In the case before us, we cannot help thinking, there has been generally a great want of attention to this distinction. Some of the commentators, indeed, appear to allow that Moses himself may have individually intended to convey only that meaning which, they seem to confess, appears upon the face of his narrative, but at the same time they conceive there was a hidden sense really designed, accordant with the views they suggest, and which has not really been developed till the present day. The probability of such a doctrine in general it would be beyond our limits to discuss. But in reference to the immediate subject, we must confess, it appears to vs yet more involved in complexity than the difficulties it is called in to solve.
Lastly, others have thought that the whole description must be taken literally as it stands ; but yet, if found contradicted by facts, may, without violence to its obvious design and construction, be regarded as rather intended for a mythic poetical composition, or religious apologise, than for a matter-of-fact history.
To these points we shall recur ; meanwhile, to follow the order of our discussion, we must here advert to another question.
The idea of creation,' as meaning absolutely ` making out of nothing,' or calling into existence that which did not exist before, in the strictest sense of the terms (as we have seen), is not a doctrine of Scripture, but it has been held by many on the grounds of natural theology, as enhancing the ideas we form of the divine power, and more especially since the contrary must imply the belief in the eternity and self existence of matter. It has hence been a point largely discussed by those who have gone into the metaphysical arguments in support of the existence and attributes of the Deity. To maintain the eternity of matter is held to be the basis of materialism : and the sole self-existence of God has been upheld as essential to our idea of divinity, and the belief in a similar quality in matter strenuously objected to is either investing matter with the attributes of Deity, and thus involving us in Pantheism, or else derogatory from the divine perfections so entirely, as to leave us in a state ot opinion differing little from atheism. Thus Dr. S. Clarke has argued at length against the self-existence of matter, on the ground that self-existence implies necessary existence ; and this again implies that it would be contradictory to suppose the world not to exist ; which it does not, since we can conceive the possibility of its non-existence (see Demonstration of the Being and Attrib. etc., prop. iii.)
In general, we would observe that the abstract belief in a creation, as a calling into existence of the material world out of nothing, according to the definition of the schoolmen, ' Dicitur aliquid esse factum de nihil cum intelligimus esse quidem factum, sed non esse aliquid unde sit factum' (Anselm, Monol. c. 8), must be regarded as an opinion which rests wholly upon arguments of a metaphysical kind. It must, on the one hand, be distinguished clearly from the creation spoken of in the Bible, and, on the other, from the process by which the present order of physical existence was introduced, so far as it may be disclosed to us by the evidence of physical science. The metaphysical arguments will of course possess different degrees of weight to different minds ; at all events they should be most carefully examined. And though Scripture and nature do not absolutely assert this view of the matter, yet they offer nothing at variance with it.
The creation, or origin, of the world, in a philosophical sense, is a subject which, as might be expected, has engaged the attention of philosophers of all classes and sects from the earliest times. To attempt to give any correct account of the innumerable theories and speculations which have been I started on this subject would be beyond our design : but some few remarks by way of illustration may be desirable.
In general, we may observe that of these theories, many which have passed current as philosophical speculations have been framed not on 'Surely philosophic grounds, but on a mixture of philosophical with legendary and fabulous systems among the heathen writers of antiquity ;—and, among the moderns, with an attempt to combine the de ductions of physical science with the real or supposed statements of revelation. All such speculations appear to us essentially faulty. In all such inquiries we should preserve a distinct idea of the ground on which we are proceeding. In the attempt to mix up considerations of so very different a nature in one view we shall pervert and injure both. Let the inductive conclusions stand on their own ground, and revelation on its proper evidence, then both will obtain their proper and distinct authority.