indispensable to consult them, to compare them, and to associate
them with other sources of information which are available.
From this point of view, the traditions recorded in Genesis
possess, in addition to their own peculiar charm, a value of the
highest order; but we cannot ultimately see in them more than a
venerable fragment, well-deserving attention, of the great
genesis of mankind.


Mr. Gladstone is of a different mind. He dissents from
M. Reville's views respecting the proper estimation of the
pentateuchal traditions, no less than he does from his
interpretation of those Homeric myths which have been the object
of his own special study. In the latter case, Mr. Gladstone
tells M. Reville that he is wrong on his own authority, to
which, in such a matter, all will pay due respect: in the
former, he affirms himself to be "wholly destitute of that kind
of knowledge which carries authority," and his rebuke is
administered in the name and by the authority of
natural science.

An air of magisterial gravity hangs about the following
passage:--


But the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skilfully
constructed narrative: it is whether natural science, in the
patient exercise of its high calling to examine facts, finds
that the works of God cry out against what we have fondly
believed to be His word and tell another tale; or whether, in