parently)
the fact.

It is to be remarked that plant and animal always appear in nature as
two separate and _parallel_ kingdoms. It is not that the plant is lower
than the animal, so that the highest plant takes on it some of the first
characters which mark the lowest animal: but both start separately from
minute and little specialized forms so similar that it is extremely
difficult to say which is plant and which is animal.[1]

[Footnote 1: See this well summarized in Nicholson's "Manual of Zoology"
(sixth edition, 1880), p. 13, _et seq._]

All the beginnings of life in _either_ kingdom would therefore be
ill-adapted (most of them, at any rate) for preservation in
rock-strata.[1]

[Footnote 1: I think this is quite sufficient, without relying on the
evidence of the great quantities of _carbon_ in the earliest
(Laurentian, Huronian, &c.) strata in the form of graphite. It is
possible, or even probable, that this may be due to carbon supplied by
masses of little specialized _Thallophyte_ and _Anophyte_ vegetation.]

All we know for certain is that vegetable-life was closely coeval with
the lowest animal-life, and that it was very long before specialized
forms, even of _cryptogams_, made a great show in the world.

Probability is entirely in favour of the actual priority being in
vegetable forms; and more than that is not required. For the Mosaic
narrative, while it places the origin of the vegetable kingdom actually
first, lets the _fiat_ for the animal kingdom follow almost immediately.

As to the _order_ of appearance of the plants, I will reserve my remarks
for the moment.

(4) "AND GOD SAID, LET THERE BE LIGHTS IN THE FIRMAMENT OF THE HEAVEN,
TO DIVIDE THE DAY FROM THE NIGHT; AND LET THEM BE FOR SIGNS, AND FOR
SEASONS, AND FOR DAYS, AND FOR YEARS: AND LET THEM BE FOR LIGHTS IN THE
FIRMAMENT TO GIVE LIGHT ON THE EARTH."

The sun and the stars, and all the host of heaven, are clearly
understood to have been created "in the beginning," under the general
statement of fact which forms the first verse of the narrative.

The 14th verse has always been understood to refer to the establishment
of the _relations_ between the earth and the sun, moon, and stars,
which have, as a matter of fact, been recognized by all ages and all
people ever since. The writer of the 104th Psalm certainly so understood
the passage--

"He appointed the moon for seasons;
The sun knoweth his going down.[1]"

The writer was