imagine it serves his purpose. As a matter of fact, at the
present moment, it is a question whether, on the bare evidence
afforded by fossils, the marine creeping thing or the marine
plant has the seniority. No cautious palaeontologist would
express a decided opinion on the matter. But, if we are to read
the pentateuchal statement as a scientific document (and, in
spite of all protests to the contrary, those who bring it into
comparison with science do seek to make a scientific document of
it), then, as it is quite clear that only terrestrial plants of
high organisation are spoken of in verses 11 and 12, no
palaeontologist would hesitate to say that, at present, the
records of sea animal life are vastly older than those of any
land plant describable as "grass, herb yielding seed or
fruit tree."

Thus, although, in Mr. Gladstone's "Defence," the "old order
passeth into new," his case is not improved. The fivefold order
is no more "affirmed in our time by natural science" to be "a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact" than the fourfold
order was. Natural science appears to me to decline to have
anything to do with either; they are as wrong in detail as they
are mistaken in principle.

There is another change of position, the value of which is not
so apparent to me, as it may well seem to be to those who are
unfamiliar with the subject under discussion. Mr. Gladstone
discards his three groups of "water-population," "air-
population," and "land-population," and substitutes for them
(1) fishes, (2) birds, (3) mammals, (4) man. Moreover, it is
assumed, in a note, that "the higher or ordinary mammals" alone