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Title: Mr. Gladstone and Genesis
Essay #5 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"

Author: Thomas Henry Huxley

Posting Date: December 3, 2008 [EBook #2631]
Release Date: May, 2001

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS

ESSAY #5 FROM "SCIENCE AND HEBREW TRADITION"

By Thomas Henry Huxley

In controversy, as in courtship, the good old rule to be off with the
old before one is on with the new, greatly commends itself to my sense
of expediency. And, therefore, it appears to me desirable that I should
preface such observations as I may have to offer upon the cloud of
arguments (the relevancy of which to the issue which I had ventured to
raise is not always obvious) put forth by Mr. Gladstone in the January
number of this review, [1] by an endeavour to make clear to such of
our readers as have not had the advantage of a forensic education the
present net result of the discussion.

I am quite aware that, in undertaking this task, I run all the risks
to which the man who presumes to deal judicially with his own cause is
liable. But it is exactly because I do not shun that risk, but, rather,
earnestly desire to be judged by him who cometh after me, provided that
he has the knowledge and impartiality appropriate to a judge, that I
adopt my present course.

In the article on "The Dawn of Creation and Worship," it will be
remembered that Mr. Gladstone unreservedly commits himself to three
propositions. The first is that, according to the writer of the
Pentateuch, the "water-population," the "air-population," and the
"land-population" of the globe were created successively, in the order
named. In the second place, Mr. Gladstone authoritatively asserts that
this (as part of his "fourfold order") has been "so affirmed in our time
by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion
and established fact." In the third place, Mr. Gladstone argues that the
fact of this coincidence of the pentateuchal story with the results
of