Part 14 (2/2)
On the other hand, how sad the prospect which the a.n.a.logies of this subject open before him who misimproves his earthly probation, and goes out of the world unprepared for a higher and purer state of existence! If we can see reasons why on earth G.o.d should mingle goodness and severity in this man's lot, we can also see reasons why the manifestations of benevolence should all be withdrawn when he pa.s.ses into a state of retribution. For if an individual can resist the mighty influences for good which the present state of discipline affords, and only become worse under them all, his case is utterly hopeless, and Heaven can do no more, consistently with the eternal principles of the divine government, to save him. Infinite benevolence gives him over, and no longer holds back the sword of retributive justice. Nay, the justice which inflicts the punishment is only benevolence in another form. And this it is that makes the infliction intolerable. How much more terrible to the wayward child are the blows inflicted by a weeping, affectionate father, than if received from an enemy! G.o.d is that affectionate Father; and he punishes only because he loves the universe more than the individual; and he has exhausted the stores of infinite mercy in vain to save him. Wicked men sometimes tell us that they are not afraid to trust themselves in the hands of infinite benevolence; whereas it is eminently this quality of the divine character which, above all others, they have reason to fear. For if, even in this world of probation and hope, G.o.d finds it necessary to mingle so much severity with goodness, what but a cup of unmingled bitterness shall be put into his hands who goes into eternity unrenewed and unpardoned, and finds that even infinite benevolence has become his eternal enemy!
LECTURE VIII.
UNITY OF THE DIVINE PLAN AND OPERATION IN ALL AGES OF THE WORLD'S HISTORY.
Contrivance, adaptation, and design are some of the most striking features of the natural world. They are obvious throughout the whole range of creation, in the minutest as well as in the most magnificent objects; in the most complicated as well as in the most simple. So universally present are they, that whenever we meet with any thing in nature which seems imperfectly adapted to other objects, as the organ of an animal or plant, which exhibits malformation, it excites general attention, and the mere child need not be told that, in its want of adaptation to other objects, it is an exception in the natural world.
In order to ill.u.s.trate what I mean by contrivance, adaptation, and design, let me refer to a familiar example--the human eye. Made up of three coats and three humors, of solids and fluids, of nerves, blood-vessels, and muscles, and rivalling the most perfect optical instrument, it must have required the most consummate contrivance to give the requisite quant.i.ty and position to parts so numerous and unlike, for producing the phenomena of vision. Yet how perfectly it is done! How few, out of the hundreds of millions of eyes of men and other animals, fail of vision through any natural defect!
No less marvellous are the adaptations of the eye. In order to be adapted to the wonderful effect which we call light, its coats and humors must be transparent, and possess a certain density and opacity, that the rays may form an image on the retina. Yet to prevent confusion in the image, the transparency must be confined to the central parts of the eye, and a dark plexus of veins and muscles must be so situated as to absorb the scattering rays. In order to adapt the eye to different distances, and to the greater or less intensity of the light, delicate muscles must be so situated as to contract and dilate the pupil, and lengthen and shorten the axis. That the eye might be directed to different objects, strong muscles must be attached to its posterior surface; and that the eyelid might defend it from injuries in front, a very peculiar muscle must give it power to close. No less perfect is the adaptation of the eye to the atmosphere, or, rather, there is a mutual adaptation; and it is as proper to say that the atmosphere is adapted to the eye, as that the eye is adapted to the atmosphere. In like manner, there is a striking relation between the eye and the sun and other heavenly bodies, and between the eye and day and night; so that we cannot doubt but they were made for one another. We might, indeed, extend the relations of the eye to every object in the universe; and the same may be said of every organ of plants and animals. The adaptation between them is as wide as creation. And it is the wonderful harmony between so many millions of objects that makes us feel that infinite wisdom alone could have produced it.
The design of the multiplied contrivances and adaptations exhibited by the eye is too obvious to need a formal statement. Comparatively few understand the wonderful mechanism of the eye; but we should consider it proof of idiotism, or insanity, for the weakest mind to doubt what is the object of the eye. This is, to be sure, a striking example. But out of the many organs of animals, how few are there of which we do not see the design! And as the subject is more examined, the few excepted cases are made still fewer. They are more numerous in plants, because we cannot so well understand them, and because of their microscopic littleness. They are so few, however, throughout all nature, that they never produce a doubt that, for every individual thing in creation, there is a distinct object. If we confine our views to the most simple parts of matter, we can see design in them. If we take a wider view, and examine those minor systems which are produced by the grouping of the elements of matter, we shall see design there; and if we rise still higher in our examination, and compare systems still more extensive, until we group all material things, wise and beautiful design is still inscribed upon all. In fine, creation is but a series of harmonies, wheel within wheel, in countless variety, yet all forming one vast and perfect machine. Examine nature as widely and as minutely as we may, we never find one part clas.h.i.+ng with another part; no laws, governing one portion of creation, different from those governing the others. Amid nature's infinitely diversified productions and operations we find but one original model or pattern. As Dr. Paley finely expresses it, ”We never get amongst such original or totally different modes of existence as to indicate that we are come into the province of a different Creator, or under the direction of a different will.” All appears to have been the work of one mighty mind, capable of devising and creating the vast system so perfectly that every part shall beautifully harmonize with every other part; a mind capable of holding in its capacious grasp at once the entire system, and seeing the relation and dependence of all its parts, from the minutest atom up to the mightiest world. In short, the unity of design which pervades all creation is perfect, more so than we witness in the most finished machine of human construction; for
”In human works, though labored on with pain, A thousand movements scarce one object gain; In G.o.d's, one single can its end produce, Yet serves to second too some other use.”
Such are the wonderful contrivance, adaptation, and design which the material world every where exhibits. But the geologist carries us back through periods of immense antiquity, and digs out from the deep strata evidences of other systems of organic life, which have flourished and pa.s.sed away; other economies, which have existed on the globe anterior to the present. And how was it with these? Had they any relation to the existing system? Were they governed by different laws, or are they all but parts of one great and harmonious system, embracing the whole of the earth's past duration? We could not decide these questions beforehand; but geology brings to light unequivocal evidence that the latter supposition is the true one; that is, in the language of the poet,--
”All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and G.o.d the soul.”
To present the evidence of this conclusion will be my object in this lecture.
_In the first place, the laws of chemistry and crystallography, electricity and magnetism, have ever been the same in all past conditions of the earth._
Chemistry has attained to such a degree of perfection that the a.n.a.lyst can now determine the composition of the various vegetable, animal, and mineral substances which he meets, with an extreme degree of accuracy. In many instances, he can do this in two ways. He can always separate the elements which exist in a compound, and ascertain their relative quant.i.ty; and this is called _a.n.a.lysis_. And sometimes he can take those elements and cause them to unite, so as to form a particular compound; and this is called _synthesis_. By these methods he has ascertained that, amid the vast variety of substances in nature, there are only about sixty-four which cannot be reduced to a more simple form, and are therefore called _elements_, or simple substances. Now, the chemist finds that, when these elements unite to form compounds, certain fixed laws are invariably followed. They combine in definite quant.i.ties, which are always the same, or some multiple of the same weight; so that each element has its peculiar and invariable combining weight; and it cannot be made to combine in any other proportion. You may mix two or more elements together in any proportion, but it is only a certain definite quant.i.ty of each that will combine, while the rest will remain in excess. Hence the same compound substance, from whatever part of the world it comes, or under however diverse circ.u.mstances produced, consists of the same ingredients in the same proportion. These laws are followed with mathematical precision, and we have reason to believe that the same compound substance, produced in different parts of the world, never differs in its composition by the smallest conceivable particle. Indeed, with the exception of the planetary motions and crystallography, chemical combination is the most perfect example of practical mathematics to be found in nature.
Such are the laws which the chemist finds invariably to regulate all the changes that now take place in the const.i.tution of bodies. What evidence is there that the same laws have ever prevailed? In the rocks we have chemical compounds, produced in all ages of the world's history, since fire and water began to form solid ma.s.ses. Now, these may be, and have been, a.n.a.lyzed; and the same laws of definite proportion in the ingredients, which now operate, are found to have controlled their formation. The oldest granite and gneiss, which must have been the earliest rocks produced, are just as invariable in their composition as the most recent salt formed in the laboratory. And the same is true of the silicates, the carbonates, the sulphates, the oxides, chlorides, fluorides, and other compounds which const.i.tute the rocks of different ages. We never find any produced under the operation of different laws.
Now, the almost invariable opinion among chemists is, that the reason why the elements unite thus definitely is, that they are in different electrical states, and therefore attract one another. Hence the most important laws of electricity have been coeval with those of chemistry; indeed, they are identical; nor can we doubt, if such be the fact, that every other electrical law has remained unchanged from the beginning. And from the intimate connection, if not complete ident.i.ty, between electricity and magnetism, it is impossible to doubt that the laws which regulate the latter are of equal antiquity with those of the former.
Indeed, we find evidence in all the rocks, especially those which are prismatic and concretionary, of the active influence of galvanism and electro-magnetism in their production.
The reasoning is equally decisive to prove the unchanging character of the laws which regulate the formation of crystals. The chemist finds that the same substance, when it crystallizes, invariably takes the same geometrical forms. The nucleus or primary form, with a few exceptions, of no importance in the present argument, to which all these secondary forms may be reduced by change, is one particular solid, with unvarying angles; and all the secondary forms, built upon the primary, correspond in their angles. In short, in crystallography we have another example of perfect practical mathematics, as perfect as the theory.
Now, the oldest rocks in the globe contain crystals, and so do the rocks of all ages, sometimes of the same kind as those produced in the chemist's laboratory. And they are found to correspond precisely. It matters not whether they were the produce of nature's laboratory countless ages ago, or of the skill of the nineteenth century,--the same mathematics ruled in their formation with a precision which infinite wisdom alone could secure.
_In the second place, the laws of meteorology have ever been the same as at present._
Under meteorological laws I include all atmospheric phenomena. And although we have no direct proof from geology in respect to the more rare of these phenomena, such as the aurora borealis and australis, and transient meteors, yet in respect to the existence of clouds, wind, and rain, the evidence is quite striking. In several places in Europe, and in many in this country, are found, upon layers of the new red sandstone, the distinct impressions of rain drops, made when the rock was fine mud. They correspond precisely with the indentations which falling rain-drops now make upon mud, and they show us that the phenomena of clouds and storms existed in that remote period, and that the vapor was condensed as at present. In the fact that the animals entombed in the rocks of various ages are found to have had organs of respiration, we also infer the existence of an atmosphere a.n.a.logous to that which we now breathe. The rain-drops enable us to proceed one step farther; for often they are elongated in one direction, showing that they struck the ground obliquely, doubtless in consequence of wind. In short, the facts stated enable us to infer, with strong probability, that atmospheric phenomena were then essentially the same as at present; and a.n.a.logy leads us to a similar conclusion as to all the past periods of the world's history, certainly since animals were placed upon it. What a curious register do these rain-drops present us! an engraving on stone of a shower that fell thousands and thousands of ages ago! They often become, too, an anemoscope, pointing out the direction of the wind, while the petrified surface shows us just how many drops fell, quite as accurately as the most delicate pluviameter. What events in the earth's pre-Adamic history would seem less likely to come down to us than the pattering of a shower?
_In the third place, the agents of geological change appear to have been always the same on the earth._
Whoever goes into a careful examination of the rocks will soon become satisfied that no fragment of them all remains in the condition in which it was originally created. Whatever was the original form in which matter was produced, there is no longer any example of it to be found. The evidence of these changes is as strong almost as that constant changes are going on in human society. And we find them constantly progressing among the rocks, as well as among men; nor do the agents by which they are produced appear to have been ever different from those now in operation.
The two most important are heat and water; and it is doubtful whether there is a single particle of the globe which has not experienced the metamorphic action of the one or the other. Indeed, it is nearly certain that every portion of the globe has been melted, if not volatilized. All the unstratified rocks have certainly been fused, and probably all the stratified rocks originated from the unstratified, and have been modified by water and heat. In many of these rocks, especially the oldest, we perceive evidence of the joint action of both these agents. Evidently they were once aqueous deposits; but they appear to have been subsequently subjected to powerful heat. As we ascend on the scale of the stratified rocks, the marks of fire diminish, and those of water multiply, so that the latest are mere mechanical or chemical depositions from water.
In these facts, then, we see proof that heat and water have been the chief agents of geological change since the first formation of a solid crust on the globe; for some of the rocks now accessible, as already stated, date their origin at that early period. We might also trace back the agency of heat much farther, if the hypothesis adopted by not a few eminent geologists be true, which supposes the earth to have been once in a gaseous state from intense heat. But to press this point will add very little to my argument, even could I sustain it by plausible reasoning. I will only say, that, so far as we know any thing of the state of the earth previous to the consolidation of its crust, heat appears to have been the chief agent concerned in its geological changes.
Among other agencies of less importance, that have always operated geologically, is gravity. Its chief effect, at present is to bring the earth's surface nearer and nearer to a level, by causing the materials, which other agencies have loosened from its salient parts, to subside into its cavities and valleys. It also condenses many substances from a gaseous to a liquid or solid state, especially those deep in the earth's crust, and thus brings the particles more within the reach of cohesive attraction and chemical affinity, often changing the const.i.tution, and always the solidity, of bodies. And in the position of the ancient mechanical rocks, occupying as they do the former basins of the surface, and in the superior consolidation of the earlier strata, we find proof of the action of gravity in all past geological time.
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