To what purpose are "the three continents of the old world" "subjected
to the most rigorous search," as Dr. Wright puts it--when it is quite
plain from the text itself, that the solution is to be sought in the
neighbourhood of the Euphrates, or not at all? The whole inquiry seems
to have been one in which a vast cloud of learned dust has been raised
by speculators, who began their inquiry without clearly determining, to
start with, what was the point at issue. Either the description in Gen.
ii. 3-14 is meant for allegory, or geographical fact: this question must
first be settled; and if the latter is agreed to, then it is quite
inconceivable that the words should imply any very extensive region, or
any fancied realm extending over a large proportion of one or other
quarter of the globe. The problem is then at once narrowed; and it is
simply unreasonable to look for Havila in India, or for Pison in the
province of Burma, as one learned author does!
Yet commentators have forgotten this; and gone--the earlier ones into
interpretation of allegory--the later into impossible geographical
speculation; while only the most recent have confined themselves to the
obvious terms of the problem as laid down in the narrative itself--a
narrative which (whether true or false) is clearly meant to be definite
and exact, as we have seen.
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