Secondly, the fact that, instead of dwelling in generalities, it
has placed itself under the severe conditions of a chronological
order reaching from the first nisus of chaotic matter to
the consummated production of a fair and goodly, a furnished and
a peopled world.


This "fact" can be regarded as of value only by ignoring the
fact demonstrated in my previous paper, that natural science
does not confirm the order asserted so far as living things are
concerned; and by upsetting a fact to be brought to light
presently, to wit, that, in regard to the rest of the
pentateuchal cosmogony, prudent science has very little to say
one way or the other.


Thirdly, the fact that its cosmogony seems, in the light of the
nineteenth century, to draw more and more of countenance from
the best natural philosophy.


I have already questioned the accuracy of this statement, and I
do not observe that mere repetition adds to its value.


And, fourthly, that it has described the successive origins of
the five great categories of present life with which human
experience was and is conversant, in that order which geological
authority confirms.