



Produced by D.R. Thompson





MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS

ESSAY #5 FROM "SCIENCE AND HEBREW TRADITION"


By Thomas Henry Huxley



In controversy, as in courtship, the good old rule to be off with the
old before one is on with the new, greatly commends itself to my sense
of expediency. And, therefore, it appears to me desirable that I should
preface such observations as I may have to offer upon the cloud of
arguments (the relevancy of which to the issue which I had ventured to
raise is not always obvious) put forth by Mr. Gladstone in the January
number of this review, [1] by an endeavour to make clear to such of
our readers as have not had the advantage of a forensic education the
present net result of the discussion.

I am quite aware that, in undertaking this task, I run all the risks
to which the man who presumes to deal judicially with his own cause is
liable. But it is exactly because I do not shun that risk, but, rather,
earnestly desire to be judged by him who cometh after me, provided that
he has the knowledge and impartiality appropriate to a judge, that I
adopt my present course.

In the article on "The Dawn of Creation and Worship," it will be
remembered that Mr. Gladstone unreservedly commits himself to three
propositions. The first is that, according to the writer of the
Pentateuch, the "water-population," the "air-population," and the
"land-population" of the globe were created successively, in the order
named. In the second place, Mr. Gladstone authoritatively asserts that
this (as part of his "fourfold order") has been "so affirmed in our time
by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion
and established fact." In the third place, Mr. Gladstone argues that the
fact of this coincidence of the pentateuchal story with the results
of modern investigation makes it "impossible to avoid the conclusion,
first, that either this writer was gifted with faculties passing all
human experience, or else his knowledge was divine." And having settled
to his own satisfaction that the first "branch of the alternative is
truly nominal and unreal," Mr. Gladstone continues, "So stands the plea
for a revelation of truth from God, a plea only to be met by questioning
its possibility" (p. 697).

I am a simple-minded person, wholly devoid of subtlety of intellect, so
that I willingly admit that there may be depths of alternative meaning
in these propositions out of all soundings attainable by my poor
plummet. Still there are a good many people who suffer under a like
intellectual limitation; and, for once in my life, I feel that I have
the chance of attaining that position of a representative of average
opinion which appears to be the modern ideal of a leader of men, when
I make free confession that, after turning the matter over in my mind,
with all the aid derived from a careful consideration of Mr. Gladstone's
reply, I cannot get away from my original conviction that, if Mr.
Gladstone's second proposition can be shown to be not merely inaccurate,
but directly contradictory of facts known to every one who is acquainted
with the elements of natural science, the third proposition collapses of
itself.

And it was this conviction which led me to enter upon the present
discussion. I fancied that if my respected clients, the people of
average opinion and capacity, could once be got distinctly to conceive
that Mr. Gladstone's views as to the proper method of dealing with grave
and difficult scientific and religious problems had permitted him to
base a solemn "plea for a revelation of truth from God" upon an error as
to a matter of fact, from which the intelligent perusal of a manual of
palaeontology would have saved him, I need not trouble myself to
occupy their time and attention [167] with further comments upon his
contribution to apologetic literature. It is for others to judge whether
I have efficiently carried out my project or not. It certainly does not
count for much that I should be unable to find any flaw in my own case,
but I think it counts for a good deal that Mr. Gladstone appears to have
been equally unable to do so. He does, indeed, make a great parade of
authorities, and I have the greatest respect for those authorities whom
Mr. Gladstone mentions. If he will get them to sign a joint memorial to
the effect that our present palaeontological evidence proves that birds
appeared before the "land-population" of terrestrial reptiles, I shall
think it my duty to reconsider my position--but not till then.

It will be observed that I have cautiously used the word "appears" in
referring to what seems to me to be absence of any real answer to my
criticisms in Mr. Gladstone's reply. For I must honestly confess that,
notwithstanding long and painful strivings after clear insight, I am
still uncertain whether Mr. Gladstone's "Defence" means that the
great "plea for a revelation from God" is to be left to perish in the
dialectic desert; or whether it is to be withdrawn under the protection
of such skirmishers as are available for covering retreat.

In particular, the remarkable disquisition which covers pages 11 to
14 of Mr. Gladstone's last contribution has greatly exercised my mind.
Socrates is reported to have said of the works of Heraclitus that he who
attempted to comprehend them should be a "Delian swimmer," but that, for
his part, what he could understand was so good that he was disposed
to believe in the excellence of that which he found unintelligible. In
endeavouring to make myself master of Mr. Gladstone's meaning in these
pages, I have often been overcome by a feeling analogous to that
of Socrates, but not quite the same. That which I do understand has
appeared to me so very much the reverse of good, that I have sometimes
permitted myself to doubt the value of that which I do not understand.

In this part of Mr. Gladstone's reply, in fact, I find nothing of which
the bearing upon my arguments is clear to me, except that which relates
to the question whether reptiles, so far as they are represented by
tortoises and the great majority of lizards and snakes, which are land
animals, are creeping things in the sense of the pentateuchal writer or
not.

I have every respect for the singer of the Song of the Three Children
(whoever he may have been); I desire to cast no shadow of doubt upon,
but, on the contrary, marvel at, the exactness of Mr. Gladstone's
information as to the considerations which "affected the method of
the Mosaic writer"; nor do I venture to doubt that the inconvenient
intrusion of these contemptible reptiles--"a family fallen from
greatness" (p. 14), a miserable decayed aristocracy reduced to mere
"skulkers about the earth" (_ibid._)--in consequence, apparently,
of difficulties about the occupation of land arising out of the
earth-hunger of their former serfs, the mammals--into an apologetic
argument, which otherwise would run quite smoothly, is in every way to
be deprecated. Still, the wretched creatures stand there, importunately
demanding notice; and, however different may be the practice in that
contentious atmosphere with which Mr. Gladstone expresses and laments
his familiarity, in the atmosphere of science it really is of no avail
whatever to shut one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them out of