prehensive and complete correspondence can be established between the terms of the Mosaic text and modern discovery. No one, for instance, could conclude from it that which appears to be generally recognised, that a great reptile-age would be revealed by the mesozoic rocks.

Yet I think readers, who have been swept away by the torrent of Mr. Huxley's denunciations, will feel some surprise when on drawing summarily into line the main allegations, and especially this ruling order of the Proem, they see how small a part of them is brought into question by Mr. Huxley, and to how large an extent they are favoured by the tendencies, presumptions, and even conclusions of scientific inquiry.

First, as to the cosmogony, or the formation of the earth and the heavenly bodies

1. The first operation recorded in Genesis appears to be the formation of light. It is detached, apparently, from the waste or formless elemental mass (verses 2-5), which is left relatively dark by its withdrawal.

2. Next we hear of the existence of vapour, and of its condensation into water on the surface of the earth (verses 6-10). Vegetation subsequently begins: but this belongs rather to geology than to cosmogony (verses 11, 12).

3. In a new period, the heavenly bodies are declared to be fully formed and visible, dividing the day from the night (verses 14–18). Under the guidance particularly of Dr. Whewell, I have referred to the nebular hypothesis as confirmatory of this account.

Mr. Huxley has not either denied the hypothesis, or argued against it. But I turn to Phillips's Manual of Geology, edited and adapted by Mr. Seeley and Mr. Etheridge (1885). It has a section in vol. i. (pp. 15–19) on Modern Speculations concerning the Origin of the Earth.'

The first agent here noticed as contributing to the work of production is the 'gas hydrogen in a burning state,' which now forms the enveloping portion of the sun's atmosphere;' whence we are told the inference arises that the earth also was once incandescent at its surface,' and that its rocks may have been products of combustion.' Is not this representation of light with heat for its ally, as the first element in this Speculation, remarkably accordant with the opening of the Proem to Genesis?

Next it appears (ibid.) that the product of this combustion is vapour,' which with diminished heat condenses into water, and eventually accumulates in depressions on the sun's surface so as to form oceans and seas.' 'It is at least probable that the earth has passed through a phase of this kind' (ibid.). The other planets are apparently more or less like the earth in possessing atmospheres and seas.' Is there not here a remarkable concurrence with the second great act of the cosmogony?'

Plainly, as I suppose it is agreeable to these suppositions that, as vapour gradually passes into water, and the atmosphere is cleared, the full adaptation of sun and moon by visibility for their functions should come in due sequence, as it comes in Gen. i. 14-18.

Pursuing its subject, the Manual proceeds (p. 17): This consideration leads up to what has been called the nebular hypothesis,' which supposes that, before the stars existed, the materials of which they consist were diffused in the heavens in a state of vapour' (ibid.). The text then proceeds to describe how local centres of condensation might throw off rings, these rings break into planets, and the planets, under conditions of sufficient force, repeat the process, and thus produce satellites like those of Saturn, or like the Moon.

I therefore think that, so far as cosmogony is concerned, the effect of Mr. Huxley's paper is not by any means to leave it as it was, but to leave it materially fortified by the Manual of Geology, which I understand to be a standard of authority at the present time.

Turning now to the region of that science, I understand 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 (verses 9, 10).

2. A period of vegetable life, anterior to animal life (verses 11, 12). 3. A period of animal life, in the order of fishes (verse 20).

4. Another stage of animal life, in the order of birds.

5. Another, in the order of beasts (verses 24, 25). 6. Last of all, man (verses 26, 27).

Here is a chain of six links, attached to a previous chain of three. And I think it not a little remarkable that of this entire succession, the only step directly challenged is that of numbers four and five, which (p. 858) Mr. Huxley is inclined rather to reverse. He admits distinctly the seniority of fishes. How came that seniority to be set down here? He admits as probable upon present knowledge, in the person of Homo sapiens, the juniority of man (p. 856). How came this juniority to be set down here? He proceeds indeed to describe an opposite opinion concerning man as holding exactly the same rank as the one to which he had given an apparent sanction (ibid.). As I do not precisely understand the bearing of the terms he uses, I pass them by, and I shall take the liberty of referring presently to the latest authorities, which he has himself suggested that I should consult. But I add to the questions I have just put this other inquiry. How came the Mosaic writer to place the fishes and the men in their true relative positions not only to one another, and not only to the rest of the animal succession, but in a definite and that a true relation of time to the origin of the first plant-life, and to the colossal operations by which the earth was fitted for them all? Mr. Huxley knows very well that it would be in the highest degree irrational to ascribe this correct distribution to the doctrine of chances;

nor will the stone of Sisyphus of itself constitute a sufficient answer to inquiries which are founded, not upon a fanciful attempt to equate every word of the Prcem with every dictum of science, but upon those principles of probable reasoning by which all rational lives are and must be guided.

I find the latest published authority on geology in the Second or Mr. Etheridge's volume of the Manual 13 of Professor Phillips, and by this I will now proceed to test the sixfold series which I have ventured upon presenting.

First, however, looking back for a moment to a work, obviously of the highest authority,14 on the geology of its day, I find in it a table of the order of appearance of animal life upon the earth, which, beginning with the oldest, gives us―

I omit all reference to specifications, and speak only of the principal lines of division.

In the Phillips-Etheridge Manual, beginning as before with the oldest, I find the following arrangement, given partly by statement, and partly by diagram.

1. The Azoic or Archæan time of Dana;' called Pre-Cambrian by other physicists (pp. 3, 5).

2. A commencement of plant life indicated by Dana as anterior to invertebrate animal life; long anterior to the vertebrate forms, which alone are mentioned in Genesis (pp. 4, 5).

3. Three periods of invertebrate life.

4. Age of fishes.

5. Age of reptiles.

6. Age of mammals, much less remote.

7. Age of man, much less remote than mammals.

As to birds, though they have not a distinct and separate age assigned them, the Manual (vol. i. ch. xxv. pp. 511-20) supplies us very clearly with their place in 'the succession of animal life.' We are here furnished with the following series, after the fishes: 1. Fossil reptiles (p. 512); 2. Ornithosauria (p. 517); they were 'flying animals, which combined the characters of reptiles with those of birds; 3. The first birds of the secondary rocks with 'feathers in all respects similar to those of existing birds' (p. 518); 4. Mammals (p. 520).

I have been permitted to see in proof another statement from an authority still more recent, Professor Prestwich, which is now

13 Phillips's Manual of Geology (vol. ii:) part ii., by R. Etheridge, F.R.S. New edition, 1885.

14 Palæontology, by Richard Owen (now Sir Richard Owen, K.C.B.) Second edition, p. 5, 1861.

passing through the press. In it (pp. 80, 81) I find the following seniority assigned to the orders which I here name:

It will now, I hope, be observed that, according to the probable intention of the Mosaic writer, these five orders enumerated by him correspond with the state of geological knowledge, presented to us by the most recent authorities, in this sense; that the origins of these orders respectively have the same succession as is assigned in Genesis to those representatives of the orders, which alone were probably known to the experience of Adamic man. My fourfold succession thus grows into a fivefold one. By placing before the first plant-life the azoic period, it becomes sixfold. And again by placing before this the principal stages of the cosmogony, it becomes, according as they are stated, nine or tenfold; every portion holding the place most agreeable to modern hypothesis and modern science respectively.

I now notice the points in which, so far as I understand, the text of the Proem, as it stands, is either incomplete or at variance with the representations of science.

1. It does not notice the great periods of invertebrate life standing between (1) and (2) of my last enumeration.

2. It also passes by the great age of Reptiles, with their antecessors the Amphibia, which come between (2) and (3). The secondary or Mesozoic period, says the Manual (i. 511), has often been termed the age of Reptiles.'

3. It mentions plants in terms which, as I understand from Professor Huxley and otherwise, correspond with the later, not the earlier, forms of plant life.

4. It mentions reptiles in the same category with its mammals. Now, as regards the first two heads, these omissions, enormous with reference to the scientific record, are completely in harmony with the probable aim of the Mosaic writer, as embracing only the formation of the objects and creatures with which early man was conversant. The introduction of these orders, invisible and unknown, would have been not agreeable, but injurious, to his purpose.

As respects the third, it will strike the reader of the Proem that plant life (verses 11, 12) is mentioned with a particularity which is not found in the accounts of the living orders; nor in the second notice of the Creation, which appears, indeed, pretty distinctly to refer to recent plant-life (Gen. ii., 5, 8, 9). Questions have been raised as to the translation of these passages, which I am not able to solve. But I bear in mind the difficulties which attend both oral traditions and the conservation of ancient MS., and I am not in any way troubled by the discrepancy before us, if it be a discrepancy, as

it is the general structure and effect of the Mosaic statement on which I take my stand.

With regard to reptiles, while I should also hold by my last remark, the case is different. They appear to be mentioned as contemporary with mammals, whereas they are of prior origin. But the relative significance of the several orders evidently affected the method of the Mosaic writer. Agreeably to this idea, insects are not named at all. So reptiles were a family fallen from greatness; instead of stamping on a great period of life its leading character, they merely skulked upon the earth. They are introduced, as will appear better from the LXX than from the A.V. or R.V., as a sort of appendage to mammals. Lying outside both the use and the dominion of man, and far less within his probable notice, they are not wholly omitted like insects, but treated apparently in a loose manner as not one of the main features of the picture which the writer meant to draw. In the Song of the Three Children, where the four principal orders are recited after the series in Genesis, reptiles are dropped altogether, which suggests either that the present text is unsound, or, perhaps more probably, that they were deemed a secondary and insignificant part of it. But, however this case may be regarded, of course I cannot draw from it any support to my general contention.

I distinguish, then, in the broadest manner, between Professor Huxley's exposition of certain facts of science, and his treatment of the Book of Genesis. I accept the first, with the reverence due to a great teacher from the meanest of his hearers, as a needed correction to myself, and a valuable instruction for the world. But, subject to that correction, I adhere to my proposition respecting the fourfold succession in the Proem; which further I extend to a fivefold succession respecting life, and to the great stages of the cosmogony to boot. The five origins, or first appearances of plants, fishes, birds, mammals and man, are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession, in which they are also given by the latest geological authorities.

It is, therefore, by attaching to words a sense they were never meant to bear, and by this only, that Mr. Huxley establishes the parallels (so to speak), from which he works his heavy artillery. Landpopulation is a phrase meant by me to describe the idea of the Mosaic writer, which I conceive to be that of the animals familiarly known to early man. But, by treating this as a scientific phrase, it is made to include extinct reptiles, which I understand Mr. Huxley (N. C. p. 853) to treat as being land-animals; as, by taking birds of a very high formation, it may be held that mammal forms existed before such birds were produced. These are artificial contradictions, set up by altering in its essence one of the two things which it is sought to compare.

If I am asked whether I contend for the absolute accordance of the Mosaic writer, as interpreted by me, with the facts and presump