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Book, page 81 / 125 though it was as yet neither one thing nor the other, it contained the elements of both. And the word "water" expressed its plastic character. ("De Genesi ad Literam" Liber Imperfectus, Section 13, 14.) One other important point in these words is, that they negative the eternal existence of matter. The second verse describes it as existing, because it had been called into existence at the bidding of an Almighty Creator, as described in the first verse. SECTION 4. THE FIRST DAY. "And the Spirit of God (was) brooding upon the face of the water. "And God said, 'Let light be' and light was. "And God saw the light that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. "And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. "And there was evening and there was morning, one day." The first clause seems to belong rather to the period of action than to the precedent indefinite period of chaos, and may therefore be taken as marking the transition from the "beginning" to the first day, better than as belonging to that beginning itself. The Jewish interpretation of the clause is untenable in the light of the doctrine of the Correlation of the Physical Forces. Till force was evolved there could be neither air nor motion, and so no wind. The words of course bear on their face an assertion of the action of the eternal Spirit in the work of Creation; but when we examine the position which they occupy, it seems highly probable that they have beyond this a much more definite signification. In them a sort of localized action is ascribed to the Spirit--a something very different from the idea conveyed by the often-repeated phrase, "And God said." What that something may be it is hard for us to conceive, harder still to express, but the following considerations may perhaps throw some glimmering of light upon the matter:--
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