Section 3. Simultaneous Creation.

This objection may be very briefly disposed of, though it appears to be one which has made a very deep impression on Mr. Darwin. [Footnote: Origin of Species, p 1, &c.] It is entirely an inference drawn from the old interpretation of the six days. While that interpretation was received it followed, as a necessary consequence, that the creation of all kinds of plants on the third day, and of reptiles, birds, and mammalia on the fifth and sixth days respectively, must have been simultaneous. But if that interpretation is proved to be untenable, the inference drawn from it falls to the ground. The language of the narrative seems to point in an opposite direction. There is one instance in the chapter in which the words used seem to point to an instantaneous result. "And God said 'Let light be' and Light was," though in this case the words probably have a further significance, which has been brought out by the discovery of the nature of light. But in these three cases the command is first recorded, with (in two cases) the addition "and it was so," and then the narrative goes on to speak of the fulfilment of the command, as if the command and its fulfilment were distinct things.