V MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS 169 



tiles " a family fallen from greatness " (p. 14), 

 a miserable decayed aristocracy reduced to mere 

 " skulkers about the earth" (ibid.) in consequence, 

 apparently, of difficulties about the occupation of 

 land arising out of the earth-hunger of their 

 former serfs, the mammals into an apologetic 

 argument, which otherwise would run quite 

 smoothly, is in every way to be deprecated. 

 Still, the wretched creatures stand there, im- 

 portunately demanding notice ; and, however 

 different may be the practice in that contentious 

 atmosphere with which Mr. Gladstone expresses 

 and laments his familiarity, in the atmosphere of 

 science it really is of no avail whatever to shut 

 one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them out of 

 sight under a tumulus of rhetoric. That is my 

 experience of the "Elysian regions of Science/' 

 wherein it is a pleasure to me to think that a 

 man of Mr. Gladstone's intimate knowledge of 

 English life, during the last quarter of a century, 

 believes my philosophic existence to have been 

 rounded off in unbroken equanimity. 



However reprehensible, and indeed contempt- 

 ible, terrestrial reptiles may be, the only question 

 which appears to me to be relevant to my argu- 

 ment is whether these creatures are or are not 

 comprised under the denomination of " everything 

 that creepeth upon the ground." 



Mr. Gladstone speaks of the author of the 

 first chapter of Genesis as " the Mosaic writer " ; 



