present known? What physical
geologist will affirm that he knows when dry land began to exist, or
will say more than that it was probably very much earlier than any
extant direct evidence of terrestrial conditions indicates?

I think I know pretty well the answers which the authorities quoted by
Mr. Gladstone would give to these questions; but I leave it to them to
give them if they think fit.

If I ventured to speculate on the matter at all, I should say it is by
no means certain that sea is older than dry land, inasmuch as a solid
terrestrial surface may very well have existed before the earth was cool
enough to allow of the existence of fluid water. And, in this case,
dry land may have existed before the sea. As to the first appearance of
life, the whole argument of analogy, whatever it may be worth in such a
case, is in favour of the absence of living beings until long after
the hot water seas had constituted themselves; and of the subsequent
appearance of aquatic before terrestrial forms of life. But whether
these "protoplasts" would, if we could examine them, be reckoned
among the lowest microscopic algae, or fungi; or among those doubtful
organisms which lie in the debatable land between animals and plants,
is, in my judgment, a question on which a prudent biologist will reserve
his opinion.

I think that I have now disposed of those parts of Mr. Gladstone's
defence in which I seem to discover a design to rescue his solemn "plea
for revelation." But a great deal of the "Proem to Genesis" remains
which I would gladly pass over in silence, were such a course
consistent with the respect due to so distinguished a champion of the
"reconcilers."

I hope that my clients--the people of average opinions--have by this
time some confidence in me; for when I tell them that, after all, Mr.
Gladstone is of opinion that the "Mosaic record" was meant to give
moral, and not scientific, instruction to those for whom it was written,
they may be disposed to think that I must be misleading them. But let
them listen further to what Mr. Gladstone says in a compendious but not
exactly correct statement respecting my opinions:--

He holds the writer responsible for scientific precision: I look
for nothing of the kind, but assign to him a statement general,
which admits exceptions; popular, which aims mainly at producing
moral impression; summary, which cannot but be open to more or
less of criticism of detail. He th