MR. GLADSTOXE AND GENESIS. 801 



There is no one to whoso authority on geological questions I am more 

 readily disposed to bow, than that of my eminent friend Professor 

 Dana. But I am familiar with what he has previously said on this 

 topic in his well-known and standard work, into which, strangely 

 enough, it does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look 

 before he set out upon his present undertaking ; and unless Professor 

 Dana's latest contribution (which I have not yet met with) takes up 

 altogether new ground, I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate 

 myself, by its help, from my present difficulties. 



It is a very long time since I began to think about the relations 

 between modern scientifically ascertained truths and the cosmogonical 

 speculations of the writer of Genesis ; and, as I think that Mr. Glad- 

 stone might have been able to put his case with a good deal more 

 force if he had thought it worth while to consult the last chapter of 

 Professor Dana's admirable "Manual of Geology," so I think he 

 might have been made aware that he was undertaking an enterprise 

 of which he had not counted the cost, if he had chanced upon a dis- 

 cussion of the subject which I published in 1877.* 



Finally, I should like to draw the attention of those who take 

 interest in these topics to the weighty words of one of the most 

 learned and moderate of Biblical critics : 



A propos de cette premiere page de la Bible, on a coutume de nos jours de 

 disserter, a perte de vue, sur I'accord du recit mosaique avec les sciences natu- 

 relles ; et comrae celles-ci, tout 61oign6es qu'elles sent encore de la perfection 

 absolue, ont rendu populaires et en quelque sorte irr^fragables un certain nombre 

 de faits generaux ou de theses fondaraentales de la cosmologie et de la geologie, 

 c'est le teste sacre qu'on s'evertue a torturer pour le faire concorder avec ces 

 donn^es.t 



Tbans. — [Pertinently to this first page of the Bible, it has been customary in 

 our days to descant to an extreme on the accord of the Mosaic recital with the 



plant life In the Azoic period (p. 213) : and he holds, with Professor Guvot, that the first, 

 or cosmogonical, portion of the "Proem " not only accords with, but teaches, the nebular 

 hypothesis (p. 220). 



It is a relief to find that the burden of this argument is shared with witnesses, who 

 are competent and unsuspected on the scientific side ; and who will not be liable to a 

 repetition mutatis mutandis of an old objection : " This people, iv/iich knoweth not the law, 

 is accursed" (St. John, vii, 49). 



Mr. Marsh, Professor of Palaeontology in Yale College, holds (" Omithodontes," 1880, 

 p. 137), on the grounds of the wide differences between the ArchcEopteryx and the other 

 types of early birds, that the common ancestor was remote and probably Palaeozoic. He 

 also adheres to the order — 1. Reptiles ; 2. Birds; 3. Mammals. (It may be well to refer 

 to Sir C. Lyell, "Principles of Geology," vol. iii, p. 1*75, on the reasons why bird-remains 

 are sometimes rare.) 



In my passages referring to geological results, I would ask the reader to substitute 

 p'iority for succession. The latter implies a continuity of series, which is not found in the 

 scientific record, since it is broken by the absence of reference to the invertebrates of the 

 palaeozoic, and the reptiles of the mesozoic rocks. — W. E. G. 



* Lectures on Evolution delivered in New York. (^Vmerican Addresses.) 



f Reuss, " L'Histoire Sainte et la Loi," i, 275. 



TOL. XXVIII. — 51 



