The second hypothesis is familiar to us in the sacred records of many religious and in the Hebrew Scriptures. Most of these have a fundamental similarity, inasmuch as they offer pictures in which the mode and order of creation are given in the minutest detail and with the simplest kind of anthropomorphism; in which the Creator is represented with familiar human characteristics. But these general considerations, so obvious now that we have learned to read the Bible narrative without passion or prejudice, were not plain to the early opponents of evolution, and it was necessary, step by step, to shew not only that the narrative in Genesis could not be reconciled with known facts if it were accepted in its literal meaning, but that the most strained interpretation of the language failed to bring it into accordance with scientific truth. Mr. Gladstone was the latest and most vigorous of those who attempted to reconcile Genesis with modern knowledge, and in his controversy with Huxley he brought to bear all the resources of an acute intellect trained by long practice in the devices of argument and inspired by a lofty if mistaken enthusiasm. In the course of his argument he wrote:
"But the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skilfully constructed narrative; it is whether natural science, in the patient exercise of its high calling to examine facts, finds that the works of God cry out against what we have fondly believed to be His word and tell another tale; or whether, in this nineteenth century of Christian progress, it substantially echoes back the majestic sound, which, before it existed as a pursuit, went forth into all lands.
First, looking largely at the latter portion of the narrative, which describes the creation of living organisms, and waiving details, on some of which (as in v. 24) the Septuagint seems to vary from the Hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times as follows: on the fifth day
1. The water-population.
2. The air-population,
and, on the sixth day,
3. The land-population of animals.
4. The land-population consummated in man.
Now this same fourfold order is understood to have been so affirmed in our time by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact."
The defence itself shewed that already a large part of the original position had been abandoned. The literal meaning and belief in detailed accuracy were given up and Mr. Gladstone sought to establish only a general correspondence between the Biblical narrative and the results of science. But even in that form Huxley shewed the defence to be untenable.
"I can meet the statement in the last paragraph of the above citation," he replied, "with nothing but a direct negative. If I 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 shew that the water, air, and land populations of our globe made their appearance."