IV 



GENESIS VEKSUS NATUHE 



153 



natural science. But if the pentateuchal author 

 goes further than this, and intends to say that 

 which is ascribed to him by Mr. Gladstone, I 

 think natural science will have to enter a caveat. 

 It is not by any means certain that man I mean 

 the species Homo sapiens of zoological terminology 

 has " consummated " the land-population in the 

 sense of appearing at a later period of time than 

 any other. Let me make my meaning clear by 

 an example. From a morphological point of view, 

 our beautiful and useful contemporary I might 

 almost call him colleague the horse (Equus 

 cakallus), is the last term of the evolutional series 

 to which he belongs, just as Homo sapiens is the 

 last term of the series of which he is a member. 

 If I want to know whether the species Equus 

 caballus made its appearance on the surface of the 

 globe before or after Homo sapiens, deduction 

 from known laws does not help me. There is no 

 reason, that I know of, why one should have 

 appeared sooner or later than the other. If I 

 turn to observation, I find abundant remains of 

 Equus caballus in Quaternary strata, perhaps a 

 little earlier. The existence of Homo sapiens in 

 the Quaternary epoch is also certain. Evidence 

 has been adduced in favour of man's existence in 

 the Pliocene, or even in the Miocene epoch. It 

 does not satisfy me; but I have no reason to 

 doubt that the fact may be so, nevertheless. 

 Indeed, I think it is quite possible that further 



