174 MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS v 



As a matter of fact, at the present moment, 

 it is a question whether, on the bare evidence 

 afforded by fossils, the marine creeping thing 

 or the marine plant has the seniority. No 

 cautious palaeontologist would express a decided 

 opinion on the matter. But, if we are to read 

 the pentateuchal statement as a scientific docu- 

 ment (and, in spite of all protests to the contrary, 

 those who bring it into comparison with science 

 do seek to make a scientific document of it), 

 then, as it is quite clear that only terrestrial 

 plants of high organisation are spoken of in verses 

 11 and 12, no palaeontologist would hesitate to 

 say that, at present, the records of sea animal life 

 are vastly older than those of any land plant 

 describable as " grass, herb yielding seed or fruit- 

 tree." 



Thus, although, in Mr. Gladstone's " Defence," 

 the " old order passeth into new," his case is 

 not improved. The fivefold order is no more 

 " affirmed in our time by natural science " to 

 be " a demonstrated conclusion and established 

 fact" than the fourfold order was. Natural 

 science appears to me to decline to have any- 

 thing to do with either; they are as wrong in 

 detail as they are mistaken in principle. 



There is another change of position, the value 

 of which is not so apparent to me, as it may 

 well seem to be to those who are unfamiliar 

 with the subject under discussion. Mr. Gladstone 



