The Scripture history may be viewed as dividing the progress of the creation into two great periods, the later of which only is embraced in the geological record. The first commences with the original chaos, and reaches to the completion of inorganic nature on the fourth day.
Had we any geological records of the first of these periods, we should perceive the evidences of slow mutations, tending to the sorting and arrangement of the materials of the earth, and to produce distinct light and darkness, sea and land, atmosphere and cloud, out of what was originally a mixture of the whole. We should also, according to the Scriptural record, find this period interlocking with the next, by the intervention of a great vegetable creation, before the final adjustment of the earth"s relations to the other bodies of our system.
The second period is that of the creative development of animal life.
From both records we learn that various ranks or gradations existed from the first introduction of animals; but that on the earlier stages only certain of the lower forms of animals were present; that these soon attained their highest point, and then gradually, on each succeeding platform, the variety of nature in its higher--the vertebrate--form increased, and the upper margin of animal life attained a more and more elevated point, culminating at length in man; while certain of the older forms were dropped, as no longer required.
In the oldest fossiliferous rocks next to the Eozoic, which so far have afforded only Protozoa--e. g., the Cambrian and Lower Silurian--we find the mollusca represented mainly by their highest and lowest cla.s.ses, by allies of the cuttle-fish and nautilus, and by the lowest bivalve sh.e.l.l-fishes. The Articulata are represented by the highest marine cla.s.s--the crustaceans--and by the lowest--the worms, which have left their marks on some of the lowest fossiliferous beds.
The Radiata, in like manner, are represented by species of their highest cla.s.s--the starfishes, etc.--and by some of their simpler polyp forms. At the very beginning, then, of the fossiliferous series, the three lower sub-kingdoms exhibit species of their most elevated aquatic cla.s.ses, though not of the very highest orders in those cla.s.ses. The vertebrated sub-kingdom has, as far as yet known, no representative in these lowest beds. In the Upper Silurian series, however, we find remains of fishes; and in the succeeding Devonian and carboniferous rocks the fishes rise to the highest structures of their cla.s.s; and we find several species of reptiles, representing the next of the vertebrated cla.s.ses in ascending order. Here a very remarkable fact meets us. Before the close of the Palaeozoic period the three lower sub-kingdoms and the fishes had already attained the highest perfection of which their types are capable. Mult.i.tudes of new species and genera were added subsequently, but none of them rising higher in the scale of organization than those which occur in the Palaeozoic rocks. Thenceforth the progressive improvement of the animal kingdom consisted in the addition, first of the reptile, which attained its highest perfection and importance in the Mesozoic period, and then of the bird and mammal, which did not attain their highest forms till the Modern period. This geological order of animal life, it is scarcely necessary to add, agrees perfectly with that sketched by Moses, in which the lower types are completed at once, and the progress is wholly in the higher.
In the inspired narrative we have already noticed some peculiarities, as, for instance, the early appearance of a highly developed flora, and the special mention of great reptiles in the work of the fifth day, which correspond with the significant fact that high types of structure appeared at the very introduction of each new group of organized beings--a fact which, more than any other in geology, shows that, in the organic department, elevation has always been a strictly _creative_ work, and that there is in the const.i.tution of animal species no innate tendency to elevation, but that on the contrary we should rather suspect a tendency to degeneracy and ultimate disappearance, requiring that the fiat of the Creator should after a time go out again to "renew the face of the earth." In the natural as in the moral world, the only law of progress is the will and the power of G.o.d. In one sense, however, progress in the organic world has been dependent on, though not caused by, progress in the inorganic. We see in geology many grounds for believing that each new tribe of animals or plants was introduced just as the earth became fitted for it; and even in the present world we see that regions composed of the more ancient rocks, and not modified by subsequent disturbances, present few of the means of support for man and the higher animals; while those districts in which various revolutions of the earth have acc.u.mulated fertile soils or deposited useful minerals are the chief seats of civilization and population. In like manner we know that those regions which the Bible informs us were the cradle of the human race and the seats of the oldest nations are geologically among the most recent parts of the existing continents, and were no doubt selected by the Creator partly on that account for the birthplace of man. We thus find that the Bible and the geologists are agreed not only as to the fact and order of progress, but also as to its manner and use.
3. Both records agree in affirming that since the beginning there has been but one great system of nature. We can imagine it to have been otherwise. Our existing nature might have been preceded by a state of things having no connection with it. The arrangements of the earth"s surface might have been altogether different; races of creatures might have existed having no affinity with or resemblance to those of the present world, and we might have been able to trace no present beneficial consequences as flowing from these past states of our planet. Had geology made such revelations as these, the consequences in relation to natural theology and the credibility of Scripture would have been momentous. The Mosaic narrative could scarcely, in that case, have been interpreted in such a manner as to accord with geological conclusions. The questions would have arisen--Are there more creative Powers than one? If one, is He an imperfect or capricious being who changes his plans of operation? The divine authority of the Scriptures, as well as the unity and perfections of G.o.d, might thus have been involved in serious doubts. Happily for us, there is nothing of this kind in the geological history of the earth; as there is manifestly nothing of it in that which is revealed in Scripture.
In the Scripture narrative each act of creation prepares for the others, and in its consequences extends to them all. The inspired writer announces the introduction of each new part of creation, and then leaves it without any reference to the various phases which it a.s.sumed as the work advanced. In the grand general view which he takes, the land and seas first made represent those of all the following periods. So do the first plants, the first invertebrate animals, the first fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. He thus a.s.sures us that, however long the periods represented by days of creation, the system of nature was one from the beginning. In like manner in the geological record each of the successive conditions of the earth is related to those which precede and those which follow, as part of a series. So also a uniform plan of construction pervades organic nature, and uniform laws the inorganic world in all periods.
We can thus include in one system of natural history all animals and plants, fossil as well as recent, and can resolve all inorganic changes into the operation of existing laws. The former of these facts is in its nature so remarkable as almost to warrant the belief of special design. Naturalists had arranged the existing animals and plants, without any reference to fossil species, in kingdoms, sub-kingdoms, cla.s.ses, orders, families, and genera. Geological research has added a vast number of species not now existing in a living state; yet all these fossils can be inserted within the limits of recognized groups. We do not require to add a new kingdom, sub-kingdom, or cla.s.s; but, on the contrary, all the fossil genera and species go into the existing divisions, in such a manner as to fill them up precisely where they are most deficient, thus occupying what would otherwise be gaps in the existing system of nature. The princ.i.p.al difficulty which they occasion to the zoologist and botanist is that, by filling the intervals between genera previously widely separated, they give to the whole a degree of continuity which renders it more difficult to decide where the boundaries separating the groups should be placed.
We also find that the animals and plants of the earlier periods often combined in one form powers and properties afterward separated in distinct groups; thus in the earlier formations the sauroid fishes unite peculiarities afterward divided between the fish and reptiles, const.i.tuting what Aga.s.siz has called a synthetic type. Again, the series of creatures in time accords with the ranks which a study of their types of structure induces the naturalist to a.s.sign them in his system; and also within each of the great sub-kingdoms presents many points of accordance with the progress of the embryonic development of the individual animal. Nor is this contradictory to the statement that the earlier representatives of types are often of high and perfect organization, for the progress both in geological time and in the life of the individual is so much one of specialization that an immature animal often presents points of affinity to higher forms that disappear in the adult. In connection with this, earlier organic forms often appear to foreshadow and predict others that are to succeed them in time, as the winged and marine reptiles of the Mesozoic foreshadow the birds and cetaceans. Aga.s.siz has admirably ill.u.s.trated these links of connection between the past and the present in the essay on cla.s.sification prefixed to his "Contributions to the Natural History of America." In reference to "prophetic" types, he says: "They appear now like a prophecy in those earlier times of an order of things not possible with the earlier combinations then prevailing in the animal kingdom, but exhibiting in a later period in a striking manner the antecedent consideration of every step in the gradation of animals."
4. The periods into which geology divides the history of the earth are different from those of Scripture, yet when properly understood there is a marked correspondence. Geology refers only to the fifth and sixth days of creation, or, at most, to these with parts of the fourth and seventh, and it divides this portion of the work into several eras, founded on alternations of rock formations and changes in organic remains. The nature of geological evidence renders it probable that many apparently well-marked breaks in the chain may result merely from deficiency in the preserved remains; and consequently that what appear to the geologist to be very distinct periods may in reality run together. The only natural divisions that Scripture teaches us to look for are those between the fifth and sixth days, and those which within these days mark the introduction of new animal forms, as, for instance, the great reptiles of the fifth day. We have already seen that the beginning of the fifth day can be referred almost with certainty to the Palaeozoic period. The beginning of the sixth day may with nearly equal certainty be referred to that of the Tertiary era.
The introduction of great reptiles and birds in the fifth day synchronizes and corresponds with the beginning of the Mesozoic period; and that of man at the close of the sixth day with the commencement of the Modern era in geology. These four great coincidences are so much more than we could have expected, in records so very different in their nature and origin, that we need not pause to search for others of a more obscure character. It may be well to introduce here a tabular view of this correspondence between the geological and Biblical periods, extending it as far as either record can carry us, and thus giving a complete general view of the origin and history of the world as deduced from revelation and science. In comparing this table with that on page 330, it will be observed that the latter refers to the last half of the creative week only, the earlier half being occupied with physical changes which, however probable inferentially, are not within the scope of geological observation.
PARALLELISM OF THE SCRIPTURAL COSMOGONY WITH THE ASTRONOMICAL AND GEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE EARTH.
====================================================================BIBLICAL aeONS.PERIODS DEDUCED FROM SCIENTIFICCONSIDERATIONS.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- The Beginning.Creation of Matter.
_First Day._--Earth mantled byCondensation of Planetary Bodies the Vaporous Deep--Productionfrom a nebulous ma.s.s--Hypothesis of Light.of original incandescence.
_Second Day._--Earth covered byPrimitive Universal Ocean, and the Waters--Formation of theestablishment of Atmospheric Atmosphere.equilibrium.
_Third Day._--Emergence of DryElevation of the land which Land--Introduction offurnished the materials of the Vegetation.oldest rocks--Eozoic Period ofGeology?
_Fourth Day._--Completion of theMetamorphism of Eozoic rocks and arrangements of the Solar System.disturbances preceding theCambrian epoch--Presentarrangement of Seasons--Dominionof "Existing Causes" begins.
_Fifth Day._--Invertebrates andPalaeozoic Period--Reign of Fishes, and afterward greatInvertebrates and Fishes.
Reptiles and Birds created.Mesozoic Period--Reign ofReptiles.
_Sixth Day._--Introduction ofTertiary Period--Reign of Mammals.
Mammals--Creation of Man andPost-Tertiary--Existing Mammals Edenic Group of Animals.and Man.
_Seventh Day._--Cessation of WorkPeriod of Human History.
of Creation--Fall and Redemptionof Man._Eighth Day._--New Heavens andEarth to succeed the Human Epoch--"The Rest (Sabbath) thatremains to the People of G.o.d."[149]======================================================================
_Note._--The above table is identical with that published in "Archaia"
in 1860, and which the author sees no reason now to change.
5. In both records the ocean gives birth to the first dry land, and it is the sea that is first inhabited, yet both lead at least to the suspicion that a state of igneous fluidity preceded the primitive universal ocean. In Scripture the original prevalence of the ocean is distinctly stated, and all geologists are agreed that in the early fossiliferous periods the sea must have prevailed much more extensively than at present. Scripture also expressly states that the waters were the birthplace of the earliest animals, and geology has as yet discovered in the whole Silurian series no terrestrial animal, though marine creatures are extremely abundant; and though air-breathing creatures are found in the later Palaeozoic, they are, with the exception of insects, of that semi-amphibious character which is proper to alluvial flats and the deltas of rivers. It is true that the negative evidence collected by geology does not render it altogether impossible that terrestrial animals, even mammals, may have existed in the earliest periods; yet there are, as already pointed out, some positive indications opposed to this. The Scripture, however, commits itself to the statement that the higher land animals did not exist so early, though it must be observed that there is nothing in the Mosaic narrative adverse to the existence of birds, insects, and reptiles in the earlier Palaeozoic periods. I have said that the Bible, which informs us of a universal ocean preceding the existence of land, also gives indications of a still earlier period of igneous fluidity or gaseous expansion. Geology also and astronomy have their reasonings and speculations as to the prevalence of such conditions. Here, however, both records become dim and obscure, though it is evident that both point in the same direction, and combine those aqueous and igneous origins which in the last century afforded so fertile ground of one-sided dispute.
6. Both records concur in maintaining what is usually termed the doctrine of existing causes in geology. Scripture and geology alike show that since the beginning of the fifth day, or Palaeozoic period, the inorganic world has continued under the dominion of the same causes that now regulate its changes and processes. The sacred narrative gives no hint of any creative interposition in this department after the fourth day; and geology a.s.sures us that all the rocks with which it is acquainted have been produced by the same causes that are now throwing down detritus in the bottom of the waters, or bringing up volcanic products from the interior of the earth. This grand generalization, therefore, first worked out in modern times by Sir Charles Lyell, from a laborious collection of the changes occurring in the present state of the world, was, as a doctrine of divine revelation, announced more than three thousand years ago by the Hebrew lawgiver; not for scientific purposes, but as a part of the theology of the Hebrew monotheism.
7. Both records agree in a.s.suring us that death prevailed in the world ever since animals were introduced. The punishment threatened to Adam, and considerations connected with man"s state of innocence, have led to the belief that the Bible teaches that the lower animals, as well as man, were exempt from death before the fall. When, however, we find the great _tanninim_, or crocodilian reptiles, created in the fifth day, and beasts of prey on the sixth, we need entertain no doubt on the subject, in so far as Scripture is concerned. The geological record is equally explicit. Carnivorous creatures, with the most formidable powers of destruction, have left their remains in all parts of the geological series; and indeed, up to the introduction of man, the carnivorous fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds were the lords and tyrants of the earth. There can be little doubt, however, that the introduction of man was the beginning of a change in this respect. A creature dest.i.tute of offensive weapons, and subsisting on fruits, was to rule by the power of intellect. As already hinted, it is probable that in Eden he was surrounded by a group of inoffensive animals, and that those creatures which he had cause to dread would have disappeared as he extended his dominion. In this way the law of violent death and destruction which prevailed under the dynasties of the fish, the reptile, and the carnivorous mammifer would ultimately have been abrogated; and under the milder sway of man life and peace would have reigned in a manner to which our knowledge of pre-Adamite and present nature may afford no adequate key. Be this as it may, on the important point of the original prevalence of death among the lower animals both records are at one.
8. In the department of "final causes," as they have been termed, Scripture and geology unite in affording large and interesting views.
They ill.u.s.trate the procedure of the All-wise Creator during a long succession of ages, and thus enable us to see the effects of any of his laws, not only at one time, but in far distant periods. To reject the consideration of this peculiarity of geological science would be the extremest folly, and would involve at once a misinterpretation of the geologic record and a denial of the agency of an intelligent Designer as revealed in Scripture, and indicated by the succession of beings. Many of the past changes of the earth acquire their full significance only when taken in connection with the present wants of the earth"s inhabitants; and along the whole course of the geological history the creatures that we meet with are equally rich in the evidences of nice adaptation to circ.u.mstances and wonderful contrivances for special ends, with their modern representatives. As an example of the former, how wonderful is the connection of the great vegetable acc.u.mulations of the ancient coal swamps, and the bands and nodules of iron-stone which were separated from the ferruginous sands or clays in their vicinity by the action of this very vegetable matter, with the whole fabric of modern civilization, and especially with the prosperity of that race which, in our time, stands in the front of the world"s progress. In a very ancient period, wide swamps and deltas, teeming with vegetable life, and which, if they now existed, would be but pestilent breeders of miasmata, spread over large tracts of the northern hemisphere, on which marine animals had previously acc.u.mulated thick sheets of limestone. Vast beds of vegetable matter were collected by growth in these swamps, and the waste particles that pa.s.sed off in the form of organic acids were employed in concentrating the oxide of iron in underlying clays and sands. In the lapse of ages the whole of these acc.u.mulations were buried deep in the crust of the earth; and long periods succeeded, when the earth was tenanted by reptilian and other creatures, unconscious of the treasures beneath them. The modern period arrived.
The equable climate of the coal era had pa.s.sed away. Continents were prepared for the residence of man, and the edges of the old carboniferous beds were exposed by subterranean movements, and laid bare by denudation. Man was introduced, fell from his state of innocence, and was condemned to earn his subsistence by the sweat of his brow; and now for the first time appears the use of these buried coal swamps. They now afford at once the materials of improvement in the arts and of comfortable subsistence in extreme climates, and subjects of surpa.s.sing interest to the naturalist. Similar instances may be gleaned by the natural theologian from nearly every part of the geological history.
Lastly. Both records represent man as the last of G.o.d"s works, and the culminating-point of the whole creation. We have already had occasion to refer to this as a result of zoology, geology, and Scriptural exegesis, and may here confine ourselves to the moral consequences of this great truth. Man is the capital of the column; and, if marred and defaced by moral evil, the symmetry of the whole is to be restored, not by rejecting him altogether, like the extinct species of the ancient world, and replacing him by another, but by re-casting him in the image of his Divine Redeemer. Man, though recently introduced, is to exist eternally. He is, in one or another state of being, to be witness of all future changes of the earth. He has before him the option of being one with his Maker, and sharing in a future glorious and finally renovated condition of our planet, or of sinking into endless degradation. Such is the great spiritual drama of man"s fate to be acted out on the theatre of the world. Every human being must play his part in it, and the present must decide what that part shall be. The Bible bases these great foreshadowings of the future on its own peculiar evidence; yet I may venture humbly to maintain that its harmony with natural science, as far as the latter can ascend, gives to the Word of G.o.d a pre-eminent claim on the attention of the naturalist. The Bible, unlike every other system of religious doctrine, fears no investigation or discussion. It courts these.
"While science," says a modern divine,[150] "is fatal to superst.i.tion, it is fortification to a Scriptural faith. The Bible is the bravest of books. Coming from G.o.d, and conscious of nothing but G.o.d"s truth, it awaits the progress of knowledge with calm security. It watches the antiquary ransacking among cla.s.sic ruins, and rejoices in every medal he discovers and every inscription he deciphers; for from that rusty coin or corroded marble it expects nothing but confirmations of its own veracity. In the unlocking of an Egyptian hieroglyphic or the unearthing of some implement it hails the resurrection of so many witnesses; and with sparkling elation it follows the botanist as he scales Mount Lebanon, or the zoologist as he makes acquaintance with the beasts of the Syrian desert; or the traveller as he stumbles on a long-lost Petra or Nineveh or Babylon. And from the march of time it fears no evil, but calmly abides the fulfilment of those prophecies and the forthcoming of those events with whose predicted story inspiration has already inscribed its page. It is not light but darkness which the Bible deprecates; and if men of piety were also men of science, and if men of science were to search the Scriptures, there would be more faith in the earth, and also more philosophy."
The reader has, I trust, found in the preceding pages sufficient evidence that the Bible has nothing to dread from the revelations of geology, but much to hope in the way of elucidation of its meaning and confirmation of its truth. If convinced of this, I trust that he will allow me now to ask for the warnings, promises, and predictions of the Book of G.o.d his entire confidence; and, in conclusion, to direct his attention to the glorious prospects which it holds forth to the human race, and to every individual of it who, in humility and self-renunciation, casts himself in faith on that Divine Redeemer who is at once the creator of the heavens and the earth, and the brother and the friend of the penitent and the contrite. That same old book, which carries back our view to those ancient conditions of our planet which preceded not only the creation of man, but the earliest periods of which science has cognizance, likewise carries our minds forward into the farthest depths of futurity, and shows that all present things must pa.s.s away. It reveals to us a new heaven and a new earth, which are to replace those now existing; when the Eternal Son of G.o.d, the manifestation of the Father equally in creation and redemption, shall come forth conquering and to conquer, and shall sweep away into utter extinction all the blood-stained tyrannies of the present earth, even as he has swept away the brute dynasties of the pre-Adamite world, and shall establish a reign of peace, of love, and of holiness that shall never pa.s.s away: when the purified sons of Adam, rejoicing in immortal youth and happiness, shall be able to look back with enlarged understandings and grateful hearts on the whole history of creation and redemption, and shall join their angelic brethren in the final and more ecstatic repet.i.tion of that hymn of praise with which the heavenly hosts greeted the birth of our planet. May G.o.d in his mercy grant that he who writes and they who read may "stand in their lot at the end of the days" and enjoy the full fruition of these glorious prospects.
APPENDIX.
A.--TRUE AND FALSE EVOLUTION.
The term "evolution" need not in itself be a bugbear on theological grounds. The Bible writers would, I presume, have no objection to it if understood to mean the development of the plans of the Creator in nature. That kind of evolution to which they would object, and to which enlightened reason also objects, is the spontaneous evolution of nothing into atoms and force, and of these into all the wonderful and complicated plan of nature, without any guiding mind. Farther, biological and palaeontological science, as well as the Bible, object to the derivation of living things from dead matter by merely natural means, because this can not be proved to be possible, and to the production of the series of organic forms found as fossils in the rocks of the earth by the process of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, because this does not suffice to account for the complex phenomena presented by this succession. With reference to the testimony of palaeontology, I have in other publications developed this very fully; and would here merely quote the summing up of the argument, as given in my Address of 1875 before the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science:
"I have thus far said nothing of the bearing of the prevalent ideas of descent with modification on this wonderful procession of life. None of these of course can be expected to take us back to the origin of living beings; but they also fail to explain why so vast numbers of highly organized species struggle into existence simultaneously in one age and disappear in another; why no continuous chain of succession in time can be found gradually blending species into each other; and why in the natural succession of things degradation under the influence of external conditions and final extinction seem to be laws of organic existence. It is useless here to appeal to the imperfection of the record or to the movements or migrations of species. The record is now in many important parts too complete, and the simultaneousness of the entrance of the faunas and floras too certainly established, and moving species from place to place only evades the difficulty. The truth is that such hypotheses are at present premature, and that we require to have larger collections of facts. Independently of this, however, it appears to me that from a philosophical point of view it is extremely probable that all theories of evolution as at present applied to life are fundamentally defective in being too partial in their character; and perhaps I can not better group the remainder of the facts to which I wish to refer than by using them to ill.u.s.trate this feature of most of the later attempts at generalization on this subject.
"First, then, these hypotheses are too partial in their tendency to refer numerous and complex phenomena to one cause, or to a few causes only, when all trustworthy a.n.a.logy would indicate that they must result from many concurrent forces and determinations of force. We have all no doubt read those ingenious, not to say amusing, speculations in which some entomologists and botanists have indulged with reference to the mutual relations of flowers and haustellate insects. Geologically the facts oblige us to begin with cryptogamous plants and mandibulate insects, and out of the desire of insects for non-existent honey, and the adaptations of plants to the requirements of non-existent suctorial apparatus, we have to evolve the marvellous complexity of floral form and coloring, and the exquisitely delicate apparatus of the mouths of haustellate insects. Now when it is borne in mind that this theory implies a mental confusion on our part precisely similar to that which in the department of mechanics actuates the seekers for perpetual motion, that we have not the smallest t.i.ttle of evidence that the changes required have actually occurred in any one case, and that the thousands of other structures and relations of the plant and the insect have to be worked out by a series of concurrent evolutions so complex and absolutely incalculable in the aggregate that the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic astronomy were child"s play in comparison, we need not wonder that the common-sense of mankind revolts against such fancies, and that we are accused of attempting to construct the universe by methods that would baffle Omnipotence itself, because they are simply absurd. In this aspect of them indeed such speculations are necessarily futile, because no mind can grasp all the complexities of even any one case, and it is useless to follow out an imaginary line of development which unexplained facts must contradict at every step. This is also no doubt the reason why all recent attempts at constructing "Phylogenies" are so changeable, and why no two experts can agree about the details of any of them.
"A second aspect in which such speculations are too partial is in the unwarranted use which they make of a.n.a.logy. It is not unusual to find such a.n.a.logies as that between the embryonic development of the individual animal and the succession of animals in geological time placed on a level with that reasoning from a.n.a.logy by which geologists apply modern causes to explain geological formations. No claim could be more unfounded. When the geologist studies ancient limestones built up of the remains of corals, and then applies the phenomena of modern coral reefs to explain their origin, he brings the latter to bear on the former by an a.n.a.logy which includes not merely the apparent results, but the causes at work, and the conditions of their action, and it is on this that the validity of his comparison depends, in so far as it relates to similarity of mode of formation. But when we compare the development of an animal from an embryo cell with the progress of animals in time, though we have a curious a.n.a.logy as to the steps of the process, the conditions and causes at work are known to be altogether dissimilar, and therefore we have no evidence whatever as to ident.i.ty of cause, and our reasoning becomes at once the most transparent of fallacies. Farther, we have no right here to overlook the fact that the conditions of the embryo are determined by those of a previous adult, and that no sooner does this hereditary potentiality produce a new adult animal than the terrible external agencies of the physical world, in presence of which all life exists, begin to tell on the organism, and after a struggle of longer or shorter duration it succ.u.mbs to death, and its substance returns into inorganic nature--a law from which even the longer life of the species does not seem to exempt it. All this is so plain and manifest that it is extraordinary that evolutionists will continue to use such partial and imperfect arguments. Another example may be taken from that application of the doctrine of natural selection to explain the introduction of species in geological time, which is so elaborately discussed by Sir C. Lyell in the last edition of his "Principles of Geology." The great geologist evidently leans strongly to the theory, and claims for it the "highest degree of probability;" yet he perceives that there is a serious gap in it, since no modern fact has ever proved the origin of a new species by modification. Such a gap, if it existed in those grand a.n.a.logies by which we explain geological formations through modern causes, would be admitted to be fatal.
"A third ill.u.s.tration of the partial character of these hypotheses may be taken from the use made of the theory deduced from modern physical discoveries, that life must be merely a product of the continuous operation of physical laws. The a.s.sumption, for it is nothing more, that the phenomena of life are produced merely by some arrangement of physical forces, even if it be admitted to be true, gives only a partial explanation of the possible origin of life. It does not account for the fact that life as a force or combination of forces is set in antagonism to all other forces. It does not account for the marvellous connection of life with organization. It does not account for the determination and arrangement of forces implied in life. A very simple ill.u.s.tration may make this plain. If the problem to be solved were the origin of the mariner"s compa.s.s, one might a.s.sert that it is wholly a physical arrangement both as to matter and force.
Another might a.s.sert that it involves mind and intelligence in addition. In some sense both would be right. The properties of magnetic force and of iron or steel are purely physical, and it might even be within the bounds of possibility that somewhere in the universe a ma.s.s of natural loadstone may have been so balanced as to swing in harmony with the earth"s magnetism. Yet we would surely be regarded as very credulous if we could be induced to believe that the mariner"s compa.s.s has originated in that way. This argument applies with a thousandfold greater force to the origin of life, which involves even in its simplest forms so many more adjustments of force and so much more complex machinery.
"Fourthly, these hypotheses are partial, inasmuch as they fail to account for the vastly varied and correlated interdependencies of natural things and forces, and for the unity of plan which pervades the whole. These can be explained only by taking into the account another element from without. Even when it professes to admit the existence of a G.o.d, the evolutionist reasoning of our day contents itself altogether with the physical or visible universe, and leaves entirely out of sight the power of the unseen and spiritual, as if this were something with which science has nothing to do, but which belongs only to imagination or sentiment. So much has this been the case, that when recently a few physicists and naturalists have turned to this aspect of the case, they have seemed to be teaching new and startling truths, though only reviving some of the oldest and most permanent ideas of our race. From the dawn of human thought it has been the conclusion alike of philosophers, theologians, and the common-sense of mankind that the seen can be explained only by reference to the unseen, and that any merely physical theory of the world is necessarily partial. This, too, is the position of our sacred Scriptures, and is broadly stated in their opening verse; and indeed it lies alike at the basis of all true religion and all sound philosophy, for it must necessarily be that "the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen eternal." With reference to the primal aggregation of energy in the visible universe, with reference to the introduction of life, with reference to the soul of man, with reference to the heavenly gifts of genius and prophecy, with reference to the introduction of the Saviour himself into the world, and with reference to the spiritual gifts and graces of G.o.d"s people--all these spring not from sporadic acts of intervention, but from the continuous action of G.o.d and the unseen world, and this we must never forget is the true ideal of creation in Scripture and in sound theology. Only in such exceptional and little influential philosophies as that of Democritus, and in the speculations of a few men carried off their balance by the brilliant physical discoveries of our age, has this necessarily partial and imperfect view been adopted.
Never, indeed, was its imperfection more clear than in the light of modern science.
"Geology, by tracing back all present things to their origin, was the first science to establish on a basis of observed facts the necessity of a beginning and end of the world. But even physical science now teaches us that the visible world is a vast machine for the dissipation of energy; that the processes going on in it must have had a beginning in time, and that all things tend to a final and helpless equilibrium. This necessity implies an unseen power, an invisible universe, in which the visible universe must have originated, and to which its energy is ever returning. The hiatus between the seen and the unseen may be bridged over by the conceptions of atomic vortices of force, and by the universal and continuous ether; but whether or not, it has become clear that the conception of the unseen as existing has become necessary to our belief in the possible existence of the physical universe itself, even without taking life into the account.
"It is in the domain of life, however, that this necessity becomes most apparent; and it is in the plant that we first clearly perceive a visible testimony to that unseen which is the counterpart of the seen.
Life in the plant opposes the outward rush of force in our system, arrests a part of it on its way, fixes it as potential energy, and thus, forming a mere eddy, so to speak, in the process of dissipation of energy, it acc.u.mulates that on which animal life and man himself may subsist, and a.s.serts for a time supremacy over the seen and temporal on behalf of the unseen and eternal. I say for a time, because life is, in the visible universe, as at present const.i.tuted, but a temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where it is no longer the exception, but the eternal rule. In a still higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify to a Creator, organization and life, whether in the plant, the animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven that surrounds the visible universe.
In them, too, Almighty power is no doubt conditioned or limited by law, yet they bear more distinctly upon them the impress of their Maker; and, while all explanations of the physical universe which refuse to recognize its spiritual and unseen origin must necessarily be partial and in the end incomprehensible, this destiny falls more quickly and surely on the attempt to account for life and its succession on merely materialistic principles.
"Here again, however, I must remind you that creation, as maintained against such materialistic evolution, whether by theology, philosophy, or Holy Scripture, is necessarily a continuous, nay, an eternal influence, not an intervention of disconnected acts. It is the true continuity, which includes and binds together all other continuity.
"It is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest need; and I must here record my belief that neither men of science nor theologians have a right to separate what G.o.d in Holy Scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall between nature and religion, and write upon it "no thoroughfare." The science that does this must be impotent to explain nature, and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. The theology that does this must sink into mere superst.i.tion.
"In conclusion, can we formulate a few of the general laws, or perhaps I had better call them general conclusions, respecting life, in which all palaeontologists may agree? Perhaps it is not possible to do this at present satisfactorily, but the attempt may do no harm. We may, then, I think, make the following affirmations:
"1. The existence of life and organization on the earth is not eternal, nor even coeval with the beginning of the physical universe, but may possibly date from Laurentian or immediately pre-Laurentian times.
"2. The introduction of new species of animals and plants has been a continuous process, not necessarily in the sense of derivation of one species from another, but in the higher sense of the continued operation of the cause or causes which introduced life at first. This, as already stated, I take to be the true theological or Scriptural as well as scientific idea of what we ordinarily and somewhat loosely term creation.
"3. Though thus continuous, the process has not been uniform; but periods of rapid production of species have alternated with others in which many disappeared and few were introduced. This may have been an effect of physical cycles reacting on the progress of life.
"4. Species, like individuals, have greater energy and vitality in their younger stages, and rapidly a.s.sume all their varietal forms, and extend themselves as widely as external circ.u.mstances will permit.
Like individuals also, they have their periods of old age and decay, though the life of some species has been of enormous duration in comparison with that of others; the difference appearing to be connected with degrees of adaptation to different conditions of life.
"5. Many allied species, const.i.tuting groups of animals and plants, have made their appearance at once in various parts of the earth, and these groups have obeyed the same laws with the individual and the species in culminating rapidly, and then slowly diminishing, though a large group once introduced has rarely disappeared altogether.