But then _to make any sense at
all with the verses_ we are bound to show that each age preceded the
next--that one was more than partly, if not quite completely,
established _before_ any appearance of the next.
It is to this interpretation that Professor Huxley alludes when he says,
in his first article,[1] "There must be some position from which the
reconcilers of Science and Genesis will not retreat--some central idea
the maintenance of which is vital, and its refutation fatal.... It is
that the animal species which compose the water population, the air
population, and the land population,[2] respectively, originated during
three successive periods of time, and only during those periods of
time."
[Footnote 1: "Nineteenth Century," December, 1885, pp. 856-7.]
[Footnote 2: These (unfortunate) terms are Mr. Gladstone's.]
For my own part, I hasten to say that, as one of the despised race of
"reconcilers," not only is this idea no central position from which I
will not retreat, but one which I should never think of occupying for
one moment.
But on the view of the _periods_, some such position must be taken up.
And if so, I must maintain that Professor Huxley has shown--if indeed it
was not obvious already--that the idea of a series of periods, and in
each of which a certain kind of life began and culminated (if it was not
fully completed) _before_ another began, is untrue to nature.
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