the urchins from twelve and fourteon downwards , consisted gerier ^ iHy of a straw hat and a cigar , tho latter somothnoH unlighted and stuck beh ind tho car , but oftonor lighted and stuck in tho mouth ; u costume oufllcicntly airy ana picturesque , and , as B observed , « excessively cheap . '
" Most of tho women had a eimplo white or flowered skirt ( nagua ) ftiatoncd above tho hips , with n * guipil , ' or sort of largo vandyko , with holes ; through which tho arms wore paused , and which hung loosely down over the breast . In some cjwojj tho guijpil was rather short , and exposed n dark strip of skin from one to
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230 THE LEADER ; [ Saturday ;
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Leader (1850-1860), March 6, 1852, page 230, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1925/page/18/
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