readily disposed to bow, than that of my eminent friend Professor Dana. But I am familiar with what he has previously said on this topic in his well-known and standard work, into which, strangely enough, it does not seem to have occurred to Mr. Gladstone to look before he set out upon his present undertaking; and unless Professor Dana's latest contribution (which I have not yet met with) takes up altogether new ground, I am afraid I shall not be able to extricate myself, by its help, from my present difficulties.

It is a very long time since I began to think about the relations between modern scientifically ascertained truths and the cosmogonical speculations of the writer of Genesis; and, as I think that Mr. Gladstone might have been able to put his case with a good deal more force if he had thought it worth while to consult the last chapter of Professor Dana's admirable Manual of Geology, so I think he might have been made aware that he was undertaking an enterprise of which he had not counted the cost, if he had chanced upon a discussion of the subject which I published in 1877.8

Finally, I should like to draw the attention of those who take interest in these topics to the weighty words of one of the most learned and moderate of Biblical critics :

A propos de cette première page de la Bible, on a coutume de nos jours de disserter, à perte de vue, sur l'accord du récit mosaïque avec les sciences naturelles ; et comme celles-ci, tout éloignées qu'elles sont encore de la perfection absolue, ont rendu populaires et en quelque sorte irréfragables un certain nombre de faits généraux ou de thèses fondamentales de la cosmologie et de la géologie, c'est le texte sacré qu'on s'évertue à torturer pour le faire concorder avec ces données.9

In my paper on the Interpreters of Nature and the Interpreters of Genesis,' while freely availing myself of the rights of a scientific critic, I endeavoured to keep the expression of my views well within those bounds of courtesy which are set by self-respect and consideration for others. I am therefore glad to be favoured with Mr. Gladstone's acknowledgment of the success of my efforts. I only wish that I could accept all the products of Mr. Gladstone's gracious appreciation, but there is one about which, as a matter of honesty, I hesitate. In fact, if I had expressed my meaning better than I seem to have done, I doubt if this particular proffer of Mr. Gladstone's thanks would have been made.

To my mind, whatever doctrine professes to be the result of the application of the accepted rules of inductive and deductive logic to its subject-matter, and accepts, within the limits which it sets to itself, the supremacy of reason, is Science. Whether the subject-matter consists of realities or unrealities, truths or falsehoods, is quite another question. I conceive that ordinary geometry is science, by reason of its method, and I also believe that its axioms, definitions, and conclusions are all true. However, s Lectures on Evolution delivered in New York, (American Addresses.) • Reuss, L'Histoire Sainte et la Loi, i, 275.

there is a geometry of four dimensions, which I also believe to be science, because its method professes to be strictly scientific. It is true that I cannot conceive four dimensions in space, and therefore, for me, the whole affair is unreal. But I have known men of great intellectual powers who seemed to have no difficulty either in conceiving them, or at any rate in imagining how they could conceive them, and therefore four-dimensioned geometry comes under my notion of science. So I think astrology is a science, in so far as it professes to reason logically from principles established by just inductive methods. To prevent misunderstanding, perhaps I had better add that I do not believe one whit in astrology; but no more do I believe in Ptolemaic astronomy, or in the catastrophic geology of my youth, although these, in their day, claimed-and, to my mind, rightly claimed the name of science. If nothing is to be called science but that which is exactly true from beginning to end, I am afraid there is very little science in the world outside mathematics. Among the physical sciences I do not know that any could claim more than that each is true within certain limits, so narrow that, for the present at any rate, they may be neglected. If such is the case, I do not see where the line is to be drawn between exactly true, partially true, and mainly untrue forms of science. And what I have said about the current theology at the end of my paper leaves, I think, no doubt as to the category in which I rank it. For all that, I think it would be not only unjust, but almost impertinent, to refuse the name of science to the Summa of St. Thomas or to the Institutes of Calvin.

In conclusion, I confess that my supposed 'unjaded appetite' for the sort of controversy in which it needed not Mr. Gladstone's express declaration to tell us he is far better practised than I am (though probably, without another express declaration, no one would have suspected that his controversial fires are burning low) is already satiated.

In Elysium' we conduct scientific discussions in a different medium, and we are liable to threatenings of asphyxia in that atmosphere of contention' in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air. I trust that he may long continue to seek truth, under the difficult conditions he has chosen for the search, with unabated energy-I had almost said fire:

May age not wither him, nor custom stale
His infinite variety.

But Elysium suits my less robust constitution better, and I beg leave to retire thither, not sorry for my experience of the other region—no one should regret experience-but determined not to repeat it, at any rate in reference to the plea for Revelation.'

T. H. HUXLEY.

II.

SCIENCE, Religion, Philology, and History have now unsheathed their most richly chased blades in this famous tournament. So goodly a fight has not been seen for many a day; and whether one regards the dignity of the combatants, or the gravity and delicacy of the cause, it is not possible to await the issue without the keenest interest. Meanwhile, a voice may be permitted on behalf of a group among the spectators who have not yet been heard in this controversy, but whose modest reluctance to interfere seems only equalled by their right. In arenas more obscure, but not less worthy, they too have fought this fight; and as a humble camp-follower, and from conviction that the thing must now be done, rather than as one possessing the right to do it, I would venture to state the case on their account.

Mr. Huxley interposes in this question because he is moved by the violence being done in high places to natural science. This third party is constrained to speak because of a similar violence done to theological science. Were the reconcilers of Geology and Genesis equal in insight to their last and most distinguished champion, and did Mr. Gladstone himself realise the full meaning of his own concessions, little further contribution to this controversy might perhaps be called for. And were the opponents of this ancient fraternity as calm in spirit, as respectful to beliefs, and as discriminating as to the real question at issue as Mr. Huxley, no other word need be spoken. But with a phalanx of reconcilers on the one hand, who will continue to shelter untenable positions under the carefully qualified argument of Mr. Gladstone; and with quasi-scientific men on the other, who will exaggerate and mis-interpret the triumph of Mr. Huxley, a further clearing of the ground is necessary. The breadth of view, the sagacity, and inimitable charity of Mr. Gladstone's second article certainly go far with many minds to remove the forebodings with which they received the first. Nevertheless, so powerful a championship of a position which many earnest students of modern religious questions have seen reason wholly to abandon cannot but excite misgivings of a serious kind. And though these are now in part removed by the large concessions and ampler statement of the second paper, Mr. Gladstone still deliberately involves himself with

the fortunes of the reconcilers. So far, however, is he in advance of most of them that much that may be reluctantly said here against the standpoint from which they work in no sense applies to him. This much fairness not less than courtesy makes it a pleasure to premise.

It will be recognised by everyone that the true parties in this case are, as the title of Mr. Huxley's article suggests, The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature. Now, who are the interpreters of Genesis? We answer by asking, who are the interpreters of Nature?

We respectfully point out to Mr. Huxley that his paper contains no single reference to the interpreters of Genesis in the sense in which he uses the term 'the interpreters' in the case of science. Who are 'the interpreters' of Nature? Mr. Huxley answers, and rightly, himself. And who are the interpreters' of Genesis? Certainly Mr. Gladstone would be the last to claim this for himself. Does not the legitimate question lie between modern theology and modern science? And in perfect fairness should not the title of Mr. Huxley's paper have read Some interpreters of Genesis, and the scientific interpreters of Nature?' This may be a verbal matter, and we do not press it. But in view of the fact that many will see in Mr. Huxley's article, and in spite of all protestation, a direct and damaging assault upon the Biblical records, would it not have been right to have pointed out the real terms of the antithesis? It may be replied, and justly, that Mr. Huxley is not responsible for the inferences of the uneducated. And in ordinary circumstances it would be gratuitous to define so carefully the real limitations of the question at issue. But the circumstances here are quite exceptional. For although the widely general knowledge of science makes the aberrations of individual theorists in that department harmless, it is not so in the case of theology. Theology, in this relation, has long suffered under quite unusual treatment. Any visionary is taken, and that notoriously by men of science, as the representative of the system. And it is time for theology to be relieved of the irresponsible favours of a hundred sciolists, whose guerilla warfare has so long alienated thinking men in all departments of knowledge. That there is a science of theology' Mr. Huxley himself admits. It has exponents in Britain and Germany as well-equipped in learning, in sobriety, in balance of mind, and in the possession of the scientific spirit, as the best of the interpreters of Nature. When these men speak of science, it is with respectful reliance upon the best and most recent authorities. They complain that when science speaks of them it accepts positions and statements from any quarter, from books which have been for years or centuries outgrown; or from popular teachers whom scientific theology unweariedly repudiates. To theological science the whole underlying theory of the reconcilers is as exploded as Bathybius. And

Mr. Huxley's interference, however much they welcome it in the interest of popular theology, is to them the amusing performance of a layman, the value of which to scientific theology is about the same as would be a refutation of the Ptolemaic astronomy to modern physics.1 This, however, to some minds may have to be made plain, and we may briefly devote ourselves to a statement of the case.

The progress of opinion on this whole subject is marked by three phases: First, until the present century the first chapter of Genesis was accepted as a veritable cosmogony. This, in the circumstances, was inevitable. The hypothesis of Laplace was not yet in the field; palæontology, Fracastoro notwithstanding, had produced nothing except what everyone knew was the remains of the Noachian Deluge; and geology, even with Buffon behind it, had so little to say for itself that a hint from the Sorbonne was sufficient to quench what feeble light it had. The genesis of the world, therefore, was left to Moses, and the most mechanical theory of creation-a purely anthropomorphic thing and not really in the sacred page at all— was everywhere accepted.

Presently, as the sciences gathered volume and focussed their rays on the past, a new version of creation was spelled out from earth and sea and stars. Accepted at first tentatively, even by men of science, it is not to be wondered at that theologians were for a time unwilling to give up the reading which had held the ground so long. They therefore adopted the policy which is always followed in similar circumstances compromise and adjustment. Thus intervened the interregnum of the reconcilers, De Luc, Kurtz, Pye-Smith, Hugh Miller, Chalmers, and a hundred others whom we need not name. The man who speaks of the labours of these workers without respect

Of course, in commentaries written by experts for popular uses, the condemnatory evidence from natural science is sometimes formally cited in stating the case against the reconcilers generally. From one of the most recent, as well as most able, of these we quote the following passage, in which Mr. Huxley is anticipated in so many words. It is here seen, not only that theology knew all this before,' but how completely it has abandoned the position against which Mr. Huxley's counterstatements are directed: This narrative is not careful to follow the actual order in which life appeared on the globe: it affirms, e.g., that fruit-trees existed before the sun was made; science can tell us of no such vegetation. It tells us that the birds were created in the fifth day, the reptiles in the sixth; Nature herself tells a different tale, and assures us that creeping things appeared before the flying fowl. But the most convincing proof of the regardlessness of scientific accuracy shown by this writer is found in the fact that in the second chapter he gives a different account from that which he has given in the first, and an account irreconcilable with physical facts. . . . He represents the creation of man as preceding the creation of the lower animals—an order which both the first chapter and physical science assure us was not the actual order observed. . . . It seems to me, therefore, a mistaken and dangerous attempt which is often made to reconcile the account of physical facts given here with that given in Nature herself. These accounts disagree in the date or distance from the present time to which the work of creation is assigned, in the length of time which the preparation of the world for man is said to have occupied, and in the order in which life is introduced into the world.'-Genesis, by Marcus Dods, D.D. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1882.