Science and Christian tradition : essays / by Thomas H. Huxley.

  • Thomas Henry Huxley
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Science and Christian tradition : essays / by Thomas H. Huxley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/464 page 34
    I physical criticism, that no such event as that described ever took place ; to exhibit the untrust^- worthy character of the narrative demonstrated by literary criticism ; and, finally, to account for its origin, by ]3roducing a form of those ancient legends of pagan Chaldsea, from Avhich the biblical compilation is manifestly derived. I have yet to learn that the main propositions of this essay can be seriously challenged. In the essays (II., III.) on the narrative of the Creation, I have endeavoured to controvert the assertion that modern science supports, either the interpretation put upon it by Mr. Gladstone, or any interpretation which is compatible with the general sense of the naiTative, quite apart from particular details. The first chapter of Genesis teaches the supernatural creation of the present forms of life; modern science teaches that they have come about by evolution. The first chaj)ter of Genesis teaches the successive origin—firstly, of all the j)lants, secondly, of all the aquatic and aerial animals, thirdly, of all the terrestrial ani- mals, which now exist—during distinct intervals of time ; modern science teaches that, throughout all the duration of an immensely long past, so far as we have any adequate knowledge of it (that is as far back as the Silurian epoch), plants, aquatic, aerial, and terrestrial animals have co-existed; that the earliest known are unlike those which at present exist; and that the modern species have
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