Title: Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation
Author: George McCready Price
Release date: September 3, 2004 [eBook #13370]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Bryan Ness and PG Distributed Proofreaders
The great world disaster, ushered in with the dawn of that
August morning in 1914, has already brought revolutionary
changes in many departments of our thinking. But not the least
of the surprises awaiting an amazed world, whenever attention
can again be directed to such subjects, will be the realization
that we have now definitely outgrown many notions in science
and philosophy which in the old order of things were supposed
to have been eternally settled.
There are but two theories regarding the origin of our world
and of the various forms of plants and animals upon it,
Creation and Evolution,--the latter assuming many
modifications.
The essential idea of the Evolution theory is
uniformity; that is, it seeks to show that life in all
its various forms and manifestations probably originated by
causes similar to or identical with forces and processes now
prevailing. It teaches the absolute supremacy and the past
continuity of natural law as now observed. It says that the
changes now going on in our modern world have always been in
action and that these present-day natural changes and processes
are as much a part of the origin of things as anything that
ever took place in the past. In short, Evolution as a
philosophy of nature is an effort to smooth out all distinction
between Creation and the ordinary processes of nature that are
now under the régime of "natural law."
On the other hand, the essential idea of the doctrine of
Creation is that, back at a period called the "beginning,"
forces and powers were brought into exercise and results were
accomplished that have not since been exercised or
accomplished. That is, the origin of the first organic forms,
indeed of the whole world as we know it, was essentially and
radically different from the ways in which these forms
are perpetuated and the world sustained to-day. Time is
in no way the essential idea in the problem. The question of
how much time was occupied in the work of Creation is of
no importance, neither is the question of how long ago
it took place. The one essential idea is that in its nature
Creation is essentially inscrutable; we can never hope to know
just how it was accomplished; we cannot expect to know the
process or the details, for we have nothing with which to
measure it. The one essential thing in the doctrine of Creation
is that the origin of our world and of the things upon it came
about at some period of time in the past by a direct and
unusual manifestation of Divine power; and that since this
original Creation other and different forces and powers have
prevailed to sustain and perpetuate the forms of life and
indeed the entire world as then called into existence.
Accordingly, we might establish the Evolution doctrine by
showing that matter can be made de novo, that energy can
be created or increased in amount, that life can be made from
the not-living, and that new and distinct forms of life can be
produced in modern times,--all by natural law as now
prevailing.
Or we can practically demonstrate the historical reality of a
direct Creation at some time in the past, if we can show that
the net results of all modern science tend to prove that the
forces and processes now in operation can never account for the
origin of things; that matter, and energy, and life, and the
various forms of life must all have had an origin essentially
different from anything now going on around us.
This indicates the line of argument adopted in the following
pages.
The Evolution theory has been widely discussed and accepted in
modern times. Indeed it has had a fair chance and an open field
for several decades. What is the present situation of the
controversy? The friends of the Bible and of old-fashioned
Christianity need to know the real facts of the present
situation.
Every now and then the news despatches report that the great
Professor So-and-so has at last really produced life from the
not-living, or has obtained some absolutely new type of life by
some wonderful feat of breeding. Or some geologist or
archæologist has discovered in the earth the missing link
which connects the higher forms of life with the lower, or
which bridges over the gulf between man and the apes. Thus many
people who get their "science" through the daily papers really
believe that these long-looked-for proofs of Evolution have at
last been demonstrated, and hence they receive without question
the confident assertions of the camp followers of science
published at space rates in the Sunday supplements that all
intelligent men of to-day have long ago accepted the Evolution
doctrine.
But in spite of the quick dissemination of news and the
universal spread of education, it seems but a slow process for
the really important discoveries of modern science to filter
down through such media as the current periodicals to the rank
and file of society. The situation seems to illustrate the old
adage that a lie will travel round the world while truth is
getting on her shoes. Thus it happens that the common people
are still being taught in this second decade of the twentieth
century many things that real scientists outgrew nearly a
generation ago, and assertions are still being bandied around
in the individual sciences which are wholly unwarranted by a
general survey of the whole field of modern natural
science. Indeed, in almost every one of the separate
sciences the arguments upon which the theory of Evolution
gained its popularity a generation or so ago are now known by
the various specialists to have been blunders, or mistakes, or
hasty conclusions of one kind or another. Thus the market value
of all the various subsidiary stocks of the Evolution group has
been steadily declining in their respective home markets, and
now stands away below par; while strange to say the stock of
the central holding company itself is still quoted at
fictitiously high figures.
This curious--not to say deplorable--situation has developed
largely because of the modern system of strict specialization
in the various departments of science. Each scientist feels
compelled by an unwritten but rigid code of professional ethics
to confine himself strictly to the cultivation of the little
plot of ground on which he happens to be working, and is
forbidden to express an opinion about what he may know has been
discovered on another plot of ground on which his neighbor is
working, except by express permission. In other words, science
teaching has now become strictly a matter of authority, this
authority being vested in the various specialists; and nobody
is permitted to look at it in a broad way, or to frame a
general induction from the sum of all the facts of nature now
discovered, under penalty of scientific excommunication. The
scientific code of ethics forbids any general view of the
woods: each man must confine himself to the observation of the
particular tree in front of his own nose.
But these pages have been prepared under the idea that it is
high time to take a more general survey of the geography, time
to take our eyes off the various individual trees, and to look
at the woods. Perhaps in some respects they may be regarded as
too technical for ordinary readers. But if this is the case, it
is because the writer had to choose between this somewhat
technical treatment of the subject and the alternative danger
of making loose and inaccurate statements or dealing in
glittering generalities too vague to carry conviction. As it
is, the writer is here trying to give directly to the general
public the results of years of special research in correlating
the data from many scattered departments of science,--results
that most scientists would feel obliged to reserve for the
select few of some learned society, to be published
subsequently in the Reports of its "Transactions," and to find
their way after years of delay into the main currents of human
thought. But these dilatory methods of professional pedantry,
miscalled "ethics," shall not longer be allowed to delay the
publication of highly important principles which the public are
entitled to know at once, and to know at first hand. Then, too,
it is more than doubtful if any purely academic body could be
found willing to become responsible for giving to the world
conclusions so contrary to the vogue of the present day.
That these brief chapters may clear up the doubts of some, and
encourage the faith of many, is the object of their publication
in this non-professional form.
G. McC. P.
I. MATTER AND ITS ORIGIN
II. THE ORIGIN OF ENERGY
III. LIFE ONLY FROM LIFE
IV. THE CELL AND THE LESSONS IT TEACHES
V. WHAT IS A "SPECIES"?
VI. MENDELISM AND THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES
VII. GEOLOGY AND ITS LESSONS
VIII. CREATION AND THE
CREATOR
I
When we were told by a prominent scientist just the other day
that "electricity is now known to be molecular in structure,"
it almost took our breath away. And when we were informed that
certain well-known chemical elements had been detected in the
very act of being changed over into other well-known elements,
with the prospect of such a transformation of the elements
being quite the normal thing throughout nature, the very earth
seemed to be slipping away from under our feet. Some of the
closely related discoveries, such as the fact that the X-rays
show a spectrum susceptible of examination, were not so
disconcerting in themselves; but the marvellous pictures of the
structure of the atom elicited by these discoveries made many
good people almost question whether our venerable experimenters
had not been indulging in pipe dreams amid their laboratory
work.
Do we, then, begin to understand the real composition of
matter? Does it have component parts, in the materialistic
sense; or is what we call matter only a mysterious
manifestation of energy? And if the latter be our answer, can
we hope to settle the problem objectively and so conclusively
that it will stay settled? In short, do we, regarding these
border-line subjects between metaphysics and natural science,
know anything more than our fathers and our grandfathers?
It will be convenient to consider these problems under two
heads: the composition of matter, and the origin of matter.
II
1. It was long ago recognized that matter must be composed of
particles which are driven farther apart by heat and are
brought closer together by cold, thus laying the foundation for
the theory of the molecular composition of matter. But not
until the time of Dalton, about a hundred years ago, was it
proved that the molecule itself, the unit of physical change,
is capable of definite division into atoms, the units of
chemical change. This conception of the molecules and atoms as
the ultimate units of which matter is composed maintained its
place until the discovery of radioactivity and its associated
phenomena, about 1896; since which time we have definitely
ascertained that even the atoms are separable into still
smaller units, and that possibly these units are all
alike. On this last possibility, it would surely be a most
amazing fact if such multitudinous "properties" of bodies could
be produced merely by variations in the arrangements of these
ultimate units into atoms, or in some other way which produces
vast differences in properties by combinations of units that
are nevertheless mere duplicates of one another.
As hydrogen is the lightest of the elements, it has been a
favorite theory with scientists that the various elements are
all composed of combinations of hydrogen atoms. But since many
of the elements have atomic weights which cannot be made exact
multiples of that of hydrogen, it has been felt that there must
be some other smaller unit than the hydrogen atom; or else that
these hydrogen atoms themselves change in weight when they
combine to form other atoms. But mass seems to be the one
unchangeable characteristic of matter; hence it was felt that
any change of weight is almost unthinkable, and so a solution
was sought in the direction of still further dividing the
hydrogen atom, the smallest unit concerned in chemical change,
as then understood. But now the facts and principles brought to
light in connection with the studies of radioactivity have
settled it that we actually do have a much smaller unit than
the hydrogen atom, one of only about 1/1760 its mass, in fact;
and that this smallest of the small things of nature is none
other than a particle of negative electricity, now called an
electron.
That the atoms of all the elements must have a common unit of
composition, that they behave as if composed of ultimate
particles that may be regarded as duplicates of one another,
has long been regarded as an inevitable conclusion from the
Periodic Law of Mendeleef. This law says that the physical as
well as the chemical properties of the various elements depend
upon their atomic weights, or as it is stated in the language
of mathematics, the properties of an element are functions of
its atomic weight. This fact of the variation in the properties
of elements in accord with their atomic weights has been even
more strikingly illustrated by the behavior of discharges of
electricity through rarified gases, as well as by the facts of
radioactivity. To quote the words of Sir J.J. Thompson, "The
transparency of bodies to Roentgen rays, to cathode rays, to
the rays emitted by radioactive substances, the quality of the
secondary radiation emitted by the different elements, are all
determined by the atomic weight of the element."[1]
Just recently we have had opened up before us a still more
intimate inner-circle view of the composition of matter. H.G.J.
Moseley, a young man only twenty-six years of age, at an
English university, devised a method of examining the spectra
of the various elements by means of the X-rays. He found in
this way that the principal lines of these various spectra are
connected by a remarkably simple arithmetical relationship; for
when the elements are arranged in the order of their atomic
weights, they show a graded advance from one to another equal
to successive additions of the same electrical unit charge,
thus indicating a real gamut of the elements that we can run up
by adding or run down by subtracting the same unit of
electrical charge. It is pitiable to have to record that next
year this scientific genius was killed in the ill-fated
Gallipoli expedition against Turkey.
Thus in many fairly independent ways we are brought around to
this same idea of a common structure underlying all the many
seeming diversities manifested by what we call matter.
The phenomena of radioactivity were discovered accidentally in
1896 by the French chemist Becquerel. Many investigators
immediately began working along this promising line, and two
years later Madam Curie, in association with others, discovered
the new element radium. Soon it was discovered that radium and
several other substances are continually giving off radiations
at an enormous rate, that no change of chemical combination, no
physical change of condition appears to have the slightest
effect in slowing or increasing this discharge of emanations,
while no scientific apparatus yet devised can detect any change
in the substances left behind either in respect to weight or
any other properties as the result of these enormous losses of
energy. Accordingly some people not unnaturally were ready to
draw the conclusion that those most firmly established laws of
physics and chemistry, the laws of the conservation of energy
and of matter, were overthrown by this astonishing behavior of
these newly discovered substances. However, only a few more
years of study and investigation were necessary to prove that
this last conclusion was wholly unwarranted; and to-day these
laws of the conservation of energy and of matter are more
firmly established than ever.
The thing that has gone by the board is the old idea of the
atoms as the indivisible and irreducible minima of the material
universe. For not only do all the radioactive substances give
off particles of helium gas positively electrified, but all
bodies, no matter what their composition, can by suitable
treatment, such as exposing them to ultra-violet light, or
raising them to incandescence, be made to give off
electrons or negatively charged particles, and these
electrons are always the same no matter from what kind of
substance they come. In a somewhat similar way, we always
get positively electrified particles of the mass of the
hydrogen atom, or about 1,760 times the mass of the electron,
whenever we send an electric charge through a gas at very low
pressure, no matter what the kind of gas. Whether or not
these positive units will yet prove susceptible of being split
up into smaller particles comparable to the electrons, is
merely a subject for conjecture. We have no proof that they
will. At the present time what we call matter seems to be
composed of these positive units and of the electrons which are
about 1/1760 as great; and in the present state of our
knowledge these facts suffice to explain all the properties of
matter. Thus we can either say that electricity is composed of
matter, or say that matter is composed of electricity; and
human language at best is such a clumsy vehicle of thought that
scientifically and philosophically the one statement is as
correct and as reasonable as the other.
And probably we shall never be able to learn any more than
this. We have arrived at a sort of box-within-a-box theory of
the make-up of matter. By a very elaborate system of unpacking,
or by some violent external force that makes the inside burst
open, as it were, we seem to be able to make pieces fly off
from the atoms, these pieces being then projected into space
with enormous force and velocity. There are theories galore of
the structure of the atom; but as Prof. E.P. Lewis has said,
most of these theories are so impossible as to be absurd, or so
speculative that "they suggest no experimental tests for their
validity."[2] Just at present Rutherford's theory of the
structure of the atom is quite popular. This postulates a
nucleus composed of a group of positive units and electrons,
with an excess of the positive charges equal to half the atomic
weight, with an equal number of electrons circulating about
this nucleus in rings. Bohr's theory, which is not very
different from this, has perhaps even more friends, and it is
supported by the remarkable discoveries of the lamented
Moseley. But we must not take such theories too seriously. As
Kayser has said, any true theory of the make-up of the atoms
must assume an absolutely full and perfect knowledge of all
electrical and optical processes, and is therefore beyond our
dreams. Or as Professor Planck said in his Columbia lectures,
we are not entitled to hope that we shall ever be able to
represent truly through any physical formulæ the internal
structure of the atom.
III
2. We must now take up the second phase of our subject, the
problem of the origin of matter.
Before we knew anything of radioactivity we could have
dismissed such a subject briefly by quoting the law of the
conservation of matter, which says that matter can neither be
created nor destroyed by any means known to science. By our
knowledge of radioactivity we can make our answer a little more
learned, a little less abrupt, but none the less discouraging
to the advocate of the development hypothesis. We can tell how
the elements of high atomic weight, such as uranium and
thorium, are constantly giving off particles and are thus by
loss or decomposition being changed over into other elements,
such as radium, niton, polonium and lead. But our new knowledge
compels us ultimately to give the same answer as before,
namely, that we still do not know how matter ever could have
originated, except that "in the beginning" it was called
into existence by the fiat of Him whom we Christians worship as
our God, the Creator. Thus we reach the conception of the
universe as that of a great clock gradually running down, which
is certainly the antithesis of that picture so long held before
us by the advocates of the development theory.
Uranium is a rather rare element, though known for over a
hundred years, and has an atomic weight of 238.5. In
decomposing it gives off first a helium atom, weight 4; and
after this action has been repeated three times the substance
left is radium, atomic weight about 226.4. Thus radium is
simply uranium after it has lost three helium atoms. Radium in
its disintegration gives off three kinds of particles, namely,
helium atoms (positively electrified), β-rays or
electrons, and γ-rays, the latter being identical with
the X-rays, and having penetrating power sufficient to carry
them through six inches of lead or a foot of solid iron. The
final stage in this process of disintegration is the ordinary
element lead, in which condition the atoms seem to have reached
relative stability. Whether or not our stock of lead, with our
other common elements that are not radioactive, was originally
produced by the disintegration of these other elements, is
merely a matter of conjecture. We know nothing at all about
it.
The length of time it takes for half the atoms of an element
to change is called its "life" or period. The periods of most
of the radioactive substances have been calculated, that of
uranium being very long. The calculated period of radium is
2,500 years, while that of polonium is only 202 days, and that
of niton 5.6 days. These unquestioned facts, together with the
enormous amount of heat evolved by the disintegration of these
substances (that from radium being about 250,000 times the heat
evolved by the combustion of carbon), have thrown a great deal
of doubt upon the older estimates of the age of the earth.
The discussion of the details of these theories would be
unprofitable. But through the mists of all these conflicting
theories and probabilities two facts of tremendous importance
for our modern world emerge in clear relief, namely, that the
grand law of the conservation of matter still holds true, and
hence that the matter of our world must have had an origin
at some time in the past wholly different in degree and
different in kind from any process going on around us that we
call a natural process. These elements of high atomic
weight that break down into others of lower atomic weight may
be so rare because they have been about all used up in this
process. At any rate, so far from revealing the origin of
matter as a process now going on, these phenomena are an
objective demonstration that all matter is more or less
unstable and liable under some unknown but ever-acting force to
lose some portion of that fund of energy with which it seems to
have been primarily endowed. Not the evolution of matter but
the degeneration of matter is the plain and unescapable
lesson to be drawn from these facts. The varieties of matter
may change greatly, and one variety or one chemical element may
be transformed into another. But this transformation is by
loss and not by gain. It is degeneration and not upward
evolution that is now opened up before our astonished eyes by
this peep into the ultimate laboratories of nature; and he is
surely a blind observer who cannot read in these facts the
grand truth that all this substance called matter with which
science deals in her manifold studies must at some time in the
past, I care not when, have been called into existence in
some manner no longer operative. The past eternity of
matter, as well as its progressive development from the simple
to the complex, seems manifestly out of consideration in view
of the facts as we now know them. There is no ambiguity in the
evidence. So far as modern science can throw light on the
question, there must have been a real Crea tion of the
materials of which our world is composed, a Creation wholly
different both in kind and in degree from any process now going
on.
IV
A supposed objection has been raised to this view, based on
the vastness of the universe as we now know it. Whether or not
the universe is really infinite in extent, it is certainly of
an extent that is practically infinite, so far as our powers of
observation or of reasoning are concerned. But this practically
infinite universe is not a bit harder to account for than would
be a definitely limited universe, say of the size of our solar
system. If the spectroscope shows that the far distant parts of
the universe contain many of the same elements as are found in
our solar system, we need not be surprised, since all are alike
the work of the same Creator. Nor would this fact that the
universe seems to be composed of similar materials throughout
tend in any way to prove that all these parts of the universe
were brought into existence at the same time, nor yet that our
solar system was refashioned out of some of the common stock of
the universe already on hand, as the nebular hypothesis
supposes. For all that we can tell to the contrary, it would
seem probable that the materials of our solar system were
called into existence expressly for the position they are now
occupying; and this seems to be the plain import of the record
in Genesis. Of one thing, however, we can be certain,--these
materials must at some time have been called into existence by
methods or ways that are no longer in operation around us. "In
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
V
Some remarks are necessary here regarding the homogeneousness
of matter, or the idea that the various elements are composed
of primordial units which are themselves alike, mere duplicates
of each other. If this should prove to be really the case, as
seems to be quite likely in the light of the facts given above,
would it not be a veritable triumph for materialism? By no
means. On the contrary, I think I can show in a very few words
not only that this homogeneousness of matter is the only
rational view of the composition of the material universe, but
also that it is the only view consistent with Christian Theism
and with the doctrine of Creation.
The theory of the atoms with their inherent and unchangeable
properties, which prevailed during the greater part of the
nineteenth century, naturally led us to look upon these
properties as inherent in the things themselves. This was
indeed materialism. This view, however, constantly impelled us
to find out the essential differences between the various kinds
of atoms, so as to "account for" their varying behaviors. And
no matter how far we push such inquiries, this materialistic
attitude of mind will control us so long as we think we are
dealing with substances which are intrinsically different. If
the differences are innate or inherent in the things
themselves, we must naturally endeavor to find out why and how
they are different; and no matter how far we go along this road
we are always headed in the direction of stark materialism. On
the other hand, to say that the "properties" of the atoms are
not inherent in themselves, but are imposed on them by an
external ceaselessly acting power, the will of the Creator,
would be in full accord with Biblical theism; and then we might
naturally say that the ultimate particles of which matter is
composed may well be regarded as alike and mere duplicates of
one another. And this, as we have seen, is just what modern
discoveries in radioactivity are teaching us regarding the
make-up of the substances that we call matter.
But an objection at once arises. How can these primordial
units of which matter is composed behave so differently, if
they are really alike, mere duplicates of one another?
We may not as yet be able to tell just why and how; but we
have in the cells of which all plants and animals are composed
an analogy which is almost perfect, if not quite.
These component units of organic matter, the individual cells,
as will be explained later, seem physically and even chemically
mere duplicates of one another. They may not all be of the same
size; but they are all composed of protoplasm, and the
protoplasm of plants cannot be distinguished from that of
animals by any physical or chemical tests known to modern
science. The protoplasm in the brain of a bird is the same as
that in its toes; and no metaphysical subtilties about heredity
have ever explained why the one does a different work from the
other. The plain fact is that different cells, composed of
identical protoplasm and structurally alike, act very
differently; and there is no scientific reason based on
innate properties that gives us even a glimmer of a reason why.
We have searched a long time along this road; but there is no
prospect of finding an explanation; we are merely running up a
cul-de-sac with no view beyond. From the materialistic
point of view, nobody knows why protoplasm acts as it does,
least of all, why some masses of protoplasm act one way, and
exact duplicates act differently. But if, on the other
hand, we look beyond the facts and methods of physics and
chemistry, and even beyond the most plausible theories of
genetics, we can readily explain this remarkable action of the
cells as the result of the will of an ever acting, omniscient,
almighty God. Certainly nothing else is adequate to explain the
behavior of living cells.
In a very similar way we must reason regarding the ultimate
units of matter, call them what we will, electrons, corpuscles,
or units of electricity. If these are mere duplicates of each
other, as science now teaches, they not only indicate by this
identity that they are "manufactured articles," as was long ago
pointed out of the atoms and molecules, but they also indicate
with all the force of a demonstration that nothing but an ever
present omniscient Intelligence could keep these duplicates
from always acting the same under similar external forces.
If gold and carbon, iron and oxygen are at bottom composed of
particles that are mere duplicates of each other, as seems to
be the case, how can these elements and the six dozen or more
others maintain their individuality throughout nature as we
know they do, even in the far distant stars, except by the
sleepless care of an Intelligence whose Word is as effective in
one part of the universe as in another, and to whose Word these
particles of matter can show no inertia and no disobedience,
because they have no powers or properties except what He has
imparted? This doctrine of the homogeneousness of matter is the
antithesis of materialism. It is consistent only with the
doctrine of an almighty and ever present God, and like many
other facts which have been developed by modern scientific
discoveries, it confirms the other primal doctrine of a literal
Creation "in the beginning."
VI
The conclusion which our minds are forced to draw from the
facts presented in this chapter is not doubtful, nor is it
difficult to state. Matter is not now being brought into
existence by any means that we call "natural." And yet the
facts of radioactivity very positively forbid the past eternity
of matter. Hence, the conclusion is syllogistic: matter
must have originated at some time in the past by methods or
means which are equivalent to a real Creation.
Thus far, at least, the record of Genesis is confirmed: "In
the beginning God created."
____________________
[1]Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XVII, 891. Cambridge
Edition.
[2]Nature, April 5, 1917.
I
What has been regarded by many as the greatest scientific
triumph of modern times was worked out about the middle of the
last century by James Prescott Joule and others, in determining
that a certain amount of mechanical energy is exactly
equivalent to a definite amount of heat. With this mechanical
equivalent of heat all the various other forms of energy have
also been correlated; until now we have the general law of the
Conservation of Energy, which says that energy can be neither
manufactured nor destroyed, but merely transformed and
directed. And this magnificent law, like that of the
conservation of matter, is strong evidence that there must have
been a real Creation at some time in the long ago, different
not merely in degree but in kind from anything known to modern
science.
Joule worked out the mechanical equivalent of heat by means of
his now famous experiment of churning water. He reasoned that
if the heat produced by friction, etc., is really energy in
another form, then the same amount of heat must always be
generated by the expenditure of a given amount of motion or
mechanical work. And this must be true, no matter whether this
work is expended in overcoming the friction between wood on
wood, iron on iron, or in any other conceivable way.
Accordingly, he devised an experiment in which paddle wheels
were made to rotate in a vessel of water by means of falling
weights somewhat like the weights of a clock. The amount of
work represented by the falling of the weights was easily
calculated, and so was the amount of rise in temperature of the
water caused by the friction of the water with the rotating
paddle wheels. In various other ways he measured the amount of
heat generated by a measured amount of work; and as the result
of all his experiments (with very slight corrections made since
by means of more exact apparatus), we now know that 778 foot
pounds of work produce heat enough to raise one pound of water
one degree Fahrenheit; or stated in the metric system, 427
kilogram meters of work will produce a calorie of heat.
Since these record-making experiments by Joule, the matter has
been verified over and over again in all sorts of ways; and
almost every kind of display of energy has been measured with
more or less exactness. Even the amount of food oxidized in the
human body is now known to be capable of correlation with the
other forms of energy, though necessarily very minute exactness
of measurement is scarcely attainable in this case. But no
scientist of to-day doubts that all the physiological processes
of animals or of plants conform exactly to the law of the
conservation of energy that energy is neither created nor
destroyed by any means known to science. In other words, the
amount of energy in our world, if science can at all determine
such a matter, seems to be a fixed quantity, gradually
being dissipated into space, it is true, but momently
replenished from the sun at exactly the same rate now as
hundreds or thousands of years ago. And while this energy is in
our world it is always capable of exact correlation in all of
its multitudinous forms, and is transformable back and forth
without increase and without loss.
On the discovery of the radioactive substances in 1896, some
persons hastily concluded that the law of the conservation of
energy was contradicted by the astonishing way in which these
substances acted. But further and more accurate experiments
have set this matter at rest, as indeed might have been
expected; for the law of gravitation itself is not more
immovably established in the make-up of the universe than this
magnificent law that energy cannot be created by any means
which we call natural.
In all ages there have been men who have spent their lives in
the vain effort to invent a machine out of which work could
constantly be obtained without the expenditure upon it of an
equal amount of work. But the United States patent office has
got so tired of receiving applications for patents based on
this idea of perpetual motion that they have long since refused
to issue any such patent where this principle is the manifest
object; and I suppose the governments of other countries have
taken a similar stand. And why? Because they know that energy
cannot now be created by any device, no matter how ingenious;
and they refuse to become a party to any scheme that seems to
imply that this modern creation of energy is within the bounds
of possibility.
Yet what is all this but a confirmation of the declaration
long ago made that "the works were finished from the foundation
of the world" (Heb. 4:3)? True, the energy we are constantly
employing seems to come to us from the sun; but we must
remember that the sun and its family of the solar system,
including the earth, were all made at the same time, that they
are bound together as parts of an indissoluble whole.
Accordingly, no one can say that the total amount of energy
called into existence at the creation of our solar system is
being added to at the present time. At any rate, so far as
modern science can judge of the matter, the total amount of
energy available for our world is a fixed quantity; and
its amount and the terms on which it was to be available for
our use were fixed or finished "from the foundation of the
world." While it is a very significant fact in this connection
that with all the multiform speculations which have been made
as to the physical source of the sun's heat, no explanation
wholly satisfactory has yet been made as to how this energy
coming to us from the sun is constantly replenished or
maintained.
II
The desire to find a material cause for all phenomena is
instinctive in the human mind, and has proved the chief impetus
in a thousand discoveries. And yet, unless we are on our guard,
it is liable to be a source of real error whenever we are
dealing with the deeper problems of thought. For when we have
pushed our way into the inner sanctuary of any department of
nature, we almost invariably come upon a deep chasm that we can
pass over only by building a bridge of words. Some of these
verbal bridges have been decorated with very dignified names,
such as "the luminiferous ether," "gravity," "chemical
affinity"; and when we have shifted from the one side of the
chasm to the other we impose upon the credulity of the public
(and even ourselves) by giving out the impression that these
words represent the real objective bridge on which we
crossed.
In how many ways do we by our theories dodge the crucial
problem of how energy is really transmitted, that is, how
matter can act on distant matter across seemingly vacant space.
Gravity, and indeed all the forms of the attractive forces,
come under this head. True, we observe certain regularities in
the way in which these phenomena occur, and the phenomenon at
one place seems to be somehow dependent on some exercise of
force at another place. And so we invent an ingenious theory,
and fortify it all around with ponderous algebraic artillery
for defense against all attack. And by persistent use of such
theories we hypnotize ourselves into the belief that we are
truly scientific in method, and are dealing with objective
realities, and that these learned theories are something more
than pretentious masks to hide our ignorance of real nature;
when in reality these theories seem to be only a material
screen to shield us from an embarrassing near view of the
immediate action of God in all the various phenomena of the
world; for not many find it a comfortable thought thus to live
continuously beneath the great Taskmaster's eye.
The theory of the luminiferous ether as the medium of the
transmission of light is one of these pretentious bridges of
words. Our advancing knowledge of electro-magnetic phenomena
may some day drive us back to a modified form of the
corpuscular theory of light, and then we can throw this of the
ether to the winds. In that case we would at least have a real
material cause for the phenomena with which we deal. While the
current theory of the ether has so many inconsistencies, and
attempts to bridge over so many real chasms in our thinking
that it seems truly astonishing to see it taught so long. By
the theory of the ether the problems are not solved, they are
merely postponed or evaded; for while solving one difficulty it
creates a multitude of its own. How then are we better off than
before without any such theory?
Being at liberty to invent any sort of qualities for their
ether, scientists have tried to imagine such a substance as
they think they need. The ether must be a kind of matter; but
unlike any matter that we know of it cannot have weight, or
else it would gravitate together here and there, thus becoming
more abundant in some places than in others; whereas the
need is for a material absolutely uniform throughout
space, even throughout the interiors of solid bodies, such as
the earth and the bodies upon the earth.
Another reason for supposing the ether to be a plenum,
filling absolutely all space, is that it must be perfectly
frictionless; and for this reason it cannot be composed of
particles with spaces between them. It must be frictionless,
for otherwise the planets would be retarded in their motions
through space. The earth, for instance, is moving along its
orbit at the rate of eighteen miles a second; and yet the ether
does not pile up in front of it, nor is it made rarer in the
wake of the earth. Moreover, during the thousands of years
during which astronomers have been making observations
absolutely no retardation has been detected in the motions of
the earth or of any of the heavenly bodies, even to the
smallest fraction of a second.
It is necessary to make the ether absolutely elastic and
absolutely rigid. We are acquainted with many materials that
are elastic, and with some that are comparatively rigid. But
the elastic substances that we are acquainted with are not
rigid, and the rigid substances are not elastic; and to assume
such contradictory qualities in the ether transports us far
beyond the bounds of experimental science.
These are but a few of the difficulties raised by the
assumption of the ether as a real entity; but as there is no
means of demonstrating its existence, except by arguing the
necessity of having such a medium to transmit radiant
energy, it follows that no multiplication of objections to the
theory is likely to refute it in the minds of those who feel
this necessity. Those who refuse to admit the possibility of
"action at a distance," who insist on inventing a connecting
material medium between every observed effect and some material
object with which it seems to be in causal connection, will, I
suppose, have to be allowed to exercise their ingenuity in any
way to satisfy their minds, even though they may have to revise
their theory with every fresh discovery in optics or
radioactivity.
There are many other ingenious mental devices, like this of
the ether, which seem to me only materialistic efforts to
postpone or to dodge the real vital lessons to be read from
natural phenomena,--efforts to push the real Cause back one
step farther into the shadow,--a last desperate effort, in the
face of the constantly accumulating evidence of modern
knowledge that the great First Cause is far more intimately
connected with life and motion than many are willing to
believe. We have already mentioned gravity and the other
attractive forces, such as cohesion and adhesion; but seemingly
very few people have ever paused to consider how utterly
inexplicable they still remain in any physical or materialistic
sense.
It is easy to explain any form of a push in a physical
way; but gravity is not a push but a pull. And how are
we to explain the method by which a body can act where it is
not, how explain in detail the way by which it can reach out
and pull in toward itself another separated body, and exert
this pull across the immeasurably wide fields of space? The law
of inverse squares may tell us very accurately the manner in
which the results are accomplished, for our Creator is a God of
order. But there is no materialistic theory of the why
of gravitation that is worth employing the time of sensible,
truth-loving people. And we can rest assured that there never
will be any such real "explanation," save that this is the way
which the great Jehovah has ordained. Since such theories only
explain the known in terms of the unknown, they can serve only
as a sort of mental buffer or shield between us and the
conception of the direct working of a personal God, whose word
must always be as effective throughout the remotest corners of
His universe as near at hand, for the very simple reason that
matter has no "properties" which He has not imparted to it, and
accordingly it can have no innate inertia or reluctance to act
which God's word would need to overcome in order to induce it
to act, even when this word operates across the wide fields of
space. On this explanation these phenomena of "action at a
distance" are at least intelligible; while to me, and I speak
now as a scientist, they are intelligible in no other way.
III
There is another line of thought which has to do with living
organisms, but which I shall beg leave to anticipate and bring
in here at the close of this chapter, since it follows as a
direct corollary from the law of the Conservation of Energy.
Indeed, we might even term it the biological aspect of that
law.
As we have seen, we can neither create energy nor destroy it;
though we can lose it,--so far as this earth is
concerned. The vast fund of energy that daily comes streaming
to us from the sun is transmuted back and forth in a thousand
ways, though little by little it is dissipated off into space,
and we are dependent upon a fresh supply from the ever
replenished fountain.
Just so, though in a somewhat idealistic sense, is it with
what we may term vital energy. Cells, organisms, even whole
races, are subject to degeneration and decay. They cannot
acquire higher powers, though they may gradually lose what they
already have; as Bateson has recently told us that whatever
evolution there is must be by loss and not by gain. Water very
easily runs down hill; but cannot go up hill in and of itself.
Just so with the types of organic life. It was not merely an
idle sneer of the witty Frenchman, that science has not yet
explained how an ancestor can transmit what he has not got
himself. He cannot always transmit all that he himself actually
possesses of nature's gifts. Vitality becomes lowered, and the
type degenerates. Weismann has emphasized this idea in his
doctrine of "panmixia," or the withdrawal of selection, which
always results in degeneration. Selection, artificial or
natural, may serve to counteract this universal tendency of
organic life, but only approximately. As Sir William Dawson
says, "All things left to themselves tend to degenerate."
Little by little the endowment of vitality bestowed upon our
world at the beginning has, like radiant energy, been returned
to God who gave it; but, unlike the case of radiant energy, the
Creator has not established any regular source of vital supply
from without, no elixir of life for organic nature in general.
There is no longer within easy reach a tree of life from which
we may pluck and eat and live forever. And as the individual
grows old and dies, so do species and even whole tribes
degenerate and become extinct.