future modification or rejection, as our knowledge increases.

The Mosaic Record itself, when carefully examined, seems to be
peculiarly open to the process suggested. No doubt there is yet
much work for Philology to do in its interpretation [Footnote:
Such words, for instance, as [Hebrew script:],[Hebrew script:],
[Hebrew script], used of different creative acts, may imply some
difference of which we are ignorant. So again the uses of the
words [Hebrew script], [Hebrew script:], and [Hebrew script:] for
"man," may have a bearing on some of those questions which now
seem most perplexing.], but one thing seems certain--there is in
it an absence of all detail. The facts to which it has reference
are stated in the briefest and most simple manner, without the
slightest reference to the means by which they were effected, or,
apart from the question of the days, the time which was occupied
in their accomplishment. When stripped of all that is traditional,
and examined strictly by itself, the narrative seems greatly to
resemble one of those outline maps which are supplied to children
who are learning geography, on which only a few prominent features
of the country are laid down, and the learner is left to fill in
the details as his knowledge advances. Only in this case the
details have already been filled in by the light of very imperfect
knowledge, aided by a fertile imagination. These we must
obliterate if we would restore the possibility of a faithful
delineation, and we must be careful, in future, to avoid a similar
error. We must put down nothing as certain which has not been
conclusively shown to be so.

This last caution is specially needed at the present time, for,
proud as we are of our advance in science, the amount of what is