142 GENESIS VERSUS NATURE r? 



administered in the name and by the authority of 

 natural science. 



An air of magisterial gravity hangs about the 

 following passage : 



But the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skilfully 

 constructed narrative : it is whether natural science, in the 

 patient exercise of its high calling to examine facts, finds that 

 the works of God cry out against what we have fondly believed 

 to be His word and tell another tale ; or whether, in this nine- 

 teenth century of Christian progress, it substantially echoes back 

 the majestic sound, which, before it existed as a pursuit, went 

 forth into all lands. 



First, looking largely at the latter portion of the narrative, 

 which describes the creation of living organisms, and waiving 

 details, on some of which (as in v. 24) the Septuagint seems to 

 vary from the Hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division, set 

 forth in an orderly succession of times as follows : on the fifth 

 day 



1. The water-population ; 



2. The air-population ; 

 and, on the sixth day, 



3. The land-population of animals ; 



4. The land-population consummated in man. 



Now this same fourfold order is understood to have been so 

 affirmed in our time by natural science, that it may be taken as 

 a demonstrated conclusion and established fact (p. 696). 



" Understood ? " By whom ? I cannot bring 

 myself to imagine that Mr. Gladstone has made so 

 solemn and authoritative a statement on a matter 

 of this importance without due inquiry without 

 being able to found himself upon recognised scien- 

 tific authority. But I wish he had thought fit to 

 name the source from whence he has derived his in- 

 formation, as, in that case, I could have dealt with 



