152 GENESIS VERSUS NATURE iv 



demonstrates the scientific worthlessness of the 

 story of which it forms a part. 



Indeed, we may go further. It is not even 

 admissible to say that the water-population, as a 

 whole, appeared before the air and the land- 

 populations. According to the Authorised Version, 

 Genesis especially mentions, among the animals 

 created on the fifth day, " great whales," in place 

 of which the Revised Version reads " great sea 

 monsters." Far be it from me to give an opinion 

 which rendering is right, or whether either is 

 right. All I desire to remark is, that if whales 

 and porpoises, dugongs and manatees, are to be 

 regarded as members of the water-population 

 (and if they are not, what animals can claim the 

 designation ?), then that much of the water-popu- 

 lation has, as certainly, originated later than the 

 land-population as bats and birds have. For I 

 am not aware that any competent judge would 

 hesitate to admit that the organisation of these 

 animals shows the most obvious signs of their 

 descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. 



A similar criticism applies to Mr. Gladstone's 

 assumption that, as the fourth act of that " orderly 

 succession of times" enunciated in Genesis, "the 

 land-population consummated in man." 



If this means simply that man is the final term 

 in the evolutional series of which he forms a part, 

 I do not suppose that any objection will be raised 

 to that statement on the part of students of 



