Prof. Winch.e.l.l estimates that the Mississippi River, has worn a gorge 100 feet deep, 8 miles long, back to the Falls of St. Anthony, in about 8,000 years. The whole thickness of the Nile sediment, 40 feet in one place, was deposited in about 13,000 years. Calculations by Southall and others from certain strata have fixed man"s first appearance on the earth at 8,000 years, in harmony with Scripture.
LeConte, in his Geology, p. 19, says, "Making due allowance for all variations, it is probable that all land-surfaces are being cut down and lowered by rain and river erosion, at a rate of one foot every 5,000 years. At this rate, if we take the mean height of lands as 1200 feet, and there be no antagonistic agency at work raising the land, all lands would be cut down to the sea level and disappear in 6,000,000 years."
May we not from these data, judge approximately of the age of the world, and show by this proof also, that the world can not be at all as old as the evolution theory demands? If the surface of the earth will be worn down 1200 feet on an average in 6,000,000 years, would it not also be true that the surface has been worn down at least 1200 feet in the last 6,000,000 years? For the higher the surface, the more rapid the erosion. And if the earth is 8,302,210 years old, as Lord Kelvin computes, then at the same rate, it must have been worn down an average of 1660 feet,--38% more than remains. Is this not a fair estimate for the amount of erosion and the age of the world? How high must the land have averaged, if the world is even 60,000,000 years old?
If this be true, how long would it have taken erosion in the past, to reduce the land to its present configuration,--the short period indicated by science, or the immensely long period required by evolution?
But the evolutionists are clinging to the radio-activity theory desperately, an S.O.S. of a lost cause, depending, like evolution, on a great many a.s.sumptions, and unproven hypotheses. The a.s.sumption is that a radio-active substance, like uranium, "decays," or pa.s.ses into many other substances, of which radium is one, finally producing lead in 1,000,000,000 years or more. From this theory, Prof. Russell concludes that the earth is 4,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years old, and the sun is older still. During this inconceivably long period, the sun was giving out as much heat as at present, which is 2,200,000,000 times as much as the earth receives. The heat of the sun can not be accounted for, by either the combustion or cooling off theory. By the commonly accepted contraction theory, the heat has been maintained only about 20,000,000 years. How could it have been sustained 4,000,000,000 to 8,000,000,000 years? Prof. Russell answers: "We must therefore _suppose_ that energy from an "unknown source" becomes available at exceedingly high temperatures.... We can not do more than _guess_ where it is hidden." Is this scientific? This theory, moreover, is interlocked with Einstein"s theory of Relativity, which holds that all energy has ma.s.s, and all ma.s.s is equivalent to energy. Although 2700 books have been written, pro and con, upon Einstein"s theory, yet he says only 12 men understand it, and a scientist retorts that Einstein can not be one of the 12. The contraction theory, the thickness of the cooled crust of the earth, and the conformation of its surface, all give mathematical proof that evolution is impossible because of lack of time.
11. GEOLOGY AND HISTORY
During the historical period, the species have remained unchanged. If over 1,000,000 species of animals have arisen in the 60,000,000 years, as is claimed, over 2000 of them must have arisen in the last 6,000 years. As evolutionists can not name a single new species that has arisen within that time, their theory falls to the ground. No species in that time, has pa.s.sed into another. No species has been divided into two or more. No lower species has advanced into a higher. History gives no sc.r.a.p of evidence in support of evolution. Even the horse, whose history has been dubiously traced for 3,000,000 years, has been a horse unchanged for the last 6,000 years. Even if the missing links in the development of the horse _could_ be supplied, it would still be the same species all the while. But there are no transitional forms showing alleged changes in the development of the horse from the four-toed creature of squirrel like size. Many varieties and individuals under the skill of man have been developed and improved, but not a single new species in historic time. There are 5,000 varieties of apples but no new species. But when the evolutionist is hard pressed to answer, he takes to the wilds of eternity where it is hard to pursue him, and to check up on his guesses. He answers that changes are so slow, and take so many millions of years, that they can not tell of a single new species in the last 6,000 years, when over 2,000 are required.
He appeals to Geology, which is history down to historic time, expecting to take advantage of the ignorance of the careless student.
But Geology will not aid him to prove his reckless theory. Even Darwin complained that the evidences from Geology were scanty. Geology testifies: The genera and species of fossil animals are as distinct as those now living; new species appear at certain epochs entirely different from those which preceded; often the most perfect specimens of a new species appear at the beginning of a geologic period rather than at its close, leaving no room for evolution; no species is shown changing into another; and many species are largest at the beginning. As Geology is brought in as a hopeful witness by evolutionists, they are bound by a well-known principle of law, to accept the statements of their own witness even though fatal to their theory.
For them, Geology furnishes sorry evidence concerning the evolution of man from the brute. The great scheme of evolution claims as its chief support four geologic "finds." We can not be certain that any one of these has the slightest evidential value. An ardent evolutionist, Dr.
Dubois, found a few bones, part ape, part human, buried in the river _sands_, 40 feet deep. They were scattered 50 feet apart, no two joined together. They called this strange creature pithecanthropus, and fixed its age at 750,000 years; others reduced it to 375,000 years. These few bones are no doubt from a modern ape and modern man.
The Heidelberg Jaw was also found _in the sand_, and is guessed to be 700,000 years old. It is hard to be respectful while they gravely tell such stories. But the next is even worse: The Piltdown man, alias the Piltdown fake, fabricated out of a few bones of a man and a few of an ape. It is rejected as a fabrication even by many evolutionists.
The Neanderthal man lived, they say, about 50,000 years ago. A part of a skull was found in a cave.
All the bones purporting to belong to these four creatures would not together make one complete skeleton, or even one complete skull. A child could carry all this "evidence" in a basket. These skulls can be duplicated by abnormal skulls in many graveyards today. Scientists are not certain they belong to the same individual. Part ape, part human. A desperate effort to get convincing evidence, where there is none. We can not be certain they lived in the age claimed. Scientists, even evolutionists, differ widely.
In contrast to this scant and uncertain evidence, Ales Hrdlicka, of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution, speaking of a single locality, says, "Near Lyons, France, the skeletons of 200,000 prehistoric horses are scattered. In one cave in Moravia, there are enough mammoth teeth to fill a small sized hall.... From the Heidelberg man, there is practically no record for about 200,000 years. The kinship of the Piltdown Java and Heidelberg man _is open to dispute_. The Neanderthal man may not have been a direct ancestor, of the species which produced Shakespeare, Napoleon and Newton." Remains of the unchanged ape are abundant. But the alleged human remains are scanty and uncertain." Now if there were millions and billions of human beings developing from the brutes, should we not expect as many remains as of horses and mammoths and apes? We do not have millions of them, simply because they did not exist. Is not this well nigh a demonstration?
Shall we, upon this scant and uncertain evidence, accept a theory that shocks the reason and the moral sense of mankind, and which leads naturally to infidelity and atheism, and takes away even our hope of immortality? Later in this volume we will consider more fully the alleged proofs from these geologic "finds."
Prof. Charles Lyell said: "In the year 1806, the French Inst.i.tute enumerated not less than 80 geological theories which were hostile to the Scriptures; but not one of these theories is held today."
Many have come to the hasty conclusion that there was a continuous elaboration or a progressive growth among all species. True in some cases, but by no means universal. Many species have remained stable for millions of years; many have retrograded and deteriorated. Indeed, some evolutionists claim man has retrograded.
Many species of animals have been larger than their modern descendants. Many species show no change. All the bacilli remain the same microscopic species, even those too microscopic to be seen or isolated. They multiply the same, and produce the same diseases. How can there be growth in the microscopic world either animal or vegetable? The doctrine that there is a development and a growth among all species of animals or plants, is contradicted by the facts. If that doctrine were true, there would be no lower order of animals after so many millions of years of growth. All would have been large and of a high order like others. Since we find a majority of all animal species less in size than the fly, there has been little growth in most species, and in many, none at all. The amoebae, one celled animals, smaller than a small pin-head, have existed unchanged since life began. If plants and animals all developed from a one-celled animal, such as the amoeba, why did not the amoeba develop? Or, if some developed, why not all? Certainly there would not remain a great mult.i.tude of species in the microscopic world.
Of many species small and large, we have many fossils preserved but _no transitional forms_. The archaeopteryx, a bird with a feathered tail, is the only alleged transitional form between the reptiles and the birds. Only two specimens of this same animal have been found. This could easily be an exceptional species of created birds differing no more from the normal bird than the ostrich or humming bird. If there were transitional forms we ought to have them by the millions. No transitional forms have been found between reptiles and mammals; and we have seen that there are no reliable forms between man and mammals. The numerous missing links make a chain impossible. Evolution is not simply growth or change, but the development of all species from one germ.
12. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
Geographical Distribution, another witness claimed by the evolutionists, bears testimony, which they are bound, in law, to receive.
We find animals whose power of locomotion is very limited, scattered all over the world, like the mollusca and crustacea, embracing a large number of families, genera, and species. It is incredible that these all originated in one place, and from one germ, and migrated to distant parts of the world. The oyster, for example, is found in Europe, Africa, North and South America. There are over 200 species, found in all warm tempered climates, but none in the coldest regions. How could they cross the ocean and be distributed along all continents? They are soon attached to solid rocks, or other supports, and do not move at all. And if they do, how could they cross thousands of miles of ocean barren of all food?
Dr. George W. Field, an expert authority, says the oysters of Europe are unis.e.xual, but in America, they are double-s.e.xed. How could one be derived from the other? Even the oyster is too much for the evolutionist. The same argument applies to a great mult.i.tude of species, that have little or no powers of locomotion.
If all plants and animals originated from one germ in one place, how can plants, indigenous to a single continent, or hemisphere, be accounted for? Why, for example, was there no maize, or Indian corn, in the old world? Or tomatoes, potatoes, or any other plants indigenous to America? If these once existed in the old world, as they must have done, according to the theory, why were they found in America alone?
Here we quote from Prof. Aga.s.siz, one of the greatest authorities the world ever knew: "I will, therefore, consider the trans.m.u.tation theory of species as a _scientific mistake, untrue in its facts, unscientific in its method, and mischievous in its tendency." (Italics ours and yours)._
13. G.o.d NOT ABSENT NOR INACTIVE
The theory that G.o.d is absent or inactive is as untenable and G.o.d-dishonoring as the discarded theory of atheism itself.
Evolution, as held by many, harmonizes with and supports the false and impossible a.s.sumption that G.o.d created one, or at most, a few germs, from which all animal species including man, and plants developed, by "natural law." This theory seems plausible to those who do not examine it too closely. It does not deny the existence of G.o.d, and concedes he may have created one or more germs, but delegated the development of an orderly world to "natural law." Thus his activities are no longer needed. Perhaps they entertain the thought that G.o.d must grow weary under the active and sleepless control of the universe, if not of the world alone. They lose sight of the fact that a G.o.d of infinite mind and power can not be wearied by any possible complications, or any required amount of energy. Rather, the exercise of unlimited energy is a source of pleasure and happiness. May we not learn this from the boundless extent of the universe? Creation is not a task, but a great satisfaction. If G.o.d finds so much happiness in creating a boundless universe, would he renounce the pleasure of the active care and control of 3,000,000 species?
The hypothesis that G.o.d delegates to "law" the evolution of the universe, the world, and all species, is untenable, because no law, human or divine, can enforce itself. Law has no power. It is not a being, a creature, a living thing. It is absolutely helpless. It can not be G.o.d"s agent to carry out his will. Why the need of it? Why should not G.o.d use his power direct to do his will? What gain in creating and employing an agent? Which would be easier, to execute his own will, or delegate it to a law?
His law is simply the record of his acts. He executes his own will with exact regularity. He does not vary. Hence, all his creatures may depend on regularity. It seems like law. The power in every case is the power of G.o.d. Law has no power. The law of gravitation has no power. Matter has no power. One of the primary lessons we learn in physics is the inertia of matter. Matter can not move, unless moved upon; nor stop of itself, when once in motion. Absolutely powerless!
The power of attraction, which we may call a property of matter, is really the power of G.o.d. The effects are the results of power and intelligence. Law has neither power nor intelligence. Human law marks out the course man _should_ pursue. Divine law records the course G.o.d _has_ pursued. Human law must be enforced by all the executive power of the nation. G.o.d executes his own will, with perfect regularity; and, by courtesy of language, we call it "law." He is the great executor of the universe, not far removed, but proven present everywhere, by the power and wisdom necessary to produce the results.
These results are found in the boundless universe, and in the microscopic world. They are found in the world far below the power of the most powerful microscope to detect. All the combinations of chemical elements are made, hidden from the eye of the microscope.
Substances are dissolved and new combinations made, atoms are numbered, counted and combined with mathematical precision, and with an intelligence difficult for man to compute. No law could do this. Only a Being who has sufficient power and intelligence is equal to it. Law has no power, nor intelligence. Water is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen, combined with absolute precision everywhere. All chemical reactions require computations of an intelligent being. All nature teems with proofs that G.o.d is every where present. The elements in a high explosive are arranged instantly in new combinations, each atom taking its proper partners, in the proper proportion, with unerring precision. Countless calculations of the most difficult kind are made instantly and continually by the divine mind. Thus G.o.d"s presence everywhere in the minutest forms of matter is clearly proved. It is a mathematical demonstration. G.o.d is not wearied by the care of worlds and suns, and systems and snow-drifts of stars on the highway of heaven, and takes just as perfect notice of atoms and electrons. They who think G.o.d is unable or unwilling to take care of the minutest division of matter as well as the rolling suns, must have a very diluted idea of G.o.d. It is now claimed that the atom, formerly believed to be the smallest division of matter, consists of 1740 parts. Sir Oliver Lodge says that the structure of an atom is as complex as that of a piano. This latest scientific discovery detects the power and wisdom of G.o.d, controlling, for ages, this minutest division of matter, undetected by the most powerful microscope.
It staggers one to think of the countless and difficult calculations that are made instantly by the divine mind in every part of the universe. The path of every snowflake that lazily pursues its tortuous course, and rests upon the lap of earth, is marked out, not by any law or agent, but by G.o.d himself. He calculates instantly the cyclone"s path, the movement of every particle of air, the direction, velocity and path of every raindrop. A law could not do it. The wisest man could not do it. But G.o.d can do it, with the ease with which the tempest carries a feather on its bosom, or the ocean floats a straw!
Every second, about 16,000,000 tons of rain and snow fall to the earth; and G.o.d calculates the paths of the myriad flakes of snow and drops of rain instantly and unerringly.
The Conservation of Energy and the inter-convertibility of forces--light, heat, electricity,--taking place constantly everywhere, often on a stupendous scale, require bewildering calculations by an ever-present G.o.d. No energy, not even potential energy, can be lost in converting one force into another. It must be computed exactly.
Who but an infinite G.o.d could have calculated the enormous potential energy of the nebulous gases, required by contraction to cause the prodigious heat of a universe of suns?
The earth turns over noiselessly every 24 hours, carrying on its bosom, at the rate of 1000 mi. an hour, at dizzy heights, a most tenuous atmosphere, without a rustle, without the loss of a second in 1000 years. The earth with its satellite, is traveling around the sun at the rate of 18.5 mi. per second--75 times as fast as a cannon ball,--bearing a load of 6,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons, and arriving at a given point in its...o...b..t, on exact time every tropical year. It has arrived so promptly on time following its elliptical course, at such a rate that the radius vector, a line from the sun to the earth, pa.s.ses over equal areas in equal times, furnishing every moment an abtruse problem difficult for a scholar to solve. The orbit is so vast that it varies from a straight line, but 4 in. in 666 mi., the distance from Philadelphia to Chicago.
The sun also, with its family of worlds and their satellites, is plunging through s.p.a.ce at the rate of 8.5 mi. per second; moreover, there are swarms of huge suns, many larger than ours, moving in straight-lines like a universe on a journey, and countless millions of suns in swiftest flight through the skies, whose orbits and rates of motion must all be calculated and controlled by a mind of amazing power and intelligence.
Is not the so-called "scientist" either a madman or a fool, who believes that all this can be accounted for, without the presence of a G.o.d of infinite power and intelligence?
Water contracts as the temperature falls. But when within four degrees of the freezing point, water expands and ice becomes lighter than water, and floats, and saves all bodies of water from becoming solid bodies of ice.
Who can say that G.o.d does not intervene, in this case, to save all life? It is a striking proof that G.o.d is not absent nor inactive.
Gravitation requires the computation of countless millions of the most complex and difficult problems, every instant, by the divine mind. The attraction of all matter for all other matter is in proportion directly to the ma.s.s and inversely to the square of the distance. The exact weight of every object is determined by the attraction of the earth and every particle thereof, the mountain that may be nearby, the elevation and alt.i.tude of the place, the attraction of the sun and the moon, and every star in heaven, even though too small to be computed by man,--all these are computed precisely by the divine mind. These innumerable calculations prove that G.o.d is everywhere. We are continually in the immediate awesome presence of an Infinite G.o.d.
Every computation that man ever made, was made long before by a great Intelligence, that excels all others combined. How intricate is the calculation of the divine mind, which causes the water of every ocean, sea, lake, pond, and vessel, when at rest, to correspond with the exact sphericity of the earth. In the face of innumerable and difficult calculations,--proofs of the intense activity of the divine mind,--who can be so reckless as to say that G.o.d is absent or inactive?
Not only does G.o.d make endless calculations in executing his will in the material universe, but in the intellectual, moral and spiritual world as well. We can not measure, with any human instruments, the amount of mental discipline and improvement, resulting from a certain amount of study. But G.o.d calculates unerringly the precise amount of mental discipline or improvement earned by every mental exertion. The amount is in precise proportion to the mental effort. The gain is definite, exact and unerring, the calculation is instantaneous, and beyond the power of the profoundest mathematician to compute. So also, the effect of every moral act, wish, desire, purpose, intention or affection, is instantly computed, and the moral character modified in exact proportion to their weight. If a man indulges in vice, he becomes vicious in proportion. If he commits a crime, he becomes more criminal in nature. Every theft is computed at its proper value.
Every good and n.o.ble act enn.o.bles the character in proportion to its worth. There is a settlement, every instant, and all deeds, wishes, desires, purposes, and affections go into the character, and affect it in precise proportion to their weight. Who but an infinite G.o.d, can keep all accounts of his innumerable creatures instantaneously, and have them complete, exact and unerring? No man, nor angel, nor "law,"
could do it. In like manner, every spiritual act, wish, purpose, motive,--all go in to make up the spiritual life of man, in exact proportion to their worth. Not all the mathematicians and scribes in the universe could together solve the problems, that the great intellect of the Supreme Ruler is solving every instant of time.