ose of any land plant
describable as "grass, herb yielding seed or fruit tree."

Thus, although, in Mr. Gladstone's "Defence," the "old order passeth
into new," his case is not improved. The fivefold order is no more
"affirmed in our time by natural science" to be "a demonstrated
conclusion and established fact" than the fourfold order was. Natural
science appears to me to decline to have anything to do with either;
they are as wrong in detail as they are mistaken in principle.

There is another change of position, the value of which is not so
apparent to me, as it may well seem to be to those who are unfamiliar
with the subject under discussion. Mr. Gladstone discards his three
groups of "water-population," "air-population," and "land-population,"
and substitutes for them (1) fishes, (2) birds, (3) mammals, (4)
man. Moreover, it is assumed, in a note, that "the higher or ordinary
mammals" alone were known to the "Mosaic writer" (p. 6). No doubt it
looks, at first, as if something were gained by this alteration; for,
as I have just pointed out, the word "fishes" can be used in two senses,
one of which has a deceptive appearance of adjustability to the "Mosaic"
account. Then the inconvenient reptiles are banished out of sight; and,
finally, the question of the exact meaning of "higher" and "ordinary"
in the case of mammals opens up the prospect of a hopeful logomachy. But
what is the good of it all in the face of Leviticus on the one hand and
of palaeontology on the other?

As, in my apprehension, there is not a shadow of justification for the
suggestion that when the pentateuchal writer says "fowl" he excludes
bats (which, as we shall see directly, are expressly included under
"fowl" in Leviticus), and as I have already shown that he demonstrably
includes reptiles, as well as mammals, among the creeping things of the
land, I may be permitted to spare my readers further discussion of
the "fivefold order." On the whole, it is seen to be rather more
inconsistent with Genesis than its fourfold predecessor.

But I have yet a fresh order to face. Mr. Gladstone (p. 11) understands
"the main statements of Genesis" in successive order of time, but without
any measurement of its divisions, to be as follows:--

1. A period of land, anterior to all life (v. 9, 10). 2. A period of
vegetable life, anterior to animal life (v. 11, 12). 3. A period of
animal life, in the order of fishes (v. 20). 4. Another stage of animal
life, in