process of peopling the globe. But it must not be said that
natural science counts this opinion among her "demonstrated
conclusions and established facts," for there would be just as
much, or as little, reason for ranging the contrary opinion
among them.

It may seem superfluous to add to the evidence that Mr.
Gladstone has been utterly misled in supposing that his
interpretation of Genesis receives any support from natural
science. But it is as well to do one's work thoroughly while one
is about it; and I think it may be advisable to point out that
the facts, as they are at present known, not only refute Mr.
Gladstone's interpretation of Genesis in detail, but are opposed
to the central idea on which it appears to be based.

There must be some position from which the reconcilers of
science and Genesis will not retreat, some central idea the
maintenance of which is vital and its refutation fatal. Even if
they now allow that the words "the evening and the morning" have
not the least reference to a natural day, but mean a period of
any number of millions of years that may be necessary; even if
they are driven to admit that the word "creation," which so many
millions of pious Jews and Christians have held, and still hold,
to mean a sudden act of the Deity, signifies a process of
gradual evolution of one species from another, extending through
immeasurable time; even if they are willing to grant that the
asserted coincidence of the order of Nature with the "fourfold
order" ascribed to Genesis is an obvious error instead of an
established truth; they are surely prepared to make a last stand
upon the conception which underlies the whole, and which