156 GENESIS VERSUS NATURE iv 



mean evolution, then it is obvious that the order 



(1) water-population, (2) air-population, (3) land- 

 population, may also mean (1) water-population, 



(2) land-population, (3) air-population; and it 

 would be unkind to bind down the reconcilers to 

 this detail when one has parted with so many 

 others to oblige them. 



But even this sublimated essence of the penta- 

 teuchal doctrine (if it be such) remains as discord- 

 ant with natural science as ever. 



It is not true that the species composing any one 

 of the three populations originated during any one 

 of three successive periods of time, and not at any 

 other of these. 



Undoubtedly, it is in the highest degree probable 

 that animal life appeared first under aquatic condi- 

 tions ; that terrestrial forms appeared later, and 

 flying animals only after land animals ; but it is, 

 at the same time, testified by all the evidence we 

 possess, that the great majority, if not the whole, 

 of the primordial species of each division have long 

 since died out and have been replaced by a vast 

 succession of new forms. Hundreds of thousands 

 of animal species, as distinct as those which now 

 compose our water, land, and air-populations, 

 have come into existence and died out again, 

 throughout the seons of geological time which 

 separate us from the lower Palaeozoic epoch, when, 

 as I have pointed out, our present evidence of the 

 existence of such distinct populations commences. 



