Part 10 (1/2)

To prove the original igneous fluidity of the globe, we might have adopted another course of argument. All will admit that the present temperature of the interior of the earth is far more elevated than that of the surrounding planetary s.p.a.ces. The inevitable result is, from the known laws of heat, that its radiation into the celestial s.p.a.ces is constantly going on, and consequently the earth's temperature is being constantly lowered. Who can tell us now when this process of refrigeration commenced?

If no one, then there must have been a time when the heat was great enough to fuse the whole globe. And the facts already stated confirm such an inference. For all the efforts. .h.i.therto made to show that the earth may be pa.s.sing through regions of various temperatures, in its march around the centre of centres, amount to nothing more than dreamy conjecture.

In order to feel the force of the argument, sustained by so many facts in geology, just picture to yourselves this vast globe as a ma.s.s of liquid fire. From such a world every thing organic must have been excluded, and every thing combustible consumed, and only such combinations of matter have existed as incandescent heat could not decompose. Compare such a world with that now teeming with life, and beauty, and glory, which we inhabit; and say, must not the transition to its present condition have demanded the exercise of infinite power, infinite wisdom, and infinite benevolence? You can, indeed, conceive how a solid crust might have formed over the vast fiery ocean, by the simple radiation of heat; and then, too, by natural laws, might the vapors have been condensed into oceans and clouds, while volcanic force within might have lifted up our continents and mountains above the flood. But what a picture of desolation and ruin would such a world present, while unadorned with vegetation, and with no voice of life to break the stillness of universal death! Here is, then, the precise point where we need the interference of a Deity. Admit, if you please, that atheism, with its eternal matter and the laws of nature at command, might form a world without inhabitants. Who does not see, that to bestow organization, and life, and instinct, to say nothing of intellect, upon brute matter, is the loftiest prerogative of Jehovah? especially to fill so vast a world as ours with its teeming millions, exhibiting ten thousand diversities of size, form, and structure.

Let the atheist then exult in the belief of an eternal world. Geology shows him that it must have been without inhabitants; and that, therefore, the most wonderful part of the creation still remains to be accounted for; while physiology teaches that the interference of an infinite Deity can alone solve the enigma.

My second example from geology to disprove the notion of an eternal series of animals and plants on the globe, is derived from the history of organic remains. That history shows us clearly, that the earth, since its creation, has been the seat of several distinct economies of life, each occupying long periods, and successively pa.s.sing away. During each of these periods, distinct groups of animals and plants have occupied the earth, the air, and the waters. Each successive group has been entirely distinct from that which preceded it, though each group was exactly adapted to the existing state of the climate and the food provided; so that, had the different groups changed places with one another, they must have perished, because their const.i.tutions were adapted only to the state of things during the period in which they actually lived. A distinguished naturalist has recently declared that ”he has discovered, in surveying the entire series of fossil animal remains, five great groups, so completely independent that no species whatever is found in more than one of them.”--_Deshayes._

Including the existing races, this would give us six entirely distinct groups of organic beings that have lived in succession upon this globe since it became a habitable world. But even if it should be found that a few species are common to adjoining groups, the great truth would still remain, that the different groups were too much unlike to be contemporaries, and that consequently a new creation must have taken place whenever each new group commenced its course.

It is probable the earth has changed its inhabitants more than the six times that have been mentioned; some think as many as twelve times. But a larger number cannot yet be proved so clearly; and could they be, they would add nothing to this argument; for it rests mainly on the fact that this change of organic life has even once been complete. We may, however, very safely a.s.sume that the present animals and plants are the sixth group that have occupied the globe.[12]

These facts being admitted, and who does not see the necessity of divine interference, whenever one race of animals and plants pa.s.sed from the earth in order to repeople it? It is not difficult to conceive how volcanic fires, or aqueous inundations, may have carried universal destruction over the globe, and bereft it of inhabitants. But where, save in the fiat of an infinite Deity, is the power that can make this universe of death teem again with life and beauty? In the powerful language of Dr.

Chalmers, we may inquire, ”Is there aught in the rude and boisterous play of a great physical catastrophe that can germinate those exquisite structures, which, during our yet undisturbed economy, have been transmitted in pacific succession to the present day? What is there in the rush, and turbulence, and mighty clamor of such great elements, of ocean heaved from its old resting-place, and lifting its billows above the Alps and the Andes of a former continent,--what is there in this to charm into being the embryo of an infant family, wherewith to stock and to repeople a now desolate world? We see in the sweeping energy and uproar of this elemental war enough to account for the disappearance of all the old generations, but nothing that might cradle any new generations into existence, so as to have effloresced on ocean's deserted bed the life and loveliness which are now before our eyes. At no juncture, we apprehend, in the history of the world, is the interposition of the Deity more manifest than at this; nor can we better account for so goodly a creation emerging again into new forms of animation and beauty from the wreck of the old one, than that the spirit of G.o.d moved on the face of chaos, and that nature, turned by the last catastrophe into a wilderness, was again repeopled at the utterance of his word.”

Sir Isaac Newton has said, that ”the growth of new systems out of old ones, without the mediation of a divine power, seems to me apparently absurd.” He seems in this pa.s.sage to have referred only to the arrangements of matter, ”with respect to size, figure, proportions, and properties,” and not to the principle of life, of instinct, or of intellect. But when the latter are taken into the account, it must be superlatively absurd to suppose new systems can grow out of old ones by merely natural operations. He, indeed, who can bring himself to believe, with a certain writer, that ”the instincts of animals are nothing more than inert and pa.s.sive attractions, derived from the power of sensation, and the instinctive operations of animals nothing more than crystallizations produced through the agency of that power,”--such a man could probably easily persuade himself that, by the help of galvanism, animals and plants might be the result of natural operations. Such doctrines, however, we shall examine in another lecture.

My third example from geology, showing the non-eternity of the present condition of the globe, is the fact of the disappearance of several large species of animals since the commencement of the most recent or alluvial geological period. Certain large pachydermatous and other animals, such as the fossil elephant, the mastodon, the megatherium, the mylodon, the megalonyx, the glyptodon, the fossil horse, ox, deer, &c., also nine or ten species of huge birds--the dinornis, the palapteryx, aptornis, notornis, and nestor of New Zealand, the dodo of Mauritius and Bourbon, and the pezohaps or solitaire of Rodriguez,--have ceased to exist since the tertiary period; some of them--the birds, for instance--since man's creation. Now, if any important species of animals from time to time disappear from any system of organic life, it shows a tendency to ruin in that system; for such is the intimate dependence of different beings upon one another, that you cannot blot out one, certainly not a large number, without disturbing the healthy balance between the whole, and probably bringing the whole to ultimate ruin. At any rate, if several species die out by natural processes, no reason can be given why others should not, in like manner, disappear. And to prove that any organic system shows a tendency to ruin is to show that it had a beginning.

My third example from geology, demonstrating the special interference of the Deity in the affairs of this world, is the fact of the comparatively recent commencement of the human race. That man was among the very last of the animals created is made certain by the fact that his remains are found only in the highest part of alluvium. This is rarely more than one hundred feet in thickness, while the other fossiliferous strata, lying beneath the alluvium, are six miles thick.

Hence man was not in existence during all the period in which these six miles of strata were in a course of deposition, and he has existed only during the comparatively short period in which the one hundred feet of alluvium have been formed; nay, during only a small part of the alluvial period. His bones, having the same chemical composition as the bones of other animals, are no more liable to decay; and, therefore, had he lived and died in any of the periods preceding the alluvial, his bones must have been mixed with those of other animals belonging to those periods. But they are not thus found in a single well-authenticated instance, and, therefore, his existence has been limited to the alluvial period. Hence he must have been created and placed upon the globe--such is the testimony of geology--during the latter part of the alluvial period.

I might include in this example nearly all the other species of existing animals and plants, since it is only a very few of these that are found fossil, and such species are limited to the tertiary strata. But since this might make some confusion in the argument, and since man is confessedly at the head of the existing creation, I prefer to let his case stand out alone, and to regard it _instar omnium_.

Here, then, we have a case in which geology can lay her finger upon the precise epoch, in the revolutions of our globe, in which the most complicated, perfect, and exalted being that ever dwelt upon its surface first began to be. It was not the commencement of a mere zophyte, or cryptogamean plant, in which we see but little superiority to unorganized matter, except in their possession of a low degree of vitality. But we have a being complicated enough to contain a million of parts, endowed with the two great attributes of life, sensibility and contractility, in the highest degree, and, above all, possessing intellect and moral powers far more wonderful than organization and animal life.

As to the period when the creation of such a being, by the most astonis.h.i.+ng of all miracles, took place, I believe there is no diversity of opinion. At least, all agree that it was very recent; nay, although geology can rarely give chronological dates, but only a succession of events, she is able to say, from the monuments she deciphers, that man cannot have occupied the globe more than six thousand years.

Now, if it was difficult to conceive how successive races of the inferior animals and plants could have originated in the laws of nature, without the special interference of the Deity, that difficulty increases in a rapid ratio as we ascend on the scale of organization and intellect, and attempt in the same manner to account for the origin of man without the miraculous agency of Deity. The thorough-going materialist, however, does not shrink from the effort. ”Thought,” says Bory de St. Vincent, ”being the necessary result of a certain kind of organization, wherever this order is established, thought is necessarily derived from it; and it is no more possible for the molecules of matter, arranged in a certain manner, not to produce thought, than for bra.s.s, when smitten, not to return a sound, or for creatures formed by this matter, after such and such laws, not to walk, not to breathe, not to reproduce; in a word, not to exercise any of the faculties which result from their peculiar mechanism of organization.”--Dict. Clas. _D. Hist. Nat._ art. _Matire_.

This may seem, upon a superficial view, to be settling this matter at once. But it merely s.h.i.+fts the difficulty from one part of the subject to another. Admitting the premises of the materialist to be correct, it does indeed show us the proximate cause of thought. But the mind immediately inquires how a certain organization became possessed of such wonderful power. Is it inherent in matter, or is it a power communicated to organization by a supreme Being? If the latter, it is just what the Theist contends for; if the former, then there is just as much necessity for the original interposition of the Deity, in order to give matter such an astonis.h.i.+ng power, as there is, on the theory of the immaterialist, to impart a spiritual and immortal principle to matter. The materialist will, indeed, say that matter has possessed this power from eternity. But this supposition, evidently absurd, does in fact invest matter with the attributes of Deity; since those attributes, and those alone, are sufficient to account for the phenomena. And besides, how is the fact to be explained that this power was not exerted till six thousand years ago?

But with the exception of the materialist, I am sure that most reasoning minds will feel as if the creation of the human family was one of the most stupendous, perhaps the most stupendous, exercise of infinite power and wisdom which the universe exhibits. If any change whatever demands a Deity for its accomplishment, it must be this; and, therefore, geology presents, in the case of man, the most striking example which nature could furnish of a beginning of organic and intellectual life on the globe. It shows us that there was a time, and that not remote, when the first link of the curious chain of the human family, now constantly lengthening by inflexible laws, was created.

I might now refer to certain recent discoveries in astronomy, which have the same bearing upon the general argument as the examples that have been quoted from geology, although less decisive. After the famous demonstration of the eternity of the universe by La Grange, provided the present laws of gravity alone control it, we could hardly expect that, so soon, even astronomy would furnish proof of a disturbing cause, which must ultimately and inevitably bring ruin among the heavenly bodies, if some counteracting agency be not exerted. Yet such a source of derangement exists in the supposed medium extending through all s.p.a.ce, which has already shown its r.e.t.a.r.ding influence upon Enke's, Biela's, and Halley's comets. And who can say that some of the vast periods which geology discloses may not have been commensurate with those intervening between catastrophes among the heavenly bodies as the result of the universal resisting ether? At present, however, we can say only that we know such long periods have existed in geology, and probably in astronomy. And their mere existence is fatal to the idea of the eternity of the world in its present state.

If, then, geology can clearly demonstrate the present state of the globe to have had a beginning; if she can show us the period, by fair induction, when one liquid, fiery ocean enveloped the whole earth; if she can show us five or six economies of organic life successively flouris.h.i.+ng and pa.s.sing away; if she can trace man back to his origin at a comparatively recent date; if, in fact, she can show us that the most important operations on the globe, and the most complicated and exalted organic races, had a beginning; and if astronomy affords glimpses of similar changes,--then why may we not safely leave the subject of the world's eternity an undecided question, consistently with the most perfect Theism? If we can prove that the power, the wisdom, and the benevolence of the Deity have again and again interfered with the regular sequence of nature's operations, and introduced new conditions and new and more perfect beings, by using the matter already in existence, what though we cannot, by the light of science, run back to the first production of matter itself? What though the atheist should here be allowed to maintain his favorite theory that matter never had a beginning? What doctrine of natural religion is thereby unfavorably affected, if we can only show the interposition of the Deity in all of matter's important modifications? Such an admission would not prove matter to be eternal, but only that science has not yet placed within the reach of man the means of proving its non-eternity. And really, such an admission would be far more favorable to the cause of truth than to rely, as theologians have done, on metaphysical subtilties to prove that matter had a beginning. For the sceptical mind will not merely remain unconvinced by such arguments, but be very apt to draw the sweeping inference that all the doctrines of natural and revealed religion rest on similar dreamy abstractions.

But is natural theology in fact dest.i.tute of all satisfactory proof that the matter of the universe had a beginning? Such proof, it seems to me, she will seek in vain in the wide fields of physical and mathematical science; and the solution of the question which metaphysics offers, as we have seen, does not satisfy. But there are sources of evidence on this point which seem to me of the most satisfactory kind.

In the first place, we may derive from science some presumptive proof of a commencement of the matter of the universe. The fact that the organic races on the globe had a beginning affords such proof. For matter could not have originated itself; nor is there any proof of its eternal existence; and to a.s.sume that it did eternally exist, without proof, is far more unphilosophical than to admit its origination in the divine will.

For since G.o.d has complete control over matter, it is probable that he created it with such properties as he wished it to possess. And furthermore, to the power and wisdom that could set in motion the heavenly bodies, and create and adapt existing organisms out of prexistent matter, we can a.s.sign no limits, and hence conclude them to be infinite.

Therefore they are sufficient to the production of matter, which could not have demanded more than infinite wisdom and power.

Now, in confirmation of these presumptions, we may appeal to the Bible. It is true that writers have been accustomed to consider it contrary to sound logic to draw from revelation any support or ill.u.s.trations of natural religion. But why should an historical fact possess less value, if transmitted to us through the channel of sacred, rather than profane, writers? Now, it would be regarded as perfectly good reasoning to seize upon any facts stated by heathen philosophers and historians, ill.u.s.trative of natural religion. But the Scriptures carry with them, to say the least, quite as strong evidence of their authenticity and claims to be credited, as any ancient uninspired writer. We place them on the same ground as any other history, and demand for them only that they should be believed so far as we have testimony to their authenticity. If a man, after careful examination of their evidences, comes to the conclusion that they are mere fables, then to him their testimony is of no value to prove or ill.u.s.trate any truth of natural religion. But if he is convinced that they are worthy of credence, then their statements may decide a point about which the light of nature leaves him in uncertainty. In this way the Bible is used by the natural theologian, just as he would employ any curious object in nature--say, the human hand, or the eye. These organs exist, and their mechanism is to be accounted for either with or without a G.o.d. And so the Bible exists, and its contents are to be accounted for; and if they clearly evince the agency of a Deity, then we may use them, just as we would use the eye or the hand, to prove or ill.u.s.trate important truths in natural theology.

But the testimony of the Bible, as to the origin of the world, is most explicit and decided. It declares that _in the beginning G.o.d created the heavens and the earth; and that the worlds were formed by the word of G.o.d, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear_. The obvious meaning of this latter pa.s.sage is, that the material universe was created out of nothing. ([Greek: ta m phainomena].) How much more satisfactory this simple and consistent statement, than a volume of abstract argument to prove the non-eternity of the world!

Now, if the testimony of the Scriptures on all other points has been found correct, why should we not receive with unhesitating credence, and even with joy, the sublime announcement with which that volume opens? True, we are not compelled to admit this statement, in order to save Theism from refutation, because geology shows us the commencement of several economies on the globe, which point us to a divine Author. But the doctrine of matter's creation out of nothing gives a desirable completeness to the system.