divine ideal attains realisation.

5. The creation of living creatures on the fourth and fifth days is
so arranged as to lead up to the creation of man as the climax. On
the fifth day sea and air are peopled, and their denizens 'blessed,'
for the equal divine love holds every living thing to its heart. On
the sixth day the earth is replenished with living creatures. Then,
last of all, comes man, the apex of creation. Obviously the purpose
of the whole is to concentrate the light on man; and it is a matter
of no importance whether the narrative is correct according to
zoology, or not. What it says is that God made all the universe,
that He prepared the earth for the delight of living creatures, that
the happy birds that soar and sing, and the dumb creatures that move
through the paths of the seas, and the beasts of the earth, are all
His creating, and that man is linked to them, being made on the same
day as the latter, and by the same word, but that between man and
them all there is a gulf, since he is made in the divine image. That
image implies personality, the consciousness of self, the power to
say 'I,' as well as purity. The transition from the work of the
first four days to that of creating living things must have had a
break. No theory has been able to bridge the chasm without admitting
a divine act introducing the new element of life, and none has been
able to bridge the gulf between the animal and human consciousness
without admitting a divine act introducing 'the image of God' into
the nature common to animal and man. Three facts as to humanity are
thrown up into prominence: its possession of the image of God, the
equality and eternal interdependence of the sexes, and the lordship
over all creatures. Mark especially the remarkable wording of verse 27:
'created He _him_ male and female created He _them_.' So 'neither is
the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman.' Each is