hey (the reconcilers) now allow that the words 'the
evening and the morning' have not the least reference to a
natural day, but mean a period of any number of millions of years
that may be necessary; even if they are driven to admit that the
word 'creation,' which so many millions of pious Jews and
Christians have held, and still hold, to mean a sudden act of the
Deity, signifies a process of gradual evolution of one species
from another, extending through immeasurable time; even if they
are willing to grant that the asserted coincidence of the order
of nature with the 'fourfold order' ascribed to Genesis is an
obvious error instead of an established truth, they are surely
prepared to make a last stand upon the conception which underlies
the whole, and which constitutes the essence of Mr. Gladstone's
'fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times.'
It is that the animal species which compose the water-population,
the air-population, and the land-population, respectively,
originated during three distinct and successive periods of time,
and only during these periods of time.... But even this
sublimated essence of the Pentateuchal doctrine remains as
discordant with natural science as ever."

There remains the third, or evolutionary hypothesis regarding the
origin of the existing order of nature. As Huxley held it, it was
rigidly limited within the possibilities afforded by the agnostic
attitude. With regard to the real nature, the origin and destiny of
the whole universe, there was not sufficient evidence before the human
mind, if indeed the human mind were capable of receiving such
evidence, to come to any conclusion. For the rest, for the actual
condition of the earth itself, science was gradually accumulating
overwhelming evidence in favour of a continuous evolution, under
natural agencies, from the beginning of life to the existing forms of
animals and plants, and the actual origin of life from inorganic
matter under similarly natural agencies was becoming more and more a
legitimate inference.

Huxley's relation to the New Testament may be summed up in few words.
It was simply that there was not sufficient evidence for ascribing to
it the supernatural sanction demanded for it by dogmatic theology.

"From the dawn of scientific Biblical criticism until the present
day, the evidence against the lo