It appears, then, that the objections to this interpretation of the word _day_ are more geological than exegetical. It has accordingly been mostly abandoned by men, who, from their knowledge both of geology and scriptural exegesis, were best qualified to judge. And even those who are inclined to adopt it do also believe in the existence of a long period between the beginning and the demiurgic days. From the earliest times, however, in which we have writings upon the Scriptures, we find men doubting whether the demiurgic days of Moses are to be taken in a strictly literal sense. Josephus and Philo regarded the six days' work as metaphorical. Origen took a similar view, and St. Augustin says, "It is difficult, if not impossible, for us to conceive what sort of days these were." In more modern times, we find many able writers, as Hahn, Hensler, De Luc, Professors Lee and Wait, of the University of Cambridge, Faber, &c., adopting modifications of the same views. Mr. Faber, however, a few years since, abandoned this opinion; and for the most part, geologists and theologians prefer to regard the six days as literal days of twenty-four hours. But, generally, they would not regard the opposite opinion to be as unreasonable as it would be to reject the Bible from any supposed collision with geology. Yet, in general, they suppose it sufficient, to meet all difficulties, to allow of an indefinite interval between the "beginning" and the six days' work of creation.
In the truly scientific system of theology by the venerable Dr. Knapp, we find a proposed interpretation of the Mosaic account of the creation, that would bring it into harmony with geology. "If we would form a clear and distinct notion of this whole description of creation," says he, "we must conceive of six separate _pictures_, in which this great work is represented in each successive stage of its progress towards completion. And as the performance of the painter, though it must have natural truth for its foundation, must not be considered, or judged of, as a delineation of mathematical or scientific accuracy, so neither must this pictorial representation of the creation be regarded as literally and exactly true." He then alludes to the various hypotheses respecting the early state of the matter of the globe, and says, "Any of these hypotheses of the naturalist may be adopted or rejected, the Mosaic geogony notwithstanding."[8]