/ 
 

 
 LI B RARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 U N IVLR5ITY 
 
 or 1 LLl NOIS
 
 12 
 
 domestic supervision, was not exercised when it 
 might have been. It is our earnest hope, nay, it is 
 our belief, that the present danger may be escaped. 
 But it is a very painful thing for a loyal Churchman 
 to feel that, but for our Official Chiefs having the 
 opportunity of introducing a Bill into the House 
 where there are no clergy to rise in reply, such a 
 danger could not have been incurred. 
 
 w 
 
 W. KEVNBLI., PUINTER, LITTLP, PDLTENEY STREET, W. 
 
 Any Part, or any Volume, may he had separately.
 
 xohhmB : 
 
 BY VARIOUS WRITERS; 
 
 EDITED BY THE 
 
 REV. ORBY SHIPLEY, M.A. 
 No. 4. 
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE GREENWOOD, M.A. 
 
 ^0nb0tt : 
 HENRY S. KING & CO. 
 
 65, CORNHILL; & 12, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 1874. 
 
 [All Rights Reserved.]
 
 tntiUB in Mflb^rit 1it0ljkms. 
 
 The proposed Series of Essays, under the above title, owes 
 its origin to two causes. A need, suggested by personal 
 conference, and confirmed by correspondence, has to a wide 
 extent been felt for the production of short, carefully written 
 Treatises upon matters of faith and practice, re-asserted, after 
 a period of neglect, by the Religious Movement in the Church 
 of England, which was begun at Oxford forty years ago. 
 Repeated applications, also, for the re-publication of the 
 Essays contained in T/ie Church and the World in a separate 
 form and at a cheap rate, have from time to time been made. 
 Sufficient reasons prevented a fulfilment, in its entirety, of 
 this wish for re-issue. But the demand for a new series of 
 papers upon kindred subjects, by authors of the same school 
 of thought, was more easily answered. Hence the present plan, 
 which combines elements of both ideas, has been matured. 
 
 Since the publication of the First Series of The Church and 
 the Worlds seven years ago, the position of the Church Party 
 has sensibly improved. Three reasons, under the blessing of 
 God, have caused this improvement: i. hard work amongst 
 all classes done by its clergy ; 2. the effect of repeated but 
 un-retaliated prosecutions, which have extended the range and 
 popularised the effect of its teaching ; 3. its ceaseless activity 
 in the use of the press, as a missionary and teaching agent. It 
 is not unnatural then, as a consequence of such improvement, 
 that promoters of the Revival should be encouraged to fresh 
 employment of the latter engine, in order still further to. con- 
 solidate its labours and to utilise the results of opposition. 
 
 Contemporaneously with the consolidation of the Church 
 Party, and the triumph it is gaining over the traditional form 
 of popular religionism, the attitude of Unbelief has become at 
 once less disguised and more hostile. Legislative measures, 
 actual or prospective, the tone of modern society, the sympa- 
 thies of the literary world, and the language of educated men.
 
 ^ttiUtes in JEotiern ^rxiftlems. 
 
 CREATION AND MODERN SCIENCE. 
 
 There are quarters in which it is no longer argued, but 
 rather taken for granted and made the basis of proposed 
 social and political re-arrangements, that no one of ordinary 
 ability and common honesty can suppose Revelation and 
 Science to be capable of meeting any longer on friendly 
 terms, and holding their ground together. And further, it is 
 frequently imagined that this assumed incompatibility must 
 be a subject of great concern and serious alarm to all devout 
 persons and sincere believers of Christianity, while the man 
 of science need not trouble himself about the matter, or en- 
 tertain for a moment the idea that his investigations can 
 suffer any loss from no account being taken in them of any- 
 thing that what is called the Word of GOD may have to say 
 about the subject-matter to which they relate. 
 
 Now I feel sure that a great mistake is made as to the 
 alarm and perturbation with which it is supposed that reli- 
 gious men either do or should regard the course of modern 
 speculation. The lesson which was given to all concerned, 
 by the result of the disturbance occasioned in men's minds 
 when the discoveries of Galileo were being made known to 
 the world, though it has been constantly referred to, has 
 hardly ever, I think, been understood in all its real signifi- 
 cance. We have long since become accustomed to the idea 
 of our earth being a comparatively small body, physically 
 neither central nor very important even in the system to 
 which it immediately belongs. We have been taught from 
 our infancy to regard it, not as the fixed centre round which
 
 2 Ci^eation and Moder?t Science, 
 
 the expanse of heaven and all that is in it revolves, but as 
 itself ever turning on its own axis and flying along a vast 
 orbit in which it is retained by the controlling power of the 
 sun. We have become so familiar with these ideas, and so 
 convinced of their reality, that we are positively unable to 
 appreciate the shock which was given to the minds of sincere 
 believers of Revelation, when the facts were first announced. 
 And yet there was nothing imaginary or uncalled for in their 
 consternation. It shows an entire misunderstanding of their 
 position to suppose, as is commonly done, that all that was 
 needed to rectify their reading of Scripture was to understand 
 a few phrases, which implied that the sun moved or the earth 
 stood still, as being spoken in a popular way. No ; the apparent 
 opposition between Scripture and the new theories lay far 
 deeper than that. The whole Bible is unquestionably written 
 from a point of view which regards the earth as the centre of 
 the universe ; and the statement contained in the first chapter 
 of Genesis respecting the origin of the sun, moon, and stars, 
 after the earth had been created, and had undergone various 
 mutations, had been supplied with light, furnished with an 
 atmosphere, freed from superfluous waters, and clothed with 
 the verdure of the vegetable kingdom, appeared necessarily to 
 imply that its pre-eminence in the creation was a physical 
 and not merely a spiritual fact. 
 
 But not ovXy had the men of Galileo's time good reason to 
 feel a difficulty, but further — and this is the point on which I 
 wish to insist — that difliculty has never really been removed. 
 Attempts have indeed been made, by the late Dr. McCaul 
 and others, to explain the matter by means of Laplace's 
 theory of the formation of the solar system, and it is not im- 
 possible that in this direction the reconciliation of Scripture 
 with modern astronomical science may finally be discovered. 
 But hitherto such attempts must only be looked upon as very 
 partially successful ; and even as far as they go, they are 
 
 /? * 
 
 % ■/
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 3 
 
 known and cared about by a very limited portion of those 
 who firmly believe in Revelation. Men of every degree of 
 intelligence and education know well — when they look out 
 upon the starlit heaven — what is the earth's insignificant and 
 dependent position among its glorious orbs, and yet feel sure, 
 when they read their Bibles, that something of which Jhe 
 account there given is a true representation did really occur 
 as the result of the fourth day's work. Nor does this state of 
 mind deserve to be contemned as the result of carelessness 
 or want of logical precision. A man may have the best pos- 
 sible reasons for believing the truth of each of two facts that 
 seem to him incompatible, and may well be content to wait 
 patiently for the coming of the trusted friend who informed 
 him of them both, in order to learn how it is that they can be 
 made to fit into one another. He who is so confident of the 
 infallible working of his own intellect, that he can never sub- 
 mit to entertain, as long as need be, two well-sustained pro- 
 positions that appear to him to be contradictory, will be ever 
 snatching at illusory solutions, casting away precious truths, 
 and failing to attain that higher ground from which the 
 apparent difficulty would be seen to have vanished away. 
 
 Now all that has been said with reference to the discove- 
 ries of Galileo is immediately applicable to modern scientific 
 speculations, and especially to the theory that man has been 
 developed out of some lower form of life. The time may 
 come when men will be as firmly convinced of this fact, as 
 they are now that the earth revolves upon its own axis. It 
 is possible too that, when that time comes, all the atr 
 tempts that may have been made to remove the difficulties 
 which the statements of God's Word appear to throw in the 
 way of such an idea, may have proved entirely unsatisfactory. 
 I shall, indeed, before I conclude, have something further to 
 say as to these difficulties, but for the present, I ask the 
 reader to contemplate the possibility of overwhelming
 
 4 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 evidence arising in favour of the theory of development, 
 before any satisfactory explanation has been given of words 
 of Holy Scripture with which that theory may seem to be in- 
 consistent. And I assert that, looking at what has occurred 
 already, we may feel sure that, in this case, too, honest and 
 humble-minded men, who are sincere believers in Revelation, 
 will learn to look upon the animal world with a new interest, 
 from a certainty of their own intimate connection with it, and 
 yet go on believing upon the authority of Holy Scripture that 
 man was in some way created on the same day as the beasts 
 from which he is said to have sprung, and created, unlike 
 them, in the " image" of Him Who made him. 
 
 But I hinted that Science itself might be suffering some 
 loss from the refusal of its votaries to take into consideration 
 the statements of Revelation respecting matters in which they 
 are interested. Scientific investigations at the present time 
 go back to ages so remote ; they have to grope their way in 
 places where the track is so faint, and the light so obscure, 
 that they might well accord at any rate an impartial exami- 
 nation to any hint that may be given by a record which pro- 
 fesses to come from One to Whom that distant past is as clear 
 as the present. May not enquirers into the constitution of 
 the sun and the fixed stars be missing one clue to the reco- 
 very of their past history, by neglecting to take any note of 
 the statement, that it was not till after the earth had cooled 
 down sufificiently to allow of the waters of the ocean resting 
 on its surface, that those heavenly orbs appeared in their 
 present form and brightness t And may not the supporters 
 of the theory of evolution have something to learn from the 
 assertion that the creatures of the sea and the air took their 
 origin in close connection with each other, while the beasts of 
 the earth and man himself were reserved for another day t 
 
 It would be easy to go through the first chapter of Genesis, 
 and show how at every turn the most interesting problems
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 5 
 
 are suggested in every branch of science ; how the simple 
 asking of the questions, under what necessary, or under what 
 alternative, conditions must these things have taken place ? 
 what is really involved or implied in this or that statement ? 
 leads to the most curious and unexpected results. If it be a 
 fact, as is so often asserted, that Scripture was not written to 
 teach men scientific truth, it is none the less a fact that of all 
 the books that ever were written there is none that stirs so 
 powerfully the scientific instinct in man, and drives him by 
 the force of what it reveals to search in every direction into 
 the things that still remain hidden. I am persuaded that 
 many a man who treats the first and second chapters of 
 Genesis as mythical, or as the result of the crude specula- 
 tions of the science or want of science of an early and child- 
 like period, if he would only lay aside for awhile his preju- 
 dices, and study the record they contain with an honest and 
 impartial attention, would say before long, " whatever be the 
 meaning of this, it has none of the marks of a myth, it is no 
 product of the simple science of an age inexperienced in the 
 pursuit of physical knowledge; it contains statements which 
 could not possibly have occurred to an ancient writer who 
 had nothing to depend upon but his own speculations or 
 those of his contemporaries." 
 
 " But," it may be said, " do not the theories of modern 
 science, which teach that all the living beauty and variet}- 
 we now behold has been evolved by natural processes from 
 low and simple forms, do away with the possibility of pay- 
 ing serious attention to any record of creation } Do they 
 not profess to show how all things have come into being 
 without the aid of a rational Creator } " Surely of all 
 the strange delusions which from time to time becloud 
 the minds of clever men, this is one of the strangest. 
 It very much resembles the mistake of an ignorant per- 
 son who, when he witnessed the discharge of a splendid
 
 6 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 firework, displaying an elaborate system of moving and 
 variegated light, should exclaim that some ingenious man 
 must be producing that glorious spectacle ; but by-and-by 
 being shown a common ugly-looking case, and told how, at 
 the touch of a spark, all the glory he had beheld evolved itself 
 out of it, should consider that this disposed of the whole 
 matter, and that there was no longer any room left for thinking 
 of a skilful fabricator. I am shown a little bit of jelly-like 
 vegetable matter, which appears in the most powerful 
 microscope that can be made to be exactly the same through- 
 out, and I am told that from some such beginning as this, 
 has issued all the life, vegetable and animal, with all its 
 countless varieties of forms, and all the endless beauty and 
 marvellous contrivance, which I now see around me. But 
 instead of saying " now there is no room for a Creator," it 
 seems to me that the only reasonable thought is, '' here is a 
 new and greater wonder added to all those which I perceived 
 before ; how marvellous must He be Who shut up all these 
 glorious potentialities into this common bit of matter; and that 
 so hiddenly that no instrument devised by man can reveal the 
 slightest prophecy of their forthcoming." No more can come 
 out of anything than that which is first in it. And. if there 
 really sprang up from a little bit of protoplasm, conscious- 
 ness, will, memory, sense of duty, intelligent choice and effort, 
 profoundest thought, and subtlest reasoning and contrivance, 
 — in that case all these capacities were there, however hidden, 
 and I adore the glory of Him Who compressed them all into 
 that miniature world, with an unspeakable adoration. 
 
 " But at all events," it may be said, *' if this be so, however 
 much you may retain your belief in a Creator, you cannot 
 possibly any longer attribute much value to the Mosaic 
 account of the creation." I have already said enough to show 
 how fully I myself believe in the inspiration, and therefore 
 in the truthfulness of that account, and how little I think
 
 Creation and Modern Science, 7 
 
 it necessary for anyone to abandon that belief because of 
 difficulties that may appear in the way of reconciling its 
 statements with even well-established facts of modern 
 science. Still, partly for the sake of those to whom such 
 difficulties are stumbling-blocks, either because they have not 
 yet attained any firm belief of the inspiration of Holy Writ, 
 or because they are sorely tempted to abandon the faith in 
 which they have been brought up ; partly in order to assist 
 those who are doubtful as to the amount of divine guidance 
 which that word * inspiration ' may imply ; partly with a view 
 of removing the repugnance felt by many devout persons 
 towards the far-reaching speculations of modern science ; and 
 finally in the hope of creating a scientific interest in the minds 
 of some few, whether scholars or physicists, in those earlier 
 chapters of the Bible which of late have been far more dis- 
 cussed and fought over than diligently studied — I will try to 
 put forward a suggestion with regard to the real meaning of 
 the six days' creation, which, if it be not deemed satisfactory 
 in itself, may yet have the effisct of leading others to pay 
 serious attention to the subject, and help them to arrive at a 
 better mode of regarding the whole question. 
 
 Let me begin, then, by stating as simply as I can the exact 
 nature of the difficulties which it seems to me have to be en- 
 countered. Geology reveals a long series of distinct plants 
 and animals — man being in any case among the last- to 
 appear — so arranged with regard to one another that they 
 could not possibly have been contemporaneous, yet which 
 coming in succession must — if individual plants and animals 
 passed lives in any way resembling those of similar existences 
 now — have occupied periods measured, not by thousands, but 
 by millions of years. So that it becomes almost inconceivable 
 either that the earth could have been utterly waste and lifeless 
 till a few days before the coming of man ; or that the whole 
 vegetable world could have been originated before a single
 
 8 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 animal was in existence, or that the entire vegetable kingdom 
 could have made its appearance in one day, and the animal 
 creation, including man, in two days more. 
 
 Judging from such data as have been already acquired, we 
 must pronounce it to be extremely improbable that all the 
 organic creation should have been completed in visible co- 
 existence within the limits of time set down in the first 
 chapter of Genesis ; and very doubtful, to say the least, 
 whether the order of events could have been such in every 
 respect as seems to be there indicated. To this it must be 
 added, that discoveries have been made of late years in more 
 than one line of investigation, which seem to carry back the 
 existence of man, or of some creature sufficiently like man to 
 be capable of fabricating rude instruments, to a much earlier 
 period than had previously been supposed possible ; and 
 although there still appear to be points at which error may 
 have crept in as regards the remoteness of the discovered 
 traces of such human-like agency, yet those who have a right 
 to be heard on the question assert with confidence that the 
 commencement of our race must be looked for, not, as the 
 Bible seems to indicate, six thousand years at the most before 
 the coming of CHRIST, but some hundreds of centuries earlier. 
 And finally the difficulty appears at first sight to be still 
 further complicated if any weight be given to those theories 
 of evolution, which regard the different orders of living things 
 not as separate and instantaneous creations, but as develop- 
 ments, going on through immense periods of time, from lower 
 and simpler forms of life. 
 
 At the time when the believers in the inspiration of the Bible 
 were first obliged to face some of the facts which seem incon- 
 sistent with the sacred record, there appeared to be a simple 
 and satisfactory method of escaping from the difficulty. That 
 creation which began with the words, " GOD said, let there be 
 light," presupposes a state of things already existing ; there
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 9 
 
 was already the earth empty and waste, with deep waters 
 covering its surface. Might not this condition be the termi- 
 nation of the vast periods revealed by geology ? Might not 
 the present world have been built upon the ruins of a former 
 creation ? 
 
 It is obvious at once that this supposition is not consistent 
 with the more recent scientific speculations — those relating to 
 the supposed antiquity of man, and the gradual evolution of 
 present living forms from those which existed in the past geo- 
 logical ages. But independently of these later difficulties, this 
 explanation was never really tenable, except perhaps for a short 
 time before the precise facts of the case had been fully ascer- 
 tained. The most cursory examination of the fossil remains 
 shows that the animals to which they belonged lived for the 
 most part in conditions exactly similar to those of which the 
 creation is described in the first chapter of Genesis. They saw 
 with eyes, therefore there was already light- They breathed, 
 therefore there was already an atmosphere. They were, 
 some marine, and some terrestrial, therefore there was a 
 division of land and water. The plants in like manner were, 
 many of them, such as require sunlight, air, and dry land, for 
 their production and support. So that if the present earth 
 was built upon the ruins of a former world, it would seem that 
 the Almighty had utterly destroyed one order of things, for 
 the purpose of creating another almost precisely similar. And 
 further, although most of the higher forms of life now existing 
 were found, like man, himself, to be comparatively recent, so 
 that they might be conceived to have been created contempo- 
 raneously with him, yet even of these some appeared to have 
 preceded him by a long period instead of a single day ; while 
 among creatures of a lower organization many were dis- 
 covered which had evidently existed during a considerable 
 portion of the geological ages, and which are still existing at 
 the present time. In reference to these, again, it would be
 
 lo Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 necessary to suppose that species had been exterminated for 
 the purpose of producing the preHminary chaos, although 
 the very same species were needed in the new order of things, 
 and had therefore to be re-created. 
 
 Considerations such as these by-and-by drove the de- 
 fenders of Scripture to attempt another explanation. It was 
 asserted that the six days of creation need not mean days 
 such as we now know, but might be understood to denote 
 immense periods of time, sufficient for all the requirements of 
 geology or any other science. 
 
 Here again it is plain that the proposed interpretation does 
 not meet the difficulty of the alleged antiquity of the human 
 race. Whatever may be the case with the other animals, the 
 scriptural narrative seems to carry on the chronology of man's 
 existence upon earth, by a succession of distinct dates, from 
 the day of his creation down to historic times. There may 
 be a difference of a thousand years or so in the calculations 
 derived from different ancient versions of the Bible ; but the 
 date of man's creation as drawn from this source cannot ap- 
 parently be thrown back further than five or six thousand 
 years before the coming of our Lord ; and such a distance 
 of time is insufficient to satisfy the demands of modern 
 science. 
 
 But even putting this out of the question, the proposed 
 explanation is in many ways extremely unsatisfactory and 
 objectionable. The Hebrew word for "day" admits of 
 considerable latitude of meaning. Setting aside the senses 
 which attach to it only in its plural form, with which we 
 are not now concerned, we find the following uses of the 
 word : 
 
 a. It denotes anyone period of daylight, a " day" as opposed 
 to night ; or, to speak scientifically, the time during which the 
 sun remains above the horizon at any particular part of the 
 earth's surface. If the supposition of Gesenius be correct, that
 
 Creatio7i and Modern Science, 1 1 
 
 the word was derived from a root signifying "heat," this would 
 be its first and proper meaning. 
 
 b. It came however very naturally to be applied to the time 
 made up of one " day " in the former sense and the preceding 
 or succeeding night ; in other words, the interval between one 
 sunrise or one sunset and the next, or more accurately, the 
 period of one entire revolution of the earth on its axis — what 
 we call a " day of twenty-four hours." This is evidently the 
 meaning in the first part, at any rate, of the fourth command- 
 ment. 
 
 These are the ordinary senses of the word, but the following 
 additional uses occur, the references for which may be found 
 in Gesenius's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, edited by Dr. 
 Tregelles, at p. 341 : 
 
 c. It is employed in a number of special phrases where we 
 use the word " time : " such as "this day," denoting " at the 
 present time ; " " in that day,'^ denoting " at that time ; " " in 
 the day that," denoting "at the time when." Again, "the 
 day " of any one may express the time, either of his deliver- 
 ance and prosperity, or of his distress and downfall : and simi- 
 larly, " the day of the LORD " and " that day " are used to 
 signify timxcs of divine judgment. 
 
 It is from this usage of the word that some Hebrew scholars 
 and lexicographers, and many expositors of Holy Scripture, 
 have derived the idea of its denoting an indefinite " period of 
 time." But if any one will look carefully into the above 
 phrases, he will discern that the thought which they all 
 involve, and by which they are connected, is that of a crisis, 
 special occasion, or particular conjuncture. It is not the length 
 of the time occupied by what is spoken of, that the writer has 
 in his mind when he uses the word " day," but the position in 
 time, or the critical importance of the event to which it refers. 
 In other words, this use of "day" is not ^;irtensive, but 
 and to argue from it that the Hebrew word may
 
 12 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 be employed to denote a " period of time " of any length, is 
 most unsafe and illogical. The fallacy of the assumption may 
 be shown by an illustration which it requires no knowledge of 
 Hebrew to understand. It happens that we use the English 
 word " day " in two or three phrases precisely similar to those 
 of which instances have been given from the Hebrew. We 
 speak of the state of opinion at the present " day," meaning 
 " at the present time ; " and in like manner we talk of people 
 who are now prominent, as men of the " day." Again, we say 
 of a person that his *' day " is over, or that he has had his 
 *' day ; " implying that he has reached and passed the acme 
 of his fame or success. It is plain that, in these cases, 
 " day " does not mean a space of twenty-four hours ; and also 
 that the state of things expressed by it, e. g. the culminating 
 period of a man's success, may last for a considerable time. 
 But who would ever argue from this, that by the word " day " 
 in an English writer might be understood an " indefinite 
 period t " Yet these are the arguments which are used to 
 show that the corresponding Hebrew word admits of this 
 sense. The truth is, this meaning was invented to meet the 
 supposed exigencies of the first chapter of Genesis, and there 
 is no authority whatever for it anywhere else. But it is a rule 
 of good sense, no less than of sound scholarship, that no new 
 meaning of a word shall be devised to suit a particular passage, 
 unless all the senses which undoubtedly belong to it are 
 plainly and certainly inadmissible. Putting then out of the 
 question the prophetical use of a *' day" for a "year," which 
 has no place in historical narration, let us see whether one or 
 other of the ordinary senses of the word is not applicable to 
 the seven " days " of the first chapter of Genesis. 
 
 The exact translation of the sentence at the end of verse 5 
 is, " And evening happened, and morning happened — day 
 one." In trying to understand this we must begin by de- 
 clining to pay any attention to metaphorical meanings which
 
 Creation and Modei^n Science. 13 
 
 have been suggested for morning " and " evening," as well as 
 for "day," since they are clearly out of place in such a 
 narrative. The first sense then which belongs to *'day" — 
 "day" as opposed to night, although it is evidently the one 
 intended in the preceding words, " GoD called the light day," 
 has never, I believe, been proposed in the latter part of the 
 verse : its adoption would not remove any difficulty, and is 
 precluded by the order of the words, which indicates that 
 " morning " came at the end of the period signified. 
 
 Again, none of the usages by which " day " denotes a 
 special time or season are applicable in this case. The words 
 of Genesis ii. 4, " in the day that the Lord God made the 
 earth," mean "at the time when the LORD GoD made," or 
 " had made," " the earth : " but in the present instance the 
 form of the sentence excludes this and all similar meanings. 
 So too the use of " day " to denote a crisis or special con- 
 juncture, in the history of a person or a nation, is inadmissible 
 in the passage we are considering ; not merely because such a 
 use is poetical or prophetical, but also because it is excluded 
 by the mention of " evening " and " morning." For although, 
 by an intelligible extension of the meaning of these words, we 
 might perhaps get this sense out of the passage — " the close 
 of a period of light happened, and then the close of a period 
 of darkness happened, constituting the first great crisis in the 
 work of creation," yet such a sense is shut out by other con- 
 siderations. It must be remembered that the periods in 
 question, if they are to be of any use in overcoming the 
 geological difficulties of the subject, must be immensely long, 
 consisting of tens of thousands of years. But, if so, the state- 
 ment of verse 13 would run thus — "And the close of an 
 immense interval of light happened, and the close of an 
 immense interval of darkness happened, constituting the 
 third great crisis of creation." Now although, on the one 
 hand, the idea of an immense period of light might possibly
 
 14 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 be made to remove one difficulty, by providing the time re- 
 quired, according to the successions of vegetation revealed in 
 the geological strata, for the production of grass, herb, and 
 tree, as recorded in the preceding verse ; yet, on the other 
 hand, the subsequent vast interval of darkness would intro- 
 duce a fresh difficulty of still greater magnitude ; because any 
 very long-continued absence of light would have annihilated 
 all the ordinary forms of vegetable life, and the crisis of their 
 birth would have been that also of their destruction. More- 
 over, if we are to regard the teachings of geology at all, we 
 must bear in mind the fact that these teachings deny the 
 occurrence of any such crises as those imagined, and declare 
 that one order of creation must have faded away into another 
 by continuous and almost imperceptible gradations. 
 
 It only remains, then, to see whether there is any vaHd 
 objection to the employment in this passage of the remaining 
 sense of the word " day " — that by which it denotes a day of 
 twenty-four hours, or, in other words, the time occupied by 
 one entire revolution of the earth on its axis. This is the 
 sense which the reference to the days of creation made in the 
 fourth commandment naturally suggests, if it does not abso- 
 lutely require : it is the sense too which for the fourth, fifth, 
 sixth, and seventh " days," after GOD had appointed the sun 
 to rule over the day, seems almost unavoidable. The only 
 question therefore is, whether there was anything in the state 
 of the world during the three first " days " which renders this 
 meaning inadmissible. What then are the facts of the case t 
 It is almost demonstrable that the earth at the time referred 
 to, when it had become solid enough to sustain an ocean of 
 deep waters, must have been revolving on its axis at a rate 
 not appreciably different from that at which it turns at pre- 
 sent ; and it is most probable that the source of light was already 
 sufficiently concentrated to allow of the succession of day and 
 night being produced then, as it is now, by means of that
 
 Creation and Modern Science, 15 
 
 revolution. But even supposing that the changes of evening 
 and morning were brought about for the first three days by 
 some different method, there is nothing unreasonable in think- 
 ing that the Almighty would choose to g\Y^ uniformity to 
 the week of creation, by arranging that the periods of light 
 and darkness should be of the same length for those days, as 
 they would be when the sun was fully formed. 
 
 On these grounds, which might be enlarged and fortified to 
 almost any extent, I do not hesitate to say that reverence for 
 the truth of God's Word obliges us, in spite of all scientific 
 difficulties, to take the words " day," " evening," and " morr^- 
 ing," in their ordinary senses ; and I venture to call upon the 
 reader to reject all schemes of interpretation founded upon 
 the opposite principle, even though they originated with so 
 great a theologian as S. Augustine, and were countenanced 
 by so great a scholar as the late Dr. McCaul. 
 
 There are those who, when the inadequacy of these ex- 
 planations is pressed upon them, think it sufficient to fall 
 back upon the vague assertion that " the Bible is not meant 
 to teach science." It is difficult to see upon what grounds 
 this assertion rests. Holy Scripture constantly supplies in- 
 formation on points of scientific interest having no apparent 
 bearing upon morality, religion, or theology ; as for instance 
 when it gives the precise times of the rising and subsidence of 
 the Noachian deluge, and an accurate measure of the greatest 
 height of the waters ; and in so doing it would seem to teach, 
 and be meant to teach, science. But however that may be, it 
 is a sufficient answer to the statement that the Bible is not in- 
 tended to teach scientific truth, to say that at any rate it can 
 hardly have been intended to teach unscientific falsehood. 
 Surely God'S Holy Spirit could have told men that GoD is 
 the Maker and Ruler of all things, that He made all things 
 good, that He created man in His Ov/n Image to be the head 
 i and lord of this terrestrial system, and that He wished the
 
 1 6 Creation and Modern Science, 
 
 seventh day to be kept holy, without stating that all things 
 were made in six days, if such was not the fact, and that they 
 came into existence about six or eight thousand years ago, 
 if that was utterly untrue. 
 
 Let us, then, see whether there is not a way of looking at 
 the whole subject of creation — a way suggested by Scripture 
 itself and by common sense, which may perhaps in due time 
 furnish us with a method of escaping from all these diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 We say, that " in six days the LORD made heaven and 
 earth, the sea, and all that in them is ; " and at first sight the 
 statement appears to be perfectly simple. But as soon as we 
 fix our attention on any one particular thing now existing, 
 we find that it requires a little consideration to determine 
 what it is exactly that we mean by the statement. If I look 
 at the heaven, I know that not a cloud I see there, not a 
 particle of unseen watery vapour, and perhaps not a molecule 
 of the atmosphere that supports the cloud and the vapour, is 
 the same now, or occupies the same place as when God's 
 Word was first fulfilled, " Let there be a firmament in the 
 midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the 
 waters." If I turn my eyes downwards, there are the earth 
 and the sea ; but the distribution of land and water, and the 
 situation, shape, and elevation, of mountain, valley, and plain, 
 are totally different from what they were when the waters 
 were first gathered together in one place, and the dry land 
 appeared. Innumerable mutations have altered all these 
 things in the lapse of ages : so that the only sense in which 
 we can truly say, that GOD made in the six days all that we 
 now behold, is this — that He then made an arrangement of 
 materials, laws, and forces, which He knew would in due 
 time produce the heaven and earth and sea, on which we 
 now gaze. But if this is what we must understand by the 
 statement that GOD made all these things at the first, namely
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 17 
 
 that He established something then, out of which all the 
 things which we now behold would in the course of ages take 
 their rise, then it seems to follow that, even if we go back to 
 the time when heaven and earth and sea first assumed an 
 appearance similar to that with which we are acquainted, 
 there is no need for us to suppose that time to have been the 
 day of their creation. Rather that day must be looked for 
 still further back, when GOD established the laws and forces 
 of which that first phase of heaven, or earth, or sea, would — 
 after how long a time we know not — be the intended and 
 foreseen result. 
 
 This modification of our idea of the six days' work seems 
 inevitable, even when we confine our attention to merely 
 material things ; but the necessity for making it appears to 
 be increased tenfold as soon as we take into consideration the 
 various forms of life. Evidently not an individual plant, 
 animal, or person now to be found upon the earth came into 
 visible being, or was called into any such existence as it at 
 this moment enjoys, on the days of which it is written, that in 
 them the earth brought forth grass and herb, and tree, or that 
 God created every living thing that moveth which the waters 
 brought forth abundantly, or that He made beast and cattle and 
 creeping thing, or created Man in His own image. If, there- 
 fore, they were made on those days, it could only be in the sense 
 of something being then formed, or established, or arranged, 
 which would in due time lead to their production. But if we 
 . are obliged to allow this in the case of all the individual 
 1 members of the different kingdoms after the first progenitors 
 of existing species, there can surely be no further difficulty in 
 allowing it in the case of those first progenitors themselves ; 
 of them too it is conceivable that their creation on the third, 
 fifth, or sixth day, was simply the arrangement of those 
 elements and setting to work of those forces, from which at 
 last they would inevitably spring.
 
 1 8 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 Gentle reader, you have probably some plant in your 
 garden or conservatory, or on your window sill, in the growth 
 of which you take a special interest, I trust that you believe, 
 as firmly as I do, that a loving GOD has made that plant for 
 your delight. Let us, then, stand for a few moments before 
 it, while I ask you to consider the question, WJien did He 
 make it ? If you reply, " on the third day of Creation," you 
 will see at once that it could only have been made then in 
 the form of ^ some minute germ or gemmule, or other remote 
 beginning of life, which, after going through a long line of 
 preceding plants, at last came forth in the individual spe- 
 cimen at which you are now looking. And if this was the 
 mode of creation of this particular individual, it is at least 
 possible that the creation of the first unit of the species to 
 which it belongs may have taken place in no other fashion. 
 
 But if, in order to avoid this inference, you say that your 
 plant may have been created since that first making of the 
 species, at what point will you put this more recent act of 
 creation } Did it take place when the seed or cutting from 
 which your flower sprang was first planted in the ground ? 
 Surely what occurred then was merely the starting of a fresh 
 growth, not the making of a new creature. Was it, then, 
 when the seed or cutting first began to be formed that the 
 new plant was created .'' — but that, too, was merely a process 
 of growth — the existing life of the parent plant moulding 
 existing materials. Do what you will, you will find it impos- 
 sible to fix any satisfactory date for the creation of your 
 plant later than the day when GoD said, " Let the earth bring 
 forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding 
 fruit." And, indeed, Scripture itself will not allow you to 
 seek for any other creation. For it says that on the sixth 
 day *' The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
 host of them," and with the coming of the seventh day " GOD 
 ended His work which He had made ; and He rested on the
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 19 
 
 seventh day." But if the production of every fresh individual 
 of a race is an act of creation, then GoD only ended His 
 work, and rested that one day, in order to begin it again. the 
 day after, and continue it ever since. This does not look like 
 finishing the host of heaven and earth, or ending His work. 
 But, in fact, the seventh day's rest itself becomes inexplicable 
 on this supposition : for not only would all the races of tiny 
 creatures, whose life only lasts for a few hours, have died out, 
 unless preserved by a miracle, if no successors were created 
 for them during that one whole day of rest, but instead of the 
 Sabbath having been instituted, as the Scripture clearly repre- 
 sents, because God'S work came to an end on that day, GOD 
 must have arbitrarily stopped His work of creation for one day 
 for the purpose of instituting the Sabbath ; a thing which, it 
 may be further observed, He has, on the supposition in 
 question, never done since for the purpose of keeping it. 
 
 It results, then, that the Creation described in the first 
 chapter of Genesis was not the making merely of the first 
 progenitors of the different races there spoken of, but of every 
 individual of those races from the first to the very last. And 
 this conclusion, if it needs to be enforced, is strengthened by 
 what is said respecting the creation of man, which must surely 
 show what is to be understood in every other case. GOD said, 
 " Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let 
 thein have dominion ; " where the sudden change to the plural 
 shews that by " man " is meant not Adam, but the whole 
 human race. So that here comes in again the inference, 
 that since all the rest of that race could only have been made 
 then by some beginning of life being formed, out of which, by 
 virtue of the forces contained in it, and the laws impressed upon 
 it, all the successive individuals would, as time went on, arise, 
 Adam himself also may have been created at that time in no 
 other way. In other words, as there has been an immense 
 process to be gone through, and a great lapse of ages since 
 
 c 2
 
 20 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 the sixth day, before any of my readers came into visible 
 existence, so it may have been that it was only after a long 
 progression, and at a great distance of time from the day on 
 which he was created, that Adam at last trod the earth, and 
 man, made in the ''Image of GOD," assumed his proper place in 
 the universe. And the same reasoning applies to nearly all the 
 acts of Creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis ; with 
 the exception, perhaps, of the division of the light from the 
 darkness — which it would seem, from the nature of the case, 
 must have taken place between the morning and the evening 
 of the first day — whatever is there said to have been made, 
 or done, need not have appeared in its perfect and com- 
 plete form till long afterwards ; the interval of time having 
 been occupied in the processes then set up working themselves 
 out to their intended results. 
 
 But it may still be said, that, although such an idea of 
 creation is conceivable, and although in the case of the suc- 
 ceeding members of any race of living things it may be 
 necessary, yet, as regards the original progenitors of the 
 different races, it can hardly be made to agree with the 
 Scriptural narrative. If the account had merely been, " GOD 
 said, Let Us make man in Our Image," there would have 
 been no difficulty in supposing that ages might have elapsed 
 before the result of that determination displayed itself. But 
 the sacred record goes on to state, '' So GOD created man in 
 His own Image : . . . male and female created He them ; 
 and God blessed them ; . . . and GOD said. Behold, I 
 have given you every herb." Does not this require us to 
 believe that Adam and Eve appeared in visible existence 
 before the close of the sixth day } This might be our first 
 idea, but I have already given a reason for supposing that 
 this presumption cannot be maintained. The words are, 
 '' God said, Let Us make man in Our .Image after Our like- 
 ness : and let them have dominion." ''Man," then, here is
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 21 
 
 not Adam, but the whole human race ; and obviously, when 
 it is said directly afterwards, " So GOD created man in His 
 Own Image, in the Image of GoD created He him ; male and 
 female created He them," He must be understood as having 
 carried out the design previously announced. And therefore, 
 here too, " man " denotes the whole race, and " male " and 
 *' female " are not Adam and Eve, but all the individual 
 members of the two sexes from them down to the end of 
 time. So, too, the grant of dominion, fertility, and suste- 
 nance is made to the whole human race : and that it is not 
 necessary to suppose that such words could only be addressed 
 to those who were able to hear and understand them, is 
 shown by the fact that GOD had just before blessed the fishes 
 and the birds, " Saying, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the 
 waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." 
 
 That which GOD has determined to execute, and has set at 
 work the means to bring about, is as truly present to Him, as 
 it is to us when it has been accomplished before our eyes; He 
 can already pronounce it to be good or bad, and declare its 
 properties or assign its prerogatives. We have a striking 
 instance of this divine style of treating that which has been 
 provided for as if it were actually done, in the threat given to 
 our first parent, " In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt 
 surely die." We know that Adam did eat of the forbidden 
 tree, and yet lived for at least nine hundred years after. But 
 there was no mistake in the awful warning. At the moment 
 when Adam sinned, the germ of death entered the human 
 frame. The thing was done, the result certain ; and the lapse 
 of a thousand years before it worked itself out, made no 
 difference in the Divine estimation. For it must be remem- 
 bered, that there is this distinction between the works of GOD 
 and those of man ; that when we have made every arrange- 
 ment, and set at work all the requisite means, for bringing 
 about a desired end, we never can be certain that our purpose
 
 22 Creation and Modei^n Science. 
 
 will not be defeated, or that the result will not disappoint our 
 expectations. But with Him there is no such uncertainty ; 
 He takes into account every disturbing influence, and works 
 into his designs every opposing force. Therefore, when he 
 speaks, it is done, and when He commands, it stands fast : 
 although for ages after no eye but His own may discern the 
 intended result. Therefore, too, in His Word, He " calleth 
 those things which be not as though they were," speaking of 
 His Son as " the Lamb slain from the foundation of the 
 world;" saying to Abraham, " Unto thy seed have I given 
 this land," when as yet he had no child, and the land was in 
 the hand of strangers ; and asking by His prophet, " Hast 
 thou not heard long ago how I did it, and of ancient times 
 that I formed it," when it was only just now that He had 
 actually brought it to pass. Hence it is that where it is 
 written, " GoD said. Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
 yielding seed, and the tree yielding fruit," it is added, " and 
 it was so; and the earth brought forth grass, and the herb 
 yielding seed . . . , and the tree yielding fruit . . . 
 and God saw that it was good : " though it may have been 
 ages from that time before any eye but His saw the earth 
 covered with vegetation. 
 
 I trust that the thoughtful reader has now sufficiently 
 grasped the idea of creation which I have tried to present to his 
 mind ; an idea which takes in the entire range of living 
 things from the beginning to the end, with all their possible 
 mutations, transformations, and developments, from the mo- 
 ment that the first germ of life appeared upon this globe to 
 the accomplishment of that regeneration of all things, which 
 surely must have been the phase of His creation that stood 
 out most prominently before the eye of GOD, when He " saw 
 everything that He had made, and behold it was very good." 
 According to this idea, they who stand at any time upon the 
 earth may say with perfect truth of the things around them,
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 23 
 
 as then existing, " GOD made all these at the first ; " 
 because He then made or did that of which these are the 
 prepared, predetermined, and forenamed results. And the 
 lapse of time, whether long or short, between the actual ap- 
 pearance of the named and contemplated result and the 
 institution of the means for its production, forms no element 
 in the matter ; some fruits of each divine work may have 
 become apparent to angelic eyes at the instant it was accom- 
 plished, while some may never see the light till the day when 
 *'the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements shall melt with fervent heat." And I wish it es- 
 pecially to be noticed that this view of the matter has not 
 been arrived at at all in the interest of science, but as a con- 
 clusion from the most obvious facts of existence, and the 
 simplest statements of Holy Scripture. You, my reader, were 
 certainly made, according to the Scriptures, on the sixth day 
 of creation ; both because GOD finished His work at the end 
 of that day, and rested from it, and also because He spoke of 
 that which He was going to do, when He made man, as the 
 making of the entire race. Contemplate, therefore, all the 
 transformations that you must have undergone from that day 
 to the present, and those which must still befall you up to the 
 hour when you shall assume your glorified form and be indeed 
 " very good ; " and then take yourself as a sample of the 
 whole six days' creation, and you can hardly fail to feel the 
 force, even if you are unable to acknowledge the necessity, of 
 the conception for which I have been pleading. 
 
 Before, however, we attempt to enunciate that conception 
 in the form of an exact definition, we must notice another 
 principle that should be taken into account, in order to render 
 it complete. It is evident that the production of individuals, 
 whether vegetable or animal, depends not only on the exis- 
 tence of certain forces and laws by which they are built up, 
 but also on the circumstances being such that those forces
 
 24 C? cation and Modern Science. 
 
 and laws have an opportunity of coming into action ; and 
 these circumstances, it will be found, generally involve motions 
 of which the forces in themselves are incapable. The seed 
 from which a new plant is to spring must be carried by the 
 force of gravity, or by the wind, or by a bird, or by man, to a 
 soil favourable to its growth. One man divides a polype, or 
 cuts and plants a slip, and a new animal or plant results. 
 Another keeps beasts, and, for his own purposes, regulates 
 the production of their offspring ; often bringing into existence 
 individual animals, which certainly would never have come 
 into being without his intervention. And this is still more 
 obviously true of the offspring of man himself. Now no one 
 would say in these cases that the plants, animalcules, beasts, 
 or men, which thus originated, were created by the earth's 
 attraction, or by the wind, bird, or man whose action was 
 necessary for their production. We must allow, then, that 
 they were potentially in existence before, although favouring 
 circumstances were needed in order to bring them into visible 
 separate being. And this leads us to notice, in passing, that 
 there must be innumerable hosts of things which have this 
 potential existence — which were as really created at the be- 
 ginning as their more fortunate competitors, and yet, as a 
 matter of fact, never see the light. 
 
 But if, as certainly is the case, there has thus come across 
 the path of the development of things from their constituent 
 forces the interference, not only of lifeless agents, but also of 
 insect, bird, beast, and man, can we reasonably stop here 1 Is 
 it not plainly unphilosophical to deny that yet higher intelli- 
 gences may possibly have modified the course of that 
 development, both before and since man came upon the 
 scene } It may turn out that, when science has catalogued 
 all the forces and processes by which things have passed from 
 previous states to the forms in which we now perceive them, 
 the traces of that higher interference may become just as
 
 Ci^eation and Mode7m Science. 25 
 
 plain, as the hand of man is now in the pedigree of some oi 
 the races of plants, birds, and cattle. Yet this higher inter- 
 vention could no more be said to create the things to the pro- 
 duction of which it led than man can be said to have created 
 the curious varieties of pigeon or dog to which his skill in the 
 art of rearing has given rise. 
 
 If, then, we include under the comprehensive term " favour- 
 ing circumstances " all intervention, whether physical, animal, 
 human, angelic, Divine, or if there be any other, which merely 
 enables existing forces to come into play, and produce effects 
 in accordance with their laws of action, and if we remember 
 what has previously been said as to the time that may elapse 
 between the creation of a thing and its coming into sensible 
 existence, we finally get this idea of creation, or this account 
 of the six days' work : " When GOD is spoken of as having 
 created a thing on a particular day. He is to be understood as 
 having on that day made those capacities, established those 
 forces, and instituted those laws which, being called into play 
 by circumstances favourable to their action, would in due 
 time lead to its production." 
 
 It may be noticed by the attentive reader that in this defi- 
 nition nothing is said of the creation of materials, and indeed 
 he may have observed that I have, throughout this essay, 
 almost entirely avoided all reference to the origin of material 
 elements. The reason of this is twofold. 
 
 In the first place, it must be remembered, as we have had 
 occasion to remark before, that the six days' creation is not 
 spoken of as being the commencement of this terrestrial globe. 
 When the work began which ended with the seventh day, 
 there was already in existence the earth, empty and waste, 
 and the waters enveloping its surface. It would seem likely, 
 therefore, that all the material elements had already been 
 formed before the creation with which we are immediately 
 concerned was initiated. If so, it would appear that the intro-
 
 26 Creation and Modei^n Science. 
 
 duction of new modes of action and combination, new pro- 
 perties, new qualities, amid existing materials, was what con- 
 stituted the essence of the creation recorded in the first 
 chapter of Genesis ; and this will be sufficiently described as 
 the establishment of new forces and the institutions of new 
 laws. 
 
 Still it would not be safe to assert positively that no new 
 element was called into being in the course of the six days' 
 work. It remains, therefore, to observe that the constituent 
 elements themselves are, according to all the means we have 
 of becoming acquainted with them, simply arrangements and 
 combinations of force. Take, for instance, a piece of gold. 
 You see it to be of a yellow colour. This merely shows that 
 there are forces there so regulated as to beat off such waves 
 of the light-bearing ether, which fills all space, as fall upon 
 them, in undulations of that particular length which causes 
 the sensation to us of the colour which we name yellow. 
 There is, as it were, an Island of force, against which the waves 
 of the luminiferous ocean are for ever dashing, to be broken 
 up into receding undulations, some of which enter the eye of 
 the beholder, and excite in him the id^eas both of the form and 
 the colour of the gold. Again, if you press the metal with 
 your finger, you experience a feeling which only denotes that 
 some force is repelling that excited by the efibrt of your will. 
 If you hold it in your hand, you become conscious of its 
 weight, which. is nothing but a force pushing your hand down 
 towards the earth. You may chance at the same time to feel 
 that it is hot or cold. This merely means that there are 
 forces in it which impart more or less of motion to the mole- 
 cules of your flesh or nerves, or of any other substance with 
 which it is brought in contact. And so you may go through 
 all its properties ; and if you know enough of science to see 
 what each of them implies, you will find there is nothing 
 there but force — something, that is, which causes or changes, 
 
 I
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 27 
 
 or tends to cause or change, motion in the things which come 
 within the range of its influence. You may, if you please, 
 imagine that all these forces reside in something which you call 
 the substance of the metal. But it is simpler to say that the 
 forces themselves are the substance ; that the metal is nothing 
 but a bundle of force, difl"ering from other elements by the 
 laws which regulate its action. Nor must it be imagined 
 that this idea destroys the reality of matter. Nothing can be 
 more real and substantial than that which causes motion, 
 or resists and modifies it ; and in asserting that all matter 
 is force, we do not reduce it to a shadowy and intangible 
 existence, but rather give form and substance to that which 
 was before an unrealized and indefinite conception. I shall 
 have something to say at the conclusion of this essay as to 
 the nature of force itself; and, in the meantime, I will ask 
 the reader to meditate a little upon this wondrous agency, 
 and especially to notice that he himself has the power of 
 originating and controlling it, and that therefore he himself 
 is distinct from, and superior to, the matter which it 
 constitutes. 
 
 Even then supposing that new materials were made at the 
 time we are considering, the definition of creation that has 
 been laid down is sufficient ; because those materials were 
 nothing else than new forces with the laws to which they- were 
 subjected. When however we come to think of the creation 
 of life we must introduce the idea of the other term contained 
 in our definition, namely, "capacities;" because here we have, 
 in all the higher vital forms, not only force, but that which 
 exerts force at its pleasure, and in addition experiences sen- 
 sation ; the living creature is a bundle of capacities for sensa- 
 tion and exertion, just as the lifeless element is a bundle of 
 forces. The consciousness of separate individuality is itself 
 one of the sensations which constitute the individual ; and 
 the capacity for such a consciousness is the beginning of his
 
 2 8 Creation and Moder^i Science. 
 
 existence. Thus capacities and forces, and the laws accord- 
 ing to which those capacities are reahzed and those forces act, 
 seem to form the ultimate subjects of creation. 
 
 But while I thus endeavour to show that the definition is 
 sufficient, that it says enough, I must also guard against a 
 possible idea that it says too much, that the six days' crea- 
 tion may have been something less than what my statement 
 represents it to have been. When it is said that all material 
 things had probably been called into existence before the six 
 days' work began, the thought is not unlikely to occur that that 
 Avork may have been nothing more than a re-arrangement of 
 elements already existing. Fresh combinations, it may be 
 said, wrought out in the laboratory of the cooling globe, 
 fresh mechanical contrivances devised in that busy workshop, 
 are all that are implied in those effects which are said to have 
 been brought about in the course of the great six days. The 
 gases which compose the atmosphere were already formed, 
 and needed but to be disengaged in order to constitute that 
 firmament whose surface the birds of the heaven were to 
 skim, and above which the clouds containing the superfluous 
 waters were to float. It needed but a little manipulation of 
 the still half-molten masses lying beneath the thin crust of 
 earth, to cause those elevations and depressions of the land 
 which would oblige the waters to run off into their appointed 
 place. And then the evolution of life in the slimy shallows, 
 and the rich lands now first emerging from the deep, w^as but 
 an act of divine chemistry making skilful use of forces and 
 properties already existing, to form new combinations never 
 seen before on earth. 
 
 This idea is at the first glance a tempting one, and yet all 
 true insight into the meaning of the divine record forbids us 
 to be content with it. Ever the question returns, from what 
 was it that GoD rested on the seventh day } Or, in other 
 words, what was it that constituted the peculiar significance
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 29 
 
 of the previous six days' work in the annals of this earth and 
 of the universe ? From such work as that just now alleged 
 to be sufficient there has never been any rest. New arrange- 
 ments and fresh combinations of existing elements, according 
 to existing laws and properties, are ever going on, alike in 
 the physical course of nature, and by the intervention of man. 
 They constitute indeed those " favouring circumstances " 
 through which individual life is incessantly being brought into 
 the world. But if, on the one hand, we cannot certainly affirm 
 the formation of any new element in the six days of creation, 
 and, on the other, cannot be satisfied with assigning to those 
 days mere rearrangements of existing materials, there seems 
 nothing left but to suppose that at that time fresh capacities, 
 forces, and laws were introduced among those already at work, 
 or were impressed upon elements already called into existence. 
 To give an instance of what I mean, I do not suppose that 
 the production of light, assuming it to have involved a cosmical 
 and not merely a terrestrial change, depended on the creation 
 of the elem.ent or elements of which the light-bearing medium 
 is composed ; nor yet on the other hand upon those elements 
 being then, by mechanical and chemical reactions, brought 
 into the required combination and the interstellar position. 
 Rather I should consider that, by a permanent alteration in 
 the nature of the forces composing it, the luminiferous «ether 
 then first became capable of transmitting those vibrations 
 which produce the effect which we call light ; having hitherto 
 been able to convey only those which constitute dark heat. 
 I do not offer this as an exact account of what actually 
 occurred, but as an illustration of the kind of work which 
 seems to have been done during the six days of creation. To 
 take another example : the initiation of vegetable life on the 
 third day probably did not require the formation of any new 
 material. And yet the putting together of existing elements 
 to form an organic substance, even if that be possible where
 
 30 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 nothing but chemical and mechanical forces are available for 
 the purpose, would not answer the conditions of the 
 problem. There are organic compounds which neither take 
 nutriment into themselves, nor are capable any longer of 
 growing, but we call them dead. There must have been intro- 
 duced into existing forces, or impressed upon existing mate- 
 rials, forces and laws of life, before the most infinitesimal 
 beginning of a living vegetable organism could ever have 
 taken its origin. 
 
 I trust that I have sufficiently defined and explained the 
 idea, drawn originally from other than scientific grounds, of 
 what creation really means in Scriptural language. Let us 
 now proceed to try what light the conception thus gained will 
 throw upon the supposed failure of Revelation to meet the 
 requirements of modern science. The following, then, appear 
 to be some of the obvious results of this new method of 
 regarding the subject : 
 
 1 . All excuse is taken away for imagining that six days, 
 such as we ordinarily mean when we speak of days, would be 
 insufficient for the accomplishment of the work recorded to 
 have been done in them. The commencement of a new capa- 
 city, the setting up of the action of an entirely new force, the 
 beginning of the dominion of an entirely new law, must 
 according to any notion we can form be instantaneous. Days 
 may have been assigned, but moments, as far as we can see, 
 would have been sufficient, for all that is narrated as having 
 been done in the sacred week of the creation. This is so 
 evident, that we must seek for any explanation of the time 
 allotted, not in the necessities of the case, but rather in the 
 mysteries of the Divine Nature, or perhaps the need of dis- 
 playing by degrees before angelic eyes the wondrous begin- 
 nings from which a world of light and life was to spring. 
 
 2. And yet room is left for any lapse of time, any succes- 
 sion of vast periods, that geology or any other science may
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 31 
 
 demand. How far back in the depths of eternity that week 
 of strange significance may lie, we have no means of deter- 
 mining. The only Hmit is that this globe, once a revolving 
 chaos of incandescent fluids and vapours, had already cooled 
 down into a solid mass, with the waters resting on its surface. 
 The great gap which Chalmers and his followers believed to 
 exist in the scriptural narrative was rea Uy there. Only it came 
 not as they placed it, after the first verse of the first chapter of 
 Genesis, but after the third verse of the second chapter ; not 
 before, but after, the six days' work and the seventh day of 
 rest that followed it. There, as they who have talked about 
 there being two contradictory accounts of the creation have 
 dimly seen, the language itself of 'the Sacred Word indicates 
 a new starting-point ; the formula, " These are the generations" 
 of the heavens and the earth, referring here, as everywhere else 
 in the book of Genesis, to that which follows it, and denoting 
 in this place, as always elsewhere, a fresh point of departure 
 in the narrative.^ So that there is room for an interval of 
 
 ^ The punctuation and translation of Genesis ii. v. 4, 5, are alike uncertain ; 
 those which I have adopted are as follows : " This is the history of the heavens 
 and of the earth when they were created. At the time when God had made the 
 earth and the heavens, neither any plant of the field was yet in the earth, nor any 
 herb of the field as yet grew ; for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon 
 the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. " The translation ' ' when 
 God >^^^made the heavens," which is that given by Gesenius, seems absolutely 
 necessary, in order to make any sense of the passage. If we render the words, 
 '* at the time when God made the earth and the heavens," and understand them 
 to refer to the six days' creation, the concluding words seem meaningless. At 
 that time the reason why none of the herbs of the field could yet be made 
 was, not that there was no man to till them and no rain to keep them alive, but 
 that there was no place for them to grow, while the waters of the sea still covered 
 the whole earth. On the very day that obstacle was removed, God said, " Let 
 the earth bring forth grass and herb and tree." 
 
 It may be observed that in the statement that, till the time in question, ** the 
 Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth," we have a hint given of the 
 change of climate which ushered in man and the coeval, or nearly coeval, plants 
 and animals. There was plenty of rain in some portion at any rate of the geo-
 
 32 Creation and Moder^n Science. 
 
 any length that the far-reaching speculations of science may- 
 require, between the keeping of the first sabbath and the 
 history of which the verse that follows is the commencement. 
 During that time the potential creations of the six days were 
 working themselves out in varied coexistence, mutation, and 
 succession ; and man made in the image of GOD was still, if 
 we may so express it, below the surface. But to use the 
 same metaphor, he was making his way upwards ; and when 
 all things are now ready for him to emerge, the Sacred 
 Record again breaks its silence, and carries on the narrative, 
 with more or less of continuity, down to historic times. All 
 that is necessary for the vindication of the Scriptural Chro- 
 nology is to understand, that, however long ago he was 
 created, man only appeared in his perfect form some five 
 thousand years before Christ came into the world. 
 
 3. And if it be regarded as an established fact, that human 
 remains and traces of human sagacity are to be found in 
 strata, which must have been inaccessible from the earth's 
 surface long before the remotest period that can be assigned 
 from Scripture for the coming of man, the principle laid down 
 would seem to furnish a suggestion for a satisfactory mode of 
 explanation. If the moulding of " the dust of the ground " 
 into the perfect man was not a sudden leap but a long-con- 
 tinued progress, commencing from the sixth day and only 
 ending when *' GoD put the man whom He had formed " into 
 the garden "which He had planted," it would appear likely 
 that, at some advanced stage in the process, beings would 
 arise the remains and works of which might be indistinguish- 
 able from those of rude or degenerate men. The man whose 
 
 logical ages, as the prints left by it in the hardened mud of the carboniferous epoch 
 sufficiently prove. All that is here asserted is that, at the time and place where 
 the flora and the fauna of the human period came into existence, there had been 
 previously a long drought, which needed to be remedied before they could be pro- 
 duced to any purpose.
 
 Creatio7i and Modem Science. 33 
 
 creation is 'recorded in Genesis is man made " in the image of 
 God." Now it seems not improbable that what in man con- 
 stitutes his hkeness to GOD may be entirely in abeyance, 
 without his losing altogether his human powers and sagacity, 
 or ceasing in the eyes of science to be a human being. When 
 we remember, then, that according to all analogy the highest 
 step would be the last, it would appear probable that there 
 was a time when the god-like element had not yet been de- 
 veloped in man, although in other respects he had attained 
 almost his full powers. And if so, the supposed discrepancies 
 between Scripture and science on this subject may all arise 
 from their having assumed differing definitions of man, in 
 accordance with the difference of their respective aims. 
 
 I cannot here resist the temptation of showing how exactly 
 this suggestion with regard to pre- Adamite man falls in with 
 a conclusion of modern science, enunciated by a distinguished 
 naturalist, who arrives at his results from a starting-point 
 totally different from my own, and whose views moreover in 
 this instance are alluded to with approval by no less an 
 authority than Mr. Darwin himself. (''Descent of Man," vol. i. 
 p. 158; compare note, p. 137.) In quoting the following 
 passage I do not in any way pledge myself to the particular 
 theory on which it rests. It will be found, I believe, that any 
 theory as to the mode in which the forces set at work in the 
 sixth day of creation by degrees wrought out the perfect man, 
 will lead to much the same conclusion. " Those great modi- 
 fications," writes Mr. Wallace ('' Contributions to the Theory 
 of Natural Selection," pp. 319, 320), "of structure and of 
 external form, which resulted in the development of man out 
 of some lower type of animal, must have occurred 'before his 
 intellect had raised him above the condition of the brutes, at 
 a period when he was gregarious, but scarcely social, with a 
 mind perceptive but not reflective, ere any sense of right or 
 feeling of sympathy had been developed in him." In other
 
 34 Ci^eation and Moder^n Science. 
 
 words the ancestor of man acquired a completely Hum.an form 
 we know not how long before he was stamped with the image 
 and likeness of GoD. 
 
 It is only fair to add that I should Infer from other passages 
 in his essays that Mr. Wallace would be inclined to place the 
 change by which man finally became complete, at a much earlier 
 period than any that can be assigned for the commencement 
 of the Adamic race. But I think he would allow that the 
 evidence on this subject is extremely incomplete ; and there 
 are not a few arguments which seem to point rather to a late 
 date for the entire completion of man's nature. 
 
 4. It would not be necessary, according to the principle of 
 interpretation laid down, that the results contemplated in the 
 Divine purpose should in all cases have made their appear- 
 ance in the exact order in which they are said to have been 
 created — in the exact order, that is, in which the process of 
 their production was commenced. If, for instance, science 
 should ever be able to demonstrate that there were living things 
 in the sea at a time when the waters still covered the face 
 of the whole earth, this would not be inconsistent with the 
 statement that the arrangements which finally led to the 
 division of land and water were made two days before those 
 which finally led to the existence of marine animals. It would 
 only show that the processes which ended in the latter result 
 were more speedy than those which brought about the former. 
 So too if it could be proved that not a plant could have ap- 
 peared upon the earth until the sun had assumed its present 
 condition, this would not militate againSt the assertion that 
 grass, and herb, and tree, were made upon the third day, 
 while the sun took his proper form only on the fourth. It 
 would merely indicate that the new force, or mode of action in 
 virtue of which the sun became constituted as we now see 
 him, produced its full effect with greater rapidity than did 
 that to which the plants and trees at last owed their birth.
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 35 
 
 In fact there is no arrangement of the order In which created 
 things appeared that science may wish to adopt, for which our 
 principle does not apparently leave full scope ; remembering 
 only that the new forces which led to the bursting forth of 
 light must, from the nature of the case, have produced their 
 effect on the coming of the first day, and that the means 
 employed for dividing the light from the darkness must have 
 been fully developed at the beginning of the first night. 
 
 5. The view of creation which has been offered, while It 
 does not require, or seek to establish, any one particular 
 theory of the formation of things and animals — such as that 
 of Natural Selection — leaves ample room for that or any other 
 mode of regarding the subject which may hereafter become 
 established. It even suggests and invites scientific investiga- 
 tion In various directions In which it may by-and-by prove 
 very fruitful. Let us take two or three instances of the elas- 
 ticity and likewise of the suggestiveness of the views which 
 have been proposed. 
 
 A great controversy has for some time been going on 
 among scientific men as to the possibility of living forms 
 being evoked out of lifeless materials ; and the struggle is 
 hardly likely to meet with any speedy termination. Now at 
 first sight it might appear, as If every such notion was incom- 
 patible with a genuine belief in the creation of earthly life at 
 the time of the great six days. If a chemist, It may be said, 
 can call forth life by a suitable combination of materials and 
 temperatures, a chance concurrence of fortunate circumstances 
 may very easily have given rise to It at the first. But suppose 
 that It is in consequence of what was done at the first that the 
 chemist can now summon living forms into visible existence. 
 It is quite possible, on the one hand, that the Almighty may 
 have seen fit to attach the capacities and forces which consti- 
 tute life only to certain special particles or groups of matter, 
 and to those to which they should be transmitted from them
 
 36 Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 by propagation. And this view would suit the theory of those 
 who deny that Hfe can ever now arise except from Hfe. But 
 on the other hand it is conceivable, that the new forces may 
 have been infused by the work of the six days into matter 
 generally, or into the entire range of particular forms of 
 matter ; so that life may be always ready to appear, when 
 conditions favourable to its production are satisfied. The 
 believer in Revelation then need not feel himself under any 
 necessity to treat the theory of Abiogenesis, as it is called, as 
 a religious heresy, although physicists and physiologists seem 
 disposed at present to regard it as a scientific one. This is 
 an illustration of what I have called the elasticity of the pro- 
 posed idea of creation : my next example will show both 
 that and its suggestiveness. 
 
 We will imagine a follower of Darwin thinking it worth 
 while to try how his theories will work out in the light of 
 Holy Scripture, interpreted in the way for which I have con- 
 tended. When he reads that on the third day GOD created 
 the vegetable kingdom, he will probably not care to go 
 further back than to some minute germ, from which, as he 
 believes, every kind of plant — past, present, and to come — was 
 destined to arise by a process of variation and natural selec- 
 tion. If I am right, there is nothing in the Sacred Record to 
 militate against this belief; but there is something to suggest 
 for it a special, and perhaps welcome, form. The final result 
 of the third day's work particularly mentioned, is the produc- 
 tion of land plants^grass, herb, and tree ; but what was the 
 habitat of the original germ t Without venturing to answer 
 such a question too positively, we have the following probabi- 
 lities to guide us. According to the principles laid down, the 
 second day of creation saw the establishment of those forces, 
 which would in due time produce a cloud-supporting atmos- 
 phere ; while the first part of the third day was occupied in 
 setting at work the energies which have ever since been
 
 Creation and Modern Science. '^j 
 
 causing^ those inequalities of level upon which the existence 
 of dry land depends. Having regard to the slowness with 
 which these energies appear to work, and indeed to the 
 patient deUberateness with which the Almighty usually sees 
 fit to carry out His great designs, it would seem likely that 
 when the germ of vegetable life was called into being on the 
 third day, there was neither air in which it could fly, nor 
 land upon which it could rest ; nothing but the expanse of 
 ocean, with the changes of day and night passing over it. 
 In all probability, then, that little nucleus which bore the 
 future of the vegetable world was a thing of marine origin. 
 
 If we pass on, still regarding the matter from the same 
 point of view, to the fourth day's work, we find ample range 
 for speculation. The making of the creatures of the sea and 
 air implies the coming in of new capacities and forces, of 
 which the most important we may suppose would be the 
 capacity — hidden and unrealized at first — for sensation or 
 feeling. And now, in addition to all else to which such new 
 capacities might be attached, there were the little germ pre- 
 viously created, and all the low forms of vegetable life to 
 which—rapidly propagating itself with a mobility of variation 
 appropriate to its simple organization — it had in the course of 
 two days already given rise. Probably our Darwinian friend 
 will think it most likely that the new energies were grafted on 
 one of the existing vegetable germs, rather than on lifeless 
 material now first organized to form the beginning of a 
 higher life ; and then the sacred narrative apparently leaves 
 him a choice of three lines for his surmises and investigations. 
 He may suppose that there is no creational difference between 
 the birds and marine animals, but that the former were de- 
 veloped out of the latter, by the processes of variation and 
 natural selection. Or, secondly, he may consider that after 
 one of the vegetable germs had been impressed with the new 
 energies necessary for the evolution of the moving things of
 
 ^S Creation and Modern Science. 
 
 the sea, and had then been left to propagate itself with varia- 
 tions for a few hours, some further poAver was added to one of 
 the marine animalcules thus produced, fitting it to become the 
 origin of the fowls of the air. Or lastly, he may conceive that 
 the production of the marine creatures, and that of the birds, 
 were initiated independently of each other, two different vege- 
 table germs being employed as the foundations of these two 
 distinct forms of life. 
 
 If we go on to the sixth day, we have now not only the 
 vegetable, but what we may call the fish and the bird germs 
 to choose from, as the stock upon which was grafted the 
 powers which were to give rise to the life of beast of the 
 earth, and cattle and creeping thing. This restriction only 
 appears to be placed by the Scriptural narrative upon the 
 Darwinian line of thought — that as the work of the fifth day 
 shows that fishes and birds could be developed out of vege- 
 table germs through the process of natural selection only by 
 the coming in of fresh capacities, so now in the account of the 
 sixth day it is implied that such a process would fail to pro- 
 duce beasts and cattle and creeping things out of marine 
 animals or birds, and again man out of any of these preceding 
 germs of life, unless it were reinforced by the introduction of 
 some fresh energy at both stages of the ascent. And further- 
 more it may be noticed, that since the mandate of the sixth 
 day with regard to the terrestrial creatures is, " Let the earth 
 bring forth the living creature after his kind," it would seem 
 that we must suppose the germ from which the land animals 
 finally sprung to have retained enough of its vegetable cha- 
 racter to grow like a plant in the ground, up to the time when 
 there was at length developed out of it a creature with dis- 
 tinctly animal characteristics. 
 
 But I must not allow it to be supposed that the follower of 
 Darwin has any monopoly of the range afibrded by the pro- 
 posed view of creation. On the contrary, it seems likely that,
 
 Creatio7i and Modem Science. 39 
 
 when that view is thoroughly grasped, it will suggest modes 
 of thought which may compete for acceptance with the idea 
 of development by Natural Selection. To show that such 
 other conceptions are possible, I will give an imaginary sketch 
 of the progress of life from the beginning ;, not by any means 
 putting it forth as a statement of what has actually occurred. 
 
 There are some plants the growth of which takes place in 
 this wise — a root starts from a certain point, and runs for 
 some distance in a nearly horizontal position under ground ; 
 after awhile it sends up a shoot producing a small shrub ; it 
 then goes on again, and by and by sends up another shoot, 
 and so on. Now imagine that the root improved as it went 
 on, so that at every fresh shoot it produced a plant of a higher 
 order than the preceding one ; and suppose that the growth 
 finally came to an end by the root running itself out in a plant 
 of the most perfect organisation. Add the further idea that 
 the root at different points put forth branch roots which be- 
 haved just like itself, sending up shoots from time to time, 
 and at last running themselves out in the highest form of 
 organisation possible in the direction to which their constant 
 improvement tended, and we seem to have a conception for 
 the progress of living existence on this earth which fulfils 
 every essential condition. 
 
 Imagine then a hidden root of life, either immaterial or 
 material ; but in the latter case capable of carrying its growth, 
 if need be, through air or water as well as earth, and virtually 
 indestructible by any adverse influence. Suppose this root to 
 have taken its origin at the moment when GOD said, " Let the 
 earth bring forth grass," and to have had fresh capacities in- 
 fused into it when He gave the command, " Let the waters 
 bring forth abundantly the moving creature . . . and let fowl 
 fly above the earth ; " and twice again, on the day when His 
 word was uttered, " Let the earth bring forth the moving crea- 
 ture," and " Let us make man." Imagine that both the original
 
 40 C7^eation and Modern Science. 
 
 and the added powers and capacities did not all display their 
 effects at once, but gradually unfolded themselves, the lower 
 ones much more speedily than the higher ; so that there was 
 a continual upward progression in the scale of life among the 
 things which the root was capable of putting forth. The main 
 line, or trunk, of the root would run on from the moment of 
 its origin, till it finally emerged, and ceased all further hidden 
 growth, in the production of the complete man ; and in this 
 long course it would send forth, from time to time, into visible 
 existence the first progenitors of those various species which 
 lead by a natural line of ascent from the lowest living organism 
 up to the perfect man. And at uncertain intervals there 
 would spring from it branch-roots similar to itself, each send- 
 ing up, now and again, new species tending continually to- 
 wards some higher organisation, till it terminated at last in 
 the most perfect form of life that could be attained in that 
 direction. Suppose, finally, that all these branch-roots had 
 come to the end of their growth by the time that man was 
 produced, so that from that day forth there originated no new 
 species, and we have a scheme of the origin of life which does 
 not seem to make greater demands upon the imagination than 
 does that of Darwin, while it avoids most of the dif^culties 
 which appear to beset his conception. 
 
 For then the likeness between the man and the monkey, 
 and other similar resemblances of which that is a type, would 
 arise, not from the higher germ being derived by natural 
 descent from the lower, but from both the higher and the 
 lower having sprung, with an interval between them, from the 
 common root. And so the gap between the nearest species, 
 which seems so impassable, after all that can be said to bridge 
 it over, would be a real gap — one occasioned, not by the con- 
 necting links being lost, but by the connection having lien 
 originally only through the unseen root. Then, too, all those 
 strange cases of mimicry, and those apparently odd freaks of
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 41 
 
 Nature, In which plants resemble insects, or insects are indis- 
 tinguishable, till they move, from vegetable productions, would 
 be accounted for by the fact that the formative powers, being 
 the very first that would come into play, would pervade the 
 whole root ; so that it would be rather remarkable than other- 
 wise if no such superficial resemblances ever occurred. Natu- 
 rally, too, the extinct species found in particular countries 
 would display a connection with those now existing there ; 
 because the latter would be merely the later productions of the 
 same part of the trunk-root, or the final productions of the 
 same branch-root, from which the former had previously sprung. 
 
 Again, an explanation would be given of a fact difficult 
 to be accounted for by the theory of Natural Selection ; 
 namely, that here and there in the very earliest ages of 
 terrestrial life we come upon creatures of an organization 
 marvellously beautiful and perfect in its kind. The roots 
 that branched off" from the trunk-root at a very early time, 
 having a less complex store of powers and capacities to 
 develope, would the sooner run themselves out into the highest 
 form of perfection of which they admitted. And lastly, the 
 parallelism which exists between the course of the develop- 
 ment of the individual man, from the germ of his conception 
 to the moment of his birth, and the order of the production of 
 the different animal forms shown by the ancient life-history of 
 the earth — first the fishes, then the amphibia, next the inferior, 
 and lastly the superior mammals — this parallelism does not 
 appear at all astonishing, if the root from which the human 
 race finally sprang forth had itself been previously undergoing 
 a corresponding development, and contained to the last all 
 those forces and capacities from which the successive orders 
 of animals had arisen. 
 
 It may be noticed that it would not be necessary, according 
 to this idea, to suppose that, as soon as the powers which made 
 it capable of producing marine creatures and birds were in-
 
 42 Creation and Mode^^n Science. 
 
 fused into it, the trunk-root would become at once disqualified 
 for giving rise to any fresh species of plants ; or that it would 
 lose its power of originating any new kinds of fishes and birds 
 the moment the forces of the land animals had been grafted 
 upon it, or, again, of sending forth fresh forms of these last 
 directly human energies began to stir within it. Rather, the 
 new capacities would work themselves into prominence by 
 degrees through long periods of time ; and there would be a 
 struggle in the root, first between vegetable and aquatic or 
 aerial animal life, then between this latter and land life, and 
 lastly between the animal and the distinctively human powers 
 — in which the higher would always, but only by degrees, 
 overcome the lower. Hence would arise those strange com- 
 binations which are, in fact, met with — creatures of which it - 
 is difficult to say whether they are animal rather than vege- 
 table, amphibia, avian reptiles, and anthropoid apes. Perhaps, 
 if not yet thoroughly worked out, the inferior vital force, when 
 finally beaten, would throw itself off in a branch-root, in 
 which it could pursue its proper development without being 
 crushed by the higher form of energy. 
 
 But I have said enough of this conception to show its 
 adaptability to existing facts. As I remarked before, I do not 
 propose it as a carefully worked-out explanation of the pro- 
 gress of vital phaenomena, but as a sample of the thoughts 
 which may arise in men's minds when they have grasped the 
 idea of creation which I have been endeavouring to set forth. 
 
 6. Finally, as I have already intimated, the idea of creation 
 I have propounded explains the fact to which attention has 
 been often directed — that there seem to be two records of 
 creation, contained one in the first, the other in the second 
 chapter of Genesis. We have seen that the former refers to the 
 beginning of the process of construction of all living forms. 
 Let me now state more explicitly than I have yet done, that 
 the latter evidently brings us to the actual appearance of man,
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 43 
 
 and of all those varieties of herbs, trees, beasts, and birds, 
 with which man is especially connected. This I w^ill here 
 attempt to show with some degree of particularity. 
 
 With regard, then, to man himself, it is evident that he who 
 is spoken of in the second chapter of Genesis is a visible, 
 substantial, complete being, scrutinising, speaking, sleeping. 
 We have no longer a race, but an individual — not man, but 
 Adam. But it will be said — Was not this man created then 
 and there t Did not GoD take dust of the earth, mould it 
 into a human form, and then breathe into it the breath of 
 life, and make it a living soul } My reply to this is, that in 
 the passing of a man from invisible into apparent existence 
 there must, in any case, be some process of formation, even as 
 there was in the case of you and me, my reader. And, there- 
 fore, the real question is, whether the terms used in speaking 
 of Adam are so different from those that would be employed 
 in the case of any one else, as to show that his coming into 
 visible existence was an act of creation, although that of other 
 persons is not. And the answer to this question, as soon as 
 it is thus stated, seems to be sufficiently certain. For, in the 
 first place, it must be noticed that the word here used with 
 regard to Adam — GOD " formed " him — is not used anywhere 
 in the first chapter of Genesis, where creation is undoubtedly 
 spoken of, either in the case of man or of anything else then 
 made. And on the other hand, it is used elsewhere in speak- 
 ing of the formation of other men, as when David says 
 (Psalm cxxxix., 15, 16), "Thine eyes did see my sul^stance 
 yet being imperfect : and in thy book were all my members 
 written, which day by day were fashionedr And so again 
 the reference to the dust of the ground is not peculiar to 
 Adam's case. Job pleads with GoD (Job x., 9), "Remember, 
 I beseech Thee, that Thou hast made me as the clay ; and wilt 
 Thou bring me into dust again } " And some such thought 
 apparently must have been in David's mind when he exclaimed,
 
 44 Creation and Modeini Science, 
 
 as in the verse preceding those above quoted, " My bones are 
 not hid from Thee, though I be made secretly and fashioned 
 beneath in the earths And lastly, the inspiration of the 
 " breath of life " is surely made at the birth of every child 
 who is brought into the world, seeing, as S. Paul declares 
 (Acts xxii., 25), "God giveth to all life, and breath, and all 
 things." Observe, reader, I am not arguing that Adam must 
 have come into visible existence in the same way that you 
 and I did, but that the process of his appearing is described in 
 terms sufficiently similar to those which are applicable to 
 other men to allow us to suppose that his advent, like theirs, 
 was a coming into the world, and not an act of creation. 
 
 Let us now turn to the lower forms of life. It will be 
 noticed on comparing the vegetable productions mentioned in 
 Gen. ii. 5, with those of which the creation is described in 
 Gen, i. 11, 12, that they are not designated exactly in the 
 same way. In the first chapter the terms are " grass," the 
 " herb yielding seed," and the " fruit-tree yielding fruit ; " 
 but in the second chapter there is a significant addition. 
 That which had not appeared up to the time then spoken of 
 is described as " every plant of the field'' and " every herb 
 of the field;'' and the force of the restriction thus in- 
 troduced is indicated by one of the reasons given for their 
 non-production — " there was not a man to till the ground." 
 The field then here is the field cultivated by man, and the 
 vegetable forms the coming of which is now announced are 
 the herbs, cereals, fruits, and flowers, which need human care 
 for their preservation.^ Now as to these, science and 
 
 ^ This conclusion is strengthened if we notice the order in which the events are 
 set down in verses 5 to 9 of tlie second chapter of Genesis. In the 5th verse we 
 are told that no plant or herb of the field had yet been produced ; and two reasons 
 are given for their non- production — the want of rain, and the need of human care. 
 Then we are informed how these two obstacles were removed : the want of rain, 
 in no other way than it has been remedied ever since, by vapours rising, becoming 
 condensed, and falling to the earth ; and the want of human care, by the appear-
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 45 
 
 common sense alike teach us that they did not make their 
 appearance in the world until there was some one who valued 
 them, and would take pains to keep them from perishing. It 
 looks, too, as if an intimation were given us here that the 
 man made in the image of GOD, to whose race was com- 
 mitted the charge of replenishing the earth and subduing it, 
 was not the savage hunter and fisherman of what is called 
 the Paleolithic period, armed with rude flint-instruments, in- 
 habiting the shores, and caves, and river banks of a semi- 
 glacial land ; but the man to whom was first revealed the 
 culture of the ground, and to whom was intrusted a garden or 
 a field that he might learn to dress it and to keep it. He 
 was the true father of mankind : to him and to his seed, by a 
 process of selection no less divine than it was natural, was 
 secured the supremacy of the earth ; and before their face, 
 the half-human stock that had preceded them would as 
 inevitably disappear, as the mammoth, and the other beasts 
 who were their companions, vanished in the presence of the 
 improved climate which heralded the coming man. 
 
 It is to this change of the surrounding fauna that attended 
 him, corresponding to that of the flora just alluded to, that we 
 are to refer the words (Gen. ii., 19), " Out of the ground the 
 Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of 
 the air ; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would 
 call them." It strikes one at once that there must be 'some 
 restriction here, or Adam's task of giving names would have 
 been alike endless and useless ; except in the case of creatures 
 with whom he would afterwards have to do, the proceeding 
 would seem to be an unmeaning one. And this is just the 
 
 ing of Man. Finally, the causes which hindered the production of the plants and 
 herbs having been removed, we read that " GoD planted a garden." And if that 
 word "garden " itself be not sufficient to tell us what sort of vegetable produc- 
 tions had been in view throughout the passage, what is immediately added puts 
 the matter beyond all question : " Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow 
 every tree that \i pleasant to the sight and good for food.''''
 
 46 Creation and Modem Scieitce. 
 
 limitation implied in the words '' every beast of the field!' 
 For although that term cannot be confined too narrowly — as 
 is shown by the fact that the serpent is at the beginning of 
 the next chapter reckoned among the beasts of the field — ^^yet 
 the distinction remains that " the field " is the ground as 
 cultivated, or inhabited, or possessed, by man ; so that the 
 expression *' beast of the field " does not apply to any outland- 
 ish creature discovered by the researches of the geologist or 
 the naturalist, but denotes those welh known animals, whether 
 tame or wild, with which man is commonly associated. And 
 this being so, I submit that the other term also, " fowl of the 
 air," must be held to be conditioned by the idea thus intro- 
 duced ; even if it were not the case, as apparently it is, that 
 the birds of the air generally, as opposed to the heavy 
 running or low flying birds, only came upon the scene about 
 the time of man's appearance. This latter remark applies 
 also to the beasts of the field, as that expression has been 
 explained ; even the animals associated with the pre- Adamite 
 men of the Paleolithic period being scarcely in any case 
 identical with those which are to be met with now. 
 
 Still it will be said, do not the words, " Out of the 
 ground GOD formed every beast of the field, and every 
 fowl of the air," show that these creatures, whatever they 
 were, were actually created at that time } I have in 
 reality already answered this objection in speaking of 
 the formation of Adam. The word " formed " here is the 
 same as that employed in his case, and is not the 
 same as that which is used in the first chapter to denote 
 undoubted acts of creation. And the expression " out of the 
 ground " is only a compendious form of the phrase " of the 
 dust of the earth " made use of in speaking of man. Animals 
 as well as men have a certain portion of earthy matter in 
 their constitution : and in virtue of that each individual of 
 them, as he is formed, is said in Scriptural language to be
 
 Creation and Modern Science. 47 
 
 made out of the dust. There is nothing-, therefore, in this 
 phraseology which obhges us to understand by it anything- 
 more than the coming into the world of beings created long 
 before. 
 
 I have now completed the view of the nature of creation, 
 and the meaning of the language in which it is recorded 
 which I wished to lay before my readers. But before I 
 conclude, I must try to guard against a misapprehension 
 which may easily arise out of the line of thought I have been 
 pursuing. It may appear to those who believe with the 
 Psalmist, that GOD is about their path and about their bed, 
 and spieth out all their ways, who trace and feel His presence 
 everywhere, and delight in the sense of stability which the 
 thought gives them that " in Him all things consist," that, as 
 far as regards the unfolding of life at any rate, I have rele- 
 gated the Great Father to an almost measureless distance 
 in the far-off ages of the past, by representing Him as having 
 once for all set at work the forces by means of which all 
 living phenomena have since been gradually evolved. " What 
 is there," they may ask, " in your theory which corresponds 
 with such words as these : * Lo, children and the fruit of the 
 womb are a gift and an heritage that cometh of the Lord t ' 
 or these, ' He blesseth them so that they multiply exceed- 
 ingly, and sufifereth not their cattle to decrease } ' " 
 
 Let me, then, recall attention to the definition of creation at 
 which we arrived ; and show how the terms of it provide for 
 that continual divine intervention, without the thought of 
 which the heart of no devout man can be really satisfied. 
 " God createth all things by making those capacities, estab- 
 lishing those forces, and instituting those laws, which being 
 called into play by circumstances favourable to their action 
 would in due time lead to their production." 
 
 In this statement room is left for the Providence and the 
 Presence of GOD at two points.
 
 48 C7'eation and Modern Science. 
 
 First, what I have called "favouring circumstances," without 
 which the laws that lead to the propagation of life cannot 
 come into play, may well include some action on the part of 
 Him " in Whom we live and move and have our being." Pro- 
 bably the fire of life is never transmitted from one individual 
 to another without a Divine hand, or one divinely sent, 
 bearing the sacred torch across a chasm which it could not 
 otherwise pass over. Since of all God's potential creations 
 almost infinite in number, few comparatively ever came into 
 visible existence, it would seem almost inevitable that each 
 one that does so must be a selected specimen, that in some 
 sort all things that exist are " a chosen generation, a peculiar 
 people," whose coming into the world is superintended by 
 unseen powers. 
 
 But this is not all. The words " laws " and " forces " them- 
 selves, when rightly understood, testify of the heavenly Pre- 
 sence. For a force may well be believed to be nothing but 
 the continuous putting forth of the Divine energy, and the 
 law regulating the force, simply the order which GOD chooses 
 to observe, and the restraint which He sees fit to lay upon 
 Himself, in exerting His infinite power. It seems difficult not 
 to admit the truth of Mr. A. R. Wallace's grand generalisation 
 that *' all force is Wi/l-ForcQ,'' and that thus " the whole uni- 
 verse is not merely dependent on, but actually is, the Will 
 of higher intelligences, or of One Supreme Intelligence." 
 (" Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection," p. 368.) 
 With this thought I leave the subject. It seems to contain 
 the highest reconciliation that can be conceived between 
 Revelation and Modern Science ; and I am thankful that it 
 came from a scientific man rather than from one whose 
 express duty it was to be an interpreter of Holy Scripture. 
 
 George Greenwood.
 
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