Huxley showed that, as a matter of
fact, no such "fourfold division" and "orderly succession"
exist; that, so far from establishing Mr. Gladstone's assumption
that the population of water, air, and land followed each other
in the order given, "all the evidence we possess goes to prove
that they did not"; that the distribution of fossils through the
various strata proves that some land animals originated before
sea animals; that there has been a mixing of sea, land, and air
"population" utterly destructive to the "great fourfold
division" and to the creation "in an orderly succession of
times"; that, so far is the view presented in the sacred text,
as stated by Mr. Gladstone, from having been "so affirmed in
our own time by natural science, that it may be taken as a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact" that Mr.
Gladstone's assertion is "directly contradictory to facts known
to every one who is acquainted with the elements of natural
science"; that Mr. Gladstone's only geological authority,
Cuvier, had died more than fifty years before, when geological
science was in its infancy [and he might have added, when it was
necessary to make every possible concession to the Church]; and,
finally, he challenged Mr.
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