CONTROVERSY WITH MR. GLADSTONE 



123 



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 Gladstonian dose, a remedy unknown to the pharma- 

 copoeia, 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. Glad- 

 stone and Genesis " (Collected Essays, iv. p. 164). Not 

 only did he show that science offers no support to the " four- 

 fold ' 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. p. 

 195), not allowing the succession of phenomena to repre- 

 sent an evolutionary notion, as suggested, of a progress 

 from lower to higher in the scale of being, a notion as- 

 suredly not in the mind of the writer, but deducing this 

 order from such ideas as, putting aside our present knowl- 

 edge of nature, we may reasonably believe him to have 

 held. 



A vast subsidiary controversy sprang up in the Times 

 on Biblical exegetics ; where these touched him at all, as, 

 for instance, when it was put to him whether the differ- 

 ence between the " Rehmes " of Genesis and " Sheh-retz " 

 of Leviticus, both translated " creeping things," did not in- 

 validate his argument as to the identity of such " creeping 

 things," he had examined the point already, and surprised 

 his interrogator, who appeared to have raised a very pretty 

 dilemma, by promptly referring him to a well-known He- 

 brew commentator. 



Several letters refer to this passage of arms. On De- 

 cember 4, he writes to Mr. Herbert Spencer: — 



Do read my polishing off of the G.O.M. I am proud of it as 

 a work of art, and as evidence that the volcano is not yet ex- 

 hausted. . 



