The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature | Page 9

that the evidence of the order in
which animals appeared must be sought in the record of those older
Palaeozoic times in which only traces of the water-population have as
yet been discovered.
Therefore, if any one chooses to say that the creative work took place
in the Cambrian or Laurentian epoch, in exactly that manner which Mr.
Gladstone does, and natural science does not, affirm, natural science is
not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the statement. Only one
cannot have one's cake and eat it too, and such safety from the
contradiction of science means the forfeiture of her support.
Whether the account of the work of the first, second, and third days in
Genesis would be confirmed by the demonstration of the truth of the
nebular hypothesis; whether it is corroborated by what is known of the
nature and probable relative antiquity of the heavenly bodies; whether,
if the Hebrew word translated "firmament" in the Authorised Version
really means "expanse," the assertion that the waters are partly under

this "expanse" and partly above it would be any more confirmed by the
ascertained facts of physical geography and meteorology than it was
before; whether the creation of the whole vegetable world, and
especially of "grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing
fruit," before any kind of animal, is "affirmed" by the apparently plain
teaching of botanical palaeontology, that grasses and fruit-trees
originated long subsequently to animals all these are questions which,
if I mistake not, would be answered decisively in the negative by those
who are specially conversant with the sciences involved. And it must
be recollected that the issue raised by Mr. Gladstone is not whether, by
some effort of ingenuity, the pentateuchal story can be shown to be not
disprovable by scientific knowledge, but whether it is supported
thereby.
There is nothing, then, in the criticisms of Dr. Reville but what
rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned belief that there
is a revelation in the book of Genesis (p. 694).
The form into which Mr. Gladstone has thought fit to throw this
opinion leaves me in doubt as to its substance. I do not understand how
a hostile criticism can, under any circumstances, tend to confirm that
which it attacks. If, however, Mr. Gladstone merely means to express
his personal impression, "as one wholly destitute of that kind of
knowledge which carries authority," that he has destroyed the value of
these criticisms, I have neither the wish nor the right to attempt to
disturb his faith. On the other hand, I may be permitted to state my own
conviction, that, so far as natural science is involved, M. Reville's
observations retain the exact value they possessed before Mr.
Gladstone attacked them.
Trusting that I have now said enough to secure the author of a wise and
moderate disquisition upon a topic which seems fated to stir unwisdom
and fanaticism to their depths, a fuller measure of justice than has
hitherto been accorded to him, I retire from my self-appointed
championship, with the hope that I shall not hereafter be called upon by
M. Reville to apologise for damage done to his strong case by
imperfect or impulsive advocacy. But, perhaps, I may be permitted to

add a word or two, on my own account, in reference to the great
question of the relations between science and religion; since it is one
about which I have thought a good deal ever since I have been able to
think at all; and about which I have ventured to express my views
publicly, more than once, in the course of the last thirty years.
The antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so
much, appears to me to be purely factitious--fabricated, on the one hand,
by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of
science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally
short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its
province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual
comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they
must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance.
It seems to me that the moral and intellectual life of the civilised
nations of Europe is the product of that interaction, sometimes in the
way of antagonism, sometimes in that of profitable interchange, of the
Semitic and the Aryan races, which commenced with the dawn of
history, when Greek and Phoenician came in contact, and has been
continued by Carthaginian and Roman, by Jew and Gentile, down to
the present day. Our art (except, perhaps, music) and our science are
the contributions of the Aryan; but the essence of our religion is
derived from the Semite. In the eighth century B.C., in the