THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND NATURE. 455 



as a "gloss," because the pentateuchal writer is nowise responsible 

 for it. 



But it is not true that the air-population, as a whole, is " lower " 

 or less " complex " than the land-population. On the contrary, every 

 beo-inner in the study of animal morphology is aware that the organi- 

 zation of a bat, of a bird, or of a pterodactyl, presupposes that of a 

 terrestrial quadruped ; and that it is intelligible only as an extreme 

 modification of the organization of a terrestrial mammal or reptile. 

 In the same way, winged insects (if they are to be counted among the 

 " air-population ") presuppose insects which were wingless, and there- 

 fore, as " creeping things," were part of the land-population. Thus 

 theory is as much opposed as observation to the admission that natural 

 science indorses the succession of animal life which Mr. Gladstone 

 finds in Genesis. On the contrary, a good many representatives of 

 natural science would be prepared to say, on theoretical grounds alone, 

 that it is incredible that the " air-population " should have appeared 

 before the " land-population " — and that, if this assertion is to be found 

 in Genesis, it merely demonstrates the scientific worthlessness of the 

 story of which it forms a part. 



Indeed, we may go further. It is not even admissible to say that 

 the water-population, as a whole, appeared before the air and the land 

 populations. According to the Authorized Version, Genesis especially 

 mentions among the animals created on the fifth day " great whales," 

 in place of which the Revised Version reads " great sea monsters." Far 

 be it from me to give an opinion which rendering is right, or whether 

 either is right. All I desire to remark is, that if whales and porpoises, 

 dugongs and manatees, are to be regarded as members of the water- 

 population (and if they are not, what animals can claim the desig- 

 nation?), then that much of the water-population has as certainly 

 originated later than the land-population as bats and birds have. For 

 I am not aware that any competent judge would hesitate to admit that 

 the organization of these animals shows the most obvious signs of their 

 descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. 



A similar criticism applies to Mr. Gladstone's assumption that, as 

 the fourth act of that " orderly succession of times " enunciated in 

 Genesis, " the land-population consummated in man." 



If this means simply that man is the final term in the evolutional 

 series of which he forms a part, I do not suppose that any objection 

 will be raised to that statement on the part of students of natural 

 science. But if the pentateuchal author goes further than this, and 

 intends to say that which is ascribed to him by Mr. Gladstone, I think 

 natural science will have to enter a caveat. It is not by any means 

 certain that man — I mean the species Homo sapiens of zoological ter- 

 minology — has "consummated" the land-population in the sense of 

 appearing at a later period of time than any other. Let me make my 

 meaning clear by an example. From a morphological point of view, 



