Huxley, Prof Thomas Henry - The Interpreters Of Genesis And The Interpreters Of Nature

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THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

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The Interpreters of Genesis

and the Interpreters of Nature

By Thomas Henry Huxley

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com

The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature

By Thomas Henry Huxley

This is Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition"

Our fabulist warns "those who in quarrels interpose" of the fate

which is probably in store for them; and, in venturing to place

myself between so powerful a controversialist as Mr. Gladstone

and the eminent divine whom he assaults with such vigour in the

last number of this Review, I am fully aware that I run great

danger of verifying Gay's prediction. Moreover, it is quite

possible that my zeal in offering aid to a combatant so

extremely well able to take care of himself as M. Reville may be

thought to savour of indiscretion.

Two considerations, however, have led me to face the double

risk. The one is that though, in my judgment, M. Reville is

wholly in the right in that part of the controversy to which I

propose to restrict my observations, nevertheless he, as a

foreigner, has very little chance of making the truth prevail

with Englishmen against the authority and the dialectic skill of

the greatest master of persuasive rhetoric among English-

speaking men of our time. As the Queen's proctor intervenes, in

certain cases, between two litigants in the interests of

justice, so it may be permitted me to interpose as a sort of

uncommissioned science proctor. My second excuse for my

meddlesomeness is, that important questions of natural science--

respecting which neither of the combatants professes to speak as

an expert--are involved in the controversy; and I think it is

desirable that the public should know what it is that natural

science really has to say on these topics, to the best belief of

one who has been a diligent student of natural science for the

last forty years.

The original "Prolegomenes de l'Histoire des Religions" has not

come in my way; but I have read the translation of M. Reville's

work, published in England under the auspices of Professor Max

Muller, with very great interest. It puts more fairly and

clearly than any book previously known to me, the view which a

man of strong religious feelings, but at the same time

possessing the information and the reasoning power which enable

him to estimate the strength of scientific methods of inquiry

and the weight of scientific truth, may be expected to take of

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

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the relation between science and religion.

In the chapter on "The Primitive Revelation" the scientific

worth of the account of the Creation given in the book of

Genesis is estimated in terms which are as unquestionably

respectful as, in my judgment, they are just; and, at the end of

the chapter on "Primitive Tradition," M. Reville appraises the

value of pentateuchal anthropology in a way which I should have

thought sure of enlisting the assent of all competent judges,

even if it were extended to the whole of the cosmogony and

biology of Genesis:--

As, however, the original traditions of nations sprang up in an

epoch less remote than our own from the primitive life, it is

indispensable to consult them, to compare them, and to associate

them with other sources of information which are available.

From this point of view, the traditions recorded in Genesis

possess, in addition to their own peculiar charm, a value of the

highest order; but we cannot ultimately see in them more than a

venerable fragment, well-deserving attention, of the great

genesis of mankind.

Mr. Gladstone is of a different mind. He dissents from

M. Reville's views respecting the proper estimation of the

pentateuchal traditions, no less than he does from his

interpretation of those Homeric myths which have been the object

of his own special study. In the latter case, Mr. Gladstone

tells M. Reville that he is wrong on his own authority, to

which, in such a matter, all will pay due respect: in the

former, he affirms himself to be "wholly destitute of that kind

of knowledge which carries authority," and his rebuke is

administered in the name and by the authority of

natural science.

An air of magisterial gravity hangs about the following

passage:--

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

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

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echoes back the majestic sound, which, before it existed as a

pursuit, went forth into all lands.

First, looking largely at the latter portion of the narrative,

which describes the creation of living organisms, and waiving

details, on some of which (as in v. 24) the Septuagint seems to

vary from the Hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division, set

forth in an orderly succession of times as follows: on the

fifth day

1. The water-population;

2. The air-population;

and, on the sixth day,

3. The land-population of animals;

4. The land-population consummated in man.

Now this same fourfold order is understood to have been so

affirmed in our time by natural science, that it may be taken as

a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" (p. 696).

"Understood?" By whom? I cannot bring myself to imagine that Mr.

Gladstone has made so solemn and authoritative a statement on a

matter of this importance without due inquiry--without being

able to found himself upon recognised scientific authority. But

I wish he had thought fit to name the source from whence he has

derived his information, as, in that case, I could have dealt

with [143] his authority, and I should have thereby escaped the

appearance of making an attack on Mr. Gladstone himself, which

is in every way distasteful to me.

For I can meet the statement in the last paragraph of the above

citation with nothing but a direct negative. If I know anything

at all about the results attained by the natural science of our

time, it is "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact"

that the "fourfold order" given by Mr. Gladstone is not that in

which the evidence at our disposal tends to show that the water,

air, and land-populations of the globe have made

their appearance.

Perhaps I may be told that Mr. Gladstone does give his

authority--that he cites Cuvier, Sir John Herschel, and Dr.

Whewell in support of his case. If that has been Mr. Gladstone's

intention in mentioning these eminent names, I may remark that,

on this particular question, the only relevant authority is that

of Cuvier. But great as Cuvier was, it is to be remembered that,

as Mr. Gladstone incidentally remarks, he cannot now be called a

recent authority. In fact, he has been dead more than half a

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

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century; and the palaeontology of our day is related to that of

his, very much as the geography of the sixteenth century is

related to that of the fourteenth. Since 1832, when Cuvier died,

not only a new world, but new worlds, of ancient life have been

discovered; and those who have most faithfully carried on the

work of the chief founder of palaeontology have done most to

invalidate the essentially negative grounds of his speculative

adherence to tradition.

If Mr. Gladstone's latest information on these matters is

derived from the famous discourse prefixed to the "Ossemens

Fossiles," I can understand the position he has taken up; if he

has ever opened a respectable modern manual of palaeontology, or

geology, I cannot. For the facts which demolish his whole

argument are of the commonest notoriety. But before proceeding

to consider the evidence for this assertion we must be clear

about the meaning of the phraseology employed.

I apprehend that when Mr. Gladstone uses the term "water-

population" he means those animals which in Genesis i. 21

(Revised Version) are spoken of as "the great sea monsters and

every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought

forth abundantly, after their kind." And I presume that it will

be agreed that whales and porpoises, sea fishes, and the

innumerable hosts of marine invertebrated animals, are meant

thereby. So "air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl" in

verse 20, and "every winged fowl after its kind," verse 21.

I suppose I may take it for granted that by "fowl" we have here

to understand birds--at any rate primarily. Secondarily, it may

be that the bats and the extinct pterodactyles, which were

flying reptiles, come under the same head. But whether all

insects are "creeping things" of the land-population, or whether

flying insects are to be included under the denomination of

"winged fowl," is a point for the decision of Hebrew exegetes.

Lastly, I suppose I may assume that "land-population" signifies

"the cattle" and "the beasts of the earth," and "every creeping

thing that creepeth upon the earth," in verses 25 and 26;

presumably it comprehends all kinds of terrestrial animals,

vertebrate and invertebrate, except such as may be comprised

under the head of the "air-population."

Now what I want to make clear is this: that if the terms "water-

population," "air-population," and "land-population" are

understood in the senses here defined, natural science has

nothing to say in favour of the proposition that they succeeded

one another in the order given by Mr. Gladstone; but that, on

THE INTERPRETERS OF GENESIS AND THE INTERPRETERS OF NATURE

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the contrary, all the evidence we possess goes to prove that

they did not. Whence it will follow that, if Mr. Gladstone has

interpreted Genesis rightly (on which point I am most anxious to

be understood to offer no opinion), that interpretation is

wholly irreconcilable with the conclusions at present accepted

by the interpreters of nature--with everything that can be

called "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" of

natural science. And be it observed that I am not here dealing

with a question of speculation, but with a question of fact.

Either the geological record is sufficiently complete to afford

us a means of determining the order in which animals have made

their appearance on the globe or it is not. If it is, the

determination of that order is little more than a mere matter of

observation; if it is not, then natural science neither affirms

nor refutes the "fourfold order," but is simply silent.

The series of the fossiliferous deposits, which contain the

remains of the animals which have lived on the earth in past

ages of its history, and which can alone afford the evidence

required by natural science of the order of appearance of their

different species, may be grouped in the manner shown in the

left-hand column of the following table, the oldest being at

the bottom:--

Formations First known appearance of

Quaternary.

Pliocene.

Miocene.

Eocene. Vertebrate air-population (Bats).

Cretaceous.

Jurassic. Vertebrate air-population (Birds and

Pterodactyles).

Triassic.

Upper Palaeozoic.

Middle Palaeozoic. Vertebrate land-population (Amphibia,

Reptilia [?]).

Lower Palaeozoic.

Silurian. Vertebrate water-population (Fishes).

Invertebrate air and land-

population (Flying Insects and Scorpions).

Cambrian. Invertebrate water-population (much

earlier, if Eozoon is animal).

In the right-hand column I have noted the group of strata in

which, according to our present information, the land,

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Huxley, Prof Thomas Henry - The Interpreters Of Genesis And The Interpreters Of Nature

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