6o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which he crowned the whole structure, namely, as regards the writer 

 of Genesis, that " his knowledge was divine." * 



Such Avas the skeleton of the structure ; it was abundantly deco- 

 ated with the rhetoric in which Mr. Gladstone is so skillful an artifi- 

 cer, and it towered above " the average man " as a structure beautiful 

 and invincible — like some Chinese fortress in the nineteenth century, 

 faced with poi-celain and defended with bows and arrows. 



But its strength was soon seen to be unreal. A single shot from a 

 leader in the array of science wrecked it. In an essay admirable in 

 its temper, overwhelming in its facts, and absolutely convincing in its 

 argument, Professor Huxley, late President of the Royal Society, and 

 doubtless the most eminent living authority on the scientific questions 

 concerned, took up the matter. 



Mr. Gladstone's first proposition, that the sacred writings give us 

 a great " fourfold division " created " in an orderly succession of 

 times," Pi"t)fessor Huxley did not presume to gainsay. 



But, as to Mr. Gladstone's second proposition, that " this great four- 

 fold division . . . created in an orderly succession of times . . . has 

 been so aflirmcd in our own time by natural science that it may be taken 

 as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact," Professor Huxley 

 showed that, as a matter of fact, no such "fourfold division" and 

 " orderly succession " exist ; that, so far from establishing Mr. Glad- 

 stone's assumption that the population of water, air, and land fol- 

 lowed each other in the order given, " all the evidence we possess goes 

 to prove that they did not " ; that the distribution of fossils through 

 the various strata proves that some land animals originated before sea 

 animals ; that there has been a mixing of sea, land, and air " popula- 

 tion " utterly destructive to the " great fourfold division " and the cre- 

 ation " in an orderly succession of times " ; that so far is the view 

 presented in the sacred text, as stated by Mr. Gladstone, from having 

 been " so affirmed in our own time by natural science, that it may be 

 taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact " that Mr. 

 Gladstone's assertion is " directly contradictory to facts knoAvn to 

 every one who is acquainted with the elements of natural science " ; 

 that IMr. Gladstone's only geological authority, Cuvier, had died more 

 than fifty years before, when geological science was in its infancy [and 

 he might have added, when it was necessary to make every possible 

 concession to the Church], and, finally, he challenged Mr. Gladstone to 

 produce any contemporary authority in geological science who would 

 support his so-called scriptural view. And, when in a rejoinder Mr. 

 Gladstone attempted to support his view on the authority of Pro- 

 fessor Dana, Professor Huxley had no difficulty in showing from 

 Professor Dana's works that Mr. Gladstone's inference was utterly 

 unfounded. 



* See Mr. Gladstone's " Dawn of Creation and Worship," a reply to Dr. R^rille, in 

 the "Nineteenth Century," for November, 1885. 



