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 shown to be not disprovable by scientific knowledge, but
whether it is supported thereby.


There is nothing, then, in the criticisms of Dr. Reville but
what rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned
belief that there is a revelation in the book of Genesis
(p. 694).


The form into which Mr. Gladstone has thought fit to throw this