ot 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. This,
therefore, cannot have been intended by the author of Genesis.

I will here interrupt my argument for a moment to say that there is a
_certain degree_ of _coincidence_ between the succession of life on the
earth as far as it is explained by palaeontological research, and the
order of creation stated in Genesis; but that is not concerned with any
forced interpretation of the term "day." The coincidence is just near
enough to give rise to a desire to identify creative periods with the
series shown by the fossil-bearing rocks; while it is attended with just
enough of difference to furnish matter for controversy, and to expose
the interpreters to be cut up.

But to return. Nothing, I submit, is gained by getting _day_ to mean
period. Let us put the matter quite squarely. Let us take day to mean
period, and let us take all the verses to mean the _process_ of
_producing_ on earth the various life-forms.

In order to come at once to the point, let us begin with the time when
the dry land and the waters are separate. At that moment, there is
nothing said (or implied) about life already having begun in either
water or on dry land. God commanded plants to grow; consequently during
that _whole period_ nothing but plants, and that of all the kinds and
classes mentioned, should appear either in water or on land. That period
being done, then came the command for water animals, fish and great
monsters, and also birds. We ough