the unknown within the range of conceptions applicable to the known. The solution, as will be seen shortly, contrives to satisfy one-half of the problem only by leaving the other half out of consideration. This difficulty, however, does not seem to have occurred to the ancient Hebrew writers who propounded the following history of the Creation of the Universe:—
"In the beginning," they say, "God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was desolate and waste, and darkness on the face of the abyss, and the Spirit of God hovering on the face of the waters. And God said: Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided between the light and the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And it was Evening, and it was Morning: one day.
"And God said: Let there be a vault for separation of the waters, and let it divide between waters and waters." Hereupon he made the vault, and separated the waters above it from those below it. The vault he called Heavens. This was his second day's work. On the third, he separated the dry land from the sea, "and saw that it was good;" besides which he caused the earth to bring forth herbs and fruit-trees. "And God said: Let there be lights in the vault of the heavens to divide between the day and between the night, and let them be for signs and for times and for days and for years." Hereupon he made the sun for the day, the moon for the night, and the stars. "And God put them on the vault of the heavens to give light to the earth, and to rule by day and by night, and to separate between the light and the darkness; and God saw that it was good. And it was evening, and it was morning; the fourth day" (Gen. i. 1-19).
Let us pause a moment here before passing on to the next branch of the subject: the creation of animals and man. The author had two questions before him; how the materials of the universe came into being, and how, when in being, they assumed their present forms and relative positions. Of the first he says nothing, unless the first verse be taken to refer to it. But this can scarcely be; for the expression, "God made the heavens and the earth," cannot easily be supposed to refer to the original production of the matter out of which the heavens and the
