en seen that, on any interpretation of
the terms water-population and land-population, it must be admitted that
invertebrate representatives of these populations existed during the
lower Palaeozoic epoch. No evolutionist can hesitate to admit that other
land animals (and possibly vertebrates among them) may have existed
during that time, of the history of which we know so little; and,
further, that scorpions are animals of such high organisation that it
is highly probable their existence indicates that of a long antecedent
land-population of a similar character.

Then, since the land-population is said not to have been created until
the sixth day, it necessarily follows 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