"Even if they (the reconcilers) now allow that the words 'the evening and the morning' have not the least reference to a natural day, but mean a period of any number of millions of years that may be necessary; even if they are driven to admit that the word 'creation,' which so many millions of pious Jews and Christians have held, and still hold, to mean a sudden act of the Deity, signifies a process of gradual evolution of one species from another, extending through immeasurable time; even if they are willing to grant that the asserted coincidence of the order of nature with the 'fourfold order' ascribed to Genesis is an obvious error instead of an established truth, they are surely prepared to make a last stand upon the conception which underlies the whole, and which constitutes the essence of Mr. Gladstone's 'fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times.' It is that the animal species which compose the water-population, the air-population, and the land-population, respectively, originated during three distinct and successive periods of time, and only during these periods of time.... But even this sublimated essence of the Pentateuchal doctrine remains as discordant with natural science as ever." There remains the third, or evolutionary hypothesis regarding the origin of the existing order of nature. As Huxley held it, it was rigidly limited within the possibilities afforded by the agnostic attitude. With regard to the real nature, the origin and destiny of the whole universe, there was not sufficient evidence before the human mind, if indeed the human mind were capable of receiving such evidence, to come to any conclusion. For the rest, for the actual condition of the earth itself, science was gradually accumulating overwhelming evidence in favour of a continuous evolution, under natural agencies, from the beginning of life to the existing forms of animals and plants, and the actual origin of life from inorganic matter under similarly natural agencies was becoming more and more a legitimate inference. Huxley's relation to the New Testament may be summed up in few words. It was simply that there was not sufficient evidence for ascribing to it the supernatural sanction demanded for it by dogmatic theology. "From the dawn of scientific Biblical criticism until the present day, the evidence against the long-cherished notion that the three synoptic gospels are the work of three independent authors, each prompted by Divine inspiration, has steadily accumulated, until, at the present time, there is no visible escape from the conclusion that each of the three is a compilation consisting of a groundwork common to all three--the three-fold tradition; and of a superstructure consisting, firstly, of matter common to it with one of the others, and, secondly, of matter common to each."