Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/465

Rh For I can meet the statement in the last paragraph of the above citation with nothing but a direct negative. If 1 know anything at all about the results attained by the natural science of our time, it is "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" that the "fourfold order" given by Mr. Gladstone is not that in which the evidence at our disposal tends to show that the water, air, and land populations of the globe have made their appearance.

Perhaps I may be told that Mr. Gladstone does give his authority—that he cites Cuvier, Sir John Herschel, and Dr. Whewell in support of his case. If that has been Mr. Gladstone's intention in mentioning these eminent names, I may remark that, on this particular question, the only relevant authority is that of Cuvier. But, great as Cuvier was, it is to be remembered that, as Mr. Gladstone incidentally remarks, he can not now be called a recent authority. In fact, he has been dead more than half a century, and the paleontology of our day is related to that of his very much as the geography of the sixteenth century is related to that of the fourteenth. Since 1832, when Cuvier died, not only a new world, but new worlds, of ancient life have been discovered; and those who have most faithfully carried on the work of the chief founder of paleontology have done most to invalidate the essentially negative grounds of his speculative adherence to tradition.

If Mr. Gladstone's latest information on these matters is derived from the famous discourse prefixed to the "Ossemens Fossiles," I can understand the position he has taken up; if he has ever opened a respectable modern manual of paleontology or geology, I can not. For the facts which demolish his whole argument are of the commonest notoriety. But, before proceeding to consider the evidence for this assertion, we must be clear about the meaning of the phraseology employed.

I apprehend that when Mr. Gladstone uses the term "water-population" he means those animals which, in Genesis i, 21 (revised version), are spoken of as "the great sea-monsters and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind," And I presume that it will be agreed that whales and porpoises, sea-fishes, and the innumerable hosts of marine invertebrated animals, are meant thereby. So "air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl," in verse 20, and "every winged fowl after its kind," verse 21. I suppose I may take it for granted that by "fowl" we have here to understand birds—at any rate primarily. Secondarily, it may be that the bats, and the extinct pterodactyls, which were flying reptiles, come under the same head. But, whether all insects are "creeping things" of the land-population, or whether flying insects are to be included under the denomination of "winged fowl," is a point for the decision of Hebrew exegetes. Lastly, I suppose I may assume that "land-population" signifies "the cattle" and "the beast of the earth," and "every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," in