GEORGE * VEILS ARMES 
 
 MEMORIAL LIBRARY * * * 
 STJLE5 HALL BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 
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" The day." Gen. ii. 4. 
 
 " Six days." Fourth Commandment. 
 
 ETERNITY. 
 
 GOD. 
 THE BEGINNING. 
 
 ETERNITY. 
 
 Matter. 
 
 Motion. 
 
 Light. 
 
 1. 
 
 Nebula. 
 
 Page 132. 
 The Earth. 
 
 3. 
 
 5. 
 
 
 A 
 
 All water as vapor. 
 Page 133. 
 Water as now. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Land covered. No vegetation. 
 Page 133. 
 Land as now. Vegetation completed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 | 
 
 \ No sea- n . 
 \ Page 134. 
 Seasons. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ Page 135. 
 \ Pish and Fowl of to-day. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r Page 1:35. 
 
 \ Land animals of to-day. 
 | /\J Man. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Reign of Man. 
 To-day. 
 
 The apex of each angle denotes the beginning of a stage of progress, 
 increasing to completion, after which there was no further develop- 
 ment in that direction. This ia indicated by the parallelism of the 
 lines. See pp. 131-135, also p. 92, p. 157, p. 165. The horizontal num- 
 bered lines denote the position of the " days," each marking the close 
 of an epoch of immeasurable length. The work done, or progress 
 made between the "days," is described for each epoch, on the page 
 referred to. 
 
 The double angles indicate a double development. 
 
"STRIKE, BUT HEAR ME." 
 
 THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION, 
 
 THE MIRACLE OF TO-DAY; 
 
 OB, 
 
 NEW WITNESSES TO THE 
 
 ONENESS OF GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
 
 AN INQUIRY AS TO THE CAUSE AND EPOCH OF THE 
 
 PRESENT INCLINATION OP THE EARTH'S AXIS, 
 
 AND AN ESSAY UPON COSMOLOGY. 
 
 "The most Important thing for us In every branch of knowledge, is 
 to see the thing oa in itself it really is." ARNOLD. 
 
 CHARLES B. WARRING. 
 
 > t 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 J. W. SCHERMERHORN & CO., 
 
 14 BOND STREET. 
 1875. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 THIS book can be had of Booksellers generally, or of tho 
 Publisher by whom it will be sent by mail, postage paid, on 
 receipt of price, $2.00. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 CHARLES B. WARRING, 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 MY purpose in this Essay is *to compare the 
 statements in the first two Chapters of Genesis 
 with the scientific discoveries and conclusions 
 thus far attained. I have endeavored to do this 
 MS fairly and thoroughly as possible, and while I 
 am well aware that my conviction of the super- 
 human character of that Account permeates this 
 book, yet I confidently appeal to the words of 
 Moses on the one hand, and to Scientists upon 
 the other, as to the correctness of my statements. 
 It is a true saying that a belief is not necessarily 
 true because it is old, nor false because it is new. 
 Each one should stand, or fall, according to the 
 character of the evidence adduced in its behalf a 
 principle for which the Reader will find use. 
 
 There is little Science in this Essay that is not 
 the common property of all who haye in any 
 degree kept up with the progress of Physical 
 research. Indeed, by far the larger part is strongly 
 insisted upon, or quietly assumed as needing no 
 further proof, by Evolutionists, with whom, how- 
 ever 'much it maybe my lot to differ on other 
 
 101827 
 
IV PREFACE. 
 
 subjects, in these I agree most fully. I have, 
 however, taken scientifically heterodox ground in 
 reference to a change of the earth's axial position. 
 For a full discussion of this, and also a develop- 
 ment of the Nebular Hypothesis, the Reader is 
 referred to Part III. Should it be shown that 
 my argument is erroneous, and that I am wrong 
 in my views in reference to the work of the 
 "fourth day," the Reader is reminded that it 
 is the explanation only, and not the Narrative 
 itself, that he has proved false. This still re- 
 mains, and, if true, will surely at some time so 
 appear. 
 
 The Geologic Record from the close of the 
 Tertiary, or the beginning of the Glacial Epoch, 
 lacks the fulness and exactness that mark the 
 older periods. One most important fact, how- 
 ever, has been established beyond question, viz. 
 that the present " living " species of fishes, birds, 
 reptiles, and mammals, as well as Man, appeared 
 after that date, and I think I may add, after the 
 dominance of the Glaciers. 
 
 In a few instances I have ventured to change 
 the received translation to one that seemed nearer 
 to the very words of Moses. Above all things in 
 this discussion, there is needed perfect thorough- 
 ness that shall leave no after questions to come 
 up. Any decision based upon a version that 
 attempts to improve upon the Hebrew, or which 
 ignores any physical fact or law, germane to the 
 
PREFACE. 7 
 
 subject, must be just so far defective, and cannot 
 bear the test of examination. 
 
 Friends and foes have united in rejecting the 
 claim of the Mosaic Narrative to be literally true.* 
 The former, or at least many of them, style it a 
 Hymn of Creation or an Allegory, and escape all 
 scientific difficulties by the assertion that Moses 
 taught, not Physics, but Morals. The rejectors 
 of this narrative style it a Myth or Fable, and 
 dogmatically, and even superciliously, assume its 
 iin historical character to have been so well estab- 
 lished " that the student of science . . . will not 
 trouble himself further with these theologies, but 
 will confine his attention to such arguments against 
 the view he holds as are based upon purely scien- 
 tific data." f 
 
 I hope it will not be deemed presumptuous to 
 hold an opinion directly the opposite, for it is in 
 no spirit of vanity that I differ from so many wise 
 and able men, at whose feet, as a learner, I would 
 gladly sit. In this independence of thought I am 
 encouraged by the words of cheer uttered just 
 now at Belfast by one whose eloquence is sur- 
 passed only by his science. Whoever else may 
 give harsh and suspicious greeting to this effort to 
 
 * Even such a stanch advocate of its divine origin as 
 Prof. Dana, Manual, p. 767-8, says, " the account must bear 
 marks of human imperfection." " In the style of a sublime 
 intellect. . . . unversed in the depths of science which the 
 future was to reveal." 
 
 f Prof. Huxley. 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 discover the true correlation of Genesis and Sci- 
 ence, I feel assured of a patient hearing from such 
 men in the search after truth, and that' no preju- 
 dice nor pride of opinion will prevent their holding 
 an equal balance in which the reasons offered 
 may be impartially weighed. 
 
 It was my purpose to indicate some of the 
 more important points in this discussion, but I 
 find it difficult to make a selection. Perhaps the 
 chronological order is worthy of special note ; as is 
 also the work of the " third day." The sharply 
 defined character of the latter, and the equally 
 clear Geological record in reference to the same 
 developments, render the comparison eminently 
 satisfactory. Attention is also called to the " read- 
 ings between the lines." These, perhaps as much 
 as anything else, throw light upon the truthful- 
 ness of the Narrative. 
 
 It w r ill be seen that I have added another to 
 the attempts to solve the meaning of the " days." 
 The solution I offer has the drawback of novelty, 
 and, perhaps, nothing in this Essay will so cross 
 and disturb a belief hoary with antiquity. It 
 seems to me, however, impossible to reject it, so 
 exactly and easily does it meet all the conditions 
 of the problem, the wording of the " day clauses," 
 and of the fourth Commandment, as well as all 
 the Astronomical and Geological facts. As to this 
 and other theories advanced in this Essay, re- 
 sponsibility attaches to myself alone, save so far 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 as germs of thought from other sources have been 
 insensibly wafted into my mind. In no case, as 
 far as known, has any other writer entered upon 
 this subject, taking the very words, verba ipsis- 
 sima, of Moses as the basis of comparison. 
 
 The Introductory article is specially devoted 
 to Believers in a Revelation. It was thus more 
 easy to say certain things deemed important, but 
 which seemed out of place in the more purely 
 Scientific part. Yet there are matters in it of 
 interest to others and of use in understanding the 
 rest of this book. The first, second, and fourth 
 
 chapters were originally letters to . This may 
 
 help explain some peculiarities of style and ar- 
 rangement. 
 
 I add a few words in reference to certain 
 allied matters not strictly within the scope of this 
 book, but which, some may think, ought to be 
 spoken of in such an Essay as this. 
 
 A class of Scientists of distinguished ability 
 have reached a conclusion to their inquiries into 
 the origin of things, in the proposition that " all 
 evolution " is due to a Power Unknowable, a 
 proposition which they appear to regard as an 
 important outstretch of the human mind. I can 
 understand that one can positively and truly assert 
 that this Power is unknown to him, or that, on 
 the authority of a person who has thoroughly ex- 
 amined and comprehended this Power and the 
 capacity of the human mind, he may receive as a 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 matter of faith the assertion that this First Cause 
 is " Unknowable," but how any man can assert 
 this of his own authority, I cannot conceive. 
 The very affirmation implies the most exhaustive 
 knowledge, and thus destroys itself. This, how- 
 ever, is a FALSE ISSUE, of not the slightest practi- 
 cal value. The only question that concerns us is, 
 Can this Power make himself known to us ? 
 Does he interest himself in his creatures ? Does 
 he regard their welfare ? If so, can he let us 
 know it ? I can communicate my wishes to my 
 fellows ; even the brutes have, in a limited degree, 
 the same faculty, lias this Unknown Power less 
 ability ? These are questions that have not yet 
 received, from those whose motto is, " Freedom of 
 inquiry in all direction*," that attention which 
 their importance demands. 
 
 A possible proof of a Revelation has of late 
 made much stir in the world, and it may be 
 thought that I have Jiot given it due considera- 
 tion. I refer to the so-called PRAYER TEST. It 
 is, however, fairly included in what is said in the 
 first chapter about miracles. I may add, however, 
 that it is nothing new, for the Old Testament 
 abounds in Prayer Tests. Many of these will 
 occur to the Bible student. I shall mention only 
 one, selecting that, partly on account of its appo- 
 siteness, and partly as illustrating the use of the 
 words Jehovah and God. I refer to Elijah's 
 prayer for a direct physical answer to the then 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 practical question, whether Jehovah be God, or 
 whether Baal be God.* 
 
 A comparison between Genesis and Science 
 which omits all notice of EVOLUTION BY NATURAL 
 SELECTION, will, to many minds, seem .to lack an 
 important element of completeness. To such it 
 may be said, that Evolution without higher 
 guidance is proved false, if the Account in 
 Genesis is true. Hence, if this be established, 
 such Evolution needs no other refutation. But 
 Evolution under the control and direction of 
 the Great First Cause, God, is not incompatible 
 with the truth of that narrative. It may even be 
 true to a large extent, but, that it is infinitely 
 more under his control than the development of 
 certain breeds of cattle, or varieties of pigeons, is 
 under the control of intelligent men, the truth of 
 the Mosaic Account of Creation, if established, 
 conclusively proves. 
 
 * See 1 Kings xviii. v. 21-39. Note in v. 39 the use of 
 these words implied in the utterance of the convinced and 
 convicted people, " Jehovah, he is the God, Jehovah, he is 
 the God." 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Purpose of this Essay iii 
 
 Geological Record since the Tertiary iv 
 
 Thoroughness needed iv 
 
 Some of the more important points vi 
 
 The " Days " vi 
 
 About an Unknowable Power % . vii 
 
 The Prayer Test viii 
 
 Evolution, by Natural Selection ix 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Religious question of to-day 9 
 
 Mosaic Account o$ Creation the key to the position 10 
 
 The Witnesses 11 
 
 Commentator's Notions 14 
 
 The only tenable ground 16 
 
 Plan of study 16 
 
 The key to the mystery 17 
 
 Plan of this book 18 
 
 Difficulties outside 20 
 
 Character of the Narrative 21 
 
 The hardest thing to believe 22 
 
Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Revelation not intrinsically improbable 26 
 
 The question one of evidence 27 
 
 Kind of evidence needed 28 
 
 A PRESENT MIRACLE 29 
 
 Revelation not to be rejected because we fail fully to 
 
 comprehend it 30 
 
 The character of a revealed Cosmogony 31 
 
 Extraneous matter to be thrown one side 31 
 
 Authority of little weight 32 
 
 Not to be condemned for the theories of others 33 
 
 SCIENCE JUST COME NEARLY ABREAST OF GENESIS 34 
 
 Its rejection fatal to Science 34 
 
 Peculiar Character of this Account 35 
 
 Its obvious purpose 35 
 
 Fifteen creative acts 36 
 
 Another purpose, viz., to authenticate a revelation 36 
 
 The question of dignity does not concern us 37 
 
 Not a just objection that the Narrative is not clothed in 
 
 scientific language 37 
 
 The value of phenomenal statements 37 
 
 Genesis is more than Science 40 
 
 The six days * % 40 
 
 No creative act mentioned in any of the days 41 
 
 " Firmament " 42 
 
 What Genesis says, and what it does not say 43 
 
 " In conclusion " 46 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE UNITY OF GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Historical perspective 49 
 
 This the most literal prose 52 
 
CONTENTS. Xlli 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " In the beginning " 53 
 
 Tbeophobia 54 
 
 Indications of a beginning 55 
 
 Nebular Hypothesis 55 
 
 Of forces 57 
 
 First effects of 59 
 
 During the formative process 60 
 
 " The light, day " 61 
 
 Thorough mastery of his subject 62 
 
 The firmament 65 
 
 \Vliy called heaven 66 
 
 Why not pronounced " good " 66 
 
 Let the dry land appear 68 
 
 Completion of the continents 68 
 
 " Not of course " 69 
 
 Meaning of " let appear " 70 
 
 Later Hebrew Science 70 
 
 The Geological account 71 
 
 Ancient life 72 
 
 Grasses, herbs, and fruit trees 73 
 
 Angiosperms 73 
 
 Why these are placed in the same period as the appear- 
 ance of the dry land 74 
 
 Why speak of these and remain silent as to earlier 
 
 flora 75 
 
 A BIOLOGICAL DATE 76 
 
 Uniformity of law 76 
 
 No seasons then 77 
 
 " Let there be lights " -> 77 
 
 Plants may have been created afterwards also 81 
 
 BIOLOGICAL DATE, a later one 82 
 
 " He made the Stars also " 82 
 
 After the Glaciers 85 
 
 Fifth creative period 85 
 
 Sixth creative period 88 
 
 TheSabbath 90 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DAYS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Former explanations of their meaning 92 
 
 First use of " day " 93 
 
 " One day " 94 
 
 Days, as epochal 95-97 
 
 Day, as an indefinite period 97 
 
 ON THE PECULIAR PHRASEOLOGY OP THE DAY CLAUSES. 
 
 " One " not " first " 99 
 
 A peculiar expression 99 
 
 The Author knew all modern Science 100 
 
 The axis perpendicular 101 
 
 The true key to the " days " 102 
 
 The completions were world-wide 104 
 
 Sabbath 105 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FURTHER CONSIDERED. 
 
 A law of development 107 
 
 The order of development 108 
 
 A controlling Intelligence 109 
 
 Mosaic view of God's part in development 112 
 
 If Genesis is a myth, so is all physical science 115 
 
 Comparison in detail of the two records 120 
 
 Sir John Leslie "... 126 
 
 Resume of facts in Genesis 129 
 
 The philosophical division into six periods 131 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ON THE SECOND CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 
 
 The connection with the first 136 
 
 A paraphrase 139 
 
 Formation of Man.. 139 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Garden of Eden formed 140 
 
 Centres of creation 141 
 
 Tree of life 141 
 
 Tree of knowledge of good and evil 141 
 
 Formation of Eve 143 
 
 PART II. 
 
 STUDIES IN GENESIS. 
 
 A HARMONY OP THE PIE8T TWO CHAPTERS 147 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OP THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OP 
 CREATION. 
 
 An impersonal Genesis 155 
 
 Impossibility of ." 156 
 
 Elohim 157 
 
 GOD'S VERDICT OF APPROVAL. 
 
 Why some acts are pronounced "good " and others not. 157 
 
 THE DIVINE MONOLOGUE 161 
 
 The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. . 163 
 
 ON THE " SIX DAYS " OP THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT. . . 165 
 ON THE PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF EDEN 168 
 
 CONJECTURES AS TO THE PHYSICAL PACTS UNDERLYING 
 THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OP THE CREATION OF ANI- 
 MALS.. 175 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PART III. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 PAQB 
 
 What was the work of the Fourth day ? 187 
 
 Opinions as to 187 
 
 Geological difficulties of former explanations 188 
 
 If true, what must have been done 189 
 
 The field is open 190 
 
 Where this work is placed 191 
 
 Four lines of proof 192 
 
 THE CAUSE AND EPOCH OF THE INCLINATION 
 OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Axis has changed its position 195 
 
 The present question 197 
 
 Conclusions based on Uniformity of law 198 
 
 And on polar fossils 199 
 
 Geological evidence, 199 
 
 Importance of light to plants, etc 200 
 
 Answer to Lyell 205 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Possible causes 210 
 
 A miraculous interposition 210 
 
 Magnetic influence of the Sun 212 
 
 Effects of Meteors 213 
 
 Centrifugal forces 214 
 
 Attraction of Sun and Moon upon upheavals 218 
 
 Polar upheavals, existence of 222 
 
 Glaciers 222 
 
 Upheavals normal 225 
 
 Magnitude of a needed Circumpolar upheaval 227 
 
 Lyell's map 228 
 
CONTENTS. XV 11 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Sources of polar upheavals 230 
 
 Ice-caps 231 
 
 Difference in inclination of Moon's orbit and Earth's 
 
 equator, not largely due to movement of the Moon. 233 
 
 Conclusion 236 
 
 Resume 237 
 
 ANOTHER THEORY AS TO THE WORK OF THE FOURTH DAT 241 
 
 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 What it is proposed to show 244 
 
 What is assumed 245 
 
 Primordial condition 245 
 
 Cause of motion 246 
 
 First important conclusion 247 
 
 Effect of upheavals 248 
 
 Results of a Nebulous Condition 250 
 
 A series of planets 252 
 
 Orbital and axial movements normally in same direction. 252 
 
 Axial motions all normally in same direction 253 
 
 Orbits eccentric 255 
 
 Planes inclined 256 
 
 Planes of the equators inclined from to 180 259 
 
 Retrograde motion of Satellites 263 
 
 Direction of Satellites may differ from axial motion of 
 
 primaries 264 
 
 Saturn's eighth Satellite 265 
 
 Inclination of Moon's orbit 269 
 
 Sun's axis inclined, cause of 274 
 
 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 Moon once revolved more rapidly than now 275 
 
 Lunar tides 276 
 
 Lunar ridges 277 
 
 Earth once revolved more rapidly 278 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Why the exterior planets revolve more rapidly than 
 
 the inner ones 279 
 
 Mars 279 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Nebulous mass would generate a system similar to the 
 
 Solar 280 
 
 The plastic force was heat 281 
 
 Back to Genesis 282 
 
 THE ASTEROIDS. 
 
 Three theories 283 
 
 Another theory 284. 
 
 A not unreasonable explanation 286 
 
 No anomaly 287 
 
 RINGS OF SATURN. 
 
 Its rings and satellites 288 
 
 General opinion of 288 
 
 A theory in reference to 288 
 
 Temperature of 289 
 
 On the densities of planets 290 
 
 Effects of rings 291 
 
UNIVER 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 TO THOSE WHO RECEIVE THE BIBLE AS A 
 REVELATION FROM GOD. 
 
 great religious question of to-day resolves 
 itself into three: Is there a God? Is he a 
 personal God ? Has he given us a revelation ? 
 
 An affirmative answer to the last, if sustained, 
 is an answer to all. In reference to the sufficiency 
 of the reply, it is a matter of no consequence, 
 whether that revelation be long or short, whether 
 it is contained in one chapter or fifty. It is the 
 fact that any revelation has been made, that con- 
 clusively answers the questions. 
 
 Still, if it could be shown beyond cavil, that 
 one chapter of a book claiming to be a revelation, 
 was really such,, the probability of a like authority 
 for the other portions would be infinitely increased, 
 and the burden of proving a negative would be 
 thrown upon those who deny it. 
 
 The reality of such a revelation is earnestly 
 asserted on the one side, and denied upon the 
 other. The controversy has been long, each party 
 claims the victory thus far, and each professes 
 to be confident of the final result. 
 1* 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 But to one who studies the history of the last 
 hundred years, it is evident that the real success 
 has been with the defenders of a revelation, at least 
 in the departments of History, Archaeology, Phi- 
 lology, and Geography, although these were, not 
 long ago, loudly proclaimed as the witnesses that, 
 when fully heard, should destroy the credibility 
 of the Bible ; for, whatever men may say as to other 
 revelations, the Bible is the only book that is seri- 
 ously considered by those who have engaged in 
 this conflict. 
 
 So overwhelmingly corroborative is the result 
 of these investigations, that we shall probably hear 
 no more against the historical verity of the Bible. 
 The same class of opponents are now weaving the- 
 "ories on which the facts recorded may be strung as 
 facts, but with a purely natural explanation. 
 
 The conflict at the present day is more intense 
 than ever, perhaps because it is limited to the one 
 field of Natural Science, perhaps from a conscious- 
 ness that no other strong line of attack is left. 
 
 The assaults more or less directly centre on the 
 Mosaic Account of Creation. In fact, that is the 
 key to the whole position. Its assailants must 
 show its falsity or admit the reality of a revelation. 
 If they fail in that, all is lost. There is not left 
 them even a safe line of retreat. To admit the 
 truth of the Mosaic account, annihilates disbelief 
 in 'the personality of God, in his personal inter- 
 ference in the affairs of men, and in miracles, for it 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 is itself, if true, a personal interference and a mira- 
 cle, the very things as to whose existence there 
 was debate. 
 
 Into this conflict I propose to enter, not to ex- 
 plain and soften down the words of Moses, but to 
 take them, verba ipsissima, just as written, abating 
 not one iota. 
 
 This narrative deals with events that occurred, 
 if they occurred at all, before man appeared upon 
 the earth. It cannot therefore, like many other 
 parts of the Bible, be collated with ancient manu- 
 scripts or monumental inscriptions. 
 
 But we have other means of testing it, unknown 
 till within the last few decades. These are found 
 in the positive knowledge of very many important 
 facts in our world's ante-human history. 
 
 I turn therefore to the marvelous results obtain- 
 ed by astronomers, geologists, and philosophers, and 
 summon the sciences they have called into exist- 
 ence. By these I propose to show the literal truth 
 of the first two chapters of Genesis, not only as to 
 the things said to have been done, but, what is, if 
 possible, more extraordinary, as to the very order 
 of their occurrence. 
 
 No scientist can challenge these Witnesses. 
 Indeed, his rejection of them would be suicide, 
 while their admission is fatal to the whole array 
 of infidelity based upon a supposed contradiction 
 between Moses and the history of our world as 
 recorded by Nature herself. 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Nor can they be charged with a bias toward 
 the supernatural. Indeed, by a strange but provi- 
 dential misapprehension, it has been, and is even 
 now, the loudly proclaimed belief of the oppo- 
 nents of the Bible, that the evidence of these Wit- 
 nesses, if fairly and impartially received, would 
 result in the consignment of the Book to the 
 myths of an effete mythology, by the side of 
 Hindu and other absurd Cosmogonies. 
 
 While no believer in the Bible shared such 
 expectations, having grounds for his belief inde- 
 pendent of all theories, it must be admitted that 
 many have felt great fears of Science, and have 
 watched its progress with jealous eyes. Antici- 
 pating a conflict of statements, they have taken 
 refuge in the assertion that the Bible is a No- 
 Science Book ; as if the God of all science could 
 indite an account of creation, and give no infor- 
 mation about it ! 
 
 The evidence that will be presented in this 
 essay will be drawn from the following Sciences : 
 
 Astronomy ; including the Nebular Hypothesis, 
 Cosmic changes from the Nebula to the Planet, 
 the present condition of the Sun and larger planets, 
 the Stellar Universe, and also the attraction of 
 gravitation and the laws of motion. 
 
 Optics ; embracing the Undulatory Theory of 
 Light, and the results of Spectroscopic observa- 
 tions. 
 
 Geology ; including Paleontology, and espe- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 13 
 
 cially the Glacial Period, in reference to its Bio- 
 logical Epoch, as well as Climatic position. 
 
 Geography, Physical and Descriptive. 
 
 Botany, and Zoology, and Meteorology. The 
 last at least as far as the laws regulating the capa- 
 city of the atmosphere for water. 
 
 In addition to these, evidence derived from 
 the following generalizations reached only of late 
 by modern thought : 
 
 The Correlation of Forces. 
 
 Uniformity of Law. 
 
 A Law of Development. 
 
 As to a portion of the testimony there will be 
 more or less questioning; but as to the great mass, 
 it will so clearly corroborate the story in Genesis, 
 that its very completeness will render the reader 
 LJicrednlotiB at first, as when one has unexpectedly 
 fallen upon some great vein of gold, he stands 
 dazed and refuses to believe his own eyes. 
 
 I am aware also of the peculiar parentage of 
 some of these Witnesses, and do not wonder that 
 the simple-hearted believer, who has in his own 
 consciousness a Witness that no Science can give 
 or comprehend, should start back and exclaim, 
 " Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." * 
 
 My argument is not for such, but for that 
 
 large class to whom Science is the only revelation. 
 
 It would be outside of my plan to attempt to 
 
 establish for others the truthfulness of my Wit- 
 
 * I fear the Greeks even bringing gifts. 
 
14: INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 nesses. Those who doubt it, will find excellent 
 works specially on these subjects. If, however, 
 for reasons satisfactory to themselves, they believe 
 the Mosaic narrative to be true, I do not see how 
 they can avoid accepting the results of Science, 
 so far at least, as they are employed in this essay. 
 In fact, the two corroborate each other. 
 
 Should any one who reads this book find in 
 it statements as to what Moses says, or does not 
 say, which rim counter to his belief, I beg him to 
 see for himself whether they are sustained by the 
 words of the writer. 
 
 It has been apologetically said that this ac- 
 count is phenomenal, and that of course its 
 statements were not intended to be taken lite- 
 rally. 
 
 They are indeed "phenomenal," and so is the 
 coming transit of Venus, so are the photographs 
 of that " phenomenon," which Scientists will soon 
 be studying with micrometer and microscope. 
 "Phenomenal" ! indeed they are, and hence their 
 realism, their photographic truth. 
 
 I trust no one will so misunderstand me as to 
 suppose I intend this assertion of positive literal- 
 ism to embrace the whole Bible. No book more 
 abounds in poetical imagery, none would lead to 
 greater absurdities, if received without that com- 
 mon sense which we apply to all others. 
 
 It was the lack of this, and the substitution 
 of the Commentators' notions derived from figura- 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 15 
 
 live portions of the Bible, and largely from false 
 Science, for the simple words of Moses, that pro- 
 duced the strange vagaries which have been 
 charged to, and attacked or defended, as parts of 
 the Biblical account of Creation. Where in the 
 first two chapters of Genesis (or elsewhere) did 
 Cosmas find authority for believing the world 
 was modelled after the tabernacle ? Where learn 
 that the earth is just twice as long as it is wide ? 
 or that there are no antipodes 2 Yet defending 
 these, and other equally groundless absurdities, 
 is even now claimed to be the necessary result of 
 receiving these chapters as literally true ! * 
 
 The truth is, this account of creation, like the 
 fifty-third of Isaiah, is utterly incomprehensible 
 until the true explanation is found. The account 
 of our Saviour's sufferings and triumphs seemed 
 a strange and touching medley, that could never 
 be aught else than poetical metaphors ; but when 
 the prophecies became history, it was seen to be 
 the simple, touching story of the Man of Sorrows, 
 so literal that it reads like the words of an eye- 
 witness. Its strange and apparently contradic- 
 tory statements meant just exactly what they said. 
 
 Why add to the text our suppositions ? Why 
 
 * In spite of all that has been said about the folly of 
 believing the literal truth of the Mosaic account, no writer 
 or speaker, as far as I know, has ever taken it to be literally 
 true. Paradoxical as this seems, I believe an examination 
 of writings upon Genesis will sustain this assertion, 
 
16 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 take anything from it ? We have no right to do 
 so. Moreover, we thus only raise structures for 
 its opponents to batter down. From one such to 
 another, the defenders of this account have been 
 driven, until it is no wonder that Scientists, for- 
 getful of their own greater vagaries, % sneer at the 
 abortive efforts to make not the words of Moses 
 but Commentators' explanations square with 
 their (the Scientists') theories. 
 
 It will be found, I think, that the only tenable 
 ground is based upon the assumption that in this 
 narrative we have the carefuHy worded and ar- 
 ranged account of an Eye-Witness who could say 
 of the things he relates, as did the Son of An- 
 chises, but in an infinitely higher sense, " Quorum 
 f ui magna pars." * 
 
 At the commencement of the study of this 
 Narrative I assumed, as a proposition self-evident in 
 itself, that there could be no modern discovery of 
 any ante-human fact, whether an event, or a law, 
 or an order of occurrence, that was not infinitely 
 better known to God at the time he is said to have 
 given this account to Moses, than it can be, to-day, 
 to the wisest Scientist. 
 
 Hence, if there should be any error found in 
 it, either the Narrative is from a being of limited 
 intelligence or the reader has misunderstood it. 
 Clearly, then, the questions to which I ought first 
 to apply myself were these : What does the Ac- 
 * Of which I was a great part. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 17 
 
 count say? and what meaning is intended to be 
 conveyed ? 
 
 In general there is but little difficulty in an- 
 swering the first question.* Our common Ver- 
 sion is in the main sufficiently exact, although I 
 would in some things go closer to the original, 
 as in the use of " expanse" for firmament, -and in 
 the translation of certain clauses in reference to 
 the " days," as will be fully set forth hereafter. 
 
 As to the second inquiry, "What meaning is 
 intended to be conveyed ? " I found most abun- 
 dant room for study. I .turned first to those 
 writers who had made Genesis a special study, but 
 did not find that harmony between their asser- 
 tions and the facts of our world's history which 
 the high claims of the Narrative appeared to de- 
 mand/ 
 
 There remained the story itself. To it I 
 turned, seeking in every direction for a solution of 
 its difficulties, groping in the dark, feeling my way 
 passage by passage, testing now this theory and 
 now that, only to throw away one after another, as 
 I came to insurmountable obstacles or flat contra- 
 dictions between the proposed solution and what 
 I knew to be facts. At last, after many days, 
 flashed upon me, in all the sublimity of its divine 
 simplicity, the key to the mystery. 
 
 * There is a rich mine of precious inetal yet to be worked 
 by some Hebrew scholar who shall thoroughly search the 
 original with all the light of physical science. 
 
18 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 NARRATIVE MEANS EXACTLY WHAT IT SAYS ; 
 NO MORE, NO LESS ; AND THE ORDER THERE GIVEN IS 
 THE EXACT ORDER IN WHICH OCCURRED THE EVENTS 
 IT RECORDS. 
 
 This I did not start with as an CL priori princi- 
 ple : it came to me after an exhaustive examination 
 of everything else. Now, I can see that it is only 
 a corollary of the proposition 1 started with, and 
 it is wonderful to note how the two Records, seen 
 through this, like the two pictures of a stereoscope, 
 visibly glide into one and stand out from the page 
 in their true perspective. Every line, although, in 
 one when seen by itself, apparently useless, yet 
 viewed with its other part, helps the marvelous 
 truthfulness of the resultant view. 
 
 PLAN OF THIS BOOK. 
 
 In the first chapter, after showing the intrin- 
 sic possibility and desirableness of a Revelation, I 
 consider the different methods of establishing its 
 authenticity. I then take up the Mosaic Account 
 as claiming to be a revelation, and endeavor, by 
 removing the accretions of the ages, to narrow the 
 discussion to the text. I inquire as to the pur- 
 poses of the Author in making this particular Rev- 
 elation, and examine the objections which have 
 been made to the credibility of it, on scientific 
 grounds. 
 
 In the next chapter, after seeking to cultivate 
 in the reader a sense of historical perspective, I 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 19 
 
 N 
 
 collate the statements of Moses with those of the 
 " Witnesses." 
 
 This is followed by a disquisition upon the 
 days." 
 
 In the fourth chapter is considered the Law of 
 Development and its relation to this Narrative; 
 which is followed by a further comparison of Sci- 
 ence and " Kevelation." 
 
 The Account found in the second chapter of 
 Genesis is examined in the fifth of this. 
 
 In Part III. is a full discussion of the work 
 of the fourth day, inquiring as to the time and cause 
 of the present inclination of the earth's axis. This 
 inquiry is conducted solely as a physical question, 
 in the light of astronomy and the geological de- 
 velopments of organic life considered with strict 
 reference to Uniformity of Law. The Inquiry 
 reaches beyond our earth, and in " Cosmology," 
 the Nebular Hypothesis is shown to account for a 
 great variety of facts in the Solar System. 
 
 Whatever doubt there may be as to the cor- 
 rectness of my exposition of the work of the fourth 
 day, and whether my positions in reference to it 
 can be maintained or not, the reader will note 
 that it is an independent portion of the argument 
 for the truth of Genesis, and may be rejected 
 without affecting the remainder. 
 
 I have often regretted while studying this Nar- 
 rative, that some one who was master of the subject 
 and gifted with fitting command of language, had 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 not given, in plain Anglo-Saxon, and with a brevi- 
 ty approaching that of Moses,* an authoritative 
 statement from a purely scientific stand-point, of 
 tha world's ante-human history, taking up the 
 same topics. 
 
 Will not Tyndall, or Spencer, or Huxley yet 
 do it ? It is difficult to couceive of a work of 
 greater interest. 
 
 In a second Part are discussed various matters 
 more or less intimately connected with the account 
 in Genesis. In this the literal truth of that his- 
 tory is assumed as proved, and rieference is made 
 to it as in Geometry one refers to a previous pro- 
 position. 
 
 Probably, this intensity of belief will, at first, 
 be shared by few, but the very clearness of my 
 convictions, compels me to regard the acceptance 
 of the same by others as only a question of time. 
 
 As to difficulties outside of these two chapters, 
 it does not fall within my plan to discuss them. 
 It may be, that in the present state of knowledge, 
 it is impossible to satisfactorily remove them ; 
 but the lesson of the past should teach us to wait 
 in patience, believing that He who could give the 
 ante-human history of the world, can in due time 
 vindicate his truth. 
 
 I will add, as the result of some careful study, 
 that this Narrative grows broader and deeper the 
 
 * The Mosaic account, omitting repetitions and Xvords of 
 approval, contains only some tlJree hundred and fifty words. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 21 
 
 more it is explored and the more the full light of 
 Science is turned upon it. Instead of a purling 
 brook sweetly singing a " hymn of Creation" as it 
 rolls over its pebbly bed, it expands to an ocean 
 unfathomable and shoreless. It is not a history of 
 our world merely, but an epitome of the Universe. 
 
 I trust the time is not distant when the true 
 importance of this Account, as the highest possible 
 objective evidence of the reality of a Revelation, 
 will be recognized, and a professorship of Biblical 
 Cosmogony be an acknowledged necessity in every 
 theological seminary. 
 
 The light which shone in the face of Moses as 
 he came down from the Mount, has always shone 
 in this Narrative, but our eyes have been holden 
 till now. Science, at last, has stripped off the 
 bandages of ignorance and misapprehension, and 
 revealed, not the vacuity too often fondly hoped 
 for, but the insupportable glory of God the Crea- 
 tor, the Jehovah-Elohim. 
 
 In the conflict between truth and error now 
 raging around us, if those who ought to lead in 
 the battle, are to come down from their retreats in 
 the u no-science " of the Bible, and, with a full and 
 muscular belief which takes God's Book to be 
 from the Fountain of all knowledge, assume the 
 offensive, they must be shown that the first chapter 
 of Genesis is the vital centre, the locus wt&, of 
 all Science. They must be made to comprehend 
 that God's two Eecords are indissolubly one. Both 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 are true or both are false. When this belief shall 
 have penetrated the marrow of their being, " their 
 trumpet will give no uncertain sound." 
 
 I am weary of hearing those who claim to 
 believe the Bible is from God, explain (?) away 
 passage after passage, till the strongest words melt 
 into a dim cloudiness, and there seems to be no- 
 thing so certain, nothing so fixed that it may not 
 be shifted to meet our logical exigencies. 
 
 So thoroughly ingrained has this habit become 
 that I fear the hardest thing to believe in this 
 Essay will be, that the Author of Genesis intended 
 to say exactly what he has said, and to be respon- 
 sible for just that and nothing more, and that the 
 most objectionable thing will be the rigidness with 
 which this principle is adhered to. 
 
 To some good men the adherence to the very 
 words of the text will, in their opinion, be the 
 rejection, not of their beliefs, but of the account 
 itself ! 
 
 Will not the reader hold himself so far open to 
 conviction as to test this method of exegesis, and 
 judge of its correctness by the results? 
 
PART I. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO SCIENTISTS WHO BELIEVE 
 
 THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION A MYTH. 
 
 "Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be 
 assembled; who among them can show us former things? let them bring 
 forth their witnesses that they may be justified ; or let them hear 
 and say it is the truth." ISAIAH, XLIII., ix. 
 
MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION CONSIDERED. 
 
 NO one possessed of ordinary intelligence can, 
 without deep interest, read of the labors of 
 Scientists in enlarging the bounds of knowledge, 
 or fail to admire the ingenious experiments and 
 patient perseverance, the clear vision and close 
 logic, by which they have achieved so many tri- 
 umphs. 
 
 In my humble way, I sympathize with that 
 spirit which dares to question Nature, deems her 
 answers eternal verities, and fears no collision of 
 truth with truth. 
 
 Some of these men whose achievements exalt 
 our ideas of the capabilities of our race, and whose 
 honesty no one has a right to question, assure us 
 that they find in their search after truth, evidence 
 of no other God than an unknown and unknow- 
 able First Cause, and that they know of no other 
 Revelation than the phenomena of nature and the 
 laws and relations existing between them. 
 2 
 
26 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 In the presence of such, it is becoming to 
 speak of one's self with modesty ; yet, as to each 
 his consciousness is higher than the authority of 
 the greatest, I may say, that beyond nature I see, 
 not merely a First Cause, but, judging as I must 
 from the visible effects of his causation, an infi- 
 nitely good, wise, and powerful Being. That he is 
 infinitely powerful is implied necessarily in the 
 assertion that he is the "First Cause." That he i& 
 good, I believe from the general character of crea- 
 tion ; that he is wise, I am sure, since all Scientists 
 are most earnestly engaged in the study of his 
 works, and would scout as the most preposterous 
 absurdity the assumption that any man or set of 
 men ever had, or ever could, fully grasp their 
 wisdom. So logically impossible is the negative 
 of this, that no man, I apprehend, ever lived who 
 could satisfy himself with it. 
 
 A large class, however, do deny that this 
 Being has so far cared for man as to give him a 
 written Revelation. This denial is based partly 
 upon what seems to them its intrinsic improba- 
 bility, and partly, though far more positively, upon 
 its alleged conflict of statement with what they 
 know to be truths derived from the study of his 
 works. 
 
 The intrinsic improbability of a Revelation 
 might well be asserted, if it could be shown to be 
 needless. But I find in myself and in others a 
 moral sense, imperfect, liable to be swayed by 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 27 
 
 prejudice or by honest errors of judgment, as well 
 as by a natural inclination to decide that to be 
 right which accords with my wishes. I notice, 
 too, that it is only after many ages of experience, 
 and a wide field of observation, that a few minds 
 of unusual acuteness are able to deduce from 
 " Sociology " any tolerable rules of life, while they 
 utterly fail to obtain any light on our relations to 
 the Supreme Being, or on the questions that force 
 themselves upon every thoughtful person as to 
 man's condition beyond the grave. "If a man 
 die shall he live again ? " is a question to which 
 " Sociology " can give no answer. 
 
 A Revelation then is not needless. What a 
 priori reason there is against it I am unable to 
 discover. Certainly the great First Cause does not 
 lack ability to give it. If he be " unconditioned," 
 he is not bounded on any side by a " cannot," and 
 the evident utility of such a manifestation of him- 
 self would mark it as eminently in harmony with 
 the generous care that has provided so liberally for 
 the physical well-being of his creatures. 
 
 The question then becomes one simply of evi- 
 dence. Is there such a Revelation ? 
 
 There is widely spread through the world a 
 book which claims to have been given by God, 
 and to speak with the weight of his authority. 
 
 In his name, it commands and forbids, prom- 
 ises and threatens. It professes also to give a 
 limited, but so far as it goes, an accurate account 
 
28 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 of man's state after death, and the conditions of 
 future well-being. 
 
 It is at once admitted, that a book with such 
 pretensions, needs to be well authenticated ; and 
 it will be well to consider on what evidence we 
 should grant its claims, for we are reasonable 
 beings, and are no more at liberty to submit our- 
 selves to such demands without sufficient reason, 
 than to close our ears to argument in their behalf. 
 
 Such a book might rest on miracles, or pro- 
 phecy, or on a peculiar adaptation to the wants of 
 the race. To many minds these would be abun- 
 dantly sufficient, and such evidence is offered to all 
 who choose to accept it. But there are those 
 who deny miracles as not satisfactorily proved, or 
 as in themselves impossible ; who regard prophecy 
 as poetry, or as written after the events it pro- 
 fesses to foretell ; and as for peculiar adaptation, 
 that, being known only by personal experience, 
 has no weight with those whose only gospel is the 
 development that comes from unconsciously profit- 
 ing by the experience of the race.* 
 
 I can imagine another kind of evidence which 
 seems free from all these objections, and impossi- 
 ble to have been manufactured for the purpose, 
 by any man or set of men, and yet abundantly 
 within the ability of the author of Genesis, if as 
 claimed, that author be God. 
 
 The Book might contain an account of events 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, Morals and Moral Sentiments, p. 17. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. g9 
 
 which occurred in the history of the world before 
 man appeared upon it. Nothing would be so 
 unanswerable as this, providing we were able to 
 discover in some way what did actually take place. 
 Such evidence would grow in strength as the race 
 increased in knowledge. No metaphysical argu- 
 ment could weaken it, no question as to the relia- 
 bility of testimony, no charge of deception, inten- 
 tional or otherwise, could cast doubt upon it. 
 
 Such an account being, in the nature of the 
 case, beyond the power of the writer, would be 
 an EVER-PRESENT MIRACLE, which our own eyes 
 could see, and which men of science, friends and 
 foes, could carefully and leisurely examine. It 
 would be more unanswerable than a continuation 
 of miracles from Apostolic times to the present. 
 For, raising the dead, healing the sick, or feeding 
 the multitudes would from their very repetition 
 cease to be miracles, and pass, like that greater act 
 of omnipotence, the birth and growth of a human 
 being, into the domain of law, and cease to be a 
 wonder. 
 
 Modern science has given us the knowledge 
 of many very important facts in the ante-human 
 history of the globe, with which we can readily 
 compare any statement that professes to come 
 from a supernatural source. 
 
 It is evident from the nature of the case, that 
 such a statement, if from the All-wise, must be 
 capable of being fully comprehended only in pro- 
 
30 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 portion to the knowledge and mental development 
 of its recipients. But as that is far from being ex- 
 haustive, a proposition purporting to be from Him, 
 should not be deemed false, because we fail to 
 comprehend it, nor even if it should seem to us to 
 be contradicted by known facts. One should be 
 peculiarly cautious in coming to such a conclusion, 
 when the matter in question is not the enuncia- 
 tion of a general law, or universal truth, but sim- 
 ply a statement of phenomena. There is nothing 
 so unsafe to contradict, so intolerably obstinate, as 
 an actual occurrence. 
 
 Newton was led to declare Huyghens' law of 
 double refraction false, and the achromatic tele- 
 scope an impossibility, because they appeared to 
 him to violate well-established laws. The lesson 
 to us from uch mistakes, is to approach all ques- 
 tions of truth with reverent docility, ready to re- 
 ceive and firmly hold &\\ facts, while our theories 
 and preconceived notions should be bound to us 
 by threads of gossamer. 
 
 This book, with its high pretensions, is before 
 us. It is admitted on every side to have been in 
 existence many centuries, and to have been 
 handed down, as a precious heirloom, from the 
 remote ancestors of a small nation on the eastern 
 shores of the Mediterranean, never in the least dis- 
 tinguished for scientific attainments. 
 
 Is there in it such a statement of ante-human 
 events as the argument justly demands? It 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 31 
 
 should be so profound as to be beyond the possi- 
 bility of guesswork, and should cover so many 
 points that chance coincidence becomes impossible. 
 It may be incomprehensible, must have been so in 
 the earlier ages of the world, may be so still in a 
 greater or less degree, but it must contain no false- 
 hood as that " the world rests upon the back of an 
 ek'pliant and that upon a tortoise." 
 
 Turning to the opening chapter of this Book, 
 I there find what purports to be just such a state- 
 ment as the argument demands. Beginning at 
 " the beginning," it gives the early history of the 
 world, not in mystic phrases or Delphian utter- 
 ances, but in the simplest words, in the most un- 
 ambiguous sentences. Here then is a crucial test. 
 Tli is account does or does not agree with the 
 facts in the world's history brought to light by 
 Science. 
 
 I accept the issue. 
 
 But before attempting to collate the account 
 in Genesis with that found in the records of the 
 rocks and sky, permit me to consider some pre- 
 liminary matters and to clear the narrative from 
 things foreign to it, I would throw aside, save so 
 far as they agree with the very words of Moses 
 (verbis ipsissimis\ all statements of Commenta- 
 tors, Jewish or Christian, or of Scientists, ancient 
 or modern, as to what he does or does not say. 
 They spoke in good faith according to the light 
 they had ; as such in modesty I receive their 
 
32 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 words, and give them thoughtful consideration, 
 nothing more. No one ought to be influenced by 
 mere authority.* 
 
 Since truth or falsehood is entirely independent 
 of our acceptance, a statement as to who does or 
 does not receive it, carries little weight to the earn- 
 est- inquirer. Falsehood has had authority on its 
 side more often than truth. Nearly all the great 
 names in Science taught, within the memory of 
 many of us, that heat was a fluid issuing from hot 
 bodies, and light consisted of corpuscles shot out 
 from the sun. The weight of astronomical author- 
 ity, at one time, was in favor of cycles and epicy- 
 cles and complicated machinery for explaining the 
 movements of the heavenly bodies. The centuries 
 are strewed with the debris of Scientific Theories. 
 
 But no one would think it just to reject the 
 results of modern science, because of the errors 
 and failures of the past, or to sneer at the efforts 
 of Scientists to make their theories square with one 
 another, or with the facts of nature. They would 
 exclaim against such injustice, and demand that 
 the truth or falsehood of what they deem a law of 
 
 * Prof Tyndall, in his article on Science and Religion, 
 says : " In our day, the best informed clergymen are pre- 
 pared to admit that our views of the universe and its Author 
 are not impaired but improved by the abandonment of the 
 Mosaic Account of Creation." 
 
 I more than doubt the correctness of his broad assertion, 
 but if true it is entirely irrelevant, save as an interesting 
 historical fact. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 33 
 
 nature be decided, not by what their predecessors 
 may have said, but by its more or less perfect 
 adaptation to, and harmony with, the facts con- 
 cerned. 
 
 In like manner, when the question is as to the 
 truth of the Mosaic Account, common justice de- 
 mands that it shall not be condemned for theories 
 or explanations that have proved false, nor be- 
 cause commentators have not agreed among them- 
 selves, but that it shall be "judged by its own 
 words, verbia ipswsimis. And as the Scientist 
 justly requires us to accept as true his enuncia- 
 tion of a law if it harmonizes with the facts, we 
 demand also the acceptance of the Mosaic Account 
 if it harmonizes with the record written in the 
 rocks and sky. 
 
 I am thus particular to confine the discussion 
 to the text, because much passes current as the 
 teaching of Moses, among the rejecters, and, to 
 some extent yet, among the believers in his ac- 
 count, that does not belong to him. 
 
 During the ages there has gathered around his 
 history a mass of theories, explanations and com- 
 mentaries, outgrowths for the most part of the 
 Science of those days, for which he is in no degree 
 responsible. Their truth or falsehood does not 
 affect the matter. They may be legitimate tar- 
 gets for the logic and ridicule of men better in- 
 formed. It is the text, pure and simple, that 
 claims to be a Revelation from God. 
 2* 
 
34: MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 The Book of Nature as far as its pages have 
 been read, not surmised or guessed at, I accept as 
 truth and willingly rest the case upon it. This I 
 do the more readily, SINCE NOW, FOR THE FIRST 
 
 TIME IN THE HISTORY OF OUR RACE, HAS SCIENCE 
 COME UP SO NEARLY ABREAST WITH THIS NARRATIVE 
 AS TO PERMIT COMPARISON. 
 
 To the last few decades are due the demonstra- 
 tion (almost perfect) of the Nebular Hypothesis, 
 the great law of the Correlation and Conservation 
 of Forces, a tolerably complete knowledge of the 
 nature of light, the invention of the Spectroscope, 
 the collation and translation of the discoveries of 
 Geologists, and eminently the knowledge of the 
 Glacial Epoch. To this period is also due a great 
 advance in Physical Geography, the discovery of a 
 Law of Development, and of Uniformity of Law, 
 and proof of the unity of physical constitution of 
 the Stellar Universe and the Solar System. 
 
 I shall endeavor to show the harmony of these 
 with the Mosaic Narrative, and more than this, 
 that the Author of that wonderful Account knew 
 of these discoveries, and that its rejection necessi- 
 tates theirs. 
 
 By the Author of this Narrative I mean the 
 person that furnished Moses with the facts which 
 he, as the intelligent instrument, placed on record. 
 As to how the story was made known to him, I 
 have nothing to offer. It lies outside of this 
 discussion. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 35 
 
 A cursory reading of the first Chapter of Gen- 
 esis, waiving for the moment the question of its 
 truthfulness, shows it to differ from other works 
 in Natural Science, in this. It has no theories to 
 support, offers no explanations, formulates no law. 
 The facts are related, but there is no attempt 
 to coordinate them with each other, or with 
 other facts. In this it resembles a series of photo- 
 graphs. 
 
 The more obvious purpose of the Author seems 
 to have been the removal of all excuse for idolatry 
 or other form of polytheism, which at that time 
 manifested itself in the worship of Sun, Moon and 
 Stars, of Earth and Sea, of vegetables, and of almost 
 all organic life. This was done by representing 
 God (Elohim and the Jehovah Elohim) as crea- 
 tor of all things, and, with special emphasis and 
 repetition, as the maker of Sun, Moon, and Stars, 
 the disposer and appointer of these, the princi- 
 pal objects of idolatrous worship. To impress this 
 truth upon the race, the Author inculcated the 
 observance of a seventh day of cessation from 
 labor, as a memorial of God's creatorship and a 
 perpetual protest against other gods.* So im- 
 portant, in his opinion, was this arrangement by 
 
 * A disquisition upon the advantages of the Sabbath 
 would be out of place here. I wish only to call attention to 
 the perfect adaptation of the means to the end in view. If 
 this day had been observed for the reason assigned in the 
 fourth Commandment, idolatry, whether ancient fetichism or 
 more modern pantheism, had simply been impossible. 
 
36 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 seven days, that he compressed fifteen distinct cre- 
 ative acts into six creative periods.* 
 
 Another purpose underlies this Account, not 
 so obvious, but as it seems to me, none the less 
 real; it was to authenticate this revelation to 
 future ages, "when men should run to and fro, 
 and knowledge be increased." Consequently, the 
 Author displays a mastership of his subject, a 
 wealth of knowledge, altogether superfluous, if the 
 object previously mentioned was the only one in 
 view. 
 
 Whether these purposes will appear of suffi- 
 cient dignity to have a place in a divine revelation 
 
 * List of Divine formative acts in both chapters before the 
 close of the sixth day. 
 
 Chapter I. v. 1. God created heaven and earth. 
 " v. 2. " imparted motion. 
 
 " v. 3. " made light. 
 
 " v. 4. " divided light from darkness (made 
 
 day and night). 
 
 ". v. 7. " made the " firmament." 
 " v. 9. " made the dry land appear. 
 
 " v. 11. " made the earth bring forth grasses, 
 
 herbs and fruit-trees. 
 " v. 14. " made the seasons. 
 
 " v. 21. " made the fish and fowl. 
 
 " v. 25. " made cattle, beasts, etc. 
 
 " v. 27. " made man. 
 
 Chapter II. v. 8. " made the garden. 
 
 " v. 9. " made to grow all trees good for 
 
 food and pleasant to see. 
 " v. 19. " made every beast of the field and 
 
 every fowl of the air. 
 " v. 22. " made Woman. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 3Y 
 
 of a matter so great as the creation of a world, 
 will much depend upon our ideas of man's place 
 in the scale of being. But this is a question only 
 as to the good sense and taste of the Author, and 
 does not affect the truth of his assertions. 
 
 Nor is it a just ground of objection that his 
 statements are not made in scientific language 
 and with scientific exactness, for the latter is 
 not true, as I shall hereafter show, and as for tne 
 former, the laws and terminology of Astronomy, 
 Geology and other sciences were then unknown. 
 It would have been necessary to create scientific 
 UTIUS for this special purpose, and from that time 
 to the present century they would have been 
 unintelligible. 
 
 Is it indeed certain that an absolutely correct 
 terminology would even now be understood ? 
 Has all knowledge been so thoroughly explored 
 that nothing remains to be added to, or taken from, 
 the present laws and nomenclature ? Were New- 
 ton to take up a modern Scientific book, he would 
 find much to perplex him, old terms used in new 
 senses, and new ones that would convey no mean- 
 ing. Should the Scientist of to-day revisit the 
 world a century hence, is it probable that his 
 experience would differ from that of the great 
 English Philosopher ? 
 
 Not only was a statement of phenomena the 
 only method of imparting information on these 
 
38 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 "subjects possible under the circumstances, but it 
 was the best method conceivable under any. 
 
 The value of an accurate statement, photo- 
 graphing, as it were, the phenomena of nature, can 
 never be fully known by finite minds. Facts 
 whose scientific value has apparently been ex- 
 hausted, like the rejected dross of ancient mines, 
 may, in the crucible of modern analysis, prove 
 rich in precious metal. Others of apparently tri- 
 fling importance may, under different subjective 
 conditions, be " the very article of a standing or 
 falling" theory. 
 
 The apparently accidental noting of a star one 
 night many years ago, and its appearance in an- 
 other position a few nights after, a change at- 
 tributed by the conscientious astronomer to some 
 error of eye or hand, but both of whose places he 
 fortunately put upon record, with an interrogation 
 marking his doubts and the probably valueless 
 character of such an observation, lay dormant 
 many years. Its value, had he suspected it, 
 would have been more to him than all the labors 
 of his life, but would have deprived Le Yerrier of 
 the glory of his discovery. Not till the world 
 had rung with the wonder of that marvel of ana- 
 lysis, and astronomers had set to work to discover 
 whether Le Terrier's calculated elements were 
 true, did the pregnant meaning of that " trivial 
 fact " become known. It might have revealed 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 39 
 
 the planet's existence years before, but even now 
 it ti xed the true elements of its path. 
 
 Accurate descriptions of phenomena are the 
 meat and drink for which every student of nature 
 hungers and thirsts. It is solely for these, that 
 governments fit out expeditions to observe eclipses 
 and transits, and to dredge the ocean bottom. 
 
 In the Mosaic Narrative, facts are related in 
 the ordinary language of life, which all men can 
 understand, and it is no proof of their untruthful- 
 ness that they carry to each reader a meaning 
 larger and richer in proportion to his knowledge 
 ami capacity. On the contrary, this is a charac- 
 teristic mark of any truthful statement of phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 It is easy for a child to understand that the 
 eclipses of Jupiter's Moons occur sometimes eight 
 minutes sooner, and sometimes eight minutes later 
 than by previous calculation they ought, a fact to 
 him curious perhaps, but of no great consequence. 
 To the philosopher, however, that fact made 
 known the velocity of light, from which was ob- 
 tained the measurement of its waves, on which is 
 built up the Science of Optics. So, too, a child 
 can understand that the planet Uranus rises some- 
 times too soon, and sometimes too late, a matter 
 to him of small importance. But this same fact 
 told Le Yerrier of a planet outside of Uranus. 
 
 Such simple statements, pregnant with truth, 
 abound in this account. It was indeed, "not 
 
40 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 intended to teach us science," any more than the 
 apparent irregularities of Jupiter's .Moons to teach 
 Optics, or the perturbations of Uranus to teach 
 Astronomy ; but, if true, it is more than Science, it 
 is the material of which Science is made. 
 
 There has .grown up in many minds the belief 
 that, according to Moses, the world and its con- 
 tents were formed in six ordinary days. It is on 
 this supposed statement that most of the argu- 
 ments against the truth of Genesis have been based. 
 It has been assumed that such was the true mean- 
 ing of the Narrative, and then shown by admitted 
 Geological evidence, that the world and unnum- 
 bered races of animals and vegetables have existed 
 for countless ages; and that a process of slow 
 development has been going on for millions of 
 years. The Bible, we are told, may be the work 
 of man, and therefore may not be true, but 
 the Geological record is independent of man, and 
 therefore cannot be false; hence, in an issue of 
 fact, we must decide against the former. The con- 
 clusion is* unavoidable if we admit the premises. 
 
 But did the Author intend us to understand 
 that the world and its contents were created in six 
 ordinary days? Or, if you please, did he say or 
 desire us to believe that, from " the beginning " 
 to the close of creation only one hundred and 
 forty-four hours elapsed ? 
 
 I answer emphatically, No. 
 
 But the reasons for a negative answer cannot 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 4:1 
 
 well be given, so interwoven are they with the 
 Narrative, until that has been considered. The 
 reader is requested therefore to wait until we have 
 gone together through it, when the duration of 
 the Mosaic Days will be again taken up, and, as 
 far as in me lies, exhaustively discussed. I hope 
 then to show that the literal truth of this Narra- 
 tive harmonizes perfectly with the existence of 
 the immeasurable epochs of Geology. 
 
 I may, however, now properly call attention to 
 the remarkable circumstance that, although so 
 much has been said and written on the assumption 
 that this world and its contents were made ac- 
 cording to Genesis in six days, there is no such 
 statement to be found in these two chapters. If 
 I am wrong, it will be easy to point out the verse 
 in which it is. I am unable to find it. 
 
 The only allusion to the duration of the crea- 
 tion, is in the fourth verse of the second chapter, 
 where we read " in the day the LORD God created 
 the heavens and the earth " one day, not six days. 
 
 Nor is it said that any creative act occurred 
 on any of the days. It may be implied, perhaps 
 it is, but certainly it is not so said. The wording 
 is very peculiar, and like everything else in these 
 chapters shows design. Remember, the question. 
 is not what we think or infer the writer intended 
 to say, but what .did he actually say ? On this I 
 shall have more to offer hereafter. The other parts 
 of the Bible are outside of our present discussion, 
 
42 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 yet as showing the mode of speaking, the usus 
 loqv^ndi, I add that although the wisdom, good- 
 ness, and power of God as manifested in Creation 
 are often alluded to in other parts of it, yet none of 
 its many writers speak of its brevity. On the con- 
 trary, there seems to be a purpose to break up the 
 ordinary notions of time as applied to God's works. 
 We are told " a thousand years are as one day, 
 and one day as a thousand years." 
 
 I have not forgotten the text so often quoted 
 to prove the instantaneous performance of God's 
 commands, but I can see in it only obedience, and 
 no reference to the time employed. " He spake 
 and it was done." Certainly He spake, and it was 
 done, but I do not acknowledge the right to in- 
 terpolate any modifying word, even though that 
 word be u immediately." Shall we never have 
 done adding our beliefs to the Word ? 
 
 " Firmament," something solid. This word 
 offers no difficulty, since it is admitted on all sides 
 to be an improper rendering, to suit the Science 
 of Ptolemy's day. The Translators, unable to 
 comprehend the Science of the Bible, forced it to 
 say what seemed to them in harmony with the 
 laws of nature. They could not believe in a mere 
 expanse or open space it was contrary to all their 
 Science and therefore they translated " expanse " 
 by " a firmament," something solid to hold up 
 the sky ! 
 
 Having disposed of the objections urged against 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 43 
 
 tliis Narrative, on account of its phenomenal char- 
 acter, and the absence of scientific forms and 
 terms, and passing by for the present the supposed 
 assertion of the brevity of creation, we turn now 
 to examine the Book. 
 
 In the spirit of *a student anxious only to dis- 
 cover the truth, and in the full assurance that all 
 truths are harmonious, I shall seek to learn what 
 the Narrative says, and what is almost equally 
 important in maintaining its Divine origin, to 
 point out certain things attributed to it, but which 
 it does not say. At present I shall speak almost 
 wholly of the latter. 
 
 I find that it mentions very briefly, in a certain 
 order of occurrence, some of the most important 
 events in our world's history, but that it is silent 
 as to everything else, resembling that kind of 
 history styled Annals. It opens with a statement 
 of God's universal creatorship. It then commences 
 a series of details, beginning with the primordial 
 condition of the earth, and ending with the Crea- 
 tion of Man. Passing this by, let us now see 
 what it does not say. 
 
 It says nothing as to the previous existence or 
 non-existence of older orders of beings, such as 
 the animals and vegetables of the Paleozoic Age, 
 nor of those upheavals and depressions which 
 have left their record in the contorted strata. 
 As to the latter, there can be no difference of 
 opinion ; the text certainly says nothing of them. 
 
44 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 But as to those plants and animals of previous 
 ages, which we now know were extinct when 
 man appeared, Moses does not speak, for he makes 
 mention of "grasses, herbs, and fruit trees/ 5 
 They did not exist in the earlier periods. The 
 peculiar vegetation which marks the dawn of 
 organic life, shows only plants of the lowest orders, 
 as Algae, Ferns, etc. 
 
 These can by no possible classification be in- 
 cluded among the plants mentioned above, which, 
 as Geology tells us, appeared long afterward, long 
 even as Geology counts time. 
 
 So too in regard to animal life ; for ages after 
 ages, were found in all the vast round of our globe, 
 in the ancient waters of its seas, or sporting on 
 their shores, only mollusks, radiates, and articu- 
 lates. Not a vertebrate, much less a mammal, 
 yet lived. Such a fauna does not correspond with 
 that described as "cattle, creeping things, and 
 beasts/' The latter fauna harmonizes perfectly 
 with the animals of to-day, among which we find 
 not merely mammalia preeminent, but also an 
 abundance of species of all the lower orders. 
 Moreover, the text, with its usual careful wording 
 says, " the moving creature that hath life," and 
 " every living creature," i. e. not the extinct, but 
 the present living species. 
 
 On the other hand, the Account gives no 
 ground for the assertion that these extinct species 
 came into existence independently. It merely 
 does not speak of them at all. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 45 
 
 The Account taken thus narrowly and literally 
 harmonizes with the facts of Geology. It is only 
 by extending it beyond its own words, a very un- 
 due liberty as it seems to me, that we find a diffi- 
 culty in the fact that according" to the fossils, not 
 one^of the "grasses, herbs, and fruit trees" pre- 
 ceded animal life. 
 
 Such a conflict, however, is of our own pro- 
 duction, for the Account carefully limits the kinds 
 of plants which it affirms preceded the animals of 
 the fifth and sixth periods, and the evidence of 
 the fossils corroborates its assertion. 
 
 Although it may, at first, appear that all crea- 
 tures living during the fifth and sixth periods, 
 were, according to Genesis, formed during those 
 periods, yet on a more careful examination it will be 
 found that there is nothing in the text to forbid 
 the belief (should there be grounds for it) that 
 species of previous creations were still in existence, 
 nor that some may have come down to the present 
 day. The Account neither affirms nor denies.* 
 
 * I leave it for specialists to say whether life of any kind 
 passed over the great convulsions that marked the close of 
 the Paleozoic Age or survived from the Mesozoic into the 
 Cenozoic, or lived through the cold of the glaciers. In gen- 
 eral, life was destroyed, although perhaps some Protozoans, 
 and possibly a mollusk or two, may have escaped through 
 them all. It is doubtful whether any fiving species is iden- 
 tical with the fossils of a period earlier than the Eocene. 
 " Of living fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals," none can be 
 traced back as far as the Tertiary, the yesterday of Geology. 
 " All tffe fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals of the Tertiary 
 are extinct species." (Dana's Manual, p. 518.) 
 
4:6 MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 The first two Chapters of Genesis do not tell 
 us how long it is since Adam was created, whether 
 it is 6,000 or 6,000,000 years. They do not pro- 
 fess to give any information about it. Whether 
 we can justly deduce this period from some other 
 portion of the Bible, is not a question that con- 
 cerns this discussion. If every word of that Book 
 save the Mosaic Narrative were dropped out of 
 existence, the truth or falsehood of the latter 
 would not be affected. It merely places man's 
 creation upon the last of the six great epochs, as 
 the crowning glory of the whole. 
 
 The text does not say, that no species of plants 
 or animals were created after Adam and before 
 the " rest " of the seventh day. On the contrary, 
 it appears to be clearly intimated in the next Chap- 
 ter, that " all kinds of trees pleasant to the sight 
 and good for food " were made after the creation of 
 man, as well as all kinds of animals for him to name. 
 
 In conclusion. 
 
 It is just and logical when examining into the 
 truth of statements contained in any document, 
 to see exactly what it says, and consequently it is 
 unjust and illogical to condemn it for the glosses 
 and explanations that may have gathered about it. 
 
 The Mosaic Narrative does not tell us the 
 duration of the process of creation, except so far 
 as to let us know it was not instantaneous, since 
 it occupied a time in which were " six days " of 
 completion and approval. 
 
OBJECTIONS TO A REVELATION. 47 
 
 It does not affirm that each act was instanta- 
 neous, as when, e. g., God said, " Let the dry land 
 appear," that at once, like the palaces in stories 
 of Eastern Magic, it rose from the bottom of the 
 sea. 
 
 It does not say how much or how little time 
 elapsed between the events mentioned, as from 
 the Creation of Light, to its separation from 
 darkness. 
 
 It does not speak of the creation of Algae, 
 Ferns, and the early Flora. 
 
 It does not deny the existence of species com- 
 ing down from more remote epochs. 
 
 It does not deny the creation of plants subse- 
 quent to the third day. 
 
 It does not deny that animal life began long 
 before living species of fishes, fowl, beasts, creep- 
 ing things, and cattle. 
 
 It does not deny the possibility of some spe- 
 cies having survived from the dawn of organic 
 life. 
 
 It does not say how many years have elapsed 
 since Adam's creation. 
 
 Of most of these matters, it says nothing at 
 all. Its silence on any question, cannot justly be 
 interpreted as affirming or denying. Anything 
 outside of its own words, does not attach respon- 
 sibility to it. 
 
 The fact that this Account is not clothed 
 in scientific language, is not only no argument 
 
4:8 MOSAIC) ACCOUNT OF CREATION. 
 
 against its truthfulness, but so far as it goes, 
 decidedly the opposite, since a " phenomenal " 
 statement, a series of " logographs," * is immea- 
 surably richer in meaning and more fruitful in 
 results than- any other method of imparting infor- 
 mation of which we can conceive. 
 
 If these conclusions are correct, then it readily 
 follows that any argument based upon the oppo- 
 site assumption is wholly irrelevant. 
 
 This ruling will throw out of Court nearly all 
 the testimony brought against the truth of this 
 most remarkable document. 
 
 * " Logograph," a word bearing the same relation to a 
 " description " that a photograph bears to a pencil sketch. 
 No word in our language conveys the intense literalism of 
 this Narrative 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE UNITY OF GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 TESTIMONY OF NEW WITNESSES. 
 
 " THERE is no mode of establishing the validity of any 
 belief except that of showing its entire congruity with 
 other beliefs." HERBERT SPENCER, 
 
 VERY one that has watched the operation 
 -J J of his own mind, has noticed that his judg- 
 ments are affected by impressions received early 
 in life, and this too, in spite of the more cor- 
 rect information of later years. In childhood, 
 we believed all the heavenly bodies were equally 
 distant from us, and now, notwithstanding our 
 present knowledge, how many of us can see that 
 the stars are ten thousand times more remote than 
 the moon ? 
 
 When we have repeatedly read of events 
 placed in close proximity upon the printed page, 
 we are very apt to think of them as actually 
 occurring at correspondingly short intervals. Im- 
 pressions thus formed influence us long after we 
 have learned better. It is absolutely necessary 
 to get rid of them and to cultivate a sense of true 
 8 
 
50 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 historical perspective, if we would attain any cor- 
 rect comprehension of the past. 
 
 Were I to tell a child that Alexander, Han- 
 nibal, and Caesar are the greatest generals the 
 world has seen, he would think of them as liv- 
 ing at one time. If he is logically inclined, he 
 will maintain that they are now living, or that 
 my assertion is false, for did I not say, " are the 
 greatest generals " ? 
 
 But as his knowledge of language increases, he 
 will admit that my statement is not inconsistent 
 with the fact that they are all dead ; and as his 
 acquaintance with the history of the past expands, 
 so will their respective epochs appear to separate, 
 till in after years each takes his proper place in 
 the long line of events. 
 
 In writing a very brief epitome of history, I 
 might say : " America was discovered by the 
 Spaniards, by whom the most of South America 
 and a large part of North America were settled. 
 The English made settlements at Jamestown and 
 Plymouth. The colonists made war on the mother 
 country and obtained their independence. They 
 had slaves before and after this, which resulted 
 rn another war, after which there were no more 
 slaves." 
 
 In this little narrative there are between the 
 clauses great intervals of time, in which many 
 interesting and important events occurred. Nor is 
 this any impugnment of its truth. It makes no 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 51 
 
 pretence of telling anything mo?e than the words 
 say. It states such facts in the order of their 
 succession as seemed to the writer best to he 
 recorded, and neither affirms nor denies anything 
 in regard to what may, or may not, have taken 
 place besides, and it would be strange logic that 
 should infer its falsehood from such silence. 
 
 Such is exactly the character of the Mosaic 
 Narrative, and to properly understand it, one must 
 divest himself of early impressions as to the im- 
 mediate and rapid succession of the events there' 
 recorded, at least so far as to leave his mind un- 
 biased by their juxtaposition upon the page, or 
 by previous theories.* 
 
 Those who have either cut themselves loose 
 from all early " theological " training, or who never 
 were imbued with the traditional belief in, regard 
 to the close succession of events mentioned in the 
 Mosaic.- Account, may be at a loss to understand 
 the difficulty others experience in stereoscoping 
 the past. Reason here must be aided by a posi- 
 tive effort of will. Perhaps one more illustration 
 may aid the latter in the attempt. 
 
 Suppose the scenes of earth ended, and that 
 some spirit in the far-off eternity should relate to 
 a new-comer the story of our world. 
 
 He might, in brief phrase, tell of creation and 
 
 * For an exhaustive examination of texts succeeding 
 each other without notice of interval of time where we know 
 from statements elsewhere there was such interval, see 
 Genesis and Geology, by Denis Crof ton, B. A. 
 
52 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 man's trial and fall ; of the Serpent and the mys- 
 terious promise, "And I will put enmity between 
 thee and the woman, and between thy seed and 
 her seed ; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt 
 bruise his heel/* Then he might add, "and it 
 was so, the Seed of the Woman did bruise the 
 head of the Serpent, did overcome him, and 
 myriads now in this abode are the trophies of. his 
 victory." 
 
 The listener, ignorant of the thousands of years 
 of wretchedness and misery while the Serpent 
 seemed triumphant, might most naturally infer 
 that the triumph followed close upon the declara- 
 tion. But, for us, it is easy to see the ages that 
 elapsed between the promise and the time when 
 it could be said, " and it "jvas so." 
 
 The history of creation occupies only the first 
 chapter of Genesis. It is followed, in the second 
 chapter, by a brief summary of the whole work, 
 and a more special account of the occurrences of 
 the sixth period. 
 
 I propose to confine myself, at least for the 
 present, to the first and apparently more systematic 
 statement. 
 
 Any difficulties outside of this may or may 
 not prove formidable, but their discussion has no 
 bearing upon the truth or falsehood of this narra- 
 tive. 
 
 The Bible abounds in the rich poetical imagery 
 of the East ; but this first chapter is the most 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 53 
 
 literal prose, a record of hard, dry facts. In mathe- 
 matics one speaks of roots and powers, in natural 
 history one reads of kingdoms, classes, and orders, 
 but this narrative has an absolute realism that is 
 wonderful. Such at least it appears to me, and as 
 such I propose to treat it in this discussion. 
 
 The account cf^ens with the all-embracing 
 declaration : " In the beginning God created the 
 heavens and the earth." 
 
 It assumes the existence of a First Cause,* whom 
 
 * It is interesting to note that Scientists who have prided 
 themselves upon their superiority to all claims of supernatu- 
 ral influences and revelation, have arrived by their own road 
 at the first verse in the Bible. Prof. Tyndall, in the open- 
 ing Address to the Hriti.xh Association, is reported to have 
 summed up in the following words: 
 
 "In fact, the whole process of evolution is the manifesta- 
 tion of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the intellect of man. 
 As little in our day as in the days of Job can man by 
 searching find this Power out. . . . There is, you will 
 observe, no very rank materialism here." 
 
 What is this but a scientific paraphrase of "God created 
 the heaven and the earth. " The inscrutability of this Power 
 was as well known to Moses and to Job as to Prof. Tyndall 
 or Mr. Spencer. 
 
 The identity of the two propositions is the more striking 
 when it is remembered that Moses wrote, " In the beginning 
 Elohim created the heaven and the earth," and Elohim 
 means "powers." Would the modern philosophers have 
 suffered any loss if they had taken the word of Moses and 
 Job, that it was an Inscrutable Power that " evolved " the 
 heavens and the earth ? 
 
 For the further consideration of this word, Elohim, and 
 the personality of the narrative, see Part IL 
 
GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 it styles God, an assumption which it does not 
 base upon any argument, but appeals to each 
 reader, as to a matter within the view of his own 
 consciousness as absolutely as the existence of the 
 material world. There I leave it, only adding that 
 matter, or mind, or both, must be eternal, and that 
 I find it logically easier to conceive of one self- 
 existent and eternal Being than of two or more.* 
 
 There is at this day prevalent among certain 
 writers a peculiar state of mind characterized by 
 an instinctive aversion to the use of the word 
 " God," which for lack of a better name may be 
 styled Theophobia. It manifests itself in the use 
 of some impersonal word, as Law, or Force, or Evo- 
 lution, or Power, or u Dynarnis," and if compelled 
 to use the name of Deity, spells it " god." 
 
 Moses has no such theophobia. He delights 
 to place the name of God in the front of every 
 sentence. 
 
 His is a personal God, who not merely enacts 
 laws for the universe, but executes them not 
 merely sets the machinery in motion, but, as it 
 were, stands by and notes its working, and as his 
 plans develop, pronounces each completed stage of 
 progress "good," and when he has crowned all 
 
 * I use the term " self-existent " for lack of a better. 
 That which exists without a beginning is existent, not self- 
 existent, since the latter implies self-causation, i. e. self ante- 
 cedent to itself ! 
 
 I know of but one absolutely logical expression for such 
 a Being : " I Am." " ' I Am ' hath sent thee." 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 55 
 
 with the creation of man, styles it all "very 
 good." 
 
 Science cannot go back to the opening of this 
 chapter. It takes cognizance only of what has 
 occurred since that " beginning." Yet it has dis- 
 covered many indications that the present order is 
 not eternal. The transmission of light, the retarda- 
 tion, and breaking into fragments of comets, indi- 
 cate an interstellar medium which is slowly bring- 
 ing the planets to rest. The friction of the tidal 
 wave, given time enough, will stop the diurnal 
 motion of the earth. The sun is slowly losing its 
 heat. Now, however small these retarding forces, 
 or however small the loss of heat, yet, if they had 
 operated " from eternity," it is a proposition easily 
 demonstrated that the momentum of the earth, 
 and the heat of the sun, would have been exhausted 
 ages ago. 
 
 Science then clearly demands a " beginning." 
 Starting from that, many wise men have sought 
 to expound the mystery of the universe, or at least 
 to show how our own system might have been 
 developed under the influence of forces still active. 
 
 Assuming the existence of matter and motion 
 as the result of attraction, without attempting to 
 account for either, Laplace some fifty years ago 
 proposed the well-known Nebular Hypothesis, 
 which by its accordance with the facts of our solar 
 system, has passed from the domain of theory, 
 almost if not w r holly into that of law a result 
 
56 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 which has been confirmed by the discoveries made 
 in the last few years by aid of the spectroscope. 
 
 The central fact of this theory is, that the 
 solar system, and of course the earth as a portion 
 of it, in its primordial condition, was a shapeless, 
 empty, dark collection of highly attenuated mat- 
 ter, or in modern technical phrase, a nebulous mass. 
 
 Nearly four thousand years ago, Moses, giving 
 an account of our earth, describes its condition 
 prior to the commencement of motion, in language 
 almost identical. He says " the earth was with- 
 out form and void, and darkness was upon the 
 face of the deep." * It was not the firm, solid 
 globe which we now regard as the ideal of stabil- 
 ity, but a something mobile, something that flows, 
 " waters " in the language of those days, a " fluid " 
 in the nicer definition of the present.f 
 
 * The received version " without form and void/' was in 
 the main acquiesced in until the exigences of certain theo- 
 ries required a modification of meaning. (See Lange, Genesis, 
 p. 163.) After a careful reading of the argument pro and 
 con, I still adhere to the old version. But in every render- 
 ing there is the same idea of organic emptiness, and of 
 matter in a state of shapeless disorder. 
 
 Did, however, this phrase stand alone, I should not found 
 an argument upon it, but the evidence is cumulative. It is 
 not the coincidence of one or two expressions, but the har- 
 mony that runs through the whole narrative. 
 
 f I doubt if any language, until a comparatively recent 
 period, could express the nice distinction between "fluid" 
 and " waters/' 
 
 Indeed, the Hebrew word is radically much more closely 
 allied to " fluid," being derived from a root that signifies 
 " to flow." 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 57 
 
 Is it possible even now, to describe in more 
 appropriate words, the nebulous condition before 
 the mass was vivified with motion ? " Without 
 form," shapeless, empty, dark, not solid, but flow- 
 ing, a waters," or fluid. 
 
 Of forces we know nothing, but use the word 
 as a convenient name for that which causes or 
 opposes motion. Of their origin Laplace's theory 
 takes no account, nor can the Science of to-day do 
 more than to refer it to the same First Cause as 
 matter. 
 
 And in this conclusion, Science accords with 
 the statement in Genesis ; God, " the First Cause," 
 is the first mover. " The Spirit of God moved 
 upon the face of the waters," i. e. the fluid mass. 
 
 To this brief assertion, Science can add no- 
 thing. This region also lies beyond its domain. 
 
 But from its vast store-house of facts it has 
 drawn this generalization which corroborates the 
 idea that appears to underlie these first two verses, 
 namely, that the primordial order of existence is 
 mind, matter, and force, and that matter, modified 
 by force, is that which is the present physical 
 universe. 
 
 " Many of the most eminent physicists of the 
 present time see in the cosmos, besides mind, only 
 two essentially distinct beings (sic), namely, mat- 
 ter and energy, and regard all matter as one, and 
 all energy as one, and refer the qualities of sub- 
 stances to the affections of the one substratum, 
 3* 
 
58 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 modified by the varying play of forces." (Page 
 102, New Chemistry, Prof. Cooke.) 
 
 Such a generalization implies, or rather re- 
 quires that matter existed before the application 
 of force could develop anything, and that there 
 was for them a unity of origin. This corrobora- 
 tion is the more interesting from the utter uncon- 
 sciousness of Science that it exists. 
 
 Prof. Tayler Lewis says the primary mean- 
 ing of the word translated " moved upon," is to 
 flutter (regular pulsatile motion), and the verb 
 being in the Piel conjugation makes the inward 
 sense of the throbbing more intensive. The 
 reader will here note a singular harmony with the 
 modern scientific belief that atomic vibrations lie 
 close to the foundations of all the forces of nature. 
 
 Furnished now with matter which has been en- 
 dowed with forces, Science, like the old Geometer, 
 can move the world. Thanks to the newly discov- 
 ered law of the correlation of forces, philosophers 
 can now tell with absolute certainty what was the 
 first visible effect that followed motion. As the 
 telescope carries us out into the depths of space, so 
 this last and grandest generalization takes us back 
 into eternity, enables us to note the very founda- 
 tions of our world, to trace the atoms in their paths, 
 and, as they dash together, to see the darkness lit 
 up by the new-born light. It tells us that heat 
 and then light were the results of these primordial 
 movements. The hitherto " formless, empty, dark " 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 59 
 
 mass became self-luminous, and the surrounding 
 ether joyously trembling, bore in eager haste the 
 news to neighboring systems that another was 
 added to their number, and then, " the morning 
 stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
 shouted for joy." 
 
 Till within a generation, Science in her wild- 
 est dreams could not have told us this. But 
 Moses put upon record, nearly four thousand 
 years ago, as the next step after the impartation 
 of motion in this making a world, " God said, Let 
 there be light, and there was light." 
 
 Note the coincidence. This third step placed 
 upon record so many thousand years ago, is pre- 
 cisely that called for by the Nebular Hypothesis 
 and the Correlation of Forces. 
 
 According to Dr. Adam Clark, the word ren- 
 dered flight," signifies not light only, but heat 
 or fire. 
 
 This identity of signification is, to say the 
 least, exceedingly appropriate, since light and 
 heat, as we now know, are generically one, being 
 merely variations in the ethereal undulations, a 
 physical fact unknown to Dr. Clark ! 
 
 The primary, nebulous condition, "without 
 form, void and dark," was utterly unfit for human 
 use, not a condition complete in itself, but prepar- 
 atory for something higher. Hence, in harmony 
 with the Author's dominant idea of making man 
 the central object, it was not pronounced " good." 
 
60 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 But as light was perfect in itself, ready for the use 
 of the^ coining man, irrespective of the state of 
 what it illuminated, it merited and received the 
 verdict of completion and approval. " And God 
 saw that it was good," finished to his satisfaction. 
 By the laws of dynamics aided by a know- 
 ledge of " the correlation of forces," we now know 
 that the hot, self-luminous, nebulous mass of our 
 solar system (the cosmos) slowly cooled, and 
 shrinking centreward, generated a gyratory mo- 
 tion. Revolving with increasing velocity as the 
 diameter grew less, it at length left behind it neb- 
 ulous rings, which themselves cooling and shrink- 
 ing, formed the planets. Our earth, gathered up 
 from an annular to a spheroidal form, was at first 
 a mass of incandescent, self-luminous vapor, as it 
 were a comet, revolving about the central body, in 
 a planet's orbit. Further condensation arid cool- 
 ing made it a ball of liquid fire, a shoreless ocean 
 of lava, giving out light upon every side.* 
 
 * " And what a surface ! For land and water, glowing 
 rock and molten lava. Vast seas of fire tossed by furious 
 gales whose breath was flame, corruscated with a thousand 
 colors as their condition underwent continual change. Then 
 over a wide extent of those oceans the intense lustre would 
 die out, to be replaced by a dull, almost imperceptible glow 
 where the surface of the fiery ocean was changing into a 
 crust of red-hot rock. But then came fresh disturbance. The 
 crust broke in a thousand places, showing the intensely hot 
 sea beneath. Fragments of red-hot rock many miles in ex- 
 tent were tossed hither and thither by the raging sea. Nor 
 were these the only evidences of an intense energy. From 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 61 
 
 Still slowly cooling through the ages, its sur- 
 face became covered with a solid but glowing crust, 
 and when this had so far fallen in temperature as 
 to be no longer luminous, then, for the first time 
 in the history of our globe, the hitherto all-per- 
 vading light was separated from the darkness, as 
 now, by a line of demarcation, on one side of 
 which opposite the sun was night and on the other 
 day. 
 
 " And God called the light Day, and the dark- 
 ness he called Night. And the evening and the 
 morning were one day." (" One day " in the 
 Hebrew.) 
 
 This marks an important stage of progress in 
 our world's development, indicating the complete 
 transition In mi the gaseous, self-luminous, come- 
 tary condition, to the solid, opaque, planetary 
 body, a fact that was evidently well known to the 
 Author of Genesis, for in his brief way he men- 
 tions the division of light from darkness, the 
 fact which of all others characterized it, a divi- 
 sion heretofore impossible. " And God divided 
 
 time to time, the rush of the hurricanes which raged over 
 the molten oceans, was hushed into comparative stillness, as 
 volcanic explosions took place. Enormous volumes of steam 
 and other imprisoned gases were flung upward with irresist- 
 ible force." 
 
 This vivid picture, from Proctor's Borderland of Science, 
 although an imaginary description of Saturn, is a true de- 
 scription of our earth's condition after it had condensed to a 
 liquid and had begun to form a crust, but was yet self -lumi- 
 nous. 
 
62 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 between the light and the darkness." Up to that 
 time, in reference to our planet, light had been 
 everywhere, and there would have been no more 
 propriety in speaking of such a division than there 
 would be now in case of the Sun. 
 
 Could any man, in the light of the present 
 knowledge, select more accurately, or depict more 
 graphically, the characteristic fact which indicates 
 the close of our world's intensely hot and self-lumi- 
 nous existence ? 
 
 Note, too, the thorough mastery of his sub- 
 ject, incidentally, as it were, shown by the Author 
 when he calls "day," not the light in general, but 
 light after this division. It was not the darkness 
 which was upon the " deep " prior to motion, but 
 darkness which had been separated from the light, 
 that he called Night, i. e. it was after the earth 
 began by alternations of light and darkness to 
 measure time. 
 
 In these two verses (4, 5) is comprehended all 
 that the Author has seen fit to tell us of our 
 world's self-luminous existence. The announce- 
 ment of the emission of light, " And there was 
 light," marks the earliest visible effect of Cosmic 
 vivification by the impartation of motion, the com- 
 mencement of that period of intense heat, and uni- 
 versal luminosity, as the words "God divided the 
 light from the darkness," mark its close. Between 
 these verses is all the long time from a first moved 
 cosmic mass, to a solar system with its arrange- 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 63 
 
 ment of Sun, planets, and satellites, to our earth 
 a solid non-luminous sphere ! So vast an interval, 
 so transcending the power of the human intellect 
 to measure, which no Calculus can compute, be- 
 wilders us, and we draw back exhausted as from 
 the contemplation of duration without limit. 
 
 Such vast real intervals, where there is apparent 
 juxtaposition, are most common in the record writ- 
 ten in the sky. Stars seem to us almost to touch 
 each other, whose real distance apart is unmeasured, 
 and as yet immeasurable. In an infinitely smaller 
 way, writers and speakers often link into one nar- 
 rative, or even one sentence, events separated by 
 vast intervals of time. If one were to say, " Ital- 
 ian Tribes founded a city, which Gothic Robbers 
 destroyed," the statement would be equally true 
 whether we recognized the many centuries that 
 intervened, or in our ignorance, thought that the 
 last event followed close upon the first. And 
 when, our knowledge of history having increased, 
 we learned how far apart they really were, it 
 would be strange logic that should therefore deny 
 the truth of the original statement. 
 
 Important as was this stage to which our world 
 had now attained, it was a condition of transi- 
 tion, not of completion. Although no longer hot 
 enough to give light, yet for a long period its 
 high temperature permitted no water to remain 
 upon it. The Oceans existed at first as super- 
 heated, transparent vapor. But as the surface 
 
64: GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 heat grew more moderate, the invisible vapor be- 
 came dense masses of mist enveloping the world 
 " in clouds like a garment," and making " thick 
 darkness a swaddling band for it." This mist, or 
 cloud, must have been of vast extent. If we sup- 
 pose one cubic inch of water to form one cubic 
 foot of vapor, and the ocean sufficient to cover the 
 earth to the depth of two and a half miles, the 
 " clouds " must have been nearly two thousand five 
 hundred miles in thickness, causing a "darkness" 
 more intense than the darkest night imaginable.* 
 
 * The Bible student will note this as one of the many 
 instances in which Science casts a flood of light on passages 
 otherwise incomprehensible. What more beautiful and true 
 description can be given of that condition of our earth which 
 we have been been considering, than the one in Job, xxxviii. 
 9 ? These dense masses of clouds ! how they must have 
 poured down the water as they passed more and more com- 
 pletely from invisible vapor to clouds and mists ! 
 
 " Or who shut up the seas with doors, when it brake forth, 
 as if it had issued out of the womb ? 
 
 " When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick 
 darkness a swaddling band for it." 
 
 Think of the intense, all-pervading darkness caused by 
 such clouds ; making " the cloud the garment thereof, and 
 thick darkness a swaddling band for it ! " 
 
 " A swaddling band," not an irregular, shapeless mass of 
 clouds, but "bands" wrapping it around, as to-day clouds 
 wrap around Jupiter and Saturn. 
 
 Their waters are still in their atmosphere, but mostly, as 
 I take it, yet in the form of invisible superheated steam. 
 Their ground is still hot enough to glow. Their clouds (of 
 whatever material) are yet in " bands " about them. 
 
 Such in an earlier epoch was the condition of our planet, 
 and such, as far as the bands, it continued after it passed into 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 65 
 
 Further ages of cooling reduced the tempera- 
 ture of the vapor until, at length, the water began 
 to descend in torrents, to be again and again thrown 
 back in clouds of steam by the hot crust. In due 
 time the conflict ceased. The primeval storms 
 and tempests abated ; the air became clear. The 
 waters covered the earth ; above them a transpa- 
 rent open space, and yet above that, clouds. This 
 open space marks the close of another important 
 stage in the progress of the world toward inhabit- 
 ability. It indicates the close of the supremacy 
 of purely igneous action, and the beginning of the 
 period in which aqueous action was henceforth to 
 be dominant. 
 
 The Author of Genesis must have known of 
 this, or lie would not have given us in this series 
 of word pictures, as representing the next great 
 stage of progressive development, an open space 
 which separates the rolling ocean, "the waters 
 below," from the clouds yet suspended high in air, a 
 space so clear that one could see in the blue expanse 
 the glories of the heavens. These are his words : 
 "And God made an open space (not crepe^a, nor 
 firmament, something solid, as translated by Scien- 
 tists of Ptolemy's time !), and divided the waters 
 that were under it from those above it." 
 
 the condition of lower temperature when water became visi- 
 ble mist. Even now, were our earth free from inequalities 
 upon its surface, its clouds would retain their band form. 
 Land and water, mountains and valleys, destroy all regularity 
 of cloud- form. 
 
66 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 And this "open space God called heaven" 
 Why ? Because, as we now know, it was only 
 after the deposition of the water that the stars 
 were visible on our globe. During its earlier 
 stage, when itself luminous, the fainter light of 
 the stars was either lost in the earth's own efful- 
 gence or quenched in the vapors that loaded its 
 atmosphere. During the non-luminous condition, 
 their light was intercepted by the dense clouds. 
 Hence when there came the open clear expanse, 
 it revealed for the first time the glories of the 
 night, and seemed as now to reach the stars. In- 
 deed, if one wishes to be very exact, he may justly 
 say, the open space which separates the waters is 
 the same space which continues beyond the clouds, 
 to the heavens, to the stars themselves, an inter- 
 pretation that, to say the least, is not opposed by 
 the fact that the word rendered " heaven " is dual 
 in form. 
 
 This clearing the atmosphere, science tells us, 
 was a very important stage of progress ; indeed, 
 absolutely essential to the subsequent develop- 
 ment. That the Author appreciated its impor- 
 tance is evident, since he devotes a " day " to it. 
 But he does not pronounce it " good." 
 
 Why this omission ? Certainly the work was 
 of inconceivable importance, absolutely essential 
 before life could exist, and there is nothing done 
 by the Divine Architect that is not well done. 
 
 I think it is manifest on a careful study of 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 67 
 
 this Chapter that in every case where it is said 
 " God saw it was good," perfection is indicated, 
 i. e. not excellence only, but completion " good " 
 for the use to which it was to be put, "good" 
 for men. 
 
 For some cause, the atmosphere, the clear, open 
 expanse, although freed from the excess of water, 
 was not pronounced finished for the use of the 
 coming man. 
 
 The records of Geology offer an explanation. 
 There we find abundant and convincing evidence 
 that the purification of the atmosphere was not 
 completed until unnumbered centuries after the 
 lu -inning of the upheaval of the dryland. At 
 least through the Paleozoic epochs (a duration we 
 cannot measure), the air was loaded with carbonic 
 acid and probably with many other impurities. 
 
 Had the Author represented the purification 
 of the air, not as having reference merely to the 
 deposition of the water, but as continuing until 
 he was able to pronounce it " good," i. e. fit for 
 man, he would have materially injured the sharp 
 chronological order which is one of the most 
 characteristic features of the Narrative, since this 
 would have carried the "second day" so down 
 into the history of the globe as to have lapped far 
 on the emergence of the dry land, the work of the 
 next great epoch. 
 
 How long the world remained enveloped in a 
 shoreless ocean there are no data on which we can 
 
68 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 found an estimate. It must have been a time of 
 turmoil, of great volcanic upheavals, of "terrific 
 earthquakes. It must have been long, for during 
 its continuance the primeval crust was broken and 
 ground up, forming in part the materials of the 
 Azoic sedimentary rocks, as is apparent from their 
 immense thickness. 
 
 In the fulness of time, the continents began to 
 be upheaved, showing in their earliest manifesta- 
 tions lines of structure which clearly indicated 
 their present form, bearing no marks of chance 
 upheaval, but showing a plan worked out through 
 the Geological epochs, and attaining their full 
 completion, after countless centuries, towards the 
 close of the Tertiary. 
 
 In this Age (Dana, p. 580), " there was the fin- 
 ishing of the rocky substratum of the Continents ; 
 the expansion of the continental areas to their full 
 limits, or their essentially permanent recovery from 
 the waters of the ocean ; the elevation of many of 
 the great mountains of the globe, or a considera- 
 ble portion of them, through a large part of their 
 height, as the Alps, Pyrenees, Apennines, Hima- 
 layas, Andes, Rocky Mountains, the loftiest chains 
 of the globe, a result not finally completed until 
 the close of the Tertiary." 
 
 Geology, then, tells us that at the close of this 
 epoch, the arrangement of the land was completed, 
 -and the profoundest students of Physical Geogra- 
 phy unite in pronouncing it "good." 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 69 
 
 In perfect accord with this, the Author places 
 in an epoch subsequent to the deposition of the 
 waters, the appearance and the completion of the 
 dry land, and adds, " God saw it was good." He 
 gives no intimation of the interval of time be- 
 t ween, but Geology so far supplies the omission 
 as to assure us of its surpassingly long duration. 
 
 It may be replied that in all this there is no- 
 thing remarkable, as of course the elevation of the 
 land above the water could not have preceded its 
 deposition. \\t I note three things that did not 
 " follow of course." 
 
 First, The land might have assumed its present 
 elevation before the water fell, leaving the latter, 
 when the time for falling came, simply to fill the 
 already existing valleys to their present depth. 
 But the words, "Let the waters be gathered into 
 one place, and let the dry land appear," are 
 utterly inconsistent with any such previous condi- 
 tion, and are equally in Imniumy with all the 
 Geological facts of the world's history. 
 
 . Second, It was the belief of- the ancients that 
 the world was mostly land, and the water compara- 
 tively small bodies in a great degree isolated from 
 each other. It did not " follow of -course " that 
 the waters were gathered into one place. Yet such 
 is the fact, as Geography tells us. 
 
 Third, The excellence of the arrangement of 
 land and water does not " follow of course." The 
 ancients had a horror of the sea, and it is only 
 
70 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 since a comparatively recent date that Scientists 
 have found that land and sea have been placed 
 and proportioned with surpassing wisdom. 
 
 The Author of Genesis pronounced it " good," 
 and now all science confirms the verdict.* 
 
 I cannot leave this portion of the account 
 without calling the reader's attention to its pecu- 
 liar wording. " Let the dry land appear," or if it 
 is closer to the original, let it be written as a fu- 
 ture (since the Hebrew obtains its first and third 
 persons of the imperative by the use of a simple 
 future). " The dry land shall appear." Such an 
 expression would be marvelously in harmony with 
 the fact that the land had risen close to the surface 
 
 * It will aid in appreciating the wonderful wisdom of the 
 Author of this Narrative to compare his statements with 
 those of a much later Hebrew Author. 
 
 In II. Esdras, chap. v. 42, in the course of an account of 
 Creation borrowed from that in Genesis, the writer, not sat- 
 isfied with the Science of that book, attempts, like the trans- 
 lators of the Septuagint, to improve it by the aid of the 
 improved Science of his own day. He says, " Upon the third 
 day thou didst command that the waters should be gathered 
 in the seventh part of the earth ; six parts hast thou dried 
 up, . . . the seventh part where the waters were gath- 
 ered." 
 
 This is far from being the only instance of the danger 
 of adding improvements to the story of the Hebrew Pro- 
 phet. 
 
 Such blundering was most natural to one whose know- 
 ledge was limited to the waters bordering on Judea. His 
 statement contrasts most sharply with the brief but photo- 
 graphically true account of Moses. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 71 
 
 of the water, all shaped and planned, and only 
 waited the permission to rise through the shallow 
 covering of water to the air. " Let the dry land 
 appear." It is all ready, let it come forth. 
 
 What, then, is the fact as revealed by Geolo- 
 gists ? 
 
 That at the beginning of Geology, the conti- 
 nents were formed as immense submarine plateaux, 
 lying a very short distance beneath the surface. 
 The grand structure-lines of the continents were 
 early formed and " the system thus initiated was 
 the system to the end." (Dana, Manual, p. 160.) 
 
 There is something marvelous in the sharp 
 antithesis of the Mosaic account, " Let the waters 
 be gathered unto one place," and the immense 
 inland seas of the earlier Geologic Epochs, an an- 
 tithesis that finds its counterpart in the actual 
 contrast of those periods and of to-day. 
 
 The then condition of our earth resembled that 
 exhibited now upon the planet Mars according to 
 the latest maps, on which are seen large bodies of 
 water shut off from all others, and with long, 
 narrow arms running far inland. 
 
 Sir K. Murchison tells us that " Russia in 
 Europe is one huge depository basin," ..." there 
 existed an inland sea of brackish water exceeding 
 in size the present Mediterranean, of which the 
 present Caspian is the diminished relic." This 
 inland sea, he says, was entirely separated from the 
 Western Ocean of that period. 
 
72 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 9 
 
 Vast shallow inland seas, at times connected 
 with other bodies, and at other times entirely cut 
 off, were numerous in the period preceding the 
 middle Tertiary, and to some extent till towards 
 its close. 
 
 The reader will note that this is the Geological 
 epoch of the completion of the continents, and of 
 the appearance of " grasses, herbs, and trees bear- 
 ing fruit whose seed is in itself," and that it im- 
 mediately precedes the period of the Glaciers, that 
 period which draws a strong line of demarcation 
 between the ancient type of climate and the 
 modern. 
 
 The Mosaic Narrative now deals with organic 
 forms, and first with vegetation. 
 
 Let us see what is known from the record of 
 the rocks. 
 
 There we read that prior to the completion of 
 .the Continents there were immeasurable periods 
 of ancient life forms, the strange old shapes of the 
 Paleozoic Age, the less strange of the Mesozoic, 
 and the more modern of the Cenozoic. 
 
 Vegetation, commencing with the lowest and 
 simplest organization, the Algse, advanced in the 
 Devonian to a flora which presented, with Lyco- 
 podiums, Ferns, and Equisetae, various cone-bear- 
 ing plants, representing the large but inferior 
 class styled from their naked seeds Gynmosperms. 
 In the Carboniferous period came a rank and 
 abundant growth, whose remains have given us 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 73 
 
 our stores of coal. Here, in addition, was found 
 yet another great order, the Cycads, also belong- 
 ing to the Gymnosperms. 
 
 As yet there were no Grasses, no Palms, no 
 Angiosperms, the last and highest development. 
 What is an Angiosperm ? It is an Exogenous 
 plant whose seed is covered, as the apple, rose, 
 plum, etc., a plant whose seed is inside of the fruit. 
 
 Mesozoic plant-life, till far down and into the 
 Cretaceous, presents the same characteristics. 
 
 There was an abundant flora, but no Palms, 
 no Angiosperms, and most probably no Grasses. 
 In the Cretaceous, the chalk period, suddenly and 
 abruptly, vegetation begins to assume a more 
 modern character. Grasses, Palms, and Angio- 
 sperms begin to appear, not dominant, but a pro- 
 mise of the future, "for this was properly the 
 closing part of the era of the Cycads." * 
 
 In the Cenozoic there was an increase of those 
 higher orders until they attained their present 
 preponderance in the Tertiary. Here are found 
 Plums, Almonds, Roses, Acacias, Whortleberries, 
 Palms, Grasses, etc. 
 
 Hence, as to vegetable life, the culmination was 
 attained in the Tertiary, since no higher develop- 
 ment has since been made; there is no higher 
 type than Palms and Angiosperms. 
 
 Is it possible to find a definition that shall 
 include these heads of the great divisions, the exo- 
 
 * Dana, Manual, 1874, p. 471. 
 4 
 
74 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 genous and the endogenous ? I can think of none 
 more perfect than, "the tree yielding fruit whose 
 seed is in itself." * 
 
 This evidently is the kind of vegetation of 
 which Moses wrote, " And the earth brought forth 
 grass, the herb yielding seed, and the tree yielding 
 fruit the seed of which is in itself." As in these 
 the vegetable world culminated, the Author pro- 
 nounces them " good," i. e. fitted for the sustenta- 
 tion of Man and the Class of animals most aifect- 
 ing his interests. 
 
 It is hardly possible to read thoughtfully this 
 account and not wonder why two such diverse 
 and yet so important acts as the appearing of the 
 dry land and the completion of vegetable develop- 
 ment, should be included in one epoch. 
 
 * " Tree yielding fruit whose seed is in it." 
 Dana (p. 708) considers this the philosophical character- 
 istic of vegetation distinguishing it from inorganic sub- 
 stances. This is true without doubt, but no more true for 
 vegetation than for animal life. Nor does that idea add any- 
 thing to the force of "grasses, herbs and fruit trees." But 
 if, by " tree yielding fruit the peed of which is in it," is 
 meant what it plainly says, that the seed of these trees was 
 covered, i. e. was inside of the fruit, thus distinguishing 
 them not only from the cotemporaneous herbs yielding seed 
 as well as from the inferior but preexistent orders whose 
 seed was not in the fruit but naked, then there is shown a 
 deep and broad undercurrent of knowledge, that on the one 
 hand takes in the Geological ante-human periods, their 
 beginnings and culminations, and on the other, the profound 
 analysis of Modern Botanical Science, which has told us of 
 the structural and useful peculiarities of the great modern 
 division of the Angiosperms. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 75 
 
 If the purpose of dividing the narrative into 
 just six epochs made it necessary to crowd two 
 events into one division, it would seem every way 
 more natural to place together the deposition of 
 the waters and the appearance of the dry land. 
 
 The discoveries of Geology already discussed, 
 give an answer which if it stood alone would attest 
 the Divine origin of this Account. From them we 
 learn, not only that the completion of the conti- 
 nents, i. e. the time of receiving the Divine appro- 
 bation as " good," was an immeasurable distance 
 subsequent to the deposition of the waters, the 
 two being almost at the extremes of Geologic 
 record, but that vegetable life which began soon 
 after the beginning of the emergence of the conti- 
 nents, was developed along with them, and both 
 reached their culmination in the SAME Geologic 
 Epoch, in the Pliocene, the close of the Tertiary ! 
 
 How little called for has been the fear of this 
 most faithful Witness. 
 
 Another very reasonable inquiry is, why does 
 the writer speak of "grasses, herbs, and fruit 
 trees " and remain silent as to the previous and 
 much more extended domain of Algae, Ferns, Cy- 
 cads, etc. ? 
 
 Three answers suggest themselves. 
 
 First, because the vegetable world culminated 
 in these. Second, because they are most useful 
 for man and cattle. The third reason, not appa- 
 rent upon the face of the narrative, but perhaps. 
 
76 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 in reference to God's purpose of authenticating a 
 Revelation, of far greater weight in his mind, was 
 because this vegetation marks the close of the 
 ancient type of climate which was distinguished 
 for its monotonous uniformity.* It thus estab- 
 lished a BIOLOGICAL DATE, subsequent to which 
 began the modern type of climate characterized 
 by changing seasons, and consequently, unequal 
 days and nights. 
 
 Till well down to this time of " fruit trees " 
 the Geological record assures us that the same 
 plants and animals flourished luxuriantly from 
 well toward the equator to latitude 78 at least. 
 And as light is one of the most vital needs of 
 plants, we are compelled to believe, if there be 
 any truth in the doctrine of Uniformity of Law, 
 that a somewhat equal arrangement of light and 
 darkness prevailed at that time in the higher 
 and lower latitudes, and that therefore the polar 
 regions could not have then had days of six 
 months duration, alternating with nights of equal 
 length. 
 
 If this be so, then as a necessary consequence 
 there could not have been the present alternation 
 of seasons, and the cause of this alternation did 
 
 * Dana, Manual (1874) p. 352. " The temperature of the 
 Arctic Zone differed but little from that of Europe and Amer- 
 ica. Through the whole hemisphere we might say world 
 there was a genial atmosphere " (Close of the Carbonife- 
 rous Age) " for one uniform type of vegetation and genial 
 waters for Corals and Brachiopods." 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 77 
 
 
 
 not then exist. Ergo, the axis of the earth did 
 not then have its present inclination, but must 
 have been nearly perpendicular to its orbit. 
 
 After " fruit trees " came, according to the 
 record of the rocks, the Glacial Epoch, and at the 
 earliest subsequent period of which anything is 
 known, are found days and nights of unequal 
 length and changing seasons. Hence during that 
 epoch the axis of the earth must have attained its 
 present inclination of 23|.* 
 
 Such a change of obliquity, causing seasons and 
 une<|iml days and nights, and affording a simple 
 and natural measurement of the year, and signs 
 for the arrangement of the Jewish religious fes- 
 tivuls, exactly harmonizes with the Mosaic Ac- 
 count. 
 
 " And God said, Let the lights in the firma- 
 ment (open space) of heaven, be to divide the day 
 from the night," [the margin says " to divide be- 
 tween the day and between the night, i. e. to 
 divide the time between them, giving to each its 
 due but ever-varying share,"] " and let them be 
 for signs and for seasons and for days and for 
 years." f 
 
 * For a full discussion of this subject see Part III. 
 
 f Verse 14. The Common Version reads, " Let there be 
 lights in the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the 
 night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days 
 and for years." 
 
 The word " there " does not occur in the original, and the 
 verb " let be " is the same in both places, save that it is of 
 
78 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 How appropriate a description of such an axial 
 change. 
 
 Note, too, the phraseology. It is carefully 
 chosen, and is as remarkable for what it does not 
 say, as for what it says. It is marvelously in ac- 
 cord with the thought that its Author knew that 
 an increase of the inclination of the earth's axis 
 then occurred, and was familiar with its effects. 
 This, as Astronomers tell us, causes the Sun to 
 divide the time unequally between the day and the 
 
 the singular number in the first. If so translated, giving it 
 the same meaning in both, the translation would read, " And 
 God said, Let it be that the lights in the firmament of heaven 
 divide " . . . " and let them be for signs and for seasons, for 
 days and for years." 
 
 This would imply their previous existence and simply 
 denote their appointment to certain duties. It seems to me 
 that one with a knowledge of all the facts of our Solar Sys- 
 tem (which God most certainly possessed) and with no pre- 
 vious theory to sustain, would so render it. 
 
 The Common Version implies the non-existence of these 
 bodies, or at least their non-appearance, in the expression 
 " let there be lights " . . . while the second expression, " Let 
 them be for signs," etc. , denotes simple appointment. I can 
 see no good reason for the distinction. 
 
 As to the use or omission of the article, no argument can 
 justly be drawn from its presence or absence, since it is only 
 partially the equivalent of our own, and the translators have 
 added it or omitted it in this very Chapter, as from their 
 stand-point seemed to them best, and that, too, without any 
 notice to the reader by italics or otherwise. 
 
 This change in the mode of translating the same word, is 
 another instance of supposed science affecting the minds of 
 the translators. As the Seventy thought to bring out more 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 79 
 
 night, and the moon to divide its hours of shining, 
 giving the winter nights a greater share than would 
 otherwise be possible. It also, in connection with 
 the Moon, gave the " signs " indicating the time 
 for the Jewish festivals, since the Passover fell on 
 the first full Moon of /Spring. It gives seasons 
 too, and so makes it easy to measure the years ; 
 but of months, a far more obvious division of time, 
 the account does not speak. 
 
 They alone, although so evidently dependent 
 
 clearly what they deemed an inspired Cosmogony ought to 
 nay, by translating the Hebrew word for expanse by oreptufia, 
 something solid, so they rendered " let, be," in the first part 
 of the verse by yevrfiijTuaav , " let there be lights," i. e. " let them 
 come into existence," and in the second place by " laTuoav" 
 let them be " for signs," etc. The English translators fol- 
 lowed in their footsteps and intensified the creative idea, for 
 yevrftt'lTuaav may also mean merely appointment, while our 
 version drops that idea altogether. 
 
 One other verbal remark is not inappropriate. " And " is 
 used simply as a connective, without necessarily indicating 
 that the event mentioned in the following clause was sub- 
 sequent in the order of time to that spoken of before. 
 Instances in proof are not uncommon, but we need not go 
 elsewhere to find them. In the account of this " day," is 
 a case exactly to the point. After appointing the Sun and 
 Moon to their respective offices, the writer adds," and it was 
 so." That is, the thing was done. The Sun and Moon, in 
 obedience to the divine command, had already begun to rule 
 the day and the night. He then goes on to say, " And God 
 made two great lights," etc. 
 
 It is simply impossible that the writer intended us to 
 understand that God made these lights after they had already 
 obeyed his commands. 
 
80 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 upon the "lesser light," and next to days the most 
 natural to speak of, are not mentioned ! Why ? 
 Because months (originally from new moon to new 
 moon) are measured by lunar revolutions, and are 
 unaffected by any change in the obliquity of the 
 earth's axis. Nor for the same reason is any men- 
 tion made of weeks, although their institution is 
 one of the most apparent objects of the writer 
 throughout the narrative, and stands out promi- 
 nently in his subsequent writings. 
 
 It may be said that if my explanation be true, 
 then the entire effect was produced upon the earth 
 itself, while Genesis says it was something done 
 to, or by, the Sun and Moon. 
 
 But this, it appears to me, is more than the 
 words of the Author permit. He does not say, 
 nor as it seems to me, necessarily imply, that any- 
 thing at all was done to the Sun and Moon ; nor, 
 on the other hand, was it within his purpose to 
 tell us the physical fact that nothing was done to 
 them. True to its purpose of photographing facts, 
 the Narrative simply announces God's intention or 
 command that these luminaries should divide the 
 time between the day and the night, and should 
 be for signs and seasons, for days and for years, 
 and tells us that the command was obeyed. That 
 k all. It gives no word as to the physical cause. 
 
 Nor is this any proof of the Author's igno- 
 rance or untruthf ulness. As well complain of the 
 expected photographs of the Transit of Venus be-* 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 81 
 
 cause all that will be obvious to the observer is a 
 small black spot, and the great disk of the Sun. 
 Its value will be in proportion to the truthfulness 
 with which those two things shall be represented. 
 
 The great fact is that the Sun and Moon did 
 divide between the day and the night, and were 
 for signs and for seasons, for days and years, and 
 that this event occurred after the production of 
 grasses, herbs, and fruit trees, and before living 
 species of animals. So much is said positively, 
 and it is clearly implied in its silence as to months, 
 that nothing was done to the moon. These an- 
 swer all the conditions of the Narrative, and are 
 in themselves physical facts of the highest im- 
 portance. 
 
 HiTe I meet another class of objectors, who 
 tell rne my argument proves too much, if it proves 
 the third period "preceded the Glaciers, for such a 
 climatic change as is implied in varying seasons 
 and unequal days and nights, would necessitate 
 many new species of plants and even of " grasses, 
 herbs, and fruit trees," for the new conditions ; 
 and moreover that the fossils do show such, while 
 Moses says the Creation of plants ceased on the 
 " third day," and, therefore, here is a contradic- 
 tion. 
 
 Upon a most careful examination of the entire 
 account in both Chapters, 1 cannot find any asser- 
 tion that no plants were created subsequently to 
 this period. The writer does affirm that the 
 4* 
 
82 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 earth did then " bring forth grasses, herbs, and 
 fruit trees." That is all. God may, or may not, 
 have created plants of any kind, on some one or 
 on each of the subsequent periods. The Narra- 
 tive gives no intimation in the first Chapter. But 
 it is pretty clearly intimated, if not expressly 
 stated, in the ninth verse of the next Chapter, 
 that God did create " trees " on the last creative 
 epoch. Moreover, there is nowhere any assertion 
 of rest from creative labor until the seventh day. 
 
 The attentive, thoughtful reader will here note 
 how, in this case as in many others, difficulties 
 vanish in proportion as we keep close to the sharp 
 photographic character of the narrative, viz. that 
 it means exactly what it says, no more, no less. 
 
 Placed as this fourth period is, after grasses, 
 herbs, and fruit trees, and before the creation of 
 living species of fish, and other water creatures, 
 and fowl, it establishes the Biological date of the 
 great Climatic change precisely where Geology 
 places a great climatic change, i. e. at the era of 
 the Glaciers. 
 
 After stating the offices of " the lights in the 
 firmament," the writer, with emphatic repetition, 
 guards against the possibility of the Star-worship- 
 pers saying that his Creatorship did not include 
 the Stars ; he amplifies and repeats ; He made the 
 sun ; He made the moon ; He set them in the 
 heavens to rule over the day and over the night; 
 He made the stars also. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 83 
 
 That I am correct in considering the sixteenth 
 Terse as retrospective, is clearly shown, apart from 
 any verbal or grammatical argument, by its includ- 
 ing the " stars also." As the Stars must have 
 been intended, as well as the Sun and Moon, in 
 the first verse (otherwise it means nothing), the 
 subsequent statement must be merely a repeti- 
 tion. 
 
 It would be too illogical to say that in this 
 statement, where "lights" and "stars" are the 
 object of the same verb, creation was intended in 
 the one case and something very different in the 
 other. It cannot be that a writer able to pen 
 sentences that have ever been the admiration of 
 critics, should so far stultify himself as to say in 
 the first verse, that God created the heavens and 
 the earth, and then in the sixteenth verse, say that 
 he did this very thing on the fourth period after. 
 
 In these words, " the stars also," I note a care- 
 ful guarding against misapprehension, a fact thrown 
 in that refuses to harmonize with any explanation 
 save one based on the actual facts of the history of 
 the Universe. 
 
 Moreover, in this clause, " the stars also," 
 there is a reaching out to 'truth which has just 
 been scientifically demonstrated, viz. that the 
 stars have the same origin as our earth and sun. 
 It has been, for not many years, strongly suspected 
 that this was true, for the elliptic orbits of the 
 double stars show that they are subject to the 
 
84 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 same laws of gravitation, inertia, and motion ; 
 while their light is obedient to the same optical 
 laws. But it was reserved for that most delicate 
 of all means of investigation, that marvel of 
 power, the spectroscope, to tell us that the mate- 
 rials of those distant orbs, as well as of our own 
 sun, are essentially identical with those of the 
 earth on which we live. 
 
 " God made two great lights." Here I note, 
 before leaving this part of the account, a precision 
 of language that our English does not express. In 
 verses 3, 4, 5, the word light differs in more than 
 grammatical number from the " lights" of verses 
 14, 15, 16. These indicate bodies not composed 
 of light, but places or sources whence light ema- 
 nates. 
 
 The events of this period not only gave man- 
 kind the pleasures arising from changing seasons, 
 but also largely increased the limits of the earth's 
 inhabitability. It was not a stage to further pro- 
 gress in this direction, but marked the completion 
 of climatic preparation for the coming man. It 
 might be warmer or colder, but henceforth the 
 long winter nights were to be followed by the 
 long days of summer. The monotony of the pre- 
 glacial climate was gone forever. Those changes 
 necessary for this purpose having been com- 
 pleted, the arrangements of day and night, and 
 seasons, bore the Divine inspection and were pro- 
 nounced "good," i. e. not only "good" as a 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 85 
 
 source of enjoyment to man, but completed. No 
 f urtlier change in that direction has since occurred. 
 
 All investigation confirms the verdict. 
 
 Geologists tell us that after the work of the 
 great circumpolar upheavals was ended, and the 
 epoch of the Glaciers drew toward its close, sum- 
 mer revisited the earth. The melting ice flooded 
 the world with ice-cold water to an extent of 
 which we can with difficulty conceive. Immense 
 lakes and rivers covered a large portion of its sur- 
 face. The ocean and the land, the lakes and the 
 rivers, must, in temperature, have been for a long 
 time in much the same condition as present cir- 
 cumpolar regions, such as the upper part of British 
 America, or the northern parts of the Eastern 
 Continent. The conditions of animal life of that 
 period and of these regions now, must have been 
 in a great degree identical. 
 
 The fauna at this day characteristic of circum- 
 polar lands and waters, are fishes and fowl, whales, 
 and other sea monsters living in, or on, the water, 
 and the tiny mollusks such as form the food of 
 the right whale. These all swarm in an abun- 
 dance, of which those who live in warmer climes 
 can form no conception. Nowhere else do water 
 animals and water fowl so abound. 
 
 Such by " Uniformity of Law," and, if you 
 please, by "Natural Selection," should have been 
 the character of the animals that followed the 
 
86 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 work of the fourth day, if that was the era of the 
 Glaciers.* 
 
 Compare with this the Mosaic record of the 
 work of the fifth period. " God said, ' Let the 
 waters bring forth abundantly the moving crea- 
 ture that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the 
 earth in the open firmament (expanse) of heaven.' 
 And God created great whales,f and every living 
 creature that moveth which the waters brought 
 forth abundantly, after their kind (i. e. water 
 creatures), and every winged fowl after his kind." 
 
 The language is general enough to include all 
 living species of water animals and fowls ; but it is 
 marvelously characteristic of the present fauna of 
 circumpolar regions, and, if so intended, fixes, on 
 this side, the Biological epoch of the grand cli- 
 matic change of which the Glacial was the scene. 
 
 Here I may be met with the fact that although 
 "fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals" of the pre- 
 glacial period are now utterly extinct, yet undoubt- 
 edly some protozoans and molluskshave survived. 
 Whether such a survivorship of so small a number 
 
 * Lyell, Principles of Geology, p. 125, 126, says, speaking 
 of a period preceding man : " It appears that an arctic fauna 
 specifically resembling that of the present seas, extended 
 farther to the South than now. The date appears to coin- 
 cide very nearly with the era of the dispersion of erratic 
 blocks over Europe and North America," i. e. the close of 
 the Glacial Epoch. 
 
 f So rendered in our version, but rather any large crea- 
 ture living in the water, not properly a fish. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 87 
 
 of species, so low in the scale of existence, would 
 affect the literal truth of so brief a statement, is a 
 question that I think might justly be answered in 
 the negative. But this objection, minute as it is, 
 disappears on a close examination of the verses 
 themselves. 
 
 In the twentieth verse is an exact statement of 
 what God proposed to do, or to have the waters do. 
 It was simply to bring forth abundantly the mov- 
 ing creature that hath life (i. e. living, moving 
 creatures, as fishes and other animals) " and fowl." 
 That is all. If they brought forth abundantly 
 such a fauna, the account is literally verified. 
 There may already have been many creatures in 
 the seas, or there may have been few ; the account 
 does not say. After stating God's purpose at that 
 time, the Author, with the view of asserting God's 
 universal creatorship, says, "God created great 
 whales and every winged fowl." Each verse is 
 literally true. Each subserves its own purpose. 
 The thought that underlies the statements is the 
 same as that discussed in reference to the repetition 
 of God's creatorship, as to Sun, Moon, and Stars, 
 and it again appears in verses 24 and 25, in the 
 account of the work of the next period. 
 
 The waters it is evident were fit for life sooner 
 than the land, save the smaller islands and the 
 shores of other lands. Inland, a lower tempera- 
 ture prevailed. Floods and torrents laid waste 
 the country. During the earlier portion of this 
 
88 .GENESIS ADD SCIENCE. 
 
 transition period, the possibilities of animal life, 
 other than that mentioned, must have been small. 
 Bat as the ice disappeared, the conditions grew 
 more and more favorable, until at last the laud 
 was ready for its proper fauna. The gigantic 
 mammalia of the Post-Tertiary made their appear- 
 ance, flourished, and began to pass away, and to- 
 ward its close began to be found the remains of 
 the living creatures of to-day, " cattle, beasts, and 
 creeping things." 
 
 These are the animals of which Genesis speaks. 
 " And God said, Let the earth bring forth the liv- 
 ing creature after his kind, and cattle and creeping 
 thing, and beast of the earth, after his kind ; and 
 it was so." 
 
 Is not this justly and fairly a description of the 
 "living " fauna of to-day, given by one to whom 
 man and his interests are objects of central im- 
 portance ? 
 
 This work, then, as complete and satisfactory 
 to the Divine Architect, received his seal of ap- 
 probation, and he pronounces it " good." 
 
 The study of ancient and modern organic life 
 has developed three great facts : 
 
 That all organisms were outlined in the first 
 created of each grand division, i. e. the first mol- 
 lusk exhibited the general plan of all mollusks, 
 the first radiate, of all radiates, and so on. 
 
 That along the course of each series, there ap- 
 peared from time to time " comprehensive types" 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 89 
 
 which, with the characteristics of the group to 
 which they belong, exhibit others of groups not 
 yet in existence, prophetic of future developments. 
 
 That those characteristics which united give 
 what naturalists call species, are ineffaceable, at 
 least in historic times. 
 
 I note after the Mosaic Account of each or- 
 ganic creation thus far, the words " after his kind." 
 Is not this the true formula that embraces these 
 three ideas ? 
 
 Last of all in the records of the rocks, we find 
 the remains of man.* His bones are sometimes 
 mingled with those of gigantic mammalia then 
 living, but extinct before the historic period com- 
 menced. 
 
 We find no prototype of him, no evidence of 
 brings similarly endowed. Whatever remains 
 are found belonging to Man, belong to him alone, 
 and to no intermediate creature. He stands on an 
 eminence unapproachable. 
 
 Genesis tells us, " So God created man in his 
 own image." 
 
 This was the culniination of God's creation, 
 and then, as it were closing up his work, with the 
 arrangement of the Garden, the naming of the 
 animals, the formation of Eve, the bestowal of his 
 blessing upon the pair, the grant of dominion over 
 
 * Lyell, Manual, p. 117. " That portion of the Post-plio- 
 cene group which belongs to the human epoch, forms a very 
 unimportant feature of the Geological structure of the earth's 
 crust." 
 
90 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 all other creatures, the allotment of seed-bearing 
 herbs and fruit-bearing trees to man for food, and 
 the green herb to all others, "God saw every 
 thing that he had made, and behold it was all very 
 good/' 
 
 Is it not^o? 
 
 The wisest of philosophers measure their ac- 
 quirements by their knowledge of this that God 
 has done, and find the greater the height to which 
 they attain, the more boundless appears the vista 
 beyond. 
 
 After man, Geology tells of no new creatures. 
 That power which produced such a marvelously 
 abundant succession of species, has, since man's 
 appearance upon the globe, ceased to operate.* 
 Science seeks in vain for an explanation of this 
 strange cessation. 
 
 But in Genesis is found a key to the mystery. 
 After God had through six creative periods 
 brought his world to a condition worthy, in his 
 infinite judgment, of the verdict " very good," 
 given on the sixth and last of the " days," we are 
 told, "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." 
 
 We have now gone item by item through the 
 Mosaic Account of Creation. It touches modern 
 
 * Darwinians deny this, but base their denial upon the 
 assumption that somehow and somewhere proof to the con- 
 trary will yet be found. An uncertain foundation on which 
 to rest so large a conclusion 1 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 91 
 
 Science in almost every phrase. Throughout it 
 all, there is no hesitation, no doubt, no cloudiness 
 shrouding ignorance in words that mean any thing 
 or nothing, but the simplest and most positive 
 assertions, the confident utterance of one who, in 
 the fulness of perfect knowledge, describes actual 
 occurrences. 
 
 The identity of this Narrative and the latest 
 results of Scientific investigation, made too often 
 in no friendly spirit, is so complete that they 
 stand or fall together, a fact that is absolutely in- 
 comprehensible on the theory that the former is 
 the production, not of Moses merely, but of the 
 united wisdom of all the world down to within 
 the last quarter of a century. 
 
 Nor does it aid in solving the mystery to as- 
 sume that Moses obtained the story from tradition 
 or more ancient documents. It is only thrown 
 farther back, and the question still presents itself, 
 " flow did any man obtain this knowledge ? " 
 
 To this question I can see but one answer. 
 He who formed the world for man gave him this 
 history. 
 
 I submit whether those who reject this expla- 
 nation are not bound to give one which shall be 
 more satisfactory ? 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE "DAYS." 
 
 I NOW resume the consideration of the " day" 
 mentioned in the Mosaic Cosmogony. 
 
 The view most prevalent among Scientists 
 who accept this Narrative as of Divine origin, is 
 that the " Days " spoken of, are simply indefi- 
 nite periods. Much can be said in favor of this 
 opinion. It has moreover the advantage (if it be 
 one) of being no newfangled notion, for some of 
 the most profound writers, centuries ago, held that 
 these "days" embraced a larger meaning than 
 the time of a diurnal revolution, and this from a 
 consideration of the text itself, and not from any 
 special knowledge of the physical facts involved. 
 
 The question from this stand-point is ably 
 argued by DP. Tayler Lewis, in his article on the 
 "Six Days," in Lange's Commentary. 
 
 To this view I cordially assented, until within 
 a brief period. But reflection upon the curious 
 and careful wording of each phrase, brought the 
 conviction that the force of " day " is not ex- 
 hausted by saying it refers to periods of indefinite 
 length, although that meaning is most clearly in- 
 dicated in the fourth verse of the next chapter. 
 
THE MOSAIC DAYS. 93 
 
 I became dissatisfied with any explanation 
 that ignores the intense literalism of the whole 
 account. 
 
 With a view to harmonize all the conditions 
 of the problem, I carefully reexamined the narra- 
 tive, and applied the key that unlocked so many 
 difficulties in the other parts of the story, viz. : 
 
 "The Author meant just exactly what is 
 written, no more, no less." 
 
 As to the interval of time between any two 
 events successively mentioned, we have no data, 
 in the account, by which we can judge of its ex- 
 tent, and can no more form an idea of it, than of 
 the true distances of the stars from each other, by 
 their apparent places in the sky. 
 
 The first use of this word occurs in verse 4, 
 "And God called the liirht day." Here evidently 
 " day " is simply the opposite of night, a period 
 of about twelve hours. 
 
 This is the primary and most common mean- 
 ing of the word. Another and higher idea is 
 found in the use of day as embracing a period of 
 light and one of darkness, or one evening and one 
 morning. This is the second use. The writer 
 says, u And the evening and the morning were 
 one day." These evidently make the limits of 
 one diurnal revolution, or twenty-four hours. 
 
 We would naturally expect Moses to say, as 
 our English translators have made him, " were 
 t\iQ first day." But in the avoidance of the latter 
 
94 THE MOSAIC DAYS. 
 
 expression, I see another indication of the bound- 
 less knowledge of the Author that lets nothing 
 escape him. 
 
 Moses, writing from his own knowledge, had 
 that been possible, would naturally have placed 
 the formula, " the evening and the morning were 
 the first day," directly after God pronounced the 
 light good. This first announcement of comple- 
 tion and perfection was properly the " first day," 
 according to the analogy of the " days " in the 
 other parts of the chapter. 
 
 Moses could not have known what, thanks to 
 Laplace and others, is now so evident, that such a 
 statement could not have been the representation 
 of a physical truth, for when light appeared, and 
 in its perfection merited and received the Divine 
 commendation as " good," and for a long, long time 
 afterward, the earth was an integral portion of the 
 great Cosmic Nebula. Not even the outermost 
 planet had yet left the parent mass. Hence a day 
 at that time was physically impossible. 
 
 When, therefore, the earth had an individual 
 existence, and by its axial revolution began to 
 measure duration by days, the time for saying the 
 first day, according to the analogy of the other 
 days, had long been passed. 
 
 The creation of matter, the imparting of motion 
 and the consequent giving forth of light, were 
 events that wholly antedated the individual exist 
 ence of our earth, and would have been equally 
 
THE MOSAIC DAYS. 95 
 
 real occurrences if the Cosmic Nebula had not yet 
 changed to planets and Sun. 
 
 But this separation of the light from the dark- 
 ness was a fact specially pertaining to the earth, 
 and is the beginning of its individual history. 
 
 Hence, in order to bring this important epoch 
 into the " six days," the Author saw fit to open 
 the narrative with the assertion that this evening 
 and morning of separation were simply " one 
 day." * 
 
 Another epoch of world-growth commenced ; 
 ages upon ages was the hot dull ball cooling, ever 
 bringing nearer the day when the waters could 
 lie undisturbed upon its surface, or float in the 
 upper air. At last it came. The evening and the 
 morning when God had completed this great work, 
 "and it was so," was the second day of work 
 ended. 
 
 Another period begins ; vast progress is made ; 
 the dry land appears ; the waters are gathered 
 into seas. Grasses, herbs, and fruit trees mark 
 the culmination. God contemplates his work, 
 and that day when " Qod saw it was good," that 
 
 * In the peculiar wording of this and the succeeding 
 enumeration of the " days," is another welling forth of the 
 infinite knowledge of the One who indited this account. 
 Knowing all things, speaking absolute truth, his words have 
 a fulness of meaning that will ever expand with the growth 
 of our knowledge. Not to interrupt this article I have 
 thrown together, in a separate section, some of the thoughts 
 suggested by the peculiar wording of which I have spoken. 
 
96 THE MOSAIC DAYS. 
 
 day of announcement and satisfaction, was the 
 third day. 
 
 A fourth epoch opens ; great climatic changes 
 occur ; the Sun and Moon, henceforth, are to be 
 for signs and for seasons, for days and for years. 
 Whatever may have been the physical changes 
 that took place, there came a day at last when 
 they were completed. The work was accepted 
 and pronounced "good," and that day, the end 
 of this epoch, the day of approval, was the fourth 
 day. 
 
 Another epoch begins. Animal life, which 
 commenced untold ages back in the Protozoans, 
 Mollusks, Radiates, and Articulates of the Paleo- 
 zoic Period, and which had passed through so 
 many stages of progress, found its first culmina- 
 tion in living species of fowls and fishes. " God 
 saw that it was good," and this day of approval 
 and announcement was marked in the sacred 
 record as " the fifth day." 
 
 Another period opens. Modern " beasts and 
 cattle " walk the land. Man, the master of all, ap- 
 pears. The day of entire completion came, the day 
 when God looked upon his work and pronounced 
 it a very good;" this day was the sixth day. 
 
 In these verses, from the eighth to the last, 
 the writer has given a third use of the word, an 
 epochal day, a day of announcement, a day of 
 completion, having no reference whatever to the 
 length of the day, as when I speak of Independ- 
 
THE MOSAIC DAYS. 97 
 
 once Day, the term has no allusion to the length 
 of that day. 
 
 Again, in the fourth verse of the next Chapter 
 there occurs yet another use of the word, and this 
 the more interesting. because it is the only phrase 
 in either Chapter, that purports to tell us how long 
 was the time in which God created the earth and 
 the heavens. 
 
 " In the day the LORD God created the earth 
 and the heavens." This day cannot possibly be 
 twenty -four hours, for the writer has told us of six 
 epochal days that certainly elapsed during the time 
 of creation ; there is no logical escape from the 
 conclusion, " the day " of the second chapter 
 must be a period of indefinite duration, as when 
 an old man speaks of things that happened in his 
 day. 
 
 A day came when God ceased to work, and the 
 day of that cessation was the seventh of this 
 epochal series. 
 
 By thus combining the meanings of the word 
 day, meanings certainly not incongruous to the 
 context, and in themselves of every-day use, we 
 are able to satisfy all the conditions of the problem ; 
 the literal six days, the indefinite period, and the 
 Geological epochs, all blending like the colors of 
 the spectrum into one beam of light. 
 
 I cannot feel that I have done full justice to 
 this question of the " days," in its broadest mean- 
 ing, without considering the assertion made in the 
 5 
 
98 ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 
 
 Fourth Commandment ; but as I have set out to 
 examine the Story of Creation recorded in Genesis, 
 as an independent document, I shall not undertake 
 the consideration of the other at present. In Part 
 II. the subject will be resumed. 
 
 ON THE PECULIAR PHRASEOLOGY OF THE "DAY" 
 CLAUSES. 
 
 When reading thoughtfully the Mosaic Account 
 of Creation, one cannot avoid being impressed by 
 the sixfold repetition of certain expressions which, 
 for lack of other name, I have styled the " day 
 clauses." If he extends his examination into the 
 Septuagint, he finds in these certain peculiarities 
 that do not appear in the English Bible, and on 
 referring to the Hebrew he finds there the same. 
 
 Believing, as I am forced to do, from the re- 
 sults of the examination of this Narrative thus far, 
 that every word and phrase in it, was chosen for a 
 purpose, and that the harmony between Science 
 and this Account increases in proportion as we 
 get closer to the very words of the Author, I pro- 
 pose now to study these declarations in order to 
 discover, if possible, their counterparts in our 
 world's development. 
 
 We read, verse 4, " And God divided bet\\4een 
 the light and the darkness (v. 5), And God called 
 the light Day and the darkness he called Night, 
 and the evening was . . . and the morning was 
 one day." This is the reading of the Septuagint 
 
ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 99 
 
 and of the Hebrew, while our English version 
 drops one of the verbs, makes the other plural, and 
 for " one " substitutes " first." As the Hebrew is 
 the only account that has any claim to be inspired, 
 I dismiss the others without further remark. 
 
 The use of the cardinal " one," and the repeti- 
 tion of the verb with one predicate nominative, 
 the other being easily supplied, are forms of ex- 
 pression so peculiar in themselves that I cannot 
 avoid the belief that they were employed in view 
 of some physical fact well known to the Author, 
 and by him deemed sufficiently important to be 
 thus noticed. 
 
 I am aware that the Hebrew ordinals do not 
 extend below "second," and that the numeral 
 " one " is sometimes used when the context clearly 
 indicates that it must be translated by " first," but 
 such use is comparatively rare, and occurs only 
 where no ambiguity can arise. In other cases a 
 different word meaning " head" is employed, par- 
 ticularly if it is specially intended to denote the 
 first of a series or procession, as in the English 
 Version. 
 
 That I am justified in not considering this as 
 merely another mode of saying " first," is shown 
 not oaly by the Septuagint, as 1 have already 
 said, and by the Vulgate, but Josephus speaks of 
 the phrase " one day," and calls attention to it as 
 something needing explanation. 
 
 To get at the full meaning of these most pecu- 
 
100 ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 
 
 liar expressions, one must place himself, as far as 
 possible, on the stand-point of the Author, and 
 turn upon them all the light that Science has 
 given us as to the condition, form, inclination and 
 movements of the world from " the beginning " to 
 the present moment. This in all humility for 
 our highest knowledge is ignorance in comparison 
 with his. 
 
 The Author of Genesis knew, with the clear- 
 ness of actiial vision, the diurnal motion of the 
 earth, its sphericity and the position of its axis. 
 If the latter was at that epoch (i. e. when the earth 
 became non-luminous and day and night properly 
 began) perpendicular to the plane of its orbit, as I 
 hope to show hereafter, the crucial phenomenon 
 indicating such a condition would be the equality 
 of the days and nights. Not only was that a 
 crucial phenomenon, but it was the only one then 
 possible, since the intense heat of the scarcely 
 solidified earth as yet forbade all thought of alter- 
 nating seasons. 
 
 This condition, if it existed, was one of im- 
 mense importance as a stage in the development 
 of our globe, one whose influence must have been 
 felt in modifying all its subsequent progress. To 
 describe it in scientific formulae was simply impos- 
 sible ; there remained only one course, viz. to put 
 upon record a physical fact, which characterized 
 it. The only physical fact of the kind required, 
 
ON THE " DAY CLAUSES." 101 
 
 which it was possible to put into words, was the 
 equality of the day and night.* 
 
 Note the manner in which this is done. That 
 we may not mistake " day " for the period of an 
 entire axial revolution, but may limit it to the 
 special meaning which the Author intends to 
 employ, he first defines it as the period of light in 
 opposition to that of darkness. " The light he 
 called Day, and the darkness he called Night." 
 How better express that thought ? How more 
 clearly define his use of the words ? Then, having 
 thus limited the "Day," he adds, the evening (i. e. 
 from sundown forward) was what? Evidently 
 the sole substantive "day" must be the thing 
 whirh u the evening was." In like manner he 
 
 , " and the morning was one day." 
 
 lit nee, by the familiar axiom, "things equal 
 to the same things are equal to each other," the 
 evening was equal to the morning. In other 
 \\.n-ils, the time from sundown forward to the 
 coining li<rht was equal to the time from sunrise 
 to the coming darkness, or in more modern phrase, 
 the day and night were equal. 
 
 In so brief and pregnant a narrative it may 
 well be that one meaning does not exhaust it. 
 That there is here also a reference to the order of 
 succession, is evident, since the next is styled the 
 
 * The reader is referred to Part III. for the full argument. 
 I now assume that it is a fact that at this epoch the earth's 
 axis was nearly perpendicular to its orbit. 
 
102 ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 
 
 " second day." This idea was the only one which 
 the Jews derived from the text. But this is no 
 proof that the Author so intended to limit himself. 
 That their understanding was no measure of the 
 wealth of meaning conveyed, is shown by their 
 distorted views of the statements relative to our 
 Saviour. 
 
 The only key to this account is, that the 
 Author, knowing all now known to Philosophers, 
 and infinitely more, and striving to compress into 
 a few phenomenal sentences some fragment* of 
 his own infinite knowledge, has given us more 
 than we shall ever comprehend. 
 
 Thus much as to the " one day." As to the 
 following days, the wording is equally peculiar. 
 In them we find only the ordinal numbers, showing 
 it to be preeminently a matter of numerical suc- 
 cession, but it is accotnpanied by that strange 
 repetition of the singular verb. Our language 
 finds it difficult to indicate this change of meaning 
 without a greater change in the form of expression 
 than is found in either the Hebrew or" the Greek. 
 As literally as I can render these phrases they 
 read : " 'Twas evening and 'twas morning the 
 second day," " 'Twas evening and 'twas morning 
 the third day," and in like manner through the 
 six.* 
 
 * The phrase for the sixth day seems to be rendered 
 more emphatic by the use of the article. I know of no rea- 
 son for this, except, perhaps, its culminating character. 
 
ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 103 
 
 What does that mean ? The expression occurs 
 nowhere else. Is the repetition of the verb mere 
 surplusage ? I cannot think so. 
 
 If one, in the study of Laplace's great work, 
 met some unusual form of expression, but often 
 repeated by him, it would be presumption in him 
 to reject the great master's words as surplusage 
 because to him they seemed to convey no special 
 meaning. It would rather be the part of modest 
 common sense to say, the Great Geometer has 
 shown by his profound analysis that he is master 
 of his subject, and the very peculiarity and fre- 
 quency of this baffling phrase indicate a purpose in 
 its use. There must lie hidden a sense which I 
 have not yet been able to reach. The fault is in my 
 ignorance, or in my lack of mathematical acumen. 
 
 If, then, the peculiar phraseology be not sur- 
 plusage, there is something beneath the surface 
 for which I propose to search. 
 
 First, then, I note that the " one day " did not 
 follow an announcement of completion, but merely 
 a statement that God divided between the light 
 and the darkness, and is, as I have endeavored to 
 show, simply the statement of a physical fact, the 
 then equality of the days and nights. 
 
 Secondly, I also notice that each of the other 
 " day clauses " follows an announcement of com- 
 pletion. 
 
 There is, apparently, somewhat of variation 
 from this statement in the third and sixth days. 
 
104: ON THE " DAY CLAUSES." 
 
 On each of these there are two announcements of 
 completion, but those on the third day were 
 really synchronous, as Geology shows, while on 
 the sixth, I am almost sure there was the same 
 synchronism ; but, however that may be, the " day 
 clause " follows the final and preeminent verdict of 
 completion and approval, being not the comple- 
 tion of any one part but of the totality. 
 
 The utterance of such a verdict, " it was so," 
 or " God saw it was good/ 5 was the work of but a 
 moment, yet it marked the completion of an infi- 
 nitely important stage of world-growth. It was 
 not a completion limited to any one locality, but 
 it affected every part of the globe, in harmony 
 with the Geologic belief that each great era of 
 structural change or development of organic life 
 was world-wide in extent.* Read in this light, 
 these phrases become intelligible. They are an- 
 nouncements made for no limited portion of the 
 globe, but include, in modern terminology, both 
 hemispheres. In the universal language of phe- 
 nomena, they embrace the places where 'twas 
 evening as well as those where 'twas morning, 
 from where the sun was setting to where it was 
 rising, and from where it was rising to where it 
 was setting. No other phenomenal language can 
 better express this modern idea of world-wide 
 
 * The grander subdivisions or ages in Geological history, 
 based in organic progress ... are universal ideas for the 
 globe. (Dana, Manual, p. 138.) 
 
ON THE "DAY CLAUSES." 105 
 
 simultaneous completion. By giving the number 
 of each day, the Author also keeps prominent his 
 purpose of instituting six days of labor and one 
 of rest. 
 
 Even man's creation is first given, not so much 
 as a local event, as in connection with its being 
 the completion of the entire work, and the " day 
 clause " follows the earth-wide assertion " and God 
 saw everything that he had made, and behold it 
 was all very good." 
 
 In speaking of the seventh day there is a 
 marked change of expression. We do not read 
 'twas morning and 'twas evening the seventh day, 
 but " God rested the seventh day." 
 
 This has elicited various explanations, none of 
 which appear to me satisfactory. Read, however, 
 in the light of the other statements, the difficulty 
 vanishes. 
 
 We have seen that the announcements of the 
 other days were announcements of completion 
 world-wide as to the extent of country referred 
 to, while from the nature of the act, only mo- 
 mentary as to the time occupied, and that at the 
 instant of their utterance, literally 'twas evening 
 upon one side of the globe and 'twas morning 
 upon the other, whatever may have been the day, 
 whether the second, or third, or sixth, or any 
 other. But this seventh day had special refer- 
 ence to man, and to man only, and it was not an 
 announcement merely, but a statement of a fact 
 5* 
 
106 ON THE 
 
 that God rested from his work a day, a complete 
 diurnal revolution of the earth. Hence the length 
 of the rest was indicated : it was twenty-four hours. 
 
 Did, then, God resume his work on the next 
 day? 
 
 Moses does not inform us, but I may add from 
 another source, to me of equal authority, that 
 God's work is yet going on. "My Father work- 
 eth hitherto and I work." 
 
 Has he, then, since that day, created new 
 species ? The written Record gives no answer. 
 
 Other questions press upon me, that I would 
 most gladly answer, but I have reached a limit 
 beyond which I can only gaze. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE EVIDENCE FURTHER CONSIDERED 
 
 AMONG the scientific acquisitions bearing 
 testimony to the truth of the Mosaic Narra- 
 tive, I have mentioned a Law of Development. 
 
 The existence of such " a mode of action " is 
 so clearly indicated in Genesis, and at the same 
 time is in such marked opposition to the belief of 
 all the world until a quite recent period, that it is 
 well worth thoughtful consideration. 
 
 By this Law of Development, I understand that 
 matter passes from a lower to a higher state of 
 utility or beauty, not by one vast bound, as in 
 Eastern stories palaces are reared by magic, but 
 by a longer or shorter series of progressive acts, 
 often too close to be observed, although at other 
 times easily distinguished. Such development 
 may occur under the influence of law apart from 
 intelligence, as when the atoms in a solution 
 arrange themselves in certain fixed lines or axes to 
 form crystals. Or it may occur under the guid- 
 ance of intelligence, as when a chemist separates 
 silver from argentiferous lead by crystallizing the 
 baser metal ; or in a higher and more complete 
 form, as when the western pioneer develops the 
 
108 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 virgin forest into farms and cities. The last is the 
 species of Development to which the Mosaic Ac- 
 count of Creation points, differing, however, in 
 degree as the Actor in the latter differs from the 
 western pioneer. 
 
 It does not properly come within the limits 
 of this discussion to draw the line between this 
 law of Development and that protean something 
 known as Evolution. Indeed it is very difficult to 
 find any definition that covers the whole subject, 
 each writer having his own. If I might venture 
 to add my quota, I would say, Development is pro- 
 gress under control of intelligence, and Evolution 
 is progress under the action of forces with, or 
 without, intelligence. Others use these words as 
 synonymous. 
 
 " Evolution," at least in the hands of some, 
 ignores all intelligence, and runs counter to that 
 consciousness which to each man is, for Kim, the 
 highest of all evidence. It denies all freedom of 
 will, and obliterates all distinctions between right 
 wrong. 
 
 But a Law of Development, as I have defined 
 it, admits all the conditions of the problem of life. 
 Subordinate to intelligence and will, it accords 
 with what consciousness tells me of my own 
 actions. 
 
 The Mosaic Cosmogony is a sublime illustration, 
 of this Law. 
 
 It represents the world at first without form 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 109 
 
 or solidity, void and dark ; then, vivified by mo- 
 tion, it became self-luminous. To this succeeded 
 a non-luminous or planetary condition with days 
 and nights. A deposition of water marks a fur- 
 ther advance. 
 
 The continents next "appear;" then a vege- 
 tation " of grasses, herbs, and fruit trees " marks 
 the culmination of the vegetable kingdom in spe- 
 cies most needed for the use of man. After this, 
 occurs a climatic change from the monotonous uni- 
 formity of the ante-glacial period, to the pleasing 
 vicissitudes of seasons, the varying length of days, 
 and the long, bright moonlight of winter nights. 
 Animal life then culminates in the fauna of to-day. 
 Last and crown of all, man appears, with faculties 
 capable of dominating all animate nature, and of 
 making moral and intellectual progress as yet un- 
 limited. 
 
 Here clearly is growth and progress, with a 
 unity of plan that characterizes what in all other 
 matters we style intelligence. 
 
 For this order and slow growth I can see no 
 reason save in the will of the Great First Cause. 
 Had such been his pleasure, I can see no good 
 reason why our world had not been at once called 
 into perfect existence. 
 
 I venture to believe in this controlling Intelli- 
 gence, notwithstanding the high authority of Mr. 
 Herbert Spencer, who assures us that the propo- 
 sition that " an originating Mind is the Cause of 
 
110 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Evolution" can be entertained so long only as 
 " no attempt is made to unite in thought its two 
 terms in the alleged relation." * This test de- 
 stroys at once all idea of an " originating Mind." 
 It bids me believe that the cathedral at Milan is 
 not the creation of the " originating mind " of 
 the architect, but simply the work of undirected 
 forces, a kind of crystallization, for I cannot, even 
 " in a dim way, connect his successive states of 
 consciousness " with that elaborate structure. I 
 cannot "unite in thought" the titillations of the 
 expanded end of the optic nerve, with the beauties 
 of the landscape, nor the beating of aerial waves 
 against the drum of my ear, with the enjoyment 
 of hearing. Yet, unable as I am, " even in a dim 
 way," " to unite the two terms in the alleged re- 
 lation," I know it exists. Science acknowledges 
 it, and rejects the proposed text. 
 
 Nor is there necessarily involved, in the idea 
 of a personal God, the apparent absurdity which 
 Mr. Spencer claims, to wit, that a " single se- 
 ries of states of consciousness causes the hundred 
 thousand waves that are at this moment curling 
 
 * Compare this assertion of Mr. Spencer with the state- 
 ments of another equally high authority in the same school. 
 I refer to the statements already quoted from Prof. Tyndall's 
 Address before the British Association. 
 
 As far as I can discover, it is the originating Mind that 
 these gentlemen (or at least Mr. Spencer) object to. Call it 
 an originating " Power" with Prof. Tyndall, or " Ultimate 
 Power " with Mr. Spencer, and their objections vanish. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. Ill 
 
 over on the shores of England." In a sense this 
 is no absurdity.* 
 
 It cannot be denied that a pin machine is the 
 product of " an originating mind." " A series of 
 states of consciousness" was the cause of the 
 original machine, and of all others like it, as well 
 as of each movement resulting in the formation of 
 one pin or a million. Yet we need not, and do 
 not, conceive of the inventor as himself pointing 
 and heading each one. Mind not only was the 
 cause of the machine, but Mind sets it in motion 
 in the morning, and stops it at night. During 
 the hours of work, Mind is not apparent, save as 
 \\ ( inter its action from the perfect adaptation of 
 the whole to the end in view. Yet the eye of the 
 
 * Revelation tells us, " Not a sparrow falleth to the 
 ground without your Father," and " Not one of them is for- 
 gotten before God," which Mr. Spencer would tell us is ab- 
 surd. But he would see no absurdity, but a physical fact, in 
 the assertion that every atom in the falling sparrow affects, 
 not merely every atom in our earth, and the immense sun, 
 and the more distant planets, but the remotest fixed star 
 whose light, winged at its creation, still speeding on its way, 
 has yet to reach our earth. Light, inconceivably swift, is 
 laggard in comparison. Laplace tells us that if gravitation 
 be not absolutely instantaneous, it speeds with a velocity at 
 least 50,000,000 greater than that of light. 
 
 The light from the nearest fixed star requires three years 
 to reach us. Over that inconceivable space, ere one's pulse 
 had beaten twice, gravitation would carry the impulse of 
 that sparrow's fall. This physical fact is inexpressibly the 
 more difficult to believe. 
 
 The Christian Scientist receives both. 
 
112 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Master is upon every part, and the hand of intelli- 
 gence is prompt to guide and control. Waste, 
 damage, utter ruin would soon mark their absence. 
 
 In this Narrative, God is represented as build- 
 ing and setting in operation the machinery of our 
 world. A series of Divine acts is recorded, and 
 thenceforward " God rested from all his work 
 which he had been making," and it moves on of 
 itself, although the eye of the Master is ever 
 upon it, and his hand ready for all needed inter- 
 ference. 
 
 The Mosaic view of God's part in the devel- 
 opment of the Universe is this: He created 
 matter and imparted motion, i. e. the forces pro- 
 ducing motion. These forces are sometimes re- 
 presented as working in obedience to command, as 
 when God said, Let there be light. Sometimes 
 he is represented as directly acting. Hence the 
 Narrative speaks of God's creating ; of things 
 formed without cause assigned ; of things formed 
 by or out of matter in obedience to his word. 
 
 Thus in the first verse God creates; in the 
 third, God commands the light to be ; but in the 
 fourth, God divides the light from the darkness ; 
 and in the seventh, again, God made the firma- 
 ment. In the ninth verse, natural forces only are 
 spoken of : God said, Let the dry land appear ; 
 so in the eleventh, he commands the earth to 
 bring forth grasses, herbs, and fruit trees, and in 
 
IIIK NEW WITNESSES. 113 
 
 the next we are told, the earth brought them 
 forth.* 
 
 In the fourteenth verse God commands such 
 changes to occur as produced seasons and varying 
 length of days ; but in the sixteenth it is said, God 
 made the heavenly bodies and appointed them to 
 their several offices. Then in verses twenty and 
 twenty-one, there is a crossing and recrossing of 
 the thread. " God said, Let the waters bring 
 forth," and, God created the animals which the 
 waters brought forth. 
 
 A similar intermingling of the natural and the 
 supernatural is found in verses 24 and 25. God 
 >aid. Let the earth bring forth beasts and cattle, 
 and then the account says, God made them. Again, 
 in the following verses, God appears as the sole 
 creator. " Let us make man," and " so God created 
 man." 
 
 In this Narrative, Creation and Development 
 meet. The two ideas are so interwoven that 
 separation is impossible, without mutual destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 The following seems a correct analysis of the 
 
 * I follow the received version in the use of the formula. 
 " Let there be,," ' Let the earth bring forth," etc., although 
 the Hebrew has for this, properly, only the simple future 
 tense. It is rather the announcement that something will 
 or shall occur, than a command to the thing itself. 
 
 Such is the wonderful advantage of a purely phenomenal 
 statement, that the Greek, Latin, and English translators 
 have been unable to seriously warp the text. 
 
114: GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 ante-human history of our globe, as given by Moses, 
 and read in the light of present knowledge. 
 
 It assumes as a truth that admits of no ques- 
 tion, that the cause of all things is that Being 
 whom we call God. Then follows the broad asser- 
 tion, taking in the material universe, that God 
 created the heavens and the earth. Immediately 
 following is a characteristic description of the 
 primordial condition of our earth as nebulous, L e. 
 cloudlike, " without form and void," and by a 
 masterly stroke is revealed the fact that our earth 
 was yet an integral portion of the Cosmic mass, 
 for " darkness was upon the face of the deep," i. e. 
 it was prior to the formation of light, which we 
 now know occurred before the segregation of our 
 world. It tells us that motion came from that same 
 First Cause, was communicated to the inert mass, 
 and that not till after motion did light appear. 
 
 Again, a master-stroke, and the statement that 
 " God divided the light from the darkness," like 
 a flash of lightning in a dark night, enables us 
 to take our bearings, and we find the nebulous 
 condition ended, the earth a solid, non-luminous 
 body. 
 
 Once more the scene lights up, and the dash- 
 ing waters below, the clouds above, and the open 
 space between, tell us that the world has reached 
 a temperature when life begins to be possible. 
 
 Next the Continents are upheaved, and the 
 seas gathered into their appointed places. 
 
TIM; NEW WITNESSES. 115 
 
 Vegetable life, which began so early, culminated 
 in grasses, herbs, and fruit trees, in the same epoch 
 in which the Continents reached their full devel- 
 opment, marking, too, the close of the ancient type 
 of climate. 
 
 In the next epoch, whatever may have occurred, 
 this much is certain, that the world came out of it 
 with the modern type of climate, the intense heat 
 of summer sharply contrasting with the cold of 
 winter. 
 
 Following this climatic change was a fauna 
 characterized by fowl and water creatures, which 
 the waters brought forth abundantly. 
 
 Afterward, the land fauna culminated in "the 
 beasts, cattle and creeping things " of species now 
 living. 
 
 During this last epoch man appeared. 
 
 If this is a correct analysis of the statements 
 recorded in Genesis, how, I would ask Prof. Tyn- 
 dall, are "our ideas of the Universe and its 
 Author improved by the abandonment of the 
 Mosaic Account of Creation t" 
 
 Nay, in all seriousness I would ask, does not 
 " the abandonment of the Mosaic Account of 
 Creation" necessitate the abandonment of Science 
 itself? 
 
 Surely the Nebular Hypothesis is utterly ex- 
 ploded, if the earth was never " without form and 
 void." 
 
 The Correlation of Forces is only a beautiful 
 
116 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 figment of the imagination, if Moses did not record 
 a physical truth when he wrote that, prior to mo- 
 tion, " darkness was upon the face of the deep." 
 
 The Undulatory Theory of Light must fall 
 with the Correlation of Forces, if it is not true, as 
 Moses says, that light in order of time came after 
 the impartation of motion. 
 
 The laws of heat, the expansion of water into 
 vapor, the capacity of gases for moisture, as af- 
 fected by temperature, all are a delusion, if the 
 oceans were not once suspended above the earth 
 in the atmosphere, and if it is not true, as Moses 
 says, that there came a time when " an open space 
 (firmament) divided the waters which were under 
 it from the waters above it." 
 
 The record of Geology is a series of " beautiful 
 myths and stories," if Genesis is romancing when 
 it says the development of the continents was 
 subsequent to the deposition of the waters. 
 
 Geography has egregiously blundered if Gene- 
 sis is wrong when it asserts that the waters were 
 gathered into "one place." 
 
 Physical Geography is unreliable if Moses errs 
 when he wrote that the arrangement of the land 
 and the water was " good." 
 
 Geology deserves to be classed with the eifete 
 Sciences found in the sacred books of the Hindus, 
 if it be a physical falsehood that the completion 
 of the emergence of the land occurred in the 
 same epoch as the culmination of the vegetable 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 117 
 
 kingdom in Angiosperms and Palms, that is in 
 " the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself." 
 
 "Uniformity of Law" is as baseless as Geo- 
 logy, if the uniform types of plants "luxuriantly 
 flourishing" in all latitudes prior to the comple- 
 tion of the land and culmination of vegetation 
 (toward the end of the Tertiary) do not indicate 
 a climate differing exceedingly in the uniformity 
 of light and heat from the climate of to-day. 
 
 Does, then, Moses err when he says that after 
 that epoch the sun and moon were to be for signs 
 and for seasons, for days and for years ? 
 
 If so, then Geology has again proved its own 
 unreliability, for it certainly has told us that in 
 those earlier days there were "no zones of, cli- 
 mate," and I think the evidence abundant that 
 there were no zones of light. Certainly there 
 were no seasons. 
 
 Geology tells of a period of intense cold, when 
 ice covered the earth from the poles far down 
 toward the equator, and that this followed the 
 period of vegetable culmination. After the Cli- 
 matic change Moses places a fauna of water crea- 
 tures and fowl. If Moses errs here, then Uni- 
 formity of Law is an unsafe guide or the accounts 
 of the Circumpolar fauna are false. 
 
 The record of Geology is not true if Moses 
 errs when he places the development of Hiring 
 cattle and beasts, and many other creatures, 
 subsequent to "grasses, herbs, and fruit trees," 
 
118 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 subsequent to the climatic change introducing 
 seasons and "zones of climate," subsequent to the 
 post-glacial water fauna. 
 
 Paleontology is not a true Witness if "living 
 species offish, reptile, bird, or mammal," were in 
 existence before or during the epoch of grasses, 
 herbs, and fruit trees, or before the epoch of cli- 
 matic change. 
 
 Gravity and Optics, the one claiming through 
 mathematical Astronomy to demonstrate the el- 
 liptic orbits of the Stars, the other, through the 
 Spectroscope, professing to give us reliable infor- 
 mation as to their constitution, have joined this 
 conspiracy to deceive mankind ; nay, the very 
 elements have abetted the plot by wilfully giving 
 spectrum-lines identical with those from the Stars, 
 if it be false that the " Stars also " have the same 
 origin as the Sun, Moon and Earth. 
 
 However much the reader may reject from 
 what is here claimed to be the teachings of 
 Science, enough will remain to justify the asser- 
 tion that Astronomy, Geology, and every branch 
 of knowledge bearing upon the origin, early con- 
 dition, and order of development of our world, 
 must be placed among " the myths and beautiful 
 stories " of the past, if the statements recorded by 
 Moses are false. 
 
 Science cannot reject this Narrative without 
 
 committing SUICIDE. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 119 
 
 COMPARISON OF THE TWO RECORDS. 
 
 To aid in comparing the two Records, 1 have 
 placed in parallel columns the facts ascertained by 
 Scientists and the statements made by Moses. In 
 both are great blank intervals. Where these oc- 
 cur only in Genesis I have written under that 
 column "silent," where they occur in both I have 
 made no remark. 
 
 The harmony between the two becomes the 
 more wonderful when we reflect that the men who 
 made these discoveries wi-iv unconscious of their 
 bearing upon the Bible account, and too often 
 thought they were diligently and successfully 
 laboring for its overthrow. 
 
 The history of the Earth may properly be 
 divided into two grand Periods, the Cosmic and 
 the Telluric. The former is equally applicable to 
 all the systems in the Universe. The latter I 
 have subdivided into two portions, of which the 
 first is, in like manner, the history of all systems 
 where planets have been evolved. The second is 
 the development of our own world, and is ap- 
 plicable to no other planet. 
 
120 
 
 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 THE COSMIC PERIOD. 
 
 AS TO THE ORIGIN OF MATTER. 
 
 What Scientists say : 
 
 The Universe is not eternal. It 
 has its origin in the " First Cause," 
 or "the Unknown Source of 
 things." (Herbert Spencer.) 
 
 Tyndall says : "A Power in- 
 scrutable to the human intellect. 
 There is no very rank materialism 
 here." 
 
 What Genesis says : 
 Ver. 1. In the beginning God 
 created the heavens and the earth. 
 
 ITS PRIMORDIAL CONDITION. 
 
 The earth (and solar system) 
 was, at first, a nebulous, i. e. cloud- 
 like, mass, not solid, but mobile. 
 
 Ver. 2. The earth was without 
 form, and void. (Not solid, but 
 easily flowing, translated by "wa- 
 ters.") 
 
 AS TO LIGHT. 
 
 Prior to motion light was im~ I Darkness was upon the face of 
 possible ; darkness enveloped the deep, 
 everything. 
 
 AS TO THE ORIGIN OF FORCES AND MOTION. 
 
 Nothing is known of this. It 
 can only be referred to the same 
 First Cause, " the Unknown Source 
 
 of things" the 
 Power." 
 
 ' Inscrutable 
 
 The Spirit of God moved upon 
 the face of the waters (i. e. the 
 flowing mobile mass). 
 
 The first visible effect of motion 
 was the giving forth of light. 
 
 It was perfect. 
 
 AS TO EFFECT OF MOTION. 
 
 Ver. 3. And there was light. 
 
 God saw it was good. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 
 
 121 
 
 THE TELLURIC PERIOD 
 
 DIVIDED INTO TWO PABTS. 
 
 1. THE ANTE-LIFE PERIOD, OR IGNEOUS PERIOD. 
 
 2. THE LIFE PERIOD, OR AQUEOUS PERIOD. 
 
 ANTE-LIFE PERIOD. 
 
 IGNEOUS ACTION DOMINANT. 
 The earth was segregated from Silent, 
 the great Cosmic, Nebulous Mass, 
 and axial revolution began. 
 
 After this segregation our world Silent. 
 was a luminous vapor, or a comet, 
 then a sphere of molten lava, con- 
 tiiiuing in each condition to emit 
 light, as do Jupiter and Saturn now. 
 
 The continued radiation of the Silent, 
 earth's heat reduced its tempera- 
 ture at last, so far that a crust was 
 formed on its surface, which, after 
 a sufficient time, entirely stopped 
 the radiation of light. 
 
 DAY AND NIGHT EPOCH. 
 After this, for the first time in Ver. 4. And God divided the 
 
 the history of our planet, light 
 ceased to be universal, and there 
 was a division between the light 
 and the darkness, caused, as now, 
 by the opaque body of the earth. 
 
 This was the beginning (not of 
 axial revolution, but) of Day and 
 Night. On the light side of the 
 earth it was day while on the oppo- 
 site it was night. 
 
 In the earliest epochs, the days 
 and nights were equal. 
 
 6 
 
 light from the darkness. 
 
 Ver. 5. And God called the light 
 Day, and the darkness he called 
 Night. 
 
 The evening was (equal to one 
 day) and the morning was (equal to) 
 one day. 
 
122 
 
 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 CONDITION OF THE EARTH IN THE INTERVAL BETWEEN 
 THE BEGINNING OF DAYS AND NIGHTS AND THE DE- 
 POSITION OF WATER. 
 
 For an unknown length of time 
 the surface of the earth was too 
 hot for the water to descend upon 
 it, even as rain ; but at last the 
 super-heated invisible vapor be- 
 came clouds or mist. 
 
 Chap. 2. Vv. 5, 6. " When the 
 LORD God had not caused it to rain 
 upon the earth, but there went up 
 a mist from the earth and watered 
 the whole face of the ground." 
 
 LIFE PERIOD. 
 
 Geology tells of two divisions of our world's ante-human 
 history : the first characterized by uniformity of climate ; 
 the second by variety. 
 
 THE FIRST OR UNIFORM CLIMATE PERIOD. 
 
 AQUEOUS ACTION BECOMES DOMINANT. 
 
 Continued cooling at last 
 brought a temperature sufficiently 
 low to permit the waters to be 
 deposited and remain upon the 
 surface of the earth, and in conse- 
 quence the air became so far cleared 
 that the clouds were confined to its 
 upper region, leaving an open space 
 below them, and above the all-cov- 
 ering ocean. 
 
 Although this was done, yet 
 from this time to a far later period, 
 certainly till after the Carbonifer- 
 ous Age, the purification of the 
 atmosphere was too incomplete to 
 permit the higher orders of animals 
 to breathe it. 
 
 After this deposition, the air, 
 although loaded with carbonic acid, 
 was sufficiently clear to permit the 
 free transmission of light, and for 
 the first time the glories of the sky 
 were visible from the earth's sur- 
 face. The deposition affected both 
 hemispheres. 
 
 Ver. 7. And God made an open 
 space (or expanse) and divided the 
 waters that were under the open 
 space from the waters which were 
 above the expanse. 
 
 "And it was so." 
 
 Note the absence of the usual 
 formula of perfect completion. It 
 is not pronounced "good." The 
 writer merely adds, " and it was 
 so," i. e. the open space was formed 
 and the waters were deposited. He 
 thus avoids chronological overlap- 
 ping. 
 
 Ver. 8. And God called the open 
 expanse heaven. 
 
 "Twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing, the second day. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 
 
 123 
 
 After this the continents were 
 upheaved* and the seas gathered 
 into their pi. i 
 
 The la iid is made up of large and 
 small portions separated from each 
 other by seas ; but tke waters, both 
 seas and oceans, are really only one 
 great body, with names for differ- 
 ent parts. 
 
 The arrangement of the land and 
 water is surpassingly wise. 
 
 During the ever-growing "ap- 
 pearance " of the dry land the world 
 was well peopled with the strange 
 old forms of ancient life. Unnum- 
 bered races of plants and animals 
 appeared, flourished, and disap- 
 peared, in an upward progre- 
 
 At last vegetation reached its 
 culmination in the' 'grasses, 1 
 and fruit trees.'* 
 
 The highest order of plants is 
 the Angiosperms, which, bear a 
 fruit enclosing the seed. 
 
 Ver. 9. God said, Let the wa- 
 ters under the heaven be gathered 
 into one place, and let the dry land 
 appear. 
 
 Ver. 9. God said, Let the waters 
 under the heaven be gathered into 
 one place. 
 
 Ver. 10. And God saw it was 
 good. 
 
 8 Lieut. 
 
 Ver. 12. And the earth brought 
 forth rasp, and the herb yielding 
 seed after his kind, and the tree 
 .yielding fruit whose seed was in it- 
 self, after his kind. 
 
 Culmination in the ''tree yield- 
 ing fruit, the seed of which was in 
 it." 
 
 * ' Upheaved." Thus I wrote, but on reflection I saw physical objec- 
 tions to the word which, by a better selection, the author of Genesis had 
 avoided. 
 
 The Record of the Rocks plainly intimates that the elevation of the 
 dry land was no sudden movement, but had been going on during the 
 previous epochs of cooling surface and falling water. When Geology 
 first takes account of the continents, they are already lofty submarine 
 plateaux, with here and there a projecting point of azoic rock, and 
 needed to continue their upward movement at most a few hundred feet 
 in order " to appear." 
 
 I have left the word as I wrote it, since it illustrates the surpassingly 
 wise choice of words in the Mosaic Account. How wise that is can never 
 be fully known until we know all the facts of the earth's primeval his- 
 tory. 
 
124 
 
 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 These two great events, to wit, 
 the completion of the continents in 
 their full development, and the pre- 
 ponderance of grasses, herbs, and 
 fruit trees, occurred in the same 
 Geologic Period, the Pliocene. 
 
 These events affected both hemi- 
 spheres. 
 
 Vv. 9-13. The Author has 
 placed these events in the same 
 period, for after announcing the 
 verdict of completion he names but 
 one day, " the third," in reference 
 to both. 
 
 'Twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing the third day. 
 
 LIFE PERIOD. 
 
 THE SECOND PART OF THE LIFE PERIOD, OR THAT 
 CHARACTERIZED BY VARIETY OF CLIMATE. 
 
 After the Pliocene came the 
 epoch of the Glaciers. 
 
 During its continuance such 
 changes occurred as resulted in the 
 modern type of climate with sea- 
 sons and unequal days and nights, 
 the former giving an easy and na- 
 tural measurement of years. 
 
 The Sun and Moon are not in 
 themselves lights in the sense in 
 which "Light" is used in Ver. 3, 
 as most ancient and mediaeval phi- 
 losophers believed. 
 
 The obliquity of the Earth's 
 axis, the cause of seasons and un- 
 equal days and nights, does not 
 affect the length of a lunar revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 The lines of the spectroscope, 
 as well as the forms of the stellar 
 orbits, show that the stars are com- 
 posed of the same materials, and 
 are subject to the same laws, as 
 our earth, moon, and sun, and 
 hence have a common origin. 
 
 This change affected both hemi- 
 spheres. 
 
 During the decadence of the 
 Glaciers, the conditions of moisture 
 
 Silent. 
 
 Ver. 14. And God said, Let the 
 lights in the firmament of heaven be 
 to divide between the day and the 
 night, and let them be for signs and 
 for seasons, and for days and years 
 . . . and it was so. 
 
 Light givers, light emitters, 
 light bearers. 
 
 By what would once have seemed 
 an unnatural omission of months, 
 the Author avoids a blunder and 
 shows his thorough knowledge of 
 the subject. 
 
 Ver. 16. And God made two 
 lights (the greater light to rule the 
 day, the lesser light to rule tho 
 night). He made the stars also. 
 
 'Twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing the fourth day. 
 
 Silent. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 
 
 125 
 
 and temperature mast have been 
 nearly identical with those which 
 now exist in frigid or sab-frigid 
 regions. Hence, in harmony with 
 Uniformity of Law, we should ex- 
 pect a fauna similar to that now 
 found in such places, i. e. an abun- 
 dance of fish, sea-mammalia, fowl, 
 and tiny moluske. 
 
 Although, at firet, the fauna 
 mast have been solely sub-frigid 
 or frigid, yet as warnit 
 othrr water animals and other birds 
 made their appearance, till 
 .-a now living occupi 
 proper place. 
 
 This stage of progress affected 
 both hemispheres. 
 
 The waters, daring the period of 
 the melting glaciers, were compara- 
 tively soon ready for animal life, 
 but the land required a longer time 
 for preparation. It is therefore 
 certain that land animals, such as 
 the cattle and beasts of to-day, ap- 
 peared after the water fauna. In 
 reference to man and his interests, 
 the animal world culminates in 
 cattle, beasts, and insect life of to- 
 day. 
 
 Man appeared last, and is supe- 
 rior to all. He is gifted with intel- 
 ligence and moral powers. 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate 
 the excellence and wisdom display- 
 ed in the works of Creation. 
 
 This also affected both hemi- 
 spheres. 
 
 No new animal or plant has ap- 
 peared since the epoch of Man's 
 Creation. 
 
 Ver. 90. God said, Let the wa- 
 ters bring forth abundantly the 
 moving creature that hath life, and 
 fowl that may fly above the earih. 
 
 Ver. 21. And Qod created great 
 whales, and every living creature 
 that niovrth, which the waters 
 brought forth abundantly after 
 their kind, and every winged fowl 
 after his kind. 
 
 'Twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing the fifth day. 
 
 Ver. 25. God made the beast of 
 the earth after his kind, and cattle 
 after their kind, and everything 
 that creepeth upon the earth after 
 his kind. 
 
 At the very end of all, the account 
 says : " So God created man in his 
 own likeness." 
 
 Ver. 31. And God saw every- 
 thing that he had made, and behold 
 it was all very good. 
 
 'Twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing the sixth day. 
 
 Chap. 11. Vv. 1, 2. Thus the 
 heavens and the earth were finished 
 and all the host of them. And on 
 the seventh day God rested from all 
 his work which he had made. 
 
126 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 If from the second column the word " God " be 
 struck out, and an abstraction be substituted such 
 as " Nature," or " Law," or " Evolution," or that 
 new and eminently theophobic word, " Dynamis," 
 there will remain an account of the early history 
 of our planet from the stand-point of extreme 
 Positivism, in language at once simple, exact, and 
 comprehensive. 
 
 It will aid in estimating the value of the evi- 
 dence arising from the identity of the Science of 
 Genesis with the latest acquirements of the Stu- 
 dents of Nature, to note how the learning of a 
 much later period bears the test of new discoveries. 
 
 Some fifty years ago, the learned men of that 
 day essayed to write a work which should include 
 the circle of knowledge. They produced the 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica. When near its com- 
 pletion four or five men distinguished for large 
 acquirements and profound intellects, were se- 
 lected to prepare introductory disquisitions which 
 should embody the latest results and the choicest 
 philosophy of the age. 
 
 Among them I find Sir John Leslie thus dis- 
 coursing of the interior of our earth : * 
 
 " The vast subterranean cavity (of the earth) 
 must be filled with a very diffused medium of 
 astonishing elasticity. The only fluid of which 
 we know, possessing this characteristic is light. 
 The great concavity may thus be filled with the 
 * Vol. I. Ency. Brit., page 792. 
 
THE NEW WITNESSES. 127 
 
 purest ethereal essence, Light, in its most concen- 
 trated state, and shining with intense refulgence 
 and overpowering splendor " ! 
 
 Again we read, " But scattered over the im- 
 mensity there may exist bodies which by their mag- 
 nitude and predominant attraction, retain or re- 
 call the rays of light, and are lost in solitude 
 and darkness. Had the velocity of the lumin- 
 ous particles not exceeded four hundred miles 
 in a second, we should never have enjoyed the 
 cheerful beams of the Sun. They would have 
 been arrested in their journey and drawn back to 
 their source before they reached the planet Mer- 
 cury. A star similar to our Sun, and having a 
 diameter sixty-three times as great, would entirely 
 overpower the impetus of light" ! ! 
 
 If anything can exceed the certainty of his 
 conclusions, it is the exactness of his mathematics ! 
 
 Should the successors of such theorizers look 
 down upon the Bible, and by their surmises and ' 
 logic bar God out of His own world ? reason Him 
 out of His personality ? bind Him in the swad- 
 dling-bands of the "Unconditioned," and make 
 Him the only helpless being in the universe ? 
 
 Nay, let them expend some of their acumen 
 upon this fact, that a Hebrew prophet, a Hebrew 
 Sheik if they please, amid a wandering, pastoral, 
 semi-barbarous people, wrote from the depths of 
 his own consciousness, or from a supernatural 
 source, a philosophical treatise so profound that 
 
128 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 no plummet has sounded it, clear as the waters 
 from a spring, broad as the foundations of the 
 universe. 
 
 In view of these harmonies, I submit that 
 instead of " new meanings being necessary to make 
 the beautiful myths and stories of the Bible square 
 with Science," * the necessity has always been on 
 the other side, and Science has but just struggled 
 into a position, unwittingly I admit, where for the 
 first time since her birth she has been able to ap- 
 proach the heights on which the Author of this 
 Narrative stood four thousand years ago. 
 
 Since the chaos of Scientific Theories has 
 crystallized into an order that accords with the 
 opening Chapter of the Bible, may it not be hoped, 
 in serious parody of Prof. TyndalPs words, that 
 the time is not far distant when the best informed 
 of our Philosophers shall admit that their views 
 of the Universe and its Author are not improved 
 by abandoning the Mosaic Account of Creation? 
 
 How 'far Moses himself understood the full 
 meaning of the words he wrote, it does not per- 
 tain to my argument to inquire. 
 
 But as we are elsewhere told, the sacred writers 
 desired to understand those things whereof they 
 wrote, so I doubt not Moses learned all that was 
 then possible. 
 
 * Tyndall, Forms of Water, page 150. 
 
RESUME OF GENESIS. 129 
 
 RESUME. 
 
 I NOW propose to tabulate the facts plainly 
 stated in, or logically deduced from, the first 
 chapter of Genesis. They have already been con- 
 sidered in detail. 
 
 GOD THE SOURCE AND CREATOR. 
 
 The earth had a beginning. 
 
 Primordially it was without form, void, not 
 solid. 
 
 Prior to motion, darkness was upon the whole. 
 
 Motion is due to same Power as matter. 
 
 Light the first visible result of motion. 
 
 Light was perfected at that early epoch. 
 
 Light divided from the darkness, by the non- 
 luminous earth. 
 
 " The evening" was equal to " the morning ; " 
 hence the earth's axis was nearly or quite perpen- 
 dicular to the ecliptic.* 
 
 This division of light from darkness was the 
 first day on our planet. 
 
 The water was deposited and the air became 
 transparent. 
 
 This deposition and transparency were com 
 pleted for all the globe simultaneously. 
 
 The land emerges. 
 
 The waters were gathered into one place. 
 
 * See Part III. 
 6* 
 
130 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Vegetation culminated in the highest orders. 
 
 This vegetation (that of the Pliocene) was one 
 " good " for present fauna, and was completed for 
 the whole globe. 
 
 These two events, the emergence of the land, 
 and the culmination of vegetation, occurred in the 
 same epoch. 
 
 A great climatic change, introducing seasons, 
 and unequal days and nights, came next. 
 
 The climatic arrangement (seasons, etc.) was 
 then perfected, and was world-wide. 
 
 The Sun and Moon are not concrete masses of 
 light, but simply luminaries.* 
 
 The stars have the same origin as the Solar 
 System. 
 
 This climatic change was followed by a fauna 
 of " living " species of water creatures and fowl. 
 
 This fauna is eminently gifted in the power of 
 abundantly multiplying. 
 
 This fauna was then completed. 
 
 It was a world-wide completion. 
 
 After the water fauna and water "fowl ap- 
 peared present species of land animals, including 
 the living beasts and cattle. 
 
 This fauna was eminently "good." ' 
 
 This introduction of modern species was world- 
 wide. 
 
 MAN APPEARS, 
 and is the world-wide completion of the whole. 
 
 * Compare with this Sir John Leslie's Science, already 
 quoted from the British Ency. 
 
RESUME OF GENESIS. 131 
 
 A cessation of new developments, whether in- 
 organic, vegetable, or animal. 
 
 I ask the reader's careful attention to these 
 facts in the light of all the Science he can bring to 
 bear upon them ; and while I dare not flatter my- 
 self that my analysis is in each particular correct, 
 yet, after all deductions, so much remains as to 
 make it worthy of most serious consideration. 
 
 These statements have been upon the Record 
 nearly four thousand years. How came they 
 there ? Moses could have obtained them from no 
 human source. There is, therefore, not an " In- 
 scrutable Power " merely, but a Being who cares 
 enough for Man to give him a Revelation. This 
 Being has shown himself so truthful in regard to 
 every point on which it is possible to test his 
 statements, that we are, by the laws of our minds, 
 compelled to receive his evidence in its entirety, 
 and when he assures us that it is a personal God 
 that created the heavens and the earth, there is no 
 escaping the conclusion that this, too, is truth. 
 
 FACTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD DERIVED 
 FROM THE TWO RECORDS, 
 
 Showing the Philosophical division into six great 
 stages of development, each complete in itself. 
 
 NOTE. The figures in brackets refer to the 
 corresponding verses in Genesis. 
 
132 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 (1.) GOD THE FIRST CAUSE AND SOURCE. 
 
 FIMST, OJJ PREPARATORY EPOCH. 
 
 (2.) A nebulous mass, without form, void, 
 fluid, inert, dark. Temperature that of interstellar 
 space. 
 
 Motion imparted. Activity commences. Tem- 
 perature rises. 
 
 (4.) The nebulous mass emits light. Tempera- 
 ture far above 1000. 
 
 Nebula becomes spheroidal ; revolution com- 
 mences. 
 
 Planets begin to be evolved. 
 
 Earth and Moon take form as a nebulous sphe- 
 roid. 
 
 The Moon segregated from the earth ; falling 
 temperature. 
 
 The Earth becomes a sphere of liquid lava ; 
 temperature still falling. 
 
 The Earth, becoming cooled below 1000, is 
 covered with a dark, solid crust, and ceases to 
 emit light. 
 
 (4, 5.) Day and night begin ; are equal. Axis 
 inclined about 5. 
 
 This marks the close of the preparations for a 
 true (i. e. non-luminous) planetary development. 
 The " One day " of Genesis. 
 
 Close of First Epoch, or 
 
 that of general preparations. No new creation 
 since of matter or force. 
 
THE SIX EPOCHS OF CREATION. 133 
 
 SECOND EPOCH BEGINS. 
 
 Surface temperature below 1000 and still 
 falling. 
 
 Igneous action only. Geological Kecord not 
 yet begun. 
 
 Combined igneous and aqueous action. Geol- 
 ogy begins in Azoic Rocks. Temperature falling 
 toward 212. 
 
 (6, 7.) Water deposited. Temperature below 
 212. The air becomes transparent. Light begins 
 to act. 
 
 This ends the epoch, as is announced, for the 
 entire globe, and the day of that announcement is 
 thu Second Epochal Day. 
 
 Close of Second Epoch, 
 
 or that of full preparation for joint action of water 
 and light. Nothing more done since in that direc- 
 tion. 
 
 THIRD EPOCH BEGINS. 
 
 Aqueous action dominant ; climate uniform 
 from pole to pole ; temperature below 212, and 
 falling. Stratified Azoic Rocks forming. 
 
 (9.) Land begins to appear, and about the same 
 time the lowest orders of animal and. vegetable 
 life. Carbonic acid is taken from the air and 
 deposited as coal or as carbonates. Archaic and 
 Paleozoic fossiliferous strata form. 
 
 Emergence of the land continues ; organic life 
 expands into the first development of Angiosperms 
 
134 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 and Palms. Cretaceous Period. Temperature 
 tropical. 
 
 (10-12.) Land fully developed. Waters all 
 connected into one. 
 
 Vegetation fully developed in predominance of 
 grasses, herbs, and fruit trees (Angiosperms and 
 Palms). Latter part of the Tertiary Period. 
 
 Temperature moderate ; as yet no seasons. 
 
 The day of the announcement of these last de- 
 velopments, world-wide in its extent, was the third 
 Epochal Day. 
 
 Close of Third Epoch f or 
 
 that of inorganic and vegetable development. No 
 continental development and no higher orders of 
 
 vegetation since. 
 
 
 
 FOURTH EPOCH BEGINS. 
 
 Temperature rapidly falls to below 32, The 
 end of ancient type of climate. 
 
 (14-18.) Era of axial (or other change) pre- 
 paratory for and introducing modern type of 
 climate, with seasons and unequal days and nights. 
 Glacial Period. (16.) NOTE. He who made the 
 Sun, Moon, and Earth, made the Stars also. 
 
 (19.) The day of the announcement of com- 
 pletion of preparations for modern type of climate 
 (axis inclined 23 J), extending over the whole 
 Earth, was the fourth Epochal Day. 
 
 Close of Fourth Epoch, or 
 
 that of Climatic development. No chnnge since 
 in that direction. 
 
THE SIX EPOCUS OF CREATION. 135 
 
 FIFTH EPOCH BEGINS. 
 
 (20-22.) The ice of the Glaciers begins to 
 melt. Close of Glacial Period and beginning of 
 Chainplain Period. 
 
 (25.) Appearance of fauna of " living " water 
 creatures and fowl. Announcement of comple- 
 tion of " development " of water creatures and 
 fowl for all the world. 
 
 The day in which this was done was the fifth 
 Epochal Day. 
 
 Close of Fifth Epoch, or 
 
 that of water fauna. No higher development of 
 water fauna has since occurred. 
 
 SIXTH EPOCH BEGINS. 
 
 Temperature somewhat warmer than the 
 present. 
 
 (24-25.) Culmination of land animals in " liv- 
 ing " species of beasts, cattle, etc., in latter part 
 of Quaternary Age. 
 
 (26.) Man appears very late in the Quaternary 
 Age. Present temperature, nearly. 
 
 Announcement of entire completion of the 
 whole plan over all the earth. The day this oc- 
 curred was the sixth Epochal Day. 
 
 Close of Sixth Epoch t or 
 
 that of final culmination, in the Mammalia, and in 
 
 No higher animal development has since oc- 
 curred. 
 
CHAPTER Y. 
 
 ON THE SECOND CHAPTER OF GENESIS. 
 
 SINCE the truth or falsehood of the opening 
 Chapter of Genesis is independent of all that 
 comes after it, being capable of verification by 
 itself, I had thought not to speak of the Second. 
 But the one casts light upon the other, so that the 
 omission of either leaves the subject incomplete, 
 and, indeed, in part unintelligible. 
 
 The first three verses of this chapter are clearly 
 a part of the preceding account. As to the fourth, 
 fifth, sixth, and perhaps the seventh, there is 
 among Bible students a difference of opinion, 
 some regarding them as the end of the first ac- 
 count, others, as the beginning of the second. 
 To me it appears that they are both, partaking of 
 the characteristics of each, connecting the two, the 
 Elohistic and the Jehovistic, by an indissoluble 
 bond, affirming that the God of creation and the 
 Jehovah-God, or the God of the Covenant, are one. 
 
 There is here, moreover, the same surpassingly 
 wise choice of words. " These are the generations 
 of the heavens and of the earth," or, as others 
 translate it, "These are the genealogies," etc. 
 The sense is the same. 
 
GENESIS, CHAPTER II. 137 
 
 There is a wealth of meaning in this phrase. 
 I know of no words that convey so much, so ac- 
 curately as these. If the Author had said, "this 
 is the history of the heavens and the earth," or, 
 " this is the chronology of the heavens and the 
 earth," he would barely have told us of events in 
 succession. But "generations" implies that in 
 the strongest possible manner, with the added 
 information of a serial development, a depend- 
 ence, an outgrowth, one stage of progress the 
 result of that which preceded, and in these com- 
 bined the highest scientific summation of the 
 results of human knowledge. 
 
 On the use of *' day," in the fourth verse, I 
 have already spoken. 
 
 The remainder of this connecting bond, v. 5, 
 v. 6, condenses all before Adam into a few lines, 
 cramped and foreshortened by the small space 
 into which the story is compressed. The writer, 
 then, starting with the creation of man, v. 7, gives 
 a more extended account of various events which 
 took place in the last creative epoch. 
 
 In these verses (4-7) the Author sets forth the 
 LORD God's universal creatorship, from the great- 
 est, i. e. " the heavens and the earth," to the least, 
 i. e. to " the plants in the field," and then his 
 eternity, as shown by the remoteness of the crea- 
 tion. It was before the plants were in the earth, 
 or herbs began to grow, before man appeared to 
 till the ground. 
 
138 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 In the fulness of his overflowing knowledge, 
 the Author interjects a clause which no man be- 
 fore the present century could comprehend. He 
 says " it was before there was any rain upon the 
 earth, when the earth was clothed in mists," i. e. 
 far back in the remote epoch before the earth had 
 so far cooled as to permit of rain, before the firma- 
 ment had divided the waters, before Geology 
 begins to compute its Cosmic Chronology. Then, 
 passing by a natural transition from one extreme 
 to the other, he comes to this end of creation and 
 tells us all we can ever know of the formation of 
 Adam, after which he records certain subsequent 
 events, closing with the institution of marriage.* 
 
 In the following paraphrase I have endeavored 
 to bring out more fully what appears to be the 
 meaning of these verses. In the fifth verse I 
 have substituted " when " in place of " for." It 
 is very difficult to see any force in the causative 
 conjunction. An examination of the original will 
 show that the reader is not limited to that signi- 
 fication, since the same word is often u'sed as an 
 adverb of time, and is so translated in many 
 places. Examine Genesis iv. 12, and Job vii. 
 13. These are sufficient to show the usage. The 
 identical word rendered in the Second Chapter 
 of Genesis " for," is, in the cases referred to, ren- 
 dered "when." Hence, evidently, the reader is 
 
 * See Part II. for an article on the chronological arrange- 
 ment of these two Chapters. 
 
GENESIS, CHAPTER H. 139 
 
 at liberty to use the meaning which, in view of all 
 the facts, appears to him the best. 
 
 PARAPHRASE. 
 
 " These statements in the first Chapter, are the 
 generations of the heavens and the earth, setting 
 forth the order in which (i. e. when) they were 
 created, in the day (time .unlimited) the LORD 
 God made all things, even the earth and the 
 heavens, the extremes of greatness, down to the 
 least, even every plant of the field, going back into 
 the eternity before it (the plant) was in the earth, 
 and every herb of the field before it grew, back to 
 that remote period when the LORD God had not 
 caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not 
 a man to till the ground, but a mist went up to 
 water the whole face of the earth." Passing over 
 all the intermediate ages, the Author comes down 
 to the creation of man, and says, " And the LORD 
 God formed man out of the dust of the ground, 
 and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of 
 life, and man became a living soul."' 
 
 All agree that Man is formed out of the dust 
 of the ground, that into his nostrils is breathed 
 the breath of life, 'and that he is a living soul. 
 To this Science can add nothing, but busies itself 
 With considering whether the dust was taken 
 directly from the ground, or mediately through 
 ordinary generation, by some beast, either in em- 
 bryo or in youth ; and if, as so many now claim, 
 
140 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 the latter be the truth, whether this change from 
 a brute to a man was due to a greater or less 
 abundance of food, or to something else affecting 
 the vitality of the parent beasts. The advocates 
 of this theory of the evolution of man from 
 a beast, here divide into two parties, the one 
 referring this upward development to an Intel- 
 ligent Power, the other acknowledging a Power, 
 but ignoring all intelligence or other indication 
 of personality. These suppose that all evolution 
 comes either by chance or by the action of a law 
 implanted in the Cosmic atoms in the origin 
 of the universe. This law of evolution, they 
 claim, produced an infinite number of orders and 
 classes and species, previous to the historic period, 
 but since that it has ceased to act, resembling 
 some birds that will not lay if watched. 
 
 The narrative offers in the eighth verse, a state- 
 ment that seems directly antagonistic to our pre- 
 vious beliefs, but, if "it means just what it says," 
 marvelously in harmony with results of modern 
 scientific investigation, results arrived at within 
 the life of the present generation. 
 
 Verse eighth reads, " And the LORD God 
 planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there he 
 put the man he had formed. (Y. 9.) And out of 
 the ground the LORD God made to grow every 
 tree that is pleasant to sight and good for food," 
 etc. 
 
 From this it follows, that the creation of plants 
 
GENESIS, CHAPTER II. 141 
 
 did not cease at the close of the third period, and 
 that in Eden at least, there was a special centre of 
 plant creation. If there was one, may there not 
 have been others? and is not such a fact emi- 
 nently in harmony with the modern scientific 
 belief, that plants and animals (v. 19) were created 
 not all in one place, but at various centres scat- 
 tered over the world ? 
 
 There were also planted in the midst of the 
 Garden, two mysterious trees. Of one, the name 
 only is given, the tree of life, and afterward it is 
 spoken of as if it had power to make our first 
 parents " live for ever." As to this, I have no 
 explanations to offer or suggestions to make. I 
 accept the account as true, however, on the ground 
 that One who has told vera verissima, the great 
 truths of earth's primeval history, had no occasion 
 to err in this. 
 
 I may, however, say that, although we know 
 of no tree that heals all diseases, we do know of 
 one that heals very many, and that, furthermore, 
 no chemist knows why the bark of the Peruvian 
 tree heals so many ailments, nor can he affirm that 
 God exhausted his power when he created it. 
 
 As to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and 
 Evil, we know the sad story. Certainly there is 
 no impossibility in such a test of obedience, and 
 as to the dignity or worthiness of such a trial, 
 that is not a question for us to decide, and surely 
 it has no bearing on the truth of the narrative. 
 
 
 
14:2 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Yv. 10-14. The writer mentions four rivers, 
 which to those familiar with the geography of 
 that country, sufficiently indicated the position of 
 the Garden. Two of these we can now identify, 
 the other two may have been two arms into which 
 the Euphrates may have divided, as do the Nile, 
 Ganges, and many other rivers; or they may 
 have been simply the shores of the Persian Gulf, 
 running off like river banks, to the right and left, 
 as so ably argued by Prof. Tayler Lewis in 
 Lange's Commentary. 
 
 Vv. 15-17. In these I find statements on which 
 science has no bearing, and consequently cannot 
 affect this argument. I will, however, say that I 
 see in them nothing inconsistent with the phi- 
 losophy of the mind or the relation of God as a 
 Father to his children. On some future occasion, 
 I hope to speak more fully on this subject. 
 
 V. 18. " It is not good for man to be alone." 
 Science and reason reaffirm this truth. A com- 
 panion is necessary for man's highest develop- 
 ment. 
 
 V. 19. In this we are told that "out of the 
 ground the LORD God formed every beast of the 
 field, and every fowl of the air." That this is a 
 different creation from the one spoken of in the 
 previous chapter (vv. 20, 25) is certain, because 
 these are all land animals, or at least land-formed, 
 while the fowl in the other account are water-fowl, 
 or at least the waters brought them forth. 
 
GENESIS, CHAPTER H. 143 
 
 V. 20. Adam gives names to all cattle, beasts 
 of the field, and fowls of the air. Nouns pre- 
 cede other parts of speech. Adam had all the ap- 
 paratus for speaking. This was merely the occa- 
 sion for its use. Brutes lack this power, and no 
 opportunity however favorable, no need however 
 great, has yet developed it. 
 
 I suppose all Scientists will admit the truth, 
 that among all these beasts there was not found 
 "an help meet for man." 
 
 Vv. 21-22. In these is given an account of 
 the formation of woman from a rib taken from 
 Adam. 
 
 Mysterious as this appears, its mysteriousness 
 
 is in its uniqueness, and not in any intrinsic quality 
 
 of it* own. It is strictly in accordance with the 
 
 processes of life as revealed by modern scientific 
 
 ireh, 
 
 Only two modes of propagation are known, 
 the one requiring the coexistence of two individuals 
 of opposite sexual characteristics, the other by 
 " fission " spontaneous or artificial.* Indeed, the 
 former in the last analysis of microscopic investi- 
 gation is only a form of the latter. 
 
 Generation by " fission " is now constantly 
 going on in many of the lower orders of animals 
 as well as in the propagation of plants by cut- 
 tings. 
 
 * If monogamic generation exists, it is only apparent, for 
 there is in all cases really a duality of formation, two indi- 
 viduals joined into one. 
 
144 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Adam was the only one of the race. The 
 Divine Worker, in accordance with his habit of 
 working through his laws, chose the only method 
 in existence among his creatures, which the nature 
 of the case rendered possible, a method which He 
 himself had introduced into the world, and with 
 which He was infinitely familiar. So from a por- 
 tion of Adam, "a rib," "made He a woman." 
 A miracle indeed, but a miracle conforming as far 
 as the conditions permitted to methods already in 
 use. 
 
 After this follows the gift of Eve to Adam, 
 his reception of her as bone of his bone and flesh 
 of his flesh. 
 
 A statement of the intimate union of the con- 
 jugal relation, and of the purity and innocence of 
 the pair, closes the chapter. 
 
 This ends the history of Creation. 
 
PART II. 
 
 CONTAINING EIGHT STUDIES ON THE 
 
 THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF GENESIS 
 
 * IN WHICH 
 
 THE PHOTOGRAPHIC TRUTHFULNESS OF THEIR 
 STATEMENTS IS ASSUMED 
 
 AB Astronomers will soon study the photographs of the coming 
 Transit, applying to them the micrometer and microscope, to test old 
 theories and to develop new ones, so have I studied, as I was able, these 
 logographs of an ante-human world. 
 
 See note, page 48. 
 
A HAKMONY 
 
 OF 
 THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS OF GENESIS. 
 
 THE two accounts are here arranged chrono- 
 logically, with an attempt to indicate intervals 
 of time by blank spaces between the paragraphs. 
 Of the duration of these, Moses gives no intima- 
 tion, and I gather it wholly from God's other 
 Record. This much, however, is certain, the an- 
 nouncement or command, " Let it be so and so," 
 marks the beginning of a creative epoch, as the 
 words, " and it was so," or " God saw it was good," 
 mark its close. After these there is some remark 
 added, either as an additional fact (v. 4, 5, and v. 8, 
 v. 10), or a more explicit statement of the work done 
 (v. 12, v. 21, 22, 25); or repeating and enlarging 
 with special emphasis (v. 16-19), followed in every 
 case by an announcement of the world-wide extent 
 of the work in that " 'twas evening and 'twas morn- 
 ing" at the moment the Divine Architect pro- 
 nounced each epoch ended, the work completed 
 which was foreshadowed in the opening words. 
 
 I have made some verbal changes that the 
 original seems to demand, following the peculiar 
 
148 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 
 
 wording of the " day clauses " as far as our lan- 
 guage will permit. 
 
 I have left untouched the imperative form, as 
 it does not seriously affect the meaning, a com- 
 mand, in God's utterances, being simply another 
 mode of stating His own purpose. 
 
 I should prefer, but for the hoariness of anti- 
 quity which has gathered about these phrases, to 
 render the future form simply by our English 
 future. 
 
 For a like reason I have retained the word 
 "firmament." It is now so well understood to be 
 an improper translation of a word meaning " ex- 
 panse " that there is no danger of mistaking the 
 true sense. Indeed, to most English readers it no 
 longer conveys the idea of solidity. 
 
 In regard to the fourth day, I have already 
 given at considerable length my reasons for the 
 translation which I employ. The present ren- 
 dering does violence to the Hebrew and to God's 
 other Record. 
 
 I have placed immediately after each announce- 
 ment of completion, the command (or, so to speak, 
 the programme) for the next creative stage, in the 
 belief that there were no gaps in this work, but a 
 continuous development of God's plans. 
 
 Here I may remark that the earlier stages 
 were of immensely longer duration than the later 
 ones. In fact, it is difficult, if not impossible, to 
 distinguish any intervals in the last three periods. 
 
THE MOSAIC NARRATIVE. 149 
 
 GENESIS, CHAPTERS I. AND II. 
 
 1 In the beginning God created the heaven 
 and the earth. (2) And the earth was without 
 form and void, and darkness was upon the face of 
 the deep. 
 
 And the spirit of God moved upon the face of 
 of the waters. 
 
 3 And God said, Let there be light. 
 
 And there was light. (4) And God saw the 
 light that it was good. 
 
 And God divided between the light and be- 
 tween the darkness. (5) And God called the light 
 Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the 
 evening was, and the morn i HIT was one day. 
 
 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in 
 the midst of the waters, and let it divide the 
 waters from the waters. 
 
 7 And God made the firmament, and divided 
 the waters which were under the firmament, from 
 the waters which were over the firmament : and 
 it was so. (8) And God called the firmament 
 heaven. And 'twas evening and 'twas morning 
 the second day. 
 
150 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 9 And God said. Let the waters under the 
 heaven be gathered together into one place, and 
 let the dry land appear. 
 
 And it was so. (10) And God called the dry 
 land Earth; and the gathering together of the 
 waters, called he Seas ; and God saw that it was 
 good. 
 
 11* And God said, Let the earth bring forth 
 grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree 
 yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in it- 
 self, upon the earth : 
 
 
 
 
 
 and it was so. 
 
 12 And the earth brought forth grass, and 
 herb yielding seed after his kind ; and the tree 
 yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his 
 kind. (13) And God saw that it was good. And 
 'twas evening, and J twas morning the third day. 
 
 14 And God said, Let it be that the lights in 
 the firmament of the heaven divide f between 
 (margin) the day and the night, % and let them be 
 
 * Verse 11 in chronological order comes between verses 
 9 and 10. But tins order is for the sake of brevity and clear- 
 ness held for the moment in abeyance, all danger of error 
 being avoided by placing both completions in one " day/' 
 
 f Or " Let the lights in the firmament of heaven be to 
 divide," etc.; either form harmonizes with the idea of ap- 
 pointment so evident in the next two clauses. 
 
 J A father divides his property between his two sons ; so 
 the sun and moon divide their influence, their light, between 
 
THE MOSAIC NARRATIVE. 151 
 
 for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years ; 
 (15) and let them be for lights in the firmament 
 of the heaven to give light upon the earth : 
 
 and it was so. 
 
 (ir> And God made two great lights; the 
 greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light 
 to rule the night, the stars also. (17) And 
 God set them in the firmament of the heaven 
 to give light upon the earth; (18) and to rule 
 over the day and over the night, and to divide 
 the light from the darkness.) 
 
 19 And God saw that it was good. And 
 'twas evening, and 'twas morning the fourth day. 
 
 L!" And God said, Let the waters bring forth 
 abundantly the moving creature that hath life, 
 and fowl that may fly in the open firmament of 
 heaven. 
 
 21 And God created great whales, and every 
 living creature that rnoveth, which the waters 
 brought forth abundantly after their kind, and 
 every winged fowl after his kind. 
 
 22 And God saw that it was good. And God 
 blessed them saying, Be fruitful and multiply and 
 fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply 
 in the earth. (23) And 'twas evening and 'twas 
 morning the fifth day. 
 
 the day and the night, giving to each its due share. Up 
 to this, I take it, their shares were equal. Now they are to 
 vary. 
 
152 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth 
 the living creature after his kind, cattle and 
 creeping thing and beast of the earth after his 
 kind. 
 
 25 And it was so. And God made the beast 
 of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their 
 kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth, 
 after his kind : and God saw that it was good. 
 
 Chap. II., v. 4-6. These are the generations of 
 the heavens and. of the earth when they were cre- 
 ated, in the day the Jehovah God made the earth 
 and the heavens, and every plant of the field, 
 before it was in the earth, and every herb of the 
 field, before it grew ; when the Jehovah God had 
 not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was 
 not a man to till the ground, and there went up a 
 mist from the face of the earth and watered the 
 whole face of the ground. 
 
 Chap. I., v. 26. And God said, Let us make 
 man in our image and in our likeness ; and let 
 them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
 over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and 
 over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
 that creepeth upon the earth. 
 
 Chap. II., v. 7-25. And the Jehovah God 
 formed man of the dust of the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and 
 man became a living soul. 
 
 And the Jehovah God planted a garden east- 
 
THE MOSAIC NARRATIVE. 153 
 
 ward in Eden, and there he placed the man whom 
 he had formed. And out of the ground made the 
 Jehovah God to grow every tree that is pleasant 
 to the sight, and good for food ; the tree of life 
 also in the midst of the garden, and the tr-ee of 
 knowledge of good and evil. (Vv. 10, 11, 12, 13, 
 14 describe the situation of the garden.) 
 
 And the Jehovah God took the man, and put 
 him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to 
 keep it. 
 
 And the Jehovah God commanded the man, 
 saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest 
 freely eat ; but of the tree of the knowledge of 
 good and evil thou shalt not eat of it ; for in the 
 day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. 
 
 And the Jehovah God said, It is not good that 
 the man should be alone; I will make him an help 
 meet for him. 
 
 And out of the ground the Jehovah God 
 formed every beast of the field, and fowl of the 
 air ; and brought them unto Adam to see what he 
 would call them ; and whatsoever Adam called 
 every living creature, that was the name thereof. 
 
 And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the 
 fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field ; 
 but for Adam there was not found an help meet 
 for him. 
 
 And the Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to 
 fall upon Adam, and he slept ; and he took one of 
 his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. 
 7* 
 
154: GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 And the rib which the Jehovah God had taken 
 from the man, made he a woman and brought her 
 unto the man. And Adam said, This is now 
 bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh ; she shall 
 be called Woman, because she was taken out of 
 man. (Therefore shall a man leave his father and 
 mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall 
 be one flesh.) 
 
 And they were both naked, the man and his 
 wife, and were not ashamed. 
 
 Chap. I., v. 27-31. So God created man in his 
 own image, in the image of God created he him ; 
 male and female created he them. And God 
 blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful 
 and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue 
 it ; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
 and over the fowl of the air, and over every living 
 thing that moveth upon the earth. 
 
 And God said, Behold, I have given you every 
 herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the 
 earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of 
 a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for meat ; 
 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl 
 of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon 
 the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every 
 green herb for meat ; and it was so. 
 
 And God saw every thing that -he had made, 
 and behold, it was very good. 
 
 And 'twas evening and 'twas morning the 
 sixth day. 
 
PERSONALITY OF THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT. 155 
 
 Chap. II., v. 1-3. Thus 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 he had rested from all his work 
 which God created and made. 
 
 THE PERSONALITY OF THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT 
 OF CREATION. 
 
 After writing Chapter IV. of this essay, it 
 occurred* to me that the Scientific truth and order 
 of the events recorded might be evident to some 
 minds, if some other word should be substituted 
 for the name of God. 
 
 I commenced what might be called an imper- 
 sonal Genesis. But the Narrative refused to be so 
 treated. I was met at every step by an ever-living 
 personality that flashed forth from almost every 
 phrase. It quickly brought me to a stand and 
 compelled me either to give up the attempt or to 
 omit large portions of the account. "What filled 
 me with surprise was that those words which 
 before had appeared almost needless surplusage, 
 were the very ones that baffled all my efforts. 
 
 Let the reader attempt this for himself, select- 
 ing any one of the terms used by theophobists in 
 place of " God." 
 
 Let him take the most unpromising and, for 
 
156 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 this purpose, the most awkward of all the expres- 
 sions so employed. 
 
 In the beginning Natural Causes created the heavens and 
 the earth. 
 
 And the earth was without form and void ; and darkness 
 was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Natural 
 Causes moved upon the face of the waters. 
 
 And Natural Causes said, Let there be light, and there 
 was light. And Natural Causes saw the light that it was 
 good. And Natural Causes divided the light from the dark- 
 ness. And Natural Causes called the light Day, and the 
 darkness he called Night. . . . And Natural Causes said, 
 Let there be a firmament. . . . And Natural Causes made a 
 firmament. . . . And Natural Causes called the firmament 
 Heaven. 
 
 We have gone thus through but a fragment of 
 the narrative, and the abstraction has vanished, 
 and in place of it there is the designation of a liv- 
 ing, acting person. If the reader will continue 
 the substitution to the close of the chapter, he will 
 find the personal element intensified until in the 
 twenty-sixth and following verses it culminates in 
 the mysterious first person plural, the Father who 
 forms man in his likeness, and blesses and endows 
 him. 
 
 If, then, the outline of physical events here re- 
 corded, be true, both as to the events themselves 
 and the order of their occurrence, then must it be 
 equally true in its evidence as to the personality 
 of the First Cause. The two are so interwoven 
 that separation is impossible. 
 
 " Dynamis " has been adopted by some as an 
 
GOD'S VERDICT OF APPROVAL. 157 
 
 eminently fit name for the " First Cause," as 
 eliminating all associations with personality. But 
 if it be employed in this narrative in place of 
 " God," it shares the fate of " Natural Causes " 
 and becomes only a title of an intensely personal 
 Being. 
 
 Nor is this name " Dynainis," anything new. 
 The pantheistic writers who adopt it, possibly 
 may be surprised to learn that precisely the same 
 word (in Hebrew) was employed by Moses in this 
 very narrative. 
 
 " Elohim," the word he employs, translated 
 " God," means " Forces," or Dynainis in the plural ; 
 i. e. all- powers combined.* The account itself 
 adds the needed personality to make the word 
 properly characterize the God of the Hebrews, the 
 God of Creation. 
 
 GOD'S VERDICT OF APPROVAL, "AND GOD SAW 
 THAT IT WAS GOOD." 
 
 This formula occurs six times in the first chap- 
 ter, while a higher approval, u very good," occurs 
 but once, and there are four divine acts that do 
 not receive any such meed. 
 
 What fact underlies this distinction ? What 
 does the author mean by "good"? Certainly 
 not any moral quality, since none can be pre- 
 
 * See Lange on Genesis, page 109, on the meaning and 
 derivation of Elohim. Also Dr. Lewis' note, eaine page. 
 
 " Power, greatness, vastness." " Our terms, infinite, ab- 
 solute, etc., add nothing to these in idea." 
 
158 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 dicated of light, nor of land and water, nor of the 
 other things done, or creatures created, before man. 
 
 A good machine is one so thoroughly finished 
 in all its parts and arrangements, as to do the 
 work for which it was intended. A western pio- 
 neer calls his farm a good one, when he has re- 
 moved the forests, and brought the land into a 
 condition fit for his purposes. 
 
 The work in which the Almighty is represented 
 as employed, was that of bringing our world from 
 its primary formless, empty, dark state, to a condi- 
 tion tit for man. In itself considered, every act of 
 God is good, being perfectly fitted for the purpose 
 he has in view ; but in reference to completion for 
 the use of the coming race, many things were but 
 stepping-stones to something better. 
 
 I think I see in this why so many divine acts 
 are left without the word of approval, and why 
 others receive it. 
 
 Let us see how this agrees with the account, 
 and with the physical facts. 
 
 No. 1. "In the beginning God created the 
 heavens and the earth." Not pronounced good, 
 since it,- the Cosmos, was not ready for man's use, 
 being in a Nebulous condition. It required a 
 long course of perfecting. 
 
 No. 2. Motion imparted. 
 
 Not pronounced good, because it was only 
 germinal of future results. Not motion or force 
 in a shape that man could use. 
 
159 
 
 No. 3. Light came into existence. 
 
 Pronounced good, because light has no stages 
 of progress. It was perfected at once, ready for 
 the future man and organic life. No improve- 
 ment has since been made in it. 
 
 No. 4. Beginning of days and nights. 
 
 Not pronounced " good," as the axis was yet to 
 be bent farther from the perpendicular, to give 
 varying length of days, and to cause seasons, a 
 change that occurred long afterwards. 
 
 No. 5. Deposition of water, and formation of 
 a clear expanse, being the preparation of the at- 
 mosphere for the transmission of the solar rays. 
 
 Not pronounced good, because the purification 
 was not completed till long afterwards. 
 
 No. 6. The appearance of the dry land, and 
 the formation of the oceans. 
 
 This is pronounced good. No change, Geo- 
 logy tells us, has taken place in the plan since the 
 foundations were laid in the azoic rocks, nor any 
 considerable upheaval or enlargement since its 
 completion in the Tertiary. It was then in its 
 general arrangements and outlines ready for man. 
 
 No. 7. Production of grasses, herbs, and fruit 
 trees. 
 
 Pronounced good, because no farther advance 
 was needed to fit the vegetable world for man, 
 and the cattle and beasts, the fauna, to him objects 
 of the greatest interest. Angiosperms and palms 
 are the highest developed of the vegetable world. 
 
160 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 No. 8. A climatic change introducing unequal 
 days, seasons, and measurement of years, really an 
 increase of axial inclination. 
 
 Pronounced good, because no further change 
 was needed to provide modern climate for man. 
 No change in that direction has since occurred. 
 
 No. 9. Production of " living " species of 
 fowls, fish, and moving things, of aquatic habits. 
 
 Pronounced good, because they marked the 
 completion of those orders of animal life for man's 
 use. No higher orders since. 
 
 No. 10. The production of mammalia, and in- 
 creased development of lower orders of terrestrial 
 animals. 
 
 Pronounced good, because no further improve- 
 ment was contemplated. They were ready for 
 man. No higher orders since. 
 
 No. 11. The Creation of Man, the making of 
 the garden with its peculiar fauna and flora, the 
 formation of Eve, and the institution of marriage. 
 
 These mark a higher and nobler culmination, 
 a crown of glory to the hitherto brute world, a 
 work which God does not call upon nature to per- 
 form, but which God is represented as doing 
 solely himself. 
 
 This, in a higher sense of satisfaction and com- 
 pletion, God pronounces, Very good. 
 
THE DIVINE MONOLOGUE. 161 
 
 THE DIVINE MONOLOGUE. 
 
 In the Narrative, God is represented as speak- 
 ing. Was there actually a sound, a voice $ It 
 would seem that there was. God afterward spoke 
 with human voice to Adam and Eve, to Moses 
 upon the Mount, to the children of Israel, and to 
 many of his people down through the years of 
 Jewish history. 
 
 Whether he spoke with a voice or not, the in- 
 tense literalism of the whole induces me to believe 
 that by means equivalent to speech he did convey 
 to some audience the sense which we find in the 
 written narrative. Nor are we left to conjecture 
 who the audience were, in whose ears sounded 
 the divine announcements of his purposes. Ten 
 times we read "And God said."' Twice out of 
 these, he speaks to Adam. In the other eight, no 
 listeners are mentioned, but we know there was 
 an eager, attentive, sympathetic audience, for the 
 Almighty himself tells us, that when "he laid 
 the foundations of the earth, when he laid the 
 measures thereof, and stretched a line upon it," 
 " the Sons of God shouted for joy." 
 
 There seems an incongruity between the pho- 
 tographic realism of the account, and the form 
 of expression attributed to God in our English 
 Version, where he is represented as commanding 
 matter as if it was a sentient being, able of itself 
 to obey, as when he says, "Let the earth bring 
 
162 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 forth," or stranger still, when he commands the 
 non-existent to exist. 
 
 " Let there be light." 
 
 Such expressions would befit a poem abound- 
 ing in the bold imagery of the East, but seem 
 strangely out of place in a description whose prose 
 literalism in every other respect is simply won- 
 derful. 
 
 But when we read in the Hebrew Grammar 
 that there is no imperative form in that language 
 for the first or the third person, but that the future 
 is employed, and that the translator is guided only 
 by his judgment, i. e. by subjective reasons, 
 whether to render it by the future or by the im- 
 perative, the incongruity vanishes. 
 
 The translators may have been transcendent 
 Hebrew scholars, but they allowed their notions 
 of what Moses ought to say, to lead them so far 
 astray as to mistranslate " expanse," or " open 
 space," by " firmament," something solid. Al- 
 though the Septuagint and all other ancient ver- 
 sions accord, it will not be presumption to question 
 their accuracy in a matter in which they had 
 nothing but their beliefs, scientific or metaphysi- 
 cal, to guide them. Even that critical tact which 
 conies from long acquaintance with a language, 
 may be an unsafe guide if tempered with incor- 
 rect ideas of creation, or of God's manner of work- 
 ing. The only safe course would have been to 
 translate the text as Moses wrote it, calling an 
 
"THE SPIRIT OF GOD." 163 
 
 " expanse " an u expanse," and a future tense a 
 future tense. 
 
 Read in this sense, the intense realism of the 
 Narrative is without alloy. 
 
 Instead of commands to non-existences or to 
 inert matter, we find announcements of Divine 
 purposes, a series of prophecies, which are in due 
 time fulfilled, as is related in a succeeding verse. 
 
 I may be mistaken, but it seems to me infi- 
 nitely more sublime for the Divine Architect to 
 calmly announce his purposes, and record that he 
 has accomplished them, than to think of him as 
 giving forth a command to matter to do a thing 
 which matter cannot do, and which, after all, God 
 himself does. 
 
 As to the statement that St. Paul says " God 
 commanded the light to shine out of darkness," * 
 it is probably a sufficient answer to say that the 
 Apostle quoted in substance from the Septuagint, 
 the Bible then in common use. I might add what 
 every scholar knows, that einw is not properly a 
 word of command at all, but rather of narration, 
 and is so rendered in all the four hundred or more 
 times it occurs in the New Testament, save three 
 or four. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE FACE OF 
 THE WATERS. 
 
 In the first verse God creates, in the third, the 
 Spirit of God acts. Why this distinction ? Per- 
 * 2 Corinth, iv. 6. 
 
164 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 haps the character of the two things done, as 
 revealed by the New Chemistry as already quoted, 
 will give a good explanation. If all qualities of 
 matter be the results of one substratum modified 
 by the varying play of one force, the imparting 
 and regulating this force was an operation requir- 
 ing, as far as we can judge, infinitely more of what 
 we should call-in a man, intellect, than the act of 
 generating the material on which the force was to 
 act. The matter was inert, dead, formless, the 
 force imparted to it, if Evolutionists are riy/tt, 
 contained in germ, the future creation. The first 
 act was, so to speak, merely physical. The second 
 laid the foundation, planned the future Cosmos 
 and its inhabitants, endowed its atoms with powers 
 fitted for their mission, set a compass upon the 
 face of the depth, prepared the heavens, and laid 
 the foundation of the earth. The former was, so 
 to speak, the work of the Almighty hand ; the lat- 
 ter, the work of the Almighty mind, that is, the 
 Spirit of God, surpassing the other as mind sur- 
 passes body. 
 
 The statement recorded by Moses is, then, an 
 assertion that the imparting of these forces was 
 not the work of mere Power or Law, but a posi- 
 tive exercise of intelligence, purpose, will, all 
 that constitutes personality. 
 
THE "SIX DATS." 165 
 
 ON THE "SIX DAYS" OF THE FOURTH 
 COMMANDMENT. 
 
 " For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the 
 sea and all that in them w, and rested the seventh day." 
 (Exodus xx. 11.) 
 
 " For iTi six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and 
 in the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." (Exod. 
 xxxi. 17.) 
 
 I cannot feel that I have done full justice to 
 this question, as to the length of the Mosaic 
 "days," in its broadest meaning, without consider- 
 ing more fully the belief which certainly exists, 
 that God intended to convey the impression that 
 the world and its contents were formed in six con- 
 secutive days, and not within six days separated 
 by intervals of unknown length. 
 
 Affirming the incorrectness of such a belief is 
 no more an impugnment of the written record, 
 than is a statement of the true magnitude of the 
 stars a contradiction of Nature. In both there is 
 an apparent meaning which a more careful exami- 
 nation corrects. The question is not in either 
 case, what, with views limited by ignorance or 
 disturbed by previous beliefs, we may think was 
 meant by " six days," but what, in the light of all 
 knowledge, these words represent. Astronomy 
 would have made little progress had philosophers 
 in their faith in the veracity of Nature accepted 
 appearances as ultimate truth. 
 
 Throughout that narrative, which as God's 
 
166 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 sign-manual is placed on the first page of Bevela- 
 tion, a literal realism is found absolutely unap- 
 proachable by any human document; but else- 
 where God often employed expressions clothed in 
 metaphor of every degree of boldness. Christ's 
 conversation abounded in them. He called him- 
 self a door, a vine, a lamb, and many other names. 
 But he was not careful to use only such metaphors 
 as could not be misunderstood. 
 
 When the Jews in the temple asked for a sign, 
 he replied, " Destroy this temple and in three days 
 I will raise it up again." Their answer proves 
 that his words had been misunderstood, and he 
 must have known it, but he vouchsafed no expla- 
 nation. In Ex. xxxi. 17, God says he " was re- 
 freshed." Being " refreshed " is evidently spoken 
 after the manner of a man coming down to the 
 level of his hearers. 
 
 These will suffice to show that first impressions 
 are often wrong, and that we are to test them in 
 all possible ways. No encouragement is given to 
 mental indolence. 
 
 My reasons, then, for believing that the Com- 
 mandment was not intended to teach a creation in 
 six consecutive days, are as follows : In Genesis 
 there is no assertion that anything was made on 
 any of the " days." It is affirmed that on each 
 " day " God saw the completed progress and pro- 
 nounced it " good." that is all. In the second 
 chapter, we are told of " the day " in which all 
 things were made, as if to forbid the belief that 
 
THE "SIX DAYS." 167 
 
 the previous days were days of creation. Ex. 
 xxxi. 17, as already shown, could not possibly have 
 been intended to mean what the Hebrews under- 
 stood from it, viz., that God "was refreshed," 
 " took breath," as the Hebrew has it. The pre- 
 position " in" does not occur in the phrase, " for in 
 six days," as is shown by the italics in our version. 
 The writer says, "God made heaven and earth 
 and all that in them is," in some relation to " six 
 days " (Hebrew, " six of days," i. e. a series of six 
 days ?) and leaves us to discover what that relation 
 is. As there is no anachronism in imputing to 
 God the knowledge of modern Science, we may 
 take his words from our highest present stand- 
 point (infinitely below His), and supply the ellipsis 
 by that word which, in view of all the facts, best 
 represents the true relation. By "heaven" is 
 meant here, as I think, the firmament or open 
 space in which the birds fly. If so, then the pro- 
 per preposition appears to be " within," making 
 it read " for within six days," etc. It was after 
 the " one day" that God made the firmament, and 
 it was before the day of announcement of final com- 
 pletion that he made " all that in them is." In this, 
 too, was included the making (not the creation) of 
 the earth to be a habitation for man. Thus the en- 
 tire transaction is brought within the " six days." 
 It is clear, then, that God intended to impress 
 most strongly the observance of the Sabbath in 
 commemoration of his creating all things. To do 
 this he used a form* of expression most fitted for 
 
168 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 his purpose, yet so guarded that the thoughtful 
 mind earnestly seeking the truth, and collating 
 God's two Eecords with each other, need find no 
 contradiction. 
 
 ON THE CHARACTER OF THE PLANTS AND ANI 
 MALS OF THE GARDEN OF EDEN. 
 
 The intense realism of the Mosaic Narrative 
 seems to suffer a shock in the twenty-ninth and 
 thirtieth verses of the first chapter, where we are 
 told, 
 
 " And God said, Behold I have given you 
 every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of 
 all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit 
 of a tree yielding seed ; to you it shall be for 
 meat ; and to every beast of the earth, and to 
 every fowl of the air ; and to every thing that 
 creepeth upon the earth wherein there is the 
 breath of life, every green herb for meat ; and it 
 was so." 
 
 In these verses I find two difficulties. " Every 
 herb bearing seed " and every tree yielding fruit 
 are said to be given to man for " meat," i. e. he is 
 to eat them and be sustained and nourished by 
 them, and yet we well know that there are herbs 
 and trees which are injurious or even destructive 
 to him. We are also told that " every green 
 herb " was to be " meat " for all the animals, 
 while we know that to the carnivorous animals 
 such a diet means death by starvation. Nor is it 
 
PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF EDEN. 169 
 
 any answer to say that all seeds and fruits were 
 then non-injurious, for of that we have no proof, 
 and the Bible and Science have both suffered too 
 much from positive assertions, whose only founda- 
 tion was a desire to say something to cover up the 
 speaker's ignorance. I trust the day has gone by 
 for the invention of Scientific or Theological facts. 
 
 Moreover, since many animals feed upon plants 
 poisonous to man, such a supposition requires us 
 to believe that the injurious plants and the crea- 
 tures that feed upon them, were created after the 
 fall, i. e. after the " rest " of the seventh day. 
 
 As to the Carnivora, we know they lived long 
 before Adam. Modern Chemistry has shown that 
 they through the herbivorous animals, derive their 
 food from the " green herb," and I doubt not this 
 modern discovery was well known to the Author 
 of the Narrative, and helps explain the apparent 
 universality of his assertion ; but I do not think 
 Adam and Eve so understood it. There must 
 have been some other meaning, not inconsistent 
 with this, which readily suggested itself to their 
 minds. 
 
 This other meaning I seek. To be satisfactory 
 it should be drawn from the narrative itself, or 
 from admitted facts. In this inquiry we shall de- 
 rive much assistance from the next chapter. I 
 assume both to be true ; as true and a hundred 
 times more true than Humboldt's Cosmos, or any 
 merely human narrative. 
 8 
 
170 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Looking now at the twenty-seventh verse, we 
 read, " So God created man in his own image, in 
 the image of God created he him." At this point 
 of time the events of the next chapter come in, 
 from the creation of Adam in the seventh verse, 
 or rather from his being placed in the garden, up 
 to and including the creation of Eve for it adds, 
 " male and female created he them," and the crea- 
 tion of Eve and her union to Adam are the last 
 events mentioned in this Chapter. 
 
 In the verses 8 and 9, Chap. II., we are told 
 God planted a garden and placed in it the man 
 whom he had formed, i. e. previously formed. 
 " And out of the ground made the LORD God to 
 grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and 
 good for food." . . . After which, if we may judge 
 from the apparent order (which if our Witnesses 
 be reliable, has in every case hitherto been the true 
 one) this happened (remember the sixth day is not 
 yet ended nor Eve created), v. 19, " And out of 
 the ground the LORD God formed every beast of 
 the field and every fowl of the air." Note here the 
 absence of fishes and all water animals which 
 would have been inappropriate in a description of 
 the animals of Eden. After the formation of these 
 animals, God formed Eve from Adam, and subse- 
 quent to that gave to them (not to Adam alone) 
 dominion over all animate beings. 
 
 In verse 29, God told them that all fruits were 
 for their meat and all green herbs for the animals. 
 
PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF EDEN. 171 
 
 It seems from this address, and from the ac- 
 count given in the next two chapters, that God 
 did appear in some form, probably in human 
 shape, and talk to and with Adam and Eve. His 
 language must have been adapted to their ideas 
 and capacity. He first gave them a grant of 
 " dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of 
 the air, and over every living thing that moveth 
 upon the earth." 
 
 Subsequently to this gift, it may have been an 
 hour or a day, or longer, God again speaks to 
 Adam, to whom Eden, extending from horizon to 
 horizon, was the " whole earth," and tells him that 
 in all that space there were no injurious plants, 
 but all were either " pleasant to the eye or good 
 for food," and that he might safely eat of all, save 
 one which was reserved for other reasons than the 
 possession of any poisonous quality. Moreover, 
 among all the beasts, birds and creeping things 
 upon the face of the whole earth, there was not 
 one that would injure him ; there was not a car- 
 nivorous creature among them, for none of them 
 ate flesh, but all lived upon vegetation, even 
 " every green herb," such animals as we now style 
 herbivorous. 
 
 This seems to me to solve the difficulty. There 
 was a special creation of plants and animals for the 
 Garden, an idea eminently in harmony with present 
 scientific belief that, as a general thing, the flora 
 and fauna of each great section originated in that 
 section. 
 
172 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 The entire flora of the Garden consisted of 
 " trees pleasant to the sight and good for food," 
 as well as " herbs bearing seed," and " grass," and 
 consequently free from any admixture of noxious 
 species. Their " fruit " was to be Adam's " meat." 
 
 The animal world of that region was in har- 
 mony with the vegetable. All ferocious, flesh- 
 eating creatures were excluded. Neither preda- 
 cious birds nor beasts were found within its lim- 
 its. The only fauna were those which subsisted 
 upon the "green herb for meat." 
 
 This realism destroys the poetry which repre- 
 sents the lion and the lamb, the leopard and the 
 kid living harmoniously together ; but it is based 
 on the words of Moses, and contradicts no facts of 
 Scripture or Science. 
 
 The other explanation requires us to believe that 
 carnivorous animals at that time flourished on food 
 on which we know they would now starve to death, 
 or that carnivorous beasts did not then exist. 
 The first would require a suspension of the laws 
 of animal life, and the second contradicts the ex- 
 planation itself. 
 
 As to a four-legged creature of the size and 
 appearance of, for instance, a tiger, but with teeth 
 able to graze, and intestines* and stomach able to 
 digest the food of an ox, such an animal would not 
 be a tiger at all, but a nameless monster of whose 
 existence there is no evidence. 
 
 Moreover, this theory requires us also to believe 
 
PLANTS AND ANIMALS OF EDEN. 173 
 
 that this grass-eating creature, and countless other 
 herbivorous carnivores (!) were destroyed at the 
 time of Adam's Fall, and their places supplied by 
 a creation (after the sixth day, remember) of non- 
 herbivorous carnivorous animals, or else that each 
 of them underwent at once such a change of teeth, 
 stomach, and intestines, as would really be the for- 
 mation of new species, a transformation which 
 neither Scripture nor Science claims to have taken 
 place. 
 
 Compared with this, Darwinian Evolution is a 
 trifle. 
 
 Verses 29 and 30 are remarkable for a depar- 
 ture from that purely objective literalism which 
 needs no other explanation than the recognition of 
 the facts asserted, to what may be styled subjective 
 literalism. In the latter the reader needs to be 
 placed en rapport with the one to whom the words 
 were originally addressed, in order to obtain the 
 meaning which the speaker intended to convey. 
 
 In the former case the proposition is literally 
 true in itself, without reference to the subjective 
 condition of either hearer or reader. Of this we 
 have abundant illustration. " The Earth was with- 
 out form and void,* and darkness was upon the face 
 of the deep," conveys a literal truth whether we 
 understand it or not, whether the earth was a mass 
 of unassorted earth and water shrouded in densest 
 clouds waiting for the sun to be created, or whether 
 it describes the period preceding the beginning of 
 motion. 
 
174: GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 Of the style conveying what I have called sub- 
 jective truth, we have abundant examples in the 
 language of daily life, and need no other explana- 
 tion than common sense at once supplies. " The 
 house was crowded." " The farmer works all his 
 life for a moderate competency." " The ground 
 was all covered with snow." It is difficult to carry 
 on a conversation without the frequent use of such 
 expressions. 
 
 In this light read the twenty -ninth verse : 
 " Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed 
 which is upon the face of the whole earth," etc. 
 Eden was to Adam " all the earth," of which he 
 knew, and the qualifying or limiting word " the 
 face," the face of the whole earth more particularly 
 means all that Adam could see. As if God had 
 said, " Look over all this land which I have given 
 you, all its fruit-bearing trees bear food for you, 
 all its animals are harmless, no beasts of prey 
 among them." 
 
 This mode of speaking is so common in subse- 
 quent portions of the Bible, that it seems just to 
 suppose the Author of the whole introduces at the 
 close of this account this human mode of expression 
 as an interlocking of the series of " logographs " 
 with human thoughts, feelings, and forms of speech 
 recorded in other portions of the written Word. 
 
 If such be the true character of the fauna of 
 the Garden, there is no difficulty in reconciling 
 the wide-spread belief that animals before the Fall 
 
THE CREATION OF ANIMALS. 175 
 
 did not feed upon flesh, with the Geological fact 
 that carnivorous creatures existed long before man 
 appeared upon the earth. 
 
 CONJECTURES AS TO THE PHYSICAL FACTS UN- 
 DERLYING THE MOSAIC ACCOUNT OF THE 
 CREATION OF ANIMALS. 
 
 For this discussion, three postulates are de- 
 manded. 
 
 The photographic truthfulness of the first two 
 chapters of Genesis ; the historical truth of the 
 miracles recorded in both Testaments ; the inti- 
 mate relationship of organs and functions dis- 
 covered by comparative anatomy between the 
 fauna of to-day and that of earlier Geological 
 Epochs. If the reader is not prepared to grant all 
 these postulates, it will be a waste of time for him 
 to read the remainder of this article. 
 
 Among the Scientific Theories, true or false, 
 largely affecting men's minds at the present day, 
 none is more prominent than that commonly 
 styled Darwinism. Its influence, perhaps, is all 
 the greater from the difficulty one finds in giving 
 it a fixed form, a difficulty which enables it to 
 adapt itself to every shade of belief, from the de- 
 vout faith of the Christian to the boldest atheism, 
 the one seeing in it clear proofs of God's being 
 and power, the other, as evident proofs of the 
 non-existence of any intelligence higher than man, 
 or of any power other than the " laws of Nature." 
 
176 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 I know of no reason why God could not have 
 produced a world filled with organized creatures, 
 on the plan of more or less frequent variation in 
 successive generations, and the survival of the 
 fittest, although it seems a very uncertain, com- 
 plicated, and wasteful method. Nor, on the other 
 hand, do I know of any reason why he should not 
 have created a pair or more of each species, and 
 impressed upon them and their descendants that 
 stability of character which, at least in historical 
 times, they certainly have possessed, however they 
 may have come by it. 
 
 That the latter plan seems simpler, more cer- 
 tain, and less wasteful, is no proof of its being the 
 actual method, for I admit that, if God pleased, he 
 could have selected the worst possible mode of 
 peopling his world, a mode which no man pos- 
 sessed of infinite power and wisdom would choose. 
 Which one, then, of these methods was actually 
 employed, becomes a question simply of evidence. 
 
 It is admitted that the formulae for all species, 
 as far as our experiments have extended, contain 
 certain variable elements which admit of increase 
 or diminution, and hence give rise to correspond- 
 ing differences in their development. Perhaps this 
 was part of the primal gift of dominion. How 
 far this power extends can only be ascertained by 
 exhaustive experiment. We can not only in- 
 crease the normal amount of flesh upon our cattle, 
 but by judicious breeding can impress upon their 
 
CREATION OF ANIMALS. 177 
 
 descendants certain traits which we desire to per- 
 petuate. We can produce one kind that most 
 readily assimilate their food into flesh, another, 
 into milk, and another, into great muscular power. 
 Our horses can be so developed by careful, intelli- 
 gent crossing, that one breed shall beget animals 
 famed for speed, while another produces only 
 those noted for powers of draught. By similar 
 intelligent selection and propagation of like with 
 like, we can increase or diminish certain peculiari- 
 ties in our fowls, but as for those deeper elements 
 on which is based our idea of species, no one has 
 yet been able to touch them. Thus far at least, 
 the evidence is wholly negative, and the fact that 
 the slight variations which have been produced 
 are due to careful and intelligent choice, not in the 
 brutes, but in Man, is proof, as far as it goes, that 
 if all animals are sprung from one stock, those 
 deeper elements of being marking widely sepa- 
 rated provinces of the animal kingdom, are due 
 to a Cause of a similar but higher order. 
 
 Besides the present living animals, there are 
 in the rocks the remains, in numbers absolutely 
 incalculable, of pre-historic organisms, reaching 
 back to the time life began. Yery many thousands 
 of species of these creatures, scattered widely over 
 the earth, have been examined by men whose word 
 is authority, and they tell us that thus far no affirma- 
 tive evidence of a gradual change from one species 
 8* 
 
178 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 to another has been found.* The advocates of 
 this Theory admit the correctness of this state- 
 ment, but claim that somewhere evidence tending 
 to establish its truth will yet be found. 
 
 It does seem a logical absurdity to rest so large 
 a conclusion as Darwinism on so small a base of 
 facts. 
 
 Beside the record of the Rocks, there is another 
 that is for the most part ignored by the friends of 
 this theory, or if they speak of it at all, do so in a 
 tone of lofty superiority, as worthy of notice only 
 as marking a wide-spread and lasting delusion 
 from which the race is slowly awaking. 
 
 But an Author able to give with photographic 
 accuracy the ante-human history of our globe, is 
 certainly a witness whose evidence is not lightly 
 to be rejected. 
 
 In the account in Genesis, three propositions 
 are clearly set forth. 1st, That the " waters " 
 and " the earth " " brought forth " fowl, water 
 animals, cattle, and beasts, moving living crea- 
 tures. 2d, That this " bringing forth " was due 
 to no inherent power in the water or the ground, 
 and that God claims creatorship or makership of 
 all.f 3d, That these events occurred after the 
 
 * Darwin, Origin Species, p. 289, 1873. 
 
 f The Account says God created the water fauna and 
 that he made the land fauna. What difference underlies 
 this use of these two words, I am unable to say. The 
 further advance of Science may at some future time ex- 
 plain it. 
 
CREATION OF ANIMALS. 179 
 
 great climatic change which introduced varying 
 seasons and unequal days and nights, and which, 
 if my reasoning is correct, corresponds with the 
 Glacial Epoch. 
 
 During that time of cold there was a very 
 general destruction of living creatures, especially 
 of " cattle and beasts " and other vertebrates,* yet 
 subsequently, as we daily see about us, cattle, 
 beasts, birds, and other vertebrates abounded. 
 While these are all of species different from those 
 that preceded the glaciers, yet they bear many 
 marks of resemblance, so many that some Scientists 
 think them accidental varieties. 
 
 Believing as I do that the miracles recorded in 
 the Bible are veritable historical facts, I feel my- 
 self at liberty to use them so far as I see n't for 
 the purposes of my argument. Nor can I admit 
 the unscientific character of such use, as long as 
 the very existence of physical science depends 
 upon the truth of the propositions enunciated in 
 the first Chapter of Genesis, itself a miracle. 
 
 From an examination of the miracles of the 
 Old and New Testaments, we learn that it is God's 
 habit, so to speak, to act, as far as the circum- 
 stances of the case permit, in accordance with the 
 ordinary laws of nature, and to avail himself of 
 the most closely related means and material, inter- 
 
 * Dana, Manual of Geol., p. 518, 1874. All the Fishes, 
 Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals of the Tertiary, are extinct 
 species. 
 
ISO GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 fering divinely only at the moment of absolute 
 need. 
 
 When Christ would furnish the marriage feast 
 of his humble friends with wine, he did not com- 
 mand wine to appear, but he bade the servants 
 themselves fill the jars with water, and draw out 
 and bear to the guests. All this was done in the 
 ordinary manner and in strict accordance with 
 the laws of Nature. Christ only supplied what 
 needed to be added to convert the water into 
 " good wine." 
 
 When he fed the multitude, he used the ma- 
 terials at hand, the loaves and fishes, blessed and 
 broke in the usual manner, and directed his dis- 
 ciples to distribute to the people, his power being 
 applied to the one thing they could not do, viz. 
 increasing the stock of food. 
 
 When God formed Eve, he did not create her 
 from the dust of the earth ; but he employed a 
 method then and now in existence for other 
 orders of beings, which naturalists call " fission." 
 He took from the solitary Adam a part, a scion, or 
 cutting, and from it he made (or built up) a woman. 
 Here certainly is the positive testimony of an eye- 
 witness whose veracity has stood every test, that, 
 in the case of our race at least, there was, as to the 
 female element, no Darwinian Evolution. The 
 contradiction is absolute. 
 
 Turning to the Record of the Rocks, we find 
 that in this Glacial period, all higher animal life 
 
CREATION OF ANIMALS. 181 
 
 perished, and that consequently a repeopling of the 
 world by the ordinary methods was impossible. 
 The same Record tells us that land and sea 
 abounded in the remains of the perished fauna, 
 and, from the discoveries in the ice of Siberia, it is 
 probable that numerous perfect bodies were pre- 
 served by the glacier itself. 
 
 In subsequent portions of the Bible we are told 
 that the bodies of men shall hereafter be raised 
 from the grave, by divine power, and be trans- 
 formed as Spiritual bodies to a higher state of ex- 
 istence, Here facts fail me; beyond this I can 
 only conjecture. But to what do these facts, few 
 as they are, point ? 
 
 The problem was to repeople the earth after 
 the destruction of the Glacial period, and to do it, 
 as far as possible, in harmony with God's usual 
 laws. 
 
 As I interpret and coordinate the facts, this is 
 their story. 
 
 Bleak, naked and silent after the long winter, 
 the m earth had within its bosom the yet living 
 seeds and germs of the pre-glacial vegetation, which 
 no degree of cold had been able to destroy, and 
 which, under the vivifying influence of returning 
 heat, clothed the land in verdure. " Everywhere, 
 from beds of ancient glacial materials, vegetation 
 was bursting forth and announcing itself." * 
 
 This would be in harmony with the ordinary 
 
 * Winchell, Sketches of Creation, p. 270. 
 
182 GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 laws of this great division of organic being. 
 Seeds and germs retain their vitality by a power 
 impressed upon them by the Creator, for a period 
 to which, as yet, we do not know the limit. 
 
 In regard to ancient life, two courses were left 
 open to the Divine Architect. He might start de 
 novo with a new creation, or He might employ 
 the means at hand, and cause the entombed bodies 
 and the " dry bones " to live. It would seem 
 more in accordance with God's sparing use of mi- 
 raculous power that he should breathe life into the 
 frames that lay prepared before him, than that he 
 should create them anew, and then breathe life 
 into them. 
 
 It is impossible to say a priori, which course was 
 actually pursued, but turning to the words of our 
 Eye-Witness, I find that the waters and the earth 
 u brought forth " the new fauna, and I know there 
 lay dormant or dead in the waters and the earth, 
 myriads of the former fauna closely allied to those 
 which have succeeded them. 
 
 These bodies or frames, then, may have been 
 raised by Divine power, and, by God's plastic hand, 
 may have been added or removed those parts and 
 peculiarities which mark the difference between 
 the species of to-day and those of an earlier period. 
 
 Hence the marvelous resemblances, the " re- 
 miniscent traces" of former stages of being, as 
 well as the peculiar and infinitely wise adaptation 
 of parts to the circumstances of being. The Mas- 
 ter's hand makes itself seen in the variety as well 
 
CREATION OF ANIMALS. 183 
 
 as the perfection of its work. It would seem as if 
 every process of life was performed in as many 
 ways as possible. When eating, man carries his 
 food to his mouth by the hand ; the fish, with 
 neither neck nor arms, carries himself to his food. 
 The elephant takes his, by reaching out his nose ; 
 the horse and tapir, by their upper lips; the fish- 
 huwk holds his prey with his feet, while the croco- 
 dile drives his into his mouth by a blow of his 
 tail. In all this variety, which extends into almost 
 every process of life, there is such perfect har- 
 mony, such exquisite adaptation, that a naturalist 
 can, from a single tooth, build up a description of 
 the animal that carried it. Nor could any amount 
 of reasoning convince him that a tooth which he 
 had picked up in his rambles, belonged indiffer- 
 ently to a cow or to a tiger, or that it might have 
 happened to grow in the mouth of a fish. 
 
 Moreover, such an origin, equally well with 
 Darwinism, accounts for the relationships of fauna 
 past and present, and for the persistence of types 
 in the same locality from their first origin in re- 
 mote geological periods, a persistence unbroken 
 even by the great telluric catastrophe of the 
 Glaciers. 
 
 As has already been said, the process of organic 
 creation went on through all the u days " from the 
 third, and ceased only after the creation of Eve, 
 when God entered upon the rest of the Seventh day. 
 
 Whether, on the morrow of the day following 
 this first Sabbath, or on any day subsequent, God 
 
ISi GENESIS AND SCIENCE. 
 
 resumed his creative work, the Bible is silent. It 
 is left to man to study on, and to discover if he 
 can. One thing, however, is certain, if the Bible 
 makes no assertion about it, their fears are ground- 
 less who dread Scientific inquiry. 
 
 It may be that my Scientific sight is not suffi- 
 ciently clear, but to me such an origin as I have 
 described, is infinitely freer from difficulties than 
 that which traces man's descent from an ascidian, 
 and that without supervising Intelligence. 
 
 I cannot reconcile my belief in an infinitely 
 powerful and wise Being, with a plan slowly work- 
 ing up to perfection through an infinite series of 
 chance results, the vast majority of which were 
 either so imperfect as never to arrive at maturity, 
 or if matured, unable to continue their kind. 
 
 Allusion was made, page 178, note, to some 
 occult truth underlying the use of " create," v. 21, 
 and " made," v. 25. 
 
 If my conjecture as to God's mode of pro- 
 ducing the animals, be founded in fact, perhaps 
 the more complete disintegration of the water 
 fauna, rendered necessary a re-creation ; while the 
 almost perfect preservation of. the land fauna 
 whose remains may have been enclosed in the ice 
 of the Glacial Epoch required comparatively so 
 little, that the process was more appropriately 
 described by the inferior word "made." The 
 reader will at once recall the Siberian Elephant, 
 whose remains were found in a state of perfect 
 preservation near the mouth of the Lena. 
 
PART III. 
 
 CONTAINING AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE CAUSE AND EPOCH OF THE PRESENT 
 INCLINATION OF THE EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 TO WHICH 18 ADDED 
 
 AN ESSAY ON COSMOLOGY. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE work of the u fourth day," according to 
 the Mosaic Account, was some change of the pre- 
 existing order of things, which produced the vicis- 
 situdes of seasons, and the varying length of days 
 and nights. The " lights " were to divide (the 
 time) between the day and the night, were to be 
 for signs and for seasons, for days and for years. 
 What the physical truth underlying this statement 
 was, we are left, as in case of other physical 
 truths, to find out as best we may. The problem 
 then is, how to read those verses in the light of 
 present knowledge. 
 
 The more ancient opinion was, that the Sun, 
 Moon, and Stars were created on the " fourth 
 day," a belief which is sufficiently answered by 
 the Account itself, which informs us that what- 
 ever it was that occurred, it took place not only 
 after the creation of the " heaven," i. e. Sun, Moon, 
 and Stars, but after the appearance of " grasses, 
 herbs, and fruit trees." 
 
 A later, and perhaps at present, the most 
 prevalent belief among those who accept the ac- 
 count as true, is that these bodies came into exist- 
 
188 INCLINATION OF EAKTH's AXIS. 
 
 ence when God created the heavens and the earth, 
 but had remained so obscured by dense clouds, as 
 to be invisible ; and that in obedience to the Di- 
 vine command, on the "fourth day," the clouds 
 and darkness cleared away. As to whether the 
 earth had at that time days and nights of unequal 
 length and changing seasons, and consequently 
 the axis had its present inclination, this class of 
 thinkers have not, as far as I am aware, expressed 
 any opinion, apparently taking it for granted. I 
 also notice that the most Scientific of them man- 
 age, in some way, to change the Mosaic order so 
 as to place the appearance of the higher plants 
 after the fourth day. 
 
 This explanation, certainly, has simplicity to 
 recommend it, and once accounted for all the 
 known conditions. But it is without foundation 
 in the facts of our world's history, and has no bet- 
 ter argument in its favor than that, if it were true, 
 it met the exigency which caused its suggestion. 
 Apart from the self-evident truth that one has 
 no right *to invent physical facts, the Geological 
 record is such that the admission of this theory 
 involves its supporters in inextricable difficulties. 
 
 Every one knows that such a vegetation as 
 " grasses, herbs, and fruit trees," requires the 
 direct actinic rays of the Sun for its growth and 
 perfection. The dense, persistent layer of clouds, 
 which such a theory demands, together with the 
 warm, moist atmosphere, which we know prevailed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 189 
 
 in the earlier history of our world, would have 
 prevented the proper maturing and perfecting of 
 such plants, and consequently the production of the 
 seed. Hence, even had they been created under 
 such conditions, they would speedily have died 
 out, except by a continuous miracle. 
 
 Moreover, there are in the rocks the remains 
 of myriads of animals that lived and died ages be- 
 fore "grasses, herbs, and fruit trees" made their 
 appearance, and of course before the work of the 
 fourth day. These creatures possessed eyes as 
 perfect as are found to-day, a Fact which forces us 
 to believe that the animal and vegetable world 
 then, as now, enjoyed the full light of the Sun. 
 
 For these, and for other reasons in reference to 
 the distribution of animal and vegetable life, 
 which will appear in due time, I felt compelled to 
 lay aside this explanation as insufficient. 
 
 I began my search for an answer to the problem 
 by a caivful i'.\amination of the narrative itself. 
 From its peculiar and careful wording, it was evi- 
 dent that the thing done, whatever it was, caused 
 seasons, had to do with the measurement of the 
 year, and the unequal division of day and night ; 
 I noted an absence of any allusion to months, the 
 most ancient and most obvious division of time. 
 Hence it follows, if the narrative states a physical 
 truth, that the thing done on the Fourth Day, 
 producing such effects, must have been a change 
 in the inclination of the earth's axis, as nothing 
 
190 INCLINATION OF EARTIl's AXIS. 
 
 else would affect both the " day and* night," and 
 the seasons. 
 
 At once I was met with the statement that, 
 according to the most careful observations and the 
 most refined analysis, no such -change has ever 
 taken place. But Astronomy observes only what 
 is now occurring, and calculates the past and 
 future state of our System, on the sole condition 
 that the influences affecting it have always been 
 and shall always remain the same in kind and 
 intensity. On such conditions, it is easy to calcu- 
 late the eclipses of the next century ; but how if 
 some immense meteor should dash the moon out 
 of its orbit ? 
 
 The question of possibility then resolves itself 
 into this : has there been any difference in the 
 intensity of any of the great forces of nature ? 
 
 Astronomy, Geology, Optics, Correlation of 
 Forces, answer at once in the affirmative, and bear 
 witness that the power of heat in our System was 
 once almost infinitely intensified. 
 
 The field is then open. No conclusions of 
 Astronomical Observation or Mathematical Analy- 
 sis, bar the entrance. The investigation has car- 
 ried me far beyond the goal for which I started. 
 It has gone out into the mechanism of the uni- 
 verse and brought solutions of many of its pecu- 
 liarities and anomalies. 
 
 I find, however, questions which no action of 
 unintelligent force can explain, and for which I 
 
INTRODUCTION. 191 
 
 can see no other reason than the will of the Great 
 Architect. Nor should this excite surprise, since 
 it is no less true of the acts of ourselves and our 
 fellows. A railroad is a formation evolved from 
 rock and earth. Forces generated by the Sun, in 
 the growth of vegetation, or in the evaporation of 
 water, utilized by the muscles of men and beasts, 
 heaped up the long embankment. All this can be 
 readily shown, and one can get along thus far tol- 
 erably well without reference to anything higher. 
 But why the embankment is of uniform width, 
 and just wide enough for the trains to pass; why 
 it reaches from city to city; why, with infinite 
 labor, it tunnels mountains, instead of taking by 
 " natural selection " the easiest and shortest route, 
 are questions that can be answered only by as- 
 suming that kind of guidance which we cull intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 The work of the fourth period is placed by 
 Moses after the completion of the Continents and 
 the appearance of grasses, herbs, and " the tree 
 bearing fruit the seed of which is in itself," and 
 before the present living species of fish and fowl. 
 If, therefore, the account be true, " not merely as 
 to the facts asserted, but as to the order of their 
 occurrence," the phenomenon which is described 
 must have taken place in the interval, and if 
 Nature and Genesis agree, there must be found 
 the physical cause of the increase of the earth's 
 axial inclination. 
 
192 INCLINATION OF EARTH 5 S AXIS. 
 
 Geology reveals to us the interesting fact that 
 in this interval between these biological epochs 
 was the era of the Glaciers. 
 
 Geology also tells us that before the Tertiary 
 (the era just before the Glaciers) a climate of won- 
 derful uniformity prevailed over the entire globe, 
 with " no zones of climate," and we all know that 
 after the Glaciers there were and are seasons. 
 Hence, during the Glacial epoch, according to this 
 Witness, that axial change must have occurred. 
 
 In the present inclination of the Moon's orbit, 
 and in the laws of organic life, I found a clew 
 which led to the same result, viz. that down to 
 the Glaciers, the axis of the earth was nearly per- 
 pendicular to the ecliptic, and that during this 
 period of ice and cold, its inclination increased to 
 its present angle of 23. 
 
 It then remained to search for the physical 
 cause of this movement, which was done by an 
 exhaustive examination of all possible influences 
 affecting our planet. This independent line of 
 investigation also placed this important event in 
 the era of the Glaciers, thus corroborating my 
 former conclusion. 
 
 It certainly is very remarkable that four lines 
 of proof, so different from each other in every re- 
 spect, and so entirely independent, should lead to 
 this same result. 
 
 The mode of study and investigation pursued 
 was this : 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 193 
 
 I first found that anterior to the historic period 
 there was a time when the earth's axis did not 
 have its present inclination ; that it was normally 
 perpendicular to the ecliptic ; that at the moment 
 of lunar segregation it was inclined about 5 9'. 
 I then examined the facts revealed by Geology as 
 to the distribution of ancient vegetable and animal 
 life, with special reference to any indications of 
 change of axial inclination, and as to its biological 
 date. 
 
 Having shown the occurrence of such a change, 
 and fixed its epoch, I sought a sufficient cause for 
 it, which I found in circumpolar upheavals. 
 
 This led to the discussion of the effects of such 
 massive movements, and suggested the thought 
 that in such might be found the solution of many 
 of the problems of our Cosmos. 
 
 I found that the same physical cause had 
 operated throughout our System, and that the ob- 
 liquities of the axes, the eccentricities and inclina- 
 tions of the orbits of its members, as well as their 
 annual revolutions and unequal times of rotation, 
 are the legitimate results of one great law and 
 the necessary consequences of its once nebulous 
 condition. 
 
 In this discussion, as elsewhere, I have drawn 
 largely on Dana's Manual of Geology, not for its 
 theories, however admirable, but for its facts as 
 data on which to found or strengthen my argu- 
 ments. 
 
 9 
 
194 
 
 I find nothing elsewhere to contradict any of 
 the statements quoted from that work, save possi- 
 bly as to the present non-existence of any ante- 
 Glacial species of "fish, reptile, bird or mammal." 
 In general, the statement is true, and most proba- 
 bly so in its broadest sense. The surviving pre- 
 Glacial species belong to the lower orders. 
 
 With these explanations, I submit my thoughts 
 on these subjects to those whose matured verdict 
 shall decide whether I have followed a veritable 
 Angel of light or a miserable will-o'-the-wisp.* 
 
 * I have just received Dana's New Edition of his Ma- 
 nual. On comparing the portions to which I have referred, 
 I find little to change. I have altered my references to cor- 
 respond to its paging. 
 
INCLINATION OF THE EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 the most remote historical period to 
 the present day, the same alternation of sea- 
 sons, and the same inequalities in the length of 
 the days and nights, have prevailed, and from this 
 we know, positively, that during this time the 
 Inclination of the Earth's Axis, their cause, has 
 not materially changed. It now amounts to nearly 
 23. Was it always of just this size, or was it 
 once different ? If different, when did the change 
 occur, and what was its cause ? 
 
 That the present condition is not eternal, is 
 evident, since at the time the Earth was an integral 
 portion of the Cosmic Nebula, it had no individual 
 existence, and consequently, no axis. Nor could 
 it properly be said to have one, even after its avul- 
 sion as a ring, from the parent mass. An axis, in 
 the sense we are considering, was possible only 
 after the "ring" had been gathered into the 
 spheroidal body which constituted the embryo 
 planet. If that was allowed to take position in 
 
196 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 obedience to the laws of gravitation and motion, 
 undisturbed by other forces, its axis was necessa- 
 rily perpendicular to the plane of its orbit. 
 
 For an unknown, but doubtless very long 
 period after this aggregation, the Earth and Moon 
 formed one Spheroidal body, having, of course, 
 but one axis, which they retained up to and for a 
 longer or shorter time after the latter's avulsion. 
 
 The orbit of the Moon normally was in the 
 plane of the Earth's equator, and hence, if not dis- 
 disturbed, the present inclination of its orbit must 
 reveal the inclination of the Earth's axis at that 
 time; in other words, their axes were then parallel. 
 At the present day the axis of the first is 
 inclined 5 9' to the ecliptic, while that of the 
 Earth is bent from the perpendicular 23J. A 
 separation of these axes amounting to about 18, 
 has, therefore, occurred since the formation of our 
 Satellite, which must have been due to a move- 
 ment of the Moon alone, or of the Earth alone, or 
 to both. 
 
 It will be found, if I am not mistaken, that this 
 difference (18) is almost wholly due to an actual 
 change of position by the Earth, and in a very 
 small degree to a movement of the lunar orbit. 
 
 That the lunar orbit has undergone a less 
 change of inclination than the Earth's axis, is ex- 
 tremely probable, for the reason that it is now 
 18 nearer the normal position than the latter. 
 Indeed, La Grange's celebrated Theorem would 
 seem to render it certain that the change was 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 197 
 
 wholly a change of the Earth's axis, for he has 
 shown that all the forces now affecting the planets 
 or their satellites, act within certain limits, alter- 
 nately increasing and diminishing, but making no 
 change in the mean inclinations of their orbits. 
 According to that, the orbit of the Moon to-day 
 has precisely the same inclination that it had at 
 the first moment of separate existence, and since 
 the axes then were parallel, the present difference 
 is wholly due to the Earth. 1 shall, however, so 
 far anticipate conclusions reached hereafter, as now 
 to say that this does not by any means exhaust the 
 subject, but that the total result of all forces now 
 or ever affecting the Moon, has produced a com- 
 paratively small but permanent change of the in- 
 clination of its orbit, although nearly all of the 18 
 was due'to an increase of the Earth's inclination. 
 
 The reader will therefore bear in mind that an 
 increase of inclination amounting to the whole 
 of the present difference between these axes, has 
 actually occurred at some time since the forma- 
 tion of the Moon, and before the earliest historical 
 records. This was not an oscillation, but a per- 
 manent change, a fact which utterly destroys the 
 almost superstitious belief in the immobility of 
 these axes, which is commonly entertained. 
 
 It must, therefore, be "borne distinctly in mind 
 that the question, which we are about to discuss, 
 is not as to the occurrence of an axial change 
 since the separation of the Moon from the Earth, 
 but whether it occurred before or after the nebu- 
 
198 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 lous mass had become solid ; if after solidification, 
 whether before or after the appearance of organic 
 life ; and if the latter, at what Epoch did it take 
 place ? 
 
 From the segregation of the Moon to the ap- 
 pearance of life, there are no facts known to me 
 having any bearing on the subject ; we must seek 
 to arrive at the truth by a more circuitous route. 
 If it could be shown that during the earlier Geolo- 
 gic Periods there was the condition necessarily 
 produced by an axis nearly perpendicular, in the 
 then warm climate, we should know that the in- 
 crease of axial inclination had not previously oc- 
 curred. This line of inquiry is open to us. 
 
 Geology has furnished a tolerably complete 
 record of the ante-human races of plants and ani- 
 mals which have flourished upon our globe. In 
 this, if I mistake not, are found facts that not 
 only are in accord with the reality of an increase 
 of the inclination of the earth's axis, but fix within 
 certain limits the date of its occurrence. 
 
 Thanks to the labors of modern Scientists, and 
 eminently to those who style themselves Evolu- 
 tionists, the Uniformity of Law is so well estab- 
 lished that entire confidence may be placed in 
 conclusions based upon it. We are therefore 
 justified in assuming that in the earlier ages of 
 the world, as now, the essential conditions of life, 
 apart from food, were light and heat. 
 
 The relation of life to the amount and distri- 
 bution of light, is of the most intimate character, 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 199 
 
 and as these depend so largely upon the inclina- 
 tion of the earth's axis, it is reasonable to expect 
 to find in the fossils of polar regions, indications 
 which shall be of great importance in the solution 
 of the question under consideration. 
 
 In Dana's Manual of Geology, p. 181 (1874), 
 we are told that "no marked difference between 
 the life of the Primordial Rocks in warm or cold 
 climates, has been observed." " The eyes of 
 Trilobites indicate that there was the full light of 
 day." (p. 209.) " No proof that a diversity of 
 Zones of Climate prevailed over the globe in any 
 portion of the Lower Silurian Era, as far as yet 
 studied." " Seven or eight United States and 
 European Species are found flourishing in tropical 
 profusion on the east and west shores of Boothia 
 and Fury Point, on North Somerset." At the 
 close of the Upper Silurian, " the living species 
 in the waters between 30 and 45 were in part 
 the same, or closely allied in species, with those 
 that flourished between 65 and 80." (p. 253.) 
 
 In the Carboniferous Period we find coal-beds 
 on Melville and Bathurst Islands, and Bank's 
 Land. (p. 352.) " Corals common to Europe and 
 United States are found in lat. 70, others have 
 been found in latitudes from 75 to 77." (Idem.) 
 " The coal-beds of the Arctic are evidences of a 
 profuse growth of vegetation. The plants were 
 not mosses of peat-swamps, such as now extend 
 far north. Through the whole hemisphere, and 
 we may say, world, there was one uniform type 
 
200 INCLINATION OF EAKTH 5 S AXIS. 
 
 of vegetation, and there were genial waters for 
 Corals and Brachiopods. The conditions between 
 70 and 78 were analogous to those of the United 
 States from Illinois to Texas/' Reptiles of the 
 Middle Mesozoic are found in lat. 77 16' N., and 
 there is no reason to believe that the plants in Mel- 
 ville differed essentially from those in Pennsylvania 
 or in Texas. 
 
 The italics in the above are mine. 
 
 These facts, in reference to which other author- 
 ities agree, might be extended indefinitely, but 
 enough has been quoted to prove that " the same 
 flora and fauna flourished abundantly " from well 
 towards the tropics to lat. 78 or 80, and that 
 thus far the conditions of life at those extremes 
 must have been substantially the same. 
 
 The importance of light, as a condition of 
 vigorous life, is well known. Even Corals will 
 die, if sunk too far below the surface of the water,* 
 
 * I am aware that it is usually thought that Corals die 
 below a certain depth from decrease of temperature, and 
 there can be no question of the fatal effect of too little heat 
 upon these tiny creatures, but the experiment recorded be- 
 low, certainly points clearly to the great influence of light 
 upon the lower orders of animals. It is well known that 
 light is necessary to the health and well-being of higher 
 organizations, especially if its absence is not accompanied by 
 cold. 
 
 The fact remains that Corals do die, when sunk below 
 300 feet, a depth sufficient to greatly reduce the supply of 
 light. Experiments as to this influence are yet a deside- 
 ratum. 
 
 In Appletons' Journal, p. 110, 1870, I find the following: 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 201 
 
 and plants will sicken and perish if deprived of 
 this necessary stimulant. 
 
 Wm. Edwards placed in a box twelve tadpoles, near tlie 
 usual epoch of their transformation into frogs, and weighed 
 them, and then plunged the box into the water of the Seine, 
 at Paris. A greater number of the same lot of tadpoles were 
 placed in a large vase, the water of which was changed 
 daily, and in which they were fully exposed to the light 
 and could come to breathe at the surface. These were in a 
 few days transformed into frogs, while only two of the 
 other twelve underwent this change, and not till long after- 
 wards. In the comparative darkness of the deep water, ten 
 of them remained in their larval state, after they had doubled 
 or tripled in weight. 
 
 The above was written before I had an opportunity of ex- 
 amining Dana's " Corals and Coral Islands," where I found, 
 page 118, the following statement. Its bearing upon my 
 argument is obvious : 
 
 " As to the origin of this small range in depth about 120 
 feet temperature must be admitted as a cause. Yet it can 
 hardly, in this case, be the only cause. The range of tem- 
 perature, 85 to 74, gives sufficient heat for the develop- 
 ment of the greater part of reef species, yet the temperature 
 at the 100 feet plane, in the Middle Pacific, is mostly above 
 74." 
 
 So it is not lack of warmth that kills these creatures, nor 
 is it any impurity in the water, for certainly the impurities 
 do not undergo any such corresponding increase of intensity. 
 The pressure of the water is not an element affecting crea- 
 tures that are composed of tissues filled with water, and not 
 with air. The only conceivable variable element capable of 
 producing any effect, is the light. 
 
 Nor is it an objection to this view that the Corals are 
 destitute of organs of sight, for in no case is the health or 
 vigor affected through the eyes of any creature, and plants 
 whose sensibility is marvelous, are as destitute of such 
 organs as the Corals. 
 
202 INCLINATION OF EARTH^S AXIS. 
 
 The effect of light, or its absence, upon plants, 
 is a matter of daily observation, and it is a rare 
 thing for one to do equally well in the shade and 
 in the direct rays of the Sun. If it be kept in the 
 dark, but warm and moist, a pale, sickly growth 
 ensues, with an absence of power to produce and 
 mature seed. Indeed, death follows if the absence 
 of light be sufficiently prolonged. 
 
 If the Axis of our Earth had, in those ages, its 
 present obliquity, there must have been the cor- 
 responding inequality of days and nights, an 
 inequality giving, in the highest latitudes where 
 fossils have been found, a day, in summer, of four 
 months' duration, followed, in winter, by a night 
 of equal length. Hence, if there be any truth in 
 Uniformity of Law, it is impossible that the same 
 plants " flourished luxuriantly " under the almost 
 equal days and nights of Texas, and the four 
 months' day and night of lat. 78. 
 
 The condition of temperature is one that can- 
 not be ignored. If the earth's axis had been 
 inclined as now, 23J, the uniform temperature 
 which prevailed * would have been impossible. 
 The short nights of India suffice, by radiation and 
 evaporation, to produce ice in sufficient quantities 
 to be an article of traffic. How greatly would the 
 effect be increased if the night continued four 
 
 * A great preponderance of ferns and lycopodiums indi- 
 cates moisture, equability of temperature, and freedom from 
 frost. (Lyell, Man. Geol., p. 395.) 
 
ITS CAfSK, AND EPOCH. 203 
 
 months instead of about twelve hours ! Kadiation 
 eo long continued (remember, the polar climate 
 was then warm and moist) would result in the 
 destruction of all tropical animals. 
 
 If to this it be said that excessive radiation 
 was prevented by a covering of clouds, I answer 
 that the character of the vegetation, at least to- 
 wards the close of the Tertiary, forbids it, for at 
 that time, in lat. 79, were found Hazel, Poplar, 
 Beech, etc. (Dana, 1874, p. 315.) " A vigorous 
 growth," Lyell says. Such a flora cannot admit a 
 darkened sky, nor a long night, warm and moist. 
 
 But it may be said that the warmth of those 
 polar regions was due not merely to the Sun, but 
 in a much greater degree to warm currents of 
 water, to low lands of moderate extent, and more 
 or less to internal heat, and therefore they were not 
 likely to be so much affected by radiation during 
 the absence of the Sun. And this is undoubtedly 
 true ; but unless the internal heat was so great 
 that life at the tropics would have been impos- 
 sible, it cannot be that these causes combined 
 could give, during the long polar nights, a climate 
 anywhere near the same as that which prevailed 
 in the same regions under the continued heat of a 
 polar day. For, calling the total heat from these 
 sources A, and the additional heat of the Sun B 
 (no small quantity now, as navigators tell us), 
 there must certainly have been a difference be- 
 tween the temperature of the day and that of the 
 
204 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 night, equal to the latter quantity, a variation of 
 many degrees and sufficient to destroy any possi- 
 bility of " equability." 
 
 Moreover, the " habit " of the carboniferous 
 plants was peculiarly favorable for the cold that 
 came from evaporation and radiation, to produce 
 its full effect. For they did not grow in great 
 masses of water, as the Algae, nor on dry land, 
 but in moist places, where the widely spread but 
 shallow water was eminently fitted to aid in the 
 process of refrigeration. 
 
 It is said that Arctic plants are found on the 
 tops of high mountains, where, although they 
 have Arctic cold, they are also exposed to days 
 and nights of comparatively equal length, and that 
 they flourish there as well as in northern latitudes 
 with their long winter nights. 
 
 Admitting the identity of the species, which is 
 questionable,* still the cases are not analogous. 
 The Arctic plants, accustomed to a stagnation of 
 six to nine months' duration, may well be in- 
 different as to where that time is spent, whether 
 in the cold and darkness of an Arctic night, or the 
 cold and light of a lower latitude. But the plants 
 of the Carboniferous Age were not polar plants at 
 all, but tropical, nor were they accustomed to a 
 
 * Darwin, Origin of Species, p. 338, says, " It should, how- 
 ever, be observed that these plants are not strictly Arctic 
 forms ; for, as Mr. H. C. Watson has remarked, ' in receding 
 from polar towards equatorial latitudes, the Alpine or Moun- 
 tain floras really become less and less Arctic.' " 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 205 
 
 sleep of six or nine months, nor at that remote 
 period was there any Arctic cold to produce 
 hibernation, but a " warm, moist, equable atmo- 
 sphere," in which they "flourished luxuriantly." 
 
 Mutatis mutandis, the same remarks apply to 
 the few plants of the temperate zone that have 
 straggled to the far north (Smith's Sound), whose 
 dwarfed and scanty growth is in marked contrast 
 to the luxuriant growth of the coal-forming period. 
 In like manner stand in sharp opposition the vig- 
 orous growth on Spitzbergen, of which I have 
 spoken, and the dwarfed willows that are to-day 
 their successors.* 
 
 * To the argument from Uniformity of Law, and the 
 Conditions of Life, I find Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, 
 page 88, making answer thus : 
 
 " The range of intensity of light to which living plants 
 can accommodate themselves, is far wider than that of heat. 
 Palms have grown in hot-houses at lat. 60 N., having ex- 
 tremes of 19 hours light to only 5 hours." 
 
 REPLY. The cases are far from analogous. Is there any 
 evidence that Palms could " flourish luxuriantly " and ma- 
 ture their seed " in a warm, moist, equable atmosphere/' 
 shut four months from the action of sunlight, and then 
 endure its uninterrupted power for an equal time? By the 
 way, do they mature at 00 N. lat. ? On page 89, he says, 
 " we should expect that in lat. 65 at least, where they 
 would never remain twenty-four hours without sunlight, 
 they might still exist." Quite possibly ; but surely this is 
 quite different from four months' night, and "flourishing 
 h&uriantly" 
 
 " Tree ferns grow in the gloomiest and darkest part of 
 the forests of warm and temperate regions." 
 
206 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 All writers on Geology admit the non-exist- 
 ence of " Zones of Climate," in these remote PC- 
 REPLY. The conditions are not sufficiently alike to per- 
 mit any analogy. Diffused daylight is very different from a 
 warm, moist, equable night of four months' duration, fol- 
 lowed by an uninterrupted day of equal length. 
 
 " The coal plants were of perfectly distinct species (from 
 living ones) ; nay, few of them, except ferns and pines, can 
 be referred to genera, or even families of the existing vege- 
 table kingdom. . . . They may have been endowed with a 
 different constitution, enabling them to bear greater varia- 
 tions of circumstances in regard to light." 
 
 REPLY. Although so many of the coal plants were dif- 
 ferent from modern kinds, yet it would be contrary to all our 
 ideas of plant character being affected, and 1 may say deter- 
 mined, by its surroundings, that a flora so identical could 
 have been developed under the widely different conditions 
 in which we find these plants. Moreover, the ferns and 
 other vegetable productions of that period, seem to have 
 been specially fitted for the large and rapid disposal of the 
 superabundant carbonic acid which then existed, consti- 
 tuting, as it were, an atmospheric fertilizer which would, in 
 " the warm, moist, equable atmosphere " of those regions, 
 have stimulated growth in the long nights. This, as we see 
 now in case of vegetables kept in a " warm, moist, equable " 
 but dark cellar, would result in an abnormal development 
 unfitted for all plant purposes. 
 
 But even if experiment should establish the possibility of 
 ferns and other species of the lower orders of the vegetable 
 kingdom "flourishing luxuriantly" in such conditions, it is 
 too much to ask us to believe that the same would be true 
 of the higher orders. The " vigorous growth of trees, as the 
 Poplar, Alder, Beech, Plane, etc.," in lat. 79, a growth which 
 Lyell styles remarkable, occurred cotemporaneously with 
 the Common Cypress of the Southern States. The vigorous 
 growth in Spitzbergen of Poplar, Alder, Beech, etc., of which 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 207 
 
 riods. The evidence is equally strong,.in fact, iden- 
 tically the same, that there were no Zones of Light. 
 From the conditions, therefore, of light and 
 heat, and the universal prevalence of identical 
 
 mention has been made, was accompanied by the common 
 Cypress of the Southern States. (Dr. Gray.) There were two 
 species of Lybocedrus in the Spitzbergen Miocene (Heer), 
 and one now lives with the Redwoods of California, while 
 the other occurs in the Andes of Chili. (Dana, Man., p. 520.) 
 These indicate a climate very happily illustrated by the last- 
 mentioned tree, a climate without extremes of cold or heat, 
 " equable and mild," and in such a climate an entire flora 
 of nearly 100 species could not have had a remarkably 
 vigorous growth in circumstances so different from their 
 present habit, as is indicated by four months of darkness. 
 
 If to these positive facts we add that there is no proof of 
 "the difference of constitution" which Lyell suggests, other 
 than the exigencies of the argument, I think we may safely 
 dismiss it from further consideration. 
 
 If to this it be replied that Willows, " stunted and 
 dwarfed," do actually grow in those same northern regions 
 at the present day, notwithstanding the long nights, I reply 
 that this ability to survive the present winter is no evidence 
 that they could have " flourished vigorously " there when the 
 entire year was warm. As has been said in reference to 
 Arctic plants (or species resembling them) growing on the 
 cold tops of tropical mountains, a plant that is exposed to 
 sufficient cold to cause hibernation, may well be indifferent 
 whether that period of torpor is passed in cold and continued 
 darkness, or in cold with the tropical alternation of days and 
 nights of tolerably uniform length. 
 
 Lyell's difficulty lies in the assumption that an increase 
 of the Earth's axial inclination is absolutely inadmissible. 
 But the astronomical argument proves not only its possi- 
 bility, but its actual occurrence. The only remaining ques- 
 tion is as to the epoch at which it took place. 
 
208 
 
 species, I am compelled to believe, unless " Uni- 
 formity of Law " is a delusion, that down to the 
 end of the Mesozoic, perhaps to the Pliocene, the 
 axis of the earth had not changed from its inclina- 
 tion at the epoch of its avulsion from the Moon, 
 and consequently was nearly perpendicular to the 
 ecliptic, a conclusion which fully accords with my 
 previous assertion that the present difference, 
 (nearly 18) between the inclination of the Moon's 
 orbit and the Earth's equator (or between their 
 axes) is principally due to a movement of the 
 Earth itself. This we shall find confirmed here- 
 after by another and entirely independent line of 
 argument. 
 
 From this time to the ' Glaciers, I see no evi- 
 dence of Zones of light. The fauna and flora to- 
 wards the end of the Tertiary, indicate a lower 
 temperature, but nothing to indicate a variation 
 in respect to light from previous conditions. It 
 is true the earth was growing colder. The isother- 
 mal lines were gradually falling towards the equa- 
 tor, but this apart from evidence of polar nights 
 and consequent vicissitudes of seasons. 
 
 This reduction of temperature was the result, 
 in part, of loss of internal heat, in part of an in- 
 crease of polar lands, and a change in direction of 
 polar currents. 
 
 Such a decrease of temperature in the higher 
 latitudes, accords also with the fact that the Sun's- 
 greatest altitude, at that time, in regions outside 
 
ITS CAUSE, AND EPOCH. 209 
 
 of the present tropics, was 18 less than it is 
 now. In the latitude of New York, the Sun then 
 rose, in midsummer, only to the height it now 
 attains in the north of Labrador, and at London it 
 rose only as high as it now does at North Cape. 
 In other words, the Sun rose at midsummer to no 
 greater height than it now attains in the first week 
 of April. 
 
 There are few indications of what occurred 
 during the Glacial Period. It has no fauna nor 
 flora, to write its history in hieratic characters. Its 
 page is almost blank ; a few rude scratches, and 
 many confused blots of debris, are almost all. 
 But after its close, as life and verdure again, as on 
 a resurrection morning, clothed the earth, we find, 
 for the first time, unmistakable signs of changing 
 seasons, and, consequently, days and nights of un- 
 equal length. Hence the Epoch of this great 
 event, the increase of the inclination of the earth's 
 axis is here, in this winter of our globe. It lies 
 between the culmination of the vegetable king- 
 dom and the completion of continental emergence 
 on the one hand, and the development or appear- 
 ance of the post-glacial fauna on the other, a 
 fauna which, by all analogy, should resemble that 
 of present circumpolar regions, the full develop- 
 ment of fowl and water animals of the present 
 day. In other words, the date of this event is to 
 be found between the grasses and fruit trees of 
 the last period of continental preparation, and the 
 living species of water and land animals. 
 
210 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 It now remains to seek for a Cause for the 
 Increase of our Earth's Axial Inclination. 
 
 I shall attempt this, by an examination of all 
 forces possibly affecting our Globe. As far as I 
 can discover, there are only five. 
 
 1. A Miraculous Interposition. 
 
 2. The Magnetic Influence of the Sun. 
 
 3. Collisions with Meteors. 
 
 4. Centrifugal force generated by the upheaval 
 or depression of portions of the Globe. 
 
 5. The attraction the Sun, Moon, and Planets 
 on such upheavals. 
 
 I dismiss as unworthy of serious consideration 
 the unphilosophical and unscientific idea that 
 somehow, without cause, the world in the process 
 of formation from a Nebula, got a cant to one side. 
 Yet this is the unexpressed belief of a large num- 
 ber of men, otherwise scientific. 
 
 A MIRACULOUS INTERPOSITION. 
 
 The incalculable importance of the inclination 
 of the earth's axis, together with an inability to 
 assign any physical cause for it, has induced many 
 persons to refer it to the special interference of 
 the Creator, by which they mean, not God acting 
 through his laws, but outside of, or even contrary 
 to his usual mode of action, and, as is implied in 
 the word special, something peculiar to our planet. 
 
CAUSE FOB INCREASE. 211 
 
 But any explanation based upon the belief 
 that this condition of axial inclination is peculiar 
 to our Earth, is seen to be untenable as soon as our 
 view extends beyond our planet, and we learn 
 that every member of the Solar System revolves 
 about an axis more or less oblique ; and not only 
 that, but that the axis of each orbit is also bent 
 from the perpendicular. 
 
 Moreover, the " final cause " of such an inter- 
 ference, viz. that the inhabitants of the planet 
 may enjoy the benefits arising from changing sea- 
 sons, however much it may have affected the 
 Divine mind in the case of our Earth, certainly is 
 not applicable to the others. 
 
 Jupiter's axis is too little inclined to produce 
 any sensible effect. That of Venus is so oblique 
 that the same spot is alternately exposed for 
 months to the unendurable heat of a torrid Sun, 
 which during that time never sets, and an Arctic 
 winter, where for an equal time the Sun never 
 rises. The Sun, where seasons are impossible, has 
 an axial obliquity more than twice as great as that 
 of Jupiter, while, to crown it all, Uranus has its 
 axis inclined 20 more than is needed to give it 
 the very seasons it now enjoys. In addition to 
 all these, to say nothing of the position of the 
 axis of our Moon, there are the varying inclina- 
 tions of the orbital axes, which have no relation 
 whatever to days or seasons. 
 
 The fact then that the axis of every member 
 
212 
 
 ofHhe Solar System and of every orbit is bent from 
 the perpendicular, clearly indicates the action of 
 some general law implanted in the constitution 
 of the Cosmos. While the variety in the effects 
 produced, proves that it acted on each separately, 
 that is to say, after its segregation from the origi- 
 nal nebula, the individuality of character im- 
 parted, reveals the existence of some cooperating 
 local force. 
 
 I am therefore compelled to conclude that the 
 solution of this problem is not to be found in a 
 Miraculous Interposition. 
 
 THE MAGNETIC INFLUENCE OF THE SUN. 
 
 The Sun, as is well known, has a magnetic 
 influence, since the needle responds to certain 
 phenomena in that body. 
 
 Is the present position of the Earth's axis a 
 residual of some former state of greater magnetic 
 power ? 
 
 Omitting all reference to the fact that such a 
 condition is purely hypothetical, I find reasons to 
 reject the proposed solution of the problem in the 
 laws of Magnetic action. 
 
 When a large magnet is held at some distance 
 from another which is free to move, the latter at 
 once assumes a position parallel to it and follows 
 every change of its position. Consequently, if 
 this power had affected the earth and other planets, 
 their axes must have been at that time parallel to 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 213 
 
 the Sun's, and they should even now retain the 
 same degree of obliquity, a result so contrary to 
 the present facts that the only conclusion possible 
 is that the Magnetic Influence of the Sun is not 
 the force we seek. 
 
 To this it may be added that such an explana- 
 tion, if true, would leave the inclinations of the 
 orbits unaccounted for. 
 
 THE EFFECTS OF METEORS. 
 
 In the opinion of some, the collision of meteors 
 with the planets has played an important part 
 in the formation and arrangement of the Solar 
 System. 
 
 A collision with a meteor of sufficient size 
 would undoubtedly affect the inclination of the 
 planet's axis, as well as that of its orbit, and 
 would increase or diminish the latter's eccentricity. 
 But as meteors are extra-Cosmical bodies, coming 
 from every part of the Universe, the probability 
 of their producing as their resultant, any great 
 effect, is infinitely small, since a blow in one di- 
 rection would sooner or later be neutralized by 
 one in the opposite. 
 
 Moreover, any such collision on a great scale 
 upon the earth, since life appeared, would have 
 left unmistakable evidence of its action. And if 
 to this it be said the present condition is the re- 
 sult of an infinite number of small collisions, the 
 difficulty is increased, for that would render it 
 
214 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 necessary to show a preponderance of blows in one 
 direction for an infinite number of years. 
 
 The difficulties are too great, the hypotheses 
 too many, for the acceptance of a theory having 
 so small a foundation in facts.* 
 
 CENTRIFUGAL FORCES. 
 
 If our earth were a perfect sphere, and a por- 
 tion had been so upheaved as to project beyond 
 the surface, it follows from the laws of motion that 
 the centrifugal force generated by this mass, as it 
 revolved about the axis of the sphere, would not 
 be neutralized, but would be a free force ; and it 
 has been said that this, exerted long enough, 
 would give any required inclination to the axis. 
 This force I now propose to examine. 
 
 Let Fig. 1 represent a homogeneous sphere 
 revolving freely on its axis AA', in the direction of 
 the arrow-head, and let M be a heavy mass, small 
 in proportion to the sphere, fixed upon and pro- 
 jecting from the surface at a sensible distance 
 from the pole. 
 
 The centrifugal force generated by M will 
 cause it to recede from the pole ; but as the sphere 
 revolves, M moves to the left, and still drawing 
 away from the pole, there results a movement to- 
 wards N and again at M" towards N'. In other 
 
 * It may be true that meteors have more or less to do 
 with the varying masses of the planets, but this lies outside 
 of my present inquiry. 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 215 
 
 FIGURE 1. 
 
 words, there arises a movement from A on every 
 side towards the equator, which can only occur by 
 M apparently sliding at each revolution a little 
 farther down the great circle PMO until it ar- 
 rives at the equator, when the longest diameter 
 (that passing through M) will be perpendicular to 
 the axis, and the system again in equilibrium. 
 Of course M, being fixed upon the sphere, causes 
 it to move in the same sense. 
 
 From this it follows that the latitude of M 
 has changed, while the axis of the sphere has 
 remained parallel to itself. 
 
 If, instead of a mass added to the sphere, a 
 portion had been removed, forming a depression, 
 a precisely similar result would have followed, but 
 in a contrary sense. 
 
216 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 A mass equal to M, placed at the opposite 
 extremity of a diameter passing through it, would 
 double its effect, while an equal depression at 
 that point, would neutralize it. And in general, 
 if the great circle passing through M be divided 
 into quadrants, calling that in which M is 1, and 
 numbering to the right, the effect of M will be 
 increased by a protuberant mass in 1 or 3, and 
 diminished by one in 2 or 4 ; while a depression 
 would produce the opposite result. 
 
 From all of which it follows that no possible 
 combination of elevations and depressions can, by 
 their centrifugal force, produce any effect upon 
 the direction of the axis of the earth.* 
 
 * It may prove interesting to verify this truth by actual 
 experiment. For this a simple modification of the Gyroscope 
 may be used. Procure a ball of hard wood some five 
 inches in diameter, with an axis of wire projecting an inch 
 or so at each pole. Procure also a scale-beam of light wood, 
 of the same length as the axis. Suspend this in the usual 
 manner by a light cord, taking care that the beam shall be so 
 adjusted that when loaded the centre of gravity and point 
 of support shall coincide. At the extremities attach equal 
 strings with loops of wire in which may rest the extremities 
 of the axis of the sphere. 
 
 This apparatus will possess great freedom of motion, and 
 at the same time the sphere will remain at rest in any posi- 
 tion, being in all respects in a state of indifferent equilibrium. 
 When set to revolving, it will exhibit the usual phenomena 
 of the Gfyroscope. 
 
 A piece of lead may then be fixed with a screw upon the 
 surface at, say, 45 from the equator, and another of equal 
 size and weight at the opposite end of the diameter, pass- 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 217 
 
 The fact that the earth is not a sphere, but 
 an oblate spheroid, presents no real change of 
 condition. For it may be considered a sphere 
 with an equatorial protuberance completely belt- 
 ing it. 
 
 In this case, as M recedes from A, the portion 
 of the belt below it will recede an equal distance 
 from the equator, while on the opposite side the 
 protuberance will rise above it, and these being 
 in reference to M, in quadrants 2 and 4, will 
 tend to neutralize ks effect, the one increasing 
 and the other diminishing as M approaches 
 the equator, until the system is again in equi- 
 librium. 
 
 Hence, in an oblate spheroid, as well as in a 
 sphere, it would be possible to make the latitude of 
 places vary indefinitely, but no combination of 
 elevations or depressions could, by their centri- 
 fugal forces, affect the position of the axis. 
 
 If, in the last case, M.were removed, the pro- 
 ing through* the first. The system will still be in equi- 
 librium. 
 
 If, now, the sphere be made to revolve with moderate 
 rapidity, it will rotate, not around the original axis, but 
 around one nearly parallel to its normal position, while the 
 former (the original axis) will revolve with the sphere, the 
 projecting end describing a circle about the new pole. The 
 lack of absolute parallelism is due to the difficulty of start- 
 ing the instrument without disturbing its position, as well 
 as to its having to move a mass outside of itself which is not 
 Asymmetrically placed. 
 
 10 
 
218 INCLINATION OF EAKTH's AXIS. 
 
 tuberant belt would return to the equator, and 
 every place resume its former latitude.* 
 
 From all these considerations I am brought to 
 the conclusion that the power which affected the 
 position of our planet's axis, does not lie in Cen- 
 trifugal Forces. 
 
 The only conceivable force remaining is 
 
 THE ATTRACTION OF THE SUN, MOON, AND PLA- 
 NETS ON MASSES ELEVATED ABOVE THE 
 TRUE SURFACE OF THE EARTH. 
 
 For the purposes of this and similar discus- 
 sions, the earth may be considered, without error, 
 as a motionless body placed at the extremity of a 
 rigid radius of its orbit, but able to move with 
 absolute freedom about its own centre. For, the 
 forces under consideration, i. e. the attraction of 
 the Sun, etc., being at right angles to the diurnal 
 and orbital movements, will produce the same 
 effect upon the planet as if those movements had 
 not been in existence. A body driven east with 
 a velocity of five* miles an hour, and impinged 
 upon by another force capable of sending it south 
 at the rate of seven miles in the same time, will, 
 
 * I have not thought it necessary for my purpose to dis- 
 tinguish between the direct centrifugal force of M, and what 
 I may term its " turning power," into which it can easily be 
 resolved. The former increases as the cosine of the latitude, 
 while the latter increases as the sin lat. x cos lat., and is 
 therefore zero at the pole, increases to 45, and again becomes 
 zero at the equator. * 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 219 
 
 it is true, describe the resultant of both forces, 
 but it is equally true that it will go exactly as far 
 south as if the east force had not been applied. 
 
 In brief, each force performs its work as if it 
 was the only one acting. 
 
 Omitting, therefore, all consideration of orbital 
 or axial motion, we shall suppose the earth a 
 homogeneous sphere placed 91,500,000 miles from 
 the Sun, but free to move in any manner about 
 its centre of gravity. 
 
 It is evident that the solar attraction can not 
 produce any movement, since its influence upon 
 one part is counterbalanced by another symmetri- 
 cally placed. 
 
 If the axis is perpendicular to the ecliptic, the 
 attraction of the Sun upon a polar upheaval will be 
 equally without effect, since no internal movement 
 can change the position of the centre of gravity 
 (Principia), and a polar upheaval would necessi- 
 tate a sufficient movement of the remaining mass 
 in the opposite direction, to keep the equilibrium 
 undisturbed, while the intensity of the attracting 
 force on each molecule would be unchanged. 
 * But if the axis were sensibly inclined, say 5 9', 
 and the sphere elongated in the same direction 
 (i. e. a polar upheaval), then one pole would be 
 nearer the centre of attraction than the other, and 
 acted upon with greater intensity. Hence it 
 would be drawn towards the ecliptic precisely in 
 
220 INCLINATION OF EARTIl's AXIS. 
 
 the same manner and for the same reason as is 
 now the equatorial protuberance. 
 
 FIGURE 2. 
 
 Let Fig. 2 represent a homogeneous sphere, 
 witfi axis PP' inclined to the ecliptic, S being the 
 Sun. Suppose the sphere to be elongated, as 
 represented by the dotted lines.. Then, since P is 
 nearer the Sun than P', it will be attracted more 
 strongly, and consequently drawn down to the 
 ecliptic, and if no force opposes, its momentum 
 will carry it as far -below, until stopped by the 
 action of S, when it will return to the ecliptic, and 
 so vibrate back and forth like a pendulum. 
 
 An equatorial protuberance, for similar rea- 
 sons, would be an opposing force, which being 
 null when the equator coincides with the ecliptic, 
 increases as the ang. SOE increases, until, be- 
 coming equal to the turning force exerted by 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 221 
 
 P and P', the system again comes into equi- 
 librium.* 
 
 From this it appears that three conditions are 
 necessary to give a homogeneous sphere the posi- 
 tion occupied by our earth. 
 
 1st. That the axis should already be sensibly 
 inclined. 
 
 2d. That there should be a polar upheaval. 
 
 3d. That there should be an equatorial pro- 
 tuberance. 
 
 The part which each of these performs has 
 already been sufficiently indicated. It is in evi- 
 dence that the earth's axis once had an inclination 
 
 * It may, however, be thought that the revolution of the 
 earth upon its axis somehow imparts such stability to it that 
 a polar attraction would produce no effect. 
 
 The same little instrument described on page 216, note, will 
 be useful as illustrating the truth of the statement which I 
 have endeavored to establish. 
 
 From the sphere, remove the lead weights used in the 
 experiment described a few pages back. We then have 
 a modification of the common gyroscope. Turn the instru- 
 ment to the right or left, to give the supporting string some 
 slight degree of torsion. Then set the sphere in rapid rota- 
 tion on its axis, and allow it freedom of motion. It will 
 invariably be found (if the experiment is performed with 
 reasonable care not to impart lateral or circular motion by 
 the hand at the moment of ceasing to hold the instrument) 
 that the exceedingly slight force exerted by the tension of 
 the string, acting as it does, perpendicularly to the axis at 
 each pole, will cause the sphere, while revolving rapidly on 
 its horizontal axis, to also revolve slowly about a vertical 
 one. Q. E. D. 
 
of about 5 9', while its present oblateness leaves 
 no question as to the fulfilment of the third con- 
 dition. 
 
 It remains then, only to consider the second, 
 and also whether any possible upheaval could 
 have been large enough to overcome the stability 
 of the equatorial belt. 
 
 As to the existence of polar upheavals. There 
 is scattered everywhere over the Geologic page 
 evidence in abundance that immense upheavals 
 and corresponding depressions have been frequent 
 in the history of the globe, from the earliest 
 periods to the present moment. 
 
 In general, these occurred in differently in 
 every portion of the globe, and were not of the 
 polar character required. But the Glacial Period, 
 towards which so much independent testimony 
 points as the epoch of this great movement, was 
 peculiar for its enormous northern and southern 
 upheavals. These not only gave the kind of up- 
 heavals for which we are seeking, but at the same 
 time, by the necessary, corresponding equatorial 
 depression, by so much diminished the resisting 
 power of the equatorial belt. 
 
 The vast extent of these polar upheavals is 
 plainly indicated by the large area of country over 
 which the ice of the Glacial Period has left its 
 traces, an area extending from the poles at least 
 50 towards the equator. As to the height of the 
 movement, or even the thickness of the ice then 
 
CAUSE FOE INCREASE. 223 
 
 formed, there are no data on which to form any 
 exact estimate. That it must have been considera- 
 ble is shown by the fact that stones frozen fast in 
 its under surface were pushed over the tops of 
 most of the mountains in the New England and 
 Middle States, as proved by their traces or striae 
 graved on the surface rocks.* 
 
 * In estimating the area of this ice-cap, it must be borne 
 in mind that while the striae are proof of the former presence 
 of a glacier, the opposite is by no means true. The striae 
 and the debris are evidence of ice in motion, and they also 
 reveal the direction of the movement. If from any cause 
 the under surface was at rest, all these indications would 
 be absent. It is quite possible to imagine an immense ex- 
 tent of country covered with a great depth of ice and snow, 
 which should leave none of the characteristic marks of 
 glaciers. 
 
 Suppose a plain some thousands of miles in diameter, 
 covered with a moderately thick layer of ice. The edge of 
 this ice might even be vertical ; but as the height increased, 
 as layer after layer was applied one above the other, there 
 would at length be a pushing out of the lower portion and a 
 dropping down of the " shoulder " of the ice until a point 
 was reached when the rigidity of the ice itself and the 
 friction should become equal to the moving force. This 
 movement would extend into the great mass to a distance 
 depending upon the height, i. e. the pressure, but in no case 
 could it reach inward farther than the point vertically under 
 the shoulder ; in fact, it could not reach as far as that. All 
 inside of this point would be at rest, and consequently all the 
 immense area within such points would be at rest, and hence, 
 for many millions of square miles so covered, there would 
 be neither striae nor debris. If the surface of the plain 
 abounded in inequalities, or if it was bounded by a riin of 
 
224: INCLINATION OF EARTfi's AXIS. 
 
 The absence of marks of great convulsions is 
 further evidence that this upheaval was due to* no 
 local action but rather that it was a telluric oscil- 
 lation, too vast to exhibit the ordinary results in 
 contorted strata. Such immense lines admitted of 
 flexure under sufficient force acting with infini- 
 tesimal velocity. 
 
 high lands, the needed depth of ice to produce motion would 
 be greater, and the area of no motion larger. 
 
 I can imagine a polar ice-cap where there should be no 
 motion even at the border. Suppose this plain covered 
 with ice and snow in such a manner that the lower edge 
 is very thin, increasing imperceptibly in thickness as one 
 goes towards the pole, but with no high land to give initial 
 motion. It ifl probable that the ice might accumulate for 
 centuries, and then melt and pass away and leave no traces 
 behind it. 
 
 Such a plain is that reaching from the Gulf of Mexico to 
 the Arctic Ocean. 
 
 Should there be on our supposed plain isolated mountains 
 or land slopes, with or without mountain chains, there would 
 be local action as the ice-cap gathered ; followed, however, by 
 a period of quiescence, as it became more truly telluric in 
 extent and blotted out the surface inequalities. As the ice 
 covering was disappearing, these mountains and slopes 
 would often produce the phenomena incident to local gla- 
 ciers, ploughing over the ground, grinding to powder the 
 rocks, or scoring their record on the polished surfaces. Each 
 of these elevations might become a local centre, from which 
 the ice moved in lines somewhat radial. As it sank away, 
 new and secondary centres of movement, might be developed 
 until the force was exhausted. 
 
 Hence there may be indications of local glaciers, which 
 in fact are the residua, so to speak, of the great telluric ice 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 225 
 
 From all these considerations I think there 
 can be no question as to the existence of the kind 
 of upheaval which my theory requires. Nor is it 
 any reasonable objection to it that I am unable to 
 give a satisfactory explanation of its cause. My 
 ignorance has no bearing upon the actual occur- 
 rence of such a movement. 
 
 There are, however, some facts well worth con- 
 sidering in this connection. 
 
 Upheavals and depressions seem to be normal 
 to all members of our system. They are occur- 
 ring now on a vast scale in the Sun. If some of 
 the best observers can be relied upon, upheavals 
 that dwarf all that our theory calls for upon our 
 planet, are now taking place in Saturn. 
 
 Sir William Herschel reports observing such 
 an upheaval on the " shoulders " of that planet, 
 so immense that the greatest and least diameters 
 were to each other as 36 to 32, that of the equator 
 being only 35, indicating a movement of more 
 than 1000 miles outward on a side, or reducing it 
 
 cap, in places where the latter has left no traces of its 
 presence. 
 
 Mr. Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, page 107, says, 
 " We must not omit to dwell on the important effects to 
 which a wide expanse of perpetual snow would give rise. 
 It is probable that nearly the whole sea from the poles to 
 lat. 45 would be frozen over." 
 
 Such an ice- cap would deserve to be called telluric, and 
 in time would freeze that portion of the ocean solid to its 
 lowest depths. 
 
 10* 
 
226 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 to the scale of our earth, indicating an upheaval 
 above the surface of the sea of more than 100 
 miles, a movement vastly exceeding the amount 
 needed for changing the position of the earth's 
 axis. 
 
 I condense the following from the Cornhill 
 Magazine, September, 1873 : That movements are 
 now going on in some of the planets and in the 
 Sun, on an immense scale, is probable, from the 
 results of the most careful observations. In 1803, 
 Schroter found that Saturn's figure was distorted. 
 In 1855, Coolidge noticed the swollen appearance 
 of this planet about lat. 20 ; yet not long after, 
 it resumed its usual form. The two Bonds have 
 seen the square shoulders, and have noticed other 
 variations of shape. It seems to have been ren- 
 dered probable by Secchi and others, that our 
 Sun's globe varies in diameter. 
 
 As to the mode of action by which crumpling 
 of the strata was avoided, I might suggest what, 
 at least, is not physically impossible. If the equa- 
 tor became slightly elliptic, its perimeter would 
 not be diminished, while its area would become 
 less, necessitating a northern and southern pro- 
 longation. If the perimeter became slightly less, 
 if, for example, the present diameter became the 
 major axis, the polar-ward movement would be 
 vastly greater. There is even now, if astronomers 
 are not mistaken, a residuum perhaps of that 
 movement, in the present ellipticity of the equa- 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 227 
 
 tor, one of whose diameters is nearly two miles 
 shorter than that at, right angles to it. If the 
 longer diameter remained unchanged and there 
 was no radial condensation (of which there can 
 be no positive evidence), such a shortening of the 
 other diameter required an upheaval of 33,000,000 
 cubic miles about each pole. 
 
 Unaccountable as at present such a movement 
 appears, it is really no more extraordinary than 
 those which show their traces in the irregular 
 perimeter of a section of the earth parallel to the 
 equator, and far less so than those which have 
 been noted in Saturn. 
 
 "Having established the fact that a circumpolar 
 upheaval has occurred, it remains to inquire how 
 large a one would be needed, and whether one of 
 that extent could have occurred. It is no longer 
 a question of kind, but of degree. 
 
 And first let me caution the reader against 
 concluding the non-existence of a sufficient up- 
 heaval on account of what seems to him its great 
 magnitude, for he must remember that but little 
 (nothing ?) is known of the cause of any upheaval, 
 large or small, and in our ignorance we have no 
 facts whatever on which to estimate its possi- 
 bilities. 
 
 To arrive at any positive results it is neces 
 sary first to determine the cubic amount of a suf- 
 ficient polar upheaval. 
 
 To reduce the spheroid to a condition of indif- 
 
228 
 
 ferent equilibrium, it would be sufficient to change 
 it to a sphere, a change necessitating a shortening 
 of the equatorial radius of about four and a half 
 miles. The surface of this sphere, whose con- 
 tents would be exactly the same as the spheroid's, 
 would cut the surface of the latter in the thirtieth 
 parallel of latitude, and would recede from it uni- 
 formly to the poles, when the distance between 
 them would be 8.8 miles. This earth-cap, cover- 
 ing each pole, is the measure of the mass to be 
 added to the spheroid by what would be, in ef- 
 fect, a transfer from equatorial regions. The con- 
 tents of these two caps would be approximately 
 293,000,000 of cubic miles. Any excess would 
 turn the axis from the perpendicular. 
 
 Inconceivably great as is this amount, it is lees 
 than one-eighth of one per cent, of the entire 
 mass. On a common thirteen-inch globe, its 
 maximum of elevation would be less than one- 
 seventieth of an inch, an amount not visible on 
 such a figure to the closest observer. 
 
 Still, relatively small as it is, it is yet abso- 
 lutely large, and needs to be accounted for. 
 
 Mr. Lyell, Prin. Geo., p. Ill, has given an 
 imaginary map of the globe, showing a possible 
 upheaval of polar lands and depression of equato- 
 rial, such, however, that the amount of water and 
 land surface remains unchanged. This he pre- 
 sents as a supposable condition that would account 
 for the cold of the glaciers. As the land is raised 
 
CAUSE FOR INCREASE. 229 
 
 above the ocean bottom three or more miles, we 
 should, if Mr. Lyell's hypothesis became a reality, 
 have in that a portion of the transferrence re- 
 quired,* no small part either, for the continents 
 with their shoulders and neighboring shallows 
 cover an area of nearly 70,000,000 square miles. 
 This, multiplied by the average ocean depth, 3 
 miles, gives say 210,000,000 cubic miles. The 
 area of these polar caps (i. e. from 30 N. and S.) 
 of which we have spoken, is about 100,000,000 
 square miles. If this were raised on an average 
 5,280 feet, it would add as many cubic miles. 
 
 To this it may rightly be answered that a part 
 of the present land is in these very circumpolar 
 regions, and hence, in their case, there would be 
 no change of condition. Very true ; but suppose 
 tin* mass uplifted is in addition to the land ahv.-uiy 
 in those parts, then the entire upheaval would be 
 a turning power. On these hypotheses, with the 
 effect of the equator becoming elliptical, we have 
 376,000,000 cubic, miles, sufficient to place the 
 globe in a state of indifferent equilibrium and 
 leave free 83,000,000 cubic miles. Another mile 
 of elevation would add 100,000,000. Such an 
 elevation undoubtedly would commence with a 
 gradual slope and increase towards the pole, where 
 a given mass would be most efficient. 
 
 * I use the words transfer and transferrence for conve- 
 nience merely. There was the same result that a transfer 
 would have produced, but really no transfer, save, as I shall 
 show, of water. 
 
230 INCLINATION OF EARTH*S AXIS. 
 
 There is another force of no mean amount, yet 
 to be considered. I mean the actual transfer of 
 water from the equator to circumpolar regions, 
 and the accumulation of it there as ice. 
 
 I have already discussed the impossibility of 
 predicating the absence of glaciers, because the 
 characteristic striae are wanting. The ice over so 
 vast an extent may have come and gone and left 
 no sign over large tracts. The polar regions be- 
 came intensely cold, partly owing to the moderate 
 surface of water, partly to the general elevation of 
 the land, partly to derangement of warm cur- 
 rents, and partly to the small altitude of the sun, 
 which then rose to a height 18 less than at 
 present. It may be that our earth was in one of 
 those epochs of greatest eccentricity, of which Mr. 
 Croll speaks, or, as has been suggested, our system 
 was passing through a colder portion of space. 
 These reasons may all be considered as in part 
 explaining the intense cold, although for myself I 
 cannot accept as true either of the last two. But 
 the fact remains, the circumpolar regions became 
 during the epoch of polar upheavals intensely 
 cold. Land and water became covered, down to 
 45 and more, with a coat of ice.* The equatorial 
 waters, by the law of their being, could never 
 cease to evaporate, as long as any water remained, 
 until the air became permanently saturated. Such 
 a saturation could never occur, for the vapors 
 * Lyell, Elements Geol., p. 107. 
 
CAUSE FOK INCREASE. 231 
 
 rising and passing into the cold regions North and 
 South, discharged their moisture, which, changing 
 to ice, remained. The vapors continuing to rise, 
 continued to be condensed, towards the cold poles. 
 The operation was precisely similar to that of the 
 common philosophical instrument called a cry- 
 ophorus. Every one who has witnessed this experi- 
 ment has seen the water in the warm bulb pass 
 as vapor into the cold one, where it is condensed 
 and frozen, the process continuing until the water 
 is exhausted. 
 
 Hence it follows that there was a steady trans- 
 ferrence of water from equatorial to polar regions, 
 and but for the melting at the lower edge of the 
 glacier, the whole ocean must have been, in time, 
 exhausted. The result was an immense polar ice- 
 cap falling away towards the lower edges, while 
 the northern and southern seas became iiczen solid. 
 
 If one-half the equatorial waters was thus 
 transferred, the ice-cap must have been equal in 
 weight to a layer of the same materials as the con- 
 tinents, containing something like 50,000,000 cubic 
 miles. 
 
 Taking all these into account, we have an excess 
 over the polar earth-caps sufficient to make our 
 spheroid a sphere, amounting to say 233,000,000 
 cubic miles. As this excess was directly or indi- 
 rectly taken from the equatorial portion, the defi- 
 ciency there acted in the same sense, and really 
 doubled the effect. 
 
232 
 
 In comparing the effect of a circurnpolar excess 
 with the influence of the Sun and Moon on the 
 equatorial protuberance, it must be borne in mind 
 that the former was a constant force, while the 
 latter is intermittent, varying twice in a year from 
 its maximum to zero. 
 
 I have thus roughly indicated the possible 
 working of forces of upheaval. The greatest, 
 and I may say the only difficulty, is their vastness. 
 
 I cannot say that I attach much weight to the 
 idea that all land became polar. Perhaps it would 
 be better to say, without attempting any details, 
 that this movement was caused by immense polar 
 upheavals, aided by the inconceivably great ac- 
 cumulation of ice. 
 
 This storing of the waters of low latitudes as 
 ice in circumpolar regions, is an explanation of a 
 difficulty that has probably occurred to the reader 
 in reference to the shortening of the equatorial 
 radius, viz. that such a shortening would, by the 
 ordinary laws of motion, cause a gathering of all 
 the water of the globe at those parts, and a con- 
 sequent submergence of the continents, a deluge 
 of whose existence there has no proof been dis- 
 covered. But since the water was carried by the 
 atmosphere North and South, and then deposited 
 as ice, any such catastrophe was rendered irnpos- 
 "sible. Instead of a deluge, there was more pro- 
 bably a drought. 
 
 One other fact is not out of place. If the con- 
 
CAUSE FOB INCREASE. 233 
 
 tinents retained their present altitude, the per- 
 sistent evaporation, with consequent loss of heat, 
 would of itself reduce the equatorial temperature, 
 while the sinking of the surface of the ocean would 
 produce the same effect as elevating the land, 
 giving it a rarer atmosphere, and less power of 
 retaining solar heat. 
 
 Thus the movement by its own effects intensi- 
 fied itself. Such effect, moreover, would explain the 
 fact that the destruction of the higher pre-glacial 
 animal life appears to have been so universal. 
 
 It remains only to supplement this discussion 
 by showing that the present difference between 
 the inclination of the earth's axis and that of the 
 moon's orbit is not in any large degree due to a 
 movement of the latter. 
 
 FIGURE 3. 
 
 Let Fig. 3 represent the Sun, Moon, and Earth, 
 while the Moon's orbit yet coincided with the 
 plane of the Earth's equator. We will suppose 
 too, that the axis PP' was inclined in a sensible 
 
234 INCLINATION OF EAKTH's AXIS. 
 
 degree to the ecliptic, say 5, a condition whose 
 origin and cause will be considered in " Cos- 
 mology." 
 
 At that epoch, then, the difference between 
 the inclination of the Earth's axis and that of the 
 Moon's orbit, was null. It is evident that the 
 Sun's attraction upon M could not affect the mean 
 position of its orbit, for the decreased inclination 
 at M will be nearly counteracted at M', leaving a 
 small residual in favor of M, on account of its less 
 distance from the Sun. This small residual will 
 be fully counterbalanced when the Earth has 
 moved to the opposite side of its orbit, giving 
 then to M' an exactly equal superiority over M, 
 and leaving the total effect absolutely nothing, in 
 exact harmony with La Grange's Theorem. 
 
 In precisely the same manner it can be shown 
 that the influence of the other members of the 
 Solar System lying outside of the Moon's orbit, 
 will be equally null. 
 
 Ergo, the present difference of inclination 
 which we are considering, is not due in the least 
 to a movement of the Moon caused by any action 
 of Sun or planets. 
 
 Could it have been due to a movement of the 
 Moon, caused by the Earth ? 
 
 The Earth, as a true sphere, could produce no 
 movement whatever. We must, then, look to the 
 effect of upheavals. I shall show that no con- 
 siderable part of this difference, 18, is due to a 
 
CAUSE FOE INCREASE. 235 
 
 movement produced by the attraction of massive 
 upheavals upon the Earth's surface. 
 
 Suppose, all things remaining as before, a 
 great upheaval at one of the poles P, the Moon 
 being at M'. Evidently M' would be drawn to- 
 wards the ecliptic, but when it had passed on 180 
 to M, it would be drawn an equal distance away 
 from the ecliptic. Hence no permanent effect 
 whatever could be produced. There certainly is, 
 at the present day, a separation of 18^. I have 
 shown that it could not possibly be due to the 
 movement of the Moon's orbit, hence there is no 
 escaping the conclusion that it is due to a move- 
 ment of the Earth it. -fit'. 
 
 Quite possibly the reader may here say, True, 
 there could be no movement of the Moon gene- 
 rated by massive upheavals upon the Earth's sur 
 face, providing that the two axes then had the 
 same inclination, and so far your proposition is 
 the enunciation of a fact. But as you have shown 
 that a polar upheaval upon the Earth would, on 
 condition of a prior inclination to a sensible 
 amount (5), result in a movement of the axis, so 
 it may have happened that from some cause the 
 Earth's axis was inclined a little more, causing the 
 plane of its equator and the Moon's orbit no longer 
 to coincide, then perhaps the remainder of the 
 18 was due to a movement of the Moon. 
 
 I shall endeavor to show that even if these 
 were inclined at any supposable angle, very little 
 
236 
 
 effect could be produced upon the Moon's posi- 
 tion. For, first, the distance of the Moon from 
 the centre of the Earth being sixty times greater 
 than that of the polar mass P, it is evident that 
 any force exerted by P to move M, will, by the 
 laws of composition of forces, act at a great mechani- 
 cal disadvantage, while the opposite will be true of 
 the effect of M to turn the Earth, a difference much 
 more than sufficient to counterbalance the dif- 
 ference in their sizes (masses). Second, If the 
 Moon was raised just as many miles as the pole P 
 is moved from its position, the angular change 
 would be far from equal, a movement of 10 on 
 the Earth being equal in miles to only 10' at the 
 Moon. 
 
 Hence the conclusion, as far as I can see, is 
 unavoidable, that the movement of the lunar orbit 
 was very small ; a result fully corroborated by the 
 position of all the other satellites save one, the cause 
 of whose singularity will be hereafter discussed, 
 and consequently that the present difference be- 
 tween the inclination of the Earth's axis and the 
 axis of the Moon's orbit, is almost wholly due to 
 a movement of the Earth itself. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 I conclude then, that the attraction of the Sun 
 and Moon upon polar protuberances, is the physi- 
 cal cause of the.present inclination of the axis of 
 the Earth. 
 
RESUME. 237 
 
 A polar elevation acted upon by Sun and 
 Moon, and in some degree by the planets, turned 
 the pole of the earth towards the ecliptic in an 
 ever-widening spiral, until, the mass returning to 
 its normal position, the movement ceased, owini^ 
 to the attraction of these same bodies on the equa- 
 torial belt. This attraction acting by itself would 
 have caused the equatorial protuberance to draw 
 the equator not only to the ecliptic, but by the 
 usual laws of matter to pass on as far beneath, 
 until again stopped by the attractive force, to be 
 again drawn hack, thus, like a mighty pendulum, 
 vibrating back and forth forever. This result 
 now actually exists, disguised, however, by the 
 axial and orbital motion of the earth, and resulting 
 in the precession of the Equinoxes. 
 
 It may be noticed as a curious circumstance 
 that during the predominance of the polar attrac- 
 tion, instead of a precession of the Equinoxes, 
 there was an apparent movement in the opposite 
 direction. 
 
 RESUME. 
 
 
 
 AS TO THE EPOCH OF AXIAL CHANGE OF INCLINATION. 
 
 1. There was no telluric axis before the Earth 
 was segregated from the great Nebula. 
 
 2. The normal lunar-telluric axis was perpen- 
 
238 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 dictilar'to the Cosmic equator, and hence, to the 
 plane of the Earth's orbit. 
 
 3. The lunar orbit is now inclined 5 9' 
 
 4. The Earth's axis is now inclined 23. 
 
 5. The two were once parallel. They now 
 differ nearly 18f>. 
 
 6. This difference is subsequent to the avul- 
 sion of the Moon, and is, in only a very small 
 degree, due to a movement of its orbit. 
 
 7. This difference is almost wholly due to a 
 movement of the Earth. 
 
 8. From the uniform distribution of fossils, we 
 learn that the Earth's axis, till well towards the 
 Epoch of the Glaciers, and probably into that 
 period to some extent, was almost perpendicular. 
 
 9. The closing period of the time of perpen- 
 dicular axis, the Tertiary, was distinguished for 
 the completion of land development, and biologi- 
 cally for the appearance and predominance of 
 modern Grasses, Angiosperms, and Palms, i. e. 
 " the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in itself." 
 
 After this followed the Glacial Epoch. 
 
 10. At the earliest period after this Epoch of 
 which we have* any knowledge, the axis of the 
 Earth had its present inclination. 
 
 Hence, as this change occurred after the Ter- 
 tiary, and before the Historic period, its epoch is 
 between them, i. e. IN THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 
 
CAUSE OF AXIAL CHANGE. 239 
 
 AS TO THE CAUSE OF AXIAL CHANGE. 
 
 1. It was not a cause outside of the laws 
 governing the rest of the System. 
 
 2. It cannot be due to Magnetic forces. 
 
 3. It cannot be due to collision with Meteors. 
 
 4. It cannot be due to any centrifugal force. 
 
 5. It could have been produced by the attrac- 
 tion of the Sun, Moon, and Planets upon polar 
 upheavals. 
 
 6. No other force yet known could affect the 
 Earth's position. 
 
 AS TO THE REALITY OF SUCH UPHEAVALS. 
 
 1. Immense upheavals are now occurring on 
 Saturn and on the Sun, as well as, upon a smaller 
 scale, upon the Earth.* 
 
 2. We know of no law or circumstance deter- 
 mining their limits, and are equally ignorant of 
 their cause and of bounds to its power. At this 
 moment there is a difference between the lowest 
 
 * Mr. Horner, in his Address to the British Association, 
 1846, p. 63, says : " That land in various parts of the earth 
 has undergone movements of elevation and depression, and 
 that it has been subject to such oscillations at all times up 
 to the present day, admits, I think, of no doubt." He quotes 
 Mr. Darwin as saying that " daily it is forced home upon 
 the mind of the Geologist, that nothing, not even the wind 
 that blows, is so unstable as the level of the crust of this 
 earth." Strong language, and probably uttered under the 
 impulse of strong feeling, yet sufficiently exact to fully 
 sustain my position. 
 
24:0 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 depression and the highest elevation of about 16 
 miles. 
 
 3. Polar upheavals occurred during the Glacial 
 Epoch on a scale surpassing any telluric move- 
 ments of which we have any knowledge. 
 
 4:. There was at the same time an extraordi- 
 nary transfer of water from equatorial regions to 
 polar, where it was piled up as ice, thus diminish- 
 ing the equatorial protuberance and increasing the 
 polar upheaval.' 3 *' / 
 
 * Since the above was in type, I have seen the very able 
 article of Messrs. Newcomb and Holden, in the American 
 Journal of Arts and Sciences, October, 1874, which appears 
 to dispose of the existence of periodic variations of the Solar 
 diameter. Those of a temporary and irregular character, 
 however, may exist, indeed, must exist, if the upheaved 
 masses of Hydrogen, or other matter, be considered as part 
 of the Sun, since a diameter measured through such an up- 
 heaval would be longer than one measured elsewhere. Regu- 
 lar periodic changes of real diameter are inconceivable, but 
 spasmodic changes are normal to the whole system, and 
 although subject to law, yet it is a law so complicated that 
 as yet it has been impossible to do more than to record their 
 occurrence. 
 
 One word as to the strange distortions of Saturn. It is 
 suggested that these are in some way due to the attraction 
 of its Satellites ; but, if this were so, they would necessarily 
 recur in a Cycle, giving a rhythm to their movements of 
 which there are no indications. 
 
EPOCH OF AXIAL CHANGE. 241 
 
 ANOTHER THEORY. 
 
 One of the peculiar advantages of a phenome- 
 nal description is that it cannot be destroyed. It 
 possesses a vitality that refuses to yield to friend 
 or foe. Positive refutations equally with errone- 
 ous explanations, leave it unharmed. Thus it will 
 be with the Mosaic account of the fourth day's 
 work ; if it represent actual occurrences, its truth- 
 fulness is in no degree dependent upon the cor- 
 rectness of our theories. Hence, should the reader 
 be able to show that the explanation here given, 
 li;i> no ground in the facts of our world's history, 
 it would be grossly illogical for him to deduce the 
 conclusion that the Narrative itself is in like pre- 
 dicament. 
 
 I have developed in the preceding " Inquiry " 
 what seems to me the true exposition of the work 
 of the fourth day, and have endeavored to coordi- 
 nate all the physical facts bearing upon the subject. 
 There has also . occurred to me another Theory, 
 which I give for what it is worth. It accords 
 with the facts of the world's history better than 
 any explanation of which I have read, and, if I over- 
 estimate the value and truthfulness of my solution, 
 may aid in obtaining the true one. It is not sat- 
 isfactory to myself, because it lacks that sharp 
 literalism which seems to me one of the most 
 11 
 
24:2 INCLINATION OF EARTH'S AXIS. 
 
 marked peculiarities of the Mosaic Account, and 
 does not follow the text into every phase of ex- 
 pression. It lacks, too, that marvelous interlinear 
 reading, so characteristic of the preceding verses. 
 We may suppose, then, that the earlier Geo- 
 logical Ages, at least after the Cretaceous, had 
 a sky nearly as clear and a Sun as bright as 
 ours, and that under its genial beams " the 
 earth brought forth grasses, herbs, and the tree 
 yielding fruit whose seed is in itself" (i. e. an- 
 giosperms and palms), as well as the varied pre- 
 glacial fauna. That towards the close of the 
 Tertiary, when such a flora had become dominant, 
 the cold of the telluric glacial winter set in, and 
 that dense clouds hiding the Sun, the Moon, and 
 the Stars, gathered over all the world, bringing 
 back almost primordial darkness.* That during 
 this long time of ice and darkness, one unchanging 
 season of almost endless winter prevailed. At 
 last, from some unknown cause due to the Divine 
 Worker, warmth revisited the earth, the clouds 
 cleared away, revealing, as if a new creation, the 
 greater and lesser lights, and " the stars also ; " 
 the monotony of the world-wide winter was fol- 
 
 * These clouds and darkness have not, as far as I am 
 aware, any sufficient foundation in fact, but for aught I 
 know, they may have occurred/ This is as good authority 
 for the assertion as belongs to many Scientific theories as 
 well as to the greater number of the explanations of the 
 account given in Genesis, which have fallen under my ob- 
 servation 
 
EPOCH OF AXIAL CHANGE. 243 
 
 lowed by the pleasing vicissitude of Spring and 
 Summer, Autumn and Winter, a joyous pro- 
 cession that has ever since brought seed-time and 
 harvest. 
 
 The fauna of water animals and fowls, which 
 were so appropriate to the close of the reign of 
 ice and cold, would harmonize equally well with 
 cither of the explanations which I have given of 
 the work of the fourth day. 
 
COSMOLOGY. 
 
 THE study of the influence of Solar and Lunar 
 attraction upon telluric upheavals, leads to a 
 field of inquiry by no means limited to the planet 
 on which we live. It may seem not germane to 
 the subject which thus far has occupied the reader's 
 attention, but as I have shown that a successful 
 denial of the Mosaic Narrative would annihilate 
 the Nebular Hypothesis, and on this conclusion 
 have based an argument for the reality of a Reve- 
 lation, it cannot be out of place to present here 
 evidence which tends to establish the truth of 
 that remarkable Theory. 
 
 Leaving out of consideration the usual proof 
 derived from observations made with the telescope 
 and spectroscope, I propose to confine myself to an 
 attempt to show that the present phenomena of the 
 Solar System, or others of precisely similar cha- 
 racter, are the necessary results of such a condition 
 as is implied in the word Nebulous. I shall as- 
 sume nothing that is not an admitted truth, or that 
 does not find its analogue at the present moment 
 in some part of the universe. As such may be 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 245 
 
 reckoned the universality and uniformity of gravi- 
 tation and the laws of motion, while the true 
 Nebulae now to be seen in various parts of the 
 heavens, present the very condition which this 
 Theory demands for our own Solar System. The 
 upheavals which will be required are similar in 
 character, but proportionately larger than those 
 of whose existence on the Earth, the larger 
 planets, and the Sun, we have such ample 
 proof. 
 
 I shall, then, assume that the Solar System at 
 some inconceivably remote period, was a nebulous 
 mass of almost infinite rarity, extending beyond 
 the orbit of Neptune, and that it was affected by 
 the present law of gravitation, and was subject to 
 the laws of Motion. 
 
 I shall also assume the existence of upheavals 
 in this great mass, and endeavor to show that in 
 these assumptions is a key that so readily unlocks 
 the difficulties of our System, so readily and easily 
 accounts for phenomena so various, that it is 
 impossible to resist the belief that in them we 
 have the true physical cause of the present ar- 
 rangement of the Solar System as well as of the 
 smaller systems that centre about some of the 
 planets. 
 
 It is evident that the atoms of a homogeneous 
 sphere of nebulous matter under the sole influence 
 of gravity, frould move centreward in radial 
 lines, since the lateral attractions would neutralize 
 
24:6 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 each other, and that, in reference to them, the 
 system would be in a state of unstable equili- 
 brium. Any disturbance, however small, giving 
 preponderance to a part, would result necessarily 
 in a gyratory movement. As matter is powerless 
 to originate any change of position, such a dis- 
 turbance must have come from without. This 
 derangement of equilibrium might result from the 
 impact of some body, as the plunging in of a me- 
 teor, or the attraction of another system. Any 
 explanation, however, only places us one step 
 farther back, one nearer to the Source of Being 
 and Power, and in the last analysis, reaches the 
 Great First Cause. Sooner or later we arrive at 
 the only explanation on which the mind can rest, 
 " The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
 fluid mass." * 
 
 In case, however, the mass was not a spheroid, 
 or not homogeneous, states as much to be ac- 
 counted for as an external impulse, the conditions 
 for gyratory movement existed in itself. Any 
 one of these causes would eventually result not 
 only in a motion of rotation, but what was of 
 great importance in the development of the Sys- 
 
 * Can it be that here is one more instance of the deeper, 
 more radical meaning of the words of Genesis, striking a 
 physical fact ? Certainly the thought of a mighty wind, a 
 " wind of God," the impact of the breath of God, the Kvev[Mt 
 BEOV rushing upon the dark, formless mass, is wonderfully in 
 harmony with the needed disturbance, and the resulting 
 waves which rose and fell thenceforth through the ages. 
 
NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 247 
 
 tern, it would also produce an undulatory move- 
 ment or wave of force, traversing the mass from 
 side to side, echoed back as it were, and producing 
 surface waves the precursors and causal antecedents 
 of all the upheavals since. 
 
 From the laws of motion, I postulate the 
 increase of angular velocit} 7 and centrifugal force, 
 as condensation proceeded ; the formation of the 
 nebulous mass into an oblate spheroid; and the 
 ultimate avulsion of a ring of similar matter, 
 which revolved in the plane of the Cosmic equator, 
 about the Cosmic centre, in the same direction 
 as the parent mass, and which was, if without 
 interfering cause, truly circular and of uniform 
 section. 
 
 By Kepler's law establishing the relation be- 
 tween the times and distances, it is evident, since 
 the Radii were very large and the distance be- 
 tween the surface of the helioid * and the inner 
 surface of the ring was at first infinitesimally 
 small and increased very slowly, that their angu- 
 lar velocities were for a very long time almost the 
 same. 
 
 A POINT THEREFORE ON THE RING OPPOSITE A 
 POINT ON THE HELIOIU WOULD REMAIN SENSIBLY 
 OPPOSITE FOR A PERIOD OF GREAT LENGTH. 
 
 * " Helioid " denotes that part of the great Nebula within 
 a ring, or the orbit of a planet. It is the central portion and 
 contains in itself the undeveloped planets and the Sun. 
 " Planetoid " bears the same relation to a planet. 
 
248 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 This fact is highly important, since it practi- 
 cally avoids all consideration of the rotation of the 
 two, save so far as by generating a centrifugal 
 force it held their centres at a fixed distance apart 
 while leaving entire freedom of motion in other 
 directions. In connection with the limited dura- 
 tion of the upheavals, it also eliminates that com- 
 pensation which is the marrow of La Grange's 
 celebrated Theorem in reference to orbital inclina- 
 tions. 
 
 These upheavals occurred, most probably, in 
 all forms and positions. Obeying the law of gravi- 
 tation, they attracted other bodies, precisely as if 
 the central body was not in existence. Accord- 
 ing to this law, the influence of a homogeneous* 
 sphere on a body exterior to it, is not affected by 
 any change in the diameter of either, providing 
 the masses and the distance between their centres 
 remain constant. In other words, if the Sun re- 
 mained a homogeneous sphere, its attraction upon 
 Neptune, for instance, would be precisely the same 
 as now, although it were so rarefied as to reach 
 within a foot of the latter' s surface. 
 
 On the other hand, a mass lying upon the sur- 
 face of the sphere will exert its influence precisely 
 as if the latter was not in existence, and its attrac- 
 tion will vary, very nearly, in the inverse ratio of 
 the square of the distance of the attracted body 
 from the surface of the sphere. Consequently its 
 * Or, if homogeneous at equal depths 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 24:9 
 
 effect upon a given mass may equal or exceed that 
 of the sphere itself. 
 
 Hence it follows, if the distance between their 
 centres be constant, that the attraction of the 
 helioid for a planet will remain constant forever, 
 no matter how far their surfaces may separate, 
 while the attraction of a mass lying upon the sur- 
 of the central body, and moving with it, will 
 be a variable quantity having its maximum as 
 nearly as possible at the moment of avulsion, and 
 diminishing as that body contracts. 
 
 Since no internal force can change the absolute 
 position of the centre of gravity of a system 
 (Principia), it follows that an elevation so caused 
 at any point, will always be accompanied by an 
 equivalent movement in the opposite direction, 
 and un the other side of the centre of 'gravity. 
 This may manifest itself, either in another up- 
 heaval on the opposite surface, or it may take the 
 form of a more or less general movement of the 
 rest of the mass in a direction opposite to the first, 
 but to a relatively smaller distance. But in the 
 consideration of masses of such inconceivable size, 
 the distance from one side of the helioid to the 
 other is so great that the effect of the opposite 
 upheaval may for the most part be entirely 
 neglected. 
 
 In these elementary principles are found the 
 conditions necessary for the formation of a system 
 with the peculiarities of our own. They contain 
 11* 
 
250 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 also such elements of variation as to account for 
 other orders and arrangements such as we may 
 conceive to exist about other Suns, but of which 
 we can have no knowledge other than the possi- 
 bility of their existence. 
 
 I have spoken of our Cosmos as normally a 
 regular body, a real spheroid, if not a sphere, an 
 assumption made to avoid complications in the 
 reasoning. Although it could not have been as 
 irregular as some nebulae of which we have know- 
 ledge, or it would have developed into a double or 
 triple Sun-System, yet it is inconceivable that it 
 was a really regular body. Whatever was its true 
 form, it may, however, without error, be consid- 
 ered at all times a true sphere with protuberances 
 or irregularities of various forms and sizes. These, 
 from the nature of an elastic, mobile body, must 
 have been ever-varying, and hence would give the 
 conditions required, i. e. undulations as it were, 
 rising at one time far above the normal surface, 
 and then sinking back again to, or even below, 
 their former place. 
 
 The following results flow from such a nebu- 
 lous body of sufficient size, under the one condi- 
 tion of local, temporary * upheavals, and would be 
 
 * Local has reference to the fact that the upheaval, 
 although millions of miles, perhaps, in extent, covered but 
 a small fraction of the central body. 
 
 Temporary as Cosmology counts time, a trifle of a thou- 
 sand years or centuries, some fragment of eternity. 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 251 
 
 equally true of all conceivable one-Sun Systems. 
 They may be embodied in seven general proposi- 
 tions. 
 
 Prop. 1. There will be an evolution of a 
 series of planets.* 
 
 Prop. 2. The orbital motion of the planets 
 and the axial revolution of the central body will 
 normally be in the same direction. 
 
 Prop. 3. The axial revolutions of att the pla- 
 nets will normally be in the same direction as the 
 orbital. 
 
 Prop. 4. The planets will have elliptic orbits 
 of unequal eccentricity. 
 
 Prop. 5. The planes of these orbits will be 
 inclined at various angles. 
 
 Prop. 6. The planes of their equators will be 
 inclined to their orbits at any angle from to 
 180. N. B. An inclination exceeding 90 gives 
 the retrograde motions of the Satellites of Uranus 
 and Neptune. 
 
 Prop. 7. Great differences will be possible 
 between the direction of the orbital motion of 
 satellites and that of their primaries. 
 
 Although these conditions are actually found 
 in our system, yet they might have been deduced 
 a priori, by one who had no knowledge of their 
 
 * The masses of the planets and the planetary distances, 
 although results of the nebulous condition, do not come 
 within the present discussion, being dependent upon princi- 
 ples not now under consideration. 
 
252 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 actual occurrence, as I shall now endeavor to 
 show. 
 
 I shall assume, without argument, that a spheri- 
 cal gaseous mass, revolving as we have supposed, 
 and shrinking in bulk, would generate an oblate 
 spheroid, and that then, as the centrifugal force 
 became equal to the centripetal, a separation, or 
 avulsion, of a ring of similar matter would occur 
 in the equatorial protuberant belt ; that as this 
 belt was truly circular, so would be the ring ; 
 and, as our supposed spheroid was homogeneous 
 at equal depths, every section of the ring made by 
 a plane passing through the cosmic centre, and 
 perpendicular to its equator, would be equal to 
 every other section similarly formed ; and, as there 
 was no cause for change; the ring must continue 
 to move in the same direction as the parent mass. 
 
 PROPOSITIONS 1 AND 2. 
 
 Commencing, then, at the exterior of our Sys- 
 tem, we will suppose the first cosmic ring just left 
 behind by the contraction of the helioid, and that, 
 not long after, an upheaval occurred on its equa- 
 torial portion. 
 
 This upheaval, being exterior to the spheroid, 
 would act upon the ring as if the latter was not in 
 existence, and, being very near to one side of it, 
 would greatly disturb its equilibrium, causing an 
 acceleration of the velocity of the portion behind 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 253 
 
 it, and a retardation of that in advance.* This 
 would cause, in the ring, an accumulation or 
 nucleous, which, once formed, would continue to 
 draw to itself the remainder, until all was col- 
 lected into one mass. This mass would necessarily 
 continue to revolve about the Cosmic centre in the 
 same direction as the ring, and hence as the helioid 
 itself. This h'rst body, in our system, would be 
 the embryo planet which we now call Neptune. 
 A repetition of this process would produce planet 
 after planet, until the helioid had shrunk to a 
 body too small, or too solid, to generate any 
 more, and, for lack of reason to the contrary, each 
 would revolve in the same direction as the central 
 mass. Q. E. D. 
 
 Here I may remark that two or more such up- 
 heavals might occur in the time of one ring, at a 
 great distance apart, and that this would result in 
 the formation of two or more planets, at equal dis- 
 tances from the centre, a condition of which some 
 of the Asteroids furnish an illustration. The rela- 
 tive size of such twin planets would depend upon 
 the distance apart of the upheavals, as well as the 
 length of time one appeared before the other. 
 
 PROPOSITION 3. 
 
 From this same equatorial upheaval other im- 
 portant results flow. 
 
 * Fig. 4 illustrates this ; q. v. 
 
254 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 FIGURE 4. 
 
 A is the axis. M the upheaved mass. The shorter arrows 
 denote decreased velocity ; the longer ones, increased velocity. 
 N is the nucleus of a planet. 
 
 Fig. 4 represents an equatorial section of the 
 Cosmos, although a very distorted one. We here 
 have the conditions just described. Not only 
 would the atoms on one side approach the nucleus 
 N with an increased velocity, but* this would gene- 
 rate an increase of centrifugal force, causing them 
 to recede somewhat from the Cosmic centre, while 
 the atoms in advance would, for the opposite rea- 
 son, have less centrifugal force, and be drawn 
 nearer the centre. Omitting all consideration of 
 the absolute motion, and looking only at the rela- 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 255 
 
 tive, there will be, in effect, two streams of aebu- 
 lous matter moving in opposite directions towards 
 the nucleal point, the medial line of the one fall- 
 ing nearer the centre of the system than that of 
 the other, thus generating an axial revolution in 
 the same direction as the orbital. As precisely 
 the same action may be supposed to occur in case 
 of all the planets, the same result must follow, 
 thus establishing the truth of the third Propo- 
 sition. 
 
 PROPOSITION 4. 
 
 The body opposite M as yet possesses none of 
 the planetary characteristics, save axial and orbital 
 movements, the latter in a path truly circular 
 so far, at least, as any cause to tlje contrary has 
 been shown. This brings us to the fourth Propo- 
 sition. 
 
 By the laws of motion, the angular velocity of 
 the helioid exceeded somewhat (not much at first) 
 that of the ring, or its subsequent planet. Conse- 
 quently, the mass M kept in advance of the embryo 
 planet, and continued to accelerate the latter's rate 
 of motion, its influence at the same time gradually 
 diminishing until the distance between them be- 
 came 180, when its influence became zero, and 
 then negative for the remaining 180. A pre- 
 cisely similar effect would have been produced 
 had the upheaval continued for a part of a revo- 
 lution, or had it been followed at a sufficient 
 interval by one behind the planet. The effect of 
 
256 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 such acceleration and retardation was necessarily 
 that variation of velocity that can only exist in an 
 elliptic orbit.* 
 
 Hence, in the disturbing force of the attraction 
 of such an upheaval, we find an influence that 
 would necessarily generate elliptic orbits, and as 
 the upheavals could scarcely be equal in size, posi- 
 tion, or duration, either actually or relatively-, there 
 would arise a great variety in the eccentricities 
 of these orbits. Therefore, on a priori grounds, 
 we should expect the present variety in the forms 
 of the orbits of our System, in harmony with the 
 Proposition. 
 
 As the same result might flow from a succes- 
 sion of smaller upheavals, and as it is not reasona- 
 ble to suppose any regular order in them, we may 
 conclude that some aided the movement, while 
 others retarded it, and hence follows the curious 
 result that the mean eccentricity of the same 
 planet's orbit may have been, at some of these 
 early times, greater, and at others, less, than at 
 present. 
 
 PROPOSITION 5. 
 
 For the sake of simplicity, I have supposed 
 the orbital and axial motions, as well as the ellipti- 
 cities of the orbits, attained while they were yet 
 
 * I do not speak of a parabola or hyperbola, for these 
 forces could not generate such a curve, since no body can, 
 by its own attraction alone, impart to another a force suffi- 
 cient to send it beyond its reach. 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 257 
 
 in the plane of the great equator. Returning, as 
 before, to the exterior planet just after its segre- 
 gation and collection into a spheroid, we may 
 imagine another upheaval occurring on thehelioid, 
 which, as yet, nearly filled the space within the 
 planet's orbit, at some considerable distance from 
 the equator, as 40 or 50, but, if I may use such 
 :m expression, in the plane of the same meridian 
 as the planet. It is evident that the attraction of 
 this mass will neither increase nor diminish the 
 planet's orbital motion, and so far will be without 
 effect. It will, however, to a degree depending 
 upon its mass, distance, and duration, and upon 
 the mass of the planet, lift the latter above its 
 normal position. But as the centre of gravity of 
 a system of bodies cannot be made to change its 
 place by the action of forces in the system, and as 
 this centre of gravity is the point about which the 
 planet revolves, the orbit will of necessity become 
 inclined. 
 
 If the upheaval had been permanent, it would 
 eventually counterbalance its own influence, leav- 
 ing the mean inclination of the orbit unaffected, 
 but its temporary character, so to speak of cosmic 
 durations, paradoxical as it may appear, gives per- 
 manency to its effects. This, for the very simple 
 reason that before the time and position come 
 around for it to act in an opposite sense, or to lift 
 the other end of the orbit, it will have sunk to the 
 general level. 
 
258 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 As it is scarcely possible that the subsequent 
 upheavals, in reference to the planets interior to 
 Neptune, were all of the same size, duration, dis- 
 tance and angular direction, we are certain, a 
 priori, of a corresponding variety in their orbital 
 inclinations. 
 
 Hefice, given a Nebulous mass and local up- 
 heavals above or below the equator, the orbital 
 inclinations follow of necessity, with all their 
 variety of degree, and thus establish the truthful- 
 ness of the fifth Proposition. 
 
 THE AXIAL INCLINATION. 
 
 Although I have not yet exhausted the effects 
 produced by an upheaval of a portion of the cen- 
 tral body, it is now necessary to consider the be- 
 havior of the inchoate planet. 
 
 As has already been said, an axial rotation of 
 the inchoate planet, in the normal direction, was 
 generated, and I now add that this rotation was 
 made yet more rapid by the condensation of the 
 matter forming the nebuloid. 
 
 Attempts have been made to give the equation 
 of axial revolution, but so many elements which 
 must always remain indeterminate, enter into the 
 calculation, that the true equation* appears impos- 
 sible to be obtained. We cannot tell how much of 
 
 * The true equation should give the time of rotation at 
 any period of the planet's existence, either when it possessed 
 the intense heat of some former epoch, or when it shall 
 have cooled to the temperature of surrounding space. 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 the primeval force was radiated as heat into space, 
 or disappeared as chemical force, or in other ways. 
 For a like reason, it probably will always be 
 impossible to find the formulae representing the 
 inclinations and eccentricities in terms of those 
 movements from which they have been derived, 
 precisely as it is impossible to give the formula 
 for the shape of a pebble on the sea shore. We 
 can show how its form was attained by the action 
 of the waves dashing it against its fellows, and 
 that such action would necessarily result in a 
 greater or less approach to the form of a sphere. 
 We can also, knowing its lithic character, and the 
 direction of the planes of cleavage, determine, a 
 priori, the position of its three axes, but there we 
 must stop. The infinite number of modes of ap- 
 plying tlu* llu\vs, the varying degree of hardness 
 in the pebble itself, or in those about it, the 
 solvent power of the water, etc., introduce such a 
 flood of indeterminate quantities, that the finite 
 mind is baffled. The Cosmic mass, the rings and 
 the planets, were subject to an infinite variety of 
 influences, from the ever-varying shape, size, posi- 
 tion, and duration of these upheaved masses. We 
 can qualitatively show their results, but can never 
 throw their influences into the form of equations. 
 
 PROPOSITION 6. 
 
 The normal position of the axis of the plane- 
 tary nebuloid was perpendicular to its orbit, and, 
 
260 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 if it had at that time the form of a true sphere, no 
 effect upon the direction of its axis could have 
 been produced, either by the central sphere itself, 
 or by any upheaval upon its own surface. What- 
 ever change of position the planet or its orbit 
 might undergo, the axis of the former would re- 
 main parallel to itself. 
 
 I now propose to consider the form of the 
 nascent planet. 
 
 FIGURE 5. 
 
 Fig. 5 represents a portion of the ring gather- 
 ing about a planetoid, the larger arrow, as in 
 Fig. 4, denoting the portion of the ring whose 
 speed has been increased, and the smaller, that 
 which moves more slowly. The effect of such a 
 condition was to produce a lateral pressure upon 
 the mass as it revolved on its axis, resulting in its 
 elongation in the direction of its poles, exactly as 
 a bar of hot iron rotating on its longer axis while 
 receiving the blows of a hammer, is elongated. 
 This prolateness must have continued during the 
 aggregation of the planetoid, and afterwards, until 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 261 
 
 the latter's own "centrifugal force caused it to 
 change to an oblate spheroid. 
 
 From this elongation, highly important results 
 followed, viz. the inclinations of the axes of the 
 members of our System. 
 
 FIGURE 6. 
 
 Let Fig. 6 represent the Solar System during 
 the aggregation of Neptune, while the latter was 
 yet prolate, and while its axis was yet perpendicu- 
 lar to the Cosmic equator. 
 
 It is evident that while the helioid remains a 
 true spheroid, its attraction can produce no effect 
 upon the position of the planet's axis. But if a 
 mass, M, be upheaved, as in the cut, the attraction 
 of M on the nearest hemisphere will cause the 
 
262 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 body to incline towards it, and to assume a posi- 
 tion rudely shown by the dotted line. 
 
 It is furthermore evident that as soon as one 
 hemisphere begins to approach the helioid, it will, 
 from its nearness, be more strongly attracted than 
 the other, and consequently that the great central 
 body will aid and continue the effect of M. Conse- 
 quently, the axis will lean more and more from 
 the perpendicular towards the plane of its orbit, 
 which it will reach in due time, unless prevented 
 by some other force, which might, under favora- 
 ble circumstances, come from an upheaval below 
 the helioid's equator, but more frequently from 
 the stability engendered by the development of a 
 sufficient oblateness in the planet. It is also evi- 
 dent that these counteracting influences might 
 come sooner in case of one planet than in another, 
 giving rise to a corresponding variety of effects. 
 Another source of variation is found in the fact 
 that a large upheaval on the central body would 
 produce a greater inclination of the axis of the 
 planet than a smaller one, and again, that the ef- 
 fect upon a large planet, other things being equal, 
 would be less than upon a small one. Hence, we 
 should expect the axis of Jupiter to be less inclined 
 than those of the other planets. Yet, since the 
 the size, distance, and angular position, as well as 
 duration of those upheavals, were in the highest 
 degree variable, it is as certain as the doctrine of 
 Chances can make it that there would be de- 
 
NEBULAE HYPOTHESIS. 263 
 
 veloped in any system, under such influences as 
 these, all the variety of axial or equatorial inclina- 
 tion that now exists ; thus establishing the truth 
 of the sixth Proposition.* 
 
 It is easy enough to see, from this, how readily 
 it would happen that Jupiter's axis should be 
 almost perpendicular, while that of Venus is so 
 very much, inclined, and that this is easily con- 
 sistent with their different degrees of orbital 
 eccentricity. 
 
 THE RETROGRADE MOTIONS OF THE SATELLITES 
 OF URANUS AND NEPTUNE. 
 
 The Retrograde Motions of the Satellites of 
 Uranus and Neptune have long been the bete noir 
 of astronomers, obstinately refusing to take a place 
 in any theory. Yet I venture to affirm that no 
 planetary phenomenon is more easily explained 
 than these, upon the principles which are under 
 consideration. 
 
 Either of these planets, when passing from the 
 state of being a ring, must, as already shown, 
 have been at first a prolate spheroid. Its then 
 condition, and the effect of a cosmic upheaval, are 
 well indicated in Fig. 6. If this upheaval had 
 come and gone, and the corresponding obliquity 
 
 * The readei; will constantly bear in mind the almost 
 equal angular motion of the planet, and the upheaval affect- 
 ing it, an equality, as I have said, which arises from the 
 small difference in the length of their immense radii. This 
 is a condition of the highest importance. 
 
264 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 of its axis had occurred, before the embryo planet 
 had received all the ring-matter, it would retain 
 its prolateness, and be drawn, by the attraction of 
 the great central body, into the plane of its orbit. 
 We need only suppose that another undulation 
 then occurred below the equator. Such a mass 
 would draw the nearest pole still further from its 
 normal position. If this movement carried the 
 pole of Uranus 10 below the plane of its orbit, 
 and that of Neptune 60 (?), there would be the 
 present reversed position of these planets. To 
 complete the present arrangement we need only 
 suppose, the aggregation of ring-matter having 
 been completed, the centrifugal force no longer 
 repressed by lateral pressure, the nebulous mass 
 allowed to obey it freely, together with an interval 
 of comparative Cosmic quiescence, and there will 
 be given all the needed conditions for the devel- 
 opment of their systems of satellites, with their 
 retrograde motions, a result that further confirms 
 the truth of the sixth Proposition. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remark that the suc- 
 cession of upheavals would not, in reality^ be so 
 distinct as I have indicated. One upheaval, pro- 
 perly placed, might produce nearly all these ef- 
 fects at once. It will be easy for the reader to 
 discover how this could be. 
 
 PROPOSITION 7. 
 The Rings, and nearly all the Satellites, re- 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 265 
 
 volve around the primaries almost in the planes 
 of their equators. But our own Moon, and Sa- 
 turn's outermost, cross these planes at compara- 
 tively large angles, the one making an angle of 
 about 18, and the other of nearly 14. 
 
 Although these anomalies have attracted so 
 much less attention than the retrograde motions 
 of the Satellites of Uranus and Neptune, they 
 appear equally extraordinary. It certainly is re- 
 markaliK' that the rings of Saturn, and the large 
 number of seven Satellites, scarcely vary from one 
 plane, while the eighth abruptly takes a course of 
 its own. 
 
 Our Theory does not fail here, but shows even 
 this to be a development of law, and one of the 
 echoes of that first impulse on the inert Cosmic 
 mass. 
 
 We will suppose the Saturnian planetoid in- 
 clined something more than 28, in the manner 
 already shown, PROP. 6, and as illustrated by Fig. 
 6 ; that, while in this position, the planetoid, 
 by virtue of its axial rotation, became oblate, 
 and at length separated from its equatorial belt, 
 which, as shown in case of the larger bodies, was 
 gathered into a sphere, the embryo moon. This 
 must have revolved, at first, in the equatorial 
 plane of the future planet, the system at that time 
 being represented rudely by the accompanying 
 diagram. 
 
 12 
 
266 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 FIGURE 7. 
 
 AA is the plane of the equator of the helioid, PP being 
 its axis. S is the future planet Saturn, at that time extend- 
 ing far beyond the present orbit of its seventh Satellite. 
 MM', the plane of the planetoid's equator, and also of the 
 orbit of the oldest Satellite. 
 
 Suppose an upheaval to occur at O, on the 
 larger body. It is evident, first, that the helioid 
 itself, according to La Grange's Theorem, will not 
 affect the mean inclination of MM'. Second, that 
 the upheaved mass O will draw M * nearer to 
 AA, but when the Satellite has passed around to M', 
 i. e. after a semi-revolution, it will be drawn away 
 
 * It must be borne in mind that La Grange's Theorem 
 owes its existence to the invariable character of the attrac- 
 tive influences affecting the mass, but has no applicability 
 to forces of a temporary nature. If O, Fig. 7, had been sim- 
 ply a belt, or even a permanent upheaval, eventually its 
 influence on the position of M would be counterbalanced, 
 and the mean inclination of the latter would remain un- 
 changed. But the brief duration of O renders compensation 
 impossible. 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 267 
 
 from AA. But as the distance from O to M is 
 very much less than from O to M', the effect at M 
 \vill be much greater, and will result in drawing 
 the Satellite's orbit nearer to that of the planet. 
 
 Since the helioid at this epoch extended nearly 
 to the line of equal attraction between the planet 
 and it.-rlf, their rate of angular motion could 
 have differed very little, and consequently the 
 mass O remained near enough to the planet to 
 c.\rrt an influence on the Satellite for a longtime, 
 indeed, during many hundred of its revolutions. 
 Ilo\v IOML: a period would be required to produce 
 the required effect, w T ould depend upon the size 
 and distance of O, and as these are both unknown, 
 any quantitative answer is impossible. From the 
 great size of Saturn's orbit, the influence of such 
 an upheaval would not be very great in three- 
 fourths of its Synodic revolution,* leaving one- 
 fourth only as effective, or a period of about 
 300 years, equal to 1350 sideral revolutions of the 
 Satellite, and ample time for a moderate upheaval 
 to raise its orbit 14 from the planet's equator, 
 as will be seen when we recollect that the attrac- 
 tion of the planet is sufficient to make it describe 
 a similar arc in a little more than one forty-thou- 
 sandth part of the same time. If, by the time 
 the Satellite's orbit had been thus bent 14 from 
 
 * A Synodic revolution here would mean the time needed 
 for the mass O, and the two centres S and A to come again 
 into a right line. I assume O to be at the point where the 
 attraction is equal between S and A. 
 
268 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 its normal position, the upheaval had subsided, it 
 would ever remain at that angle, since it would 
 then be subject to La Grange's Theorem, and free 
 from all interference. 
 
 In the meantime, what has been the effect 
 upon the oblate planetoid ? Undoubtedly, the 
 protuberant equatorial belt was affected in pre- 
 cisely the same mariner, but in an infinitely less 
 degree. For, the diameter of the Satellite's orbit 
 being so much greater than that of the planetoid, 
 the difference in the lifting power of the upheaval 
 would be much less in case of the latter, and be- 
 sides this, it must be remembered that the Satel- 
 lite is a mere bagatelle compared with the immense 
 size of its primary. 
 
 If, now, the helioid continued to contract, and 
 no more undulations (or upheavals) Occurred upon 
 it large enough, or near enough, to disturb the 
 planet in its process of cooling and shrinking, 
 there would be the conditions needed for the quiet 
 evolution of Saturn's entire System. 
 
 In that case, the other members of the Saturn- 
 ian family would be duly formed, and, unless 
 disturbed by some similar action in the planetoid, 
 would all be produced revolving around the 
 parent mass in the plane of its equator. But 
 such disturbance would be impossible, since no 
 such great upheavals could occur as upon the 
 helioid, nor could those that did occur produce 
 relatively equal effects, because the radii of the 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 269 
 
 Saturnian System being so much shorter, there 
 could not be that approximate equality in the time 
 of revolution that was needed to permit an up- 
 heaval to produce its full effect. For, if it con- 
 t in ued too long, it would, as I have shown, act in 
 a contrary sense, the permanency of the work 
 being dependent upon the temporariness of the 
 upheaval. Hence, although there may have been 
 upheavals upon the planetoid, their results were 
 Hii.-ill, as is shown by the smallness of the inclina- 
 tion of the orbits of the Satellites and Rings, to the 
 planet's equator. 
 
 The inclination of the Moon's orbit to the 
 equator of the Earth is the other of these anoma- 
 lies. It has already been so far discussed as to 
 show that upheavals upon the solidified earth 
 could not have produced it ; nor even when nebu- 
 lous, could they have affected it much. 
 
 It may justly be asked, if upheavals upon the 
 great central body were capable of elevating or 
 depressing the planetary orbits, why those upon 
 the planets should not also affect the orbits of 
 their Satellites ? 
 
 There are two reasons that occur to me why 
 the effects of the planetary upheavals, although 
 the same in kind should be less in degree. 
 
 First, the lower temperature of these smaller 
 systems would probably give less energy to the 
 upheaving power, and therefore, the undulations 
 would be less in proportion. The second, and the 
 
270 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 more important reason, is that based upon the 
 greater differences between the angular velocities 
 of the Satellites and their primaries. On this ac- 
 count, the element of compensation which was 
 eliminated from the primaries, as has been shown, 
 would here reappear. For, suppose, in case of the 
 Earth, an upheaval occurred, e. g. in lat. 45, on 
 the line connecting the Moon's and the Earth's 
 centre, and that the Earth at that time extended 
 to the point of equal attraction between the two, 
 and that it revolved as slowly as a Satellite would 
 at that distance, which would be slower than its 
 actual speed, yet, even in that case, the upheaval 
 would gain so rapidly as soon to be placed in a 
 similar position upon the opposite side, and there 
 undo its previous work. Still, the upheaval would 
 at some time disappear, and as that could hardly 
 happen just at the point to counterbalance all its 
 effect, some moderate residuum of change would 
 be left, a condition which finds its counterpart in 
 the present small inclinations of the orbits of 
 nearly all the Satellites. 
 
 It remains to consider the effect of an equa- 
 torial upheaval occurring on the surface of the 
 helioid, precisely as in the case of Saturn. Was 
 the lunar-telluric mass inclined 23 and more, and 
 then was the moon brought back to 5 ? If such 
 a thing was done in case of one of Saturn's moons, 
 could it be done in case of our Earth's ? I think 
 not, for there are certain important points of dif- 
 ference. 
 
NEBULAR IIYI'oTIIKSIS. 271 
 
 The primary ring had been gathered into the 
 lunar-telluric spheroid, a secondary ring cast off, 
 and that gathered also into a spheroidal body, a 
 great length of time, therefore, must have elapsed 
 MM <-e the avulsion of the first, which would give 
 the helioid time to condense to a considerable 
 degree, and allow a space between its surface and 
 the Moon of, say half the distance allowed for 
 the same process in case of Saturn, or 7,000,000 
 miles. By Kepler's law, the time of rotation of 
 a body at this surface will be such that by no pos- 
 sibility could it be exposed to the action of such 
 an upheaval for much more than two one-lnm- 
 dredths as long as Saturn, a time so greatly shorter 
 that it seems absurd to compare the results. More- 
 over, the diameter of the Moon's orbit is so much 
 less than that of the orbit of Saturn's eighth Satel- 
 lite, that there would be far less inequality in the 
 counteracting movements at M and M'. Hence, I 
 cannot think the present separation of 18^ be- 
 tween th plane of the equator and the orbit of our 
 moon, is due to this cause. 
 
 But, even admitting the possibility of the 
 present difference between the inclination of the 
 Moon's orbit and the Earth being caused by such 
 an upheaval, the fact remains, as already shown, 
 that it might have been caused otherwise. It 
 then would be a question of evidence, did this 
 difference occur before our globe had ceased to be 
 a nebulous mass ? for when it had become solid, 
 
272 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 the Sun had shrunk too far away for upheavals on 
 its surface to produce any effect. The evidence is 
 clearly negative, for the records of life show 
 plainly that, in the earlier Geologic Epochs, the 
 axis must have been nearly perpendicular. The 
 only objection to this, as far as I know, is the 
 enormous circumpolar upheaval needed, but this 
 objection applies with at least equal force to a 
 Solar upheaval, indeed, the latter would need to 
 be the greater, and it is no more easy for me to 
 think of an equatorial protuberance (not belt) on 
 the Sun, of many hundred millions of cubic 
 miles, than of the needed polar movement upon 
 the earth. 
 
 Both are inexplicable at present. Upheavals 
 have occurred, and are now occurring, in Sun and 
 planet. It is simply a question as to the degree 
 of a movement, of which we know neither the 
 cause nor the limit. 
 
 Hence, we are led to identically the same con- 
 clusion as that arrived at in the previous chapter, 
 viz. that the present difference between the incli- 
 nation of the earth's axis, and that of the Moon's 
 orbit, is not in any material degree due to any 
 movement of that orbit. And that consequently 
 there must have been a movement of the earth 
 itself, changing its axial inclination from about 
 5 9' to 23, and that this occurred since the 
 separation of the Moon from the earth, and be- 
 tween that great event and the beginning of his- 
 torical records. 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 273 
 
 The precise Epoch has already been considered. 
 
 The inclination of the Solar axis is the resi- 
 duum or resultant of all these movements, or 
 rather of their reactions. 
 
 These principles indicate clearly the possibility 
 of a System presenting a far greater variety of 
 movements and inclinations than is found in our 
 own. Some planets might revolve in a direction 
 opposite to that of their Satellites. 
 
 Something approaching this is now seen in 
 case of our earth and her moon. The former re- 
 volves from due West to due East, while the 
 other moves from W. 18J S., to E. 18 N". 
 
 The inclinations of the axes of the Satellites 
 can be accounted for upon the same principles. 
 As far as known they are very small, as was to 
 have been expected. This arises not so much 
 from the smallness of their primaries as from the 
 shortness of their orbital radii, causing a greater 
 difference between their times of orbital revolu 
 tion, and those of their primaries, hence affording 
 less opportunity for upheavals to produce their 
 effect. 
 
 While the nearness of the Satellites produces 
 this negative result, it is curious to note that the 
 equality of lunar orbital and axial revolution 
 flows from the same cause. 
 
 This equality certainly exists in case of our 
 own Satellite, and observation seems to render it 
 highly probable in case of all the others. 
 12* 
 
274: COSMOLOGY. 
 
 This we shall consider in another chapter. 
 
 It remains only to complement this discussion 
 by showing that an upheaval upon the surface of 
 the Sun at as late a period as the appearance of 
 organic life, could produce no sensible eifect upon 
 the position of the earth, or any other planet. 
 That this is true, is evident, because the earth and 
 Sun had then shrunk -to their present dimen- 
 sions, and consequently the upheaved mass was so 
 much more distant than at the time immediately 
 following the segregation of the earth ; and, sec- 
 ondly, a mass placed even at the pole of the Sun 
 would be separated from the centre by so small an 
 angle as practically to make its effect the same as 
 if placed there. Hence, no upheaval on the sur- 
 face of the Sun at so late a period, could produce 
 any effect differing materially from that arising 
 from the direct action of that body. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 THE curious coincidence between the time of 
 lunar axial, and orbital revolution, which ex- 
 tends to some, and perhaps all, the other Satel- 
 lites, is explicable as the result of the nebulous 
 condition of our System, and the nearness of these 
 bodies to their primaries.* 
 
 The Moon was once a gaseous mass. It passed 
 by insensible degrees from that condition to a 
 fluid, and then, through ever increasing degrees 
 of viscidity, to a solid. 
 
 In its earlier stages of development it revolved 
 on its axis at a rate which was a function of its 
 orbital motion, and of its condensation. As the 
 latter was very great, its effect could not have 
 been null, therefore the axial motion generated by 
 the two could not have produced an angular 
 velocity as small as the orbital ; hence, originally, 
 the Moon revolved on its axis with a velocity 
 greater than at present. 
 
 There has, then, been some retarding cause, 
 
 * The once liquid condition of the Moon was assumed, 
 I think first by Newton. 
 
276 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 for no change occurs in matter spontaneously. It 
 must have been in some way intimately associated 
 with the orbital motion, since it reduced the axial 
 to it, and then ceased to operate, or at least to 
 make itself manifest. 
 
 The Moon, while in a fluid condition, was af- 
 fected by tides, surpassing those now on the earth, 
 since the latter' s mass is ninety times greater ; and 
 the lunar ocean's depth extended to its centre. 
 Partly by the friction of the lunar wave, and infi- 
 nitely more from its viscidity, an ever-increasing 
 resistance to the Moon's axial motion was gene- 
 rated. At the same time that these forces so 
 much exceeded &uy present tidal influence on the 
 earth, the smallness of the Moon rendered it less 
 able to continue the contest, her momentum, with 
 the same velocity as the earth, being ninety times 
 less, and ever decreasing as its motion grew 
 smaller. 
 
 Moreover, as the time of an axial revolution 
 grew less, the telluric attraction had more ample 
 time to communicate its full effect to the lunar 
 mass, hence the lunar wave attained its maximum 
 height, and its full retarding power. 
 
 There was thus generated a force ample to stop 
 the Moon's axial motion in a brief time, as Cos- 
 mology counts time. 
 
 Evidently, the retardation could proceed no 
 farther than to keep the summit of the tidal wave 
 directly under the earth, as viewed from the 
 
XKBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 277 
 
 moon, since in that position there was no tendency 
 to move, and hence, no resistance either from 
 friction or viscidity. 
 
 A like influence was exerted on the earth by 
 the moon. Owing to the former's greater mass, 
 the effect was relatively small, but it could not 
 have been null. 
 
 The Sun, which by that time had shrunk to 
 somewhere near its present dimensions, also tended 
 to produce a retardation of axial motion, but 
 owing to its greater distance, its influence was 
 much less than that of the earth. 
 
 The present prolongation of the lunar diame- 
 ter in the direction of the earth, is the residuum 
 of that ancient tidal wave, or rather it is that wave 
 solidified, a belief that finds confirmation in the 
 general direction of .the ridges which mark its 
 surface. An inspection of a lunar map shows 
 hundreds of mountainous ridges^ by far the ma- 
 jority of which run north and south, that is, 
 transversely, or in the resisting line, to such a force 
 as we have been considering. The circular moun- 
 tain ridges seem to have been an after formation. 
 Omitting these as not to be counted either way, 
 it will be found on a careful examination, that 
 where there is one ridge running east and west, 
 there are one hundred running north and south. 
 
 The rough, volcanic appearance of the whole 
 disk is exceedingly suggestive of the last stages 
 of transition from a liquid to a solid condition, the 
 
278 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 gradual formation of a somewhat thin crust, the 
 crumpling and solidification of the strata into a 
 tolerably quiescent state, followed by ejections of 
 the internal lava, or the sinking of large tracts as 
 the centre cooled. 
 
 At the present time, the tidal wave is retard- 
 ing the earth's diurnal motion, and it has been 
 said that either the earth is revolving more slowly 
 from year to year, or else that the moon is accele- 
 rating its velocity. Both suppositions are true, 
 and both are due to the same cause. The same 
 influence which makes the tide a drag upon, the 
 earth's motion, by the law of reaction, necessarily 
 causes the wave to pull the moon forward in its 
 orbit. The one effect cannot exist without the 
 other. 
 
 A natural and correct inference is that, in 
 its primal state, while like Jupiter and Saturn, 
 in a yet fluid condition, the earth revolved on its 
 axis more rapidly than now, perhaps as rapidly as 
 those planets. Similar changes are now going on 
 in all the planets with satellites, and conse- 
 quently their length of day is increasing, and may 
 eventually become equal to that of the earth, a 
 conclusion which renders more certain the impos- 
 sibility of establishing the diurnal equation of 
 those planets. 
 
 Another and curious inference is this, viz. 
 the radii of the lunar orbits are increasing. For, 
 each planet accelerates the orbital movement of its 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 279 
 
 moons, hence increasing the centrifugal force, 
 and of course pushing them, so to speak, farther 
 away. 
 
 In the principles which have been discussed, 
 I think we have reasons why the immense exte- 
 rior planets rotate more rapidly than the smaller 
 ami interior ones. (1) The larger interplanetary 
 distances gave greater " falling room," hence, 
 greater velocity to the gathering atoms, and there- 
 fore more motion was generated. (2) Their Solar 
 tidal waves, in the molten masses, owing to their 
 immensely greater distance from the centre of the 
 System, produced less effect, while their lunar 
 tidal waves also, owing to the relatively less 
 masses, and greater distances of their Satellites, 
 had less influence, while (3) their own larger 
 masses gave them greater power of overcoming 
 resistance. 
 
 Mars seems to disprove this explanation. Not 
 only was its "falling room" greater than that of 
 the atoms which formed the Earth, thus generating 
 a greater axial velocity, but it had no satellite to 
 retard it, and its solar tidal wave produced but a 
 slight effect. Hence its residual velocity ought to 
 exceed that of the Earth. But, in fact, it is less. 
 Since it revolves on its axis in a period 41' 19'' 
 longer than one of our days. 
 
 The Theory, however, is sufficient for this ap- 
 parent anomaly. We may, as shown on page 253, 
 conceive of a Cosmic ring aggregated into two 
 
280 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 spheroids in one orbit and rotating in the same 
 direction. Unless they were exactly 180 apart, a 
 condition scarcely possible, they would by mutual 
 attraction finally come into collision. This would 
 be attended by a loss of rotatory motion to an ex- 
 tent depending upon their relative masses. It' one 
 was immensely larger than the other the resulting 
 loss would be but small ; if there was some approach 
 to equality, the loss would be relatively greater. 
 
 Thus it is easy to see how a system formed from 
 a nebulous mass, might contain one or more planets 
 whose axial motion, being the resultant of such col- 
 lisions, might be less than it normally should be. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 From a careful consideration of all the facts, I 
 think we may justly conclude, indeed I may say, 
 are forced to conclude, that if a nebulous mass, 
 such as we have supposed, was endowed in its 
 atoms with the power of mutual gravitation, and 
 the unstable equilibrium ensuing disturbed by 
 some exterior force, there would of necessity be 
 generated, in due time, a number of planets of 
 varying sizes, all revolving in one direction about 
 a common centre, in orbits of varying eccentrici- 
 ties and inclinations. That each of these bodies, 
 and the central body, would revolve on its axis, 
 normally, in the same direction. That the axis of 
 each would be more or less inclined at any angle 
 
NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. 281 
 
 from to 180, and that, in case the inclination 
 was more than 90, the diurnal motion would be 
 retrograde. That if any of these planets, while 
 in the nebulous condition, were sufficiently large, 
 they would also form systems revolving about 
 them, in orbits of greater or less ellipticity, and 
 more or less inclined to the plane of the primary's 
 equator. 
 
 Hence, bearing also in mind the evidence f of 
 the Spectroscope, it seems impossible to avoid the 
 conclusion that such was once the condition of our 
 <>\\n System, and that its present arrangements 
 are the legitimate results of its having once been 
 a nebulous mass, modified and wrought upon by a 
 force of upheaval which has manifested itself from 
 the beginning of the Solar Universe. 
 
 This plastic force is Heat, itself the effect of 
 the primal force which drew atom to atom. 
 
 Here Science, and even Imagination, must 
 stop, and, unable themselves to go farther, point 
 as guide-boards to an infinite, intelligent Will, the 
 First Cause, the Origin of all force, and of all 
 motion. Of Him it was written, some three 
 thousand years ago, "He inaketh his ministers a 
 flame of fire," His servants, His laborers to build 
 up a Universe. 
 
 Of that elemental chaos, while yet without 
 form, and void and dark, we read, " The Spirit 
 of God moved upon the face of the waters," the 
 
282 THE ROTATION OF THE MOON. 
 
 only term which the limited power of the Hebrew 
 could apply to the mobile mass. 
 
 Thus, by a circuitous route, we are back to 
 that living miracle, the Mosaic Account of Crea- 
 tion. 
 
 NOTE. Substantially the same explanation of the curi- 
 ous coincidence between the time of lunar axial and orbital 
 revolution is to be found on pages 416 and 417 of Laplace's 
 Systeine du Monde, 5th edition. 
 
 If any reader cares to look into the matter, I think he will 
 find enough difference to convince him that my article was 
 written without any knowledge of the other. In fact it had 
 been previously stereotyped. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS EN REFERENCE TO THE ASTEROIDS 
 AND SATURN'S RINGS. 
 
 rpHREE theories have long been before the 
 -L world to account for this curious group. 
 Each assumes that they are fragments of a larger 
 planet, and each differs from the others in the 
 cause assigned for such a catastrophe. One attri- 
 butes the disruption to centrifugal force, another, 
 to the explosion of confined gases, and yet another, 
 to collision with some foreign body. 
 
 The first supposition implies that gravitation 
 can generate a force sufficient, not only to over- 
 come itself, and the cohesion of the mass, but to 
 fling the fragments millions of miles apart. 
 
 The second also implies that a centripetal 
 force can generate heat enough to overcome the 
 generating force and the cohesion of the mass, 
 and fling the fragments so far away. 
 
 Either is untenable, since no force can gene- 
 rate a force greater than itself. 
 
 There remains then, the third supposition, viz. 
 a collision with some foreign body. 
 
 This is purely conjectural, a " deus ex machina " 
 to help out of a difficulty. Nor does it aid much, 
 
284: COSMOLOGY. 
 
 for if a planet had been struck by some solid body 
 with force enough to scatter the fragments over a 
 zone 240,000,000 miles in width, the blow would 
 have converted both into vapor, and the two, held 
 in the bonds of mutual attraction, would have 
 formed again a nebula. If the blow had been 
 struck in front, so much of the planet's velocity 
 would have been destroyed that, if it escaped fall- 
 ing into the Sun, it would have revolved in an 
 orbit of amazing eccentricity, while in fact the 
 average eccentricity of the group is less than that of 
 Mercury. If struck in the rear, its velocity would 
 have been so accelerated as to send it off' into 
 space, in a cometal orbit. In whatever way we 
 suppose the blow struck, the effects are wanting. 
 
 Another theory of more recent origin assumes 
 that this group is composed of bodies which came 
 into the solar system from external space, pre- 
 cisely as do meteors at the present day. 
 
 To this several objections present themselves 
 which seem fatal. 
 
 First, according to the doctrine of chances, it 
 is inconceivable that 150 bodies (or whatever may 
 be the number) -should have flown nearly in one 
 plane into our system, and that of all the myriad of 
 possible positions and directions they should have 
 taken that in close harmony with the Nebular 
 Hypothesis. Second, if these bodies, or any (Tne 
 of them, came from somewhere outside their pres- 
 ent orbits, they must in that earlier epoch have 
 
THE ASTEROIDS. 285 
 
 been within the sphere of the Sun's dominance, 
 or beyond it. In the former case, they would to- 
 day continue to revolve in an orbit passing through 
 that "somewhere," andlience possessing an eccen- 
 tricity inmu'iiM'ly greater than they now do, unless 
 some other attraction has interfered and reduced 
 the ellipticity to its present dimensions. 
 
 This interference could come only from the 
 
 rior planets, or from some contemporaneous 
 upheavals in the helioid, such as have been under 
 consideration. 
 
 As to the effect of a planet, it is utterly incon- 
 ceivable that even Jupiter, the largest, could have 
 so equally affected a group 125,000,000 miles wide, 
 containing so large a number of bodies differing all 
 possible degrees in their angular position, that no 
 one of their orbits is much more eccentric than is 
 Mercury's, while most of them are less so. As to 
 the effect of an upheaval, the same objections apply. 
 
 If, however, the Asteroids came from the 
 depths of space beyond the dominance of the 
 sun's attractive power, the difficulties of such a 
 theory become, if possible, even greater. For not 
 only would there be needed an impelling force to 
 push them within the power of the Sun, but any 
 such impulse would send them towards our system 
 with a velocity and consequent momentum which 
 would carry them off again into space in a para- 
 bolic orbit, never to return. 
 
 The facts, then, of the solar system, are such 
 
286 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 that this theory cannot be true. What remains ? 
 The ordinary laws and movements. These, ap- 
 plied in accordance with the idea that the whole 
 Cosmos was generated fr<*n a nebulous mass, will, 
 I think, give a not unreasonable explanation of the 
 peculiarities of this group. First, then, as far as 
 yet known there is no reason in the nature of 
 things why, as the equatorial portions of the 
 central nebula approached that condition of equi- 
 librium in which the centrifugal force was equal 
 to the centripetal, and a belt of matter was about 
 to be segregated, this effect should take place in a 
 belt of 100,000,000 miles wide, rather 10,000,000 
 or 1,000,000, unless it was determined by the 
 greater or less viscidity (so to speak) of the central 
 mass. For, although the cosmic forces must be 
 considered as in themselves uniform, yet, accord- 
 ing to all experience and observation, their mani- 
 festations vary in degree, as sometimes the surface 
 of the Sun seems almost perfectly quiet, while at 
 others it is upheaved in a commotion that tran- 
 scends the flight of imagination. Less viscidity 
 then, aided, perhaps, by the action of the greater 
 planets, may, without any forcing of theory, have 
 caused the avulsion of narrow belts, say 1,000,000 
 miles in width, each finally gathering itself into a 
 planetary spheroid. This condition may have 
 continued until belt after belt was left behind in* a 
 zone of an average width of 125,000,000 miles. 
 There may have been as many rings as asteroids, 
 
SATURN'S RINGS. 287 
 
 but I think it much more probable that two or 
 more were formed from one ring. This would 
 account for the almost equal diameters of the 
 orbits of some of these bodies. The mode in 
 which this might be brought about, has already 
 been pointed out. 
 
 Upheavals upon the surface of the central 
 mass, similar to those previously discussed, and 
 which would be unusually frequent in such a time 
 of increased activity as then existed, would pro- 
 duce the variety and extent of orbital inclination 
 and eccentricities which those little planets pre- 
 sent. And this the more, since the small mass of 
 an asteroid would cause the upheavals to produce 
 the larger effect. Hence we should expect the 
 extremest orbital eccentricity and inclination 
 found in the System. The extreme obliquity of 
 some of these orbits appears to be a crucial fact, 
 demonstrating the influence of some power not 
 exerted in the plane of the larger planets. 
 
 Hence I conclude that this curious group is no 
 anomaly, but that it is a manifestation of the 
 working of principles which developed our system, 
 and the result of forces still active. 
 
 AS TO THE PLANET SATURN. 
 
 Eight belts have been thrown off, and have 
 formed themselves into Satellites, while* others are 
 packed together in a group of rings which yet re- 
 tain their original form. 
 
288 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 In regard to these, an interesting question has 
 arisen as to the Cause of their retaining their form 
 and position. 
 
 From reason and analogy it seems that they 
 ought, before this, to have condensed into moons. 
 It has been shown mathematically that they can- 
 not possibly be solid masses. The most generally 
 received opinion appears to be that they are belts 
 of small moons, infinite in number. But if BO, 
 they must exert an attraction upon each other 
 that. would result injtheir aggregation into one or 
 more Spheroids'. For it is impossible to conceive 
 of such an infinite number of bodies revolving in 
 nearly parallel orbits without condensation and 
 final solidification, unless some counteracting force 
 prevent. This force, I take it, is found in the 
 intense heat of the primary which keeps up the 
 vaporous condition, and will permit no condensa- 
 tion until Saturn itself shall have cooled to a 
 much lower temperature. 
 
 The fact that the moons are all exterior to the 
 belts, the nearest being 37,500 miles farther from 
 the surface of the planet than the outer edge of 
 the most distant ring, favors this view, since, by 
 the laws of radiant heat, they (the moons) would 
 be far less influenced by the temperature of the 
 primary body. Moreover, the greater transpa- 
 rency of the inmost (or " dark ") ring, and its 
 small power of reflecting light, would be the 
 legitimate consequences of its greater proximity 
 
SATURN'S RINGS. 289 
 
 to the planet whose heat caused it to assume a 
 condition analogous to superheated steam, but 
 was not sufficient to make it incandescent. 
 
 We may obtain some idea of the temperature, 
 and consequent condition of the rings, by changing 
 the- scale and comparing the planet to melted iron, 
 although its very small specific gravity seems to 
 indicate a much higher degree of heat. Suppose, 
 then, the planet to be a sphere of molten iron 
 100 feet in diameter. One who has stood near 
 the inetal flowing from the vent of a large fur- 
 nace for some heavy casting, can, perhaps, form 
 an approximate idea of the intolerable heat of such 
 a mass. 
 
 Twelve feet from its surface would denote the 
 interval to the inner or dark ring. At this dis- 
 tance iron would soon become white hot, and the 
 softer metals melt and some be vaporized ; twenty- 
 five feet denotes the distance to the second ring, 
 and sixty-five feet, to the outside of the exterior 
 ring. Even here wood would be ignited, and 
 many substances vaporized, indicating a tempera- 
 ture incomparably greater than that which forms 
 our clouds. 
 
 The arrangement into parallel rings follows 
 necessarily from such a formation, and from the 
 varying velocities of different portions of the 
 rings, as well as from differences of levity and of 
 temperature needed to vaporize their materials. 
 One cannot compare the densities of the planets 
 13 
 
290 COSMOLOGY. 
 
 without being impressed by the inequalities, and 
 the apparent absence of any law. 
 
 It may be assumed that the density of a planet 
 is in some degree an indication of its temperature. 
 It is not difficult to understand that a large planet 
 would require a much longer time to cool to a 
 solid than a small one, and that quite possibly the 
 rate of cooling was slower than the rate of planet 
 segregation, and that a body like Neptune, some 
 seventeen times more massive than our earth, 
 might, even at this almost infinite distance from 
 the time of its formation, retain a sufficient aliitunt 
 of its primeval heat to render it one-sixth as neavy 
 as our earth, while Uranus, which is only thirteen 
 times more massive, should have attained a density 
 somewhat greater, although it does seem somewhat 
 hard to believe that these should possess so much 
 more levity than our young world. 
 
 Saturn being ninety times larger in mass, it 
 seems more reasonable that we should find there a 
 still higher remaining temperature, and a still 
 smaller specific gravity. 
 
 Jupiter, formed so long after Saturn, and 
 weighing three hundred times as much as our 
 world, is found to have nearly double the specific 
 gravity of the former, a fact which indicates a 
 lower temperature. 
 
 Passing to the planets within the orbit of 
 Jupiter, the increase of density is great, but per- 
 haps no more than is due to their smaller mass, 
 
SATURN'S KINGS. 291 
 
 and consequent more rapid loss of heat ; nor is the 
 difference of density among them remarkable, 
 being much less than is found among the solid 
 constituents of our earth. 
 
 The most marked discrepancy, all things con- 
 sidered, is that existing between the density (or 
 temperature) of Saturn and Jupiter. The former 
 ought, by superior age, and inferior mass, to be 
 cooler, and consequently more dense than the 
 latter. But as this is noj; the case, there must, 
 from some cause, have been less loss of heat by 
 radi^^n. Did the smaller loss come from less 
 radiating power? This implies a considerable 
 ilitiuruiifu in the constitution of the two planets, 
 greater than seerns reasonable, if they once formed 
 portions of the same nebulous mass, existing as 
 it must have done, in a state of violent agita- 
 tion. 
 
 I think we find one true cause of Saturn's 
 greater heat in the peculiar arrangement of its 
 own system. The rings radiate and reflect back 
 upon it much of the radiant lieat of the planet. 
 All know the retaining effect of a light cloud 
 in our earth's atmosphere, but here is a belt 
 having a radiating surface (both sides) of about 
 29,000,000,000 square miles, a surface, as it seems 
 to me, sufficiently large to very materially retard 
 the rate of the planet's cooling, although their 
 form is unfavorable to producing the maximum 
 effect. 
 
292 COSMOLOGY* 
 
 It seems that the belts of Saturn are expanding 
 at the rate of twenty-nine or thirty miles a year. 
 This movement has not continued in one direction 
 very long, or else the rings would have been 
 destroyed. Most probably it is only one of those 
 cloud-like movements, sometimes expanding, and 
 at others contracting, which would naturally be 
 expected in such bodies as I have supposed these 
 to be. 
 
 The two outer planets, although denser than 
 Saturn, as by their superior age and less size they 
 ought to be, are yet very t'onsidiTubly K-^Wense 
 than Jupiter, a result that appears unaccountable, 
 save for the same cause that seems to have affected 
 Saturn, viz. a system of rings. 
 
 From their immense distance, it is probable 
 that these will never be seen, but of their existence 
 I have little doubt. 
 
 . Or THE * 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
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 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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