IV GENESIS VERSUS NATURE 159 



this "expanse" and partly above it would be 

 any more confirmed by the ascertained facts of 

 physical geography and meteorology than it was 

 before ; whether the creation of the whole vege- 

 table world, and especially of "grass, herb yielding 

 seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit," before 

 any kind of animal, is " affirmed " by the ap- 

 parently plain teaching of botanical palaeontology, 

 that grasses and fruit-trees originated long sub- 

 sequently to animals all these are questions 

 which, if I mistake not, would be answered 

 decisively in the negative by those who are 

 specially conversant with the sciences involved. 

 And it must be recollected that the issue raised 

 by Mr. Gladstone is not whether, by some effort 

 of ingenuity, the pentateuchal story can be shown 

 to be not disprovable by scientific knowledge, but 

 whether it is supported thereby. 



There is nothing, then, in the criticisms of Dr. Reville but 

 what rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned 

 belief that there is a revelation in the book of Genesis (p. 

 C94). 



The form into which Mr. Gladstone has thought 

 fit to throw this opinion leaves me in doubt as to 

 its substance. I do not understand how a hostile 

 criticism can, under any circumstances, tend to 

 confirm that which it attacks. If, however, Mr. 

 Gladstone merely means to express his personal 

 impression, " as one wholly destitute of that kind 

 of knowledge which carries authority," that he 



