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THE TEXT OF JEREMIAH;

Or, a Critical Investigation of the Greek and Hebrew, with the Variations in the LXX. Retranslated into the

Original and Explained.

BY

GEORGE COULSON WORKMAN, M.A.,

PROFESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT EXEGESIS AND LITERATURE IN VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, COBOURG, ONT., CANADA.

Taith an Introductory Motice

BY PROFESSOR FRANZ DELITZSCH, D.D.

EXTRACT FROM PROF. DELITZSCH'S INTRODUCTION.

The

In the accompanying work, my Canadian friend, Prof. Workman, has undertaken the task of ascertaining, as far as practicable, the ancient Hebrew text which lay before the Greek translator, and which often seems to him to merit the preference over the present Massoretic text. The undertaking is a very interesting and important one. I fully concur with him in the opinion that the original of the LXX. was in many respects a different text from that attested and established by the Massorets. present investigation transports the question respecting the nature and origin of the variations in the prophecy of Jeremiah to an entirely new stage, inasmuch, especially, as it presents a complete and comprehensive view of the differences between the Greek and Hebrew text in a way in which it hitherto has never been presented. The author thereby contributes to the science of Biblical criticism a work of valuable and lasting service.'

In the Press,

A HISTORY OF GERMAN THEOLOGY

IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

BY

F. A. LICHTENBERGER, D.D.,

DEAN OF THE FACULTY OF PROTESTANT THEOLOGY OF PARIS.

Revised and brought up to date, with important additions specially prepared for the English Edition by the author.

TRANSLATED BY W. HASTIE, B.D.

EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. AND ALL BOOKSELLERS.

[OVER.

and the female then chooses the pleasantest companions. It has been observed that at pairing times the males of certain kinds of birds display their plumage and other ornaments in the presence of the females, that the males of other kinds compete together in song, and that the female canary, for instance, always selects the best singer, and that in the natural condition the female finch chooses out of hundreds of males the one whose song pleases her most. Individuals, therefore, who excel others in one of these respects have an advantage over them, inasmuch as they pair more easily. They transmit their individual advantages to their progeny, and in this way sexual selection conduces to differentiation and perfection. If during a long series of generations the individuals of one kind prefer to pair with individuals of the other sex who have some peculiar characteristic, the descendants will slowly but surely be modified in the same way.

It is therefore possible that the differences which we now find in the organic world are not original, but have been gradually developed. The different varieties of roses and pigeons have evidently been produced by artificial selection, and may be genealogically traced back to one single original simple form; and if the result which has been produced by artificial selection in plants and animals when domesticated has also been produced in the condition of nature by natural and sexual selection in the manner which has just been described, we are justified in assuming that the differences which we now find among wild plants and animals are not more important than the differences between cultivated plants and domestic animals, consequently there is no

essential difference between species and variety. From this it follows that we must not speak of species as strictly separated and divided from each other as having existed without essential change from the beginning, but that we may assume a boundless mutability of organic forms, and that the forms which are now reckoned as different species in the ordinary botanical and zoological systems have been developed gradually in the course of time from more simple forms by a process of differentiation and perfection. Hence the title of Darwin's first book-The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, we should now say by means of natural and sexual selection,-" or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life." According to this theory each variety, if it becomes permanent, can develop into a race, and every race is the beginning of a species, or rather, if the differences are comparatively small, we may speak of races. These races may be called species when the differences have become greater. The distinction is artificial and subjective, not natural and objective, as the schoolman would say not a distinctio a parti rei or rationis ratiocinata, but only a distinctio a parte intellectus or rationis ratiocinantis.

Let us pause here for the present. It appears to me that no one can deny Darwin's deserts. He has raised again the question of the origin and mutability of species, and probably the consequent investigations will show that we have been too narrowminded in this matter hitherto, that our ideas of the mutability of organic beings have been too limited in many cases, that many groups of plants and animals

which are now considered as separate species must be regarded only as varieties or races, and that therefore the number of species which existed originally-let us for the present say the numbers of species originally createdis smaller than the number of species which are enumerated in our zoological and botanical systems. I say that investigations will probably lead us to this conclusion; at present we have certainly not reached such a conclusion, for in order to attain to it, we require wider and more fundamental investigations than can be instituted by a single man, even although that man be a Darwin, or even by a single generation of students. But if this conclusion is reached, it will be a great gain for natural science; it does not signify if several of the theories about the determination of species, and the classification of plants and animals, which obtained universally before Darwin, have to be given up; on the contrary, it is well that more important and better founded theories should be put in their place. The theologian may look on quietly at this controversy; it does not matter to him whether the number of the species of plants and animals is reduced or not. The Bible does not say how many species were originally created. And the theologian need not care whether the number of original species is reduced by science to a hundred or to ten. The Bible only says, that God created plants and animals after their kind; that all existing plants and animals, which may be divided into genera, species, varieties, or any other groups, must be traced back to the many or to the few forms of plants and animals which came into existence through the creative activity of God.

I may observe that in one way it can only rejoice the theologian that the limits of the mutability of species should be as wide as possible, and that men of science should unanimously conclude that even organic forms which differ widely may be descended from a common stock. The more this is acknowledged the less there is to be said against the Biblical doctrine of the unity of the human race. If cats, lions, and tigers not only belong to the same genus but to the same species, and are possibly descended from the same or similar ancestors, it is clear that no objection can be made to the common ancestry of negroes and Europeans.

On the whole I think there is nothing objectionable in the assertion which Vogt made in the year 1863, when he held other views than he does at present. It was to the effect that he must decline the last conclusions of the Darwinian system, but that he believed in it so far as the question of the near relation of types was concerned. With this limitation I myself could become a Darwinian without ceasing to be a theologian and a believer in the Bible; no objection, theologically speaking, can be made to the idea that the more nearly related types of the vegetable and animal world are descended from a common ancestry.

No doubt, looked at from a scientific point of view, the question is at present by no means so unobjectionable as this. Darwin's theory, that the same results which are produced by man by means of artificial selection could be produced by plants and animals in a wild state by means of what he calls natural and

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