79© THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of good, that I have sometimes permitted myself to doubt the value of 

 that which I do not understand. 



In this part of Mr. Gladstone's reply, in fact, I find nothing of 

 which the bearing upon my arguments is clear to me, except that 

 which relates to the question whether reptiles, so far as they are rep- 

 resented by tortoises and the great majority of lizards and snakes, 

 which are land-animals, are creeping things in the sense of the Penta- 

 teuchal writer or not. 



I have every respect for the singer of the Song of the Three Chil- 

 dren (whoever he may have been) ; I desire to cast no shadow of 

 doubt upon, but, on the contrary, marvel at, the exactness of Mr. 

 Gladstone's information as to the considerations which "affected the 

 method of the Mosaic writer" ; nor do I venture to doubt that the 

 inconvenient intrusion of these contemptible reptiles — "a family fallen 

 from greatness " (p. 627), a miserable decayed aristocracy reduced to 

 mere "skulkers about the earth" (ibid.) — in consequence apparently 

 of difficulties about the occupation of land arising out of the earth- 

 hunger of tbeir former serfs, the mammals — into an apologetic argu- 

 ment, which otherwise would run quite smoothly, is in every way to 

 be deprecated. Still, the wretched creatures stand there, importu- 

 nately demanding notice ; and, however different may be the practice 

 in that contentious atmosphere with which Mr. Gladstone expresses 

 and laments his familiarity, in the atmosphere of science it really is of 

 no avail whatever to shut one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them 

 out of sight under a tumulus of rhetoric. That is my experience of 

 "the Elysian regions of Science," wherein it is a pleasure to me to 

 think that a man of Mr. Gladstone's intimate knowledge of English 

 life during the last quarter of a century believes ray philosophic exist- 

 ence to have been rounded off in unbroken equanimity. 



However reprehensible, and indeed contemptible, terrestrial reptiles 

 may be, the only question which appears to me to be relevant to my 

 argument is whether these creatures are or are not comprised under 

 the denomination of " everything that creepeth upon the ground." 



Mr. Gladstone speaks of the author of the first chapter of Genesis 

 as " the Mosaic writer " ; I suppose, therefore, that he will admit that 

 it is equally proper to speak of the author of Leviticus as the "Mosaic 

 writer." Whether such a phrase would be used by any one who had 

 an adequate conception of the assured results of modern Biblical criti- 

 cism is another matter ; but, at any rate, it can not be denied that 

 Leviticus has as much claim to Mosaic authorship as Genesis. There- 

 fore, if one wants to know the sense of a phrase used in Genesis, it 

 will be well to see what Leviticus has to say on the matter. Hence, I 

 commend the following extract from the eleventh chapter of Leviticus 

 to Mr. Gladstone's serious attention : 



And these are they which are unclean unto you among the creeping things 

 that creep upon the earth : the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after 



