order which geological authority
confirms.
By comparison with a sentence on page 14, in which a fivefold order is
substituted for the "fourfold order," on which the "plea for revelation"
was originally founded, it appears that these five categories are "plants,
fishes, birds, mammals, and man," which, Mr. Gladstone affirms, "are
given to us in Genesis in the order of succession in which they are also
given by the latest geological authorities."
I must venture to demur to this statement. I showed, in my previous
paper, that there is no reason to doubt that the term "great sea monster"
(used in Gen. i. 21) includes the most conspicuous of great sea
animals--namely, whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, and
dugongs;<2> and, as these are indubitable mammals, it is impossible to
affirm that mammals come after birds, which are said to have been
created on the same day. Moreover, I pointed out that as these Cetacea
and Sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence implies
the antecedent existence of land mammals.
Furthermore, I have to remark that the term "fishes," as used,
technically, in zoology, by no means covers all the moving creatures
that have life, which are bidden to "fill the waters in the seas" (Gen. i.
20-22.) Marine mollusks and crustacea, echinoderms, corals, and
foraminifera are not technically fishes. But they are abundant in the
palaeozoic rocks, ages upon ages older than those in which the first
evidences of true fishes appear. And if, in a geological book, Mr.
Gladstone finds the quite true statement that plants appeared before
fishes, it is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to
imagine it serves his purpose. 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
document (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 anything 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 discards his three
groups of "water-population," "air- population," and "land-population,"
and substitutes for them (1) fishes, (2) birds, (3) mammals, (4) man.
Moreover, it is assumed, in a note, that "the higher or ordinary
mammals" alone were known to the "Mosaic writer" (p. 6). No doubt it
looks, at first, as if something were gained by this alteration; for, as I
have just pointed out, the word "fishes" can be used in two senses, one
of which has a deceptive appearance of adjustability to the "Mosaic"
account. Then the inconvenient reptiles are banished out of sight; and,
finally, the question of the exact meaning of "higher" and "ordinary" in
the case of mammals opens up the prospect of a hopeful logomachy.
But what is the good of it all in the face of Leviticus on the one hand
and of palaeontology on the other?
As, in my apprehension, there is not a shadow of justification for the
suggestion that when the pentateuchal writer says "fowl" he excludes
bats (which, as we shall see directly, are expressly included under
"fowl" in Leviticus), and as I have already shown that he demonstrably
includes reptiles, as well as mammals, among the creeping things of the
land, I may be permitted to spare my readers further discussion of the
"fivefold order." On the whole, it is seen to be rather more inconsistent
with Genesis than its fourfold predecessor.
But I have yet a fresh order to face. Mr. Gladstone (p. 11) understands
"the main statements of Genesis in successive order of time, but
without any measurement of its divisions, to be as follows:--
1. A period of land, anterior to all life (v. 9, 10). 2.
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