1886 THE 'GENESIS' CONTROVERSY 425 



just as he was at the turning-point in health, he 

 received a fillip which started him again into vigorous 

 activity the mental tonic bracing up his body and 

 clearing away the depression and languor which had 

 so long beset him. 



The lively fillip came in the shape of an article in 

 the November Nineteenth Century, by Mr. Gladstone, 

 in which he attacked the position taken up by Dr. 

 Ke*ville in his Prolegomena to the History of Religions, 

 and in particular, attempted to show that the order of 

 creation given in Genesis i., is supported by the 

 evidence of science. This article, Huxley used 

 humorously to say, so stirred his bile as to set his 

 liver right at once; and though he denied the soft 

 impeachment that the ensuing fight was what had set 

 him up, the marvellous curative effects of a Glad- 

 stonian dose, a remedy unknown to the pharmacopoeia, 

 became a household word among family and friends. 



His own reply, " The Interpreters of Genesis and 

 the Interpreters of Nature," appeared in the December 

 number of the Nineteenth Century (Collected Essays, iv. 

 p. 139). In January 1886 Mr. Gladstone responded 

 with his "Proem to Genesis," which was met in 

 February by " Mr. Gladstone and Genesis " (Collected 

 Essays, iv. p. 164). Not only did he show that 

 science offers no support to the "fourfold" or the 

 " fivefold " or any other order obtained from Genesis 

 by Mr. Gladstone, but in a note appended to his 

 second article he gives what he takes to be the proper 

 sense of the " Mosaic " narrative of the Creation (iv. 



