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27 chapters
REVELATION AND SCIENCE.
REVELATION AND SCIENCE.
"Speak to the Earth, and it shall teach thee." — Job. PREFACE. The scope of this work is in the main identical with that of "Archaia," published in 1860; but in attempting to prepare a new edition brought up to the present condition of the subject, it was found that so much required to be rewritten as to make it essentially a new book, and it was therefore decided to give it a new name, more clearly indicating its character and purpose. The intention of this new publication is to throw as much l
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CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERY OF ORIGINS AND ITS SOLUTIONS. "The things that are seen are temporal."—Paul.
CHAPTER I. THE MYSTERY OF ORIGINS AND ITS SOLUTIONS. "The things that are seen are temporal."—Paul.
Have we or can we have any certain solution of those two great questions—Whence are all things? and Whither do all things tend? No thinking man is content to live merely in a transitory present, ever emerging out of darkness and ever returning thither again, without knowing any thing of the origin and issue of the world and its inhabitants. Yet it would seem that to-day men are as much in uncertainty on these subjects as at any previous time. It even appears as if all our added knowledge would o
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CHAPTER II. OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A REVELATION OF ORIGINS.
CHAPTER II. OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A REVELATION OF ORIGINS.
"There are two books from which I collect my divinity; besides that written one of God, another of his servant nature—that universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all."— Sir T. Browne. There are some questions, simple enough in themselves, respecting the general character and object of the references to nature and creation in the Scriptures, which yet are so variously and vaguely answered that they deserve some consideration before entering on the detailed study of th
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CHAPTER III. OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A REVELATION OF ORIGINS—Continued.
CHAPTER III. OBJECTS AND NATURE OF A REVELATION OF ORIGINS—Continued.
(3) Character of the Biblical Cosmogony, and general Views of Nature which it Contains or to which it Leads. —Much of what appertains to the character of the revelation of origins has been anticipated under previous heads. We have only to read the Song of Creation, as given in the last chapter, to understand its power and influence as a beginning of religious doctrine. The revelation was written for plain men in the infancy of the world. Imagine Chaldean or Hebrew shepherd listening to these maj
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CHAPTER IV. THE BEGINNING. "In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth."—Genesis i., 1.
CHAPTER IV. THE BEGINNING. "In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth."—Genesis i., 1.
It is a remarkable and instructive fact that the first verse of the Hebrew sacred writings speaks of the material universe—speaks of it as a whole, and as originating in a power outside of itself. The universe, then, in the conception of this ancient writer, is not eternal. It had a beginning, but that beginning in the indefinite and by us unmeasured past. It did not originate fortuitously, or by any merely accidental conflict of self-existent material atoms, but by an act—an act of will on the
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CHAPTER V. THE DESOLATE VOID. "And the earth was desolate and empty, and darkness was upon the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved on the surface of the waters."—Genesis i., 2.
CHAPTER V. THE DESOLATE VOID. "And the earth was desolate and empty, and darkness was upon the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God moved on the surface of the waters."—Genesis i., 2.
We have here a few bold outlines of a dark and mysterious scene—a condition of the earth of which we have no certain intimation from any other source, except the speculations based on modern discoveries in physical science. It was "unshaped and empty," formless and uninhabited. The words thus translated are sufficiently plain in their meaning. The first is used by Isaiah to denote the desolation of a ruined city, and in Job and the Psalms as characteristic of the wilderness or desert. Both in co
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CHAPTER VI. LIGHT AND CREATIVE DAYS. "And God said, Let light be, and light was; and God saw the light that it was good, and separated the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day; and the darkness he called Night. And Evening was and Morning was—Day one."— Genesis i., 3-5.
CHAPTER VI. LIGHT AND CREATIVE DAYS. "And God said, Let light be, and light was; and God saw the light that it was good, and separated the light from the darkness; and God called the light Day; and the darkness he called Night. And Evening was and Morning was—Day one."— Genesis i., 3-5.
Light is the first element of order and perfection introduced upon our planet—the first innovation on the old régime of darkness and desolation. There is a beautiful propriety in this, for the Hebrew Aur (light) should be viewed as including heat and electricity as well as light; and these three forces—if they are really distinct, and not merely various movements of one and the same ether—are in themselves, or the proximate causes of their manifestation, the prime movers of the machinery of natu
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CHAPTER VII. THE ATMOSPHERE. "And God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters; and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which are under the expanse from the waters which are over the expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."—Genesis i. 6-8.
CHAPTER VII. THE ATMOSPHERE. "And God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters; and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which are under the expanse from the waters which are over the expanse: and it was so. And God called the expanse Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day."—Genesis i. 6-8.
At the opening of the period to which we are now introduced the earth was covered by the waters, and these were in such a condition that there was no distinction between the seas and the clouds. No atmosphere separated them, or, in other words, dense fogs and mists everywhere rested on the surface of the primeval ocean. To understand as far as possible the precise condition of the earth's surface at this period, it will be necessary to notice the present constitution of the atmosphere, especiall
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CHAPTER VIII. THE DRY LAND AND THE FIRST PLANTS.
CHAPTER VIII. THE DRY LAND AND THE FIRST PLANTS.
"And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters called he seas; and God saw that it was good. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the springing herb, the herb bearing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after its kind, whose seed is in it on the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth the tender herb, the herb yielding seed, and the tree beari
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CHAPTER IX. LUMINARIES.
CHAPTER IX. LUMINARIES.
"And God said, Let there be luminaries in the expanse of heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. And let them be for luminaries in the expanse of heaven, to give light on the earth: and it was so. "And God made two great luminaries, the greater luminary to preside over the day, the lesser luminary to preside over the night. He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of heaven to give light on the earth, and
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CHAPTER X. THE LOWER ANIMALS.
CHAPTER X. THE LOWER ANIMALS.
"And God said, Let the waters swarm with swarming living creatures, and let birds fly on the surface of the expanse of heaven. And God created great reptiles, and every living moving thing, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the flying creatures multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth
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CHAPTER XI. THE HIGHER ANIMALS AND MAN.
CHAPTER XI. THE HIGHER ANIMALS AND MAN.
"And God said, Let the land bring forth animals after their kinds; the herbivora, the reptiles, and the carnivora, after their kinds; and it was so. And God made carnivorous mammals after their kinds, and herbivorous mammals after their kinds, and every reptile of the land after its kind; and God saw that it was good. "And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over the herbivora and over all the la
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CHAPTER XII. THE REST OF THE CREATOR.
CHAPTER XII. THE REST OF THE CREATOR.
"And the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it God rested from all his work which he had created to make."—Genesis ii., 1-3. The end of the sixth day closed the work of creation properly so called, as well as that of forming and arranging the things created. The beginning o
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CHAPTER XIII. UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
CHAPTER XIII. UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
"These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nationsdivided in the earth after the flood."—Genesis x., 32. The theologians and evangelical Christians of our time, and with them the credibility of the Holy Scriptures, are supposed by many to have been impaled on a zoological and archæological dilemma, in a manner which renders nugatory all attempts to reconcile the Mosaic cosmogony with science. The Bible, as we have seen, knows but
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CHAPTER XIV. UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN—(Continued.)
CHAPTER XIV. UNITY AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN—(Continued.)
"By the word of God the heavens were from of old, and the earth, formed out of water, and by means of water, by which waters the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."—2 Peter iii., 5, 6. 3. Geological Evidence as to the Antiquity of Man. —No geological fact can now be more firmly established than the ascending progression of animal life, whereby from the early invertebrates of the Eozoic and Primordial series we pass upward through the dynasties of fishes and reptiles and
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CHAPTER XV. COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS.
CHAPTER XV. COMPARISONS AND CONCLUSIONS.
"Lo, these are but the outlines of his ways, and how faint the whisper which we hear of him—the thunder of his power who could understand?"—Job xxvi., 14. In the preceding pages I have, as far as possible, avoided that mode of treating my subject which was wont to be expressed as the "reconciliation" of Scripture and Natural Science, and have followed the direct guidance of the Mosaic record, only turning aside where some apt illustration or coincidence could be perceived. In the present chapter
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APPENDIX. A.—TRUE AND FALSE EVOLUTION.
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 palæontol
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B.—EVOLUTION AND CREATION BY LAW.
B.—EVOLUTION AND CREATION BY LAW.
Evolutionist writers have a great horror of what they term "intervention." But they should be informed that the idea of a planning Creator does not involve intervention in an extraordinary or miraculous sense, any more than what we call the ordinary operations of nature. It is a common but childish prejudice that every discovery of a secondary cause diminishes so much of what is to be referred to the agency of God. On the contrary, such discoveries merely aid us in comprehending the manner of hi
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C.—MODES OF CREATION.
C.—MODES OF CREATION.
A question often asked, but not easily answered, with reference to the creation of animals and plants, is—What was its precise method, and to what extent is such intervention conceivable. This is, it is true, not a properly scientific question, since science can not inform us of the act of creation. Nor is it properly a theological one, since revelation appeals to our faith in the facts, without giving us much information as to the mode. It can, therefore, be answered only conjecturally, except
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D.—PRESENT CONDITION OF THEORIES OF LIFE.
D.—PRESENT CONDITION OF THEORIES OF LIFE.
One of the most learned and ingenious essays on this subject recently published [153] states on its first page that all the varieties of opinion may be summed up under two heads: "1. Those which require the addition to ordinary matter of an immaterial or spiritual essence, substance, or power, general or local, whose presence is the efficient cause of life; and, "2. Those which attribute the phenomena of life solely to the mode of combination of the ordinary material elements of which the organi
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E.—RECENT FACTS AS TO THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
E.—RECENT FACTS AS TO THE ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
Several recent statements as to new facts supposed to prove a preglacial antiquity for our species have been promulgated in scientific journals; but so great doubt rests upon them that they do not invalidate the statement that the earliest human remains belong to the postglacial age. I may refer to the following: A very remarkable discovery was made in 1875 by Professor Rutimeyer, of Basle. In a brown coal deposit of Tertiary, or at least of "interglacial" age—whatever that may mean in Switzerla
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F.—BEARING OF GLACIAL PERIODS UPON THE INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS.
F.—BEARING OF GLACIAL PERIODS UPON THE INTERPRETATION OF GENESIS.
Whatever views may be taken as to that period of cold which occurs at the close of the Tertiary and beginning of the Modern period, it can not be held to have constituted any such break as to be considered, as it was at one time, an equivalent for the Biblical chaos. This is proved by the survival through this period of a very large proportion of the animals and plants still existing in the northern hemisphere. The chronological system of animals and plants has been continuous, as the Bible repr
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G.—DR. STERRY HUNT ON THE CHEMISTRY OF THE PRIMEVAL EARTH.
G.—DR. STERRY HUNT ON THE CHEMISTRY OF THE PRIMEVAL EARTH.
On looking back to the reference to this subject in Chapter V., I think it may be desirable to present to the reader in some more definite manner the conditions of a forming world; and I can not do this in any other way so well as by quoting the words of Dr. Sterry Hunt, as given in the abstract of his lecture on this subject delivered before the Royal Institution of London in 1867: "This hypothesis of the nature of the sun and of the luminous process going on at its surface is the one lately pu
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H.—TANNIN AND BHEMAH.
H.—TANNIN AND BHEMAH.
The following synopsis of the instances of the occurrence of the words tannin and tan will serve to show the propriety of the meaning, "great reptiles," assigned in the text to the former, as well as to illustrate the utility in such cases of "comparing Scripture with Scripture:" We learn from the above comparative view that the tannin is an aquatic animal of large size, and predaceous, clothed with scales, and a fit emblem of the monarchies of Egypt and Assyria. In two places it is possible tha
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I.—ANCIENT MYTHOLOGIES.
I.—ANCIENT MYTHOLOGIES.
The current views respecting the relations of ancient mythologies with each other and with the Bible have been continually shifting and oscillating between extremes. The latest and at present most popular of these extreme views is that so well expounded by Dr. Max Müller in his various essays on these subjects, and which traces at least the Indo-European theogony to a mere personification of natural objects. The views given in the text are those which to the author appear alone compatible with t
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K.—ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN TEXTS.
K.—ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN TEXTS.
Progress is continually being made in the decipherment and publication of these, and new facts are coming to light in consequence as to the religions of the early postdiluvian period. According to the late George Smith and to Mr. Sayce, in their contributions to Bagster's "Records of the Past," the earliest monumental history of Babylonia reveals two races, the Akkadian or Urdu, a Turanian race, with an agglutinate language of the Finnish or Tartar type, and the Sumir or Keen-gi, believed to be
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L.—SPECIES AND VARIETAL FORMS WITH REFERENCE TO THE UNITY OF MAN.
L.—SPECIES AND VARIETAL FORMS WITH REFERENCE TO THE UNITY OF MAN.
In the concluding chapters of "Archaia" the nature of species, as distinguished from varieties, was discussed, and specially applied to the varieties and races of man. This discussion has been omitted from the text of the present work; but, in an abridged form, is introduced here, with especial reference to those more recent views of this subject now prevalent in consequence of the growth of the philosophy of evolution; but which I feel convinced must, with the progress of science, return nearer
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