sea-snakes and, presumably, the fresh water Reptilia and
Amphibia; with the great majority of Invertebrata.

The creation of man is announced as a separate act, resulting
from a particular resolution of Elohim to "make man in our
image, after our likeness." To learn what this remarkable phrase
means we must turn to the fifth chapter of Genesis, the work of
the same writer. "In the day that Elohim created man, in the
likeness of Elohim made he him; male and female created he them;
and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they
were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years and
begat a son in his own likeness, after his image;
and called his name Seth." I find it impossible to read this
passage without being convinced that, when the writer says Adam
was made in the likeness of Elohim, he means the same sort of
likeness as when he says that Seth was begotten in the likeness
of Adam. Whence it follows that his conception of Elohim was
completely anthropomorphic.

In all this narrative I can discover nothing which
differentiates it, in principle, from other ancient cosmogonies,
except the rejection of all gods, save the vague, yet
anthropomorphic, Elohim, and the assigning to them anteriority
and superiority to the world. It is as utterly irreconcilable
with the assured truths of modern science, as it is with the
account of the origin of man, plants, and animals given by the
writer of the second chief constituent of the Hexateuch in the
second chapter of Genesis. This extraordinary story starts with
the assumption of the existence of a rainless earth, devoid of
plants and herbs of the field. The creation of living beings