It has been observed since the dawn of science that changes are taking place in the motions of the heavenly bodies. The eccentricity of the earth's orbit has been gradually diminishing from the earliest observations to the present time. The moon, also, has been moving faster and faster from the time of the first recorded eclipses, and is now in advance by about four times her own breadth of what her place would have been had she not been affected by these accelerations.[155] In a few thousand years she will be half a month ahead of the place she would be in if her month were to remain constant. The moon is, therefore, approaching closer and closer to the earth; and if these changes go on uninterruptedly, without any reaction or adjustment, sooner or later the final catastrophe must come, and the moon be precipitated on the body of the earth.
Toward the close of the last century, Laplace, in his great work, the "Méchanique Céleste," attempted by certain mathematical computations to show that, nevertheless, the solar system is stable and permanent. The planets, by their mutual attractions, produce perpetual perturbations in one another's movements. Laplace believed he could prove that these were periodic; they reach a maximum value and then diminish, oscillating between very narrow extremes. He therefore taught that the machine would go on by a kind of perpetual motion, without any winding up or adjustment from without; and, consequently, the eternal continuance of the solar system is insured.
All the investigations of Laplace, and the computations of Lagrange, proceeded on two assumptions: first, that the planets are moving in vacuo; and, secondly, that they are solid throughout their entire mass. The latter assumption is certainly in conflict with well-determined geological facts; and there is no à priori ground for assuming that the planetary spaces are void and empty. On the contrary, the general analogies of nature would lead us to the very opposite conclusion, and all attempts at producing a perfect vacuum have hitherto failed. Furthermore, the great body of modern physicists, and nearly all modern astronomers, hold that the celestial spaces are filled with a "material ether," which must by its very nature offer some resistance to planetary motion.
"Scientific men," says Mayer, "do not doubt the existence of such an ether." The presence of such "material ether—dense, elastic, and capable of motion—subject to and determined by mechanical laws,"[156] is demanded for the explanation of radiant heat, light, and actinism. No other theory ever proposed has so beautifully and completely accounted for all the facts. Its reality must be admitted, until the positions established by Huyghens, Young, Fresnel, Foucault, and Fiziau are shown to be untenable. All the prominent experimental physicists of the present day agree in teaching that light and heat are transmitted by vibrations or wave-like motions in a material medium universally diffused through space, and permeating all material bodies. Light and heat are the ceaseless thrill which the distant orbs collectively create in the ether, and which constitute what has been called the temperature of space. If the existence of such material medium as the assumed ether be denied, we can not account in any conceivable or rational manner for the transmission of light and heat from the sun. And now, if the space between the celestial bodies contain no other matter than that necessary for the transmission of light, "that alone," says Littrow, "is sufficient, in the course of time, to alter the motion of the planets, and the arrangements of the solar system itself; the fall of all the planets and comets into the sun, and the destruction of the present state of the solar system, must be the final result of this action."[157]
But it is further claimed by Helmholtz, Mayer, and Sir William Thomson that the phenomena presented by Encke's comet furnish "direct proof" of the existence of such resisting medium. The observations on this comet made during the past thirty or forty years show that the periods of its revolution are continually diminishing at the rate of 0.11° per revolution of nearly 3-1/3 years. In other words, the comet's mean distance from the sun is diminishing by slow and regular degrees. The solution which Encke himself proposed, and which Herschel informs us "is generally received,"[158] is that resistance is experienced from the medium in which the comet moves; such resistance diminishing its actual velocity and also its centrifugal force, thus giving the sun greater power to draw it nearer. It will, therefore, fall into the sun. A similar fate, says Helmholtz, threatens all the planets. "The analogies of nature, and the ascertained facts of physical science, forbid us to doubt that every star, and, indeed, every body of every kind moving in any part of space, has its relative motion impeded by the air, gas, vapor, medium, or whatever we call the substance occupying space immediately around them, just as the motion of a rifle-bullet is impeded by the resistance of the air."[159]
There are also indirect resistances, the effects of tidal friction, on all bodies which, like the earth, have portions of their free surfaces covered by liquids, which, so long as these bodies move relatively to neighboring bodies, must keep drawing off energy from their relative motions. "Thus, if we consider the action of the moon on the earth, with its oceans, lakes, and rivers, we perceive that it must tend to equalize the period of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the revolution of the two bodies about their centre of inertia; because, so long as these periods differ, the tidal action of the earth's surface must keep subtracting energy from their motions."[160] As the tidal wave sweeps over the oceans and rushes into the numerous bays and estuaries, the motions which it produces in the waters necessarily involve an expenditure of power or vis viva in overcoming the resistance from friction. The energy of motion thus expended must be drawn from the set of machinery which produces the motions—that is, from the motion of revolution of the moon, and the motion of rotation of the earth. It can not be returned to the machinery, because all that is not spent in triturating the sand and other materials composing the ocean-bed, is transformed into heat and radiated into space.
It is true that in the present state of science we have not exact data for estimating the relative importance of tidal friction, and of the resistance of the interstellar medium; but, whatever it may be, there can be, says Thomson, "but one ultimate result for such a system as that of sun and planets if continuing long enough under existing laws.... That result is the falling together into one mass, which, although rotating for a time, must in the end come to rest relatively to the surrounding medium."[161]
Another evidence that the solar system is temporal, and that the present cosmical order must come to an end, is found in the fact that the sun is radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater than it receives. If it were not so, we should receive, on the average, as much heat from every other quarter of the heavens as from the sun, and no vicissitudes of temperature would ever occur on the earth. Now, from what we know of the nature of heat, it is impossible that the supply contained in the sun should be inexhaustible. There is no apparent reason why the sun should form an exception to the fate of all fires, its only difference being one of size and time. It is larger and hotter than ordinary lamps, but is nevertheless a lamp in which invisible molecular energy is consumed, and consumed, too, at a rate which baffles all conception. From every square foot of its surface the sun gives out energy equal in amount to seven thousand horse-power. The total amount of heat sent off from the sun in one minute is "five thousand millions of millions of units": a unit of heat being the quantity of heat required to raise one kilogramme—or about one quart—of water one Centigrade degree.[162] This enormous consumption of energy must finally exhaust the original stock. Were the sun a solid block of coal, and were it allowed a sufficient quantity of oxygen to enable it to burn at the rate necessary to produce the observed emission of heat, it would be utterly consumed in five thousand years. Or if we suppose, with Thomson, that the initial form of the energy of the universe is the potential energy of gravitation in matter diffused through space, and if this potential energy (energy of position) is transformed into heat (molecular kinetic energy) by condensation or contraction of the sun, and this energy of molecular motion (heat) is again transformed into radiant energy and diffused through infinite space, it is obvious that this condensation can not be continued forever, and Thomson has shown in his article on the "Age of the Sun's Heat" that its power of radiation must come to an end. Various theories have been suggested for replenishing the solar heat, one of the most plausible of which is the falling of meteoric and cometary bodies into the sun. Prof. Thomson, who was one of the first to adopt this view, has now abandoned it, or at least has denied its adequacy to account for the maintenance of solar heat. Even were the hypothesis accepted as valid, the supply of fuel is still finite. Time will drain the entire space inclosed by the orbit of the planet Neptune of all the meteors and comets. Even the planets must at length be ensepulchred in the sun. "As surely," writes Sir William Thomson, "as the weights of the clock run down to the lowest position, from which they can never rise again unless fresh energy is communicated to them from some source not yet exhausted, so surely must every planet creep in, age after age, toward the sun." Not one can escape its fiery end. And, finally, the heat of the sun itself—that is, its molecular energy—must be transformed into radiant energy, and diffused and lost as a working force in infinite space. "Thus do the inexorable laws of mechanics indicate that the sun's store of heat, which can only suffer loss and not gain, must be finally exhausted."[163]
There are thus special geological and astronomical facts which have long been regarded as indicative of the principle that the existing order of the material universe is temporal—it had a beginning, and must have an end. But the modern Theory of Energy,[164] with its three great laws of Conservation, Transformation, and Dissipation, must be regarded as a comprehensive, complete, and final settlement of the question. It has been shown, first, that no system of machinery can create force any more than it can create matter; and that the amount of energy in the universe, or in any limited system which does not receive energy from without, or part with it to external matter, is a constant or invariable quantity. This is the Law of the Conservation of Energy. It has been proved, secondly, as an experimental fact that, in general, one form of energy may, by suitable processes, be transformed wholly or in part to an equivalent amount of another form; and the sole and only function of all possible machines is the conversion or transformation of energy. This is the Law of the Transformation of Energy. This law of Transformation is, however, subject to the limitations which are imposed by the Law of the Dissipation of Energy, the discovery of which is mainly due to Sir William Thomson. He has shown that every machine does its work against friction. "A material system can never be brought through any returning cycle of motions without spending more work against the mutual forces of its parts than it gained from these parts, because no relative motions can take place without meeting with frictional or other forms of resistance." No known process of transformation is exactly reversible. Whenever an attempt is made to transform and retransform energy by an imperfect process, part of the energy is converted into heat, and the heat is dissipated, so as to become useless because incapable of further transformation. It therefore follows that, as energy is constantly in a state of transformation, there is a constant degradation of energy to that final unavailable form of uniformly diffused heat; and this will go on as long as transformations occur, until the whole energy of the universe has taken this form.[165] The reader will find an extended discussion of this great question in Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philosophy," vol. i. pp. 188-304, in which it is shown that the present material system is not a dynamically conservative but a dissipative system, and therefore that in such a system "perpetual motion" is an impossibility.
Indeed, the Law of the Dissipation of Energy is an intelligent and well-supported denial of the chimera of perpetual motion. There is a loose idea that perpetual motion is impossible to us, because we can not avoid friction with its consequent loss of energy, but that nature works without friction, or that, in general, friction entails no loss, and so here perpetual motion is possible; but nature no more works without friction than we do, and friction entails a loss of available power. The supply of invisible molecular energy in the sun is no more infinite than the quantity of matter in the sun is infinite. The sun is daily lifting huge masses of water from the sea to the skies, yearly lifting endless vegetation from the earth, setting breezes and hurricanes in motion, dragging the huge tidal wave round and round the earth; performing, in short, the great bulk of the endless labor of this world and other worlds, so that the energy of the sun is continually being given away without any corresponding restoration. The loss of force in the shape of radiant light and heat can never be weaned back to any other mode of available energy. Carnot, Clausius, Thomson, and Rankine have all from different points of view been led to the same conclusion. We can make no use whatever of the energy represented by equally diffused heat. If one body is hotter than another, as the boiler of a steam-engine is hotter than the condenser, then we can make use of the difference of temperature to convert some of the heat into work; but if two substances are equally hot, even though their particles contain an enormous amount of molecular energy, they will not yield us a single unit of work. Energy is thus of different qualities, mechanical energy being the best, and universal heat the worst; in fact, this latter description of energy may be compared to the waste heap of the universe, in which the effete forms of energy are suffered to accumulate without any further conversion.[166] If, then, when mechanical force passes into heat, some of the heat can never be brought back to be mechanical force, and if the change from mechanical force to heat be ever going on, all the force in the universe must at last take the form of radiant heat. But if that be so, then at last all differences of temperature must disappear, and every thing end in a universal death.
"We are come," says Adolph Fick, "to this alternative: either in our highest, most general, most fundamental abstractions, some great point has been overlooked, or the universe will have an END, and must have had a BEGINNING; it could not have existed from Eternity, but must at some date, not infinitely distant, have arisen from something not forming a part of the natural chain of causes—that is, IT MUST HAVE BEEN CREATED."[167]
So far, then, the deductions of science are found to be in striking harmony with the teaching of revelation—the existing order of the universe had a beginning; the forms, relations, laws, harmonies of the Cosmos had a commencement in time. We may now proceed to the consideration of the second question: Had that which is the ground of all form, the subject of all changes and relations, a beginning? Had the matter of the universe a beginning?
That we may fairly present the answer which modern science offers to this question, we must premise, in general, that it confesses its inability, in the present stage of physical knowledge, to determine what is the ultimate or internal constitution of matter. Many scientists of to-day are of the opinion expressed by Grove[168] that "probably man will never know the ultimate structure of matter." Others, as, for example, Thomson, Bayma, McVicar, and Challis, entertain the opinion that physical science is competent to discover all the minutiæ of molecular actions, and when this has been achieved, the question as to the ultimate constitution of matter can be finally determined. There is one guiding principle, recognized alike by the physicist and the metaphysician, namely, that substances, ultimate entities, are known, and can only be known in and through their respective phenomena. An exact enumeration and careful colligation of all the phenomena are therefore indispensable prerequisites to the solution of the problem.
Meantime nothing is more remarkable, even in the present state of physical science, than the fact that, under the subtile analysis of modern physics, much that we have been accustomed to regard as phenomena of matter dissolves and disappears, surviving only as phenomena of Force. The phenomena of heat, light, color, sound, electricity, and magnetism are now "modes of motion"—manifestations of one and the same omnipresent energy, which is transferred from one portion of matter to another, and modified or transformed simply by the mechanical arrangements and collocations of matter. The opinion is rapidly gaining ground that even chemical action is a mode of motion, and Professor Norton does not hesitate in affirming that "all the phenomena of material nature result from the action of force upon matter."[169] All that we mean by a Material Force "is a force which acts upon matter, and produces in matter its own appropriate effects."[170] It is not an attribute of matter, not a quality inherent in matter, but a mode or state superimposed upon matter.
There is a large, influential, and daily increasing class of scientists, among whom may be named Faraday, Prof. Owen, Dr. Laycock, Wallace, Dr. Winslow, Prof. Huxley, who do not regard matter as an ultimate entity, and who believe that all the phenomena of matter (so called), even extension, resistance, and ultimate incompressibility, may be resolved into phenomena of force. In other words, matter is only phenomenal, and, like all phenomena, demands a cause.[171] These men are perplexed with no difficulties as to the origin of matter. As a phenomenon it must be a product of Creative Efficiency, and therefore had a beginning.
It is obviously unnecessary that we should here discuss the merits of this hypothesis which resolves matter into force. We shall encounter it at a subsequent stage of our inquiry, and may then attempt to gauge its merits. It is enough for our present purpose that Heat, Light, Color, Sound, Electricity, Magnetism, are recognized as forms of molecular Energy—phenomena of Force; that these forms of invisible molecular energy, together with all the energy of visible motions and positions, are regarded as flowing from one great central force, or fountain-head of power; and that there is a remarkable unanimity among the first scientific men of our age in acknowledging this power as the Creative Efficiency of God. These forces uniformly work in obedience to Law; and Law, whether viewed in the orderly movement of a planet or an atom, in the symmetrical arrangement of a crystal of the definite proportions of chemical combination, in the organization of a worm or of an elephant, is intellect, is reason. This is the ultimate principle upon which every condition of matter and form depends.
This conception of force will materially aid us in the conception of matter. It is simply "the recipient of impulses or energy"[172]—the mere passive condition for the exercise of power. "It does not generate the phenomena which it manifests. It is only the substratum—it does absolutely nothing but give to the phenomena their conditions of manifestation."[173] Every molecule of matter, every aggregation of molecules, every organism must be regarded as a machine upon which the forces of nature play, and by which they are transformed and rendered available for the performance of work. Thus matter, by its very conception, must have been created, and fitted for the fulfillment of a predetermined function. Before the mechanism of the universe was set in motion, there was a preparation and collocation of its materials, and an adjustment of its minutest parts. As Sir John Herschel justly remarks, "Chemical analysis most certainly points to an origin, and effectually destroys the idea of an external self-existent matter, by giving to each of its atoms the essential character, at once, of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent."[174] The numerical relations between chemical elements are the expression of creative ideas. The maxim of the Pythagorean philosophers is daily receiving new illustration from science, "The world is a living arithmetic in its development, a realized geometry in its repose." There can be no arithmetic without an Arithmetician, no geometry without a Geometrician. Thus in the very elements out of which the universe is built, the blocks of nature's temple, we see the indications not only of a fashioning but of an originating intelligence—a Creating God. Design as truly appears in the primitive nature of matter as in its secondary formations. The primitive purpose is stamped on the primitive article.
"Every molecule throughout the universe bears impressed on it the stamp of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at Paris, or the double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
"No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction.
"None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes which we call natural.
"On the other hand, the exact quality of each molecule to all others of the same kind gives it the essential character of a manufactured article, and precludes the idea of its being eternal and self-existent."[175]
The universe had a beginning. It is not eternal either in its matter or form; it is neither self-originated nor self-sustained. The all of the finite, with its relations and laws, its adaptations and harmonies, had its origin solely and absolutely in the unconditioned will of God. This is the Christian doctrine concerning the world.
In the preceding chapters we have endeavored to show that this doctrine is in perfect agreement with the teachings of sound philosophy, and we have found that it is daily receiving fresh confirmation from the discoveries of modern science.
If the universe originated solely in the free determination of God, then we are assured there must be a sufficient and ultimate reason for its existence. This logically follows from the true conception of Will, for will is not unconscious force, neither is it groundless arbitrariness, but conscious, rational choice.
In the merely formal and indifferent sense of the word, an arbitrary action is one in which the agent yields to the blind impulse of caprice, and can assign no reason for his doing. An action is truly free only when the agent knows what he wills, and why he wills it. The self-conscious will is the only real will. Will is intrinsically something more than power, something more, even, than the power of spontaneous self-determination. Will involves precognition, deliberation, and alternative choice: it is the living synthesis of reason and power. "The mere moment of self-determination does not suffice for the notion of will, for this, in a certain sense, we must ascribe to unintelligent creatures, to the organic life of nature by virtue of its development from its own principle. Self-determination only thereby becomes will by its being a conscious determination—that is, the conscious subject is able to present to its own mind that which it brings to reality by its self-determination."[176] All real volition supposes a purpose or end to be realized, an inward motive or reason which renders the end desirable, and the choice and adaptation of means to accomplish that end. Consequently, if the universe is the product of the Divine Will, it must, both in its origination and its history, be the realization of an ultimate or final purpose, must have a perfect unity of plan; and the highest law of the universe must be a teleological idea to which all nature-forces and all causal connections are subordinated. This ultimate purpose forms, as it were, a complete network of higher teleological connections above the web of mere aiteological connections which pervades the universe.
This great principle that a teleological idea is the highest law of the universe has been recognized by all philosophers of the spiritualistic school from the time of Plato to the present day. Even Mr. Mill admits that "Teleology, or the Doctrine of Ends, may be termed, not improperly, a principle of the practical reason;"[177] and he advises those who would prove the existence of God "to stick to the argument from design." No saying of Bacon has been more often quoted or more grossly misunderstood and misapplied than his remark on final causes: "The search after final causes is barren, for like virgins consecrated to God they produce nothing." If, however, we refer to his writings ("Advancement of Learning," bk. ii. p. 142), we find him adding, "not because these final causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province." A fair consideration of the context clearly shows that the remark was intended to apply to Physics, and not at all to Metaphysics. All that he intends to say is that in purely physical inquiries the search after final causes can have no practical application; and the error he would guard against is the assumption that what appears to man a final cause must be the ultimate final cause to the Infinite One.
The belief that a principle of adaptation to special ends pervades all existence, and that it must be assumed as the ground of the scientific explanation of the facts and phenomena of the universe, is avowed by the first scientists of the age. "We can not be content," says Dr. Laycock, "with simply determining the mere relations of things or events—an existence, a co-existence, a succession, or a resemblance—and not inquire into the ends thereof. Such a doctrine applied to physiology would, in fact, arrest all scientific research into the phenomena of life; for the investigation of the so-called functions of organs is nothing more than a teleological investigation."[178] "A law of design is the higher generalization of the great uniformities of nature."[179] In his inaugural address at the meeting of the British Association of Science at Edinburgh, Sir William Thomson said: "I feel profoundly convinced that the argument from design has been greatly lost sight of in recent speculations.... Overwhelmingly strong proofs of Intelligence and Benevolent Design lie all around us; and if ever perplexities, whether of a metaphysical or scientific character, turn us away for a time, they will come back upon us with irresistible force, showing us through nature the influence of a Free Will, and teaching us that all living beings depend upon one ever-acting Creator and Ruler."[180]
Every enlargement of our knowledge of organic nature is an addition to the already numberless instances of recognized special adaptation which crowd us on every hand; and all scientific discovery is but an illustration and a verification of the à priori intuition of the reason that a principle of design is co-extensive with and the highest law of the universe. Not merely of each individual existence, but of the grand totality of existence, are we constrained to believe that it exists for a purpose. Above all special ends there is a great ultimate design of creation—a last or final end to which all intermediate ends are means; and though physical science can not fully compass that final purpose, yet in the light of its present knowledge of special ends it has abundant reason for assuming that there must be a final purpose, and that that final purpose is at once beneficent and wise.[181]
But while the final purpose of creation may not be discoverable by human science, we know that it has been revealed in the Christian Scriptures.
The most fundamental doctrine of Christianity is that God is Love (1 John iv. 8, 16), and that Love is the highest determining principle of the Divine efficiency. Creation, Providence, and Redemption are grounded in Love as the final cause (Gen. i. 31; Isa. lxiii. 9; John iii. 16).
The gravitating point of the Christian doctrine of "God the Creator" is not Omnipotence, nor yet Wisdom, but always Love. Omnipotence, in itself considered, possesses no moving or determining principle. God does not create the world to reveal his infinite power. Infinite Wisdom devises the best means and methods for the Divine efficiency, but it does not supply the ultimate reason why the world exists. The Love of God is the moving principle of his wisdom and power in that it appoints the end to which omnipotence is related as the efficient, and wisdom as the formal cause. Whatever displays of power or of wisdom may be made in the created universe, they are all subordinated and made subservient to the purpose of Love. The highest law of the universe is Love. "The conservation of Love is the loftiest conservation of Force."
The world, then, was created to be a revelation of God, and especially to be a revelation of the perfections of the Divine nature which are grounded in and deducible from Love; and it exists as the self-manifestation and self-communication of God to personal creatures who can know Him and love Him in return. "That which can determine God, absolutely sufficient in Himself, in the production of beings distinct from Himself, is Love alone; consequently the creation is nothing else than the free self-communication of God Himself, who could be exclusively in Himself, but wills that others may have being and, in fellowship with Him, eternal life."[182] The world-creating, world-preserving Love of God has this for its ultimate purpose, that there shall be beings who, in the completeness and perfection of personal existence, shall know and love and resemble God, and have fellowship in his blessedness and joy (Matt. v. 8; 1 Cor. xiii. 12; 2 Peter i. 4; 1 John iii. 2).
The realization of a perfected humanity in fellowship with God is, then, the final end of creation. We find some intimations of this grand purpose in the sublime record of creation which is given by Moses. We there learn that every thing was created with a view to man—to "man in the image of God." The inorganic world exists for the vegetable kingdom, the vegetable exists for the animal kingdom, and all exists for man (ch. i. 26-30). All its successive changes were a preparation for the appearance of man.[183] The more comprehensive revelation of the New Testament teaches that man exists for the realization of that perfected humanity of which Christ is the model, and which is attained in and through Christianity. The idea of man is the teleological principle of the world, the idea of Christ is the teleological principle of humanity. All things were created by Christ and for Christ. "The good pleasure (εὐδοκία = the benevolent purpose) of the Divine Will" is, in the fullness of time, to gather together in one all things both which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in Christ, that in the final consummation God may be all in all (Eph. i. 9, 10; 1 Cor. xv. 28).
This purpose of Divine Love is an "eternal purpose," ordained before the foundation of the world, and progressively unfolded in the creation, government, and redemption of the world. Thus the world, as an actual, temporal world, reposes on an eternal ideal world which has always been present to the Divine cognition. The visible creation is but the realization of the Divine ideal in such modes and under such conditions as shall constitute it a manifestation of God to finite intelligences—the external expression of the mind and character of God, the language of the Deity.
Assuming this as a fundamental principle of Christian theology that Creation is the self-manifestation of God, and that the final cause of this manifestation is the communication of the Divine blessedness to intelligent, personal being, we may logically infer the following intermediate principles as Laws of this Manifestation.
1. This manifestation must be GRADUAL, not instantaneous. In other words, it must be unfolded in successive steps or phases, so as to be adapted to the nature and capabilities of the being to whom it is made. The determinations of nature, like those of consciousness, must conform to the law of progressive development.
Divine omnipotence was, no doubt, adequate to the production of new beings without any pre-existing materials or any prearranged conditions; but creation is not mainly or primarily a revelation of omnipotence. The Deity might have brought the phenomena of the universe into instant being without any succession and independent of all means, but a universe thus instantaneously produced and simultaneously presented would reveal no purpose to, and could not be understood by, a finite mind. Finite consciousness can be developed only under conditions of plurality, difference, and succession, and therefore the objects of cognition must be successively presented. We may be sensible of the external reality by immediate intuition, but we can understand only through experience; and experience supposes a gradual process—a succession not simply in our mental states, but a succession of external phenomena. This experience of succession constitutes our consciousness of time. Therefore, in order that the Divine manifestation may be understood, it must have a history.[184]
2. This manifestation must be CUMULATIVE—that is, it must afford an increase of knowledge through successive additions; it must be an advancing revelation of new principles and laws in an ascending line of creative acts.
An evolution which is absolutely continuous, and in which the present is the necessary outcome of the past, and that by degrees infinitely small, may be a manifestation of unconscious force, but can not be a manifestation of living Will. If nature be a manifestation of God—the unfolding of an eternal purpose of Love—this manifestation must ever be open to receive new additions, the intercalation of new principles, and the superinduction of new laws working for a nobler end. All limitations from the scientific stand-point are illogical and absurd. This law would determine our conception of the universe as an aggregation of combined evolutions from several intermediate principles or beginnings, rather than an evolution from a single first matter or first force. The creation of the new, whether as primordial element, or primary force, or principle of life, or rational soul, is the fundamental idea of the supernatural—that is, the production of something which is not a necessary out-birth from pre-existing conditions and laws.[185] Therefore what is commonly, though perhaps incorrectly, styled "miraculous interposition," must itself be a law of the Divine manifestation, and the law of uniformity must be subordinated to the more general law of progressive development, which subordinates the inorganic to the organic, the physical to the moral world.
3. This manifestation must be CONSECUTIVE. Not only must it be a succession of steps or phases, but the entire series must be so related and concatenated as to present an Order of Thought—an ascending development toward a foreseen and predetermined end.
If it were not so, every thing would be isolated and disconnected, and consequently unintelligible. There would be a succession of phenomena, but no manifestation of thought; a series of dissolving views presented to the sense, but no revelation to the understanding. Isolated phenomenal changes might be continued through untold ages, but the past would have no connection with the present, and would be unknown and lost to all the future. A revelation of the Infinite Mind to finite intelligences, made through the manifold and diversified phenomena of nature, must be a connected and related whole, so that from phenomena actually observed we may infer antecedent conditions, and anticipate future evolutions; otherwise it could not be understood. To be intelligible, a process of development must be the product of thought, and it must reveal thought—that is, it must be consecutive.[186]
4. This manifestation must be HARMONIOUS. Notwithstanding its multiplicity of parts and manifold stages, it must be a unity—a Cosmos.
Beings the most varied in endowment, things the most diversified in form and function, events the most remote from each other in time and space, must all be related and connected in virtue of the ultimate and all-embracing purpose for which the universe exists. An external purpose revealed under time-relations must be an all-harmonious evolution and an orderly totality—a Cosmos.
Let us now turn to the record of creation as given in the Sacred Scriptures—the Mosaic Cosmogony—and see how that account conforms to the laws which on logical grounds we have deduced as the Laws of the Divine Manifestation.
The fundamental prerequisite for a right interpretation of the sacred narrative is a clear apprehension, first, of its general purpose, and, secondly, of its special literary characteristics. On these two points, therefore, we offer the following preliminary considerations:
1. The design of the sacred narrative is to teach Theology and not Science. A cursory reading of the narrative will convince any one that its purpose is not to enlarge men's views of nature, but to teach them something concerning nature's God. It says nothing about the forces of nature, the laws of nature, the classifications of natural history, or the size, positions, distances, and motions of the heavenly bodies. From first to last, every phenomenon and every law is linked immediately to some act or command of God. It is God who creates, God who commands, God who names, God who approves, and God who blesses. Strike out the allusions to God, and the narrative is meaningless. Clearly, it was never intended to teach science. It has obviously one purpose, to reveal and keep before the minds of men the grand truth that Jehovah is the sole Creator and Lord of the heavens and the earth; and it leaves the scientific comprehension of nature to the natural powers with which God has endowed man for that end.
All this is what we might legitimately expect. The narrative was designed primarily and mainly for the instruction of the masses of men who knew nothing or scarcely any thing of science; and if designed for their instruction, it must be couched in language which they could comprehend. A revelation made in the language of science would have been unintelligible to the race for nearly six thousand years of its history, and, practically, would have been no revelation at all. Scientific language, moreover, is subject to modification and change as science advances; but the narrative of Genesis was intended for all time, and therefore needed to be couched in language not liable to change. "The only language which possesses these two requisites of general intelligibility and non-liability to change is the language of appearances. The facts set forth must be described as they would have seemed to the eye of man; that is, in a word, phenomenally, or the cosmogony would fail of its purpose. All scrutiny or objection in the matter of unscientific, or scientifically inaccurate language, then, must be put aside as irrelevant."[187]
While earnestly maintaining that the inspired history of creation was given for the instruction of unscientific persons, and is therefore theological and not scientific, we also believe that all truth is one, and that all revelation, whether in Scripture or in nature, must be ultimately harmonious. Science in its last generalization must be Theology. Theology in its proper development must be Science. They are twin children of heaven, vestal virgins which can not be wedded to error. We are, therefore, justified in the expectation that the revelation in Scripture, when rightly interpreted, will contain nothing that is inconsistent with the scientific interpretation of nature. While we hold that there are no untimely anticipations of scientific discovery in Genesis, yet we expect that when the scientific discoveries are made, the congruity and dignity of the moral and religious lesson shall not be defeated and marred. Nay, more, we maintain that the Mosaic cosmogony presents the great principles which really lie at the basis of a truly scientific interpretation of nature. It teaches that God is before all things and the Creator of all things—that He alone is unbeginning, and that all things had a beginning in his creative word and will. It presents the universe as one harmonious whole, the product of one designing Mind, the project of his thought, the transcript of his plan—a plan evolved through successive stages toward a foreseen terminus or goal. And, finally, it teaches that man is the end toward which creation was tending, that he is the last and crowning work of God, and that he is the child and charge, not of a blind, impersonal force, but of a living, loving God.
2. The sacred narrative is poetic, symbolical, and unchronological. It is a noteworthy fact that the early literature of the most ancient nations was poetic—the natural, spontaneous product of that earliest stage of mental development in which the conceptions of God and of nature were determined by subjective feeling and native sentiment, and not by reflective thought. The "Vedas" of the Hindus, the "Iliad" of the Greeks, the "Eddas" of the ancient Germans, were each the product of an age in which "prose was unknown, as well as the distinction between prose and poetry." The earliest Hebrew compositions are of the same character; and it is reasonable to assume that a primitive revelation to the progenitors of our race would be accommodated to this earliest phase in the development of mind.
The Book of Genesis opens with a Psalm—"the inspired Psalm of Creation"[188]—"a grand symbolical Hymn of Creation." "The rhythmical character of the passage, its stately style, its parallelisms, its refrains, its unity within itself, all combine to show that it is a poem."[189] Here is the same organic unity which marks the 104th Psalm, or the Lord's Prayer, or the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. Or, if we go out of the Bible for illustration, it combines with lyric breadth of treatment and stateliness of movement all the compactness of a "solemn sonnet freighted with a single thought from beginning to end." Analysis of its interior structure exhibits a most artificial synthesis, founded upon well-known sacred numbers. It has, first, an Exordium, the proemial part. Then it is articulated into six Strophes. Finally there is the Epode, or peroration. The six strophes separate naturally into two groups, in which there is a balance and correlation of parts celebrating the first three and the last three concordant steps in the creative movement—the Strophe and the Antistrophe.
The exordium states briefly the subject of the poem: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
The first three strophes unfold the creative development of the receptacles:
1. A. The luminiferous ether. } "The heavens
2. B. Waters and the firmament between the waters. } and the earth."
3. C. Dry land above the waters, with plants. }
The second three strophes (or, more correctly, antistrophes) unfold the creative development of the occupants:
4. A. The light-bearers: sun, moon, and stars. } "And all the hosts
5. B. Water-animals and birds. } of them" (Gen. ii. 1).
6. C. Land-animals and man. }
The epode, or peroration, fills up the sacred number 7—the symbol always of permanence and repose. "Thus the heavens and the earth (the receptacles) were finished, and all the host of them (the occupants); and on the seventh day God put period to the work which he created by fashioning," etc.[190]
THE SYMBOLICAL HYMN OF CREATION.