PROEM TO GENESIS. 627 



way troubled by the discrepancy before us, if it be a discrepancy, as 

 it is the general structure and effect of the Mosaic statement on which 

 I take my stand. 



With regard to reptiles, while I should also hold by my last re- 

 mark, the case is different. They appear to be mentioned as con- 

 temporary with mammals, whereas they are of prior origin. But the 

 relative significance of the several orders evidently affected the 

 method of the Mosaic writer. Agreeably to this idea, insects are not 

 named at all. So reptiles were a family fallen from greatness ; in- 

 stead of stamping on a great period of life its leading character, they 

 merely skulked upon the earth. They are introduced, as will appear 

 better from the LXX than from the A.V. or R.V., as a sort of append- 

 age to mammals. Lying outside both the use and the dominion of 

 man, and far less within his probable notice, they are not wholly 

 omitted like insects, but treated apparently in a loose manner as not 

 one of the main features of the j^icture which the writer meant to 

 draw. In the Song of the Three Children, where the four principal 

 orders are recited after the series in Genesis, reptiles are dropped 

 altogether, which suggests either that the present text is unsound, or, 

 perhaps more probably, that they were deemed a secondary and insig- 

 nificant part of it. But, however this case may be regarded, of course 

 I can not draw from it any support to my general contention. 



I distinguish, then, in the broadest manner, between Professor 

 Huxley's exposition of certain facts of science, and his treatment of 

 the Book of Genesis. I accej^t the first, with the reverence due to a 

 great teacher from the meanest of his hearers, as a needed correction 

 to myself, and a valuable instruction for the world. But, subject to 

 that correction, I adhere to ray proposition respecting the fourfold 

 succession in the Proem ; which further I extend to a fivefold succes- 

 sion respecting life, and to the gi-eat stages of the cosmogony to boot. 

 The five origins, or first appearances of plants, fishes, birds, mammals 

 and man, are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession, in 

 which they are also given by the latest geological authorities. 



It is, therefore, by attaching to words a sense they were never 

 meant to bear, and by this only, that Mr. Huxley establishes the 

 parallel (so to speak), from which he works his heavy artillery. 

 Land-population is a phrase meant by rae to describe the idea of the 

 Mosaic writer, which I conceive to be that of the animals familiarly 

 known to early man. But, by treating this as a scientific phrase, it is 

 made to include extinct reptiles, which I understand Mr. Huxley {P. 

 S. M. p. 453) to treat as being land-animals ; as, by taking birds of a 

 very high formation, it may be held that mammal forms existed be- 

 fore such birds were produced. These are artificial contradictions, 

 set up by altering in its essence one of the two things which it is 

 sought to compare. 



If I am asked whether I contend for the absolute accordance of 



