"So far as that limited revelation of the nature of things, which we call scientific knowledge, has yet gone, it tends, with constantly increasing emphasis, to the belief that, not merely the world of plants, but that of animals; not merely living things but the whole fabric of the earth; not merely our planet but the whole solar system, not merely our star and its satellites, but the millions of similar bodies which bear witness to the order which pervades boundless space and has endured through boundless time, are all working out their predestined courses of evolution."
The second hypothesis is familiar to us in the sacred records of many religious and in the Hebrew Scriptures. Most of these have a fundamental similarity, inasmuch as they offer pictures in which the mode and order of creation are given in the minutest detail and with the simplest kind of anthropomorphism; in which the Creator is represented with familiar human characteristics. But these general considerations, so obvious now that we have learned to read the Bible narrative without passion or prejudice, were not plain to the early opponents of evolution, and it was necessary, step by step, to shew not only that the narrative in Genesis could not be reconciled with known facts if it were accepted in its literal meaning, but that the most strained interpretation of the language failed to bring it into accordance with scientific truth. Mr. Gladstone was the latest and most vigorous of those who attempted to reconcile Genesis with modern knowledge, and in his controversy with Huxley he brought to bear all the resources of an acute intellect trained by long practice in the devices of argument and inspired by a lofty if mistaken enthusiasm. In the course of his argument he wrote:
"But the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skilfully constructed narrative; it is whether natural science, in the patient exercise of its high calling to examine facts, finds that the works of God cry out against what we have fondly believed to be His word and tell another tale; or whether, in this nineteenth century of Christian progress, it substantially echoes back the majestic sound, which, before it existed as a pursuit, went forth into all lands.