354 
and so Scripture also lays down the order of creation ; first, 
the materials ; then, as the first step in developing and ar- 
ranging, “ Let there be light.” 
Among living things, the narrative of Genesis places plants 
before animals. Here, again, it is plain that Science is per- 
fectly agreed. The food of animals is derived entirely from 
the vegetable world ; by some directly, by others (the carnivora) 
indirectly, through the consumption of those who have fed 
upon the plants. The power, from the simpler substances, 
as carbonic acid, water, and ammonia, to build up the more 
complex organic bodies ; the power to render latent in such 
compounds the heat-force derived from the sun ; these alike 
appear to be peculiar properties of the plant. The animal 
can only break up and take down, more or less completely, 
that which the plant has put together ; can only let out and 
use the force which the plant has stored up. In the order of 
creation, then, the plant must have come before the animal, 
since without it the animal could not exist. 
(2.) Passing over the point already touched upon, of the 
precedence of water to land (p. 351), we notice that in 
Genesis the animals do not all appear at once, but on two 
consecutive days, the fifth being occupied with those that 
inhabit the waters and the air, the sixth with those on the 
land ; viz., first, animals, and, last of all, man. So far as Geology 
is able to give judgment on this point, her testimony is in 
accordance with Scripture, the remains of man being confined 
to the very newest strata, land animals stretching much 
further back, birds it would seem further still, and inhabiters 
of the waters certainly furthest back of all. If these suc- 
cessive formations of rock do, as many think, correspond to the 
gradually-progressive creation described in Genesis, we have 
certainly here a remarkable parallelism. It would be, however, 
most hazardous to insist upon it strongly, not only from our 
imperfect acquaintance with the contents of geological strata 
all over the world, but especially from the fact that a vast 
majority of these strata were, as already remarked, formed in 
the sea, and therefore could only be expected to contain the 
remains of aquatic creatures, though there may have been 
contemporaneous land ones also, unknown to us simply 
because their remains had no such opportunity of being 
preserved. To lay any stress upon the parallelism under 
such circumstances would be both unwise and unscientific. 
The confirmations of the cosmogony which have been 
drawn from various popular theories of the past history of 
the earth, and especially the nebular, in this matter of order, 
we pass over, as altogether beside the limits laid down for the 
