Permian strata. It is further agreed that the Triassic strata
were deposited after these. Moreover, it is well known that,
even if certain footprints are to be taken as unquestionable
evidence of the existence of birds, they are not known to occur
in rocks earlier than the Trias, while indubitable remains of
birds are to be met with only much later. Hence it follows that
natural science does not "affirm" the statement that birds were
made on the fifth day, and "everything that creepeth on the
ground" on the sixth, on which Mr. Gladstone rests his order;
for, as is shown by Leviticus, the "Mosaic writer" includes
lizards among his "creeping things."

Perhaps I have given myself superfluous trouble in the preceding
argument, for I find that Mr. Gladstone is willing to assume (he
does not say to admit) that the statement in the text of Genesis
as to reptiles cannot "in all points be sustained" (p. 16). But
my position is that it cannot be sustained in any point, so
that, after all, it has perhaps been as well to go over the
evidence again. And then Mr. Gladstone proceeds as if nothing
had happened to tell us that--


There remain great unshaken facts to be weighed. First, the fact
that such a record should have been made at all.


As most peoples have their cosmogonies, this "fact" does not
strike me as having much value.