The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature | Page 5

carried on the work of the chief founder of
palaeontology have done most to invalidate the essentially negative
grounds of his speculative adherence to tradition.
If Mr. Gladstone's latest information on these matters is derived from
the famous discourse prefixed to the "Ossemens Fossiles," I can
understand the position he has taken up; if he has ever opened a
respectable modern manual of palaeontology, or geology, I cannot. For
the facts which demolish his whole argument are of the commonest
notoriety. But before proceeding to consider the evidence for this
assertion we must be clear about the meaning of the phraseology

employed.
I apprehend that when Mr. Gladstone uses the term "water- population"
he means those animals which in Genesis i. 21 (Revised Version) are
spoken of as "the great sea monsters and every living creature that
moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind."
And I presume that it will be agreed that whales and porpoises, sea
fishes, and the innumerable hosts of marine invertebrated animals, are
meant thereby. So "air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl" in
verse 20, and "every winged fowl after its kind," verse 21. I suppose I
may take it for granted that by "fowl" we have here to understand
birds--at any rate primarily. Secondarily, it may be that the bats and the
extinct pterodactyles, which were flying reptiles, come under the same
head. But whether all insects are "creeping things" of the
land-population, or whether flying insects are to be included under the
denomination of "winged fowl," is a point for the decision of Hebrew
exegetes. Lastly, I suppose I may assume that "land-population"
signifies "the cattle" and "the beasts of the earth," and "every creeping
thing that creepeth upon the earth," in verses 25 and 26; presumably it
comprehends all kinds of terrestrial animals, vertebrate and invertebrate,
except such as may be comprised under the head of the
"air-population."
Now what I want to make clear is this: that if the terms "water-
population," "air-population," and "land-population" are understood in
the senses here defined, natural science has nothing to say in favour of
the proposition that they succeeded one another in the order given by
Mr. Gladstone; but that, on the contrary, all the evidence we possess
goes to prove that they did not. Whence it will follow that, if Mr.
Gladstone has interpreted Genesis rightly (on which point I am most
anxious to be understood to offer no opinion), that interpretation is
wholly irreconcilable with the conclusions at present accepted by the
interpreters of nature--with everything that can be called "a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact" of natural science. And
be it observed that I am not here dealing with a question of speculation,
but with a question of fact.

Either the geological record is sufficiently complete to afford us a
means of determining the order in which animals have made their
appearance on the globe or it is not. If it is, the determination of that
order is little more than a mere matter of observation; if it is not, then
natural science neither affirms nor refutes the "fourfold order," but is
simply silent.
The series of the fossiliferous deposits, which contain the remains of
the animals which have lived on the earth in past ages of its history,
and which can alone afford the evidence required by natural science of
the order of appearance of their different species, may be grouped in
the manner shown in the left-hand column of the following table, the
oldest being at the bottom:--
Formations First known appearance of Quaternary. Pliocene. Miocene.
Eocene. Vertebrate air-population (Bats). Cretaceous. Jurassic.
Vertebrate air-population (Birds and Pterodactyles). Triassic.
Upper Palaeozoic. Middle Palaeozoic. Vertebrate
land-population (Amphibia, Reptilia [?]). Lower Palaeozoic.
Silurian. Vertebrate water-population (Fishes). Invertebrate
air and land- population (Flying Insects and Scorpions).
Cambrian. Invertebrate water-population (much earlier, if
Eozoon is animal).
In the right-hand column I have noted the group of strata in which,
according to our present information, the land, air, and
water populations respectively appear for the first time; and in
consequence of the ambiguity about the meaning of "fowl," I have
separately indicated the first appearance of bats, birds, flying reptiles,
and flying insects. It will be observed that, if "fowl" means only "bird,"
or at most flying vertebrate, then the first certain evidence of the latter,
in the Jurassic epoch, is posterior to the first appearance of truly
terrestrial Amphibia, and possibly of true reptiles, in the
Carboniferous epoch (Middle Palaeozoic) by a prodigious interval of
time.
The water-population of vertebrated animals first appears in the Upper
Silurian.<2> Therefore, if we found ourselves on vertebrated animals

and take "fowl" to mean birds only, or, at most, flying vertebrates,
natural science says that the order of succession was water, land, and
air-population, and not--as Mr. Gladstone,