IV GENESIS VERSUS NATURE 157 



If the species of animals have all been separately 

 created, then it follows that hundreds of thousands 

 of acts of creative energy have occurred, at inter- 

 vals, throughout the whole time recorded by the 

 fossiliferous rocks ; and, during the greater part of 

 that time, the " creation " of the members of the 

 water, land, and air-populations must have gone 

 on contemporaneously. 



If we represent the water, land, and air-popula- 

 tions by a, I, and c respectively, and take vertical 

 succession on the page to indicate order in time, 

 then the following schemes will roughly shadow 

 forth the contrast I have been endeavouring to 

 explain : 



Genesis (as interpreted by Nature (as interpreted by 



Mr. Gladstone). natural science). 



b b b c l a 3 V* 



c c c c a* b 1 



a a a b a 1 b 



a a a 



So far as I can see, there is only one resource 

 left for those modern representatives of Sisyphus, 

 the reconcilers of Genesis with science ; and it has 

 the advantage of being founded on a perfectly 

 legitimate appeal to our ignorance. It has been 

 seen that, on any interpretation of the terms 

 water-population and land-population, it must be 

 admitted that invertebrate representatives of these 

 populations existed during the lower Palaeozoic 

 epoch. No evolutionist can hesitate to admit that 

 other land animals (and possibly vertebrates among 



