By comparison with a sentence on page 627, in which a fivefold order is substituted for the "fourfold order," on which the "plea for Revelation" was originally founded, it appears that these five categories are "plants, fishes, birds, mammals, and man," which, Mr. Gladstone affirms, "are given to us in Genesis in the order of succession in which they are also given by the latest geological authorities."
I must venture to demur to this statement. I showed, in my previous paper, that there is no reason to doubt that the term "great sea monster" (used in Genesis i, 21) includes the most conspicuous of great sea animals—namely, whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, and dugongs;[1] and, as these are indubitable mammals, it is impossible to affirm that mammals come after birds, which are said to have been created on the same day. Moreover, I pointed out that, as these Cetacea and Sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence implies the antecedent existence of land mammals.
Furthermore, I have to remark that the term "fishes," as used technically in zoölogy, by no means covers all the moving creatures that have life, which are bidden to "fill the waters in the seas" (Genesis i, 20-22). Marine mollusks and Crustacea, echinoderms, corals, and foraminifera are not technically fishes. But they are abundant in the palæozoic rocks, ages upon ages older than those in which the first evidences of true fishes appear. And, if in a geological book Mr. Gladstone finds the quite true statement that plants appeared before fishes, it is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to imagine it serves his purpose. As a matter of fact, at the present moment, it is a question whether, on the bare evidence afforded by fossils, the marine creeping thing or the marine plant has the seniority. No cautious paleontologist would express a decided opinion on the matter. But, if we are to read the Pentateuchal statement as a scientific document (and, in spite of all protests to the contrary, those who bring it into comparison with science do seek to make a scientific document of it), then, as it is quite clear that only terrestrial plants of high organization are spoken of in verses 11 and 12, no paleontologist would hesitate to say that, at present, the records of sea animal life are vastly older than those of any land-plant describable as "grass, herb yielding seed, or fruit-tree."
Thus, although, in Mr. Gladstone's "Defense," 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. Natura
- ↑ Both dolphins and dugongs occur in the Red Sea, porpoises and dolphins in the Mediterranean; so that the "Mosaic writer" may well have been acquainted with them.
