458 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



So far as I can see, there is only one resource left for those modern 

 representatives of Sisyphus, the reconcilers of Genesis with science ; 

 and it has the advantage of being founded on a perfectly legitimate 

 appeal to our ignorance. It has been seen that, on any interpretation 

 of the terms water-population and land-population, it must be admit- 

 ted that invertebrate representatives of these populations existed dur- 

 ing the lower Palaozoic epoch. No evolutionist can hesitate to admit 

 that other land-animals (and possibly vertebrates among them) may 

 have existed during that time, of the history of which we know kg 

 little ; and, further, that scorpions are animals of such high organiza- 

 tion that it is highly probable their existence indicates that of a long 

 antecedent land-population of a similar character. 



Then, since the land-population is said not to have been created 

 until the sixth daj', it necessarily follows that the evidence of the 

 order in which animals appeared must be sought in the record of those 

 older Palaeozoic times in which only traces of the water-population 

 have as yet been discovered. 



Therefore, if any one chooses to say that the creative work took 

 place in the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch in exactly that manner 

 which Mr. Gladstone does and natural science does not affirm, natural 

 science is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the state- 

 ment. Only one can not have one's cake and eat it too, and such 

 safety from the contradiction of Science means the forfeiture of her 

 support. 



Whether the account of the work of the first, second, and third 

 days in Genesis would be confirmed by the demonstration of the truth 

 of the nebular hypothesis ; whether it is corroborated by what is 

 known of the nature and probable relative antiquity of the heavenly 

 bodies ; whether, if the Hebrew word translated " firmament " in the 

 Authorized Version really means " expanse," the assertion that the 

 waters are partly under this " expanse " and partly above it would be 

 any more confirmed by the ascertained facts of physical geograjDhy 

 and meteorology than it was before ; whether the creation of the 

 whole vegetable world, and especially of "grass, herb yielding seed 

 after its kind, and tree bearing fruit," before any kind of animal is 

 " affirmed " by the apparently plain teaching of botanical paleontology, 

 that grasses and fruit-trees originated long subsequently to animals — 

 all these are questions which, if I mistake not, would be answered de- 

 cisively in the negative by those who are specially conversant with the 

 sciences involved. And it must be recollected that the issue raised by 

 Mr. Gladstone is not whether, by some effort of ingenuity, the penta- 

 teuchal story can be shown to be not disprovable by scientific knowl- 

 edge, but whether it is supported thereby. 



There is nothing, tlicn, in the criticisms of Dr. E6vine but Mhat rather tends 

 to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned belief that there is a revelation in the 

 Book of Genesis (p. G94). 



