mr. gladstone and genesis essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley in controversy, as in courtship, the good old rule to be off with the old before one is on with the new, greatly commends itself to my sense of expediency. and, therefore, it appears to me desirable that i should preface such observations as i may have to offer upon the cloud of arguments (the relevancy of which to the issue which i had ventured to raise is not always obvious) put forth by mr. gladstone in the january number of this review, [ ] by an endeavour to make clear to such of our readers as have not had the advantage of a forensic education the present net result of the discussion. i am quite aware that, in undertaking this task, i run all the risks to which the man who presumes to deal judicially with his own cause is liable. but it is exactly because i do not shun that risk, but, rather, earnestly desire to be judged by him who cometh after me, provided that he has the knowledge and impartiality appropriate to a judge, that i adopt my present course. in the article on "the dawn of creation and worship," it will be remembered that mr. gladstone unreservedly commits himself to three propositions. the first is that, according to the writer of the pentateuch, the "water-population," the "air-population," and the "land-population" of the globe were created successively, in the order named. in the second place, mr. gladstone authoritatively asserts that this (as part of his "fourfold order") has been "so affirmed in our time by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." in the third place, mr. gladstone argues that the fact of this coincidence of the pentateuchal story with the results of modern investigation makes it "impossible to avoid the conclusion, first, that either this writer was gifted with faculties passing all human experience, or else his knowledge was divine." and having settled to his own satisfaction that the first "branch of the alternative is truly nominal and unreal," mr. gladstone continues, "so stands the plea for a revelation of truth from god, a plea only to be met by questioning its possibility" (p. ). i am a simple-minded person, wholly devoid of subtlety of intellect, so that i willingly admit that there may be depths of alternative meaning in these propositions out of all soundings attainable by my poor plummet. still there are a good many people who suffer under a like intellectual limitation; and, for once in my life, i feel that i have the chance of attaining that position of a representative of average opinion which appears to be the modern ideal of a leader of men, when i make free confession that, after turning the matter over in my mind, with all the aid derived from a careful consideration of mr. gladstone's reply, i cannot get away from my original conviction that, if mr. gladstone's second proposition can be shown to be not merely inaccurate, but directly contradictory of facts known to every one who is acquainted with the elements of natural science, the third proposition collapses of itself. and it was this conviction which led me to enter upon the present discussion. i fancied that if my respected clients, the people of average opinion and capacity, could once be got distinctly to conceive that mr. gladstone's views as to the proper method of dealing with grave and difficult scientific and religious problems had permitted him to base a solemn "plea for a revelation of truth from god" upon an error as to a matter of fact, from which the intelligent perusal of a manual of palaeontology would have saved him, i need not trouble myself to occupy their time and attention [ ] with further comments upon his contribution to apologetic literature. it is for others to judge whether i have efficiently carried out my project or not. it certainly does not count for much that i should be unable to find any flaw in my own case, but i think it counts for a good deal that mr. gladstone appears to have been equally unable to do so. he does, indeed, make a great parade of authorities, and i have the greatest respect for those authorities whom mr. gladstone mentions. if he will get them to sign a joint memorial to the effect that our present palaeontological evidence proves that birds appeared before the "land-population" of terrestrial reptiles, i shall think it my duty to reconsider my position--but not till then. it will be observed that i have cautiously used the word "appears" in referring to what seems to me to be absence of any real answer to my criticisms in mr. gladstone's reply. for i must honestly confess that, notwithstanding long and painful strivings after clear insight, i am still uncertain whether mr. gladstone's "defence" means that the great "plea for a revelation from god" is to be left to perish in the dialectic desert; or whether it is to be withdrawn under the protection of such skirmishers as are available for covering retreat. in particular, the remarkable disquisition which covers pages to of mr. gladstone's last contribution has greatly exercised my mind. socrates is reported to have said of the works of heraclitus that he who attempted to comprehend them should be a "delian swimmer," but that, for his part, what he could understand was so good that he was disposed to believe in the excellence of that which he found unintelligible. in endeavouring to make myself master of mr. gladstone's meaning in these pages, i have often been overcome by a feeling analogous to that of socrates, but not quite the same. that which i do understand has appeared to me so very much the reverse of good, that i have sometimes permitted myself to doubt the value of that which i do not understand. in this part of mr. gladstone's reply, in fact, i find nothing of which the bearing upon my arguments is clear to me, except that which relates to the question whether reptiles, so far as they are represented by tortoises and the great majority of lizards and snakes, which are land animals, are creeping things in the sense of the pentateuchal writer or not. i have every respect for the singer of the song of the three children (whoever he may have been); i desire to cast no shadow of doubt upon, but, on the contrary, marvel at, the exactness of mr. gladstone's information as to the considerations which "affected the method of the mosaic writer"; nor do i venture to doubt that the inconvenient intrusion of these contemptible reptiles--"a family fallen from greatness" (p. ), a miserable decayed aristocracy reduced to mere "skulkers about the earth" (_ibid._)--in consequence, apparently, of difficulties about the occupation of land arising out of the earth-hunger of their former serfs, the mammals--into an apologetic argument, which otherwise would run quite smoothly, is in every way to be deprecated. still, the wretched creatures stand there, importunately demanding notice; and, however different may be the practice in that contentious atmosphere with which mr. gladstone expresses and laments his familiarity, in the atmosphere of science it really is of no avail whatever to shut one's eyes to facts, or to try to bury them out of sight under a tumulus of rhetoric. that is my experience of the "elysian regions of science," wherein it is a pleasure to me to think that a man of mr. gladstone's intimate knowledge of english life, during the last quarter of a century, believes my philosophic existence to have been rounded off in unbroken equanimity. however reprehensible, and indeed contemptible, terrestrial reptiles may be, the only question which appears to me to be relevant to my argument is whether these creatures are or are not comprised under the denomination of "everything that creepeth upon the ground." mr. gladstone speaks of the author of the first chapter of genesis as "the mosaic writer"; i suppose, therefore, that he will admit that it is equally proper to speak of the author of leviticus as the "mosaic writer." whether such a phrase would be used by any one who had an adequate conception of the assured results of modern biblical criticism is another matter; but, at any rate, it cannot be denied that leviticus has as much claim to mosaic authorship as genesis. therefore, if one wants to know the sense of a phrase used in genesis, it will be well to see what leviticus has to say on the matter. hence, i commend the following extract from the eleventh chapter of leviticus to mr. gladstone's serious attention:-- and these are they which are unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth: the weasel, and the mouse, and the great lizard after its kind, and the gecko, and the land crocodile, and the sand-lizard, and the chameleon. these are they which are unclean to you among all that creep (v. - l). the merest sunday-school exegesis therefore suffices to prove that when the "mosaic writer" in genesis i. speaks of "creeping things," he means to include lizards among them. this being so, it is agreed, on all hands, that terrestrial lizards, and other reptiles allied to lizards, occur in the permian strata. it is further agreed that the triassic strata were deposited after these. moreover, it is well known that, even if certain footprints are to be taken as unquestionable evidence of the existence of birds, they are not known to occur in rocks earlier than the trias, while indubitable remains of birds are to be met with only much later. hence it follows that natural science does not "affirm" the statement that birds were made on the fifth day, and "everything that creepeth on the ground" on the sixth, on which mr. gladstone rests his order; for, as is shown by leviticus, the "mosaic writer" includes lizards among his "creeping things." perhaps i have given myself superfluous trouble in the preceding argument, for i find that mr. gladstone is willing to assume (he does not say to admit) that the statement in the text of genesis as to reptiles cannot "in all points be sustained" (p. ). but my position is that it cannot be sustained in any point, so that, after all, it has perhaps been as well to go over the evidence again. and then mr. gladstone proceeds as if nothing had happened to tell us that-- there remain great unshaken facts to be weighed. first, the fact that such a record should have been made at all. as most peoples have their cosmogonies, this "fact" does not strike me as having much value. secondly, the fact that, instead of dwelling in generalities, it has placed itself under the severe conditions of a chronological order reaching from the first _nisus_ of chaotic matter to the consummated production of a fair and goodly, a furnished and a peopled world. this "fact" can be regarded as of value only by ignoring the fact demonstrated in my previous paper, that natural science does not confirm the order asserted so far as living things are concerned; and by upsetting a fact to be brought to light presently, to wit, that, in regard to the rest of the pentateuchal cosmogony, prudent science has very little to say one way or the other. thirdly, the fact that its cosmogony seems, in the light of the nineteenth century, to draw more and more of countenance from the best natural philosophy. i have already questioned the accuracy of this statement, and i do not observe that mere repetition adds to its value. and, fourthly, that it has described the successive origins of the five great categories of present life with which human experience was and is conversant, in that order which geological authority confirms. by comparison with a sentence on page , in which a fivefold order is substituted for the "fourfold order," on which the "plea for revelation" was originally founded, it appears that these five categories are "plants, fishes, birds, mammals, and man," which, mr. gladstone affirms, "are given to us in genesis in the order of succession in which they are also given by the latest geological authorities." i must venture to demur to this statement. i showed, in my previous paper, that there is no reason to doubt that the term "great sea monster" (used in gen. i. ) includes the most conspicuous of great sea animals--namely, whales, dolphins, porpoises, manatees, and dugongs; [ ] and, as these are indubitable mammals, it is impossible to affirm that mammals come after birds, which are said to have been created on the same day. moreover, i pointed out that as these cetacea and sirenia are certainly modified land animals, their existence implies the antecedent existence of land mammals. furthermore, i have to remark that the term "fishes," as used, technically, in zoology, by no means covers all the moving creatures that have life, which are bidden to "fill the waters in the seas" (gen. i. - .) marine mollusks and crustacea, echinoderms, corals, and foraminifera are not technically fishes. but they are abundant in the palaeozoic rocks, ages upon ages older than those in which the first evidences of true fishes appear. and if, in a geological book, mr. gladstone finds the quite true statement that plants appeared before fishes, it is only by a complete misunderstanding that he can be led to imagine it serves his purpose. as a matter of fact, at the present moment, it is a question whether, on the bare evidence afforded by fossils, the marine creeping thing or the marine plant has the seniority. no cautious palaeontologist would express a decided opinion on the matter. but, if we are to read the pentateuchal statement as a scientific document (and, in spite of all protests to the contrary, those who bring it into comparison with science do seek to make a scientific document of it), then, as it is quite clear that only terrestrial plants of high organisation are spoken of in verses and , no palaeontologist would hesitate to say that, at present, the records of sea animal life are vastly older than those of any land plant describable as "grass, herb yielding seed or fruit tree." thus, although, in mr. gladstone's "defence," the "old order passeth into new," his case is not improved. the fivefold order is no more "affirmed in our time by natural science" to be "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" than the fourfold order was. natural science appears to me to decline to have anything to do with either; they are as wrong in detail as they are mistaken in principle. there is another change of position, the value of which is not so apparent to me, as it may well seem to be to those who are unfamiliar with the subject under discussion. mr. gladstone discards his three groups of "water-population," "air-population," and "land-population," and substitutes for them ( ) fishes, ( ) birds, ( ) mammals, ( ) man. moreover, it is assumed, in a note, that "the higher or ordinary mammals" alone were known to the "mosaic writer" (p. ). no doubt it looks, at first, as if something were gained by this alteration; for, as i have just pointed out, the word "fishes" can be used in two senses, one of which has a deceptive appearance of adjustability to the "mosaic" account. then the inconvenient reptiles are banished out of sight; and, finally, the question of the exact meaning of "higher" and "ordinary" in the case of mammals opens up the prospect of a hopeful logomachy. but what is the good of it all in the face of leviticus on the one hand and of palaeontology on the other? as, in my apprehension, there is not a shadow of justification for the suggestion that when the pentateuchal writer says "fowl" he excludes bats (which, as we shall see directly, are expressly included under "fowl" in leviticus), and as i have already shown that he demonstrably includes reptiles, as well as mammals, among the creeping things of the land, i may be permitted to spare my readers further discussion of the "fivefold order." on the whole, it is seen to be rather more inconsistent with genesis than its fourfold predecessor. but i have yet a fresh order to face. mr. gladstone (p. ) understands "the main statements of genesis" in successive order of time, but without any measurement of its divisions, to be as follows:-- . a period of land, anterior to all life (v. , ). . a period of vegetable life, anterior to animal life (v. , ). . a period of animal life, in the order of fishes (v. ). . another stage of animal life, in the order of birds. . another in the order of beasts (v. , ). . last of all, man (v. , ). mr. gladstone then tries to find the proof of the occurrence of a similar succession in sundry excellent works on geology. i am really grieved to be obliged to say that this third (or is it fourth?) modification of the foundation of the "plea for revelation" originally set forth, satisfies me as little as any of its predecessors. for, in the first place, i cannot accept the assertion that this order is to be found in genesis. with respect to no. , for example, i hold, as i have already said, that "great sea monsters" includes the cetacea, in which case mammals (which is what, i suppose, mr. gladstone means by "beasts") come in under head no. , and not under no. . again, "fowl" are said in genesis to be created on the same day as fishes; therefore i cannot accept an order which makes birds succeed fishes. once more, as it is quite certain that the term "fowl" includes the bats,--for in leviticus xi. - we read, "and these shall ye have in abomination among the fowls... the heron after its kind, and the hoopoe, and the bat,"--it is obvious that bats are also said to have been created at stage no. . and as bats are mammals, and their existence obviously presupposes that of terrestrial "beasts," it is quite clear that the latter could not have first appeared as no. . i need not repeat my reasons for doubting whether man came "last of all." as the latter half of mr. gladstone's sixfold order thus shows itself to be wholly unauthorised by, and inconsistent with, the plain language of the pentateuch, i might decline to discuss the admissibility of its former half. but i will add one or two remarks on this point also. does mr. gladstone mean to say that in any of the works he has cited, or indeed anywhere else, he can find scientific warranty for the assertion that there was a period of land--by which i suppose he means dry land (for submerged land must needs be as old as the separate existence of the sea)--"anterior to all life?" it may be so, or it may not be so; but where is the evidence which would justify any one in making a positive assertion on the subject? what competent palaeontologist will affirm, at this present moment, that he knows anything about the period at which life originated, or will assert more than the extreme probability that such origin was a long way antecedent to any traces of life at present known? what physical geologist will affirm that he knows when dry land began to exist, or will say more than that it was probably very much earlier than any extant direct evidence of terrestrial conditions indicates? i think i know pretty well the answers which the authorities quoted by mr. gladstone would give to these questions; but i leave it to them to give them if they think fit. if i ventured to speculate on the matter at all, i should say it is by no means certain that sea is older than dry land, inasmuch as a solid terrestrial surface may very well have existed before the earth was cool enough to allow of the existence of fluid water. and, in this case, dry land may have existed before the sea. as to the first appearance of life, the whole argument of analogy, whatever it may be worth in such a case, is in favour of the absence of living beings until long after the hot water seas had constituted themselves; and of the subsequent appearance of aquatic before terrestrial forms of life. but whether these "protoplasts" would, if we could examine them, be reckoned among the lowest microscopic algae, or fungi; or among those doubtful organisms which lie in the debatable land between animals and plants, is, in my judgment, a question on which a prudent biologist will reserve his opinion. i think that i have now disposed of those parts of mr. gladstone's defence in which i seem to discover a design to rescue his solemn "plea for revelation." but a great deal of the "proem to genesis" remains which i would gladly pass over in silence, were such a course consistent with the respect due to so distinguished a champion of the "reconcilers." i hope that my clients--the people of average opinions--have by this time some confidence in me; for when i tell them that, after all, mr. gladstone is of opinion that the "mosaic record" was meant to give moral, and not scientific, instruction to those for whom it was written, they may be disposed to think that i must be misleading them. but let them listen further to what mr. gladstone says in a compendious but not exactly correct statement respecting my opinions:-- he holds the writer responsible for scientific precision: i look for nothing of the kind, but assign to him a statement general, which admits exceptions; popular, which aims mainly at producing moral impression; summary, which cannot but be open to more or less of criticism of detail. he thinks it is a lecture. i think it is a sermon. (p. ). i note, incidentally, that mr. gladstone appears to consider that the _differentia_ between a lecture and a sermon is, that the former, so far as it deals with matters of fact, may be taken seriously, as meaning exactly what it says, while a sermon may not. i have quite enough on my hands without taking up the cudgels for the clergy, who will probably find mr. gladstone's definition unflattering. but i am diverging from my proper business, which is to say that i have given no ground for the ascription of these opinions; and that, as a matter of fact, i do not hold them and never have held them. it is mr. gladstone, and not i, who will have it that the pentateuchal cosmogony is to be taken as science. my belief, on the contrary, is, and long has been, that the pentateuchal story of the creation is simply a myth. i suppose it to be an hypothesis respecting the origin of the universe which some ancient thinker found himself able to reconcile with his knowledge, or what he thought was knowledge, of the nature of things, and therefore assumed to be true. as such, i hold it to be not merely an interesting, but a venerable, monument of a stage in the mental progress of mankind; and i find it difficult to suppose that any one who is acquainted with the cosmogonies of other nations--and especially with those of the egyptians and the babylonians, with whom the israelites were in such frequent and intimate communication--should consider it to possess either more, or less, scientific importance than may be allotted to these. mr. gladstone's definition of a sermon permits me to suspect that he may not see much difference between that form of discourse and what i call a myth; and i hope it may be something more than the slowness of apprehension, to which i have confessed, which leads me to imagine that a statement which is "general" but "admits exceptions," which is "popular" and "aims mainly at producing moral impression," "summary" and therefore open to "criticism of detail," amounts to a myth, or perhaps less than a myth. put algebraically, it comes to this, _x=a+b+c_; always remembering that there is nothing to show the exact value of either _a,_ or _b,_ or _c._ it is true that _a_ is commonly supposed to equal , but there are exceptions, and these may reduce it to , or , or ; _b_ also popularly means , but being chiefly used by the algebraist as a "moral" value, you cannot do much with it in the addition or subtraction of mathematical values; _c_ also is quite "summary," and if you go into the details of which it is made up, many of them may be wrong, and their sum total equal to , or even to a minus quantity. mr. gladstone appears to wish that i should ( ) enter upon a sort of essay competition with the author of the pentateuchal cosmogony; ( ) that i should make a further statement about some elementary facts in the history of indian and greek philosophy; and ( ) that i should show cause for my hesitation in accepting the assertion that genesis is supported, at any rate to the extent of the first two verses, by the nebular hypothesis. a certain sense of humour prevents me from accepting the first invitation. i would as soon attempt to put hamlet's soliloquy into a more scientific shape. but if i supposed the "mosaic writer" to be inspired, as mr. gladstone does, it would not be consistent with my notions of respect for the supreme being to imagine him unable to frame a form of words which should accurately, or, at least, not inaccurately, express his own meaning. it is sometimes said that, had the statements contained in the first chapter of genesis been scientifically true, they would have been unintelligible to ignorant people; but how is the matter mended if, being scientifically untrue, they must needs be rejected by instructed people? with respect to the second suggestion, it would be presumptuous in me to pretend to instruct mr. gladstone in matters which lie as much within the province of literature and history as in that of science; but if any one desirous of further knowledge will be so good as to turn to that most excellent and by no means recondite source of information, the "encyclopaedia britannica," he will find, under the letter e, the word "evolution," and a long article on that subject. now, i do not recommend him to read the first half of the article; but the second half, by my friend mr. sully, is really very good. he will there find it said that in some of the philosophies of ancient india, the idea of evolution is clearly expressed: "brahma is conceived as the eternal self-existent being, which, on its material side, unfolds itself to the world by gradually condensing itself to material objects through the gradations of ether, fire, water, earth, and other elements." and again: "in the later system of emanation of sankhya there is a more marked approach to a materialistic doctrine of evolution." what little knowledge i have of the matter--chiefly derived from that very instructive book, "die religion des buddha," by c. f. koeppen, supplemented by hardy's interesting works--leads me to think that mr. sully might have spoken much more strongly as to the evolutionary character of indian philosophy, and especially of that of the buddhists. but the question is too large to be dealt with incidentally. and, with respect to early greek philosophy, [ ] the seeker after additional enlightenment need go no further than the same excellent storehouse of information:-- the early ionian physicists, including thales, anaximander, and anaximenes, seek to explain the world as generated out of a primordial matter which is at the same time the universal support of things. this substance is endowed with a generative or transmutative force by virtue of which it passes into a succession of forms. they thus resemble modern evolutionists since they regard the world, with its infinite variety of forms, as issuing from a simple mode of matter. further on, mr. sully remarks that "heraclitus deserves a prominent place in the history of the idea of evolution," and he states, with perfect justice, that heraclitus has foreshadowed some of the special peculiarities of mr. darwin's views. it is indeed a very strange circumstance that the philosophy of the great ephesian more than adumbrates the two doctrines which have played leading parts, the one in the development of christian dogma, the other in that of natural science. the former is the conception of the word {greek text}[logos] which took its jewish shape in alexandria, and its christian form [ ] in that gospel which is usually referred to an ephesian source of some five centuries later date; and the latter is that of the struggle for existence. the saying that "strife is father and king of all" {greek text}[...], ascribed to heraclitus, would be a not inappropriate motto for the "origin of species." i have referred only to mr. sully's article, because his authority is quite sufficient for my purpose. but the consultation of any of the more elaborate histories of greek philosophy, such as the great work of zeller, for example, will only bring out the same fact into still more striking prominence. i have professed no "minute acquaintance" with either indian or greek philosophy, but i have taken a great deal of pains to secure that such knowledge as i do possess shall be accurate and trustworthy. in the third place, mr. gladstone appears to wish that i should discuss with him the question whether the nebular hypothesis is, or is not, confirmatory of the pentateuchal account of the origin of things. mr. gladstone appears to be prepared to enter upon this campaign with a light heart. i confess i am not, and my reason for this backwardness will doubtless surprise mr. gladstone. it is that, rather more than a quarter of a century ago (namely, in february ), when it was my duty, as president of the geological society, to deliver the anniversary address, [ ] i chose a topic which involved a very careful study of the remarkable cosmogonical speculation, originally promulgated by immanuel kant and, subsequently, by laplace, which is now known as the nebular hypothesis. with the help of such little acquaintance with the principles of physics and astronomy as i had gained, i endeavoured to obtain a clear understanding of this speculation in all its bearings. i am not sure that i succeeded; but of this i am certain, that the problems involved are very difficult, even for those who possess the intellectual discipline requisite for dealing with them. and it was this conviction that led me to express my desire to leave the discussion of the question of the asserted harmony between genesis and the nebular hypothesis to experts in the appropriate branches of knowledge. and i think my course was a wise one; but as mr. gladstone evidently does not understand how there can be any hesitation on my part, unless it arises from a conviction that he is in the right, i may go so far as to set out my difficulties. they are of two kinds--exegetical and scientific. it appears to me that it is vain to discuss a supposed coincidence between genesis and science unless we have first settled, on the one hand, what genesis says, and, on the other hand, what science says. in the first place, i cannot find any consensus among biblical scholars as to the meaning of the words, "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth." some say that the hebrew word _bara,_ which is translated "create," means "made out of nothing." i venture to object to that rendering, not on the ground of scholarship, but of common sense. omnipotence itself can surely no more make something "out of" nothing than it can make a triangular circle. what is intended by "made out of nothing" appears to be "caused to come into existence," with the implication that nothing of the same kind previously existed. it is further usually assumed that "the heaven and the earth" means the material substance of the universe. hence the "mosaic writer" is taken to imply that where nothing of a material nature previously existed, this substance appeared. that is perfectly conceivable, and therefore no one can deny that it may have happened. but there are other very authoritative critics who say that the ancient israelite [ ] who wrote the passage was not likely to have been capable of such abstract thinking; and that, as a matter of philology, _bara_ is commonly used to signify the "fashioning," or "forming," of that which already exists. now it appears to me that the scientific investigator is wholly incompetent to say anything at all about the first origin of the material universe. the whole power of his organon vanishes when he has to step beyond the chain of natural causes and effects. no form of the nebular hypothesis, that i know of, is necessarily connected with any view of the origination of the nebular substance. kant's form of it expressly supposes that the nebular material from which one stellar system starts may be nothing but the disintegrated substance of a stellar and planetary system which has just come to an end. therefore, so far as i can see, one who believes that matter has existed from all eternity has just as much right to hold the nebular hypothesis as one who believes that matter came into existence at a specified epoch. in other words, the nebular hypothesis and the creation hypothesis, up to this point, neither confirm nor oppose one another. next, we read in the revisers' version, in which i suppose the ultimate results of critical scholarship to be embodied: "and the earth was waste ['without form,' in the authorised version] and void." most people seem to think that this phraseology intends to imply that the matter out of which the world was to be formed was a veritable "chaos," devoid of law and order. if this interpretation is correct, the nebular hypothesis can have nothing to say to it. the scientific thinker cannot admit the absence of law and order; anywhere or anywhen, in nature. sometimes law and order are patent and visible to our limited vision; sometimes they are hidden. but every particle of the matter of the most fantastic-looking nebula in the heavens is a realm of law and order in itself; and, that it is so, is the essential condition of the possibility of solar and planetary evolution from the apparent chaos. [ ] "waste" is too vague a term to be worth consideration. "without form," intelligible enough as a metaphor, if taken literally is absurd; for a material thing existing in space must have a superficies, and if it has a superficies it has a form. the wildest streaks of marestail clouds in the sky, or the most irregular heavenly nebulae, have surely just as much form as a geometrical tetrahedron; and as for "void," how can that be void which is full of matter? as poetry, these lines are vivid and admirable; as a scientific statement, which they must be taken to be if any one is justified in comparing them with another scientific statement, they fail to convey any intelligible conception to my mind. the account proceeds: "and darkness was upon the face of the deep." so be it; but where, then, is the likeness to the celestial nebulae, of the existence of which we should know nothing unless they shone with a light of their own? "and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters." i have met with no form of the nebular hypothesis which involves anything analogous to this process. i have said enough to explain some of the difficulties which arise in my mind, when i try to ascertain whether there is any foundation for the contention that the statements contained in the first two verses of genesis are supported by the nebular hypothesis. the result does not appear to me to be exactly favourable to that contention. the nebular hypothesis assumes the existence of matter, having definite properties, as its foundation. whether such matter was created a few thousand years ago, or whether it has existed through an eternal series of metamorphoses of which our present universe is only the last stage, are alternatives, neither of which is scientifically untenable, and neither scientifically demonstrable. but science knows nothing of any stage in which the universe could be said, in other than a metaphorical and popular sense, to be formless or empty; or in any respect less the seat of law and order than it is now. one might as well talk of a fresh-laid hen's egg being "without form and void," because the chick therein is potential and not actual, as apply such terms to the nebulous mass which contains a potential solar system. until some further enlightenment comes to me, then, i confess myself wholly unable to understand the way in which the nebular hypothesis is to be converted into an ally of the "mosaic writer." [ ] but mr. gladstone informs us that professor dana and professor guyot are prepared to prove that the "first or cosmogonical portion of the proem not only accords with, but teaches, the nebular hypothesis." there is no one to whose authority on geological questions i am more readily disposed to bow than that of my eminent friend professor dana. but i am familiar with what he has previously said on this topic in his well-known and standard work, into which, strangely enough, it does not seem to have occurred to mr. gladstone to look before he set out upon his present undertaking; and unless professor dana's latest contribution (which i have not yet met with) takes up altogether new ground, i am afraid i shall not be able to extricate myself, by its help, from my present difficulties. it is a very long time since i began to think about the relations between modern scientifically ascertained truths and the cosmogonical speculations of the writer of genesis; and, as i think that mr. gladstone might have been able to put his case with a good deal more force, if he had thought it worth while to consult the last chapter of professor dana's admirable "manual of geology," so i think he might have been made aware that he was undertaking an enterprise of which he had not counted the cost, if he had chanced upon a discussion of the subject which i published in . [ ] finally, i should like to draw the attention of those who take interest in these topics to the weighty words of one of the most learned and moderate of biblical critics: [ ]-- "a propos de cette premiere page de la bible, on a coutume de nos jours de disserter, a perte de vue, sur l'accord du recit mosaique avec les sciences naturelles; et comme celles-ci tout eloignees qu'elles sont encore de la perfection absolue, ont rendu populaires et en quelque sorte irrefragables un certain nombre de faits generaux ou de theses fondamentales de la cosmologie et de la geologie, c'est le texte sacre qu'on s'evertue a torturer pour le faire concorder avec ces donnees." in my paper on the "interpreters of nature and the interpreters of genesis," while freely availing myself of the rights of a scientific critic, i endeavoured to keep the expression of my views well within those bounds of courtesy which are set by self-respect and consideration for others. i am therefore glad to be favoured with mr. gladstone's acknowledgment of the success of my efforts. i only wish that i could accept all the products of mr. gladstone's gracious appreciation, but there is one about which, as a matter of honesty, i hesitate. in fact, if i had expressed my meaning better than i seem to have done, i doubt if the particular proffer of mr. gladstone's thanks would have been made. to my mind, whatever doctrine professes to be the result of the application of the accepted rules of inductive and deductive logic to its subject-matter; and which accepts, within the limits which it sets to itself, the supremacy of reason, is science. whether the subject-matter consists of realities or unrealities, truths or falsehoods, is quite another question. i conceive that ordinary geometry is science, by reason of its method, and i also believe that its axioms, definitions, and conclusions are all true. however, there is a geometry of four dimensions, which i also believe to be science, because its method professes to be strictly scientific. it is true that i cannot conceive four dimensions in space, and therefore, for me, the whole affair is unreal. but i have known men of great intellectual powers who seemed to have no difficulty either in conceiving them, or, at any rate, in imagining how they could conceive them; and, therefore, four-dimensioned geometry comes under my notion of science. so i think astrology is a science, in so far as it professes to reason logically from principles established by just inductive methods. to prevent misunderstanding, perhaps i had better add that i do not believe one whit in astrology; but no more do i believe in ptolemaic astronomy, or in the catastrophic geology of my youth, although these, in their day, claimed--and, to my mind, rightly claimed--the name of science. if nothing is to be called science but that which is exactly true from beginning to end, i am afraid there is very little science in the world outside mathematics. among the physical sciences, i do not know that any could claim more than that it is true within certain limits, so narrow that, for the present at any rate, they may be neglected. if such is the case, i do not see where the line is to be drawn between exactly true, partially true, and mainly untrue forms of science. and what i have said about the current theology at the end of my paper [_supra_ pp. - ] leaves, i think, no doubt as to the category in which i rank it. for all that, i think it would be not only unjust, but almost impertinent, to refuse the name of science to the "summa" of st. thomas or to the "institutes" of calvin. in conclusion, i confess that my supposed "unjaded appetite" for the sort of controversy in which it needed not mr. gladstone's express declaration to tell us he is far better practised than i am (though probably, without another express declaration, no one would have suspected that his controversial fires are burning low) is already satiated. in "elysium" we conduct scientific discussions in a different medium, and we are liable to threatenings of asphyxia in that "atmosphere of contention" in which mr. gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were purest mountain air. i trust that he may long continue to seek truth, under the difficult conditions he has chosen for the search, with unabated energy--i had almost said fire-- may age not wither him, nor custom stale his infinite variety. but elysium suits my less robust constitution better, and i beg leave to retire thither, not sorry for my experience of the other region--no one should regret experience--but determined not to repeat it, at any rate in reference to the "plea for revelation." note on the proper sense of the "mosaic" narrative of the creation. it has been objected to my argument from leviticus (_suprà_ p. ) that the hebrew words translated by "creeping things" in genesis i. and leviticus xi. , are different; namely, "reh-mes" in the former, "sheh-retz" in the latter. the obvious reply to this objection is that the question is not one of words but of the meaning of words. to borrow an illustration from our own language, if "crawling things" had been used by the translators in genesis and "creeping things" in leviticus, it would not have been necessarily implied that they intended to denote different groups of animals. "sheh-retz" is employed in a wider sense than "reh-mes." there are "sheh-retz" of the waters of the earth, of the air, and of the land. leviticus speaks of land reptiles, among other animals, as "sheh-retz"; genesis speaks of all creeping land animals, among which land reptiles are necessarily included, as "reh-mes." our translators, therefore, have given the true sense when they render both "sheh-retz" and "reh-mes" by "creeping things." having taken a good deal of trouble to show what genesis i.-ii. does not mean, in the preceding pages, perhaps it may be well that i should briefly give my opinion as to what it does mean. i conceive that the unknown author of this part of the hexateuchal compilation believed, and meant his readers to believe, that his words, as they understood them--that is to say, in their ordinary natural sense--conveyed the "actual historical truth." when he says that such and such things happened, i believe him to mean that they actually occurred and not that he imagined or dreamed them; when he says "day," i believe he uses the word in the popular sense; when he says "made" or "created," i believe he means that they came into being by a process analogous to that which the people whom he addressed called "making" or "creating"; and i think that, unless we forget our present knowledge of nature, and, putting ourselves back into the position of a phoenician or a chaldaean philosopher, start from his conception of the world, we shall fail to grasp the meaning of the hebrew writer. we must conceive the earth to be an immovable, more or less flattened, body, with the vault of heaven above, the watery abyss below and around. we must imagine sun, moon, and stars to be "set" in a "firmament" with, or in, which they move; and above which is yet another watery mass. we must consider "light" and "darkness" to be things, the alternation of which constitutes day and night, independently of the existence of sun, moon, and stars. we must further suppose that, as in the case of the story of the deluge, the hebrew writer was acquainted with a gentile (probably chaldaean or accadian) account of the origin of things, in which he substantially believed, but which he stripped of all its idolatrous associations by substituting "elohim" for ea, anu, bel, and the like. from this point of view the first verse strikes the keynote of the whole. in the beginning "elohim [ ] created the heaven and the earth." heaven and earth were not primitive existences from which the gods proceeded, as the gentiles taught; on the contrary, the "powers" preceded and created heaven and earth. whether by "creation" is meant "causing to be where nothing was before" or "shaping of something which pre-existed," seems to me to be an insoluble question. as i have pointed out, the second verse has an interesting parallel in jeremiah iv. : "i beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void; and the heavens, and they had no light." i conceive that there is no more allusion to chaos in the one than in the other. the earth-disk lay in its watery envelope, like the yolk of an egg in the _glaire,_ and the spirit, or breath, of elohim stirred the mass. light was created as a thing by itself; and its antithesis "darkness" as another thing. it was supposed to be the nature of these two to alternate, and a pair of alternations constituted a "day" in the sense of an unit of time. the next step was, necessarily, the formation of that "firmament," or dome over the earth-disk, which was supposed to support the celestial waters; and in which sun, moon, and stars were conceived to be set, as in a sort of orrery. the earth was still surrounded and covered by the lower waters, but the upper were separated from it by the "firmament," beneath which what we call the air lay. a second alternation of darkness and light marks the lapse of time. after this, the waters which covered the earth-disk, under the firmament, were drawn away into certain regions, which became seas, while the part laid bare became dry land. in accordance with the notion, universally accepted in antiquity, that moist earth possesses the potentiality of giving rise to living beings, the land, at the command of elohim, "put forth" all sorts of plants. they are made to appear thus early, not, i apprehend, from any notion that plants are lower in the scale of being than animals (which would seem to be inconsistent with the prevalence of tree worship among ancient people), but rather because animals obviously depend on plants; and because, without crops and harvests, there seemed to be no particular need of heavenly signs for the seasons. these were provided by the fourth day's work. light existed already; but now vehicles for the distribution of light, in a special manner and with varying degrees of intensity, were provided. i conceive that the previous alternations of light and darkness were supposed to go on; but that the "light" was strengthened during the daytime by the sun, which, as a source of heat as well as of light, glided up the firmament from the east, and slid down in the west, each day. very probably each day's sun was supposed to be a new one. and as the light of the day was strengthened by the sun, so the darkness of the night was weakened by the moon, which regularly waxed and waned every month. the stars are, as it were, thrown in. and nothing can more sharply mark the doctrinal purpose of the author, than the manner in which he deals with the heavenly bodies, which the gentiles identified so closely with their gods, as if they were mere accessories to the almanac. animals come next in order of creation, and the general notion of the writer seems to be that they were produced by the medium in which they live; that is to say, the aquatic animals by the waters, and the terrestrial animals by the land. but there was a difficulty about flying things, such as bats, birds, and insects. the cosmogonist seems to have had no conception of "air" as an elemental body. his "elements" are earth and water, and he ignores air as much as he does fire. birds "fly above the earth in the open firmament" or "on the face of the expanse" of heaven. they are not said to fly through the air. the choice of a generative medium for flying things, therefore, seemed to lie between water and earth; and, if we take into account the conspicuousness of the great flocks of water-birds and the swarms of winged insects, which appear to arise from water, i think the preference of water becomes intelligible. however, i do not put this forward as more than a probable hypothesis. as to the creation of aquatic animals on the fifth, that of land animals on the sixth day, and that of man last of all, i presume the order was determined by the fact that man could hardly receive dominion over the living world before it existed; and that the "cattle" were not wanted until he was about to make his appearance. the other terrestrial animals would naturally be associated with the cattle. the absurdity of imagining that any conception, analogous to that of a zoological classification, was in the mind of the writer will be apparent, when we consider that the fifth day's work must include the zoologist's _cetacea, sirenia,_ and seals, [ ] all of which are _mammalia;_ all birds, turtles, sea-snakes and, presumably, the fresh water _reptilia_ and _amphibia;_ with the great majority of _invertebrata._ the creation of man is announced as a separate act, resulting from a particular resolution of elohim to "make man in our image, after our likeness." to learn what this remarkable phrase means we must turn to the fifth chapter of genesis, the work of the same writer. "in the day that elohim created man, in the likeness of elohim made he him; male and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name adam in the day when they were created. and adam lived an hundred and thirty years and begat _a son_ in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name seth." i find it impossible to read this passage without being convinced that, when the writer says adam was made in the likeness of elohim, he means the same sort of likeness as when he says that seth was begotten in the likeness of adam. whence it follows that his conception of elohim was completely anthropomorphic. in all this narrative i can discover nothing which differentiates it, in principle, from other ancient cosmogonies, except the rejection of all gods, save the vague, yet anthropomorphic, elohim, and the assigning to them anteriority and superiority to the world. it is as utterly irreconcilable with the assured truths of modern science, as it is with the account of the origin of man, plants, and animals given by the writer of the second chief constituent of the hexateuch in the second chapter of genesis. this extraordinary story starts with the assumption of the existence of a rainless earth, devoid of plants and herbs of the field. the creation of living beings begins with that of a solitary man; the next thing that happens is the laying out of the garden of eden, and the causing the growth from its soil of every tree "that is pleasant to the sight and good for food"; the third act is the formation out of the ground of "every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air"; the fourth and last, the manufacture of the first woman from a rib, extracted from adam, while in a state of anaesthesia. yet there are people who not only profess to take this monstrous legend seriously, but who declare it to be reconcilable with the elohistic account of the creation! footnotes: [footnote : _the nineteenth century,_ .] [footnote : both dolphins and dugongs occur in the red sea, porpoises and dolphins in the mediterranean; so that the "mosaic writer" may have been acquainted with them.] [footnote : i said nothing about "the greater number of schools of greek philosophy," as mr. gladstone implies that i did, but expressly spoke of the "founders of greek philosophy."] [footnote : see heinze, _die lehre vom logos,_ p. _et seq._] [footnote : reprinted in _lay sermons, addresses, and reviews,_ .] [footnote : "ancient," doubtless, but his antiquity must not be exaggerated. for example, there is no proof that the "mosaic" cosmogony was known to the israelites of solomon's time.] [footnote : when jeremiah (iv. ) says, "i beheld the earth, and, lo, it was waste and void," he certainly does not mean to imply that the form of the earth was less definite, or its substance less solid, than before.] [footnote : in looking through the delightful volume recently published by the astronomer-royal for ireland, a day or two ago, i find the following remarks on the nebular hypothesis, which i should have been glad to quote in my text if i had known them sooner:-- "nor can it be ever more than a speculation; it cannot be established by observation, nor can it be proved by calculation. it is merely a conjecture, more or less plausible, but perhaps in some degree, necessarily true, if our present laws of heat, as we understand them, admit of the extreme application here required, and if the present order of things has reigned for sufficient time without the intervention of any influence at present known to us" (_the story of the heavens,_ p. ). would any prudent advocate base a plea, either for or against revelation, upon the coincidence, or want of coincidence, of the declarations of the latter with the requirements of an hypothesis thus guardedly dealt with by an astronomical expert?] [footnote : lectures on evolution delivered in new york (american addresses).] [footnote : reuss, _l'histoire sainte et la loi,_ vol. i, p. .] [footnote : for the sense of the term "elohim," see the essay entitled "the evolution of theology" at the end of this volume.] [footnote : perhaps even hippopotamuses and otters!] the source and mode of solar energy throughout the universe. by i. w. heysinger, m.a., m.d. illustrated. philadelphia: j. b. lippincott company. . contents. page introduction chapter i. statement of the problem of solar energy chapter ii. the constitution and phenomena of the sun chapter iii. the mode of solar energy chapter iv. the source of solar energy chapter v. the distribution and conservation of solar energy chapter vi. the phenomena of the stars chapter vii. temporary stars, meteors, and comets chapter viii. the phenomena of comets chapter ix. interpretation of cometic phenomena chapter x. the resolvable nebulæ, star-clusters and galaxies chapter xi. the gaseous nebulæ chapter xii. the nebular hypothesis: its basis and its difficulties chapter xiii. the genesis of solar systems and galaxies chapter xiv. the mosaic cosmogony chapter xv. conclusion. the harmony of nature's laws and operations reference index of authorities cited classified index of subject-matter list of illustrations. page figs. to . types from nature, illustrating development of a solar system from the attenuated matter of space frontispiece. fig. . a typical sun-spot fig. . structure of the sun, analytical illustration of fig. . electrical polarities of sun and planets fig. . ideal view of the generation and transmission of planetary electricity fig. . the aurora borealis, view of fig. . diffused brush discharge of an electrical machine fig. . planetary generation and transmission of electrical energy to the sun, analytical illustration of fig. . gradual discharge of electricity from one conductor to another in a partial vacuum fig. . sudden electrical discharge through the atmosphere fig. . position of planets with reference to the generation of sun-spots; maximum and minimum of electrical action fig. . analysis of a typical sun-spot fig. . retardation of sun-spots in their travel across the solar face; development to the rear and recession in front figs. and . complex lines of planetary electrical action upon the sun produced by the inclination of the solar axis to the plane of the ecliptic figs. to . examples of electrical repulsion: fig. , similarly electrified pith-balls; fig. , the electrical windmill; fig. , repulsion of a flame; fig. , self-repulsion around a conductor; fig. , attraction between opposite and repulsion between similar electricities; fig. , mutual repulsion between similar + electrospheres of the earth and the moon; fig. , mutual repulsion between the similar--electrospheres of sun and comet figs. to . spectra of solar light, incandescent sodium and calcium, and the absorption and bright-line spectra of hydrogen gas figs. to . reversal and neutralization of spectroscopic lines of hydrogen in the light of a variable star like betelgeuse fig. . a double-sun nebula in process of development into a solar system fig. . double stars with complementary colors, interpretation of the phenomena of fig. . a solar system which would explain the regular variability of the star mira fig. . lineal nebula in sobieski's crown which has been affected by currents in the ocean of space figs. to . four stages in the phenomena of a new or temporary star, a "star in flames;" reversal of the hydrogen lines in its spectrum figs. and . illustration of repulsion of the tail of a comet by the similarly electrified solar electrosphere; comparison with similar repulsion in a vacuum-chamber experiment figs. and . the electroscope, and mutual electrical repulsion in a bundle of dry straws fig. . experiment with a candle and currents of air from between two disks, illustrating the radial semi-rotation of a comet's tail during perihelion figs. to . four non-systemic gaseous nebulæ: fig. , crab nebula; fig. , dumb-bell nebula; fig. , lineal nebula in sobieski's crown; fig. , catherine-wheel nebula. the latter illustrates the formation of a planetary nebula with a hollow center, or else dispersion into the elements of space again fig. . great spiral nebula in canes venatici and a small adjacent nebula affected thereby figs. to . four gaseous nebulæ in process of development into solar systems: fig. , divergent spiral; fig. , later stage of a similar spiral; fig. , subsequent stage of rupture of the nearly circular convolutions of a similar nebula; fig. , the same stage in the development of a solar system with a double sun fig. . nucleated planetary nebula, showing its external ring split and held apart, in part of its circumference, by electrical repulsion fig. . divergent spiral nebula on cover of book. introduction. this work is not presented to the reader as a treatise on astronomy, although the different phenomena pertaining to that splendid science are reviewed with some detail, and the established facts bearing upon the subjects discussed are briefly cited in the very words of the great writers upon whose authority they rest. a considerable experience in chemistry, electricity, and the other allied physical sciences long since convinced the author of this work that some simple and uniform principle must control the production of the physical phenomena of astronomy,--some general law capable of being extended in its application to the widest, as well as applied to the narrowest, limits of that science. knowing the absolute certainty of a magnetic and electrical connection between the sun and the earth, as evidenced by the reflected energy of sun-spots, auroras, etc., and that no known cause except electricity could account for some, at least, of the cometic phenomena, it seemed that any comprehensive law must at all events include this mode of energy as an effective cause, and that if the law be uniform in its application, it must equally exclude all others which may be either antagonistic or not necessary. a careful investigation was therefore made of those less generally known principles concerned in the generation and transformations of electrical energy, in order to determine the sufficiency or insufficiency of this agency in the grander operations of nature (for, of course, mere currents of electricity could play no part in these phenomena), with the result that every line of research led irresistibly to the conclusions presented in this work. these investigations, specifically directed, at first, to the source and mode of the solar energy of our own system alone, were found to be equally applicable to others, and were successively extended to the whole sidereal, nebular, and cometic field, and finally to space itself, for all the phenomena of which it seemed to furnish an adequate and harmonious interpretation. the fact, when once demonstrated, that the true source of solar energy is not to be found in the sun itself, but in the potential energy of space, served as a guiding principle, and, by its continuously extended application, was found to cover perfectly the source and mode of all solar energy. every step of the investigation has been based on the established facts of science and the observations of eminent astronomers as laid down by the best authorities; and the quotations herein made from their works are full and fair, and are properly credited in every case, and taken from books easily accessible to the general reader. it is hoped that further attention may be directed to this field of research by far more capable investigators than the author of this work, so that systematic astronomy may no longer bear the reproach that it is largely an empirical science, but that it may henceforth be based upon rational and comprehensive principles, capable of universal extension and of general scientific application. the authorities cited in this work include many illustrious names: proctor, tyndall, helmholtz, langley, huggins, newcomb, young, flammarion, balfour stewart, r. kalley miller, herschel, nichol, lord rosse, urbanitsky, crookes, fraunhofer, ball, and many others, all of whom are known throughout the world as among the master minds of science. from them we have drawn the rich stores of knowledge of the phenomena with which this work deals, and which we have so fully and freely cited, as the basis of the splendid superstructure which astronomy to-day reveals. no one will venture to controvert the statements of fact made by these eminent men, and, where conflict of opinion has arisen among them, we have quoted all parties, so that the reader can form his own conclusion, in each case, for himself. so diverse, apparently, are the phenomena reviewed that they present the aspect of a great picture-gallery, in which the paintings totally differ from each other in subject, in treatment, and in origin, their only common qualities being those of grandeur and fidelity to truth and to the principles of art. but they are not merely paintings, they are the moving panorama of creation, and, diverse as they may appear, they will be found to show the same "handling," which reveals the same universal artist; they have, in truth, a common mode of development and a common principle of construction, obscure as these may seem to be. for thousands of years "natural history," so called, was studied and taught; zoölogy was a well-known science far back in old historic times. but it was left for modern biological research to turn from these fixed and fully-developed forms of life, and go back to trace their primal development through what is now the science of embryology, and thus we have learned that nature traverses the same paths in forming a man as in producing a frog or a bird. the process is carried further along in one case than in another, but the lines of development are almost identical; and the tracing out of these common lines and their subsequent divergencies has shed a flood of new light upon these dark and hitherto unknown places, so that we are now fairly on the true highway of physical life at last. when adult forms were alone compared, animal with animal, no common ground of origin or development could be discerned; nature was believed to work by "special creations," and vast cataclysms were devised to utterly destroy the organic life of one terrestrial epoch after another, leaving a few hardy accidental survivors, or "types," perchance, to trace back their lines of descent beyond such periods of cyclical destruction. all this is now changed, and these views, so recently held and taught, have been abandoned forever, and continuously operative natural processes of development, modified by environment and heredity, have taken their place, and biology now has a future as well as a past. and so it must be with the less complex, but far more extended, creations and transformations in the vast fields of astronomical science with which this book is concerned. hitherto we have here, too, dealt with "special creations" and cataclysms; henceforth we must follow the uniform and eternal laws of progressive development. among the multitude of hitherto unsolved problems of astronomy we may enumerate the following: why sun-spots travel faster around the sun when near his equator than when more distant from it. the physical causes of sun-spots, faculæ, and solar prominences. why the number and size of sun-spots seem to affect terrestrial magnetism. the rational interpretation of the eleven-year and the long sun-spot cycles. the origin of the aurora borealis. the causes of the periodicity of regularly variable stars. how to explain, in accordance with the nebular hypothesis, why algol and its companion, which are not greatly different in mass and volume, and both obviously gaseous, should so differ in character, one being a bright sun and the other a dark planet. whether there are great, compact, but dark bodies, comparable to suns and planets in magnitude, and unconnected with any solar system, floating about in space. why double and multiple stars are so frequently of contrasted or complementary colors. why regularly variable stars are longer in decline than in growth of brilliancy, since such decline is no criterion of loss of heat, but rather the reverse. why the sun and fixed stars have atmospheres largely composed of free hydrogen, and the planets have atmospheres of free oxygen and nitrogen. why a small and sometimes even scarcely visible star occasionally is seen to suddenly blaze up, in a few hours, to hundreds of times its normal brilliancy, and then far more gradually fade, through months and years, back to its former state, in which thenceforth it continues to maintain its original lustre. why comets, when they have tails, always project these appendages radially from the direction of the sun. how to account for the presence of cyanogen, and how for the absence of oxygen and the constant presence of hydrocarbon vapors around the nuclei of comets. why some comets split up into separate comets and others sometimes show multiple tails. why comets, when they pass around and behind the sun, in some cases reappear shorn of their splendor and in other cases with their splendor greatly enhanced. whence comets are derived, where is their permanent abiding-place, and how did they originally reach those distant regions which they occupy before entering our system, if merely the débris left behind from contraction of the mass of plasma out of which our solar system is supposed to have been formed. why so many of the irresolvable nebulæ present the appearance of divergent spirals of many different forms. how to account for the annular nebulæ with hollow centers and for those partially-completed planetary nebulæ, so called, which afterwards appear to retrograde into diffused gaseous nebulæ again or gradually disappear. what is the ultimate constitution of interstellar space? have the fixed stars planetary systems like our own, or not? must they have such, or merely may they have? what principle of conservation of energy is it possible to apply to the vast quantities of light and heat which constantly disappear in the interstellar realms of space? how to account for this enormous emission of solar energy during the long period of time requisite for the development of the earth during its past geological ages. how to explain why the moon always presents the same face to the earth. why, if the law of gravity prevails there, there are no visible traces of atmosphere or moisture in the moon. what is the basic principle on which depends the ratio of mean planetary distances, , , , , , etc., always plus ? what is the origin of the planetary satellites and the cause of their irregular distribution, and what the origin of saturn's rings? how was the belt of asteroids formed between mars and jupiter? why is the orbit of neptune relatively compressed against that of uranus? why is the mass of neptune out of its proper proportion compared with those of jupiter, saturn, uranus, and neptune in a diminishing series? what is the rational interpretation and what the origin of the sun's corona and the cause of the coronal streamers? there are many other problems equally difficult which are encountered in the study of this noble science, but the above are surely sufficiently striking. any complete interpretation of these various phenomena, even singly, would seem to be an important step in advance; then how much more so if the explanation of one and all of these is to be found in a single, all-embracing cause, a few simple and uniformly operative principles, as unquestionably operative here as in the other fields of science to which they pertain, and which, once thoroughly comprehended and rigidly applied, will be found to elucidate all the multifarious phenomena of sidereal space so clearly and precisely that any intelligent observer and reasoner can determine each question finally for himself, and solve not only these, but all the other astronomical problems and paradoxes which have from time to time arisen? it is not to be understood that this sublime science and these illimitable realms are to be laid off with the metes and bounds of a farmer's meadow, for all the lines of the different sciences are linked together at a thousand points, but that the operative principles which nature constantly employs once firmly grasped, the intricacy of each series of phenomena encountered will become gradually lessened, link by link, as observations and deductions are more closely and rationally made along these well-established lines of research, instead of here and there, empirically, and at hap-hazard, as has been the only method hitherto possible to pursue. when the relatively few fixed principles which control the operations of nature in the field of astronomy are thoroughly comprehended, for on this vast panorama she lays her colors with a heavy brush, we can study her phenomena and interpret her processes even more readily than the kindred sciences have enabled us to do in the adjacent fields of biology, wherein the splendid achievements of less than a quarter of a century past have not only aroused the interest and enthusiasm of the world, but already point the way to still grander triumphs yet to come. the source and mode of solar energy. chapter i. statement of the problem of solar energy. in endeavoring to present a new and rational interpretation of the source and mode of solar energy, based upon the established principles of recent science, it becomes necessary to briefly cite the facts bearing upon the problem to be solved and the authorities for their support, as well as to describe concisely the different hypotheses at present in vogue, and to point out the well-established insufficiency of these theories, one and all, to account for or explain the difficulties encountered, and which so far have remained as an unsolved enigma. and this problem of solar energy is the grandest and most important question of all physics, for upon the light and heat of the sun depend all physical life and its consequences, animal and vegetable, past, present, and future. if within finite time, and relatively, compared with the enormous vistas of the past, a very brief time, this source of energy is to cease, and our whole system be involved in darkness and death, such darkness and death must be eternal; for the dead sun in his final stage of condensation will be as fixed and unchangeable as the operation of eternal laws can make it, and henceforth there can be no revival or reversals, no turning back of the hand upon the dial, while the laws of nature continue; and outside the uniform operation of the laws of nature there is no source, or mode, or continuance of solar energy conceivable. it is true that when our system shall have ran down to its culmination in death, other present systems may continue for a time to exist and new ones spring into being; but these, too, must inevitably follow the same course, and likewise end in eternal darkness, until finally the great experiment of creation shall have ended in eternal failure. the changes we see in progress around us, however, are not of this nature. the individual dies, but the forces which gave life and strength to the race persist, and others will take his place, and the same forces will continue to operate with constant renewals, since we draw our light and heat and life from without; but in the death of suns and their attendant planets there is no analogous process, for such suns are constantly expending their enormous energies in the support of life external to themselves, and only the smallest part of this energy, even, can ever be utilized by themselves or by other suns or planets under any mode of interpretation now in vogue, the boundless realms of so-called inert and empty space receiving the same proportionate quota of light and heat as the almost microscopic points in the sky which constitute the suns and systems we see, and practically all, or nearly all, of this enormous energy is an absolute dead waste; so that whether receiving new supplies from a constant rain of adjacent meteor streams, or from the gradual contraction of the solar volume, the vast realms of space are the useless recipients of what can never return to the sun again, and, of course, in such case the inevitable end can be predicted; for contraction of volume, with a given mass, must have an effective limit, and meteoric aggregation must also find an effective limit, if the planets are not to be thrown out of place as they continue to revolve around the sun. all accepted theories begin with a primordial impulse, the energies of which are of necessity constantly frittered away and wasted, until finally all light and heat and life must cease to exist, and that at a stage in which no further impulse can ever be given, since the whole universe will have passed through every possible stage of degradation down to the final one of universal and eternal death. and yet this is the best that science has to suggest; the only comfort offered us is that it will not happen in our time, and so, "after us the deluge." the nebular hypothesis, so called, of laplace, has required much modification, in the light of more recent science, but the essential principles of this theory are still generally accepted, for they fairly well account for the primal connection of the sun and planets, and the position of the central sun within, with the orbital and rotational planetary movements, as no other theory has yet done. by this theory the limits of our solar system were once occupied by an attenuated gaseous nebula containing within itself all the matter which now forms our solar system. this great nebular mass, primordially assumed, was given by gravity a slow but gradually increasing rotation upon its center; the force of gravity acted more strongly upon this rotating body as it contracted, so that rings of nebulous matter were successively thrown off, which coalesced into single masses and these finally into planets. these planetary globes themselves, as they coalesced and contracted, left behind or threw off rings of their outer matter, which, in turn, became moons, and finally our solar system with its central sun was evolved as we now see it; development continued, the planets cooled and condensed, life appeared when the conditions became suitable, and the original progressive condensation of the central mass--the sun--still continuing, the evolution of light and heat continues, and will continue in a correlative degree. as our moon has passed, apparently, beyond the stage of life, and is cold, airless, waterless, and dead, so will the earth pass; and the larger planets, such as jupiter and saturn, which have not yet reached the life stage of condensation, are still hot, but they, too, will pass through the present stage of the earth, then through that in which the moon now is; and the central sun, still glowing, but more and more dimly, will itself pass through the stages in which jupiter and saturn now are, then through that of our present earth, and finally into that of the moon, long before which time the emission of all light and heat will have ceased from the sun to its encircling planets, and finally the sun itself will sink into eternal frigidity, and all its store of light and heat will have been dissipated into boundless space, and the possibility of anything resembling what we know as life will have been forever extinguished. in considering the question of the sun's energy, the author of the article "sun," in appleton's cyclopædia, says, "how to account for the supply of the prodigious amount of heat constantly radiated from the solar surface has offered a boundless field of hypothesis. one conjecture is that the sun is now giving off the heat imparted to it at its creation, and that it is gradually cooling down ( ). another ascribed it to combustion ( ), and a third to currents of electricity ( ). newton and buffon conjectured that comets might be the aliment of the sun ( ); and of late years a somewhat similar theory (first broached by mr. waterston in ) has been in vogue,--viz., that a stream of meteoric matter constantly pouring into the sun from the regions of space supplies its heat, by the conversion into it of the arrested motion ( ). as the sun may, indeed, derive a small amount of heat from this cause, it deserves more attention than previous conjectures. but conjecture and hypothesis may be said to have given place to views which claim a higher title, as it is now becoming generally recognized, in accordance with modern physical theories of heat, that in the gravitation of the sun's mass toward its center, and in its consequent condensation, sufficient heat must be evolved to supply the present radiation, enormous as this undoubtedly is. it appears to be susceptible of full demonstration that a contraction of the sun's volume of a given definite amount, which is yet so slight as to be invisible to the most powerful telescope, is competent to furnish a heat-supply equal to all that can have been emitted during historical periods. according to this theory, then (which is largely due to the development by helmholtz of mayer's great generalization), the sun's mass remains unaltered, and its temperature nearly constant, while its size is slowly diminishing as it contracts; so slowly, however, that the supply may be reckoned on through periods almost infinite as measured by the known past of our race, and which are in any case to be counted by millions of years ( )." to these must be added the hypothesis of dr. siemens, fully described in professor proctor's "mysteries of time and space." this ingenious theory, in brief, is that the rotation of the sun on its axis causes a suction in the manner of a fan, at the poles, and a tangential projection, at the equator, of a disk-like stream of gaseous matter into space. the light and heat of the sun, dispersed through space, slowly but continuously act upon the compound gases with which space is universally pervaded to disassociate them into their elements. the disassociated gases thus sucked in at the solar poles at an extremely low temperature are brought into a state of combustion by friction and condensation, thus generating new supplies of light and heat, and the gases thus reunited by combustion are again projected into space, to be again slowly disassociated by the operation of the sun's light and heat. the result of this combustion is to form aqueous vapor and carbonic acid and carbonic oxide, and these gases, when disassociated in space, are resolved into carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, which again and again are thus recombined and again and again decomposed as they pass over the sun's surface ( ). the seven hypotheses above described are the only ones now in vogue, and a brief analysis will show that no single one of them, nor all combined, will give sufficient results to account for the essential difficulties or known conditions of the problem. the first and second hypotheses are answered by the fact set forth by helmholtz (popular scientific lectures, article "on the origin of the planetary system"), that, if the mass of the sun were composed of the two elements capable by combination of producing the greatest possible light and heat,--to wit, hydrogen and oxygen in the proportions in which they unite to form water,--"calculation shows that under the above supposition the heat resulting from their combustion would be sufficient to keep up the radiation of heat from the sun three thousand and twenty-one years. that, it is true, is a long time, but even profane history teaches that the sun has lighted and warmed us for three thousand years, and geology puts it beyond doubt that this period must be extended to millions of years." the third hypothesis relates to currents of electricity. we have no knowledge of currents of electricity which could produce, however multiplied or intensified, such light and heat as are constantly poured forth from the sun into all space. that electricity is the intermediate cause of our sun's energy, and of all solar energy, it is the purpose of this work to demonstrate, but not electric currents, which find their attractiveness to theorists in the vague suggestion of which professor proctor speaks, referring to comets, in his article on "cometic mysteries," "that perhaps this is an electrical phenomenon; perhaps that other feature is electrical, too; perhaps all or most of the phenomena of comets depend on electricity." but he adds, "it is so easy to make such suggestions, so difficult to obtain evidence in their favor having the slightest scientific value. still, i hold the electrical idea to be well worth careful study. whatever credit may hereafter be given to any electrical theory of comets will be solely and entirely due to those who may help to establish it upon a basis of sound evidence,--none whatever to the mere suggestion, which has been made time and again since it was first advanced by fontanelle." it will be seen that the present work, in demonstrating the true source and mode of solar energy, in itself presents a full and sufficient explanation of all the cometic mysteries referred to, as well as all those pertaining to other solar systems in space, and the multifarious phenomena which they present. indeed, the philosophic mind will not be satisfied with the sufficiency of any hypothesis which will not unlock the mysteries and clearly explain the phenomena of other systems,--of comets, variable and temporary stars, double stars, and all the complicated celestial economy which to the eye of the mere observer presents a bewildering scene of the operation of independent and inscrutable forces. the fifth hypothesis cited, that of meteoric impact, doubtless plays a part, as we know from the generation of light and heat by the constant passage of similar bodies through our own atmosphere. and we know, of course, that the sun, by its vastly-increased attraction, must be subjected to the constant impact of such meteoric bodies in enormous numbers. but the fatal defect in the theory is that such impacts, to produce the radiant energy of the sun, must constantly add to its mass in like proportion, and as the motions and distances of the planets in their orbits are regulated and preserved by virtue of the substantially constant mass of the sun, any progressive and considerable increase in its mass must constantly bring the planets nearer and nearer, and thus increase their orbital velocity. helmholtz quotes from sir william thomson's investigation, that, "assuming it to hold, the mass of the sun should increase so rapidly that the consequences would have shown themselves in the accelerated motion of the planets. the entire loss of heat from the sun cannot, at all events, be produced in this way; at the most a portion, which, however, may not be inconsiderable." r. kalley miller, in "the romance of astronomy," says, "but more recent observations have led sir william thomson to a modification of his theory. he has calculated that if the meteoric shower were sufficiently heavy to make up for the sun's whole expenditure of heat, the matter of the corona must be so dense as seriously to perturb the orbits of certain comets which pass very close to his surface,--a result which is found not to be the case. but the meteoric theory is only thrown back a step. if the sun's mass were originally formed, as is not at all improbable, by the agglomeration of these particles, sir william thomson has calculated that the heat generated by their thus falling together would be sufficient to account for a supply of twenty million years of solar heat at the present rate of emission. and thus, though the meteors are not sufficient to maintain the energy of our system unimpaired, they may yet have been the original storehouse from which all that energy was derived.... but if the economy of our system be spared long enough, the day must come when the sun with age has become wan; when the matter of the corona has all been drawn in and used up without avail; when the lavish luxuriance with which he has showered abroad his light and heat has finally exhausted all his stores. he has still power, aided by the resisting medium, to drag his satellites one by one down upon his surface; and the shock of each successive impact will, for a brief period, give him a fresh tenure of life. when the earth crashes into the sun it will supply him with a store of heat for nearly a century, while jupiter's large mass will extend the period by nearly thirty thousand years. but when the last of the planets is swallowed up, the sun's energies will rapidly die out and a deep and deathly gloom gather about nature's grave. looking into the ages of a future eternity, we can see nothing but a cold and burnt-out mass remaining of that glorious orb which went forth in the morning of time, joyful as a bridegroom from his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race." the sixth hypothesis is that to which most credence is now given. it is that of evolution of energy by condensation of volume. professor proctor ("the sun as a perpetual machine") says, "in company with this great mystery of seeming waste comes the yet more difficult problem, how to explain the apparent continuance of solar light and heat during millions of years. we know from the results of geological research that the earth has been exposed to the action of the solar rays with their present activity during at least a hundred million years. yet it is difficult to see how, on any hypothesis of the generation of solar heat, or by combining together all possible modes of heat generation, a supply for more than twenty millions of years in the past and a possible supply for as long a period in the future can be accounted for." of these vast periods of terrestrial existence in the past we quote the following from a recent publication: "professor c. d. wolcott expresses the opinion that geologic time is not to be measured by hundreds of years, but simply by tens of millions. this is widely different from the conclusion arrived at by sir charles lyell, who, basing his estimate on modifications of certain specimens of marine life, assigned , , years as the required geological period; darwin claimed , , years; crowell, about , , ; geike, from , , upward; mcgee, upham, and other recent authorities claim from , , up to , , ." helmholtz ("on the origin of the planetary system") says, "it is probable rather that a great part of this heat, which was produced by condensation, began to radiate into space before this condensation was complete. but the heat which the sun could have previously developed by its condensation would have been sufficient to cover its present expenditure for not less than , , of years of the past.... we may therefore assume with great probability that the sun will still continue in its condensation, even if it only attained the density of the earth, though it will probably become far denser in its interior, owing to its far greater pressure; this would develop fresh quantities of heat, which would be sufficient to maintain for an additional , , of years the same intensity of sunshine as that which is now the source of all terrestrial life." of this process of condensation professor ball, in his recent work, "in the high heavens," says, "it goes without saying that the welfare of the human race is necessarily connected with the continuance of the sun's beneficent action. we have indeed shown that the few other direct or indirect sources of heat which might conceivably be relied upon are in the very nature of things devoid of necessary permanence. it becomes, therefore, of the utmost interest to inquire whether the sun's heat can be calculated on indefinitely. here is indeed a subject which is literally of the most vital importance, so far as organic life is concerned. if the sun shall ever cease to shine, then it must be certain that there is a term beyond which human existence, or indeed organic existence of any type whatever, cannot any longer endure on the earth. we may say once for all that the sun contains just a certain number of units of heat, actual or potential, and that he is at the present moment shedding that heat around with the most appalling extravagance." quoting from professor langley, he says, "we feel certain that the incessant radiation from the sun must be producing a profound effect on its stores of energy. the only way of reconciling this with the total absence of evidence of the expected changes is to be found in the supposition that such is the mighty mass of the sun, such the prodigious supply of heat or what is the equivalent of heat which it contains, that the grand transformation through which it is passing proceeds at a rate so slow that, during the ages accessible to our observations, the results achieved have been imperceptible.... we cannot, however, attribute to the sun any miraculous power of generating heat. that great body cannot disobey those laws which we have learned from experiments in our laboratories. of course no one now doubts that the great law of the conservation of energy holds good. we do not in the least believe that because the sun's heat is radiated away in such profusion it is therefore entirely lost. it travels off, no doubt, to the depths of space, and as to what may become of it there we have no information. everything we know points to the law that energy is as indestructible as matter itself. the heat scattered from the sun exists at least as ethereal vibration, if in no other form. but it is most assuredly true that this energy, so copiously dispensed, is lost to our solar system. there is no form in which it is returned, or in which it can be returned. the energy of the system is as surely declining as the store of energy of the clock declines according as the weight runs down. in the clock, however, the energy is restored by winding up the weight, but there is no analogous process known in our system." the purpose of the present work, however, is to clearly demonstrate that just such a process is actually being carried on, and has been so carried on from the beginning, and will be forever. this writer continues reviewing the suppositions formerly entertained, that the sun was a heated body gradually cooling down, or that it was undergoing absolute combustion, and shows that they were utterly insufficient. he then refers to the theory of meteoric supply, of which he says, "it can, however, be shown that there are not enough meteors in existence to supply a sufficient quantity of heat to the sun to compensate the loss by radiation. the indraught of meteoric matter may, indeed, certainly tend in some small degree to retard the ultimate cooling of the great luminary, but its effect is so small that we can quite afford to overlook it from the point of view that we are taking in these pages. it is to helmholtz we are indebted for the true solution of the long-vexed problem. he has demonstrated in the clearest manner where the source of the sun's heat lies.... a gaseous globe like the sun, when it parts with its heat, observes laws of a very different type from those which a cooling solid follows. as the heat disappears by radiation the body contracts; the gaseous object, however, decreases in general much more than a solid body would do for the same loss of heat.... the globe of gas unquestionably radiates heat and loses it, and the globe, in consequence of that loss, shrinks to a smaller size.... in the facts just mentioned we have an explanation of the sustained heat of the sun. of course we cannot assume that in our calculations the sun is to be treated as if it were gaseous throughout its entire mass, but it approximates so largely to the gaseous state in the greater part of its bulk that we can feel no hesitation in adopting the belief that the true cause has been found." regarding the constitution of the sun, it may be stated, however, that we only see its photosphere, which is the visible sun, and the whole volume has a density about that of water; but no man has ever seen the body of the sun itself. in this respect it is like the planet jupiter: we only know that its density cannot be less than one-fourth the density of the earth's solid globe. if the photosphere extend to a depth of one thousand, ten thousand, or a hundred thousand miles, the density of the sun's body or core will be correspondingly increased. even computing the whole visible volume, the density is far greater than that of any gas we know, even with the solar pressure of gravity; with the sun's metallic vapors, if the whole core were already vaporized, we would not, to say the least, be likely to observe the sun-spots and other solar phenomena as we find them actually to occur; this, however, will be more fully considered later on. the author continues, "but there is a boundary to the prospect of the continuance of the sun's radiation. of course, as the loss of heat goes on the gaseous parts will turn into liquids, and as the process is still further protracted the liquids will transform into solids. thus, we look forward to a time when the radiation of the sun can be no longer carried on in conformity with the laws which dictate the loss of heat from a gaseous body. when this state is reached the sun may, no doubt, be an incandescent solid with a brilliance as great as is compatible with that condition, but the further loss of heat will then involve loss of temperature.... there seems no escape from the conclusion that the continuous loss of solar heat must still go on, so that the sun will pass through the various stages of brilliant incandescence, of glowing redness, of dull redness, until it ultimately becomes a dark and non-luminous star.... there is thus a distinct limit to man's existence on the earth, dictated by the ultimate exhaustion of the sun.... the utmost amount of heat that it would ever have been possible for the sun to contain would, according to this authority (professor langley), supply its radiation for eighteen million years at the present rate.... it seems that the sun has already dissipated about four-fifths of the energy with which it may have originally been endowed. at all events, it seems that, radiating energy at its present rate, the sun may hold out for four million years or for five million years, but not for ten million years.... we have seen that it does not seem possible for any other source of heat to be available for replenishing the waning stores of the luminary." he concludes by saying that the original heat may have been imparted as the result of some great collision, the solar body having itself been dark before the collision occurred, and that it may be reinvigorated by a repetition of a similar startling process, but indicates in general terms that such an operation would be bad for the round world and all contained therein. it would, in fact, be rough treatment for even a hopeless case. condensation of the solar volume is unquestionably a source of heat, for we know that the solid or liquid interior of the earth increases in temperature at a definite ratio as we descend through its crust; but long before the sun shall have become contracted to the density of the earth all its heat will have become substantially internal heat, and it can then supply no more by radiation to its surrounding planets. it will be seen that the radiant energy of the sun on any of the above hypotheses is not sufficient to account even for the life period of the earth in the past, and that its future period of energy must be still more brief. professor ball ("in the high heavens"), basing his views on laplace's "nebular hypothesis," says, "looking back into the remote ages, we thus see that the sun was larger and larger the further back we project our view. if we go sufficiently far back, we seem to come to a time when the sun, in a more or less completely gaseous state, filled up the surrounding space out to the orbit of mercury, or, earlier still, out to the orbit of the remotest planet." according to this hypothesis, all these brilliant suns, the author says, will "settle down into dark bodies like the earth," and that "every analogy would teach us that the dark and non-luminous bodies in the universe are far more numerous than the brilliant suns. we can never see the dark objects; we can discern their presence only indirectly. all the stars that we can see are merely those bodies which at this epoch of their career happen for the time to be so highly heated as to be luminous.... it may happen that there are dark bodies in the vicinity of some of the bright stars to which these stars act as illuminants, just in the same way as the sun disperses light to the planets." one would naturally suppose, however, that there must be some sort of laws to govern such stupendous operations, and that nature is not merely engaged in blowing bubbles. to quote professor newcomb: "at the present time we can only say that the nebular hypothesis is indicated by the general tendencies of the laws of nature; that it has not been proved to be inconsistent with any fact; that it is almost a necessary consequence of the only theory by which we can account for the origin and conservation of the sun's heat; but that it rests on the assumption that this conservation is to be explained by the laws of nature as we now see them in operation. should any one be sceptical as to the sufficiency of these laws to account for the present state of things, science can furnish no evidence strong enough to overthrow his doubts until the sun shall be found growing smaller by actual measurement, or the nebulæ be actually seen to condense into stars and systems." while the validity of the views set forth in the present volume does not depend on the sufficiency or insufficiency of the nebular hypothesis, and in fact requires the condensation as well as the expansion of the solar volume under the influence of heat to be recognized and its extreme importance pointed out, yet it must not be supposed that this great generalization of kant and laplace, based on the views presented originally by sir william herschel, is established, or that the difficulties in its way are not so enormous as to be almost insuperable. professor ball points out that thousands of bodies occupy our solar system, and together compose it as a whole; that these have orbits of every sort of eccentricity and direction, and occupying all possible planes which can pass through the sun; that the bodies circle around the sun, some backward and others forward, and that only the planets seem to conform to some common order; and without this order, which may be accidental, so far as our knowledge goes, the system would have been disrupted long since, if it ever could have begun its operations; and that in this view the heavens may be strewn with wrecks of systems which failed to survive from inherent want of harmony,--that is to say, as based on observation only. whether the nebular hypothesis be a universal or a partial law of development, or whether the real processes be quite different, cannot, however, depend on the continued maintenance and evolution of the sun's energy, as this source must in truth be sought for in quite a different direction. the remaining hypothesis (the seventh) is considered in detail in professor proctor's work, "mysteries of time and space." the fatal defect in dr. siemens's theory is, that his gases will not be projected from the sun's equator. professor proctor says, "thus the centripetal tendency of matter at the sun's equator is very much greater (many hundreds of times greater) than its centrifugal tendency, and there is not the slightest possibility of matter being projected into space from the sun's surface by centrifugal tendency. nor is there any part of the sun's mass where the centrifugal tendency is greater than at the surface near the equator. so that, whatever else the sun may be doing to utilize his mighty energies, he is certainly not throwing off matter constantly from his equatorial regions, as dr. siemens's theory requires." there are other difficulties which professor proctor considers, such as the doubt as to the power of the sun's rays to disassociate combined gases in space, and also that, since both light and heat must be utilized in this work, if the sun's energies are to be perpetually renewed, these forces would sensibly disappear in work, and the result would be that the fixed stars would be invisible beyond their domains, and their light, when not totally cut off, would be greatly diminished, in any event, as distances increased, which is not the case. besides, these gases thus disassociated could never be entirely used by the sun, and the remainder would be wasted, and the part wasted would vastly exceed that utilized, probably in as great proportion of waste as that of the sun's light not utilized by the planets, which gather but one two-hundred-and-thirty-two-millionths of the whole. it may be further added that these gases would be mechanically mixed, the combined and the disassociated, and this would be mostly the case in those parts nearest the sun, so that large volumes of spent and useless gases would have to be carried in to no purpose whatever. in fact, these gases would gradually form a closed circuit of supply and discharge, and surrounding space would be but slightly affected. professor proctor concludes, "we have, in fact, the fallacy of perpetual motion in a modified form." it will be apparent that under any single one, or all, of these hypotheses, the future prospect for created forms and continued existence is hopeless, and that the inevitable result must do violence to every conception of either an intelligent creative power or the operations of universal law. the mind revolts from the continued degradation and destruction of all organic creation, while the malevolent and iconoclastic forces of nature hold high revel over final ruin and eternal destruction, brought about by their own incessant efforts, striking out blindly to make or mar, and they alone the deathless survivors, the half-blind fates and furies of the eternal future. it betokens, not the processes of orderly government, but the reign of anarchy. note.--since this work has been in press, at the annual meeting of the british association, august , , lord salisbury, the president, delivered a powerful and lucid address on the present status of scientific knowledge and its limitations. with reference to the antiquity of the earth we quote the following: "it is evident, from the increase of heat as we descend into the earth, that the earth is cooling, and we know, by experiment within certain wide limits, the rate at which its substances--the matters of which it is constituted--are found to cool. it follows that we can approximately calculate how hot it was so many million years ago; but if at any time it was hotter at the surface by fifty degrees fahrenheit than it is now, life would then have been impossible upon the planet, and, therefore, we can without much difficulty fix a date before which organic life on earth cannot have existed. basing himself on these considerations, lord kelvin limited the period of organic life upon the earth to a hundred million years, and professor tait, in a still more penurious spirit, cut that hundred down to ten." if a period of anything like ten million years, even, has been requisite to cool the earth's surface only fifty degrees in temperature, what time must have elapsed since the terrestrial globe had a temperature high enough to effect the difficult chemical combinations of many of the elements which compose its structure? and even this must have been far less than the vast cycles of time during which original consolidation was effected. through all these ages the sun must have been pouring out his radiant energy at at least his present rate. radiation of heat from the earth may have been relatively less rapid from a denser carbon-laden atmosphere in times past than at present, but it never could have been more so. the whole address cited is, indeed, strongly corroborative of the facts upon which the present work is based. chapter ii. the constitution and phenomena of the sun. the various theories thus reviewed, while not sufficient in themselves to account for the facts of our own solar system, are fatally defective in another respect. while they aim to account for the sun's light and heat, they all fail to consider the active medium of the solar light and heat in the sun itself. it is not simply a highly-heated central mass glowing in space. it is a vast orb surrounded by different envelopes of incandescent vapors or gases, and by far the most vast in volume, as well as in light and heat-radiating power, are the photosphere and its superincumbent chromosphere, composed almost entirely of free hydrogen gas in a state of intense incandescence. whence comes this enormous mass of hydrogen? and how explain the entire absence of free hydrogen gas from our own atmosphere and its replacement by oxygen? there is a recent theory propounded by mr. a. mott, which is set forth in detail in professor ball's "in the high heavens," and which endeavors to account for the remarkable absence of free hydrogen gas from the earth's atmosphere, for, as the author states, "it is a singular fact that hydrogen in the free state is absent from our atmosphere." the theory, in brief, is that the molecules of hydrogen gas have an average speed of about a mile a second,--which, however, is only one-seventh that required to shoot them off into space,--but that these molecules are continually changing their velocity, and may sometimes attain a speed of seven miles a second; the result is that "every now and then a molecule of hydrogen succeeds in bolting away from the earth altogether and escaping into open space." during past ages the molecules of hydrogen would thus have gradually wiggled up through the air, and finally disappeared into outer darkness for good and all; and thus "the fact that there is at present no free hydrogen in the air over our heads may be accounted for." since the molecules of oxygen have only a velocity of a quarter mile a second, that unfortunate gas remains behind and is consumed. the first difficulty with this theory is to explain how, if the hydrogen wiggled off in this unceremonious manner, it ever wiggled on. there is no objection to a gait of this rapidity, however; it is highly creditable, in fact; but we have a right to expect some degree of consistency in even so light-headed a body as hydrogen gas. the article quoted thus continues: "if the mass of the earth were very much larger than it is, then the velocities with which the molecules of hydrogen wend their way would never be sufficiently high to enable them to quit the earth altogether, and consequently we might in such a case expect to find our atmosphere largely charged with hydrogen." it will be seen that, according to this theory, hydrogen is able to achieve a speed of seven miles per second under exceptional excitement, and that this molecular velocity is just enough, and no more than enough, to give it egress. we know that jupiter's mass is three hundred times as great as that of the earth, and the attraction of gravity is so powerful on the surface of that planet that, as the writer just quoted says, "walking, or even standing, would involve the most fearful exertion, while rising from bed in the morning would be a difficult, indeed, probably, an impossible, process." we also know that the atmosphere of this planet is laden with enormous clouds floating at various altitudes and with incessant movements. we are told that "the molecular speed of aqueous vapor averages only one-third of that attained by the molecules of hydrogen." of course, on the planet jupiter, hydrogen would have no chance of escape at all: it would just have to stay and take it, like the rest of us. jupiter must thus have an atmosphere like our own, except that it is "largely charged with hydrogen." of the clouds upon this planet, professor ball says, "in fact, the longer we look at jupiter the more we become convinced that the surface of the planet is swathed with a mighty volume of clouds so dense and so impenetrable that our most powerful telescopes have never yet been able to pierce through them down to the solid surface of the planet." with the densities, molecular velocities, and specific gravity of the oxygen, nitrogen, and the hydrogen, with which latter the atmosphere of jupiter must be "largely charged," as it is said, it is difficult to understand how such enormous clouds of aqueous vapors, themselves composed of oxygen, which is a very slow-footed gas, and hydrogen, could travel about with such facility; we ought to find them packed down like london fog, to say the least, upon the surface of that planet, with the supernatant gases all adrift overhead. jupiter is a hot body; it has not yet cooled down; and if it is provided with volcanoes, such as its great red spot and the analogies of the earth and moon would suggest, we can tell pretty nearly what would have happened long ago with a jovian atmosphere like ours; but "largely charged with hydrogen," if we compare it with, say, an equal mass of dynamite touched off by a volcanic explosion; there would not have been enough of old jupiter left to swear by, and what was left would not have had any atmosphere at all. on mars, the same writer thinks the oxygen would still cling, like the fragrance of the rose, but that all the molecules of the fleet-footed and excitable hydrogen would long since have taken french leave, as it did from the earth; but at the moon, on account of its small size and mass, both gases would have gone off incontinently together. "it is now easy," the author says, "to account for the absence of atmosphere from the moon.... neither of the gases, oxygen or nitrogen, to say nothing of hydrogen, could possibly exist in the free state on a globe of the mass and dimensions of our satellite.... indeed, the weight of every object on the moon would be reduced to the sixth part of that which the same object has on earth." nevertheless, it may be said that the moon has considerable weight, as weights go, but with a comet it is quite a different matter. "these bodies," the author says, "demonstrate conclusively that the quantity of matter even in a comet is extremely small when compared with its bulk. the conclusion thus arrived at is confirmed by the fact that our efforts to obtain the weight of a comet have hitherto proved unsuccessful.... it has thus been demonstrated that, notwithstanding the stupendous bulk of a great comet, its mass must have been so inconsiderable as to have been insufficient to disturb even such unimportant members of the solar system as the satellites of jupiter." now, here is a state of things; for the spectroscope shows that comets are fully provided with a large supply of hydrogen, enough and to spare for ornament, even, and of nitrogen also, while it is the abnormally fugacious oxygen which has, apparently, taken its departure. of course, such facts demonstrate the untenability of the theory, which is, besides, in direct contradiction with the laws governing gaseous diffusion. gases pass into each other with the same velocity as into a vacuum, and it is not to be imagined that the molecules of hydrogen could thus move individually off, unless forced upward by the pressure of some other gas, which the law of gaseous diffusion makes impossible. we should as readily expect to see a tumbler full of iron balls, into the interstices of which loose sand has been poured, manifest a similar phenomenon by the wiggling out of the less dense sand at the top of the glass. one might also ask whence, if this theory had any substantial basis, could come the enormous volumes of hydrogen gas in the atmosphere of a new or temporary star, in a few hours, or the changes manifested in the atmospheres of the variable stars. so, also, the nebular or any other hypothesis of creation would be impossible under this theory, as the heavier and less mobile gaseous elements would remain behind, or be condensed nearest the center of gravity of the aggregating nebula, while the more rapid gases would disappear outwardly, and in consequence the sun would be found to be composed of the heavier elements exclusively, and each of the planets, in turn, would consist of only one or two elements, in accordance with the more and more mobile character of their molecular movements, and the uniformity of chemical constitution between the sun and planets, as well as the fixed stars, would not be found to exist. the theory, in fact, is an example of the endeavor to explain an easily understood difficulty by a less easily understood impossibility. none of the different theories even attempt to account for the prodigious volumes of hydrogen in the solar atmosphere, and without its presence the sun, so far as we know, would be almost an inert mass, considered as a source of energy for the supply of our planetary system. we know, of course, that meteors contain sometimes as much as six volumes of gases, largely composed of hydrogen, at our own atmospheric pressure. but the pressure at the sun's surface is more than twenty-seven times that at the surface of the earth, and yet the volume of hydrogen there existing visibly is vaster beyond computation than any possible mass of meteoric material could supply. so, also, while it may be granted that condensation of volume must vastly raise the solar temperature, how could it produce the enormous masses of hydrogen, the lightest of all the elements, unless they have been temporarily occluded and finally thrown out from within, which is impossible? these vast volumes of hydrogen are to be considered first of all in any attempt whatever to solve the problem of the source and mode of solar energy. considering the phenomena presented within the limits of our own solar system alone, we find that the earth is one of a single family of planets, each of which very closely resembles it, and all of which circle, in slightly elliptical orbits, at various distances around the sun, their orbits occupying substantially the same plane, thus making our solar system a flat disk of space occupied by the sun as a center, with the planets and their satellites moving harmoniously around it. the planets differ from each other in size, mass, and temperature, but each is surrounded by an envelope of aqueous vapor, suspended in an atmosphere substantially like our own. professor proctor, in his "light science for leisure hours," says of the planet jupiter, "his real surface is always veiled by his dense and vapor-laden atmosphere. saturn, venus, and mercury are similarly circumstanced." of mars he says that it is "distinctly marked (in telescopes of sufficient power) with continents and oceans which are rarely concealed by vapors." now, whence comes this aqueous vapor surrounding all the planets? whether received originally from the diffused nebular mass from which our solar system is supposed to have been condensed, or attracted by the force of gravity from interplanetary space, like the meteors which fall upon the earth's surface, it is evident that interplanetary space must once have been pervaded with aqueous vapor, since the nebular mass from which our solar system was constituted must have occupied at least the space embraced within its largest planetary orbit, and doubtless much more; and if so, such aqueous vapor, and other vapors also, must still persist in space, just as the meteoric particles which so constantly manifest themselves in our atmosphere. if the planets had no common origin, the evidence is equally conclusive, since then this identical substance could only have been derived from a common source, which can only be interplanetary space. this also is in accordance with the laws of attraction, which would operate to gather and condense the rarefied aqueous vapor of space around the planetary masses in definite proportions. in his "familiar essays on scientific subjects," professor proctor says, "in fact, we do thus recognize in the spectra of mars, venus, and other planets the presence of aqueous vapor in their atmosphere;" and in his "mysteries of time and space" he says, "we may admit the possibility that the aqueous vapor and carbon compounds are present in stellar or interplanetary space." but in addition to this aqueous vapor which surrounds the planetary bodies, we find free oxygen in vast quantities, and, with this, free nitrogen in mechanical admixture, and these together constitute the atmosphere we breathe, and which sustains organic life by a process of slow combustion. but we find no free hydrogen either in our own atmosphere or in that of other planets. turning now to the sun, we find that it is surrounded by an atmosphere as well as the planets, but that this atmosphere is composed not of free oxygen, but of free hydrogen. in his article, "oxygen in the sun," professor proctor says, "fourteen only of the elements known to us, or less than a quarter of the total number, were thus found to be present in the sun's constitution; and of these all were metals, if we regard hydrogen as metallic.... but most remarkable of all, and most perplexing, was the absence of all trace of oxygen and nitrogen, two gases which could not be supposed wanting in the substance of the great ruling center of the planetary system." the researches of dr. draper indicated, however, that oxygen could be found in the sun; not in his external atmosphere but far down within his surface. professor proctor says, "dr. draper mentions that he has found no traces of oxygen above the photosphere." such free oxygen cannot be associated with the hydrogen, however, even if its presence be finally determined, but it may be due to the deoxidation of solid compounds precipitated upon the sun from space, and held at a temperature above that of disassociation, as hydrogen is sometimes generated at the surface of the earth. the vast mass of the solar atmosphere is composed of hydrogen gas, with which are found commingled vapors of the various elements which enter into the sun's constitution, and this solar atmosphere corresponds in proportion, speaking generally, with our own atmosphere, except that the volume of solar hydrogen is vastly greater than that of terrestrial oxygen, for the reason, as will be explained, that water contains two volumes of the former to one of the latter. in appleton's cyclopædia the sun is thus described, (article by professors langley and proctor): "to sum up briefly the received hypotheses of the physical constitution of the sun: of its internal structure we know nothing, but we can infer, from the low density of the solar globe as a whole, that no considerable portion is solid or liquid. the regions we examine appear to consist of cloud layers at several levels floating in a complex atmosphere, in which probably most of the elements are known to us, and certainly many of them exist in the form of vapor. outside this complex atmosphere extend envelopes of simpler constitution, though into them occasionally arise the vapors which ordinarily lie lower down. the sierra, for instance, consists in the main of glowing hydrogen gas and that gas, whatever it may be, which produces the line near the orange-yellow sodium lines. the prominence region may be regarded as simply the extension of the sierra." of these prominences, professor ball says, "the memorable discovery made by janssen and lockyer, independently, in , showed that the prominences could be observed without the help of an eclipse, by the happy employment of the peculiar refrangibility of the rosy light which these prominences emit.... we can now obtain, not, as heretofore, merely isolated views of special prominences through the widely opened slit of the spectroscope, but we are furnished, after a couple of minutes' exposure, with a complete photograph of the prominences surrounding the sun.... the incandescent region of the chromosphere from which these prominences arise is also recorded with accuracy." resuming our quotation from appleton's cyclopædia: "the inner corona is still simpler than the sierra, so far as its gaseous constitution is concerned; but here meteoric and cometic matter appears, extending to the outer corona and to great distances beyond even the visible limits of the zodiacal. returning to the photosphere, we find it subject to continual fluctuations, both from local causes of agitation and from the subjacent vapor acting by its elasticity to burst through it; the faculæ, which are found to be above the general level of the photosphere, are taken to be heapings up of the luminous matter like the crested surges of the sea. all the strata are subject to great movements, which sometimes have the character of uniform progression analogous to our trade-winds, and sometimes are violent, and resemble in their effects our tornadoes and whirlwinds. eruptive action appears to operate from time to time with exceeding violence, but whether the enormous velocities of outrush are due to true explosive action (which would compel us to believe that the sun is enclosed by a liquid shell, so as to resemble a gigantic bubble) or to the uprising of lighter vapors from enormous depths, as heated currents rise in our own atmosphere, is not as yet certainly known." the sierra, or chromosphere, is thus described in the same article: "the sierra presents four aspects: , smooth with defined outline; , smooth but with no defined outline; , fringed with filaments; and, , irregularly fringed with small flames. the prominences may be divided into three orders,--heaps, jets, and plumes. the heaped prominences need no special description. the jets ... originate generally in rectilinear jets either vertical or oblique, very bright and very well defined. they rise to a great height, often to a height of at least eighty thousand miles, and occasionally to more than twice that; then bending back, fall again upon the sun like the jets of our fountains. then they spread into figures resembling gigantic trees more or less rich in branches. their luminosity is intense, insomuch that they can be seen through the light clouds into which the sierra breaks up. their spectrum indicates the presence of many elements besides hydrogen. when they have reached a certain height they cease to grow, and become transformed into exceedingly bright masses, which eventually separate into fleecy clouds. the jet prominences last but a short time--rarely an hour, frequently but a few minutes,--and they are only to be seen in the neighborhood of the spots. wherever there are jet prominences there also are faculæ. the plume prominences are distinguished from the jets in not being characterized by any signs of an eruptive origin. they often extend to an enormous height; they last longer than the jets, though subject to rapid changes of figure; and, lastly, they are distributed indifferently over the sun's surface. it would seem that in the jets a part of the photosphere is lifted up, whereas in the case of plumes only the sierra is disturbed." of these eruptions professor ball says, "vast masses of vapors are frequently expelled from the interior of the sun by convulsive throes with a speed of three hundred, four hundred, and sometimes nearly a thousand miles a second.... the spectroscope enables the observer actually to witness the ascent of these solar prominences." the corona, which extends beyond the chromosphere, has been determined by its continuous spectrum to be a vast envelope extending at least a million miles from the sun's surface. "it cannot be a solar atmosphere," professor proctor observes in his article on this subject, in his "mysteries of time and space."... "it will be seen, then, how inconceivably great the pressure exerted by a solar atmosphere some eight thousand times as deep as ours would necessarily be, let the nature of the gases composing it be what it may."... "if a man could be placed on the solar surface, his own weight would crush him as effectually as though while on earth a weight of a couple of tons were heaped upon him.... now, it happens that we know quite well that the pressure exerted by the real solar atmosphere, even close by the bright surface which forms the visible globe of the sun, is nothing like so great as it would be if the corona formed part of that atmosphere." in the article "sun," in appleton's cyclopædia, it is stated that "mr. arthur w. wright, of yale college, has succeeded in showing that this light (the zodiacal) is not emitted from incandescent gas, but reflected from particles or small bodies, and hence derived from the sun."... "there is reason to believe that the true solar corona extends much farther (than a million miles), and that, in reality, the zodiacal light forms the outer part of the solar corona." proctor, again, in his article on the corona, says, "it would seem to follow that the corona is due to bodies of some sort travelling around the sun, and by their motion preserved either from falling towards him (in which case the corona would quickly disappear) or from producing any pressure upon his surface, as an atmosphere would." in his article on "the sun as a perpetual machine," he says, "there is every reason for regarding the zodiacal as consisting in the main of meteorolithic masses, a sort of cosmical dust, rushing through interplanetary space with planetary velocities. to such matter, assuming, as we well may, that space really is occupied by attenuated vapors, ... the luminosity of the zodiacal would be attributable to particles of dust emitting light reflected by the sun or by phosphorescence (this last may be seriously questioned). but there is another cause for luminosity of these particles which may deserve a passing consideration. each particle would be electrified by gaseous friction in its acceleration, and its electric tension would be vastly increased in its forcible removal, in the same way as the fine dust of the desert has been observed by werner siemens to be in a state of high electrification on the apex of the cheops pyramid. would not the zodiacal light also find explanation by slow electric discharges backward from the dust towards the sun?" it may be observed in passing that such electrical glow is much more prominently, and more likely to be, the result of induction than of friction. in the article "sun," previously quoted, professor young says, "there is surrounding the sun, beyond any further reasonable doubt, a mass of self-luminous gaseous matter, whose spectrum is characterized by the green line kirchhoff. the precise extent of this it is hardly possible to consider as determined, but it must be many times the thickness of the red hydrogen portion of the sierra, perhaps, on an average, ' or ', with occasional horns of twice that height. it is not at all unlikely that it may even turn out to have no upper limit, but to extend from the sun indefinitely into space." in the same article the sun's apparent diameter is placed at about ', so that the thickness of the above gaseous envelope would be not less than one-fourth the sun's diameter, or more than two hundred thousand miles. this coronal envelope, extending out from the solar body until gradually merged into the attenuated matter of space, has a light so feeble that it can only be clearly observed during total eclipse. professor ball ("in the high heavens") says, "the sunlight is so intense that if it be reduced sufficiently by any artifice, the coronal light also suffers so much abatement that, owing to its initial feebleness, it ceases altogether to be visible." during the great eclipse of it was photographed, and of these photographs the same author says, "one of the most remarkable features in the structure of the corona is the presence of streamers or luminous rays extending from the north and south poles of the sun. these rays are generally more or less curved, and it is doubtful whether the phenomena they exhibit are not in some way a consequence of the rotation of the sun. this consideration is connected with the question as to how far the corona itself shares in that rotation of the sun with which astronomers are familiar. i should perhaps rather have said that rotation of the sun's photosphere which, as the sun-spots prove, is accomplished once every twenty-five days. even this shell of luminous matter does not revolve as a rigid mass would do. by some mysterious law the equatorial portions accomplish their revolution in a shorter period than is required by those zones of the photosphere which lie nearer the north and south poles of the luminary. as to how the parts of the sun which are interior to the photosphere may revolve, we are quite ignorant.... we have no means of knowing to what extent the corona shares in the rotation. it would seem certain that the lower parts which lie comparatively near the surface must be affected by the rapid rotation of the photosphere; but it is very far from certain that this rotation can be shared to any great extent by those parts of the corona which lie at a distance from the sun's surface as great as the solar radius or diameter.... the corona presents a curious green line that seems to denote some invariable constituent of the sun's outer atmosphere, but the element to which this green line owes its origin is wholly unknown." the same author quotes from dr. huggins as follows: "it is interesting to read what dr. huggins has to tell us about the solar corona. the nature of this marvellous appendage to the sun is still a matter of uncertainty. there can, however, be no doubt that the corona consists of highly-attenuated matter driven outward from the sun by some repulsive force, and it is also clear that if this force be not electric, it must at least be something of a very kindred character.... so far as the spectrum of the corona is concerned, we may summarize what is known in the words of dr. huggins: 'the green coronal line has no known representative in terrestrial substances, nor has schuster been able to recognize any of our elements in the other lines of the corona.'" the account given by general myer--quoted in professor proctor's article, "the sun's corona"--of the great eclipse of , as viewed from an altitude of five thousand five hundred feet above sea-level, is as follows: "as a centre stood the full and intensely black disk of the moon, surrounded by an aureola of soft bright light, through which shot out, as if from the circumference of the moon, straight, massive silvery rays, seeming distinct and separate from each other, to a distance of two or three diameters of the lunar disk; the whole spectacle showing as upon a background of diffused rose-colored light. the silvery rays were longest and most prominent at four points of the circumference, ... apparently equidistant from each other. there was no motion of the rays: they seemed concentric." three diameters would make these rays extend two and a half million miles at least from the sun's photosphere, or even its chromosphere. the coincidence between these rays and those observed (see above) in the eclipse of must be noted, since these latter were conceived at one time to be meteor streams. as those seen in radiated from the poles, and were curved in form, while those last noted radiated at four equidistant points, none polar, and were straight, it will be seen that, if both phenomena were of the same class, they could not have been due to meteor streams. the sun's spots, which we will next refer to, are deep, relatively dark, but in fact extremely bright depressions in the photosphere. "many spots are of enormous size" (see article, "sun"); "one had a diameter exceeding fifty thousand miles, and many far larger than this have been seen. the spots are not scattered over the whole surface of the sun, but are for the most part confined to two belts between latitude five degrees and thirty degrees, on either side of the solar equator. an equatorial zone six degrees wide is almost entirely free from spots.... the inclination of the solar equator is about seven degrees.... the spots on the sun usually have a dark central region called the umbra, within which is a still darker part called the nucleus, while around this there is a fringe of fainter shade than the umbra, called the penumbra. although the umbra and nucleus appear dark, however, it is not to be supposed that they are really dark; ... though the nucleus looks perfectly black by contrast with the general surface, it shines in reality with a light unbearably brilliant when viewed alone, while his thermal measurements show that the heat from the nucleus is even greater proportionately than the light, and not very greatly below the heat of the surrounding surface.... the recognition of a nucleus within the umbra would seem to indicate that a third cloud layer (besides the outer or photosphere and a darker cloud layer beneath) exists within the second or internal layer of herschel's theory. but the observations of professor langley show that most probably all the features of the solar photosphere yet observed are phenomena of cloud envelopes, since he has been able to recognize cloud forms at one level floating over cloud forms at a lower level, while even in the (relatively) darkest depths of the nucleus clouds are still to be perceived, though so deep down that their outlines can be barely discerned." professor ball says of the heat-wave of , "as to the activity of the sun during the past summer, a very striking communication has recently been made by one of the most rising american astronomers, mr. george e. hale, of chicago. he has invented an ingenious apparatus for photographing on the same plate at one exposure both the bright spots and the protuberances of the sun.... on the th of july a photograph of the sun showed a large spot. another photograph taken in a few minutes exhibited a bright band; twenty-seven minutes later a further exposure displayed an outburst of brilliant faculæ all over the spot. at the end of an hour the faculæ had all vanished and the spot was restored to its original condition. it was not a mere coincidence that our magnetic observatories exhibited considerable disturbances the next day, and that brilliant auroras were noted." carrington's observations have shown that spots in different solar latitudes travel at different rates. "taking two parts of the visible solar surface in the same longitude, but one in latitude forty-five degrees (say), the other on the equator, the latter will advance farther and farther in longitude from the former, gaining daily about two degrees, so that in the course of about one hundred and eighty days it will have gained a complete revolution. that is to say, the sun's equator makes about two revolutions more per annum than regions in forty-five degrees north and south solar latitude." the sun is about , miles in diameter; its density is one-fourth that of the earth; its mass is , times greater, and its volume , , . gravity at its surface is . times that of the earth; its distance is approximately , , miles; it rotates upon its axis, which is inclined to the planetary plane at an angle of seven degrees, once in twenty-five and one-third days, apparently increased to thirty days by the earth's orbital advance in the same direction around the sun; and it has a motion around its center,--a true orbital motion,--due to displacement by gravity of the planetary masses, which, however, is always within its own mass. the above, in brief, is, so far as we know, the constitution of the sun and its appendages. its internal globe is surrounded by a glowing gaseous envelope, the photosphere, which is the visible orb, composed of cloud masses of glowing hydrogen gas intermingled with vapors of many of our terrestrial elements, all in a state of apparent disassociation. of the constitution of the sun's mass, professor ball says, "professor rowland has shown that thirty-six terrestrial elements are certainly indicated in the solar spectrum, while eight others are doubtful. fifteen elements have not been found, though sought for, and ten elements have not yet been compared with the sun's spectrum. reasons are also given for showing that, though fifteen elements had no lines corresponding to those shown in the solar spectrum, yet there is but little evidence to show that they are really absent from the sun. dr. huggins epitomizes these very interesting results in the striking remark, 'it follows that if the whole earth were heated to the temperature of the sun, its spectrum would resemble very closely the solar spectrum.'" outside the photosphere is the simpler chromosphere, composed largely of hydrogen, and merging into the corona at a distance of hundreds of thousands of miles from the sun's apparent surface, and this corona extends outward to a vast distance, and is itself largely composed of self-luminous matter, the action of gravity being counterbalanced by the centrifugal force of orbital rotation, or more probably by electrical repulsion. the metallic vapors in the sun's photosphere are suspended in glowing hydrogen, which vastly preponderates over all the others in mass and volume, the incandescence of which is the principal source of solar light and heat. the planets revolve in elliptical orbits around this central sun, and crossing these orbits at various angles rush streams of cometic matter and comets and meteoric bodies, in streams and clouds, which, swiftly sweeping around at various distances, are again thrown off into space. meteors constantly fall into the sun's mass, as they do upon the earth; but the grand key-note of all his life and energy, so far as we can perceive, is the vast envelope of glowing hydrogen gas. conversely, the planetary envelopes are of relatively cool oxygen mixed with nitrogen gas, which hold in suspension diffused aqueous vapors. if our own aqueous vapors are derived by the attraction of gravity from the interplanetary space, as they must have been, we can be sure that, were the sun at a sufficiently low temperature, he, too, would gather to himself a surrounding envelope of aqueous vapor, larger than our own in proportion to his mass, and larger than that of all the planets together, the combined mass of which he exceeds by seven hundred and fifty times. we should also expect similar aggregations of aqueous vapors to surround all the fixed stars in proportion to their various masses, yet we do not find aqueous vapor there, but hydrogen instead. and in the distant telescopic nebulæ we still find hydrogen and nitrogen; even in the comets we find free hydrogen in vast predominance, but not free oxygen; so that we may roughly divide the bodies of stellar space into two grand categories,--those with atmospheres of hydrogen and those with atmospheres of oxygen. it is true that the latter are limited to the planets of our own system, so far as direct observation goes, for we cannot see such dark planets as exist beyond our own solar system; but if such planets exist, as they must, for reasons stated later on, and revolve around their own central suns, we may infer, with the strength of demonstration almost, that if their suns correspond to our sun in this respect, their planets will correspond to our planets in a similar respect. but the bodies with atmospheres of oxygen are those which rotate around the sun substantially as a center, while with reference to themselves the sun is more or less a fixed body in space. it is true that our whole system is drifting through space, at present in the direction of the constellation lyra, and directly away from that portion of space occupied by sirius and canopus, with an annual motion of probably hundreds of millions of miles. professor ball ("in the high heavens") says, "in conclusion, it would seem that the sun and the whole solar system are bound on a voyage to that part of the sky which is marked by the star delta lyræ. it also appears that the speed with which this motion is urged is such as to bring us every day about , miles nearer to this part of the sky. in one year the solar system accomplishes a journey of no less than , , miles." a speed of eight miles per second gives an annual rate of , , miles. this speed, however, is greatly exceeded by many stars (as determined by displacement of the lines of the spectrum); the star no. , of groombridge's catalogue (see "in the high heavens"), has a rate of two hundred miles per second. the author says, "indeed, in some cases stellar velocities are attained which appear to be even greater than that just mentioned. we do not, therefore, make any extravagant supposition in adopting a speed of twenty miles per second," which he takes as the average. "i have adopted this particular velocity as fairly typical of sidereal motions generally. it is rather larger than the speed with which the earth moves in its orbit." the distances, of course, are equally enormous. this author says, "the nearest star, as far as we yet know, in the northern hemisphere is cygni.... i think we cannot be far wrong in adopting a value of fifty millions of millions of miles.... in the course of a million years a star with the average speed of twenty miles a second would move over a distance which was about a dozen times as great as the distance between cygni and the solar system." this assuming that the solar system is at rest, which is not the case, as the author says, "unless binary, stars do not remain in proximity, so far as we know; the general rule appears to be that of universal movement through space." this drift through space, however, no more affects the terms of the problem than the rotation of the earth upon its axis or its orbital motion affects the operations of an electric machine as the handle may be rotated to or from the direction of these motions. both machine and reservoir of energy occupying a fixed relation with reference to each other, the positions of each are the same as though absolutely fixed. this is true of gravitation, likewise, as well as of all other natural and universal forces. the fact established, then, that attenuated aqueous vapor is diffused throughout the interplanetary space occupied by our own solar system, and that it tends to surround our sun and planetary bodies with aqueous envelopes of increased density, proportionate to the action of gravity, the question arises, is there any known force which will act through such interplanetary space to decompose such aqueous vapor into its constituent elements and deposit hydrogen gas around the sun and oxygen gas around the planets, and which, while maintaining a planetary temperature such as we find on the planets, will at the same time raise the hydrogen envelope of the sun to such a temperature of incandescence that it will become a glowing sphere of heated hydrogen, in which other constituents of the sun's mass will be raised to incandescence and partially volatilized in the intense heat of that incandescent gas; in which, in fact, the phenomena of the sun will become manifest? if so, two vastly important corollaries are inevitable: first, that the fixed stars, which also shine with the light of their own glowing hydrogen, are themselves surrounded by a similar aqueous vapor, diffused through their own adjacent space, and that, in consequence, not only our own planetary distances, but all interstellar space, as far as the utmost distance of the faintest fixed stars, is likewise pervaded by the same attenuated aqueous vapor, and that this is the grand source from which is derived all solar energy, not only of our own sun, but of all the other flaming orbs of space; and, second, which is still more important to us as citizens of the universe, that each flaming hydrogen sun must have surrounding it a correlative dark planetary system of its own, and that the complement of glowing hydrogen, as an incandescent envelope of the central orb, necessitates the corresponding supplement of cool oxygen as an envelope for each of such planetary bodies; in other words, that without such planets as our system possesses, there can be no suns such as our own and the other suns we see. vast orbs might be conceived of as rotating in eternal darkness without associated satellites, but the incandescent atmosphere of hydrogen must have--not may have, but must have--subordinate planets substantially similar to ours, surrounded by atmospheres substantially similar to our own (for we find free nitrogen in comets, in meteorites, and in the faintest nebulæ), and these planets are thus fitted, so far as we can know, for the support of organic life and for the same orderly courses of nature as we see manifest around us. they must be cool, for at the planetary poles there must be a moderate temperature in contrast with the solar pole, which becomes, of necessity, highly heated; they must have an atmosphere of oxygen in order that the solar center may have an atmosphere of hydrogen; these planetary atmospheres must be supplied with nitrogen, because nitrogen is universally available, and similar causes operating under similar circumstances will produce like effects; these atmospheres must be charged with condensed aqueous vapors, and, if cool enough, must have deposited water in liquid form, for aqueous vapors when condensed by gravity are the correlated sources of supply of their respective gaseous components at both solar and planetary poles; and these planets must rotate in orderly periods around their central suns, or the aqueous vapors cannot be regularly and continuously disassociated into their elemental gases. these planets may be few or many--perhaps even a single one sometimes--for each sun, but they must be large enough or numerous enough to operate by their aggregate mass, so as to disassociate around the planets as much oxygen as their central sun disassociates of hydrogen in their combining proportions,--that is, two volumes of hydrogen for each one of oxygen. we will therefore find in such planets all the potentialities of life--we can see and study these planets, though physically invisible, as easily and as thoroughly as we do our own, for having the relationship of constitution between our own planets and our sun, we may thereby learn the essential relationship between any fixed star and its planets by directly studying the constitution of such star alone. among the planets of our own system neptune and mercury, and those which exist adjacent to their boundaries, can be studied with difficulty and uncertainty; but what astronomer doubts that they are constituted much like the other planets, and have passed, or will pass, through such stages of progress as we find apparent among those more directly under our observation? while we shall thus find universality and harmony among all the starry systems, we shall not find identity; but with the guiding light of demonstrated scientific principles, we may apply our knowledge as a key to unlock the mysteries of the most distant stars. the milky way will gleam with new meaning, sirius, aldebaran, the pleiades, will send us messages of fellowship, and the established sphere of creative energy will have expanded, with all its wondrous mechanism, to fill the universe. when we see at night a vast factory building with every window lighted, one who understands the operation and mechanism essential to the work of a mill sees not alone the illuminated windows, but the looms in motion, the flying shuttles, the spindles humming, the wheels turning, and all the complicated machinery in active operation. and he can even picture operatives at work in their various avocations, and the flashing windows, though themselves silent, are the visible index of the light within which illuminates and makes possible the work there performed. and so, when thus comprehended, the flaming stars, but points of light in the archways of the sky, themselves will reveal to us the wondrous workings within the realm which they illuminate and warm and vivify. we may also reasonably infer, as will be more fully explained further on, that there can be no actual basis for the opinion sometimes expressed, that great, dark, solid orbs--independent worlds, in fact--are drifting about through space at random, as it were, like homeless vagabonds. in these sparsely-occupied domains the head of each household, as in every well-regulated family, has all its different members gathered around in strict subordination, to aid in the support of the establishment. no sun no planets; no planets no sun, is the general statement of the sidereal formula. like a sexual duality, the mutually correlated parts constitute a single, composite, and interdependent whole: one generates, concentrates, and transmits; the other receives, transforms, and delivers. note.--regarding the absence of oxygen from the sun's atmosphere we quote the following from lord salisbury's very recent address (see note at end of chapter i.): "it is a great aggravation of the mystery which surrounds the question of the elements, that, among the lines which are absent from the spectrum of the sun, those of nitrogen and oxygen stand first. oxygen constitutes the largest portion of the solid and liquid substances of our planet, so far as we know it; and nitrogen is very far the predominant constituent of our atmosphere. if the earth is a detached bit whirled off the mass of the sun, as cosmogonists love to tell us, how comes it that in leaving the sun we cleaned him out so completely of his nitrogen and oxygen that not a trace of these gases remains behind to be discovered even by the sensitive vision of the spectroscope?" we shall find that the absence of oxygen in the solar envelope is a necessary corollary of its presence in those of the planets. the same is true, possibly, of nitrogen. ammoniacal vapors are decomposable into hydrogen and nitrogen, and hydrocarbon gases into hydrogen and carbon, just as aqueous vapors are resolvable into hydrogen and oxygen. in the earlier stages of the earth's development we have abundant evidence of an atmosphere heavily laden with carbonic vapors, which have disappeared, to remain stored as fixed carbon, and the oxygen has also largely disappeared, to constitute the enormous mass of oxides in the earth's mass, while the nitrogen remains to dilute the remaining oxygen and constitute the air we breathe. their common correlative, hydrogen, intermingled with metallic vapors, composes the vast atmosphere of the sun. chapter iii. the mode of solar energy. but is there such an available force? there is one, and only one,--electricity, when properly generated and suitably applied. it is an axiom of electrical science that any fluid which will at all conduct a current of electricity can be decomposed by a current of electricity. (see urbanitsky's work, "electricity in the service of man," cassell's edition, page .) it is there stated (page ), "we have frequently had occasion to mention certain chemical effects of electricity,--namely, the decomposition of gaseous compounds into simple gases." page , "whatever the substances we expose to the action of the galvanic current, decomposition takes place proportional to the strength of the current." page , "hydrogen is always evolved at the negative pole of the battery and oxygen at the positive pole. the gases can then be collected in different tubes, the hydrogen tube receiving twice as much gas as the oxygen tube; since water consists of two volumes of hydrogen and one volume of oxygen, it follows that the galvanic current decomposes water into its constituents. as chemically pure water has so great a resistance as almost to force us to consider it a non-conductor, it is generally acidulated with sulphuric acid. the smallest amount of acid diminishes the resistance considerably. the silent discharge is far more effective in bringing about this transformation than the spark discharge." page , "gases are bad conductors of electricity; if it had been otherwise, we should never have become acquainted with electricity, as it would have been conducted away by the air as fast as it was generated. the vacuum also does not conduct electricity, but moist air becomes a partial conductor. moist air also will spoil the insulation of non-conducting supports. all bodies are more or less hygroscopic, and the moisture condensed on their surfaces thus turns the best insulators into conductors. change of temperature also influences conductivity." page , "when using induction machines, the moisture of the air often causes experiments to fail, especially before large audiences. the atmosphere becomes saturated with moisture, and it is often impossible to get the machine in working order." several desiccating devices are mentioned by the authors of this work, as used with such machines, to prevent such dissipation or conduction of electricity from the machine into space by the aqueous vapor of the atmosphere. in describing the aurora borealis (page ), these authors say, "the rarefied air is nearer the earth at the poles than the equator, in consequence of the earth's centrifugal motion, and, the earth being negatively electrified, negative electricity will flow from this point, directed against the positively electrified upper layers of rarefied air." same work, pages , , "the resistance (in liquids) diminishes as the temperature increases, a result which is exactly opposite to what occurs with metals. conductivity for carbon increases with the temperature, thus agreeing with the action of liquids." page , "to determine the resistance in liquids, the above methods cannot be employed, liquids being decomposed by the electrical current." referring to the voltaic arc and the spark of the induction apparatus (page ), it is said, "dry air under great pressure offers a high resistance, but a perfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, and between these extremes there are degrees of rarification which admit of a flow of electricity." in general, it is said that electrical decomposition requires that the electrolyte be in liquid form, but this is not universally true, and throughout interplanetary space may not be true at all. in ferguson's work on electricity, it is stated that, "the passage of electricity through compound gases in a state of great rarity, as in the so-called vacuum tubes, frequently separates them up into their constituents." so, also, the opinion that electricity cannot be readily conducted through dry gases is refuted by the play of the auroral streamers. the distance from the surface of the earth of these electrical waves and the auroral arch is variously estimated at from seventy to two hundred and sixty-five miles, and in one instance "at a height of from four thousand to six thousand miles;" see article in appleton's cyclopædia. certainly there could be no sensible moisture at the temperatures there prevalent, and especially at night and during the fall and winter months when these displays are very frequent. whether the currents be due to induction, as between neighboring bodies one of which is electrified, or from direct emission, as in brush discharges, there must obviously be some medium of contact and continuity for the free transference of electrical energy through space. regarding the rationale of electrolysis ("electricity in the service of man"), after discussing certain other theories, the authors say, "clausius, too, assumes an electrified condition of the molecules of each electrode, but he neither attributes to the galvanic current the force of direction nor power of decomposing. he points out that both the molecules of fluids and also their atoms are in continual motion. the atoms in molecules of fluids are held together but by a moderate force, and the molecules themselves constantly undergo changes both of synthesis and analysis. the galvanic current merely effects a regulated motion of the atoms; the positive ions are attracted by the negative electrode, and the negative ions by the positive electrode, and by this means are separated out from the liquid." page , "the upper layers of air are more or less electrified, so as to have a potential differing from that of the earth, but how their electrical condition has been produced is not at present known. condensation of water-vapor is supposed to produce electricity. close to the earth the air has little or no electricity; the farther from the earth the greater the amount of electricity in the air." referring to the sparking discharge, it is said, page , "the density of the air, however, has to be taken into account; the sparking distance is lessened in denser air, and becomes greater when the atmospheric pressure is diminished. not only the density, but also the chemical composition of the medium influences the sparking distance. faraday found the distances considerably less in chlorine gas, but twice as long in hydrogen gas as in air." page , "the sparking distance increases at a somewhat greater rate than the difference of potential of the discharging bodies.... when the sparking distance becomes very great ... it is proportional to the difference of potential." page , "there is a difference of potential between the earth and points in the air above. in fine weather the potential is higher the higher we go, increasing usually at the rate of twenty to forty volts for each foot." it will be seen that, continued upward at this rate, the increased electrical pressure for each mile of elevation would be between , and , volts, or for each one hundred miles more than , , volts; and at an altitude of one thousand miles, if carried so far, the potential would be between one and two hundred million volts, an electrical pressure quite inconceivable to us. such a potential in currents of enormous quantity continually flowing from the earth to the sun would certainly decompose any aqueous vapors condensed around these bodies. but the question at once arises, what reason is there to suppose that such currents could possibly flow between the earth and the sun, across that vast intervening region of space, a distance of more than , , miles? and would not the resistance to such currents in transit be so enormous that the entire potential, however great, would have been practically lost long before reaching the sun? to this there is a complete and irrefutable answer, not based upon any abstract theory, but upon established fact. it is an absolute certainty that electrical currents of enormous quantity and high potential are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, and that these currents have so free a passage--far more free than through any metallic circuits that we know of--that they pass over this enormous distance absolutely without appreciable resistance. we may note in this connection the well-known facts, now being largely utilized, though the art is still in its infancy, of telegraphing and transmitting all sorts of electrical currents over large distances without wires or any conductors, except those furnished by nature. of the currents between the earth and the sun, professor proctor, in his "light science for leisure hours," says, "remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? we have clear evidence that he has. on the st of september, , messrs. carrington and hodgson were observing the sun, one at oxford and the other in london. their scrutiny was directed to certain large spots which at that time marked the sun's face. suddenly a bright light was seen by each observer to break out on the sun's surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about seven thousand miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disk. now, it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at kew had made at that very instant a strongly-marked jerk. it was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed in the west indies, in south america, and in australia. the signal men in the telegraph stations at washington and philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of bain's telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. at night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. it is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun's disk. but there is other evidence. magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. in those years in which they occur most frequently it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. now, when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. but at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun's face from day to day and from year to year. he had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others, and he had determined the period in which the spots had successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. on a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continual observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, and vice versa. for so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. we can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. we must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena." it will be observed that the phenomena seen in the sun were marked at the same instant by violent electric perturbations on earth. hence something must have passed with the velocity of light, which we know to be at the rate of , miles per second, or in about eight minutes from the sun to the earth. but it is stated in "electricity in the service of man," page , that, "according to the theoretical calculations of kirchhoff, as well as of ayrton and perry, the velocity of electricity in a wire without resistance would be equal to the velocity of light." hence we perceive that the apparent difficulty has vanished in the light of observed fact, and that currents of electricity do pass and are constantly passing between the earth and the sun without the slightest loss of speed,--that is to say, without resistance. we shall find in the sequel that the above phenomena were caused most probably by a partial interruption of a constant direct current from the earth to the sun, instead of by an opposite return current from the sun to the earth. in further illustration of the above facts we quote the following, page , "electricity in the service of man:" "many attempts have been made to find a connection between the spots and prominences in the sun and the electrical phenomena on the earth. professor forster says that by numerous magnetic observations of the last thirty or forty years it has been proved that the formation of black spots on the surface of the sun, and the generation of pillars and clouds of glowing gases in the immediate neighborhood of the sun, stand in close connection with certain deviations in direction and intensity of the earth's magnetic forces." professor proctor, in his "light science for leisure hours," says, "from all this it appears, incontestably, that there is an intimate connection between the causes of auroras and those of terrestrial magnetism.... the magnetic needle not only swayed responsively to auroras observable in the immediate neighborhood, but to auroras in progress hundreds and thousands of miles away. nay, as inquiry progressed, it was discovered that the needles in our northern observatories are swayed by influences associated even with the occurrence of auroras around the southern polar regions.... could we only associate auroras with terrestrial magnetism, we should still have done much to enhance the interest which the beautiful phenomenon is calculated to excite. but when once this association has been established, others of even greater interest are brought into recognition; for terrestrial magnetism has been clearly shown to be influenced directly by the action of the sun.... we already begin to see, then, that auroras are associated in some mysterious way with the action of the solar rays. the phenomenon which had been looked on for so many ages as a mere spectacle, caused perhaps by some process in the upper regions of the air of a simple local character, has been brought into the range of planetary phenomena. as surely as the brilliant planets which deck the nocturnal skies are illuminated by the same orb which gives us our days and seasons, so are they subject to the same mysterious influence which causes the northern banners to wave respondently over the starlit depths of heaven. nay, it is even probable that every flicker and coruscation of our auroral displays correspond with similar manifestations upon every planet which travels round the sun." in professor ball's late work, "in the high heavens," the author says, "dr. schuster suggests that there may be an electric connection between the sun and the planets. in fact, with some limitations, we might even assert that there must be such a connection. it is well known that great outbreaks on the sun have been immediately followed, i might almost say accompanied, by remarkable magnetic disturbances on the earth. the instances that are recorded of this connection are altogether too remarkable to be set aside as mere coincidences. dr. huggins has not referred in this connection to hertz's astonishing discoveries; but it seems quite possible that research along this line may throw light on the subject, at present so obscure, of the electric relation between the sun and the earth." of this common electrical relationship between our sun and the different planets, and of these with each other, professor proctor says, in his article, "terrestrial magnetism," "interesting as are the bonds of union which copernicus and kepler and newton have traced in the relations of our system, it would seem as though we were approaching the traces of a yet more wonderful law of association. we see the earth's magnetism responding to the solar influences, not merely in those rhythmic motions which belong to the periodic variations, but in sudden thrills affecting the whole framework of our globe. the magnetic storms which are called into action by such solar disturbances as the one of september, , are, we may feel sure, not peculiar to our own earth. the other planets feel the same influence,--not, perhaps, in exactly the same way, but according to the constitution and physical habitudes which respectively belong to them. so that one can scarce conceive a subject of study at once more promising and more interesting." of these prophetic shadows which science often seems to cast before, professor nichol, in his "architecture of the heavens" (referring to sir william herschel), says, "without difficulty or pretence he there casts aside an idea which had not been questioned before, unless in a few of those obscure, indefinite speculations which, strangely enough, often prelude important discoveries." these facts are thus incontestably established: that electric currents of enormous energy and vast quantity are constantly passing without appreciable resistance and with the speed of light between the earth and the sun; that such currents cannot be conducted through vacua, or through dry gases, or through a dense medium; and that, whatever other matter may exist in the intervening space, such space is pervaded throughout by an attenuated vapor of such constitution and density that it will transmit such electrical currents with the highest conceivable efficiency. we know that such passage of these currents cannot depend upon the ether of space which is acted upon by the sun to produce the ethereal undulatory vibrations of light and heat, for, after we have produced the most perfect vacuum possible, we find that the rays of light continue to pass through it as freely as they pass through space, while currents of electricity cannot be made to pass at all. hence we know to a certainty that the medium which transmits these enormous currents of electricity must be a vapor capable of conducting electricity, that it must hence be decomposable by the electric current, and that when decomposed one of its elements must consist of hydrogen gas and the other of oxygen; in other words, that this conducting medium must consist of attenuated aqueous vapor, commingled doubtless with other vapors which themselves, like the acid of the acidulated water used in electrolysis, aid in the conduction of these enormous currents. we also know that such vapors in space will be necessarily attracted, by gravitation, around the solar and planetary bodies immersed therein, and must form condensed vaporous atmospheres or cloud masses, and if these are decomposed by the passage of such currents of electricity, that hydrogen gas will be liberated at the solar galvanic pole and oxygen at the terrestrial or other planetary pole, precisely as we find to be the case in nature. will such gaseous envelopes, then, have the same temperature for each gas when thus liberated, or will the hydrogen envelope of the sun be heated to incandescence, due to the passage of the electrical current? the temperature of interplanetary space is probably very low. of this professor ball says, "what this may be is a matter of some uncertainty, but from all the evidence available it seems plain that we may put it at not less than three hundred degrees below zero;" and the same author adds, "the temperature is taken to be sixty-four degrees below zero, being presumably that at the confines of the atmosphere." whatever the temperature of space, or its variations, may be, the passage of the planetary electricity through the condensed hydrogen envelope of the sun will produce great changes in the heat of that body and of the solar core within. while with a small electrolytic apparatus we find no special differences of temperature in the gases, with large quantities of electricity, driven at a high potential, we find that a new and startling result ensues. something of this sort is seen in the operation of electric arc-light lamps, now in common use, in which two slightly separated carbon points are traversed by a current of considerable potential. the current is driven across the intervening space between the points, carrying with it an atmosphere of disintegrated carbon, through which the electricity is carried at its highest speed, and a most brilliant light is produced. in "electricity in the service of man," page , it is said, "we may conclude from this that the current does not cease when the arc of light is formed. the resistance of the arc seems to be only very slight; in fact, the current must be conducted by it." of the structure and constitution of the luminous electrosphere, or arc, produced in these lamps, "professor j. a. fleming," says the scientific american, "has shown that the well-known color of the light of the electric arc from carbon points is due to the incandescence of the carbon filling the space between the positive and the negative rods. the true arc is here, and exists in a space filled with the vapor of carbon, which has a brilliant violet color. examined by the spectroscope, the central axis of the carbon arc gives a spectrum marked by two bright violet bands. outside this is an aureole of carbon vapor of yellow or golden color. the electrical strain of the arc occurs chiefly at the surface of the crater which forms at the end of the positive rod, where, in fact, the principal work of generating light is done; for eighty per cent. of the total light of the arc comes from the incandescent carbon at this place. thus, in a sense, the arc light is mainly an incandescent light, the effect being produced by the layer of carbon which is being constantly evaporated at an extremely elevated temperature. hence the light of the carbon arc is not, and can never be, white, as it is sometimes described as being, but must always be tinted violet by the carbon vapor normally present between the rods." the significance of the above-quoted extract will be readily perceived when we come to consider the action of the direct planetary electrical currents upon the solar envelope, the effects in both cases being substantially identical. the quantity and intensity of the electric current, as it passes through the incandescent arc to the negative pole, and thence back to the dynamo, are diminished exactly in proportion to the energy expended in the generation of the light and heat of the arc. it is precisely the same as in the operation of a turbine water-wheel; if working at its highest efficiency, the discharged water is almost deprived of force: its gravity has been converted into work. in the electric light this conversion is only partial, owing to atmospheric and other conditions; but in the case of the solar envelope and its core, it is nearly, if not altogether, perfect, so that the currents of electricity are almost entirely converted into light and heat, or expended in the electrolytic decomposition of the surrounding aqueous vapors, and do not reappear as electricity, but as converted solar energy. brilliant, however, as the light rays are in a powerful arc lamp,--perhaps the nearest to solar light we can produce,--the obscure heat rays are far more numerous and powerful. on page of the work just cited a table is given, showing the proportion of visible and invisible rays emitted by different illuminants, and with the electric lamp, even, ninety per cent. of all the rays emitted by the voltaic arc are heat rays, which are obscure and invisible. but the startling effects of electricity of large quantity and high potential, in the decomposition of water, are far more strikingly exhibited by an apparatus shown in at the chicago exhibition by a firm from brussels, and which is described in the electrical review as follows: "an ordinary wooden pail is three-quarters filled with water slightly acidulated; a lead plate about nine inches broad by sixteen inches long dips to the bottom of the pail and is connected to an incandescent dynamo machine capable of giving over one hundred and fifty ampères. the iron rod, or article to be heated, is connected to the pole of the dynamo and simply dipped into the water; it immediately becomes heated and rapidly rises to a melting temperature; only that portion of the metal completely immersed becomes heated, and the heating is so rapid that neither the water nor that portion of the metal out of the water becomes very warm. wrought iron and steel actually melt if long enough held under water. a carbon rod subjected to this process becomes amorphous carbon, proving that a temperature of at least four thousand degrees centigrade has been reached, and it is stated that with two hundred and twenty volts' pressure a temperature of eight thousand degrees centigrade has been reached. there are various theories to account for this phenomenon, but from close observation it appears to be a case of arc heating. the moment the metal is plunged into the water it is enveloped in hydrogen gas decomposed from the water. this envelope of gas parts the water and metal, forming an arc, which raises the surrounding gaseous envelope to an enormous temperature; the metal surrounded by this arc is almost immediately raised to the same temperature. a flame of burning hydrogen appears around the metal on the surface of the water. the principle of the method is the same as that on which the burning of an arc light between two carbon points under water depends. an arc lamp will burn quite steadily under water if the connections are made water-proof; the arc itself requires no protection." it will be seen that the process above described is precisely analogous to that involved in the problem of the sun's energy. the planets correspond with the leaden plates, upon which oxygen is disengaged from the water, while at the same moment the liberated hydrogen necessarily appears at the opposite pole. the generation of hydrogen gas forms an envelope or atmosphere of hydrogen around the sun which forces back the aqueous vapor. the current, in passing through this gaseous envelope to the metal core within, intensely heats the hydrogen, which rapidly communicates its rising heat to the central core. if this core is composed of metals, and the temperature be raised sufficiently high, which only depends upon the quantity and working pressure of the electricity employed, the metal core will be volatilized in whole or in part, and, if of mixed metals, we will find the presence of these elements revealed in the spectroscopic lines corresponding thereto, and the flames and flashes of hydrogen at the surfaces beyond the envelope, at the surface of contact with the matter of space, will be also seen. in fact, such an experiment, properly prepared, could be made to show roughly most of the phenomena of solar light and heat as they actually appear, such as sun-spots, prominences, jets, plumes, faculæ, the photosphere, chromosphere, absorption bands, vortical disturbances, metallic vapors, and the complete solar spectrum, with the different fraunhofer lines. in the case of the sun, these currents must be measured by millions of ampères, and possibly by hundreds of millions of volts, instead of by mere hundreds, while the hydrogen envelope extends outward from the sun's surface hundreds of thousands of miles until, perhaps, finally merged into the corona. as the currents pass from the planets and planetoids (for not only the larger planets, but all the planetary bodies of our system must contribute, if any of them contribute) to the sun, or rather to the sphere of its electrical action, without resistance, so long as these planets generate constant currents of the same, or nearly the same, potential, so long will the sun maintain his constant light and heat; if these are increased or diminished, the sun's light and heat will be temporarily, but only temporarily, increased or diminished; and this process must continue, without further loss or change, indefinitely into the future. whatever the sun may gain by increment of meteoric masses may pass for what it is worth, but the gradual contraction of his volume cannot proceed while his present temperature is maintained by the passage of such currents,--that is to say, his light and heat will remain constant, and also his mass and volume, so long as the electric currents which pass from the planets to the sun and the constitution of space which surrounds the sun and planets themselves remain constant. it now remains to consider how such enormous currents of electricity can be generated and maintained. we know, of course, that chemical changes cannot operate to produce them. they must be derived from something contained in or diffused through interplanetary space, and the planets themselves must be the means by which such currents of electricity are brought into effective operation. on our own earth we have many kinds of mechanically-constructed electrical apparatus which generate electricity, to use a popular expression, or which, more properly, separate the opposite potentials from an unstable electrical tension or equilibrium of the matter of space. these machines practically take positive electricity from the mutually-balanced electric potentials of which the earth and its surrounding gaseous envelope are the vast common storehouse, in such manner that the positive electricity thus drawn out from and again passing into the common storehouse shall, during such transit, be compelled to pass through channels which will cause it to do work, at the expense of its potential or pressure, during its passage, or in which electricity is raised in its electro-motive force from a lower to a higher potential or pressure, just as the pressure of water is increased when delivered from a greater or a still greater height, or steam, when confined in space under higher and still higher temperatures. but none of these machines actually generate electricity ab initio; they merely put into effective operation the pre-existing force. the mass of the earth is of irregularly negative polarity, the air above is positive, and as we ascend, the potential, or voltage, or pressure increases at a nearly uniform rate of from twenty to forty volts for each foot. the earth is thus surrounded by an electrosphere as well as an atmosphere, and the two are not coincident, for while the pressure of the atmosphere diminishes as we ascend, that of the electrosphere increases. the moon, too, and each planet must have its electrosphere, and around the sun's core we can see the solar electrosphere in its visible glory. thus, all our planets rotate upon their axes and revolve around the sun, each surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, just as an electrical induction machine is surrounded, when in operation, with an electrosphere of its own, and which, by breaking connection with the conductor which carries away its current, becomes, when shown in a darkened room, clearly visible. in "electricity in the service of man" it is said, page , "the inductive action of the machine is quite as rapid and as powerful when both collectors are removed and nothing is left but the two rotating disks and their respective contact or neutralizing brushes. the whole apparatus then bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges." this is a true aurora. let us now examine some of these more recent electric machines,--the later induction, not the older frictional machines, for it is obvious that the rotation of the planets, if they operate as electric generators, or separators, must act by induction and not by friction. the frictional machines are of the old type and are well known from the books; in these a glass disk or cylinder is rubbed upon in its rotation by an amalgamated (so called) friction pad fixed securely to the bed of the machine. but more recently these have been replaced by far more powerful and simple machines which operate entirely by induction, like approaching thunderclouds, for instance, and in which one or more glass disks are merely rotated rapidly and freely in the air, these disks having a number of light metallic sectors, such as bits of tin-foil, pasted on their outer sides at equal radial intervals, and with metallic collecting brushes which, however, barely graze the surfaces of the rotating disk. there is no pressure and no friction, except that of the disks as they freely revolve in the atmosphere. in the above-quoted work, page , is a description of wimshurst's influence machine, one of the most recent and most powerful, which we condense as follows: this machine was produced about . it consists of two circular disks of thin glass fourteen and one-half inches in diameter in the sample described, attached at their centers to loose bosses, so as to be rotated by cords and pulleys operated by a handle, in opposite directions. the disks rotate parallel with each other and are not more than one-eighth of an inch apart, and have their surfaces well varnished; and attached by cement to their outer surfaces are twelve or more radial, sector-shaped plates of thin brass- or tin-foil, disposed around the disks at equal distances apart. these sectors take the place of the "inductors" of holtz's instrument, and appear to act also as carriers, though the exact nature of their action is somewhat mysterious. it appears, however, probable that those acting for the time as carriers on the one disk act at the same time as inductors on the other. the two sectors on the same diameter of each disk, at opposite sides of the center, are twice in each revolution momentarily placed in metallic connection with one another by means of a pair of fine wire brushes attached to the ends of a bent metal rod loosely pivoted at the center of each disk, the metal sectors just grazing the tips of the wire brushes as they pass. there is one of these bent rods on the outside of each disk, and their position as pivoted on their center can be varied at will, both with reference to the one on the opposite side and to the position of the fixed collecting combs. the efficiency of the machine varies with their position, and the maximum appears to be generally when the brushes touch the disks on diameters crossing the position of the collecting combs at about forty-five degrees, and with the bent rods on opposite sides at right angles to each other. the collecting combs are simple forks with collecting points turned inward, which forks embrace the opposite sides of the disks outside, which freely rotate between them, and they are supported on insulated posts. these supports may be small leyden jars or condensers, with discharging knobs, or may be connected with similar condensers at a distance, or arranged in batteries or otherwise. the presence of the collecting combs is not necessary to the operation of the machine, their sole function being to carry away the positive electricity as generated. the machine is self-exciting, and it is believed that the initial action must be due to friction in the layer of air contained between the plates, which, as above stated, are only about one-eighth of an inch apart. it is nearly independent of atmospheric conditions, and not liable to reverse its polarity, as are the voss machines. the voss machine uses a larger glass disk which does not rotate, but is fixed, and which has a central opening three inches wide, with a different arrangement of tin-foil disks or sectors, and a smaller glass disk rotates parallel with it. the holtz machine is somewhat similar, using a single rotating, well-varnished glass disk revolving opposite a well-varnished larger disk, the latter provided with three sector-shaped openings or windows, with varnished paper inductors or flaps passing through these windows so as to touch the revolving disk. there are also two series of fine metal points held by brass bars provided with insulated handles and discharging knobs. it is only necessary to give a general idea of the construction and operation of such machines, as their specific construction can be readily learned from the books. of the mode of operation, however, it is said, "what takes place when the machine is in action is of a very complicated nature, and can hardly be said to be perfectly understood." with a wimshurst machine having disks of a diameter of fourteen and one-half inches "there is produced under ordinary atmospheric conditions a powerful spark discharge between the knobs when they are separated by a distance of four and one-half inches, a pint size leyden jar being in connection with each knob (one on each opposite diameter of the two disks), and these four-and-one-half-inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle. it is usual to construct the machine with small leyden jars or condensers attached to conductors, by which the spark is materially increased. a machine has been constructed with plates seven feet in diameter, which, it was believed, would give sparks thirty inches long; but no leyden jars have been found to withstand its discharge, all being pierced by the enormous tension." three of toepler's induction machines (see page , "electricity in the service of man"), connected together, gave a current which maintained a platinum wire one-fifth of a millimeter thick continually at a red heat, and was also capable of decomposing water. chapter iv. the source of solar energy. the remarkable resemblance between the mode of operation and effects of these electrical induction machines and the vast rotating electrosphere of the earth must be at once apparent. the operation is precisely the same, and the results must, pari passu, be substantially similar. we need not seek for precise parallelism of structure, because these machines themselves, it has been shown, widely differ in structure among themselves. but the almost infinitely more vast terrestrial electrosphere, which cannot be less than ten thousand miles in diameter, and perhaps much more (if we may form an opinion from the relative magnitude of the field of action of the hydrogen envelope which constitutes the solar electrosphere), rotating in the attenuated vapors of space, among which vapors that of water plays a most important part, and which vapors constantly impinge with various disturbances of contact against the more and more attenuated layers of the terrestrial atmosphere, and which gradually, from within outward, less and less partakes of the earth's rotation until, finally, its rotatory movement is lost in the vast ocean of space, establishes the certainty that enormous quantities of electricity must there be disengaged, precisely as in the machines which we have described, and to learn the potential or active pressure of this electricity we have only to consider the fact that we find a rise so rapid, as we ascend through our atmosphere, that the potential increases by from twenty to forty volts for each foot. that these currents are transmitted to the sun without appreciable resistance we already know, and that they are there transformed into light and heat we can, from the previously cited experiments, see. but it may be urged that the resistance of such attenuated vapors in space, and the generation of electricity in such quantities, would inevitably retard and finally destroy planetary motion. the sufficient answer to this is found in the consideration that the same facts must exist under any possible mode of organization of our solar system, and that such interference, besides, must have absolutely prevented its formation at all, if such were the case. all the matter of our planetary system together is only one seven-hundred-and-fiftieth that of the sun; if this were added to the sun's bulk it would but slightly enlarge it. but all this solar and planetary matter together, if distributed over the space occupied by our planetary system,--and, by the nebular hypothesis of the organization of our solar system, this is requisite,--and having an axial diameter one-half that of its equatorial (see proctor's "familiar essays on scientific subjects,"--"oxygen in the sun"), would have had a density of only about one four-hundred-thousandth that of hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure. this nebular mass must have had a diameter at least sixty times that of the distance of the earth from the sun and a depth of thirty times its distance. that this enormous mass of attenuated matter should ever have been made to rotate as a whole by any force of attraction, repulsion, or rotation, with a tenuity so great that, if measured by an equal volume of hydrogen gas,--the lightest substance known to us,--it would have furnished material for four hundred thousand such systems as ours, presupposes a resistance so slight that the planets themselves, when coagulated out of such a mass, could never in any conceivable time exhibit retardation from such a source; and we know to a certainty that such attenuated vapors do exist in space, for electricity cannot be transmitted through a vacuum, and it is transmitted with perfect freedom between the earth and the sun. but it may be said that the laws were then different. if they were different then, they are doubtless different now. if, on the other hand, we assume that the bodies of which our solar system is composed were simply aggregated into concrete masses from meteoric dust, the difficulty is not lessened; for if the resistances to their operation now are such as to perceptibly retard their motions, they must have operated still more powerfully to originally prevent them; while, if hurled forth by an almighty fiat, complete from the hand of creative energy, the same force which impelled them forward must have also established the laws under which they now move. it is calculated that our earth must be losing time, by tidal retardation, at the rate of one-half the moon's diameter in each twelve hundred years (see proctor, "light science for leisure hours,"--"our chief timepiece losing time"), and that "the length of a day is now more by about one eighty-fourth part of a second than it was two thousand years ago." perhaps, however, we may discover that these changes are themselves periodic and increase in cycles to a maximum, and then diminish, as is the case with magnetic, planetary, and stellar variations, and other similar changes, when sufficiently long observed; for while such changes may very well accompany a theory under which our system and all other systems are slowly running down to decay and death, it is entirely incompatible with the primal forces under which they must have been originally formed. in other words, if the tides are dragging back our earth without compensation, this dragging back can only come from the oceanic deposit of water on the earth from the aqueous vapors of space which do not partake of the planetary rotation and orbital movement of the earth. but if these can now retard the earth's motion, they must have originally prevented it in the beginning. this loss of time is, moreover, merely inferential from mathematical computations, and its basis is found in the belief that all the operations of nature are in a slow process of degradation, and the calculated loss itself may be merely theoretical, and not true in fact. professor proctor himself concedes the uncertainty of this alleged retardation when he says in the same article, "at this rate of change our day would merge into a lunar month in the course of thirty-six thousand millions of years. but after a while the change will take place more slowly, and some trillion or so of years will elapse before the full change is effected." while the processes of nature are generally believed to be running down, everything is bent to that belief; but the forces of nature must, nevertheless, be uniform and supreme, for it is by these forces that the expected results are to be achieved. that changes occur constantly is inevitable, but the source of these must be looked for in the interaction of original forces, and not in the degradation of systems. there is reason to believe, in fact, that the repulsion of the terrestrial electrosphere by that of the moon may itself be sufficient to counteract such retarding force of lunar gravity, for the tides upon earth are not merely oceanic, but atmospheric, and on the latter the electrical repulsion of the moon must act very powerfully and with directly counteractive effect. let us now apply the preceding principles to the problem under review. all planetary space is pervaded with attenuated vapors or gases, among which aqueous vapor occupies a leading place. the planets and all planetary bodies, having opposite electrical polarity from the central and relatively fixed sun, by their orbital motions around and constant subjection thereto act as enormous induction machines, which generate electricity from the ocean of attenuated aqueous vapor, each planet being surrounded by an enormous electrosphere, carried with the planet in its axial and orbital movements, the successive atmospheric envelopes gradually diminishing in rotational velocity until merged into the outer ocean of space. as the planets advance in their orbits they plunge into new and fresh fields, and, as the whole solar system gradually moves onward through space, these fields are never re-occupied. these electrospheres, by their rotation, generate enormous quantities of electricity at an extremely high potential,--so high that we can scarcely even conceive it,--and this electricity flows in a constant current to the sun, where it disappears as electricity, to reappear in the form of solar light and heat. these planetary currents also flow towards such other negatively electrified bodies as may exist in space--the comets and fixed stars, for example--in proportion to their distance; for, since resistance is not appreciable between ourselves and the sun, as is also the case with light, so, like light, our electricity must pass outward as well as inward to take part in the harmonious operations of the whole universe. but it should be noted that the distribution of electric energy in the form of currents is quite different from that of light or other radiant energy; for while light is diffused from a center outward through space, electric currents, on the contrary, are concentrated and directed along lines of force to concrete centers of opposite polarity. as a consequence, the intensity of light decreases according to the squares of the distances traversed plus the resistance to the passage of the light itself, while the electric current is only diminished by the resistance of the medium through which it passes. as the light of the sun has a velocity of one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles per second, and the electric current between the earth and the sun the same, it will be seen that the resistance is practically alike for these two forms of energy. indeed, the striking resemblance between the ethereal vibrations which constitute light and heat and exceedingly rapid alternating currents of electricity through molecular media may suggest that the transformation of one force into the other is some sort of a "step-up" or "step-down" process, much higher in degree, but of the same character as the well-known analogous electrical transformations used in the arts. it should also be borne in mind that, while the intensity of light diminishes according to the above law, the quantity remains the same, less resistance, as the area covered increases precisely in the same proportion as the intensity diminishes,--that is, in the ratio of squares. around the earth and other planets gravity attracts the aqueous vapors in increased density, the same as around the sun; but the electric currents passing between the planets and the sun decompose this aqueous vapor into its constituent gases, hydrogen and oxygen. the oxygen is deposited within the positive electrospheres of the planetary bodies, where it mingles with nitrogen to form our atmosphere and those of the other planets. in this float the aqueous vapors condensed from space, which are lighter than air. (see tyndall, "the forms of water:" "it also sends up a quantity of aqueous vapor which, being far lighter than air, helps the latter to rise.") these aqueous vapors, condensed into clouds and precipitated upon the earth, form our oceans and their affluents. the hydrogen gas disengaged upon the sun's surface forms a similar envelope, which is penetrated by the planetary electric currents, and is thus highly heated and rendered incandescent; the glowing hydrogen transmits its heat to the sun's mass within, which is thus raised to, and permanently maintained in, a liquid or densely gaseous state, its metallic constituents being volatilized in part, and these metallic vapors mingle with the lower strata of hydrogen to form the sun's photosphere, while, above, the glowing hydrogen grows more pure, and finally, at a distance of hundreds of thousands of miles, is merged into the corona, which is composed, in part at least, of cosmical dust rotating around and repelled by the sun, and which shines partly by reflected light, partly by that of the relatively cooler hydrogen, and partly, perhaps, by electrification of its constituents by the powerful currents passing through it. each of the planetary bodies, large or small, takes its proportionate part in the generation and transmission of electricity, according to its volume, mass, and motion. as an adjunct to this electrical sequence we have learned that any interruption of such currents between the generator and the receiver will cause the generating apparatus to glow with diffused electrical light, as is the case with the wimshurst machine already described. when such connection is removed, it is said, "the whole apparatus bristles with electricity, and if viewed in the dark presents a most beautiful appearance, being literally bathed with luminous brush discharges." such a phenomenon recalls at once the aurora borealis; and when we find this as a sequence of the electrical storm of the first of september, , before described ("at night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres"), and connect with this the persistence of electricity upon insulated surfaces (see "electricity in the service of man," page : "glass being a bad conductor, the electricity does not spread all over the plate, but remains where it is produced"), we shall inevitably conclude that there was some partial interruption in the current flowing from the earth to the sun at that moment; and if we recall that at that very instant "suddenly a bright light was seen by each observer to break out on the sun's surface and to travel across a part of the solar disk," we shall learn that the processes connected with the production of such a bright light will interrupt in part the terrestrial current. we can readily understand that if this bright light exceeded in electrical intensity that due to the earth's current, it might temporarily reverse the polarity of the afferent current or retard its flow, like the so-called "backwater" of a mill. it would be like attempting to discharge steam at sixty pounds' pressure into a vessel filled with other steam at sixty-one pounds. whence, then, came this bright light? perhaps from the conjoint action of some other planet, perhaps from sudden chemical disassociation beneath the surface, perhaps by the abnormal piling up of depths of transparent glowing hydrogen or other local disturbance. and this leads to the consideration of the uniformity of solar action. the planetary electrospheres will be constant in their operation if the constitution of surrounding space remains uniform; but we shall find reason to believe that there are currents in the ocean of space, as there are currents in our own seas, and electrical generation will necessarily vary when such currents are encountered. the sun itself in such case, however, will become an automatic regulator, for his density being but one-fourth that of the earth, and the spectroscope having shown his chemical composition to a large extent, we know that his mass must be either liquid or vaporous, and perhaps in part both. such masses readily respond to variations of temperature, expanding as it rises and contracting as it falls. hence, if a portion of space were reached where the action of the planetary electrospheres was increased by relative increase of temperature in some interstellar "gulf stream," the sun's volume would expand and compensation be at once established, while, conversely, with diminution of such planetary action, the solar volume would contract and an increased supply from his reserve store be given out thereby. in this way the condensation relied upon to give us heat for seven or seventeen million years becomes a compensating mechanism, self-operative through the most distant cycles of time. we shall also find in such electric currents an explanation of sun-spots. it is not meant that a full knowledge can be obtained of their minute constitution, nor is it necessary; but the equatorial belt of six degrees, nearly free from sun-spots, we can readily understand to be caused--since sun-spots are depressions in the photosphere down to the deeper and denser cloud strata beneath--by the equatorial piling up of the sun's atmosphere by its rotation. any point on the sun's equator travels at four times the rotational velocity of one on the earth's equator, but the sun's attraction of gravity is twenty-seven and one-tenth times that of the earth, so that the piling up of an atmosphere of hydrogen would be considerable, and such depressions would not ordinarily exist there. similarly, near the sun's poles we should find a gradual darkening, as is the case; but from five degrees to thirty degrees latitude, the sun, in its rotation, by reason of the inclination of its axis, passes at every point directly beneath the planets, or within their area of control, and here we find the solar spots in their greatest number, size, and intensity. these sun-spots cross the face of the sun in about fifteen days, and vary in development from year to year, having a cycle of . years from maximum to maximum. they also have a long cycle of about fifty-six years. (see article "the sun," in appleton's cyclopædia.) "wolf, in , presented a formula by which the frequency of spots is connected with the motions of the four bodies, venus, the earth, jupiter, and saturn. professor loomis, of yale college, has since advocated a theory (suggested by the present writer [proctor] in , in 'saturn and his system,' page , note) that the long cycle of fifty-six years is related to the successive conjunctions of saturn and jupiter. but the association is as yet very far from being demonstrated, to say the least." should such fact be established, an explanation for it will be found in the direct impact of the condensed electric currents from several planets approaching conjunction, and raising a portion of the sun's atmosphere suddenly to a higher temperature and volatilizing an abnormal proportion of the semi-vaporous metallic core beneath. this would form an upburst piling the intensely heated faculæ up on the sides and revealing the relatively darker masses of cloud beneath, the cooler supernatant hydrogen pouring in from the upper layers to fill the returning void. this is precisely what is seen in such spots and their surrounding disturbances. in the article "the sun," above quoted, we read, "mr. huggins has found that several of the absorption bands belonging to the solar spectrum are wider in the spectrum of a spot, a circumstance indicative of increased absorption so far as the vapors corresponding to such lines are concerned.... near the great spots or groups of spots there are often seen streaks more luminous than the neighboring surface, called faculæ. they are oftenest seen towards the borders of the disk." this writer also describes "luminous bridges across spots which sink into the vortex and are replaced by others of the numberless cloud-like forms from one hundred to one thousand miles in diameter, the brilliancy of which so greatly exceeds that of the intervening spaces that they must be recognized as the principal radiators of the solar light and heat." the apparent retardation of the spots most distant from the sun's equator may also be partially, at least, explained by planetary currents of electricity, as the equatorial atmosphere is deeper and more likely to carry forward such vortices when formed, while the planets act more directly on the sun's mass beneath their direct influence. let us consider this retardation of sun-spots somewhat more in detail. take, for example, the case of a large planet at such orbital position that its direct line of electrical impact will penetrate the photosphere at (say) seven degrees north solar latitude, which is about fifty-two thousand miles from his equator. during its annual revolution this planet will traverse, with its line of energy, every point of the sun's surface down to seven degrees south latitude and back again to its initial point, thus tracing a close spiral around the sun for fourteen degrees, or about one hundred and four thousand miles in width. the centrifugal force of the solar rotation piles up the photosphere and the chromosphere around the sun's equator, precisely as our atmosphere is piled up around our own equator. if the planet be a large one (for distance has but little to do with these electrical currents at planetary distances, in which they differ entirely from light, heat, and gravity), or if there be two planets nearly in conjunction, the body of the chromosphere and the surface of the photosphere will gradually become highly heated, for currents of electricity, of themselves, do not directly heat the solar core any more than a like current heats the under carbon of an arc lamp, the high temperature in both cases being altogether due to the incandescent heat of the interposed arc or envelope. faculæ of intense brightness will then appear upon the photosphere, and these will be driven forward and also outward in the direction of the higher latitudes, producing an oblique forward movement from difference of rotational speed at different portions of the sun's surface. similar phenomena are constantly observed on the surface of the earth in the generation and behavior of cyclones and other atmospheric disturbances. they may be compared to the wake of a vessel anchored in a strong tide-way. these faculæ will slowly raise the temperature of the surface of the sun's core beneath to the point of eruptive volatilization, and particularly so if the planet is receding from, instead of advancing towards, the solar equator. at some point in advance of the line of planetary energy an eruption of volatilized metals will suddenly occur, first thrusting up a vast area of the photosphere and then bursting it asunder, which will drive these ruptured masses with enormous speed forward and obliquely outward from the equator. such faculæ (see proctor's "light science") sometimes reach a velocity of seven thousand miles per minute, while the sun's rotational movement at the equator is less than seventy miles per minute. this sudden eruption will be almost immediately succeeded by great expansion and consequent fall of temperature, so that within a few hours the heavy volatile metals begin to condense and rapidly recede into their crater, and the faculæ in front and at the sides will now stream inward to occupy this vacuum with constantly accelerated velocity, pouring over the edges like the rush of waters at the falls of niagara. as they sweep downward over the inner rim of the funnel, these streams of faculæ will glow with increased whiteness, and appear to be sharply cut off at their inner ends; but this is only apparently so, and is due to the position of the observer, who looks almost directly downward upon these descending streams. it is for the same reason that the faculæ appear more brilliant when near the borders of the solar disk (see page ). any good view of a sun-spot when analyzed will show the streams of faculæ thus pouring inward, and they are among the most peculiar and conspicuous phenomena to be observed. the drawings of professor langley, reproduced in the popular science monthly for september, , and july, , are particularly striking in their illustration of these effects, though their significance and interpretation were not then at hand. but while these heavy metallic vapors so rapidly condense and subside in the forward or initial portion of the sun-spot under observation, new depths of intensely-heated faculæ are generated behind, and these operate with renewed energy upon the fresh surface of the solar core in rear of the original seat of eruption; so that each sun-spot, while in an active state, will exhibit two entirely distinct aspects, the forward portion of the crater in a state of rapid condensation and subsidence of the recently erupted metallic vapors, and with inflowing streams of incandescent hydrogen from the front and sides, and the rear portion of the crater up to its rearward wall, and even streaming forth from beneath it, in a state of violent eruption. the large volcanic craters of the hawaiian islands exhibit similar partial eruptions and subsidences progressing simultaneously in the same depths. the sudden formation of the great incandescent loops and plumes to which professor langley calls especial attention, and which have hitherto been so perplexing, can now be readily understood and explained. if one of these inflowing streams be carried partially down into and across the crater, and then caught, in its advance, by the uprush in the central or rear portions of the cavity, it will be at once swept upward alongside the ascending eruption, and either scattered at its forward extremity into sprays and plumes, or else thrown forward bodily in the form of a more or less complete loop. in a sun-spot fifty thousand miles in diameter, such a loop, having a long diameter of twenty thousand miles, if we give a speed to the faculæ of seven thousand miles per minute, would be formed in about seven minutes, during which the sun-spot would itself have advanced less than five hundred miles across the face of the sun. the luminous bridges which form so suddenly across portions of the crater may be explained in a similar manner: they are streams of faculæ floated on the nearly balanced uprush of metallic vapors from beneath. it will thus be seen that a sun-spot is not merely a fixed eruption, like a volcano, but rather a continuous series of eruptions, like a line of activity following, for example, the great terrestrial volcanic curve which extends up the western coast of america, across the pacific ocean and asia, and into central and southern europe, for during its progression its scene of action is constantly being shifted to the rear; it is like a furrow cut by a plough, in which the upturned sod is constantly falling in at one end of the furrow while the plough is cutting a new furrow at the other, except that in this case the plough is relatively fixed overhead, and the field itself passes along beneath it. consequently, the center of activity of a sun-spot is only in its rear portions, generally considered, and the whole sun-spot is gradually retreating, by successive filling up in front and opening out behind, farther and farther to the rear,--that is to say, to the east,--so that retardation relatively to the rotational advance of the photosphere necessarily ensues. but when the sun-spot is developed upon or near the equatorial line this retardation is not so considerable, for the deeper layers of the photosphere in those regions are slower to act and require greater energy to affect them, so that all except deep and violent eruptions fail to show themselves at the surface at all, and the heated faculæ are carried directly forward along the surface of the equatorial swell, so that the center of activity is driven forward more rapidly than in the higher latitudes, and the rate of progression is more nearly coincident with that of the photosphere. but if these facts are correctly stated and explained, we may have to revise our calculations of the sun's rotational period, for retardation to some extent must occur in all cases, if in any. a sun-spot, we thus perceive, is an elongated wave or ridge of eruption along the rotational direction of the sun's body. why, then, it may be asked, is not this line of eruption continuous entirely around the sun? for the same reason, it may be answered, that our own cyclones are not continuous, though caused substantially in the same manner, and that volcanic eruptions only occur at long intervals, though the forces at work are continuous. lowering of temperature follows swiftly after eruption, and as the deeper structures of the solar nucleus become gradually affected, instead of volatilization of the outer layers of the surface, we will have diffused gaseous expansion of large portions, and finally of the entire solar mass, which cannot as a whole be volatilized by any conceivable planetary energy. we see these operations exemplified in heating a bar of copper in a bunsen flame; the latter first turns green from surface volatilization of the copper, but as the heat is communicated to the deeper structures the green flame disappears, and the whole additional heat goes to raise the temperature of the mass. these processes in the sun are thus seen to be self-compensatory in their nature. they are the means provided to distribute the restricted areas of abnormally heated photosphere over the solar surface, and finally to cause the absorption of the whole excess of heat in the sun's central mass. the balance is so evenly maintained, however, that, were all the planets equally distributed with reference to the sun's surface, such sun-spots would be the exception and not the rule, and their distribution would be equal and constant; but, as the planets continually change their positions with reference to the sun and to each other, only by some such provision of nature could the internal structure of the sun be maintained without serious derangement, or, indeed, final disruption. so nature distributes her stores of heat upon the earth. these beautiful self-compensations we shall find suddenly appearing, as we advance, in all parts of the field of astronomical research. it may seem like temerity to advance statements so positive and specific as to the cause, constitution, and progression of sun-spots, in the absence of any considerable accumulation of observations to sustain them, but the few examples which we have noted are in accordance with these views, and when attention is once called to the basic principles on which they depend, observations will doubtless be made in abundance to prove or disprove what has been here stated. the mere fact of a differential rate of advance among sun-spots, as they pass across the solar face, of itself demonstrates that the active causes of these phenomena must be extra-solar, and if so, their only possible dynamic source must be looked for in the planets, and the remaining conclusions will of necessity follow as a corollary. we may even, by merely examining an accurate drawing of a sun-spot, determine its position and direction upon the solar sphere from which it was delineated by its lines of active eruption and influx of faculæ, and also whether it be a new spot or one which has passed entirely beyond its active stage and is about to finally disappear. as for the faculæ which striate the photosphere, the mottlings and so-called "willow-leaves," any one who will quietly gaze downward upon the turbid surface of the mississippi or other similar river, in mid-channel, will see plenty of such faculæ: the river is full of them. the heavier, intermingled clay, slowly subsiding, is caught up in the turmoil beneath the surface and swept upward in elongated ovals and eddies, the larger swells nearly colorless, and others of all shades of ochre and yellow, and the whole as richly mottled, sometimes, as the variegated pattern of a persian carpet. if we substitute for the subsiding clay the rapidly sinking heavy metallic vapors, and enlarge the scale from the dimensions of the river to those of the sun, we will have the mottled solar surface with its kaleidoscopic changes, the so-called "willow-leaves," and the faculæ in all their glory. a careful study of the sun will show most clearly that only in some such explanation as the present view affords can a rational basis for its varied phenomena be found. if the sun's equator were coincident with the plane of the planetary orbits, it is obvious that all the planetary energies would be directed, whatever the position of the planets around the sun, immediately upon this equatorial great circle, and that, at each revolution upon his axis, corresponding nearly to our calendar month, the same part of his sphere would be exposed to these direct currents, so that the intensity would be, in its aggregate, nearly a constant quantity. but, by reason of the sun's axial inclination of seven degrees to the plane of the planetary orbits, a far more complex and important condition of affairs ensues. it will be seen at once that the plane of the planetary orbits intersects the sun's equator at opposite sides, and that, from a minimum of nothing, this line reaches a maximum, twice in each circumference, of seven degrees, one north and the other south of the equator, and that this arc of fourteen degrees, thus traversed by every planet in its orbital rotation around the sun, measures more than one hundred thousand miles from north to south upon the solar surface, nearly one-half the distance which separates the earth from the moon. if all the planets were in conjunction or nearly so, on one side of the sun, for example, and in the vertical plane of the sun's axis, they would continue to deliver their electrical currents with their greatest intensity upon a single point of his surface fifty-two thousand miles north of his equator, while the opposite point, one hundred and four thousand miles distant, would be unaffected by any direct currents at all. conversely, if in conjunction on the opposite side of the sun, they would continue to deliver these currents upon a corresponding point fifty-two thousand miles south of the equator; but if in conjunction in the vertical plane transverse to the sun's axial inclination, these currents on either side of the sun would be delivered directly upon the solar equator. the importance of this will be understood when it is considered that for many of our years such planets as jupiter and saturn must continue to direct their currents upon a very slowly changing point of the sun's surface, by reason of their vast annual rotational period, while with the earth and the interior planets these various points are struck with ever-increasing rapidity as the year decreases in length with the different planets, the earth, venus, and mercury. there is a solar equinoctial, so to speak, just as there is a terrestrial equinoctial in which the sun crosses the line twice each year, and the meteorological disturbances faintly shown on the earth at such times are vastly increased on the sun, and rendered far more complex by the interaction of many planets upon the sun, instead of a single sun upon each planet. while our equinoctial has to do with gravity and light and heat, and probably magnetism, the solar equinoctial deals with the vast electrical streams which feed its fires and set it boiling with furious energy, first at one point, then at another, until the increment has been absorbed and adjusted, and thus equalized throughout his mass. what a new interest this must arouse in our study of sun-spots, faculæ, prominences, sun-storms, and the vast panorama of solar action hung up before our astonished eyes! a new world here awaits its columbus. but not only the planets thus gather, so to speak, electricity for the sun's support from space; the moon also must do its part, as it rotates in the same manner, subject to the sun, and has its own motion through space. but an examination of the moon shows no atmosphere and no aqueous matter visible to us, and also the singular fact that it constantly presents one side only to the earth. r. kalley miller, in his "romance of astronomy," article "the moon," says, "after an elaborate analysis, professor hausen, of gotha, found that it could be accounted for only by supposing that the side of the moon nearest us was lighter than the other, and hence that its center of gravity was not at its center of figure, but considerably nearer the side of it which is always turned away from us. he calculates the distance between these centers to be nearly thirty-five miles, evidently a most important eccentricity, when we remember that the radius of the moon is little over a thousand miles. it must have been produced by some great internal convulsion after the moon assumed its solid state; but the forces required to produce this disruption are less than might at first sight appear necessary, owing to the fact that the force of gravitation and the weight of matter are six times less at the moon than with us." those who are fond of the so-called "argument of design" will be gratified to learn that, if the moon had a rotation upon its own axis similar to that of the earth, all life--past, present or future--would have been impossible on that satellite or planet; and that, on the contrary,--provided she always turns the same side of her surface to the earth,--it is quite possible that air, water, and life may exist, or may have existed, on the opposite side of the moon, but not otherwise. in fact, air and water must now exist on the opposite side; and, since her whole supply will thus be condensed upon half her surface or less, even with her small force of gravity, it may be quite sufficient in quantity and density for the support of animal, vegetable, or even human life. by reason of this difference in the lunar center of gravity, the side presented to the earth in physical position is similar to the summit of a mountain upon the earth's surface two hundred miles high, and surely we would not expect to find much air or water or life at that altitude. but the opposite side would resemble a champagne country at the foot of this enormous mountain, and might be well fitted for human existence. now, we know that similar electricities repel each other, and air or gases charged with similar electricities are equally self-repellent. professor tyndall, in his "lessons in electricity," says, "the electricity escaping from a point or flame into the air renders the air self-repulsive. the consequence is, that when the hand is placed over a point mounted on the prime conductor of a good machine, a cold blast is distinctly felt.... the blast is called the 'electric wind.' wilson moved bodies by its action; faraday caused it to depress the surface of a liquid; hamilton employed the reaction of the electric wind to make pointed wires rotate. the wind was also found to promote evaporation." while electrical repulsion is doubtless analogous to, and correlative with, the attraction of gravitation, this force, and even gravity itself, has been sometimes interpreted as derived from the mutually interacting molecules of space itself. we may even learn somewhat of how such repulsions of similar and attractions of opposite electrospheres might occur. we constantly speak of positive and negative electricity as though these were different fluids, but such expressions are employed only in the same manner as the analogous terms, heat and cold. we know, of course, that cold is the relative absence of heat, the dividing line being not a fixed, but a constantly changing one, so that one body is cold to another by reason of relative, and not absolute, deprivation of heat. it is well known, however, that cold, which is purely a negative state, manifests the same apparent radiant energy as heat. a vessel near an iceberg is exposed to a wave of cold, precisely as of heat from a heated body at the same distance. this, of course, is due to abstraction and not to increment. all space being occupied by attenuated matter in a state of unstable electrical equilibrium, as we say, which simply means a condition ready to be raised or lowered in tension by absorption from or into outside media, all concrete bodies floating in that space must have an electrical potential either equal to, or higher, or else lower than that of their surrounding space. a solitary body in space, if we can conceive of such, in either a higher or lower state of electrical tension, would be drawn upon from all sides to equalize the distribution and restore the general average. but if two bodies occupy the same field, and are widely different from each other in electrical potential, one higher and the other lower than that of space, this distribution will be towards each other, and must be manifested by mutual attraction. but if, on the contrary, these two bodies are both equally higher or lower than the spatial average, they have nothing to give to each other, but have this difference to give to or receive only from outer space, and hence they will be drawn apart or, as we say, mutually repelled. the case is similar to what we see in the case of bodies of water at various levels. suppose there be a lake of a fixed level, and communicating with it and with each other, by open channels, two ponds of water occupying an island in the middle of the lake. if one of these ponds be higher in level and the other lower than the lake, their waters will rapidly converge, the higher flowing into the lower; but if both are at the same level, and higher than the lake, they will flow apart into the lake. or, if both are at the same level, and lower than the lake, the water of the latter will equally flow from outside into both ponds, and their waters will still be held separate from each other. the analogies of these various levels may be pursued to any desired extent, as electrical tensions find their most exact analogies in the pressures of bodies of water at different levels and of different quantities, and these analogies are those most constantly used in the interpretation of such electrical phenomena. the great electrical activity of the electrospheres of the earth and moon, while they discharge their tremendous currents directly into the sun, at the same time must cause their similarly electrified atmospheres to mutually repel each other, while gravity continues to operate to maintain the earth and moon at their fixed distances from each other, and to retain their gaseous envelopes around their own bodies. the result must be that these similarly electrified atmospheres repel each other with a force proportioned to their masses of atmosphere and the intensity of the electricities of each. the moon's axial rotation being completed but once in twenty-eight days, and that of the earth once in each day, and the moon's mass and volume being so much less than those of the earth, whatever of electrified air or moisture she may have (and she must have both, proportionate to her attributes) would have been driven as by a cyclone to the opposite side of the moon and there retained. now, with an atmosphere and water only on one side of the moon, and that the side opposite the earth, it is obvious that a rotation on her axis at all resembling that of the earth would carry every part of her surface, at each complete rotation, from a region of air and moisture into one deprived of both, and in such a condition she would of necessity be deprived of both life and its possibility; hence, as the laws of nature compel the lunar atmosphere and moisture to reside permanently on the side always opposite the earth, a co-ordinate arrest of the moon's axial motion with reference to the earth could alone compensate for such a state of things, and, curiously enough, we find as a solitary exception, compared with the planets, that such is the case. the moon unquestionably has both atmosphere and water on its opposite side. in his recent work, "in the high heavens," professor ball reviews the physical conditions of the other planets as possible abodes of life. he pronounces against the moon because night and day would each be a fortnight in length; but this is surely no objection, for even in norway and greenland such nights and days are not uncommon at different seasons, and thousands of human beings, even as at present constituted on earth, spend their lives there in content and happiness. that the moon also would be terribly scorched by the long day and frozen by the long night does not necessarily follow, for the atmosphere of mars, that author says, "to a large extent mitigates the fierceness with which the sun's rays would beat down on the globe if it were devoid of such protection." as the moon's opposite face must have a double quota both of atmosphere and clouds, the difficulty will be correspondingly less than on mars; and as for the "lightness" of bodies on the moon, they would probably get along quite as well as mosquitoes and like "birds of prey" in the marshes along our coasts. the author refers constantly to our bodies; for example, "could we live on a planet like neptune?" no, we could not; we would be dead before we got there. nor could we live in the bark of a tree, or at the bottom of the ocean, or in a globule of serum; but living beings are found there nevertheless. the principle is that wherever life is possible there we may expect to find life; and surely life is, or has been, or will be possible, not only on the moon, so far as our knowledge of physical conditions can go, but also on some of the other planets. of course each planet has its life stage, but this applies not only to the earth, but to all the other planets as well, and not only to the planets of our own system, but to those of all other solar systems. each has had, or will have, its stage in which life is possible, and these planets may be like human habitations, in which whole races at times migrate from one home to another. there is no conceivable reason why this may not be the general law of creation, and every analogy leads us to believe that it is so. it has been recently announced that, from telescopic observations, the atmosphere of mars must be at least as attenuated as that among the highest mountainous regions of the earth, if this planet has any atmosphere at all. that it must be far less dense than that of the earth at sea-level is obvious, for the mass and volume of mars are very much less than those of our own planet; but that mars is devoid of a gaseous envelope or atmosphere is contrary to what we know of all sidereal physics. the sun, the fixed stars, the comets, the nebulæ, and even the meteorolithic fragments which fall upon the earth, all show the same elementary chemical constitution as the earth itself, and we cannot believe that mars alone is differently constituted from every other body we have been able to examine. we have direct evidence, on this planet, of polar snows and their melting away under the sun's heat; we see the apparent areas of sea and land; it has its moons as the earth has hers, and exhibits all the characteristic phenomena of the earth and other planets. all sidereal bodies that we know of, except, perhaps, our moon, which exception we have fully accounted for, are found to be surrounded by gaseous envelopes or atmospheres of some sort. the sun, the fixed stars, the nuclei of comets, the condensing nebulæ, the planets jupiter and the earth, which are those under our most direct observation, and even the meteorites, when examined, reveal the presence of many times their own volumes of independent atmospheric gases; and whatever may be the theory of the origin or development of mars, it must have been subjected to the same influences, the same environment, and the same processes of creation as those of our solar system generally; and that this body alone should possess no gaseous envelope--for the denial of atmosphere denies, at the same time, the presence of any or all surrounding gases--is quite incredible. only the most positive, direct, and long-continued proofs of such fact could be accepted, and even then the history of all scientific progress shows that what are believed to be facts themselves fluctuate like fancies till, by their accumulated force, they solidify into universally accepted demonstration. the fact, moreover, that the atmospheres of the smaller planets are more attenuated than our own and those of the larger ones denser has no bearing, in itself, on the probability of the existence of life on these other planets, for in our own atmosphere oxygen, which is the efficient element, is diluted with four times its quantity of inert nitrogen. these proportions doubtless vary largely in other atmospheres, so that the oxygen may be much richer in some and far poorer, relatively, in others. the mere fact that the presence of nitrogen, probably, and aqueous vapor, certainly, depends on the gravity of the mass of each planet, while the oxygen is due to electrolytic decomposition induced by the combined volume, mass, and rotation, and other causes,--such as the axial inclination of such planets, for example,--renders these variations in the constitution of planetary atmospheres a certainty. as mars has a diameter much more than one-half that of the earth, and a diurnal rotational period nearly the same, while his mass, which controls the action of gravity, is only about one-ninth that of the earth (see appleton's cyclopædia), it is obvious that his oxygen-gathering power, compared with that for accumulating nitrogen and aqueous vapor, is much higher than that of the earth, and we should expect to find there an attenuated atmosphere very rich in oxygen, and with a relatively smaller proportion of aqueous vapor, or even water, on his surface. such seem to be the facts as far as observed. in operating an electric machine the strength of the current is directly proportionate to the speed of rotation,--that is to say, to the velocity of the generating surface; for example, of the wimshurst induction machine it is stated (page , "electricity in the service of man"), "these four-and-one-half inch discharges take place in regular succession at every two and a half turns of the handle." it is also a well-established law of electrolysis that "the amount of decomposition effected by the current is in proportion to the current strength." professor ferguson ("electricity," page ) says of the voltameter, an instrument devised by faraday, and used for testing the strength of currents by the proportionate decomposition of acidulated water, "mixed gases rise into the tube, and the quantity of gas given off in a given time measures the strength of the current." roughly estimating the diameter of mars at five-eighths, the surface velocity at three-fifths, and the mass at one-ninth those of the earth, this planet should have an atmosphere containing about sixty per cent. of oxygen and forty of nitrogen, with a barometric pressure at sea-level of about six and one-half inches of mercury. this would be an excellent atmosphere,--about equal in its quota of oxygen for each respiration to that of the higher areas of persia, a great country for roses. the aqueous vapors lying low and near the surface would serve as a vaporous screen to concentrate and retain the sun's heat and retard radiation from that planet. nothing in particular seems to be the matter with mars. on the contrary, the mass of jupiter is so great, and his attraction of gravity so powerful, that it is only by his exceedingly rapid diurnal rotation (once in less than ten hours) that it is possible for him to accumulate any effective percentage of oxygen at all. but there is certainly plenty of water there. we may approximately compute, in general terms, the proportion of oxygen in the atmospheres of the other planets in the same way. neptune, it is true, is so far distant from the sun that the solar orb only "appears about the same magnitude as venus when at its greatest brilliancy, as viewed from the earth," but we must not forget that "the intensity of the sun's light would be more than ten thousand times greater than that of venus" (professor dunkin, in "the midnight sky"). unless the moon gathers a portion of the earth's oxygen (the planetary satellites, like saturn's rings, thus constituting in their rotations a constituent part of the planets themselves), the percentage of this gas in her atmosphere must be exceedingly small, for her axial rotation has a period of a whole lunar month, being the same as that of her revolution around the earth as a center. the absence of apparent atmosphere and moisture from the visible lunar surface has already been mentioned and explained. the means by which this fact has been approximately determined are described by professor dunkin, in "the midnight sky," as follows: "among the many proofs of the non-existence of a lunar atmosphere, it may be mentioned that no water can be seen; at least there is not a sufficient quantity in any one spot so as to be visible from the earth. again, there are no clouds; for if there were, we should immediately discover them by the variable light and shade which they would produce. but one great proof of the absence of any large amount of vapor being suspended over the lunar surface is the sudden extinction of a star when occulted by the moon. the author has been a constant observer of these phenomena, and, though his experience is of long standing, he has never observed an occultation of a star or planet, especially at the unilluminated edge of a young moon, without having his conviction confirmed that there is no appreciable lunar atmosphere.... professor challis has subjected the results of a large number of these observations to a severe mathematical test, but he has not been able to discover the slightest trace of any effect produced by a lunar atmosphere." in appleton's cyclopædia, article "the moon," it is stated that "schröter (about ) claimed to have discovered indications of vegetation on the surface of the moon. these consist of certain traces of a greenish tint which appear and reappear periodically; much as the white spots covering the polar regions of mars.... as we are able, under the most favorable conditions, to use upon the moon telescopic powers which have the effect of bringing the satellite to within one hundred and fifty to one hundred and twenty miles of us, we should doubtless notice any such marked changes on her surface as the passage of the seasons produces, for example, on our own globe." very recently (august , ), it has been stated, professor gathmann has observed a peculiar green spot about forty by seventy miles in area near the crater of tycho brahe, "on the northwestern edge of the satellite's upper limb," which had disappeared twenty-two hours afterwards. we understand, of course, that the moon's librations, by the variation of position of the lunar body, enable us to see, at times, around the edge of this satellite somewhat, so that, instead of observing only one-half, we can in this way see nearly six-tenths of her surface, but not at the same time, of course. when the moon is dark it occupies a position between the earth and the sun, and only its opposite face is illuminated. in this position the attraction of solar gravity and the attraction of the electrically opposite solar electrosphere both accumulate their forces upon the moon's atmosphere in the same line as the repulsion of the earth's similar electricity, so that the lunar moisture and atmosphere are, at this part of her subordinate orbit, most powerfully forced away from the direction of the earth. as the moon now proceeds towards her first quarter, the terrestrial repulsion drives her atmosphere radially outward, while solar gravity and electrical attraction tend to hold it in the direction of the sun. the result will be an electrospheric libration, so to speak, and the moon's atmosphere and moisture will be carried around towards its illuminated face and, to some extent, will overlap the area of terrestrial repulsion. but as the moon advances this will gradually diminish, soon cease, and finally be reversed as it again approaches darkness. we can now understand why the green surface, if it really was due to vegetation, appeared along the lunar margin at the time described above, and also that the observation of planetary occultations "at the unilluminated edge of the young moon" was the very worst part of the moon and its orbit in which to look for air or moisture; as the sun's influence is then directly away from the unilluminated surface of the moon, and his "pull" would have, in fact, still further denuded the very portion most persistently examined, and where this absence of atmosphere was especially noted. when considering the transference of energy from the peripheral regions of the solar system to the center, its conversion there into a new form of molecular force, and its subsequent distribution, we find a curious and instructive parallel in the action of the reflex nervous system of animal life. this system is one in which the brain or other conscious center of nerve-energy takes no part. tickle the foot of a child, for example, and its whole muscular system is thrown into uncontrollable convulsions of laughter. here an exciting contact with the terminal filaments of the afferent or sensory nerves is rapidly carried into the local nerve-center of this part of the system,--that is, the sensory column of the spinal cord. this center of ganglionic nerve-matter lies directly against the corresponding motor mass, both freely communicating with each other. the sensory current passing into its central ganglion undergoes some peculiar change of character, probably one of intensification, such as is observed in the action of the condenser of an electrical machine, through which sensory ganglion, thus raised in potential, it passes to the motor ganglion adjacent, where it is instantly transformed into an entirely different form of energy. the sensory character has now entirely disappeared, and it has been converted into and is flashed forth as motor energy to the different muscles of the body, which are immediately contracted, the violent molecular motion of the fibres being at once converted into muscular motion in mass. the changes are entirely analogous to those we see in the different conversions of energy in our solar system. considering the surface of the body as a planetary electrosphere, it is acted upon by excitation from without; currents of energy are engendered, which are at once transmitted to the sensory ganglion, corresponding to the hydrogen atmosphere or electrosphere of the sun; intensification of action here ensues, the current passing through this ganglion or atmosphere into the solar body itself, which corresponds to the motor ganglion; both ganglia are now highly excited; the electrical force is converted into the radiant molecular motor energy of heat and light in the sun and muscular excitement in the body, and these are flashed forth and find scope for their action within the body of the subject or upon the surface of the planets, which lie, like the muscular structure of the body, within the genetic electrosphere where, acted upon from without and by agencies entirely external, moving contact has induced the primary molecular action, which was then instantaneously transferred to the center, there converted into another form, that of motor energy, and thence sent forth to produce action in the muscles of the body in the one case, and in the other upon the planetary bodies and their satellites and other structures which occupy surrounding space. chapter v. the distribution and conservation of solar energy. what, then, becomes of the light and heat flashed forth with eternal energy from the fiery waves of the sun's incandescent atmosphere? professor ball ("in the high heavens") says, "much of what has been said with regard to light may be repeated with regard to heat. we know that radiant heat consists of ethereal undulations of the same character as the waves of light. hence we see that the heat or the light radiated from a glowing gas is mainly provided at the expense of the energy possessed by the molecules in virtue of their internal oscillations." conversely, of course, the ethereal undulations thus induced by high molecular motion in the heated gas or vapor must disappear in so-called absorption or transference by contact with other molecules, themselves devoid of such specific internal oscillations. the heat motion then disappears as heat by its conversion into work, just as the motion of a belt in a mill disappears in the work of the machine which it drives. one two-hundred-and-thirty-two-millionth part of the radiant solar energy, we know, is caught by the flying planets of our system in the forms of heat and light, adapted to sustain life and its continued potentiality, and we know that this solar energy is the sole source of all the development and maintenance of the planets as the possible abodes of organic life, past, present or future. but what of the vast total, of which we consume so minute a fraction? it is true that, in addition to the planets, space is occupied by many small meteoric bodies, which manifest themselves to us as shooting stars and meteorites, but the mass of these is too trifling to be estimated. professor helmholtz, in his "popular scientific lectures," says, "according to alexander herschel's estimates, each stone is, on an average, at a distance of four hundred and fifty miles from its neighbors." when these bodies enter our atmosphere by force of the earth's attraction they are heated by its atmospheric friction to incandescence, and in most cases are even volatilized before reaching the earth's surface. the vast volumes of solar heat and light, however, are poured forth from the sun indiscriminately in all directions into illimitable space, wherein all the masses of concrete matter, including the stars, are relatively far less in volume than the flying motes of the purest morning air which sparkle in the flood of light sent forth by the rising sun. is all the rest wasted? professor balfour stewart, in his work "the conservation of energy," says, "if this be the fate of the high-temperature energy of the universe, let us think for a moment what will happen to its visible energy. we have spoken already about a medium pervading space, the office of which appears to be to degrade and ultimately extinguish all differential motion, just as it tends to reduce and ultimately equalize all difference in temperature. thus, the universe would ultimately become an equally heated mass, utterly worthless as far as the production of work is concerned, since such production depends upon difference of temperature." it is obvious that the starting-point taken by the author last quoted, but which, nevertheless, is in accordance with the views now generally prevalent, is diametrically opposed to that sought to be established in this work. professor stewart takes the sun's inherent energy as the initial point of departure, and reasons from that as to the final consequence when all its light and heat shall have been distributed or dissipated into the attenuated medium which occupies space, and which will be thus slowly heated until all space has been raised in temperature to that of the last dying sun, when all will thenceforth remain unchanged and unchangeable, silent, dark, and dead, to all eternity. on the contrary, the purpose of the present work is to establish a directly opposite principle, based, however, on demonstrated scientific facts and not on theory, that the medium which pervades all space was originally in the same equally and universally potential state (with its molecules raised to a tension constituting an unstable equilibrium) in which, practically, professor stewart's argument leaves it finally, and that this universal molecular energy of position was permanently maintained by the employment of the forces which afterwards, transformed into light and heat, were shed abroad by the sun in the work of again overcoming the intermolecular tension of cohesion, and that the light and heat of the sun are merely caught up again by these same or other molecules and successively employed in the same manner, while the planetary electrospheres utilize these same forces of internal tension in the generation of electricity, which, sent to the sun, is converted into light and heat, and these are again transferred to their original source. the rotation of the planets is the grand exciting cause, and the process, in its complete cycle of development, has live stages: first, planetary generation; second, transference by currents of electricity to the sun; third, conversion into light and heat; fourth, emission; and, fifth, reabsorption and conversion again into molecular energy of position. all space is thus found to be pervaded by extremely attenuated vapors, which contain the elemental constituents out of which suns and planets are evolved under favorable circumstances of development, and, among other vapors, aqueous vapor, and that these are the agency upon which the planetary electrospheres operate in their generation of electrical currents, and which vapors, in turn, by absorption of the solar energy of radiation, again transform this energy into mutually balanced electric potential, until it is once more disengaged as electricity by the rotating planetary electrospheres, and so on in a constant circuit forever repeated. it differs from perpetual motion, however, in that the planetary rotation is the external and not the internal generative cause, since the electrical forces neither cause nor control these motions; they belong to the realm of gravity. the disassociation, moreover, is electrical and not chemical disassociation. the tensions are against cohesion and not against chemical affinity; are, in fact, similar to those which constitute our atmosphere a vast electrical reservoir; and the aqueous vapors, through all their changes, permanently remain as aqueous vapors, except those condensed portions disassociated by electrolytic action at the electrospheric poles, and which have no relation to the attenuated vapors of space, except in that the latter are their sources of supply. the process is analogous to what we see around us at all times in the atmosphere. while the process described by professor stewart resembles the emptying of the inherent water of a cloud, in the form of rain, into an ocean which never yields up its water again, so that, when the cloud has rained itself out, it is gone forever, the processes here sketched are like the vapors which are caught up by the heated air, carried over the thirsty lands, distributed in rain to fertilize and vivify them, then gathered in a thousand tiny rills from countless fountains, again descending to the sea and again carried up in vapor, and so on over and over in unceasing round. it is the difference between an old-fashioned flintlock musket and a modern magazine rifle, except that the magazine is always full. this great ocean of space was primordially charged with these potential vapors; it is the constitution of space itself. we are so accustomed to consider space as empty, and that it is nothingness, the antithesis of something or anything, that it is a negation or a blank, that it requires an effort to even think of it as a fully stocked establishment with all the goods necessary for use or ornament, in the latest styles and of prime quality, only not made up, and that all our suns and worlds are merely tailoring establishments where the operatives cut and fit and make them up to order. when more goods are wanted they have to go to the store. is space, then, eternal, and is this constant round of energies to be eternal? if one is eternal, so is the other, and surely nothing can be more eternal than space, and we cannot conceive of any other space than this space. out of it came all created things, and so long as the orbs rotate without retardation, so long will these interchanges go on without impairment, and that they do so rotate is the necessary corollary of the fact that they ever began to rotate. if rotation, on the contrary, was imparted by special creative power, then the same power established the laws by which they rotate, and took cognizance of resistance as well. whatever the impulse was, it still remains; whatever caused the rotation to begin maintains it; if the cause is eternal the rotation may be eternal; and, in any case, its period must be measured by cycles of æons, to which the allotted lifetime of a dying sun--a few million years, perhaps--is but as the sunburst of a morning-glory flower to the hoary age of a mighty planet. compared with the popular view of the sun's life-period, we may formulate the terms of an equation in which the sun's mass, compared with the realms of infinite space, is as the sun's lifetime--on a basis of contraction of his volume--to the lifetime which actually is to be. as one of the terms is practically infinite, so must be the answer to the problem. professor stewart says, "we cannot help believing that there is a material medium of some kind between the sun and the earth; indeed, the undulatory theory of light requires this belief." it has already been shown that the transmission of electricity also requires it, but that there must be a medium quite different from the undulatory ether. professor proctor ("mysteries of time and space") says, "we may admit the possibility that the aqueous vapor and carbon compounds are present in stellar or interplanetary space." again he says, "assuming, as we well may, that space is really occupied by attenuated vapors." the same writer says further, "to this end all thoughtful study of the mechanism seems to tend (associating, perhaps, our visible universe with others, permeating it as the ether of space permeates the densest solids, and in turn with others so permeated by it); there may be that constant interchange, that perpetual harmony, of which goethe sung: 'balanced worlds from change defending, while everywhere diffused is harmony unending.'" the light and heat poured forth from the sun are, as stated, in the form of radiated energy. they penetrate the attenuated vapors as far as vision extends, and doubtless farther, but they cannot reach the boundaries of space, for even the mind of man cannot reach those limits. aqueous vapor absorbs heat; we know this without any demonstration, for the radiated heat of the earth is arrested by a veil of clouds, so that on cloudy nights frost will not form. so also the sun shining into water will raise its temperature, as in a glass globe, and such absorption of heat by aqueous vapors or water would be much more manifest were not a large part employed in loosening the tension of the constituent molecules, since, when thus employed, it is not manifest as sensible heat. professor tyndall, in "the forms of water," states that "the quantity of heat which would raise the temperature of a pound of water one degree would raise the temperature of a pound of iron ten degrees." professor stewart, in "the conservation of energy," says, "that peculiar motion which is imparted by heat when absorbed into a body is, therefore, one variety of molecular energy.... part of the energy of absorbed heat is spent in pulling asunder the molecules of the body under the attractive force which binds them together, and thus a store of energy of position is laid up, which disappears again after the body is cooled. "heat will only be changed into work while it passes from a body of high temperature to one of low.... at very high temperatures it is possible that most compounds are decomposed, and the temperature at which this takes place, for any compound, has been termed its temperature of disassociation. heat energy is changed into electrical separation when tourmalines and certain other crystals are heated." it may be added that it is also changed into electrical energy by the operation of all electrical machines, as molecular motions are all mutually interconvertible, and heat itself is only a mode of such motion. of radiant energy, the same writer says, "this form of energy [radiant heat] is converted into absorbed heat whenever it falls upon an opaque substance ... and heats it. it is a curious question to ask what becomes of the radiant light from the sun that is not absorbed either by the planets of our system or by any of the stars. we can only reply to such a question that, as far as we can judge from our present knowledge, the radiant energy that is not absorbed must be conceived to be traversing space at the rate of one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles a second." we know, of course, that aqueous vapors are partially opaque to heat rays, as the radiated heat of the earth is partially arrested by such vapors in the atmosphere, but they are apparently transparent to the rays of light. but we know that this cannot be entirely true in fact, for light rays only differ from heat rays in the comparative length of their waves or impulses, while rays of light are always accompanied--when emitted by a thermally incandescent body--by a much larger number of those of heat. as a body is raised in temperature radiant dark rays first appear; these being raised higher, become visible as light, and new dark rays are radiated behind them, and this continues till after the state of highest incandescence is reached and the invisible chemical rays beyond the spectrum appear. it is like a crowd surging forth in flight from the doors of a building; as the speed of those in front increases to a run, others follow more slowly in the mass, and as these gain speed others continue to follow, while the great mass of laggards still trails along in a lengthening line to the rear. the perception of light is itself merely due to the constitution of the optic apparatus of the observer, which only takes cognizance of vibrations radiated from the middle portion of the scale, just as the ear does with sounds, and not to any actual difference in their mode of production. that heat rays and light rays are identical in constitution can be readily shown by the experiment described by professor tyndall in his "forms of water," in which an opaque screen of iodine solution in bisulphide of carbon was employed to arrest, in a beam of light, all the light waves (to which it is entirely opaque), while transmitting the dark rays. these non-luminous rays are then converged by a lens: "let us, then, by means of our opaque solution, isolate our dark waves and converge them on the cotton. it explodes as before.... at the same dark focus sheets of platinum are raised to vivid redness; ... a diamond is caused to glow like a star, being afterwards gradually dissipated." sir william herschel (see article "spectrum," appleton's cyclopædia) says, "if we call light those rays which illuminate objects, and radiant heat those which heat bodies, it may be inquired whether light be essentially different from radiant heat. in answer to which i would suggest that we are not allowed by the rules of philosophizing to admit of two different causes to explain certain effects, if they may be accounted for by one."... "tyndall, by similar experiments, found that the thermal energy of the invisible radiation of a very powerful electric light is eight times that of the visible.... seebeck showed that the position of maximum heat in the spectrum changes with the nature of the prism and sometimes occurs in the red." melconi, with prisms of alcohol and water, found it in the yellow. athermic bands are also found in the heat-spectrum, corresponding to the fraunhofer lines seen in the visible spectrum. we may illustrate this successive development of more and more rapid light-waves by conceiving of a harp having musical strings of various length and thickness, but not strung up, so that, when swept by the hand, the vibrations are felt, but no musical tones are produced. if, now, all the strings are simultaneously and gradually stretched while under continuous vibration, we will first hear the hum of the lighter strings, but deep down in the scale; and as the tension gradually increases the pitch of these will rise higher and higher and be succeeded by other new tones below, until the whole register is simultaneously sounded. and if the tension be further increased, the vibrations of the upper strings will gradually grow so rapid that the ear can take no cognizance of them, corresponding to the invisible chemical rays of the spectrum, while the middle strings will be sounding loudly, and others will be slowly vibrating below the musical scale, but without sound, corresponding to the invisible heat rays. in addition to this gradual ascent of pitch along the scale, however, there is reason to believe that sympathetic vibrations are induced in the spectrum of thermal and chemical light corresponding to the over-tones in music and to those hidden rhythms which differentiate the "timbre" of one kind of musical instrument from that of another, so that a definite wave-length will not only repeat itself among adjacent molecules, but will give rise to harmonious vibrations quite different in amplitude and velocity. an example of this is found in some of the phenomena of phosphorescence and fluorescence, in which chemical rays totally invisible are able, under suitable conditions, to excite molecular movements corresponding to parts of the visible spectrum, and quite different in wave-lengths and in rapidity. this process is precisely the converse of what we perceive in thermal light; in the latter case the colors ascend, loaded with invisible heat rays; in the former they descend, loaded with invisible chemical rays, only noted, perhaps, by their actinic action on the photographic plate. others, as the sulphide of calcium paints and the like, repeat their own vibrations for many hours, and we find in certain chemical salts of some rare metals, as lanthanum and cerium, the curious property of suddenly raising the whole scale, as in a recently introduced gas-lamp, in which a skeleton mantle of these oxides glows with a wondrously beautiful white light under the relatively low temperature of a small bunsen burner; similar phenomena are manifested in the behavior of electric discharges in attenuated gases, as well as in what is known to children as "fox-fire," wood undergoing slow decomposition in damp places, or in the self-luminous secretions (corresponding, perhaps, to ptomaines or like products) of glow-worms and other animals. if we ever--as we probably soon shall--reach that point where we can illuminate our dwellings with "cold candles," as the inhabitants of tropical countries carry about a few fire-flies in a paper box for a lantern on dark nights, it must be by the study of these phenomena. but meantime "old sol" will continue to discharge his accumulating stores of both heat and light, for both these are essential, not only for use upon the planets, but throughout all the realms of space. in the transformation into and emission of his radiant energy the sun is not a chemical engine, but a mill,--one of those which "grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small." the difference between radiated thermal light and heat is obviously one of degree only and not of kind. the undulations of light may be compared to the thrust of a rapier, and the more massive waves of radiant heat to the blow of a bludgeon, but the same resistance which arrests the advance of the one must retard and finally arrest that of the other, if sufficiently extended. within the limits of a space in which professor stewart conceives that the first rays of light which ever flashed forth at the dawn of creation, in the primal æons of the universe, are still to this day, along their original lines of radiation, "traversing space at the rate of one hundred and eighty-eight thousand miles per second," there must certainly be room enough and absorption enough (which even a few yards of mist will supply) to curb these runaway steeds somewhere along their lines of flaming passage. at that very point they are at work acting upon the molecules of the attenuated vapors of space, and assisting to re-establish the potential energy which has there been converted, into another form of force by the planetary rotations of the solar systems of those distant regions. by the law of the diffusion of gases, and that of the diffusion or transference of heat-energy from molecule to molecule, the vast realms of interstellar space must tend to be all brought into approximate uniformity of tensions, and the force abstracted at those points of space occupied by the relatively few and insignificant solar systems will be returned, not directly at the identical places where such solar systems may exist, but at every part of space to which their radiant energy extends. as we give from our own supplies to other systems for their support, so they, in turn, give back again to us. it is said that in the earliest days of creation the stars sang together; they still sing together, planets and suns, as "jura answers from her misty shroud back to the joyous alps, who call to her aloud." when old earth lifts his brimming beaker from the great crystal sea and drains it to the good health of all the stars of heaven, they each respond with fiery energy, and by their merry twinkle we may know how highly they appreciate the toast. we are all one family,--but what a family! comets, planets, double stars, variable stars, stars of complementary colors, blue, yellow, orange, and red stars, stars which blaze up in sudden conflagration, apparently new stars, nebulæ half star and half vapor, nebulæ all vapor and others all stars, the vast milky-way like a wondrous river of hundreds of millions of solar systems, the insulated stars scattered through space like watchmen on the distant hills beyond the city walls, streams of stars, stars which are parting from each other in space like scattering families, and those which travel together in groups like pioneers in a strange country,--all these and doubtless other unknown types and forms compose this sidereal family. will they fall into their categories as lawful subjects, so as to be properly classified in a single scheme of the visible order of creation, or shall we fail to interpret their apparent mysteries when we apply the same principles which have been successfully applied to the phenomena of our own solar system? let us see. in examining the sun, we find that a beam of its light passed through a prism is thrown upon the wall in a wedge-shaped streak of rainbow-tinted colors. fraunhofer, many years ago, found that this spectrum was crossed at irregular intervals by a series of dark lines, of variable width and distance apart, of which he catalogued more than five hundred. these lines were subsequently found to correspond in the aggregate, in their position in the spectrum, with a series of bright lines of different colors which formed the separate spectra of various metals when burned, in vapor or powder, in the flame of an alcohol lamp. each of these transverse lines was found to have a fixed and invariable position in the extended scale of the spectrum, and scarcely any lines of the different elements are alike; so that, when the spectrum is properly magnified under telescopic observation and the lines identified, we have the means of determining the presence or absence of such elements in the vaporous constitution of any incandescent body by examination of its spectrum. in this way many of our terrestrial elements are found to exist in the sun,--so many, in fact, that we know that the sun's nucleus, or core, must be composed substantially of the same elements, the same sort of matter, as exists on earth,--that we are, in fact, "a chip of the old block." but it was found--and this is the real basis of spectrum analysis--that if a certain metal or other element be burned in the flame of an alcohol lamp, and a more brilliant flame of the same metal or element burned in another lamp be observed through the first flame, it will be seen that, "while the general illumination of the spectrum is increased, the previous bright lines characterizing the element are now replaced by dark lines or lines relatively very faint; in a word, the spectrum characteristic of the given element is exactly reversed" (appleton's cyclopædia, article "spectrum analysis"). we have referred to this fact above in considering the origin of sun-spots, showing that they are due to increased heat acting upon the core of the sun so as to volatilize an abnormally large proportion of the elements usually in a more condensed state upon the surface of the solar body beneath its hydrogen envelope. these vapors, thus raised in temperature, are driven upward by their volatilization into the incandescent atmosphere of hydrogen, and the vaporous matters in the higher strata thus produce the characteristic absorption bands of these elements, while the overheated vapors, by a vast uprush from beneath, hurl aside the more highly heated hydrogen above to appear as faculæ around the sun-spot, the cooler upper layers of hydrogen following downward the subsiding vaporous metallic uprush as it sinks back beneath the photospheric level. it is obvious that by similar spectrum analysis we may determine to a large extent the constitution of the fixed stars and other self-luminous bodies of space and interpret the phenomena which they exhibit. we quote the following from the previously cited article in appleton's cyclopædia, by professor proctor: "spectroscopic analysis applied to the stars has shown that they resemble the sun in general constitution and condition. but characteristic differences exist, insomuch that the stars have been divided into four orders distinguished by their spectra. these are thus presented by secchi, who examined more than five hundred star spectra: the first type is represented by alpha lyræ, sirius, etc., and includes most of the stars shining with a white light, as altair, regulus, rigel, the stars beta, gamma, epsilon, zeta, and eta of ursa major, etc. these give a spectrum showing all the seven colors, and crossed usually by many lines, but always by the four lines of hydrogen, very dark and strong. the breadth of these four lines indicates a very deep, absorptive stratum at a high temperature and at great pressure. nearly half the stars observed by secchi [more than two hundred out of five hundred] showed this spectrum. the second type includes most of the yellow stars, as capella, pollux, arcturus, aldebaran, alpha of ursa major, procyon, etc. the fraunhofer lines are well seen in the red and blue, but not so well in the yellow. the resemblance of this spectrum to the sun suggests that stars of this type resemble the sun closely in physical constitution and condition. about one-third of the stars observed by secchi [more than one hundred and fifty out of five hundred] showed this spectrum. the third type includes antares, alpha of orion, and alpha of hercules, beta of pegasus, mira, and most of the stars shining with a red light. the spectra show bands of lines; according to secchi, there are shaded bands, but a more powerful spectroscope shows multitudes of fine lines. the spectra resemble somewhat the spectrum of a sun-spot, and secchi has advanced the theory that these stars are covered in great part by spots like those of the sun. about one hundred [out of five hundred] of the observed stars belong to this type." (it should be noted that the presence of sun-spots is no evidence of diminished heat in a sun; see professor proctor in his "myths and marvels of astronomy," article "suns in flames:" "it may be noticed, in passing, that it is by no means certain that the time when the sun is most spotted is the time when he gives out least light.... all the evidence we have tends to show that when the sun is most spotted his energies are most active. it is then that the colored flames leap to their greatest height and show their greatest brilliancy, then also that they show the most rapid and remarkable changes of shape.") ... "the fourth type differs from the preceding in the arrangement and appearance of the bands. it includes only faint stars. a few stars, as gamma of cassiopeia, eta of argus, beta of lyra, etc., show the lines of hydrogen bright instead of dark, as though surrounded by hydrogen glowing with a heat more intense than that of the central orb itself around which the hydrogen exists." all the above five hundred stars reveal the presence of hydrogen under precisely such conditions as conform to the general principle involved in the source and mode of solar energy as herein stated. but a single star (betelgeuse) was observed by huggins and miller in england which showed the lines of sodium, magnesium, iron, bismuth, and calcium, "but found those of hydrogen wanting." of the spectrum of this gas, professor ball says, "the hydrogen spectrum appears to present a simplicity not found in the spectrum of any other gas, and therefore it is with great interest that we examine the spectra of the white stars, in which the dark lines of hydrogen are unusually strong and broad." referring to the new star in the northern crown, which burst forth in , the same writer says, "the feature which made the spectrum of the new star essentially distinct from that of any other star that had been previously observed was the presence of certain bright lines superposed on a spectrum with dark lines of one of the ordinary types. the position of certain of these lines showed that one of the luminous gases must be hydrogen." of this particular star (betelgeuse) it is said (proctor's "familiar essays"), "red stars and variable stars affect the neighborhood of the milky way or of well-marked star-streams. the constellation orion is singularly rich in objects of this class. it is here that the strange 'variable' betelgeuse lies. at present this star shows no sign of variation, but a few years ago it exhibited remarkable changes." we thus see that betelgeuse is a variable star, and it must have passed in its different variations between the limits of extreme brilliancy, in which the lines of hydrogen appear bright, and that of a less brilliant stage, in which they appear dark,--that is, as absorption bands. it has thus, in fact, run the gamut, so to speak, of color changes, and now occupies an intermediate position in the scale. in his article "star unto star," the same writer says, "on this view we may fairly assume that the darkness of the hydrogen lines is a characteristic of stars at a much higher temperature than our sun and suns of the same class." we have already seen that the spectra of stars of the fourth type--appleton's cyclopædia, "spectrum analysis"--"show the lines of hydrogen bright instead of dark, as though surrounded by hydrogen glowing with a heat more intense than that of the central orb itself." professor dunkin says, in his work "the midnight sky," "one of the conclusions drawn by kirchhoff from these experiments is that each incandescent gas weakens, by absorption, rays of the same degree of refrangibility as those it emits; or, in other words, that the spectrum of each incandescent gas is reversed when this gas is traversed by rays of the same refrangibility emanating from an intensely luminous source which gives of itself a continuous spectrum like that of the sun." ... "the third division, including betelgeuse, antares, alpha herculis, and others of like color, seems to be affected by something peculiar in their physical composition, as if their photospheres contained a quantity of gas at a lower temperature than usual. the stars in this class have generally a ruddy tint, probably owing to their light having undergone some modification while passing through an absorbing atmosphere.... a great number of the stars in the third division are variable in their lustre." we may therefore readily conclude that midway between the inverted lines which constitute the dark absorption bands and the faint spectra which show the bright lines of hydrogen direct there must be an atmosphere of glowing hydrogen superposed upon a deeper one in such proportion that it will not reveal its presence in the spectroscope at all; for when the dark and light bands, which occupy precisely the same position in the spectrum, are of approximately equal intensity the result will obviously be the neutralization of both. that among a myriad suns, some with dark hydrogen lines and some with bright, there should occur occasionally an example corresponding to this point of divergence, and especially among variable stars, is not only to be expected, but is, in fact, confirmatory of the general hypothesis itself. it is an exception which emphatically proves the rule, when we can trace the operative cause which has produced it. chapter vi. the phenomena of the stars. let us now consider the phenomena of the double stars. these were formerly believed to be single orbs, but the more powerful telescopes of recent years have shown them to consist of two suns, each substantially similar to our own sun, revolving around each other at a relatively small distance apart. in appleton's cyclopædia, article "star," we read, "it is noteworthy that few simple stars show such colors as blue, green, violet, or indigo; but among double and multiple star systems not only are these colors recognized, but such colors as lilac, olive, gray, russet, and so on. a beautiful feature in many double stars remains to be noticed: it is often found that the components exhibit complementary colors. this is oftener seen among unequal doubles, and then the larger component shows a color from the red end of the spectrum, as red, orange, or yellow, while the smaller shows the corresponding color from the blue end, as green, blue, or purple. the colors are real, not merely the result of contrast, for when the larger star is concealed the color of the smaller remains (in most cases) unchanged. spectrum analysis shows that the colors of many double stars are due to the absorptive vapors cutting off certain portions of the light.... the components are circling around each other, or rather around their common center of gravity." professor ball, in his work "in the high heavens," says, "there is no more pleasing phenomenon in sidereal astronomy than that presented by the contrasted hues often exhibited by double stars.... it seemed not at all impossible that there might be some optical explanation of colors so vividly contrasted emanating from points so contiguous. it was also remembered that blue stars were generally only present as one member of an associated pair.... when, however, dr. huggins showed that the actual spectrum of the object demonstrated that the cause of the color in each star arose from absorption by its peculiar atmosphere, it became impossible to doubt the reality of the phenomena. since then it has been for physicists to explain why two closely neighboring stars should differ so widely in their atmospheric constituents, for it can be no longer contended that their beautiful hues arise from an optical illusion." of these double stars with complementary colors we quote the following from professor dunkin (who, in turn, quotes from admiral smyth, the author of "sidereal chromatics"): "in eta cassiopeiæ the large star is a dull white and the smaller one lilac; in gamma andromedæ, a deep yellow and sea-green; in iota cancri, a dusky orange and a sapphire blue; in delta corvi, a bright yellow and purple; and in albiero, or beta cygni, yellow and blue. in most of the remaining stars of the list the contrasting colors are equally marked, and also in many others which are not included in it." some of these double stars are variable in their colors, as are the ordinary single variables, and, of course, for a similar reason,--to wit, the varying intensity of more or less cumulative planetary impacts. the interpretation, of course, as explained below, is that these suns, each one of different mass and consequently of different electrical resistance, are arranged in parallel circuit along a single line of electric current; a pair of different-sized arc or incandescent lamps, similarly arranged, would exhibit precisely the same phenomena. a compound solar system of this sort, apparently, with double sun and single planetary system in process of formation, nearly completed from a spiral nebula, is shown in a gaseous nebula within the constellation ursa minor, illustrated in lord rosse's drawing (see nichols "architecture of the heavens," plate x., lower figure). more than three thousand of these binary stars have been catalogued, and some of them make a complete revolution about their common centers of gravity--so distant are they from each other--in periods of not less than sixty, or even eighty, years. of the double star mizar,--the middle one of the three which form the tail of the great bear,--professor ball states that, by new methods of spectroscopic analysis, the component stars which form this double have been found to be one hundred and fifty millions of miles apart, while alcor, a smaller star, visible to the naked eye, and enormously farther from mizar than are the components of the latter from each other, moves through space in a parallel direction and with the same velocity as its double companion. what the connection may be, if any, we do not know, but their identical course is obviously related to some common circumstance of origin, as is the probable case with those other groups of stars which drift through space together. they show that solar systems are not necessarily individual creations, but may be formed in groups at the same period of time, and by the operation of natural laws simultaneously directed upon or into the creative matter from which solar systems are built up and sent along their way. it has been already shown that our sun has a motion around the center of gravity of our own solar system, as a whole, similar to that of the binary stars around each other, but that, by reason of his vast relative mass (seven hundred and fifty to one for all the planets), this center is always within the confines of his own volume. if, however, our sun were divided into two suns one, two, or five million miles apart, each revolving around a common center of gravity situated between the two, and the planets revolving around the same center of gravity, but relatively more distant, the planets would thus rotate around both suns as a common center, and with the electric polarity of both suns the same, as must necessarily be the case, they would present phenomena precisely similar to those exhibited by the double stars. and such might very easily be the case in even a system so small as our own, for the planet mercury has so elliptical an orbit that its distance from the sun varies in different parts of its annual movement from twenty-eight to forty-five millions of miles. there would then be mutual electric repulsion of the two solar electrospheres, such as we see in the case of comets and in the sun's corona and long streamers. professor proctor, article "the sun's long streamers," says, "these singular appendages, like the streamers seen by professor abbe, extend directly from the sun, as if he exerted some repellent action.... i cannot but think that the true explanation of these streamers, whatever it may be (i am not in the least prepared to say what it is), will be found whensoever astronomers have found an explanation of comets' tails.... whether the repulsive force is electrical, magnetic, or otherwise, does not at present concern us, or rather does concern us, but at present we are quite unable to answer the question." a similar example is to be found in the self-repellent positive electrospheres of the earth and moon, illustrated on a previous page, which, in fact, are types among planets of precisely what we find in double stars. now, if these double central suns, with a common system of planets revolving around them both, differ one from the other in size, they will differ also in the depth and density of their hydrogen atmospheres, and the electric forces directed against them will produce different results in each. in one we will have high temperature, great volatilization, and wide absorption bands; in the other, a shallow atmosphere, a temperature below that of an extensive volatilization of its metallic components, and a spectrum rich in light at the blue end, while the former one will be correspondingly richer in the yellow and red rays at the opposite and lower end of the spectrum. one, in fact, will manifest the phenomena of blue-white stars, the other, those of orange-red, but variously modified in a chromatic series. the case may be extended to multiple stars, and complementary colors, more or less perfect, may be almost predicated as the law of compound solar bodies having cores like that of our sun, but each of different mass, and surrounded by hydrogen atmospheres of different depths and densities, both acted upon by the same exterior planetary electrical currents. it is certainly true of double stars, and probably so of all the others. of course such enormously massive double suns presuppose enormous planets, rotating around them at enormous distances; but when we compare the distance of our own satellite, the moon, from the earth with the distance of neptune from the sun, and consider that the light of the sun will reach neptune in about four hours, and then compare this distance with the inconceivable distances of space requisite to retard and merge all radiant energy into the diffused molecular energy of position, our wonder will cease. we have also to consider those single stars which (see appleton's cyclopædia, article "star") are variable in their brilliancy. "these stars may be divided into periodic variables, irregular variables, and temporary stars. periodic variable stars are those which undergo increase and diminution of light at regular intervals. thus, the star mira, or omicron of cetus, varies in lustre, in a period of three hundred and thirty-one and one-third days, from the second magnitude to a faintness such that the star can only be seen with a powerful telescope, and thence to the second magnitude again. it shines for about a fortnight as a star of the second magnitude, and then remains invisible for five months, the decrease of lustre occupying about three months, the increase about seven weeks. such is the general course of its phases. it does not always, however, return to the same degree of brightness, nor increase and diminish by the same gradations; neither are the successive intervals of its maxima equal. from recent observations and inquiries into its history, the mean period would appear to be subject to a cyclical fluctuation embracing eighty-eight such periods, and having the effect of gradually lengthening and shortening alternately those intervals to the extent of twenty-five days one way and the other. the irregularities in the degree of brightness attained at the maximum are probably also periodical.... it suggests a probable explanation of these changes of brightness, that when the star is near its minimum, its color changes from white to a full red, which, from what we know of the spectra of colored stars, seems to indicate that the loss of brightness is due to the formation of many spots over the surface of this distant sun. "algol is another remarkable variable, passing, however, much more rapidly through all its changes. it is ordinarily a second-magnitude star, but during about seven hours in each period of sixty-nine hours its lustre first diminishes until the star is reduced to a fourth magnitude, and after it has remained twenty minutes at its minimum its lustre is gradually restored. it remains a second-magnitude star for about sixty-two hours in each period of sixty-nine hours. these changes seem to correspond to what might be expected if a large opaque orb is circling around this distant sun in a period of sixty-nine hours, transiting its disk at regular intervals." of this star, professor ball says, "applying the improved spectroscopic process to algol, he [vogel] determined on one night that algol was retreating from the earth at a speed of twenty-six miles per second.... when vogel came to repeat his observations, he found that algol was again moving with the same velocity, but this time towards the earth instead of from it.... it appeared that the movements were strictly periodic; that is to say, for one day and ten hours the star is moving towards us, and then for a like time it moves from us, the maximum speed being ... twenty-six miles a second.... it is invariably found that every time the movement of retreat is concluded the star loses its brilliance, and regains it again at the commencement of the return movement.... the spectroscopic evidence admits of no other interpretation save that there must be another mighty body in the immediate vicinity of algol.... algol must be attended by a companion star which, if not absolutely as devoid of intrinsic light as the earth or the moon, is nevertheless dark relatively to algol. once in each period of revolution this obscure body intrudes itself between the earth and algol, cutting off a portion of the direct light from the star and thus producing the well-known effect." this is, in fact, a periodic transit or eclipse of algol by a planet, such as we see in eclipses of our own sun by the moon and the inner planets, except that algol's planet is apparently single like our moon with reference to the earth, and that it is relatively much larger than any of our own planets, as we would necessarily suppose it to be, if solitary. its mass has been computed by the effects which it produces, and we learn that it is not a dark sun with a brilliant planet, but a brilliant sun with a dark planet, just as our solar system presents. "algol, at the moment of its greatest eclipse, has lost about three-fifths of its light; it therefore follows that the dark satellite must have covered three-fifths of the bright surface.... the period of maximum obscuration is about twenty minutes, and we know the velocity of the bright star, which, along with the period of revolution, gives the magnitude of the orbit." from these data it has been computed that the globe of algol itself is about one-fourth larger than that of our visible sun, but its mass is so much less that its weight is only one-half that of our sun, so that its body is probably gaseous. the author concludes, "no one, however, will be likely to doubt that it is the law of gravitation, pure and simple, which prevails in the celestial spaces, and consequently we are able to make use of it to explain the circumstances attending the movements of algol's dark companion. this body is the smaller of the two, and the speed with which it moves is double as great as that of algol, so that it travels over as many miles in a second as an express train can get over in an hour. the companion of algol is about the same size as our sun, but has a mass only one-fourth as great. this indicates a globe of matter which must be largely in the gaseous state, but which, nevertheless, seems to be devoid of intrinsic luminosity. their distance [apart] is always some three million miles. this is, however, an unusually short distance when compared with the dimensions of the two globes themselves." with this exception, the author says, "the movements of algol and its companion are not very dissimilar to movements in the solar system with which we are already familiar." it will be seen that the want of luminosity in the dark companion of algol finds a ready explanation in the fact that it is a planet, acting precisely as our own planets do, and that the luminosity of algol itself is directly attributable to the electricity developed by the presence of this planet rotating axially and orbitally around it, and the darkness of the planet itself is the necessary correlative of the heat and light of its sun. the planet has about one-half the density of saturn, while algol has one-half the density of the sun, and hence we should expect to find on algol an atmosphere largely composed of glowing hydrogen, and on its planet an atmosphere largely composed of oxygen, in which, doubtless, float enormous clouds of aqueous vapor. the interpretation is direct and conclusive, and upon no other hypothesis can the facts be explained, for their close connection with each other demonstrates their common origin, and their masses are not so different one from the other as to permit, on any theory of their coequal origin as suns, one to glow with the fires of youth and energy and the other to have grown dark and dead from old age and exhaustion, and especially so if still in its gaseous stage, which is that which must characterize its highest state of incandescent energy from the most active condensation of its volume, if the nebular hypothesis has any validity whatever. in fact, this example alone, if the constitution of algol's dark satellite is really gaseous, must go very far to throw the gravest doubt, in itself, on the validity of this hypothesis. the star beta, of the constellation lyra, has a full period of twelve days and twenty-two hours, divided into two periods of six days and eleven hours, in each of which the star has a maximum brightness of about the three and one-half magnitude, but in one period the minimum is about the four and one-third magnitude, while in the other it is about the four and one-half magnitude. this peculiarity points, it is said, to an opaque orb with a satellite, the satellite being occulted by the primary in the alternative transits, and therefore the loss of light is less. the star delta of cepheus is quite different, however, for, while it takes only one, day and fourteen hours in passing from its minimum to maximum of brightness, it occupies three days and nineteen hours, or somewhat more than double this time, in passing from maximum to minimum. two or three hundred of these variable stars are already known. the above examples are cited in detail because they furnish the strongest possible proof of the truth of the hypothesis which we are endeavoring to present. while the movements of the stars algol and beta lyræ may find an adequate interpretation in the one case in a large occulting planet, and in the other in an occulting planet with a satellite, it is obvious that mira and delta cephei cannot be explained except by the presence of planetary bodies or satellites which do not mechanically occult the light of their suns. in these regularly variable stars it is the light which varies, but of course the solar heat must vary also,--that is to say, the solar energy varies regularly, but with unequal periods of growth and decline and with larger periods of cyclical variation in addition. such variations can only be produced by the action of permanently connected and orbitally rotating planetary bodies, acting dynamically through space, to regularly increase and diminish the solar energy, and such bodies can only do this by their orbital positions with reference to each other and to the central sun itself. in this case, since the activity of solar energy is most unquestionably varied by the planetary energies, by their position and movements, at least a portion of solar energy must be due to planetary action, and if this be so, it may be affirmed with certainty that substantially all solar energy may be produced in the same way; for, otherwise, we seek for two diverse causes to produce a single effect, which may be produced by one. we have no knowledge, however, of any planetary energy which could operate to increase or diminish the energy of the central sun in its emission of light, except that which we have already presented, and no theory of our own sun's energy hitherto advanced has ever taken cognizance of the planetary energies of our system as an effective cause for those of the sun. but while the sun's energy is--as it must be in this case--the outcome of that of the planets, it is equally obvious that the planets themselves can have no permanent, inherent energy of their own to generate or modify such energy of the sun, since they are in fact supplied by the solar energy, and their motions are controlled and regulated by the sun itself. hence the inference is irresistible that the planets must derive their primary force from an external source not solar, and this they can only do by means of their rotation in space, and the only force derivable from space of which we have any knowledge is electricity, so that the circle thus becomes complete. how now shall we explain these periodical aberrations of energy? the color of a star, as we know, is no criterion of its age or size. the color is due to atmospheric absorption of the radiant light. the double stars, for example, revolve around each other at regular periods, and they are necessarily of nearly the same age, as sidereal ages are computed, but they frequently differ one from the other in color, and multiple stars may be all different each from the others; and the color, as before stated, is no criterion of size, for a small sun, with its glowing hydrogen in a state of high incandescence, and with few absorption bands in its spectrum, will appear bluish-white, or of that specific type of stars, without reference to size, while a much larger sun, with its light darkened by broad absorption bands and sun-spots, will appear orange or red; and, consequently, difference of color can be no criterion of distance, since a blue-white star of small size will outshine a red orb of much greater magnitude, whether it be more or less distant. the variable stars, for these reasons, belong to the order of red stars mostly, if not altogether. we must also bear in mind that sun-spots do not diminish the solar heat, as they are the result of increased and not of diminished energy. electric currents of high potential pass directly, as we know, along the lines of least resistance to their opposite center of polarity, so that two planets nearly in conjunction with each other transmit their currents almost directly towards the sun's center, and upon the same point of solar latitude, while, if at right angles with the sun, they must deliver their electricity along converging lines and thus strike the solar surface at different points. currents of electricity of high potential also (see "electricity in the service of man," page ), by their own passage, facilitate the passage of succeeding currents, so that generators discharging along the same lines find less and less resistance. it is true that we find no appreciable resistance in the passage of these currents between the earth and the sun, as their velocity is that of light, but both light and electricity may be equally retarded by resistance in a small degree. we know also that in the condensed hydrogen atmosphere of the sun there must be resistance, and also that the resistance in fluids diminishes as the temperature rises. considering now the variable star mira, as above described, we observe, as is the case with delta cephei, also cited, that the period between its greatest light, in a descending scale, and its least is about twice as long as its rise from minimum to maximum. during a period of four years ( to ) it is said that it was not visible at all. if mira be considered a relatively small sun, with its axis strongly inclined to the planetary plane, and having three planets only, two of them constituting a double planet, like the earth and moon, but nearly equal in size, and having a rotation about the sun in nearly eleven months and a rotation about each other in the same period, and, besides these, a much more distant large planet, something like our jupiter, with an orbital period of many years, so that the cycle of relative positions is complete in about eighty-eight of the shorter periods of variation, we would have such results as we see in mira. twice in each revolution of the double planet its two members and their sun would be in conjunction, and we would have great brilliancy and whiteness until the metallic elements began to volatilize in increased proportions; then an era of wide absorption bands and redness, gradually increasing to a maximum after its periods of greatest light, and then slowly diminishing as the double planet advanced in its rotation; and, finally, as it again approached conjunction, the brilliant hydrogen illumination, subsequently followed by the gradually darkened spectrum, and so on, while the large outer planet by its various positions would first relatively retard and then accelerate the variation until its grand cycle was complete. the permanent disappearance for years, if true, may be due to other causes, which will be referred to in considering the phenomena of new and temporary stars. many of the irregular variables may doubtless be similarly explained,--our own sun, in fact, being a variable with a period of about eleven years,--and doubtless the apparent irregularity in most cases is due to lack of sufficient time for observation. those stars which are in fact really irregular in their variation owe their changes, doubtless, to the same causes which produce new stars, so called, and "suns in flames," which will be next considered. among the countless stars of heaven a great catastrophe seems occasionally to occur. a star bursts out into sudden flame, to all appearance, or a great fixed star appears where no star had ever been seen before. in professor proctor's article, "suns in flames" ("myths and marvels of astronomy"), we will find an extended discussion of these wonderful phenomena. the astronomer tycho brahe described the one which appeared in as follows: "it suddenly shone forth in the constellation cassiopeia with a splendor exceeding that of stars of the first magnitude, or even jupiter or venus at their brightest, and could be seen by the naked eye on the meridian at full day. its brilliancy gradually diminished from the time of its first appearance, and at the end of sixteen months it entirely disappeared, and has never been seen since. during the whole time of its apparition its place in the heavens remained unaltered, and it had no annual parallax, so that its distance was of the same order as that of the fixed stars." tycho described its changes of color as follows: first, as having been of a bright white; afterwards of a reddish-yellow, like mars or aldebaran; and, lastly, of a leaden white, like saturn. in a first-magnitude star suddenly appeared in the right foot of ophiucus. "it presented appearances resembling those shown by the former, and disappeared after a few months." many other cases are cited by astronomers, and in "a star appeared in the northern crown, the observations of which threw great light on the subject of so-called new stars. in the first place, it was found that where this new star appeared there had been a tenth-magnitude star; the new star, then, was in reality a star long known, which had acquired new brilliancy. "when first observed with this abnormal lustre, it was shining as a star of the second magnitude. examined with the spectroscope, its light revealed a startling state of things in those remote depths of space. the usual stellar spectrum, rainbow-tinted and crossed by dark lines, was seen to be crossed also by four exceedingly bright lines, the spectrum of glowing hydrogen.... the greater part of the star's light manifestly came from this glowing hydrogen, though it can scarcely be doubted that the rest of the spectrum was brighter than before the outburst, the materials of the star being raised to an intense heat. the maximum brightness exceeded that of a tenth-magnitude star nearly eight hundred times. after shining for a short time as a second-magnitude star, it diminished rapidly in lustre, and it is now between the ninth and tenth magnitudes" (appleton's cyclopædia). of this new star, professor ball says, "another memorable achievement in the early part of dr. huggins's career is connected with the celebrated new star that burst forth in the crown in . it seemed a fortunate coincidence that just at the moment when the spectroscope was beginning to be applied to the sidereal heavens a star of such marvellous character should have presented itself.... the feature which made the spectrum of the new star essentially distinct from that of any other star that had been previously observed was the presence of certain bright lines superposed on a spectrum with dark lines of one of the ordinary types. the position of certain of these lines showed that one of the luminous gases must be hydrogen.... the spectroscope showed that there must have been something which we may describe as a conflagration of hydrogen on a stupendous scale, and this outburst would account for the sudden increase in luminosity of the star, and also to some extent explain how so stupendous an illumination, once kindled, could dwindle away in so short a time as a few days." it will be seen that these new stars leap suddenly into great brilliancy: it is a matter of a few hours only. after remaining a very short time in this stage of abnormal incandescence, they gradually die out again in lustre and revert to their original condition; they are not consumed either in body or atmosphere. several theories have been advanced to account for these remarkable phenomena; see "suns in flames," by professor proctor. one is, in effect, that by some sudden "internal convulsion a large volume of hydrogen and other gases was evolved from it, the hydrogen by its combination with some other element giving out the lines represented by the bright lines, and at the same time heating to a point of vivid incandescence the solid matter of the star's surface.... as the liberated hydrogen gas became exhausted the flame gradually abated, and with the consequent cooling the star's surface became less vivid and the star returned to its original condition;" which, by the way, it never could have done if its atmosphere had been exposed to such a disintegration, without the construction of an entirely new atmosphere precisely similar to the one just destroyed. the process would be one of simple combustion. it requires the evolution of enormous volumes of hydrogen from within the planet, and of other enormous volumes of something else, by which to burn it up and yet not burn up the original hydrogen envelope. this other element could not have previously existed outside the solar body and contiguous thereto, or it would have burned up the ordinary hydrogen envelope of the sun long before, as well as the metallic vapors floating therein. both these mutually hostile gases must have come from within, and this is manifestly impossible, as we should thus have explosion and solar destruction, but not combustion. there is no reason to believe that hydrogen, the lightest of elements, could have remained occluded within the solar mass, to the exclusion of the heavier metals, if disassociated, and if held combined no such sudden liberation could occur. besides, such convulsion would be impossible in any sun at all resembling ours, as any further liberation of gases from internal condensation must be due to solar contraction, hence gradual, and not sudden. moreover, such liberation of hydrogen gas from within would show its spectrum loaded, at its earliest eruption, with absorption bands; and, finally, the convulsion presupposes as great an activity, and consequently as great a difficulty, before the phenomenon as the phenomenon itself presents; for such vast disturbance of mass would be more difficult to account for, and require more energy to produce, than the results themselves. moreover, the whole mass of the star appeared to increase equally in temperature, as shown by the spectrum, and, if produced by an internal convulsion, this must have extended to, if not proceeded from, its core; so that while the combustion of hydrogen might have ceased in a very brief time, the intense heat of the solar mass could not have been dissipated for thousands of years. it would, in fact, have disrupted the whole orb. another theory is that this vast incandescence was caused by the "violent precipitation of some mighty mass--perhaps a planet--upon the globe of that remote sun, by which the momentum of the falling mass would be changed into molecular motion; in other words, into heat and light." this theory is no more plausible than the other, since it fails to account for the enormous volume of hydrogen, with bright lines, as a result of such contact; while professor proctor very clearly shows that such contact would have been preceded, necessarily, by repeated partial grazings, as the outside body repeatedly passed in swifter and closer passage by the sun in its gradually approaching orbital revolutions, and that the increase of light and heat must have been measured by years instead of by hours. the same difficulties exist in the supposed passage of the star through nebulæ or star clouds, of which professor proctor says, "as for the rush of a star through a nebulous mass, that is a theory which would scarcely be entertained by any one acquainted with the enormous distances separating them.... all we certainly know suggests that the distances separating them from each other are comparable with those which separate star from star." in fact, no tenable theory has been advanced which will cover the phenomena. professor proctor describes a star which flamed out in . at midnight, november , a star of the third magnitude was noticed in the constellation of the swan; its light was very yellow; its brilliancy rapidly faded. on december it was equal to a star of the fifth magnitude only, and the color, which had been yellow, was now greenish-blue. "the star's spectrum at this time consisted almost entirely of bright lines. december he found three bright lines of hydrogen, the strong double line of sodium, the triple line of magnesium, and two other lines. one of these last seemed to agree exactly in position with a bright line belonging to the corona seen around the sun during total eclipse." the star afterwards faded away gradually until quite invisible to the naked eye. it will be noticed that none of the above elements--sodium, potassium, or magnesium--are such as would combine with hydrogen to produce the phenomena in question. professor proctor concludes, "this evidence seems to me to suggest that the intense heat which suddenly affected this star had its origin from without." he suggests possible meteoric flights; but meteoric stones themselves are separated in space by enormous distances, and these, if converged in orbital flight, would present the same phenomena of successive grazings as a small planet approaching under like circumstances, and by their gradually increasing incandescence we should certainly have other elements visible in the spectroscope besides those observed. and these meteoric bodies, if projected into the sun, would pass in a very brief time through the hydrogen envelope, producing only local phenomena, so that their first blow would be manifested in volatilization of the outer portions of the mass and broad absorption bands, and consequent redness of the planet, exhibiting great heat, but not great light. in such case the bright lines of hydrogen, if they appeared at all, would only be visible as an after-consequence, and not at the earliest moment of conflagration,--that is, the star might grow from red to white, but by no possibility the reverse. it is, however, characteristic of these new stars that their first flash, as it were, is into the incandescence of directly glowing hydrogen, with its bright lines, then through a series of gradually increasing sun-spots, and finally a slow return to their original condition and apparent magnitude. it is obviously a surface phenomenon of the solar atmosphere, primarily, then followed by consequences involving only the outer surface of the solar core, but with no observable permanent change in the character or constitution of the mass of the sun itself. these characteristics are invariable, and the sequence of phenomena is the same in all the cases observed. chapter vii. temporary stars, meteors, and comets. what, then, is the probable cause of these terrific conflagrations, as they appear to us? take an ordinary electric induction machine,--a holtz or a wimshurst,--and, if the surrounding air is moist, as we operate it we will find that the results are poor, the sparks short and relatively few; but let us take the machine into another room in which the atmosphere is dry and crisp. a wondrous change will occur, and instead of a current which could scarcely flash across a few inches of space, we will now have so great an increase of energy that its tension will even cause the spark to perforate and destroy the glass walls of the heavy leyden jars in which it is condensed. the vast realms of space, with their attenuated vapors, are the field in which the planetary electric generators operate, and into which, likewise, myriads of suns constantly pour their light and heat. we may consider this space, according to the popular view, to be uniform in constitution and density throughout all its parts,--that it is, in fact, like a vast, silent, and motionless dead sea. but this cannot possibly be true, any more than throughout the vast compass of our own atmosphere; for while some parts of space are peopled by millions of solar systems, others, as we can plainly see, so far as telescopic vision extends, are comparatively vacant. far more electricity is being abstracted (so to speak) in some parts of space than in others, and far more heat and light are being poured back to restore the equilibrium in some than in others. we have already seen that the temperature at the exterior surface of the terrestrial atmosphere is estimated to be more than two hundred degrees higher than in the realms of open interplanetary space; hence there must be currents,--currents of rotation like cyclones, vortical currents like whirlwinds, currents of transmission like our land- and sea-breezes and the trade-winds,--and, in fact, all space must be in a state of constant displacement and replacement, and, if visible, we should see it like a vast room filled with smoke, in which currents of every shape and direction and of all velocities would be manifest. such currents could throw nebulæ during their condensation into rotation which could never rotate of their own motion, or gather to centers of aggregation vast whirling clouds of spatial matter, and in the spiral nebulæ we may see many such movements of rotation in apparent active progress. of these we read in appleton's cyclopædia, "they have the appearance of a maelstrom of stellar matter, and are among the most interesting objects in the heavens." in professor nichol's splendid work ("the architecture of the heavens," ) we may see magnificent engravings of these wonderful phenomena, from the drawings by lord rosse, and no one can study these figures without realizing the presence of vast currents in space. in the great spiral nebula in the constellation canes venatici (see illustration in chapter xii.) we perceive that the tail of the smaller nebula has been drawn into the outer convolution of the great spiral, against the radial repulsion of the latter nebula, as we can see by its curvature. this can only be due to a tremendous inflowing current in space. were the deflection due to gravity the trend would be to the center and not to the outer convolution of the larger nebula. professor nichol says, "the spiral figure is characteristic of an extensive class of galaxies." not only in the spiral, but in other forms of nebulæ we may observe these currents of space, so that we cannot fail to perceive that they exist, and we should even conclude, a priori, that these must exist. in the elongated linear nebula in sobieski's crown, illustrated above, its length is deflected into irregular curves apparently due to counter-currents of space. these gaseous nebulæ, flammarion says, "appear like immense vaporous clouds tossed about by some rough winds, pierced with deep rents, and broken in jagged portions." it may be said generally that every sun, as it drifts through space, must leave a wake of increased electric potential among the molecules which line its pathway. beyond the limits of every vortex extend radial or tangential, polar or equatorial, streams of space, and these must extend without limit until deflected or neutralized by other conditions. throughout all space, just as in our own atmosphere, but vastly more slowly, there must be an infinitude of movements in every direction,--movements in lines, circles, vortices, ellipses and irregular curvatures, and of all possible varieties of mass and volume. suppose, now, a sailing vessel lighted with incandescent lamps, the electrical currents for the support of which are derived from the chemical action of sea-water on multiple pairs of suitable metallic plates arranged to extend downward as a galvanic battery into the ocean as the ship sails along, and that these plates, by the chemical action of the sea-water at ordinary, temperatures, should furnish a sufficient current to properly light the vessel. if the constancy of such current depended on the average temperature of the sea-water, at, say, sixty degrees fahrenheit, we should find that, on suddenly crossing into the gulf stream, with a temperature twenty degrees higher, the energy of the battery would be rapidly increased and the lights would glow with increased brilliancy until, on emerging from the gulf stream at its opposite side, the original status would be gradually restored. if these distant solar systems, in their drift through space, should encounter a corresponding stream under an increased molecular tension, more highly heated, for example, or charged with electrical potential by the surrounding solar systems, or otherwise, we should expect a similar result to ensue,--that the currents would be increased suddenly, both in quantity and intensity, and all the phenomena of "blazing" stars be revealed in the precise order in which we see them. professor proctor seems to have had some such idea of space vaguely in his mind when he says, in his "familiar essays," "one is invited to believe that the star may have been carried by its proper motions into regions where there is a more uniform distribution of the material whence this orb recruits its fires. it may be that, in the consideration of such causes of variation affecting our sun in long-past ages, a more satisfactory explanation than any yet obtained may be found of the problem geologists found so perplexing,--the former existence of a tropical climate in places within the temperate zone, or even near the arctic regions. sir john herschel long since pointed to the variation of the sun as a possible cause of such changes of climate." in confirmation of the view that such changes may be due to the passage of a solar system into or through such a "gulf stream" of space, we quote the following from professor proctor's "suns in flames:" "it is noteworthy that all the stars which have blazed out suddenly, except one, have appeared in a particular region of the heavens,--the zone of the milky way (all, too, in one-half of that zone). the single exception is the star in the northern crown, and that star appeared in a region which i have found to be connected with the milky way by a well-marked stream of stars; not a stream of a few stars scattered here and there, but a stream where thousands of stars are closely aggregated together, though not quite so closely as to form a visible extension of the milky way.... now, the milky way and the outlying streams of stars connected with it seem to form a region of the stellar universe where fashioning processes are still at work." in just such regions of potential energy should we look for such currents in space, as, on our own earth, the gulf stream and the trade-winds, as well as cyclones and other atmospheric movements, find their origin under precisely parallel circumstances,--to wit, the outpour upon and direct precipitation of increased quantities of heat at the tropics or other local centers of such development. the effects of such an increase of quantity and potential in an electrical current are clearly illustrated in the device previously referred to, in which electrolytic decomposition was effected in a pail of water; we find it also in the burning out of the brushes and commutators in dynamo-electric machines and in telegraphic apparatus during thunder-storms and the like. allowing a solar system a drift through space only equal to that of our own, which has a relatively slow movement, it would traverse such a "gulf stream" of space seven hundred thousand miles wide in a single day. but it may not even have passed through; it may merely have grazed the margin of such a current; for the motions of solar systems are not controlled by the same forces as those upon which their electrical energies depend. professor ball, in his chapter on the great heat-wave of , says, "towards the end of july an extraordinarily high temperature, even for that period of the year, prevailed over a very large part of the north american continent. the so-called heat-wave then seems to have travelled eastward and crossed the atlantic ocean; ... a fortnight after the occurrence of unusually great heat in the new world there was a similar experience in the old world.... this discussion will at all events enable us to make some reply to the question which has often been asked, as to what was the cause of the great heat-wave.... it is, however, quite possible that certain changes in progress on the sun may act in a specific manner on our climate.... it cannot be denied that local, if not general, changes in the sun's temperature must be the accompaniment of the violent disturbances by which our luminary is now and then agitated. it is, indeed, well known that there are occasional outbreaks of solar activity, and that these recur in a periodic manner; it is accordingly not without interest to notice that the present year has been one of the periods of this activity. we are certainly not going so far as to say that any connection has been definitely established between a season of exuberant sun-spots and a season remarkable for excessive warmth; but, as we know that there is a connection between the magnetic condition of the earth and the state of solar activity, it is by no means impossible that climate and sun-spots may also stand in some relationship to each other." these local deviations are doubtless due to planetary positions with reference to the sun, but more general variations must depend upon the constitution of such parts of space as the solar system may occupy; but even then they will be but temporary, since the sun's volume will rapidly expand or contract so as finally to restore the normal emission of solar heat, as will be further explained later on in this work. there are other causes also, readily conceivable, for such increased electrical action; for instance, in that thickly-peopled region of space, two solar systems adjacent might easily have their exterior planets so related to each other as suddenly, at their points of nearest approach, to cause one or more to direct an abnormally large electrical current into the sun of the adjacent system; this would correspond in electric energy, in fact, to a violent "perturbation" in its orbit by the action of gravity produced by a neighboring planet or system. no reversal of polarity could take place between these planets under these circumstances, any more than between the earth and the moon. in some portions of the milky way, doubtless, suns blaze by dozens across the sky at night, and by day as well, to which, in our more solitary skies, we are strangers. revolving in perfect harmony, perturbations must nevertheless be frequent, and to what limits they may there be confined we shall never know until we realize the extent of these galaxies and the relative contiguity of their solar systems to each other. it is enough to show how such variations may occur; in what particular way they do occur does not affect the question of their origin. even if such increased energy were to continue by permanently increased planetary action, it is not necessary to suppose that a corresponding permanent increase of light and heat would result on the part of the sun, for its density is such (only one-fourth that of the earth) that, under the tremendous force of its gravity (twenty-seven and one-tenth times that of the earth), its constituents cannot be maintained in solid form, but must be, as before stated, either liquid or gaseous, and perhaps in part both. now, as it has been computed that the sun, by contraction to its present density, would have evolved its present light and heat for a period of millions of years, it is obvious that any increase in its present volume, without increase of mass, would produce precisely opposite and compensated results, so that the sun could receive from outside sources as much heat as would expand its present volume to that at the initial point of such assumed condensation without increased emission of light and heat. the sun is thus, in effect, a self-compensating machine, and its passage through a region of increased electrical generation would first manifest itself in a vast increase of brilliancy, due to higher incandescence of its hydrogen envelope; this, in turn, would be communicated to the deeper structures of the sun, producing increased volatilization and dark absorption bands, and finally to the whole solar mass, expanding its volume in proportion to the heat absorbed. hence we should see precisely the phenomena that we do see in flaming stars or so-called new stars. we find such compensations all through nature, and it is simply in accordance with her universal laws that they occur. it is a singular circumstance that the catastrophe which is foretold in the biblical record as the termination of all human life on earth, for the present cycle, at least, should be almost literally in accordance with the phenomena characteristic of such an increase of solar energy, and one produced in some such manner. if the temperature of the solar atmosphere were rapidly raised by increased planetary action to a point which would reverse the lines of hydrogen from dark to bright, say to a brightness eight hundred times that of the normal, as in the case of the temporary star cited, though the heat would not, of course, be increased in any such proportion, yet the heavens would be indeed rolled up as a scroll, and all life would be extinguished in a very brief period. but the planets would continue to roll along their orbits, the integrity of the earth's mass would still be intact, and after a few days or weeks the sun would begin to decline in brightness, the volatilized vapors would slowly recede within the solar atmosphere, and the temperature would gradually fall again to its normal, leaving, however, a lifeless world to roll on its way henceforth, but as bright and cheerful in all its possibilities, when the former conditions had gradually become restored, as before. perhaps some distant astronomer in the neighborhood of sirius--if we shall have travelled so far away by that time--might send a note to the morning papers to announce that the temporary star near alpha centauri had again receded to the tenth magnitude. in due time--perhaps a thousand years--all would be ready for a new development of life, and the cycle would continue as before. perchance, too, in some deep abyss, or buried far beneath the surface, some germs of life might still continue to exist; and from these, like the seeds resurrected from buried mummies, a new life might again begin, guided along once more through vast ages in a progressive ascent from development to development until, in some new and strange forms, the higher types of life might again appear. to these there would indeed be revealed a new heaven and a new earth. who knows how many such cycles of life may have come and gone on earth, in which, like the dwellers of jerusalem, new peoples have built new cities, one above another, upon the unknown graves of the past? in the words of tennyson,-- "a wondrous eft was of old the lord and master of earth, for him did his high sun flame, and his river billowing ran, and he felt himself in his force to be nature's crowning race. as nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, so many a million of ages have gone to the making man: he now is first, but is he the last?" whatever the coming, the progress, or the going of life on earth, the course of our solar system will go on the same, the processes of creation unchanged and her mechanism unimpaired. it is obvious that no such conditions could prevail in the return to unorganizable chaos which must be the consequence of any possible planetary collisions in space. no conceivable process of creation could return a system disrupted into meteorites to an operative solar system again. even the nebular hypothesis contemplates nothing of that sort as, by the wildest conjecture, ever possible. but with us the danger is far distant. professor proctor says, in his article "suns in flames," "as sir william herschel long since pointed out, we can recognize in various parts of the heavens various stages of development, and chief among the regions where as yet nature's work seems incomplete is the galactic zone,--especially that half of it where the milky way consists of irregular streams and clouds of stellar light. as there is no reason for believing that our sun belongs to this part of the galaxy, but, on the contrary, good ground for considering that he belongs to the class of insulated stars, few of which have shown signs of irregular variation, while none have ever blazed suddenly out with many hundred times their former lustre, we may fairly infer a very high degree of probability in favor of the belief that, for many ages still to come, the sun will continue steadily to discharge his duties as fire, light, and life of the solar system." the passage of our system through gradually changing regions of space, as contrasted with streams or vortices, could not affect our sun's light even temporarily, as the contraction and expansion of its volume would fully compensate for any such gradual or partial variation, and, by position, he is far from likely to pass into any of those whirlpools or torrents of space which seem to mark at irregular intervals the region of the irregularly variable stars. allied in appearance to such stars which suddenly flame out in space, but totally different in reality, are comets. these strangers to our own system have excited the wonder and astonishment of mankind from the earliest ages. they seem to defy all rules and all explanation; but, when properly examined, they will fall inevitably into the general scheme of the source and mode of solar energy which we have endeavored to present. these bodies enter our solar system from without. appleton's cyclopædia says, "schiaparelli, to whom the discovery is in part due, considers the meteors to be dispersed portions of the comet's original substance,--that is, of the substance with which the comet entered the solar domain." professor proctor, "meteoric astronomy," says, "a word or two may be permitted on the question of the condition of comets freshly arriving on the scene of the solar system. it is assumed sometimes that the train of meteors already exists when the comet first comes within the solar domain." in the "romance of astronomy" (r. kalley miller, m.a.) it is said, "in a sort of debatable territory between our own solar system and the infinite stellar universe around we come upon these erratic and anomalous bodies--the comets; some of which have accidentally become permanent attendants upon our sun; others have only paid it a single casual visit in the course of their wanderings through space, and are not likely again to come within the range of its attracting influence; while countless millions are doubtless scattered throughout the realms of the infinite, whose existence will never be revealed to human ken at all." professor helmholtz, in fact (see addendum to his lecture on the origin of the planetary system), advanced the idea in a speculative way, that our terrestrial life might have had its origin in one of these meteoric bodies by the "transmission of organisms through space." in professor proctor's article on comets ("mysteries of time and space") he says, "the paths followed by comets show no resemblance either to the planetary orbits or to each other. here we see a comet travelling in a path of moderate extent and not very eccentric; then another which rushes from a distance of two or three thousand millions of miles, approaches the sun with ever-increasing velocity until nearer to him than parts of his own corona (as seen in eclipses), sweeps around him with inconceivable rapidity, and makes off again to where the aphelion of its orbit lies far out in space beyond the most distant known planet,--neptune. some comets travel in a direct, some in a retrograde path; a few near the plane of the earth's orbit, many in planes showing every variety of inclination. some comets regularly return after intervals of a few years; some after hundreds of years; others are only seen once or twice, and then unaccountably vanish; and not a few show by the paths they follow that they have come from interstellar space to pay our system but a single visit, passing out again to traverse we know not what other systems or regions.... when we have said that these objects obey the law of gravity, we have mentioned the only circumstance--as it would appear--in which they conform to the relations observed in terrestrial and planetary arrangements. and even this law--the widest yet revealed to man--they seem to obey half unwillingly. we see the head of a comet tracing out systematically enough its proper orbit, while the comet's tail is all unruly and disobedient.... the fact, then, is demonstrated that two of the meteor streams encountered by the earth are so far associated with two comets as to travel on the same orbits. we may not unsafely infer that all the meteor systems are in like manner associated with other comets. nor is it very rash to assume that all comets are in like manner associated with meteor systems." concerning the influence of gravitation of the planets, the same author says ("meteoric astronomy"), "now, the circumstances under which a comet approaching the sun on a parabolic or hyperbolic orbit can be thus affected must be regarded as exceptional. the planet's influence must, in the first place, be very energetically exercised; in other words, the arriving comet must pass very close to the planet, for under any other circumstances the sun's influence so enormously outvies the planet's that the figure of the cometic orbit would be very little affected. moreover, the planet's attraction must produce an important balance of retardation. the planet will inevitably accelerate the comet up to a certain point, and afterwards will retard it; the latter influence must greatly exceed the former. to show how greatly the comet must be retarded, it is only necessary to mention that the actual velocity of the november meteors when they cross the orbit of uranus is less than one-third of the velocity with which uranus himself travels, but their velocity at the same distance from the sun, when they were approaching him from some distant stellar domain, exceeded the velocity of uranus in his orbit in the proportion of about seven to five.... it follows, not merely as a probable inference, but, i think, as a demonstrated conclusion, that if the november meteors came originally into our system as a comet travelling sunward from infinity, then either that comet was very compact or else uranus captured only a small portion of the comet, the remaining portions moving thenceforth on orbits wholly different from the path of the november meteors.... no other planet than uranus can have brought about the subjection of this comet to solar rule." in his article on comets he says, "it may be well here to consider a case in which some active force (other than gravity) exerted by the sun seems to have brought the destruction of a comet, or at least to have broken up the comet into unrecognizable fragments." he refers to biela's comet, with an orbital period of six and two-thirds years, and a path which was found to approach very near to the path of the earth. in the comet crossed the earth's track several weeks before the arrival of the earth at the same point without appreciable interference. on its second return, in - , it was found to be divided into two comets travelling side by side; in they reappeared, still divided, and gradually diverging from each other. since then they have never reappeared, though diligently sought for at every period. professor proctor adds, "it has been seen again, though not as a comet; nay, the occasion on which it was seen in the way referred to was predicted, and the prediction fulfilled, even in details. for a full account of its reappearance--as a meteor stream--i refer the reader to my essay on biela's comet in 'familiar science studies.'" in miller's "romance of astronomy" we read, "encke's comet, which possesses the smallest orbit of any connected with our system, is sensibly drawing nearer and nearer to the sun at every revolution." in professor proctor's "cometic mysteries," the author says, "we hear it stated that the nucleus of a comet is made up of meteoric stones (professor p. g. tait says--for unknown reasons--that they resemble 'paving stones or even bricks') as confidently as though the earth had at some time passed through the nucleus of a comet, and some of our streets were now paved with stones which had fallen to the earth on such an occasion. as a matter of fact, all that has yet been proved is that meteoric bodies follow in the track (which is very different from the tail) of some known comets, and that probably all comets are followed by trains of meteors. these may have come out of the head or nucleus in some way as yet unexplained; but it is by no means certain that they have done so, and it is by many astronomers regarded as more than doubtful. the most important point to be noticed in the behavior of large comets as they approach the sun is, that usually the side of the coma which lies towards the sun is the scene of intense disturbance. streams of luminous matter seem to rise continually towards the sun, attaining a certain distance from the head, when, assuming a cloud-like appearance, they seem to form an envelope around the nucleus. this envelope gradually increases its distance from the sun, growing fainter and larger, while within it the process is repeated and a new envelope is formed. this, in turn, ascends from the nucleus, expanding as it does so, while within it a new envelope is formed. meanwhile the first one formed has grown fainter, perhaps has disappeared. but sometimes the process goes on so rapidly (a day or two sufficing for the formation of a complete new envelope) that several envelopes will be seen at the same time,--the outermost faintest, the innermost most irregular in shape and most varied in brightness, while the envelope or envelopes between are the best developed and most regular. the matter raised up in these envelopes seems to have undergone a certain change of character, causing it no longer to obey the sun's attractive influence, but to experience a strong repulsive action from him, whereby it is apparently swept away with great rapidity to form the tail. 'it flows past the nucleus,' says dr. huggins, 'on all sides, still ever expanding and shooting backward until a tail is formed in the direction opposite to the sun. this tail is usually curved, though sometimes rays or extra tails sensibly straight are also seen.'" in "the sun as a perpetual machine," professor proctor says, "take, again, the phenomena of comets, which still remain among the greatest of nature's mysteries. we have reason to believe ... that the nucleus of a comet consists of an aggregation of stones similar to meteorites. adopting this view, and assuming that these stones have absorbed somewhere gases to the amount of six times their volume (taken at atmospheric pressure), we may ask, what will be the effect of such a mass of stones advancing towards the sun at a velocity reaching in perihelion the prodigious rate of three hundred and sixty-six miles per second (as observed in the comet of ), being twenty-three times our orbital rate of motion?" professor ball says, "one of the most important results of the great shower of was the demonstration that the swarm of little bodies to which that shower owed its origin was connected with a comet. the swarm was found, in fact, to follow the exact track which the comet pursued around the sun.... of this connection between the cometary orbits and revolving swarms of meteors many other instances could be cited. i may refer to the remarkable lists published by the british association, in which, beside the name of the comet or the designation which astronomers had affixed to it, the meteoric swarm with which the comet is associated is also given.... on these grounds it appears to be perfectly certain that the origin of the shooting stars which appear in swarms cannot be disassociated from the origin of the comets by which those swarms are accompanied." the author makes a distinction between such ordinary shooting stars and meteorites, and attributes the appearance of the latter on earth to masses thrown forth from some volcano somewhere, but this has nothing to do with the special phenomena to be interpreted. it may be said, however, that the presence of olefiant gas as one of the occluded gases in a meteorite (four and fifty-five-hundredths per cent., as stated by professor proctor, in his article "the sun as a perpetual machine"), and the remarkable fact, stated in the article "spectrum analysis" in appleton's cyclopædia, that, in winnecke's comet of , "the bands agree in position with those obtained as the spectrum of carbon, by passing the electric spark through olefiant gas, "would lead one to consider a cometic origin, for this particular meteorite at least, to be highly probable. professor ball further says, "there have been several instances in which a comet has approached so close to a planet that the attraction between the two bodies must have had significant influence on the planet, if the cometary mass had been at all comparable with that of the more robust body. the most celebrated instance is presented in the case of lexell's comet, which happened to cross the track of jupiter. the effect upon this body was so overwhelming that it was wrenched from its original path and started afresh along a wholly different track." the same writer, speaking of the tails of comets, says, "i have no intention to discuss here the vexed question of the tails of comets. i do not now inquire whether the repulsion by which the tail is produced be due to the intense radiation from the sun, or to electricity, or to some other agent. it is sufficient for our present purpose to note that, even if the tails of comets do gravitate towards the sun, the attraction is obscured by a more powerful repulsive force.... nor do the directions in which the comets move exhibit any conformity; some move round the sun in one direction, some move in the opposite direction. even the planes which contain the orbits of the comets are totally different from each other. instead of being inclined at only a very few degrees to their mean position, the planes of the comets hardly follow any common law; they are inclined at all sorts of directions. in no respect do the comets obey those principles which are necessary to prevent constitutional disorder in the planetary system.... now, all we have hitherto seen with regard to comets tends to show that the masses of comets are extremely small. attempts have been made to measure them, but have always failed, because the scales in which we have attempted to weigh them have been too coarse to weigh anything of the almost spiritual texture of a comet. it is unnecessary to go as far as some have done, and to say that the weight of a large comet may be only a few pounds or a few ounces. it might be more reasonable to suppose that the weight of a large comet was thousands of tons, though even thousands of tons would be far too small a weight to admit of being measured by the very coarse balance which is at our disposal." in the chapter "visitors from the sky," the same author says, "as such a comet in its progress across the heavens passes between us and the stars, those stars are often seen twinkling brilliantly right through the many thousand miles of cometary matter which their rays have to traverse. the lightest haze in our atmosphere would suffice to extinguish the faint gleam of these small stars; indeed, a few feet of mist would have more power of obstructing the stellar light than cometary material scores of thousands of miles thick. it is true that the central portions of many of these comets often exhibit much greater density than is found in the exterior regions; still, in the great majority of such objects there is no opacity, even in the densest part, sufficient to put out a star. in the case of the more splendid bodies of this description, it may be supposed that the matter is somewhat more densely aggregated as well as more voluminous; still, however, it will be remembered that the great comet of passed over arcturus, and that the star was seen shining brilliantly, notwithstanding the interposition of a cometary curtain millions of miles in thickness. so far as i know, no case is known in which the nucleus of a really bright and great comet has been witnessed in the act of passage over a considerable star. it would indeed be extremely interesting to ascertain whether in such case the star experienced any considerable diminution in its lustre." chapter viii. the phenomena of comets. from the extracts thus cited we may form a fairly clear idea of the phenomena which comets present, and these facts represent about all that we know of these mysterious objects. they approach the sun in a nearly radial direction, thus cutting the planetary orbits transversely. they approach the sun from all directions and at all angles, without reference to the common plane in which all the planetary orbits lie. they have no rotation on their own axes, as the planets have, but, like an aggregated mass of meteorites or cosmical dust, rush inward from the exterior realms of space, so that their course is diametrically opposite that of the planets and the other cosmical bodies which constitute our solar system. such a body as a comet, in fact, would present in its approach to our solar system very much the phenomena of an approaching exterior sun, corresponding far more closely in appearance and behavior to our own sun than to any of the planets. such a body could not generate positive electricity, as the planets do, but, on the contrary, must have an electrosphere of negative, or at least neutral, polarity. on its approach to our planetary system the batteries of all the planets would be at once turned upon the intruder, and it would be rapidly thrown into the same state of active electrical polarity as the sun. the aqueous vapor condensed around its nucleus by gravity in its approach through space, or buried among the meteoric particles constituting the comet, would be necessarily decomposed into its constituent gases, just as in the case of the sun, by the positive electrical currents from the planetary electrospheres, and the disassociated hydrogen would form the negative electrosphere of the comet, glowing with its own luminosity, by gaseous incandescence. "we should then observe, during its continued approach to the sun, phenomena similar to those which we might expect to manifest themselves during the approach of a minute solar body towards the sun, characterized by a rapid increase of velocity, due to attraction of gravity, and tremendous mutual repulsion between the solar and cometic electrospheres. we should see the luminous hydrogen and associated gases boiling upward, and thence drawn forward from the nucleus by the combined gravity of the sun's mass, that of the planetary masses, and the opposite polarity of the planetary electrospheres, while they would be, at the same time, repelled backward by the enormous repulsive force of the negative electrosphere of the sun. as a result, we should find these gases in a state of ebullition, forced forward under great excitement and disturbance, boiling, eddying about, driven to and fro in all directions until the sun's repulsive force had overcome the different attractions, when these luminous clouds or envelopes would be swept swiftly off to the rear, as by a powerful current of wind, around the margins of the nucleus, and they would be seen to stream backward from the sun as an elongated envelope or tail. new volumes of gas would pour to the front, attracted from deeper depths, and these, on reaching the cometary electrosphere, would be again repelled by the solar activity and driven to the rear, while the gases thus driven backward, themselves similarly electrified, would mutually repel each other as they streamed backward around the margins of the nucleus. let us now see what these gases are: if they are such as appear in the sun's electrosphere, we will know that such must be their action; if, on the contrary, they are such as appear in planetary electrospheres, we will find any such attempted explanation to be a failure. quoting largely from dr. huggins, professor proctor, in his "cometic mysteries," says, "the spectrum of the brightest comet of that year was partly continuous, and on this continuous spectrum many of the well-known fraunhofer lines could be traced. this made it certain that part of the comet's light was reflected sunlight, though dr. huggins considers also that a part of the continuous spectrum of every comet is due to inherent light. on this point some doubt may be permitted. it is one thing for special bands to show themselves, for some substances may become self-luminous under special conditions at very moderate temperatures; it is quite another thing that the solid parts of a comet's substance should become incandescent. i venture to express my opinion that this can scarcely happen, except in the case of comets which approach very near to the sun. besides the continuous spectrum with dark lines, the photograph showed also a spectrum of bright lines. 'these lines,' says dr. huggins, 'possessed extreme interest, for there was certainly contained within this hieroglyphic writing some new information. a discussion of the position of these new lines showed them to be undoubtedly the same lines which appear in certain compounds of carbon. not long before professors liveing and dewar had found from their laboratory experiments that these lines are only present when nitrogen is also present, and that they indicate a nitrogen compound of carbon,--namely, cyanogen. two other bright groups were also seen in the photograph, confirming the presence of hydrogen,--carbon and nitrogen.' it is worthy of notice that only a few days later dr. h. draper succeeded in obtaining a photograph of the same comet's spectrum. it appeared to him to confirm dr. huggins's statements, except only that the dark fraunhofer lines were not visible, the photograph having probably been taken under less favorable conditions.... but the latest comet has brought with it fresh news. its spectrum is not like that given by the comets we are considering. the bright lines of sodium are seen in it, and also other bright lines and groups of lines which have not yet been shown to be identical with any belonging to the hydrocarbon groups, but probably are so.... the cyanogen groups are not seen.... but it is manifest that this comet underwent important changes.... in april was found simply a faint continuous spectrum; in may the three bands associated with carbon were present, though faint, while there was no trace whatever of the sodium band. on the contrary, in june the nucleus of the comet gave a very strong and extended continuous spectrum with an excessively strong bright line in the orange-yellow identical with the well-known double sodium line of the solar spectrum. on this ... it is necessary to conclude that during the last fortnight of may the spectrum of wells's comet had changed in a manner of which the history of science furnishes no precedent." it should be observed that the elements carbon and hydrogen closely resemble each other, not only in their multifarious chemical affinities and reactions, but in their electric polarities, and the hydrocarbon compounds, like their constituents, carbon and hydrogen, are electrically similar to each other, an example of this similarity of the elements being found in the identical action of the carbon arc and hydrogen envelope in the heating and lighting experiments with electrical currents hereinbefore described. we have already seen that carbon follows quite a different law from the other concrete elements, in the fact that its electrical resistance diminishes as the temperature rises; it also differs widely from the other solid elements in its atomic heat, which has a value much less than one-half the mean constant, which is . . of this matter of specific heat, professor fownes, in his work on chemistry (bridges' edition), says, "dulong and petit observed in the course of their investigation a most remarkable circumstance. if the specific heats of bodies be computed upon equal weights, numbers are obtained all different and exhibiting no simple relations among themselves; but if, instead of equal weights, quantities be taken in the proportion of the atomic weights, an almost perfect coincidence in the numbers will be observed, showing that some exceedingly intimate connection must exist between the relations of bodies to heat and their chemical nature; and when the circumstance is taken into view that relations of even a still closer kind link together chemical and electrical phenomena, it is not too much to expect that ere long some law may be discovered far more general than any with which we are yet acquainted.... nevertheless, this law must not be understood as perfectly general, for there are three elements--namely, carbon, boron, and silicon" [these form a single group of elements in chemical classification]--"which exhibit decided exceptions to it." organic chemistry is substantially based upon the almost infinitely interchanging relations among carbon-hydrogen radicals, supplemented by a few other elements. according to professor fownes, "organic chemistry is in fact the chemistry of carbon compounds." the position of carbon among the elements is something like that of camphor among the oils, the latter being a volatile oil, but concrete in form. with a concrete element having the peculiar character of carbon we can well understand its universal chemical and electrical relationship with gaseous hydrogen in the grandest operations of nature. cyanogen is an electrically similar compound of carbon with the addition of nitrogen. of these elements it will be seen that nitrogen and hydrogen are found to exist also in the gaseous nebulæ, and with the probable addition there of oxygen; but in comets the quota of active oxygen must be sought for in the correlated planetary, and not in the cometic, atmospheres, as is the case with the sun. of the presence of the vapor of carbon in comets professor ball says, "this is a very singular fact, when it is remembered that carbon is one of the substances essentially associated with life in the forms in which we know it." professor huggins says, "since that time the light from some twenty comets has been examined by different observers. the general close agreement in all cases, notwithstanding some small divergencies, of the bright bands in the cometary light with those seen in the spectrum of hydrocarbons justifies us fully in ascribing the original light of these comets to matter which contains carbon in combination with hydrogen." we may learn something further of the constitution of comets, perhaps, by considering the chemical reactions which their spectra seem to indicate. the following extract is from a recent article on the manufacture of illuminating gas: "ammonia contains . parts of nitrogen and . of hydrogen. it is not produced by a direct combination, for nitrogen can be caught and wedded only by a hot and skilful wooing. in the gas retort, at a temperature of degrees and in the presence of lime, soda, or potash, it will combine with carbon and form cyanogen, and then further combine with the alkali to form a cyanide. there is steam in the retort, and, as nearly as the gas chemists can make out, the nitrogen promptly divorces itself, gives up the carbon to the oxygen of the steam, and, taking the hydrogen to itself, becomes, for the time at least, a fixed, if volatile, substance, but ever ready to enter into new alliances." it will be remembered that in the comets examined by professors huggins and draper the spectroscope revealed both cyanogen and the double line of sodium. the function of the sodium is readily understood, as by its presence it enables the nitrogen in the cometic atmosphere to combine with a part of the carbon of the gaseous hydrocarbons which constitute this atmosphere, and thus produce the cyanogen. but to effect this combination requires in the retort a temperature of degrees. if the combining temperature around the nucleus of a comet is the same, it will show that the temperature of this comet's nucleus must be very high, and, while many times less than that of the sun's photosphere, it still clearly illustrates the powerful character of the impact of the planetary electrical currents upon the comet, and its tremendous repulsion by the similarly electrified solar electrosphere. the second one of the above reactions, that from cyanogen to ammonia, is due to the steam or aqueous vapor in the retort. but in the case of the comet all the aqueous vapor and its constituent oxygen have disappeared by electrolytic decomposition long before the combining temperature of cyanogen has been reached; so that the sodium, the hydrocarbons, and the cyanogen alone appear, and the oxygen compounds are missing. but on the reversal of polarity of this comet by contact with a planetary electrosphere, should such ever occur, and its consequent assumption of positive electricity, the oxygen would again appear, and, if the temperature had not yet receded below that of the reaction which produces ammoniacal vapors, we might expect, should a fragment of this comet enter our atmosphere as a meteorite, to find ammonia as well as sodium as a constituent thereof; otherwise the ammonia would be replaced by carbonic oxide and carbonic acid, by the action of oxygen upon the hydrocarbons, and water by the action of oxygen upon the hydrogen of the same, at much lower temperatures than would suffice for the generation of ammonia. the cyanogen would then perhaps remain as cyanide of sodium, unless decomposed by contact with the meteoric metallic iron at a high temperature, as occurs in the operation known in the arts as "case-hardening." the presence of microscopic diamonds in meteorites may be accounted for by a somewhat similar reducing reaction under heat and the active force of the planetary and solar voltaic arc. in the popular view comets are always associated with tails, but, in fact, comets without tails are far more numerous than those to which these appendages pertain; the tails, when such exist, are the direct result of the repulsive energy of the solar electrosphere, and are only manifested when their proximity to the sun has aroused sufficient activity to swiftly sweep backward from the sun with inconceivable velocity the gaseous matter concentrated in and around the nucleus. as these tails owe their formation to the sun's repulsive energy, they must always extend radially outward from the sun, and by the self-repulsive energy of the diverse constituents of the tails themselves these will be broken occasionally into two, four, or six lateral strands, and (possibly by the attraction of the different planetary electrospheres) curvatures may be apparent along the sweep of the comets' tails corresponding, in effect, with perturbations produced by gravity in the orbit of the nucleus. of these various phenomena, professor proctor, in his article on comets, says, "a very large number of comets have no visible tails. when first seen in the telescope a comet usually presents a small, round disk of hazy light, somewhat brighter near the center. as the comet approaches the sun the disk lengthens, and, if the comet is to be a tailed one, traces begin to be observed of a streakiness in the comet's light. gradually a tail is formed, which is turned always from the sun. the tail grows brighter and larger, and the head becomes developed into a coma surrounding a distinctly marked nucleus. presently the comet is lost to view through its near approach to the sun; but after a while it is again seen, sometimes wonderfully changed in aspect through the effects of solar heat. some comets are brighter and more striking after passing their point of nearest approach to the sun than before; others are quite shorn of their splendor when they reappear." this change of aspect is not due to solar heat, but to the energetic repulsion of the solar electrosphere. the force of gravity irresistibly impels the comet forward to the sun's electrical vortex, and the change of aspect is due to the repulsion of its entire stock of free gaseous matter into space in case its supply is small, or to its increased development and pouring forth in case the supply is large. it is like the volatilization by a heated atmosphere of ammoniacal gas, for instance, absorbed in water. the ebullition is vastly increased by the heat, but if the entire stock of ammonia has been driven off in its passage through the heated medium, it will emerge with the residual water quiescent; otherwise, in a state of increased agitation. the same author, in "cometic mysteries," says, "repulsion of the cometary matter could only take place if this matter, after it has been driven off from the nucleus, and the sun have both high electric potentials of the same kind." his further guess, however, that it is analogous to the aurora, is wide of the mark; it is due, in fact, to the mutual repulsion of their similar negative electrospheres, the cometic electrosphere, however, being so much smaller than that of the sun that the latter shows no appreciable disturbance, as is the case, under similar circumstances, with the electrospheres of the earth and moon. in the article last quoted it is said, "there is a dark space immediately behind the nucleus,--that is, where the nucleus, if solid, would throw its shadow if there were matter to receive the light all round so that the shadow could be seen." this presents, it is stated, a great difficulty. the author, by a happy guess,--almost an inspiration, in fact, of which this splendid writer and observer was so full,--suggests in a foot-note a possible explanation, which, while not in itself correct, suggests an analogous process very like what we actually see. "if the particles forming the envelopes are minute flat bodies, and if anything in the circumstances under which these particles are driven off into the tail causes them to always so arrange themselves that the planes in which they severally lie pass through the axis of the tail (which, if the tail is an electrical phenomenon, might very well happen), then we should find the region behind the nucleus very dark or almost black, for the particles in the direction of the line of sight there would be turned edgewise towards us, whereas those on either side or in the prolongation of the envelopes would turn their faces towards the observer." as a matter of fact, the envelope streaming backward from the nucleus forms a hollow tube, the opposite sides of which exhibit the same mutual repulsion as both exhibit towards the sun; hence the phenomenon would be similar to that exhibited by blowing into a closed bag of porous material covered with wisps of cotton, for example, and the gases, in addition to their rush backward from the sun, would also exhibit a radial rush outward from the longitudinal axis of the tail. this is what we actually observe, and sufficiently accounts for the phenomenon, be it altogether or only partially real, and not merely, as that author thinks it may be, apparent. it is said, in the same article, that "bredichen has shown that where there are three tails to a comet their forms correspond with the theory that the envelopes raised from the head are principally formed of hydrogen, carbon, and iron; but this ... seems open at present to considerable doubt." at all events, these separate tails are self-repulsive, or they would be merged into each other by the sun's repulsive energy; in fact, they occupy the resultant of the direction produced by the line of the sun's repulsion and those of their own mutually repellent force,--that is to say, radial or divergent. it must not be supposed that these tails are of insignificant proportions. "when we see the tail of a comet occupying a volume thousands of times greater than that of the sun itself, the question naturally suggests itself, 'how does it happen that so vast a body can sweep through the solar system without deranging the motion of every planet?' conceding even an extreme tenuity to the substance composing so vast a volume, one would still expect its mass to be tremendous. for instance, if we supposed the whole mass of the tail of the comet of to consist of hydrogen gas (the lightest substance known to us), yet even then the mass of the tail would have largely exceeded that of the sun. every planet would have been dragged from its orbit by so vast a mass passing so near. we know, on the contrary, that no such effects were produced. the length of our year did not change by a single second.... thus we are forced to admit that the actual substance of the comet was inconceivably rare.... from what we have already seen, it will be manifest that the formation of comets' tails is a process of a very marvellous nature, apparently involving forces other than those with which we are acquainted. the tail, ninety million miles in length, which was seen stretching from the head of newton's comet nearly along the path which the retreating comet had to traverse, must, it would seem, have been formed by some force far more active than the force of gravity. the distance traversed by the comet in the last four weeks of its approach to the sun under gravity was no greater than that over which the matter of the tail, seen after the comet had circled around the sun, had been carried in a few hours. yet we have no other evidence of any repulsive force at all being exerted by the sun,--at least no evidence which can be regarded as demonstrative,--and still less have we any evidence of a repulsive force exceeding in energy the sun's attracting power." (proctor.) chapter ix. interpretation of cometic phenomena. now, curiously enough, we have in constant use in our laboratories a little instrument called the electroscope, in which we have manifested very clearly a repulsive force exceeding in energy the earth's attracting power, and very greatly exceeding it. it is described in "electricity in the service of man" as follows: "if we rub a large glass rod with a silk pad, we observe that it will attract light bodies, then, after contact, repel them. during the process we may notice a peculiar noise, and if the experiment be carried out in the dark we may further notice sparks passing between the rod and the rubber, and also that the rod becomes luminous. if we suspend a pith-ball by means of a silk thread, on bringing the rubbed rod near the pith-ball it will move towards the rod, touch it, and then be repelled. if the glass rod be again brought near the pith-ball, it will move away from the glass rod, and continue to be repelled until it has been touched by some other body.... in order to ascertain whether electricity is communicated by electrified bodies to non-electrified bodies when brought into contact, let us suspend two pith-balls from the same point of support by threads of uniform silk, and touch the pith-balls with the rubbed glass rod. the balls fly from the rod and also from one another. on bringing near them a third pith-ball or any other light body, we find that, though they repel one another, they are attracted by the light body, showing that they have become electrified by contact with the rubbed glass rod. from this we conclude that an unelectrified body may be electrified by contact with an electrified body, and also that there is repulsion after contact. there is mutual repulsion between two electrified bodies, but there is attraction between a single electrified body and one that is unelectrified." the mutual repulsion of these pith-balls is the exact measure of the strength of electrification. hung side by side to the knob of a prime conductor of an electrical machine, the mutual repulsion of the similar electrospheres of these pith-balls drives them apart against the earth's gravity and holds them extended, if the electrical tension be sufficient, to their widest limit of divergence. it is, in effect, precisely similar to the action of the solar and cometic electrospheres (see illustration in a previous chapter, page ), each being similarly electrified and communicating with the other across a space which, as before stated, is freely traversable by electric currents without appreciable resistance. that such electrospheres are flaming with heat does not interfere with such self-repellent action; in fact, it intensifies it. in professor tyndall's "lessons in electricity" we read, "flames and glowing embers act like points; they also rapidly discharge electricity. the electricity escaping from a point or flame renders the air self-repulsive. the consequence is that when the hand is placed over a point mounted on the prime conductor of a machine in good action a cold blast is distinctly felt.... wilson moved bodies by its action, faraday caused it to depress the surface of a liquid, hamilton employed the reaction of the electric wind to make pointed wires rotate. the 'wind' was also found to promote evaporation." let us now apply these principles to the tails of comets. if we conceive the sun and comet to be analogous to our pith-balls, one enormously larger than the other, however, and hung by vaporous conducting cords from the combined generating planetary electrospheres, both sun and cometic nucleus surrounded each by a vaporous envelope, and suspended so that they will hang from parallel cords, say a dozen million miles apart, and with no currents of electricity as yet in operation, we will find that the sun and comet will be simply attracted towards each other by the force of gravity, so that their suspending cords will converge. if the planetary electrical machines now commence their rotations, and currents of electricity begin to pass in quantity and intensity like those which pass between the earth and the sun, both the solar and cometic pith-balls will become similarly electrified, and their gaseous atmospheres, instead of drawing towards each other, will become luminous and self-repulsive. the atmosphere which surrounds the cometic pith-ball, by reason of its great tenuity, will be driven backward with extreme velocity, while the solar pith-ball electrosphere will be so little affected that its repulsion will be imperceptible. all the gaseous matter, however, of the smaller pith-ball will be forced off in a direction opposite that of the larger one, and this repulsive energy will even carry the pith-balls apart, causing the suspending cords to widely diverge from each other, while the force of gravity of the earth tends to bring them nearer together. if the gravity of the larger pith-ball, however, was equal, relatively, to that of the sun, the result would be that the solid pith-balls would be mutually attracted by gravitation and only the electrified atmospheres, would be mutually repelled. this experiment would present phenomena similar to those we are now considering. (see illustration, page .) in describing newton's comet, with a tail ninety million miles long projected backward both from the sun and the comet, when it disappeared in the light of the sun, and exhibiting a similar tail, also ninety million miles long, when, less than four days afterwards, it reappeared from behind the sun, but with the tail now directed forward from the comet, but in both cases extended radially outward from the sun, it is obvious that this whole tail must have made a sweeping change of direction of nearly one hundred and eighty degrees upon the nucleus as its center. professor proctor says, "as sir john herschel remarks, we cannot look on the tail of a comet as something whirled round like a stick as the comet circles around its perihelion sweep. the tail with which the comet reappeared must have been an entirely new formation." it is true that a comet's tail cannot be conceived of as being whirled round like a stick, but we can very readily conceive of it as something like a flame composed of incandescent gases, and it may very easily be blown round a stick; and this is precisely what must happen in the case of a comet. construct, for experiment, a little apparatus consisting of a blow-pipe adapted to deliver a current of air between two horizontal metal disks, say an eighth of an inch apart, one perforated at the center to admit the nozzle of the blow-pipe. by directing a constant current of air through the latter, it will be deflected so as to blow radially outward in all directions and in the same plane. now take a stick with a flame on the end of it, or a lighted candle, and with it approach this center of repellent energy in the plane of the space between the disks and along an ellipse representing the orbit of a comet. as the flame approaches the improvised solar center it will be driven backward from the wick of the candle almost along the line of its approach, and as it passes around the center it will be constantly blown outward in a radial direction until, when it recedes after perihelion, the flame will be seen pointed almost directly ahead. at all times the direction of the flame will lie along the radial lines prolonged outward from the center through the wick of the candle, and it will not be a new flame generated at every change of its direction, but the same flame constantly forced outward by the repulsive force of the central atmosphere in this case or the solar electrosphere in the case of the sun. this experiment is an accurate and conclusive exhibit of the phenomena of solar repulsion in its action upon the tail of a comet. it is analogous in principle to the repulsion of the pith-balls and the electric wind and (in application) to the phenomena presented by comets in their movements to, around, and from the sun. this repulsion is not operative in effect against the wick of the candle,--that is to say, it is not the repulsion of the nucleus which determines the direction of the tail, but the repulsion by direct outblow of the sun, so to speak, upon the incandescent gases of the tail itself. this fact clearly demonstrates that the repulsion of like electrospheres is the cause of the phenomenon, and, when once understood, the process is quite as simple as that of the original formation of the tail itself, which no one disputes. there is to be further considered the theoretical resistance of space to the projection and deflection of such enormous volumes of attenuated matter as appear in comets' tails. while it may not be absolutely necessary to offer an explanation of this apparent difficulty, in view of the fact that such projection and deflection do actually occur, still, the well-known laws of the diffusion of gases, in accordance with which any gaseous matter will traverse any other gaseous matter with the same velocity as, and with no more resistance than, in a vacuum, will show that this difficulty has been much overrated, while for the twin difficulty, how to account for the persistence of luminosity at such vast distances from its source, we may quote from professor proctor, "cometic mysteries," who, in turn, quotes as follows: "comets travel in what must be regarded as to all intents and purposes a vacuum. from dr. crookes' experiments on very high vacua we may infer that there is very little loss of heat, except by radiation." by "intents and purposes" we understand, of course, as a cause of resistance, and certainly there is no reason to believe that the attenuated vapors of space are sufficient in density to cause any rapid diffusion of heat by convection, as contrasted with that of radiation. we have seen that comets of short period sometimes disappear, and that their disappearance is frequently followed by the appearance of trains of meteors. in other words, they have apparently lost their cometic properties and become permanent adjuncts to our solar system. a curious confirmation of this fact is to be found in the character of the occluded gases which are contained in such meteorites as sometimes fall upon the earth's surface. of this professor proctor says, "we have reason to believe that the nucleus of a comet consists of an aggregation of stones similar to meteorites." speaking of the condition in which meteorites reach the earth, he says, "they are known to contain as much as six times their own volume of gases (taken at atmospheric pressure). in one of these meteorites recently examined by dr. flight, the following percentages of various gases were noted: of carbonic oxide, . ; of carbonic acid gas, . ; of hydrogen, . ; of olefiant gas, . ; and of nitrogen, . ." the presence of olefiant gas at once suggests the hydrocarbons of the cometic nucleus. the presence of this gas cannot be accounted for by the passage of the meteorite through our atmosphere, nor can that of hydrogen, and these are two characteristic gases, together with the vapor of carbon, constantly found to exist in comets. as before explained, the advent of a comet into our solar system is that of a stranger, with electric polarity the opposite of that of the planetary electrospheres and identical with that of the sun. under the combined influence of the solar gravity and perturbation by the gravity of the planets these foreign bodies tend to shorten their periods, and finally fall into the ordinary array of the bodies which compose our own solar system. but when this occurs they will, in turn, become contributors to, instead of antagonists of, the energy of the sun; in other words, they must then conform electrically to the condition of the family into which they have married,--that is to say, the planets,--and a reversal of their electrical polarity will take place. this reversal of polarity is no novelty in the operation of electrical apparatus. in "electricity in the service of man" we read as follows of the voss induction machine: "this machine is exceedingly powerful in favorable weather, but has an important defect in a tendency to self-reversal, which is apt to occur at a stoppage. this defect can be produced in a voss machine, when desired, by holding a metal point to the positive brush k. the two derived inductive circuits are beautifully manifested when this machine is worked in the dark. a luminous stream is seen pouring towards the collecting comb l on whichever side of the machine the comb is positive." it will thus be seen that simple contact of a neutral (or negatively opposite) body will reverse the electrical polarity of this machine, or even the interruption of its motion will do so at times. possibly a similar reversal may be produced in a comet by the contact in whole or in part of its nucleus with a planetary electrosphere, since the action of gravity is entirely independent of that of the attraction or repulsion of the electrospheres of both planetary and cometic bodies. such reversal of polarity in a comet would at once extinguish its luminosity, and the generation of oxygen would at once replace the prior generation of hydrogen, and herein we may find explained the presence of carbonic oxide in large volume and carbonic acid in small volume in the meteorite above referred to, and of which gases professor proctor says, "it is quite certain these gases were not taken up by the meteorolite during its flight through the air." these aggregations of discrete meteoric bodies, loosely adherent by mutual gravity alone, would be gradually torn apart by planetary interference and dragged into streams of small bodies, thenceforth traversing space in elliptical orbits around the sun, just as do the planets and planetoids. cyanogen, also, the deadly gas so frequently found to exist in enormous quantities in the nuclei of comets, would at once disappear, by double conversion into carbonic acid, or oxide, and ammonia, or nitrogen, so that this danger, as the result of a comet's possible approach to the earth's atmosphere, may be dismissed from apprehension. it will be seen that all the enormous difficulties in the phenomena of comets find an explanation in the operation of the same universal laws which we have endeavored to apply to the other sidereal bodies. in conclusion, we may cite the following from dr. huggins: "broadly, the different applications of principles of electricity which have been suggested group themselves about the common idea that great electrical disturbances are set up by the sun's action in connection with the vaporization of some of the matter of the nucleus, and that the tail is probably matter carried away, possibly in connection with electric discharges, under an electrical influence of repulsion exerted by the sun. this view necessitates the supposition that the sun is strongly electrified, either negatively or positively, and, further, that in the processes taking place in the comet, either of vaporization or of some other kind, the matter thrown out by the nucleus has become strongly electrified in the same way as the sun,--that is, negatively if the sun's electricity is negative, or positively if the sun's is positive. the enormous disturbances which the spectroscope shows to be always at work in the sun must be accompanied by electrical changes of equal magnitude, but we know nothing as to how far these are all, or the great majority of them, in one direction, so as to cause the sun to maintain permanently a high electrical state, whether positive or negative." the above speculations will have thus become demonstrated facts (though not in the mode suggested by the above writer) as soon as we clearly understand that, instead of the sun's "enormous disturbances" producing "electrical changes of equal magnitude," it is the electrical changes of equal magnitude which themselves cause the sun's disturbances, and that the sun's negative electrical polarity is permanently fixed by the opposite and positive polarity of the planetary electrospheres, and that all these various phenomena are but the normal expression of a single universal law, and are all due to the constant interaction of planetary, solar, and cometic electrospheres, in accordance with the well-established principles of electrical science. if, however, we consider, as is generally believed to be the case, the sun itself to be the sole prime source of its visible energy, nothing but difficulty and vague speculation can be looked for on every hand; but by relegating the solar orb to its proper place, and taking as the starting-point the true source of all energy,--to wit, the hidden forces embodied in the vapors or gases of interstellar space,--the whole process and mode of action will logically follow, and obscurity and difficulty together disappear. this principle, properly understood, is a master-key which will unlock every problem and interpret every enigma which the realms of interstellar space can present. chapter x. the resolvable nebulÆ, star-clusters and galaxies. when we come to consider the nebulæ, and endeavor to learn what part electricity has to play in the phenomena presented by these singular objects, we must recollect, in order to give them their due importance, that they are neither few in number nor uniform in constitution. of the nebulæ, professor proctor ("star-clouds and star-mist") says, "when the depths of the heavens are explored with a powerful telescope a number of strange cloud-like objects are brought into view. it is startling to consider that if the eye of man suddenly acquired the light-gathering power of a large telescope, and if at the same time all the single stars disappeared, we should see on the celestial vault a display of the mysterious objects called nebulæ or star-clouds exceeding in number all the stars which can now be seen on the darkest night in winter. the whole sky would seem mottled with these singular objects." as telescopes, with the advances of constructive art, increased in power, these luminous clouds became more and more clearly defined, and many of them became resolved into clusters of stars, galaxies of suns like the milky way, of which latter our solar system is a constituent part, but more distant from us than the separately visible stars of that galaxy, and each separated from the relatively adjacent clusters by intervals of space comparable only with those which separate them from our own system. of these glorious star-clusters, says flammarion, in "the wonders of the heavens," "in the bosom of infinite space, the unfathomable depth of which we have tried to comprehend, float rich clusters of stars, each separated by immense intervals. we shall soon show that all the stars are suns like ours, shining with their own light, and foci of as many systems of worlds. now, the stars are not scattered in all parts of space at hazard; they are grouped as the members of many families. if we compared the ocean of the heavens with the ocean of the earth, we should say that the isles which sprinkle this ocean do not rise separately in all parts of the sea, but that they are united here and there in archipelagoes more or less rich.... they are all collected in tribes, most of which count their members by millions." says professor nichol, "system on system of majesty unspeakable float through the fathomless ocean of space. our galaxy, with splendors that seem illimitable, is only a unit among unnumbered throngs; we can think of it, in comparison with creation, but as we were wont to think of one of its own stars. "of these glorious star-clusters the same writer says, "that no one has ever seen them in a telescope of adequate power without uttering a shout of wonder." these mist-like star-clouds were successively resolved, nebula by nebula, until science settled into the belief that with telescopes of adequate power all nebulæ might be so resolved, and the capacity of telescopes to thus resolve nebulæ became a test of their power. but spectrum analysis finally entered the lists with new methods of investigation, and the comparatively tiny spectroscope at a single leap passed far beyond the utmost limits of the highest telescopic vision, and at one blow struck the whole category of nebulæ into two widely different classes,--those composed of discrete stars grouped like the suns of our own milky way, and exhibiting the characteristic spectra of such bodies, and those composed of diffused gaseous matter not yet condensed into suns, and showing the disconnected spectral lines of simple elemental gases. the line of division was clear, direct, positive, and beyond all dispute. yet beyond these two classes further research has disclosed certain vast nebulæ in which some portions exhibit true solar spectra more or less modified and others true gaseous spectra, each apparently merging into the other by gradations so faint and delicate that the inference is irresistible that in these nebulæ we see the processes of galactic and solar creation at various stages of their development. of these nebulæ, professor ball says, "in one of his most remarkable papers, sir w. herschel presents us with a summary of his observations on the nebulæ, arranged in such a manner as to suggest his theory of the gradual transmutation of nebulæ into stars. he first shows us that there are regions in the heavens where a faint diffused nebulosity is all that can be detected by the telescope. there are other nebulæ in which a nucleus can be just discerned, others again in which the nucleus is easily seen, and still others where the nucleus is a bright star-like point. the transition from an object of this kind to a nebulous star is very natural, while the nebulous stars pass into the ordinary stars by a few graduated stages. it is thus possible to enumerate a series of objects, beginning at one end with the most diffused nebulosity and ending at the other with an ordinary fixed star or group of stars. each object in the series differs but slightly from the object just before it and just after it." and of these composite nebulæ, he adds, "the great nebula in orion is known to be the most glorious body of its class that the heavens display. seen through a powerful telescope, ... the appearance of this grand 'light stain' is of indescribable glory. it is a vast volume of bluish gaseous material with hues of infinite softness and delicacy. here it presents luminous tracts which glow with an exquisite blue light; there it graduates off until it is impossible to say where the nebula ceases and the black sky begins." with reference to these distant galaxies of apparently complete solar systems like our own, the same principles must regulate the conversion of this energy of planetary electricity into the energy of solar light and heat as we see manifested in our own sun. the light of the individual stars is sufficient evidence of this; but the question may be asked, is the electrical interaction between separate galaxies and between different solar systems in the same galaxy universal, or are these operations merely local? in other words, is the source and the mode of solar energy in accordance with a single universal law of and between all created universes, or is it limited in effective energy to the members of each individual solar system alone? the answer is, that it is not less universal than the law of gravitation and no more so. there is a prevalent popular fallacy that the force of gravity is such that the movements, not only of solar systems, but of whole galaxies, and of all the illimitable systems of galaxies, are under its effective control, and that the whole universe of boundless space acknowledges its overwhelming sway. but nothing can be further from the truth. we know, of course, that the law is universal, as expressed in the statement of its terms by newton, but the mere statement of the law itself, as applied to interstellar distances, refutes the idea that solar systems and galaxies can rotate around any common center by virtue of the attraction of gravitation as a controlling force. the universality of the law itself has even been doubted. professor ball says, "in the first book about astronomy which i read in my boyhood there was a glowing description.... i allude to the discovery, or the alleged discovery, of a certain 'central sun' about which it was believed or stated that all the bodies in the universe revolved.... it was too good to be true. no one ever hears anything about the central sun hypothesis nowadays.... it must be, then, admitted that when the law of gravitation is spoken of as being universal, we are using language infinitely more general than the facts absolutely warrant. at the present moment we only know that gravitation exists to a very small extent in a certain indefinite small portion of space. our knowledge would have to be enormously increased before we could assert that gravitation was in operation throughout this very limited region; and even when we have proved this, we should only have made an infinitesimal advance to a proof that gravitation is absolutely universal." anyone who chooses may prove for himself that the force exercised by gravitation between the multitudinous suns of our own galaxy, the milky way, and our earth must be quite infinitesimal, and totally unable to control the motions of our own solar system in a definite orbit through universal space. we know that the law which regulates the intensity of light at various distances is the same as the law of gravity,--that is to say, the proportion is directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance. we know also that the stars which compose the milky way are similarly constituted, generally considered, to our own sun, and that under similar circumstances the emission of light, roughly speaking, will vary according to the magnitude of these distant suns. now, if any one will stand, at the darkest hour of the night, when the moon is absent and the sky perfectly cloudless, when the "stars that oversprinkle all the heavens seem to twinkle with a crystalline delight," and sweep with his gaze all the concave hemisphere of the sky, and then compare the light which is radiated around him with the gorgeous effulgence of the noonday summer sun, he can pretty closely compare the relative attraction of gravity which all those distant suns together can exercise upon our earth with that of our own sun. under control of the latter, the earth sweeps around in her orbit at the rate of about twenty miles per second; all these suns could not give our solar system even a minute fraction of that. of this starlight professor ball says, "the sun certainly must receive some heat by the radiation from the stars; but this is quite infinitesimal in comparison with his own stupendous radiation." any such attraction, of course, could not control the motions of our solar system, and much less that of many of the others. "the night has a thousand eyes, and the day but one, but the light of the whole world dies when the day is done." we can also demonstrate the fact mathematically by an exceedingly rough calculation, which, however, will be sufficient for our purpose. of the milky way, which comprises only the stars of our own sidereal system, professor ball says, "one hundred million stars are presumed to be disposed in a flat circular layer of such dimensions that a ray of light would require thirty thousand years to traverse one diameter." (the most recent estimates make the number of the stars which compose the milky way several times one hundred million, occupying a correspondingly greater amplitude of space. the number in any case is sufficiently stupendous.) our solar system is located in space at the apex of a vast transverse cleft, and nearly at the center of this disk. let us leave out of consideration the lower half of the milky way, as we look upward on a starlit night, and conceive this galaxy to extend only across the midnight sky above us like an archway, with fifty million suns, visible and invisible, exposed in the field of our vision. the nearest of all the fixed stars to us is that known as alpha centauri,--not visible, however, in our northern skies. this star is about two hundred and thirty thousand times as far from our sun as is the earth. if of the same mass as our sun, it must exert upon us an attractive force of gravity one fifty-three-billionth that of our own sun. next in distance is the star no. of the constellation cygnus. this may be three times as distant, and is certainly not less than twice. the light of the former will reach the earth in three and one-quarter years; that of the latter in not less than six and one-half years, perhaps much more. these are our nearest stellar neighbors. while the former will attract us with only one fifty-three-thousand-millionth that of the sun, the latter will attract us with less than one two-hundred-thousand-millionth that of our sun. conceive, then, a square pyramid extending radially upward for three thousand times the mean of these distances to the upper probable limits of the milky way, a light-distance of fifteen thousand years, and that this pyramid expands according to the squares of its distances, so that it will contain within it, equally distributed, all the stars (fifty million) of the upper half of the disk of the milky way; the sum total of all these attractions could not reach one twenty-millionth part of that of our sun upon the earth. if we continue to pile galaxies, in the same perpetual recession, behind each other to all infinity, we still could not engender sufficient attractive force to control the observed movements of the multitudinous stars of space. the very statement of the law of gravitation itself disproves it; for if we multiply orbs and systems according to any principle of aggregation that we know of in the way of distribution of such systems, or anything possible, with due regard to their own mutually interacting movements in space, we could never reach the inside limits of such a sphere of control, because the piling up of orb behind orb adds but an infinitesimal fraction to the force of gravity, for as the orbs themselves multiply in distance progressively by hundreds, their relative attractions inversely diminish by ten thousands. no possible increase of suns directly in mass could compensate for such an inverse ratio of squares, even if all intergalactic space were peopled with suns, instead of being, in fact, like a vast ocean, with a few small clusters of islands scattered here and there throughout its illimitable extent. of these vast realms of space, professor ball asks, "is our sidereal system to be regarded as an oceanic island in space, or is it in such connection with the systems in other parts of space as might lead us to infer that the various systems had a common character? the evidence seems to show that the stars in our system are probably not permanently associated together, but that in the course of time some stars enter our system and other stars leave it, in such manner as to suggest that the bodies visible to us are fairly typical of the general contents of the universe. the strongest evidence that can be presented on this subject is met with in the peculiar circumstances of one particular star. the star in question is known as no. of groombridge's catalogue. it is a small star, not to be seen without the aid of a telescope.... we shall probably be quite correct in assuming that the distance is not less than two hundred billions of miles.... the velocity is no less than two hundred miles per second.... the star sweeps along through our system with this stupendous velocity.... the velocity being over twenty-five miles a second, the attraction can never overcome the velocity, so that the star seems destined to escape." of the star alcyone he says, "doubtless that star is thousands of billions of miles from the earth; doubtless the light from it requires thousands of years--and some astronomers have said millions of years--to span the abyss which intervenes between our globe and those distant regions." and yet these stars, these galaxies, and even all the nebulæ we see or ever shall see, are merely in the vestibule of space; we have scarcely even yet lifted the outer curtain at the entrance of those vast realms. that the popular, but pseudo-scientific, idea of a series of ever-widening concentric orbits, increasing at every new expansion by an inconceivable ratio, is incredible we can well understand, and it is a satisfaction to know that such a wild hypothesis finds no warrant in the dicta or the demonstrations of science. and it is in the failure of gravity to control over the intervening space which lies between those vastly distant centers that we may hope to find the inklings of a more far-reaching law, by which nebulæ like that of orion crystallize out into separate star systems, just as in the rocks, whether igneous, metamorphic, or sedimentary, we find the attraction of cohesion yield to that of crystallization, until the whole cleft rock blazes with countless garnets in the schist and quartz crystals in the gneiss, or reveals the yellow specks of olivine in volcanic ejections. we shall find in the processes concerned with the development of living things the workings of a similar great law, perhaps the same. wherever there is the possibility of life, there we find life. there seems to be an all-pervading vital tension, so to speak, an energizing force, which drives the evolution and ascent of life forward and upward by successive leaps, as it were, from type to type, from race to race, and even from nation to nation. in this universal forward movement we may dimly discern the primordial creative and developing impulse, constantly acting, but manifesting visible change only at intervals as gathering forces accumulate and equilibrium is disturbed. it manifests itself in all the fields of nature,--vital, chemical, molecular, molar, systemic. it is the ever-acting, eternal past, present, and future, the macrocosm and the microcosm, the panurgus, the brahma, the ancient of days, and cannot be silenced or evaded: "they reckon ill who leave me out, when me they fly i am the wings." r. kalley miller, in his "romance of astronomy," says, "it would be hopeless to attempt expressing in ordinary language the vast distance at which these clusters of stars are situated from us. if we were to reckon it in miles, or even in millions of miles, figures would pile upon figures till in their number all definite idea of their value was lost. we must choose another unit to measure these infinitudes of space,--a unit compared with which the dimensions of our own solar system shrink into absolute nothingness. the velocity of light is such that it would flash fifteen times from pole to pole of our earth between two beats of the pendulum. it bridges the huge chasm that separates us from the sun in little more than eight minutes. but the light that shows us these faint star-clusters has been travelling with this frightful velocity for more than two million years since it left its distant source. we see them to-day in the fields of our telescopes, not as they are now, but as they were countless ages before the creation of man upon the earth. what they are now who can tell?" the movements of solar systems through space are unquestionably controlled by some wider law than that of gravitation, and it still remains for science to seek its hidden principles and discover its mode of operation. we know that some stars travel alone, like the star already noted, no. of groombridge's catalogue; that others travel in pairs, like the double star mizar and its companion alcor; and others in groups, like the stars beta, gamma, delta, epsilon and zeta, of the constellation ursa major; that we are driving towards the constellation lyra and leaving behind us sirius and its fellows, and that many, if not all, of the stars whose motions we can measure have a rapid movement through space, but under what control, in accord with what hidden harmony, and under what general plan they move, we do not know; but the laws of electrical action of the circling planets upon their central suns, and of these upon space, we can readily account for by the similar operation of the same laws within our own solar domain; and we know by the similar terms of the ratio of distribution of light that this is commensurate in extent with the law of gravity, and operates in a like proportion of energy over all intervening distances; so that wherever our sun presents a visible point of light, there it is pouring its energy into space, and every sun we can see, every galaxy, every star-cluster, nay, every nebula, is likewise pouring into the interplanetary space of our own solar system its proportionate quota of energy. the very fact that we can see the star shine is itself the fullest evidence that this is so, and evidence also that the law of gravitation there, too, is still in force, operating over these same distances, and with the same proportionate energy. knowing all this, we can read with a new light the grand vistas of the skies, with their starry denizens, and claim them all as parts of our own family; and the mutual interchange of attractive energy and of light and heat will not fail between us until those inconceivable distances shall have been reached which human knowledge can never span and where speculation fails; and even there, from out those dark abysses,--dark to our human eyes,--the call will still faintly reach us, and our response will reach them also, though we shall never have tangible evidence that such mutual ties continue to exist. industriously our planets gather their mighty energies from the surrounding springs of space, as one dips water from a crystal stream; we hand it over to our sun, and he, the royal high-priest, sprinkles it in glittering diamond-sprays over all those countless suns and their subject worlds, and they are baptized with an eternal baptism into our common brotherhood and we into theirs. our familiar planets, mars, jupiter, neptune, the earth, and even our little moon, seem to raise their voices and take actual part in the councils of almighty power, to move about as perpetual benefactors, gathering and spreading beneficence abroad, instead of cowering, a hapless few, like storm-stayed travellers, around the dying embers of our poor old sun, passive recipients of the light and heat and life which we have been taught to believe are slowly sinking into ashes and fading away in eternal darkness and death. one swift glance into these boundless truths is better for the human soul than the slow passage of whole hopeless centuries, which leave as their inevitable legacy on earth a vast and final catastrophe, in which everything that gave us light and heat and being must perish forever. has it, indeed, come to this, that the last word which science has to offer is, "after us the deluge"? by no means. we have merely been endeavoring to measure the right hand of god by weighing and measuring a single isolated one of his countless multitude of suns. it is as though one standing beside a great water-wheel should estimate its power and rotation by measuring the width and depth of the buckets and calculating the weight of water which its thirty-two receptacles contain, saying, "at its present rate in so many seconds it will cease to move." but we take him to the water-gate, and show it wide open; to the great dam above it which contains cubic miles of water; and still beyond that to the mighty fountains bursting forth with their rush and roar from the rock-ribbed fastnesses of the eternal hills, and pouring their unfailing flood-tide down forever and ever. and we do not pause even here: we show him the vapors rising from the spent water again, condensing into clouds, pouring down in torrents of rain among the hills, and that these continuously feed the sources of the fountains, which in turn supply the wheel almost to bursting. and so it is with the glorious mechanism of the heavens. the source of solar energy is not to be found in the sun itself, but in his environment; and he himself, in all his glory, is but the king, crowned with gold, blazing with rich apparel, and scattering benefits among his satellites, not from his own private treasury, but who himself is enriched by the mighty tribute with which his willing subjects continually endow him, and to whom alone he owes all his pride and power and wealth and magnificence, and which he, in turn, so freely expends, transmuted in form alone, in the perpetual improvement and welfare of his domain. he is the faithful ruler, but not the creator; the beneficent monarch, but not the god. chapter xi. the gaseous nebulÆ. when we reach the irresolvable nebulæ, we unquestionably have approached the creative period of solar systems and in many cases of whole galaxies. these are multifarious in form, but all can be reduced to a few comprehensive types. in determining the question as to whether these irresolvable nebulæ were composed of distinct stars like the milky way, but too distant to be resolved from their mist-like light into discrete stars by the most powerful telescopes, or whether they were gaseous in constitution,--that is, composed of diffused gaseous elements not condensed into solar bodies,--the spectroscope became the final and infallible test. of this instrument, thus used, professor proctor, in his "star-clouds and star-mist," says, "a very few words will explain the whole matter to readers who remember the three fundamental laws of this new mode of investigation,--viz., that, first, light from a burning solid or liquid source gives the rainbow-colored streak of light commonly known as the prismatic spectrum; secondly, when vapors surround such a source of light, the rainbow-colored streak is crossed by dark lines; and, thirdly, when the source of light is gas, there is no longer a rainbow-colored streak, but merely a finite number of bright lines." dr. huggins selected for investigation the small planetary nebula in the dragon. he says, "when i had directed the telescope armed with the spectrum apparatus to this nebula, i at first suspected that some derangement of the instrument had taken place, for no spectrum was seen, but only a short line of light. i then found that the light of this nebula, unlike any other extra-terrestrial light which had yet been subjected by me to prismatic analysis, was of definite colors, and therefore could not form a spectrum. a great part of the light is monochromatic, and so remains concentrated in a bright line occupying a position in the spectrum corresponding to its color. careful examination showed a narrower and much fainter line near the one first discovered. beyond this point, about three times as far from the first line, was a third exceedingly faint line. from the position of one of the bright lines it is inferred the gas nitrogen is one of the constituents of the nebula; another line indicates the existence of the gas hydrogen in that far-off system; the third line has not yet been associated with any known terrestrial element, though it is near one belonging to the metal barium, and still nearer one belonging to oxygen; a fourth line occasionally seen belongs to hydrogen." professor proctor says, "dr. huggins examined a large number of the planetary nebulæ (so called), obtaining in each case a spectrum which indicates gaseity. in some cases only one line could be seen, in others two, more commonly three, and in a few instances four. when these lines were seen they invariably corresponded in position with those already described. the single line sometimes seen corresponded with the brightest line of the three; and when a second line was visible, this also was no new line, but agreed with the second brightest line in the three-line spectrum. the fourth line was seen only in the spectrum of a very bright, small, blue planetary nebula, but was later observed in other cases, and especially in the great orion nebula." at this time the latter was not visible, but when dr. huggins had opportunity to examine it, he says, "the telescopic observations of this nebula seem to show that it is suitable to a crucial test of the usually received opinion that the resolution of a nebula into bright stellar points is a certain indication that the nebula consists of discrete stars." professor proctor says, "a simple glance resolved the difficulty. the light from the brightest part of the nebula--the very part which under lord rosse's great reflector blazed with innumerable points of light--gave a spectrum identical in all respects with that which huggins had obtained from the planetary nebulæ. thus, what had been deemed boldness in herschel--namely, that he should have associated the wildest and most fantastic nebula in the heavens with the circular and (in ordinary telescopes) almost uniformly luminous planetary nebulæ--was unexpectedly confirmed." the spectrum of this nebula has more recently been photographed by a long exposure in the camera of the prepared plate. of the result, professor proctor thus speaks, "the nebula is seen to be in great part gaseous, and, where gaseous, to shine in the main with the tints described above; but parts of the nebula are not gaseous, and those portions which are so are not all constituted in the same manner.... that portion which is called the fish's mouth gives a continuous spectrum; in other words, the same spectrum which we obtain from a star or a star-cluster. this is the spectrum arising from a glowing solid or liquid mass, or if from a gaseous body, then the gaseous body must be in a state of great compression.... but the stars thus forming must be immersed in the glowing gas forming the general substance of the nebula.... it would be absurd to suppose that the nebula is a flat surface; ... nebulous matter lies also, in all probability (certainly one might fairly say), between us and the stellar aggregration as well as on the farther side." further, the same author says, "if, as is probable, the luminosity of the gaseous portion of the orion nebula is accompanied by but a relatively small proportion of heat, then the rays from the violet and ultra-violet part of the spectrum are likely to give us much more complete information respecting the constitution of these nebulous masses than can be derived from the visible part of the spectrum." in the recent work of professor ball, "in the high heavens," that author says, "there are, however, good grounds for believing that nebulæ really do undergo some changes, at least as regards brightness; but whether these changes are such as herschel's theory would seem to require is quite another question. perhaps the best-authenticated instance is that of the variable nebula in the constellation of taurus, discovered by mr. hind in . at the time of its discovery this object was a small nebula about one minute in diameter, with a central condensation of light. d'arrest, the distinguished astronomer of copenhagen, found in that this nebula had vanished. on the th of december, , the nebula was again seen in the powerful refractor at pulkova, but on december , , mr. hind failed to detect it with the telescope by which it had been originally discovered.... in , o. struve, observing at pulkova, detected another nebulous spot in the vicinity of the place of the missing object, but this also has now vanished. struve, however, does not consider that the nebula of is distinct from hind's nebula, but he says, 'what i see is certainly the variable nebula itself, only in altered brightness and spread over a larger space. some traces of nebulosity are still to be seen exactly on the spot where hind and d'arrest placed the variable nebula. it is a remarkable circumstance that this nebula is in the vicinity of a variable star which changes somewhat irregularly from the ninth to the twelfth magnitude. at the time of the discovery in both the star and the nebula were brighter than they have since become.'... it must be admitted that the changes are such as would not be expected if herschel's theory were universally true. another remarkable occurrence in modern astronomy may be cited as having some bearing on the question as to the actual evidence for or against herschel's theory. on november , , dr. schmidt noticed a new star of the third magnitude in the constellation cygnus.... the brilliancy gradually declined until, on the th of december, mr. hind found it to be of the sixth magnitude. the spectrum ... exhibited several bright lines which indicated that the star differed from other stars by the possession of vast masses of glowing gaseous material.... september , , it was then below the tenth magnitude and of a decidedly bluish tint. viewed through the spectroscope, its light was almost completely monochromatic, and appeared to be indistinguishable from that which is often found to come from nebulæ.... it would seem certain that we have an instance before us in which a star has changed into a planetary nebula of small angular diameter.... professor pickering, however, has since found slight traces of a continuous spectrum, but the object has now become so extremely faint that such observations are very difficult.... for the nebular theory we require evidence of the conversion of nebulæ into stars." and not, it may be added, of stars into nebulæ. of the irregular nebulæ, professor proctor says, "it may well chance, as long since suggested by professor clark, of cincinnati, and as more cautiously hinted by dr. huggins, that in the varieties of constitution observed in the irregular nebulæ, and the evidence such varieties afford of progressive changes, we may find not merely direct evidence of the development of suns and sun-systems from the great masses of nebulous matter, but even what would be a far more important and impressive result,--actual evidence of the development of so-called elements from substances really elementary, or, at any rate, one stage nearer the elementary condition than are our hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, and so forth. the peculiarity of the spectral indications of the presence of nitrogen and hydrogen in the nebula, that only one line of nitrogen and two or three lines of hydrogen are discernible, instead of a complete spectrum of either element as seen under any known conditions, seems suggestive of what may be called a more elemental condition of hydrogen and nitrogen." whether this be so, or whether these peculiarities are due to self-obscuration, or mutual reversal of the familiar lines due to the enormous disturbances of the nebular mass which must exist, it is certain that there is one terrestrial substance, at least, which acts invariably, in combination and chemical affinity, as a simple element in inorganic chemistry, but which is, in fact, compound,--to wit, the hypothetical radical ammonium, which is closely allied with the simple alkaline metals potassium and sodium, forming with them a single group; and yet, while the others have always remained as fixed, primitive elements, the hypothetical element ammonium alone is a composite substance consisting of hydrogen and nitrogen, two of the invariable gaseous constituents of all these nebulæ. in comets we find, vaguely expressed, an occasional strongly marked sodium line, and also the spectrum of carbon; in these gaseous nebulæ we find, as yet, no trace of carbon, and this element is so closely allied to hydrogen in its chemical affinities and reactions as to suggest that it may be the same element or some alloy of it, or in some allotropic form, as we find to be the case with other simple elements under special conditions. in organic chemistry--the chemistry of organic life--we find almost innumerable compound radicals which act as simple elements in combination, but which we can combine and separate into their constituents at will; to all intents and purposes, in their various reactions, they behave as elemental substances, and were it not that our analyses are able to resolve them, as the spectroscope resolves the nebulæ, we might well believe that here also we were dealing with simple primary elements. it is almost certain that great discoveries in this field of chemistry are not far distant, which will recall with wondering surprise the now universally exploded fallacies of the "philosopher's stone" and the "universal solvent." indeed, we may find in the electrical energies of the planets and the self-repulsive force of the electrospheres of the earth and moon possible grounds for investigating anew some of the abandoned tenets of astrology, in the hope that the light of science may disclose some basis, at least, for what, at one time,--and for nearly all time, in fact,--was the universally accepted belief, not only of the ignorant, but of those the wisest and most learned of their day and generation. if the planets by their position can cloud the sun, nearly a million miles in diameter, with spots, or shed the brilliance of the aurora borealis over all our skies, may they not also cloud the embryonic intellect, or charge it with energies for a career of prosperity or of disaster? may not the unseen currents, or the electric storms around us, or the vast electrical phenomena of the sun as well affect the sprouting germs of the husbandman or some abnormally rapid development of an insect pest as the light, the warmth, the moisture, or the cold, which, to our coarser vision, are alone apparent? fancy and fallacy revel luxuriantly where science fails, but truth existed long before science was systematized, and the supercilious condemnation of once generally accepted views without examination is merely pseudo-science, and scarcely a single grade higher in the scale than ignorant superstition itself. and every new advance in knowledge requires a new overhauling of abandoned material, just as a new advance in metallurgical knowledge enables us sometimes to work over again our once-rejected mining dumps with decided profit. indeed, science itself is but a collection of observed facts reduced to system, and among the shrewd and practical miners there is a well-known saying, "the ore is where you find it," which has frequently put scientific assertion to the blush. a study of the beautiful mezzotint plates, from the drawings of the earl of rosse, contained in professor nichol's splendid work, "the architecture of the heavens," will clearly disclose the forms, as revealed by a powerful telescope, of many of these gaseous nebulæ. of such nebulæ, appleton's cyclopædia says, "nebulæ proper, or those which have not been definitely resolved, are found in nearly every quarter of the firmament, though abounding especially near those regions which have fewest stars. scarcely any are found near the milky way, and the great mass of them lie in the two opposite spaces farthest removed from this circle. their forms are very various, and often undergo strange and unexpected changes as the power of the telescope with which they are viewed is increased, so as not to be recognizable in some cases as the same objects." an example of this is shown in plate x. (figs. and ) of professor nichol's work, which gives a greatly enlarged view of those shown in figs. and of plate ix. (for fig. of nichol's plate x., see illustration of nebula with double sun, in previous chapter.) professor nichol says, "in every instance examined, save one, the planetary nebulæ are nebulæ with hollow centers." the inference which this writer makes, that such a planetary nebula consists of "a grand annular cluster of stars," has been since disproved by the discoveries of the spectroscope, but the telescopic form remains true, and still awaits further interpretation. while the irresolvable nebulæ seem to seek some retired spot in space for their processes, like certain animals when incubating, this rule is not universal. of this, appleton's cyclopædia says, "the density of nebular distribution increased with the distance from the galactic zone for the irresolvable nebulæ, but diminished with that distance for the clusters.... there is not a gradual condensation of nebulæ towards two opposite regions, near the poles of the galactic zone, but the nebulæ are gathered into streams, nodules, and irregular aggregations such as we find in the grouping of stars.... between stars and nebulæ their arrangement follows the law of contrast. there are two remarkable exceptions to this law,--the magellanic clouds. in these, where stars of all orders, from the ninth magnitude to irresolvable stellar aggregations, are as richly gathered as in the galactic zone, nebulæ of all orders are also gathered richly, even more so than anywhere else over the whole heavens." in the same work, article "nebula," it is stated of the planetary nebulæ, "there are several which have perfectly the appearance of a ring, and are called annular nebulæ.... some appear to be physically connected in pairs like double stars. most of the small nebulæ have the general appearance of a bright central nucleus enveloped in a nebulous veil. this nucleus is sometimes concentrated as a star and sometimes diffused. the enveloping veil is sometimes circular and sometimes elliptical, with every degree of eccentricity between a circle and a straight line. there are some which, with a general disposition to symmetry of form, have great branching arms or filaments with more or less precision of outline. an example of this is lord rosse's crab nebula. another remarkable object is the nebula in andromeda, which is visible with the naked eye, and is the only one which was discovered before the invention of the telescope. simon marius ( ) describes its appearance as that of a candle shining through horn. besides the above, which have comparatively regular forms, there are others more diffused and devoid of symmetry of shape. a remarkable example is the great nebula in orion, discovered by huygens in .... the great nebula in argo is another example of this class." the number of nebulæ recognized in all the heavens is upward of five thousand, and new ones are being constantly discovered. of these objects, professor nichol says, "the spiral figure is characteristic of an extensive class of galaxies. majestic associations of orbs, arranged in this winding form, with branches issuing like a divergent geometric curve from a globular cluster." these nebulæ, however, are not associations of orbs; they are gaseous nebulæ apparently in process of evolution. this author (professor nichol) presents views of such spiral nebulæ either foreshortened to the view, so as to form a long ellipse, or with the convolutions of the spiral apparently raised from the horizontal plane into a conical form, and showing the black streaks of space which lie between the convolutions, others seen in side view, others in front, and, in fact, presented to the eye in every position for observation. the author wrote before the days of the spectroscope, and that he should conceive these vast objects to be spirals made up of blazing suns like our milky way--vast galaxies, in fact--was an inevitable conclusion at that time; but we now know that these spiral nebulæ are gaseous, are apparently in process of manufacture, and we can see them in their different stages of evolution, and may perhaps learn something about the processes by which solar systems and galaxies of suns are formed. of one of these strange but exceedingly instructive objects, professor ball, in his work "in the high heavens," says, "fig. represents one of the famous spiral nebulæ (that of canes venatici) discovered many years ago by the late earl of rosse. the object is invisible to the naked eye. it seems like a haze surrounding the stars, which the telescope discloses in considerable numbers, as shown in the picture. when viewed through an instrument of sufficient power, a marvellous spectacle is revealed. there are wisps and patches of glowing cloud-like material which shine not as our clouds do, by reflecting to us the sunlight. this celestial cloud is no doubt self-luminous; it is, in fact, composed of vapors so intensely heated that they glow with fervor. as i write, i have lord rosse's elaborate drawing of this nebula before me, and on the margin of this stupendous object the nebula fades away so tenderly that it is almost impossible to say where the luminosity terminates. probably this nebula will in some remote age condense down into more solid substances. it contains, no doubt, enough material to make many globes as big as our earth. before, however, it settles down into dark bodies like the earth, it will have to pass through stages in which its condensing materials will form bright sun-like bodies. it seems as if this process of condensation might almost be witnessed at the present time in some parts of the great object. there are also some very striking nebulæ which are often spoken of as planetary. they are literally balls of bluish-colored gas or vapor, apparently more dense than that which forms the nebula now under consideration. such globes are doubtless undergoing condensation, and may be regarded as incipient worlds." of these spiral nebulæ it is said, in appleton's cyclopædia, "many of them had been long known as nebulæ, but their characteristic spiral form had never been suspected. they have the appearance of a maelstrom of stellar matter, and are among the most interesting objects in the heavens." of their spectra it is said, "the bright-line spectrum is given by all the irregular nebulæ hitherto examined and by the planetary nebulæ." that is to say, these nebulæ are gaseous in constitution, and have not yet reached the stage of solar condensation which marks the existence of individual suns. chapter xii. the nebular hypothesis: its basis and its difficulties. "there sinks the nebulous star we call the sun, if that hypothesis of theirs be sound."--tennyson. while the nebular theory of laplace is now the generally accepted scientific hypothesis of the formation of our solar system and of all solar systems, it finds its strongest support in the mode in which it seeks to account for the heat and light of the sun,--that is, that the central orb, gradually condensing down from an original volume as large as the orbit of neptune, at least, after disengaging the planetary rings, continued to condense to its present volume, and still so continues, the molecular motions arrested by condensation under gravity reappearing in the form of the energy of light and heat, and that this process of degradation will continue until, finally, the sun becomes a solid inert mass, incapable by further condensation of exciting the ethereal undulations in space which constitute heat and light, when the whole process will finally cease, the sun will die out, the planets continue to rotate in darkness, and the whole machinery be left running through an eternal night, like a vast mill in the hands of a negligent watchman (or rather no watchman at all), left to run itself alone, dark, empty, lifeless, and deserted, through the long and silent watches of the night. while the source and mode of solar energy set forth in this work are to be as readily accounted for if we accept as valid laplace's nebular hypothesis as by any other theory, yet such basis is not essential for its support; for while the planetary rotations and the central sun are the necessary consequence, according to laplace's hypothesis, of their mode of formation,--are, in fact, just what we actually find them to be under any hypothesis,--electrical generation and transformation will proceed just the same whether the planets and sun were formed originally in one mode or in another. but, since this generally accepted hypothesis accounts for the light and heat of the sun, to a certain extent at least, and for a certain relatively brief period, while no other hypothesis has been able to sufficiently account for it at all, and while this hypothesis also finds both support and contradiction in many observed phenomena of our solar system, it may well occur that this hypothesis itself, based upon the necessity of accounting for the sun's light and heat, and which latter afford it its strongest basis of support, may, if the basis upon which the theory rests be found to be otherwise explicable, still remain as an end, while originally presented only as a means, and thus be held as an obstacle to the acceptance of the widely different interpretation of known facts herein presented, in the absence of any other hypothesis capable of explaining the same facts in accordance with this presentation of planetary electrical generation and the solar transformation of this energy into light and heat. herbert spencer mentions an instance of such perversion of means into an end as occurring during the agitation for the repeal of the corn laws in england, which extended over many years, during which organized efforts were made to influence parliament. a permanent commission was established, with official head-quarters permanently located in london, with clerks, secretaries, higher officers, and all the paraphernalia of a first-class establishment. the purpose of this institution was to act in behalf of the popular interests upon parliament by every available means to secure this great reform. after years of effort, he says, a clerk one day rushed, breathless, into the office from the house of commons and shouted, in accents of despair, "we are ruined; the bill has passed!" the nebular hypothesis, while generally accepted in lieu of a better one, has no actual primary basis beyond that of mere assumption. of it professor ball says, "the nebular theory ... seems, from the nature of the case, to be almost incapable of receiving any direct testimony." we have already quoted from professor newcomb that it must be accepted, with all its difficulties, until a different and sufficient explanation of solar energy shall be presented. as set forth in appleton's cyclopædia, the theory is as follows: "assuming, for the sake of the argument, a rare, homogeneous, nebulous matter, widely diffused through space, the following successive changes will, on physical principles, take place in it: , mutual gravitation of its atoms; , atomic repulsion; , evolution of heat by overcoming this repulsion; , molecular combination at a certain stage of condensation; followed by, , sudden and great disengagement of heat; , lowering of temperature by radiation and consequent precipitation of binary atoms, aggregating into irregular flocculi and floating in the rarer medium, just as water when precipitated from air collects into clouds; , each flocculus will move towards the common center of gravity of all; but, being an irregular mass in a resisting medium, this motion will be out of the rectilinear,--that is to say, not directly towards the common center of gravity, but towards one or the other side of it,--and thus, , a spiral movement will ensue, which will be communicated to the rarer medium through which the flocculus is moving; and, , a preponderating momentum and rotation of the whole mass in some one direction, converging in spirals towards the common center of gravity. certain subordinate actions are to be noticed also. mutual attraction will tend to produce groups of flocculi concentrating around local centers of gravity and acquiring a subordinate vortical movement. these conclusions are shown to be in entire harmony with the observed phenomena. in this genetic process, when the precipitated matter is aggregating into flocculi, there will be found here and there detached portions, like shreds of cloud in a summer sky, which will not coalesce with the larger internal masses, but will slowly follow without overtaking them. these fragments will assume characteristics of motion strikingly correspondent to those of the comets, whose physical constitution and distribution are seen to be completely accordant with the hypothesis." during this process, it is further stated, successive rings of nebulous matter will be thrown off and left behind, which are supposed to have coalesced into planets and their satellites, and the motion of rotation will become more and more rapid as condensation proceeds, until, finally, the last planet, mercury, will be left behind in annular form, and the sun will then become the central orb of all the planets, and condensation afterwards will proceed without further delivery of planetary rings. professor ball says, "if we go sufficiently far back, we seem to come to a time when the sun, in a more or less completely gaseous state, filled up the surrounding space out to the orbit of mercury, or, earlier still, out to the orbit of the remotest planet." there is nothing in the actively developing nebula illustrated on the following page which shows the slightest analogy, either in structure or the forces at work, to what is demanded by the nebular hypothesis. on the contrary, these radiating, spiral convolutions, springing from a center and extended, with interstratified dark spaces, out to the periphery, are entirely incompatible with that theory. there have not, so far, been observed in all the heavens any gaseous nebulæ which lend the slightest support to the nebular hypothesis. we should expect to find, if it were true, that many of the nucleated planetary nebulæ show exterior concentric rings of luminous matter, clearly defined, two, three, or a dozen in number, left behind by the contracting volume of the nebula, and coalescing into planets, and, within, the glowing disk from which new external rings are about to be left as a residuum. on the contrary, these nebulæ gradually fade away towards their margins, and imperceptibly disappear in the blackness of space. if they terminated abruptly, we might suppose that here, at least, was the orbit of a newly forming planet, but the regular and delicate gradation of luminosity from maximum to zero shows that no such sudden breaking off has occurred. in all these nebulæ we find every definitely marked structure to exhibit the operation of combined forces of gravity and internal repulsion nearly equally balanced, but each acting independently of the other. these phenomena are as universal as the forces of cohesion and repellent polarity in the "attraction particles" of cell-life which determine the segmentation, growth, and development of the living organism. we find here the primal modification and differentiation of material structure under the stress of directly opposite and interacting primitive forces, and it is doubtless the same whether in a cell or a system. it is not a residuum, but the vis a tergo. it is well known that there are many and great difficulties involved in the nebular hypothesis. as for the genesis of comets, it will be at once seen that the theory will only account for such comets as never venture much beyond the orbit of neptune, as well as those which have an orbital plane nearly coincident with that of the planets. but most comets come from illimitable space, far, far beyond neptune's circle and at all angles to the plane of the planetary orbits; and we have already seen that a disk of space of the diameter of neptune's orbit and half as thick (see proctor's "familiar essays") would, to contain all the matter of our solar system equally distributed, have a density of only one four-hundred-thousandth that of hydrogen gas at atmospheric pressure,--that is to say, such a volume of the lightest substance we know of would make four hundred thousand solar systems like our own. this author inquires if such a mass could, under any circumstances, rotate as a whole, and adds, "has it ever occurred, i often wonder, to those who glibly quote the nebular theory as originally propounded, to inquire how far some of the processes suggested by laplace are in accordance with the now well-known laws of physics?" but the great primal difficulty is in the first assumption of the theory, which is not only entirely gratuitous, but physically impossible. it is that this great plasma of nebulous material--in the case of our own solar system not less than six thousand million miles in diameter--should have in someway become aggregated into a homogeneous mass of the requisite tenuity, complete and perfect, and ready for the succeeding stages of the process, in which, however, the law of gravity has hitherto had no active operation whatever; for, if gravitation existed and operated therein, such homogeneous mass could never have been formed, nor ever existed even if formed. the very forces which alone could have brought this vast mass together must have been the identical forces which afterwards broke it up into the sun and planets, and the operation of the same force must have prevented its original formation at all. according to the theory, it was like a horse-race, in which all the participants stood silent and motionless until the judge cried, "go!" but the judge was the great creative force itself, and if the fiat reached to this extent, the same power could just as readily--nay, far more readily--have shot the sun and planets forth into rotation, as children scatter dough-balls, instead of holding in abeyance the control of universal law so as to (as a humorous writer speaks of the operations of a child in his investigation of a watch) "see the wheels go round." this is not nature's plan, so far as human knowledge goes. of course these masses gathering to this great nebulous center, if acted upon by gravitation, would have at once condensed around the center as a nucleus, and if rotation ever commenced, it must have commenced then, millions of years, doubtless, before the outlying masses had even got within hailing distance. when masses of people assemble at a camp-meeting, the first comers take the best places, and the late arrivals have to circulate around in the woods; they do not all gather in a circle and then make a grand rush. that would be fair, perhaps, but it is not nature. and this, unquestionably, is how, if ever formed at all, these nebulæ must have formed into systems. the fact that the orbital planes of very many of these asteroids are greatly inclined to the common planetary plane, and still more greatly inclined to one another, points almost unerringly to the existence during their stage of formation of some powerful force either of internal repulsion or external attraction. that no sufficiently large body could have been present to exercise such attraction so far outside the general planetary plane is self-evident, and if there had been such source of attraction, while the orbital planes of the asteroids might have been deflected from the common plane, they could not have been forced apart so as to differ largely among themselves. certainly nothing pertaining to the nebular hypothesis could have produced any such effects under any conceivable circumstances, and especially at so late a period of its progress, after all the principal planets had been completed. the only alternative is self-repulsion, and this could only have been due to the causes and their mode of operation already described in this work. in a modified degree these planes exhibit the same irregular orbital deflections as are so conspicuously visible in the orbits of comets, and they must have been unquestionably produced in the same manner. the barren bands or stripes in the area occupied by these asteroids, like the dark or vacant rings of the planet saturn, may have been largely affected by the perturbing attraction of the neighboring planet jupiter; but certainly no influence of that great planet (himself in the common planetary plane) could have operated to cast these forming planetoids into planes of diverse inclinations among themselves or to that of his own. on the contrary, his whole force must have been exerted to bring them into the closest harmony with his own orbital movements. omitting discussion of the technical difficulties in the application of the nebular theory to demonstrated facts, which may be found in the books, we may again repeat that this theory is not essential to account for the heat of the sun, which finds its real source elsewhere, while, nevertheless, the theory in itself is not incompatible with the views which we have endeavored to present and demonstrate. certain phenomena, however, have been considered in prior quotations in this work which may aid us to roughly indicate the successive processes by which the evolution of solar systems and galaxies may be explained on another basis which requires no violent assumptions to be made and no suspension of any of nature's universal laws. the same operations which we see around us at the present time in our own system, if extended to the dimensions of a nebular aggregation, would probably present the same phenomena as those we find partially disclosed in the gaseous nebulæ, particularly the spiral, and these would naturally determine the final production of solar systems such as our own. the gaseous nebulæ, not spiral, and the mixed nebulæ also, would fall into their appropriate categories in the same general plan, and a consistent mode of formation would be presented from the beginning to the end of the different processes. it should be observed that the spiral required by laplace's nebular theory is essentially a centripetal spiral. the spiral nebulæ we see in the heavens, however, are centrifugal spirals. this is clearly shown in plates xv., xii., and the frontispiece of nichol's "architecture of the heavens," as well as in plates xiii. and xiv. plate xv.--the open spiral--is directly contradictory of any phenomena which could occur in accordance with the nebular theory of laplace. the frontispiece shows the only form which such a nebula could assume at any stage of its career,--that is, a close spiral with nearly circular convolutions. but while this particular form is not only in entire accordance with the hypothesis which we are about to suggest, being in fact one of the later and necessary stages in its progress, any such spiral as that shown in plate xv. is utterly out of the question in the application of the nebular theory of laplace or in any of the more recent modifications thereof. the only hypothesis by which the various phenomena can be adequately explained must almost certainly be based upon the combined action of gravitation and electrospheric repulsion. we find in the corona of our own sun such phenomena manifested in the most striking degree, even in a completed system, and we can well understand that during the early stages of systemic development such phenomena would vastly transcend anything which we could now hope to observe around our own sun. we see this repulsion still more highly developed in the formation of the tails of comets. while these coronal rays are not visible to a distance of more, perhaps, than five million miles from the sun's disk, we have seen that the tail of newton's comet was shot forth to a distance of ninety million miles in a few days, as it were in a moment, by the tremendous electrical repulsion of the solar electrosphere, and that this enormous tail, which, if composed of hydrogen gas alone (it was, of course, enormously more attenuated), would have contained a mass much more than equal to the weight of the sun, was swung around over an arc of one hundred and eighty degrees, giving a radial sweep of the tail over a distance of two hundred and eighty millions of miles in less than four days. and the tails of many other comets have largely transcended in dimensions that of newton, above cited. we have learned much of the laws which regulate the development of storms, cyclones, whirlwinds, water-spouts, and other vortical phenomena in the atmosphere of our own earth, and can readily apply these principles to phenomena of vastly greater magnitude. we know that the matter of comets' tails is self-repulsive, as shown in multiple tails, as well as that it is repelled by an adjacent similarly electrified electrosphere,--that of the sun, for example,--as with pith-balls in the familiar class-room experiments; so that we can gather a very fair and complete idea of the processes of nature when dealing with such phenomena on a vastly more extended scale, in which our moments are measured by millions of years and our miles by the almost infinite distances of sidereal and nebular space. chapter xiii. the genesis of solar systems and galaxies. the processes of development of a solar system from the diffused elemental matter of space may then be roughly sketched as follows, premising that each stage may have possibly extended over vast periods of time, and the whole, perhaps, not been completed for millions of years. with the processes of creation time is as nothing. the area of space in which a solar system is about to be developed has hitherto maintained its molecular constituents in a state of gradually increased unstable equilibrium, whether such augmented instability may have been induced by a gradual rise of temperature from emission of the solar energy of other galaxies, by gradual diffusion from constantly operative centers, from currents or vortices of space, or by some primal inherent constitution of space itself, with constantly increasing tensions relieved by successive discharges, of which analogous instances are found in various other processes of nature, as, for example, ovulation, fission, and gemmation in the reproduction of life, regularly recurring epileptiform convulsions, regularly repeated spark discharges from electrical machines, or the ebullition of viscous fluids with their slowly recurring bursting bubbles. at some focal point of this area a rupture of tension will finally occur, induced by some sudden current or vortical movement, as we see sometimes in a pool of water gradually reduced in temperature below the freezing-point, when its whole surface, by the passage of a breath of wind even, will be suddenly flashed into crystals of ice. at this point of space there will be instituted a rapid expansion among the molecules and a consequent fall of temperature, followed by an inrush of the vaporous material surrounding this center of agitation, and a vortical movement will be established, with currents of spatial matter attracted to this vortex in constantly increasing streams. the molecular tensions will be successively unlocked as the circles of agitation continue to widen, and a condensed nucleus will form, rotating upon its axis and exhibiting the combined phenomena of gravity and centrifugal force. as the nucleus continues to increase in mass and density its temperature will constantly rise, while its speed of rotation will gradually diminish as its volume increases, and the aqueous vapors of space, as they gather around this rotating center of attraction, will be forced outward by centrifugal action and the heat of the nucleus, and form vast attenuated clouds,--not necessarily visible, however, to human sight,--and these clouds, in their various stratifications and disturbances, will gradually come to partake of the rotatory movement of the center, such movements, however, gradually fading away as they recede in space and in density. the cyclonic movements of these clouds of aqueous vapor upon themselves, but principally against the surrounding gases of space still under tension, will generate enormous quantities of electricity, which flash like thunder-clouds as they approach each other, with incessant streams of lightning and rolls of thunder. the growing and heating central nucleus is thus thrown into a state of high electrical opposite polarity, and its own constituent elements become self-repellent, just as we see in the sun's corona and in the phenomena of comets. the electrical tension of the central mass will gradually grow higher and higher, until a vast stream or streams of incandescent nebulous matter (for with double suns they may be multiple, or the internal repulsion may even cause division of the nucleus itself) will be suddenly driven outward in a radial direction along the lines of least resistance,--that is to say, in the plane of equatorial rotation, where centrifugal force is most effective. we can readily understand the self-repellent force of such an enormous mass of cosmical matter by considering that, in our own completed system, the repulsion of the solar electrosphere drove forth the tail of newton's comet, as before stated, to a distance of ninety million miles, and whirled it around a semicircle of this radius in less than four days. our most distant planet, neptune, is only thirty times this distance from the sun, and we see during every solar eclipse the coronal structure glowing to a distance of more than a million miles from the sun's disk, and the radial streamers driven forth five million miles, and even farther. (see illustrations of solar corona in guillemin's "the heavens.") the vast stream of radiating nebulous matter thus forced out by solar repulsion will likewise be acted upon with equal energy by its own internal self-repellent force. if we conceive a stream of water thrown vertically upward by a powerful force-pump, in which every drop of the fluid is endowed with tremendous self-repulsive energy, we should find an analogy to the phenomenon in question. we can see an example of this in the "crab nebula," illustrated in a previous chapter. the stream, acted upon by gravity downward, by the force of ejection upward, and by the internal force of repulsion both transversely and upward, would assume a pyriform shape, narrower beneath, largely swollen about its middle, and thence gradually decreasing in diameter to its termination in a rounded tuft, in advance of which would be driven forth detached sprays and wisps, while filaments and outlying parallel strands would mark its entire ascent, except towards its point of ejection, where the primal force which drove it out is greatly in excess of those of gravity and self-repulsion. it will be seen at a glance that these phenomena are precisely those which we observe in a comet's tail. (see illustrations of many comets having these characteristics in guillemin's "the heavens," lockyer's edition.) suppose, now, that this stream of water or the tail of a large comet were gradually wrapped around its point of emission by the rotation of this nucleus upon its axis. a spiral would form, very open or flaring at first, but gradually growing closer and more circular as the force of gravity drew its convolutions downward upon the interstratified clouds of aqueous vapor occupying, in compressed layers, the spaces between the adjacent coils of the spiral. there would be a composite action of forces observed: gravity would attract the convolutions and their interstratified layers of cloud equally, according to their densities, while the central repulsive force would repel the convolutions of the spiral along the same lines of force, but would not act at all upon the strata of clouds, and the force of internal self-repulsion would also tend to disrupt the convolutions of the spiral by expanding them outwardly. the outer convolution, however, would have no backward thrust from any internal repulsion beyond, while, within, gravity and solar repulsion would be more equally balanced, so that the outer coil would be relatively compressed in its rotation against the next inner convolution, and its ratio of distance would not be maintained. we find this exemplified in the case of neptune's, orbit in our own system. the inner convolution would also be abnormal, since the primal force of ejection must have been sufficient to carry the outward thrust of the whole spiral, and in consequence its flare would offer much greater resistance to the deflection of rotation, and it would have a more radial direction than those beyond. we shall find that the planet mercury, and the inner convolution which was eventually reabsorbed into the solar mass, exhibit these phenomena. between the outer and these inner convolutions the curve of the spiral would be approximately regular, with a fixed ratio of increase. in the planets of our solar system this ratio is that produced by constantly doubling the preceding number, the series being , , , , , etc. in other solar systems, however, the ratio may be quite different. in this abnormal flare of the inner convolution is doubtless to be found the rational basis of bode's empirical law of planetary distances, in which the arbitrary number must be added to each term of the above progression, making the series , , , , , etc. the inner coil between mercury and the sun was drawn into the solar mass on the disruption of the spiral, leaving, from the abnormally radial curvature of the inner portions of the spiral and its absence from the series, a vacant place which must be represented by the relatively fixed increment to be added to each term of the series. as the convolutions of the spiral become more and more compressed towards each other and more and more flattened against the interstratified cloud-layers, the force of internal repulsion becomes more and more active in its tendency to disrupt the spiral, since its forces are more direct and concentrated along lines nearly at right angles to the force of gravity. during the formation of the spiral we can easily conceive that--like a stream of water shooting over a cascade, or the multiple tails of some comets, or even a whole comet, as, for example, biela's, which was split up into two separate bodies by this force--some convolution, perhaps a single one of the series, will be laterally divided into a large number of nearly parallel strands, mutually held apart by their internal self-repulsion, and with cloud-layers interposed between these lateral strands. such a series of small planets as these would finally produce we find in the belt of our asteroids, the bulk of the convolution, probably, for the most part, however, scattered in space, since their aggregate mass is so small, and possibly, in part, coalesced into the mass of jupiter, to which mars, by his position, may also have contributed. not only may a whole convolution be thus split up, but along the spiral at many points the outer margins may be thrust outward, forming partially detached parallel strands, which may thus coalesce to form the satellites of the completed planets; while at the outer extremity of all, where the backward thrust of self-repulsion is wanting, enormous wisps, sprays, and tufts of nebulous matter would be driven entirely forth into the illimitable realms of outer space, but not necessarily, or even probably, into the space of other systems, which are so enormously distant; and there, in those unoccupied realms, they will remain to gyrate "in the solitude of their own originality," in the form of comets, until, at long intervals, they may chance to revisit the scenes of their earliest youth, to warm their frozen limbs for a brief period at the old and well-remembered parental fire, or finally, worn out with toil and travel, "come home at last to die." driven forth from the society of their fellows by their own unbalanced energies, these anarchists of the sky may form loose aggregations, granulated about multitudes of self-constituted minor centers; but, cut loose from all effective solar control during their period of coalescence, they must forever lack the consolidated form and complex organization of their prosperous and rotund brethren, the planets and their satellites, or even the tiny asteroids, who stayed home and, like the little pig, had bread and butter for breakfast. the disruptive energy of internal repulsion, as above stated, increases in force as the convolutions of the spiral become more and more compressed and the spiral becomes more and more circular in form. suddenly the coils of the spiral will be burst asunder, and this will occur along that particular radial line of gravitation where the central nucleus acts with its most effective force. the disruption will be simultaneous, as a general rule, in accordance with the principles which control ruptures of tension of bodies in a state of unstable equilibrium, and which we see exemplified in multiplied centers of crystallization, the simultaneous formation of mud-cracks, the giant's causeway, and other like phenomena. each convolution will now become a detached open ring, one of its broken extremities, however, being millions of miles farther from the central nucleus than the other. what occurs when a cometic body, negatively electrified, impinges upon the positive electrosphere of a planet, or when an electrical induction machine like voss's is touched by an oppositely electrified body, will now necessarily occur with these disrupted convolutions. their connection with the negatively electrified nucleus being broken, a reversal of electrical polarity will ensue from contact with the adjacent positively electrified clouds of aqueous vapor, and, instead of self-repulsion, mutual attraction will now prevail along the length of each of the open rings. held apart from the central nucleus by the interstratified cloud-layers, and acted upon by the double force of gravity and internal attraction, the component elements of these open rings will rapidly lose their luminosity and heat, and coalesce by a retrograde movement down the lines of their direction, thus approaching the sun along the segment of an ellipse, the nucleus, or sun, occupying one of the foci, the eccentricity of the ellipse being measured by the differential between the nearest point of the open ring and the part of the convolution which lies directly opposite and beyond the sun. in other words, the form of the spiral will determine the eccentricity of the ellipse, subject to perturbations, however, of various sorts. during this stage of coalescence from an open ring into a sphere, these bodies will take on, by cooling and condensation, their planetary forms; and as the forming spheres, by the retreat of their masses down the lines of approach to the sun, advance, their forward and nearer extremities will be more powerfully acted upon by gravity than those parts in the rear, and a forward plunge or axial movement of rotation will be set up. viscous matter,--pitch, for example,--molten by the sun's heat and flowing down a steep roof, exhibits a similar forward movement, the outer layers tending to roll over the inner ones in convoluted folds, the adhesion to the roof of the under surface corresponding to the retarding pull of the sun's attraction. in like manner are produced rotating eddies in streams of water having crooked channels, eddies of air under water-falls, and other analogous atmospheric disturbances. during the stage of coalescence of the planetary spheres the adjacent clouds of aqueous vapor will condense around them, and their hitherto diffused electrical energies will be concentrated by rotation in currents of enormous quantity and potential directly upon the sun, and a disassociation of the elements which compose these watery vapors will ensue, the result of which will be the deposit of hydrogen gas as an atmospheric envelope around the sun's body, and of oxygen around and through the bodies which constitute the planets. these gases will be disassociated in their combining proportions, two volumes of hydrogen at the sun for one volume of oxygen, distributed according to their relative electrical energies among the planets. this nascent oxygen will rapidly combine with the consolidating elements of the planets and, interpenetrating their solidifying bodies, form the vast mass of oxides which we find to constitute the bulk of our terrestrial mass, the residue, mechanically commingled with the condensed ever-present nitrogen, forming the planetary atmospheres. the condensation of volume of the planets will give rise to great elevation of temperature, while their currents of electricity, poured into the sun, will, by their passage through its enormously compressed hydrogen atmosphere, produce intense heat, and this, rapidly communicated to the solar core within, will raise its temperature to that of the sun as we now see it, and permanently maintain it in that state of incandescence. during the stage of coalescence of the planetary bodies, outlying strands of the spiral will follow the course of their adjacent masses in a nearly parallel movement, and will gradually coalesce into smaller bodies more directly under the influence of the gravity of their own adjacent planets, by their proximity, than of that of the sun. these bodies will thus rotate as satellites around their planets, and the forward shift of their centers of gravity, by their advance along their lines of coalescence, may result in a permanent displacement, of which we see an example in the moon, which constantly presents the same face to the earth, while having an axial rotation of its own with reference to the sun. (in this case the action of gravity may have been assisted, however, by the mutual repulsion of the lunar and terrestrial electrospheres forcing the atmosphere and moisture of the lunar mass to its opposite side and maintaining it there, where it would remain as a buffer against rotation.) in some cases we might find certain outlying strands of a convolution which, perturbed by external influences, may have been delayed in its conversion into spherical form, and this subordinate strand, pyriform itself, as it must have been, in shape, would thus form a spiral of minute discrete bodies, probably like the nucleus of a comet, finally assuming the shape of a series of rings, and rotating like a satellite around the neighboring planet, the inner and outer strands more attenuated and the middle ones more condensed, as we find to be the case with the rings of saturn. in the original spiral we have seen that, as a whole, it was of necessity pyriform in shape. the planets formed therefrom would thus be found to increase in size from within outward to a maximum, after which they would again decrease, but not to the original minimum, while the extreme outer planet would also be unduly enlarged by increment from partially dissipated terminal filaments, gradually attracted thereto from surrounding space. there is such an undue enlargement of the planet neptune, and this, with its relatively compressed orbit, before alluded to, renders it almost certain that neptune is in reality the outermost member of our planetary system. we find this gradation of size to be the case in our solar system, except where the series has been broken by the multitudinous separation, from violent internal repulsion, of one of the convolutions into parallel strands showing all sorts of perturbations, this being the convolution which occupied the region between the orbits of mars and jupiter, and which, by the coalescence of these numerous parallel strands into small planetary bodies, has filled the space with a belt of asteroids hundreds and perhaps thousands or even tens of thousands in number. it is probable that a law regulating the ellipticity of planetary orbits can be deduced from a consideration of the principles which have governed their inception, and with these are doubtless closely related those laws of laplace which have demonstrated that "in any system of bodies travelling in one direction around a central attracting orb, the eccentricities and inclinations, if small at any one time, would always continue inconsiderable." (appleton's cyclopædia, article "planet.") we have thus traced the genesis of a solar system from its earliest stages forward through its various changes until, complete and in working order, it is ready to be sent on its eternal course, either alone or as one of a vast congeries of similar systems, like the milky way. (see frontispiece for illustration of a series of types of development from a straight-tailed comet, through different curvatures, and spiral nebulæ of less and less divergence, until nearly circular, and finally terminating in a complete solar system.) these processes of creation may be isolated, or they may flash a hundred million solar systems into being together, as crystals flash forth in the rock; but, when once formed, they go forth each as eternal as space itself. but can we not go back one step farther still in the progressive stages of creative energy? whence came these powerful agencies by means of which all those distant regions became peopled with suns and worlds? the great source of all is to be found alone in space,--the so-called "empty space." but it is far from empty; all through it are diffused the attenuated vapors which, condensed, constitute our suns and planets, and all that is, or ever shall be, gaseous vapors, which are held poised, with their opposite tensions of cohesion and expansion, like the prince rupert drops which glass-blowers make for toys,--a little bulb of glass, chilled as it falls, molten, in a vessel of water. from one extremity projects a long, crooked stem, scarcely thicker at the end than a horse-hair, spun out from the molten glass as it hung from the glass-blower's rod. the bulbous body is as large, perhaps, as a nut; you can beat it with a hammer and it will not break; it is the hardest in structure of all glass. now, wrap this bulb up in a thick handkerchief, or you may be injured; hold it firmly, and break off the very tiniest tip of the long stem three, four, or even six inches from the bulb. there is a sudden shock; open your handkerchief, and lo! instead of the solid bulb, there is only a loose mass of white powder. if you put the bulb in a heavy glass vessel full of water and break off the tip of the tail, it will shatter the vessel into fragments. what is the explanation?--it is, of course, well known--simply that the molecules of glass were instantly arrested in their motion of adjustment as the glass was suddenly chilled by the water, and the molecular motion of shrinkage was arrested, leaving the individual molecules under a tremendous strain of position in their endeavor to reach their true places. they are rigidly fixed in this position of unstable equilibrium, one balancing the other; but let a single molecule be displaced,--a fragment so tiny that the eye can scarcely see it,--and the molecules, thus thrown out of mutual support against each other, must now rearrange themselves from the ruptured rigid mass, and, like a row of stood-up bricks, each of which thrusts the other forward, with a sudden explosive force the molecules assume their true position of stable equilibrium, but it is at the cost of the whole structure. to this same cause we owe the explosive force of our gunpowder, nitroglycerin, and all explosives; the molecules are held in unstable equilibrium, and the tension once relieved at a single point, be it ever so infinitesimal, the molecules of the whole mass rearrange themselves with explosive energy. strange that so harmless a substance as glycerin, by the mere replacement of an atom of nitrogen gas, should develop the energy of dynamite under a trifling molecular shock. so, also, the aqueous and perhaps other vapors of all space, attenuated though they be, and perhaps by reason of this very tenuity itself, as shown by the experiments of professor crookes with attenuated gases when acted upon by electricity, are held in the same state of unstable equilibrium. we know the potency of this instability from the terrific explosive combination of the gases which combine to form aqueous vapor. we may again refer to one of the well-known experiments of professor crookes with simple atmospheric air. enclosed in a cylindrical glass vessel, the electric spark passed freely; as it became more rarefied under an air-pump, new phenomena appeared, until, at a stage of high rarefaction, the molecules of these gases were driven forward by the electric current with such energy as first to raise the temperature of the opposite side of the cylinder to a red heat, then to melt, and finally to perforate the glass. the explanation is that the movements of closely aggregated molecules mutually interfere with each other; as they gain elbow-room by being reduced in number, they act with more directness, and consequently with more force: it is the difference between men fighting in a crowded room and out in an open field. it is possible that these molecular tensions of space, by the ready unlocking of the forces with which they are charged, may even aid in the rotation of the planets by acting upon their electrospheres in their drift through space, as charged thunder-clouds react upon each other, or the molecules of atmospheric air, in moderately high vacua, under electrical excitement, act upon the walls of the containing vessel, as in the experiments of professor crookes and others. the riddles of nature are like those of the sphinx,--they have more than one meaning. the tensions of the aggregated molecules of space are thus counterbalanced only so long as all space is equally occupied and a state of perfect quiescence exists in its every part. a molecular disturbance in one part is immediately communicated to adjacent parts, and finally to all. with the first movement, gravity asserts itself, for gravity exists and must exist in all parts, and must actively manifest itself whenever the perfect mutual balance of space is disturbed and a center of energy developed, and co-ordinately with the action of gravity begins that of electricity. movements among the molecules are converted into movement of mass; centripetal motion begets condensation, this begets sensible heat and vortical movement; then come the phenomena of electrical generation by moving contact with the gases of space, then repulsion and disassociation of the elements of the aqueous vapors, combination of simple into compound elements; and, the balance once disturbed, the state of unstable equilibrium is forever destroyed, and all space henceforth must exhibit constant change. there are whole segments of space absolutely blank, so far as visible systems are concerned, which seem to have been exhausted, for the present æons at least, to supply material for the vast adjacent galaxies which extend along their borders; see illustrations in proctor's "essays on astronomy," article "distribution of the nebulæ." it need not be supposed that such stage of perfect and universal quiescence ever existed in fact; it is like the nirvana of the buddhist philosophers,--a subjective and not an objective condition. we can have no knowledge of the existence, even, of material things, save from their phenomena, the manifestation of interchanging forces, upon which rests our threefold basis of knowledge, perception, cognition, and comparison. we know nothing of matter, except as affected by internal or external force, nor of force itself, except as it acts in one mode or another upon matter. all beyond this is, for us, without form and void. progressive change has always, doubtless, been the universal law of creation, and the great ocean of space is, and ever has been, and ever will be the highway through which perpetually plough the great caravels which bear the fortunes of creative energy, laden with life and light and heat, in their eternal progression. the creative impulse once given, if it, too, was not primeval in the eternal past, must have gone on from development to development, like the transmission of life, from age to age and from realm to realm. "the mills of the gods grind slowly;" in these vast areas time is absolutely nothing; the processes we see are but as the dip of a swallow's wing compared with an inconceivable futurity; but all our energies, and all the energies of planets and suns and systems and galaxies, and of whatever other and wider created forms may stretch onward to infinity, came forth from the ocean of space, and to this ocean all these energies continue to return again in ceaseless circuit. can we indicate any relationship of periodicity for the genesis of solar systems from space? there is a remarkable example of a somewhat similar periodicity in organic life for the rupture of tensions, so common that its analogous character and perfect regularity are scarcely even thought of. among the highest species of mammalia we find that, in a state of health, whether resident of the heights of the andes, the deserts of africa, the jungles of india, or the most densely populated centers of london; among rich or poor, high or low, idle or industrious, virtuous or vicious, ancient or modern, civilized or barbarous, black, white, red, or yellow, the ovum of the mature female rises to the surface of the ovary, and at intervals, almost uniform, of twenty-eight days, organic excitement ensues, the enclosing vesicle is ruptured, and the ovum escapes. the remarkable feature is not that these processes continuously succeed each other; but that under such diverse conditions and opposite circumstances, and with two separate ovaries operating at the same time, simultaneously or successively, this almost miraculous interval of no more and no less than twenty-eight days between the successive ruptures of tension and their attendant phenomena, should constantly persist. for its ultimate cause we must look back to the vis a tergo to which we have already alluded; and there may be, and doubtless is, a similarly acting remote cause which regulates the periodical development of solar systems or of galaxies, periods of intense activity, followed by intervals of exhaustion and recuperation, and again succeeded by another period of activity, and so on perpetually, for space is perpetual, infinite, and inexhaustible. it will be observed that the processes above roughly sketched are somewhat similar to those observed in the formation of so-called water-spouts, which usually terminate in dissipation in the atmosphere, or else in terrific thunder-storms, but which occasionally reach a sufficient energy of rotation to spin their central nuclei down towards, or even to, the surface of the sea, or, in desert regions, to that of the ground. there is no analogy with the theoretical and "assumed" primal mass of attenuated plasma of the nebular theory, or with its slow initial rotation, with the successive casting off of rings of nebulous matter. it may sometimes happen, however, that the repulsive electrical energy of the central nucleus may throw off its external envelopes with sufficient force to drive them entirely beyond the effective limit of its attractive forces, as occurs in the formation of embryonic comets as above described; in such case the nebula will be a variable one, with successively repeated aggregations and successive outbursts, periodical like the active stages of volcanoes; and, even when the nucleus has already presented a continuous solar spectrum, its energies may be thus expended, or more gradually, and finally dissipated like the electricity of a highly charged leyden jar exposed to a moist atmosphere. as a bottle of strongly effervescing liquid may blow itself empty, when suddenly opened, by the mutually repellent energy of its contained molecules, so if such a phenomenon were manifested in a radial direction from a central point, the repelled spray would show itself as a nebulous ring with a hollow center. an example of this sort is shown in the multiple-tailed "catherine-wheel" nebula (fig. of a previous illustration). if such an annular nebula should become ruptured into two portions by internal repulsion, the electrical polarity of the smaller fragment would be reversed, and the two arcs would separately coalesce and consolidate into a sun and a single planet, forming a solar system like that of algol, which has been already described. otherwise, the nebula would probably retrograde and disappear, by diffusion, into space again. we may expect to find abortive efforts of nature here, as we so constantly find them elsewhere, not merely in inorganic matter, but even among the processes of life. in professor proctor's article ("essays on astronomy") on the square-shouldered aspect of saturn, he mentions a hitherto unexplained circumstance of the earth's atmosphere--the curious fact that the barometrical pressure of the earth's atmosphere is somewhat higher between the poles and the equator than immediately over the latter, as might be supposed to be the case. this is a phenomenon of mutual repulsion similar to those manifested in the operations above described. the rotation of the earth on its axis forces the terrestrial atmosphere, by its centrifugal motion, in undue proportion, around the equatorial belt, causing the same sort of atmospheric thinning at the poles which we see in the solar photosphere at its corresponding parts. at the same time the highly electrified atmosphere, by its mutually repellent action, tends to force this swollen equatorial ring backward toward the poles. the resultant of these two repulsions is an area of maximum density part way between the poles and the equator. it is probable that this self-repellent equatorial swell may play some part in the sun's atmosphere, in extending, and also in limiting, the areas of eruptive sun-spots outward from his equator. while the nebulæ are more distant than many of the discrete stars revealed to us by the telescope, there is no reason to suppose that they are more distant than the star-clouds into which are merged the separate stars of the milky way, or the star-clusters seen in other portions of the sky. we know, in fact, that this is not so, for our telescopes show brilliant stars in very many cases which are components of the nebulæ themselves; and the fact that the nebulæ can be seen as having visible form, and not as mere points of light, is itself conclusive as to their relative distances. hence we need not be surprised to learn that these forming spirals will result each in the production of a single solar system, and not a galaxy of suns, as was once supposed. were such the case it would be impossible for us to observe the structure of the nebulæ at all, as their distances would be far too vast. of the forms of the gaseous nebulæ guillemin asks, "is the spiral the original form of those gaseous matters, the condensation of which may give, or has given, birth to each individual of this gigantic association?" the same author says of these apparently regularly formed nebulæ, "it is impossible not to recognize in them so many systems." many of the spiral nebulæ were formerly supposed to be globular aggregations of nebulous matter only, and their spiral character came as a great surprise with the use of more powerful telescopes; and many--nay, most--of these apparently globular nebulæ have totally changed their appearance when viewed with instruments of higher power, while the spirals have become more and more pronounced in character with every increase of telescopic vision. of one of such apparently globular nebulæ guillemin says, "the center is like a large globular nebula with a very marked condensation, whence radiate branches arranged in the form of spirals. in several points of these branches other centers of condensation are noticed. sir john herschel had classed this among the nebulæ of rounded, globular form, doubtless because the central nebulosity was the only one revealed by his telescope." the formation of the sub-centers in this nebula (which is between the great bear and boötes) should be particularly noted in connection with the coalescence of planets as above described. in a note to guillemin's work, professor lockyer says, "the proper motion of nebulæ has not yet been inquired into, because everybody, looking upon them as irresolvable star-clusters, thought them infinitely remote. now, however, that we know they are not clusters of stars, properly so called, it is possible that they may be much nearer to us than we imagine." in connection with the double-sun spiral nebula shown in the preceding illustration, guillemin says, "we have noticed nebulæ accompanied by systems of double or multiple stars, placed in a manner so symmetrical in the midst of the nebulosity that it is impossible to doubt the existence of a real connection between the stars and the nebulæ." and flammarion says of these apparently globular nebulæ, when under the observation of more powerful telescopes, "in the place where pale and whitish clouds gave out a calm and uniform light, the giant eye of the telescope has discerned alternately dark and luminous regions,"--that is to say, they reveal the operation of the opposite forces of attraction and repulsion, and are spiral. while gaseous nebulæ may be of any conceivable form, the direction and operation of the forces which will determine their character as solar systems must be similar, just as with the forms of organic life, and the only nebulæ which reveal a distinct systematic development in harmony with a working solar system are the spiral. there is no difficulty whatever in tracing such a nebula through all its formative stages, as we have done, and we can, in fact, see painted on the background of the sky every step of the shifting tableau through which such forms must pass. by the nebular hypothesis the whole course of development, of necessity, is rigidly forward to its culmination; but by employing the analogies presented to us in other operations of nature, we can readily account for variations, haltings, ineffectual efforts, uncompleted processes, and even reversals and redistributions into other secondary sources of energy. they equally comprise the agencies for the production of a single solar system or of a myriad, just as we see the vortical water-spouts or sand-storms either single, double, or multiple; they are flexible, as are all the processes of nature, and require no violent assumption of a prior physical basis known to us "ne'er before on sea or shore." they also account for the deviation from the normal of the orbits of neptune and mercury, for the formation of the asteroids and saturn's rings, for the different eccentricities and inclinations of the orbits, for the forward axial rotation of the planets and their satellites, and even for their perturbations and abnormalities; they furnish a basis for bode's empirical law, for the distribution of the planets in size, for the origin of comets and meteor streams, for kepler's laws, for the equal and permanent relation of eccentricities and inclinations, and for the fixed axial position of the moon with reference to the earth; they account for the free oxygen in the planetary and free hydrogen in the solar atmosphere, they employ the variation of volume of the sun as a regulator instead of an independent generator of light and heat, and they are in entire conformity with the established principles which govern the electrical generation of active forces, their transmission to the sun, their transformation into light and heat, and their return to the regions of space, where they continue to act with potential energy to all eternity, as they must do if space itself is eternal; and we surely know that, if anything whatever is eternal, space must be so. this great ocean--the home, the domain, the workshop of creative energy--is the last retreat of the human intellect; here it may find rest, and here alone. while solar systems may afford in their circling planets a possible dominion for finite life, and in their suns their daily bread; in the infinite and all-embracing realms of space, filled with the potentialities of all created forms, thrilled with the impulses of all creative force, is to be found the unfailing source of all, the dominion of the eternal architect, before whom nature bends the obedient knee, waits to hear his mighty voice, or swiftly runs to do his royal bidding. chapter xiv. the mosaic cosmogony. "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."--bible. thus, as we have seen, through countless future ages will the sun, with his incandescent envelope of hydrogen, and the planets, with their life-sustaining atmospheres of oxygen, fulfil their appointed times and courses. but if we could conceive that all atmospheres, solar and planetary, were suddenly blotted out and forever annihilated, so that these great orbs thenceforth rolled along as they do now, but only as black globes in an ocean of space of stygian darkness, new atmospheres would at once begin to be formed, and these would soon again surround the sun and planets, precisely like those which now exist. sweeping along in darkness, the force of gravity would gather around each of these bodies vast accumulations of aqueous vapor and other gases condensed from the attenuated matter of surrounding space. the planets, by their axial rotations, would again generate from these regions, newly occupied as the system drifted along through space, electrical energy of enormous quantity and potential. earth would again hear the mighty mandate, "let there be light," and from her poles to her equator the skies would blaze with brush-light auroras. suddenly, with a mighty leap, the pent-up currents would flash across to their opposite electric pole, the auroras would gradually die away, and instantly the molecules of hydrogen would begin to sift out at the solar and those of oxygen at the planetary terminals. the electrical currents driving their furious pathway through the rapidly gathering hydrogen envelope, the sun would first begin to faintly flicker with hazy, nebulous light; the light would gather intensity, and soon flash and glow with energy; the solar nucleus within would become intensely heated and liquefied or partially volatilized, and again the solar streams of incandescent heat and light would radiate forth on every side; the commingled gases, oxygen and nitrogen, would once more surround each planetary globe, and we should have a new solar envelope just as we now see it, and new planetary atmospheres like our own; and then, and not till then, would the opposing generative forces permanently counterbalance each other and electrolytic decomposition become practically stationary, except to compensate for the slight variations constantly liable to occur in the complicated running of the mechanism. so the mutilated crustacean re-grows his lost claws, and so our own gaping wounds are healed by the great vis medicatrix naturæ. the most stable of all things is mutually balanced instability; perhaps there is no other form of stability. the "nebular hypothesis" of laplace concerns itself only with the aggregate matter of which our solar system is composed, and the force of gravity, including cohesion, ignoring the action of the equally powerful force of repulsion. but there is another nebular hypothesis much older than that of laplace and far more scientific, for it utilizes both the force of gravity and cohesion and the radiant force of repulsion in the generation of our solar system. we refer to what is known as the mosaic cosmogony. whatever the origin of this magnificent narrative may have been, whether written down by moses originally, or by him derived from the sacred learning of egypt, with which he was fully acquainted, or by the egyptian scribes drawn from ethiopia, and still further back from the sacred traditions of india, it bears internal evidence, when properly rendered from the hebrew record, of a knowledge of these stupendous phenomena (which no human eye could ever have beheld) which is most remarkable. the commonly accepted versions do not clearly bring out the full meaning of the original,--indeed, it would have been impossible for the earlier translators to have done so,--but when critically and etymologically rendered, very surprising coincidences with the succession of events as they must actually have occurred, and the principles involved in the successive stages of creation, will be found in nearly every part of the record. this record is embodied in the first chapter and first three verses of the second chapter of genesis. the hebrew was long believed to be an original, if not an inspired, language, but it is now well known to have been a derivative or root language, made up much like the english, and, like it, having the meanings of its words primarily determined by those of the root-stems from which they have been formed. the roots of these hebrew words are to be found among the languages of many older peoples, and nearly all of them have now been traced to their immediate origin. another source of error is in the so-called masoretic pointing, which was not introduced for a thousand years after the time of moses, and which has often changed the signification of the older words, and even the form of the words themselves; but by critical researches the roots and their combinations have been isolated, so that we are now able to possess a much mere accurate knowledge of the mosaic record than was possible in former times, for, of course, no original copies have come down to us. it is not a reconstruction of the record which has been made, but a careful editing by means of the derivation and true signification of the words used, and by careful comparison among the most ancient versions accessible to modern research. the english version, while imperfect in its rendering of this ancient narrative, is not to be considered by any means a false translation, but it largely errs in failing to give the full radical meaning of the words employed in the original. as an illustration of this indefiniteness of rendering in the ordinary english version let us consider the opening sentences of the narrative: "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth. and the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." in the "beginning" of what? does it mean the beginning of our own solar system? or of all systems? or of all space? or of jehovah (for he has not yet been mentioned or described)? or of the aleim themselves,--that is, did the work begin as soon as the forces began? and did the latter originate spontaneously, or otherwise? what "god" is meant? is it jehovah, or aleim, or some other god not yet mentioned or described? if we will take every name in the bible which is translated god (and it may be any of these according to the english rendering), we will have legion. we shall even find that the same word which is translated "god" was applied by jehovah on one occasion to moses. "created"? what is meant by this word? was the creating a creation out of nothing? out of something pre-existing? or something coexisting elsewhere? was the creation a direct or an indirect one? by the use of the forces of nature, or by overriding the forces of nature? was it a physical creation by an inconceivable action of mere thought, or will? and if so, was this thought, or will, god himself, or one of his attributes or powers only? "the heaven"? what heaven? was it that to which the virtuous are supposed to go after death? or was it some more physical heaven? was the heaven the atmospheric heaven, the interplanetary heaven, the heaven of interstellar space, or that more extended heaven which lies beyond our knowledge? was the heaven one of these which he created, or did he create all the different heavens of all the solar systems and nebulæ at the same time? "without form"? was the earth without any form at all? or merely without its present form? or without some particular form not mentioned? if the earth was a physical structure it must have had some form; what was it? "and void"? was the earth void like a soap-bubble? or void like a ray of light? or a vacuum? if it was empty, what was it that was empty? how could the heaven and earth be void after they had been brought into existence? "darkness was upon the face of the deep"? what deep? was it the sea not yet created? or the earth, which is anything but a "deep"? was it the atmosphere? or all space? if the latter, did all other systems of space wait for their light on ours? or did we wait on theirs? are there no new systems now forming, and none to be formed hereafter? if all space is meant, where was its outside, or its face? and what occupied the intervening regions? was it a physical face or the face of a vacuum? were these statements to be accepted by faith or reason? if the former, was it a faith which could only have come from the experience of after-ages? or was it based on the ipse dixit of moses? what was the basis of faith when the record was first written? was it from generally accepted tradition or by revelation? is the record anonymous or does it reveal the name of its author? if to be endorsed by knowledge and reason, why should not the narrative be strictly and accurately translated, even at the expense of conciseness and elegance of diction, in order that the exact force of every word shall be fully felt and recognized? if the record is from divine revelation, it is still more essential to know precisely what was revealed; otherwise we are no better than idolaters; we are worse, in fact, for we have changed and falsified the landmarks of religion, and bear false witness against god himself. we must not interpret genesis by records made long subsequently; it must speak for itself or not at all. when construed in accordance with the exact definition of the words themselves quite a new and strange light is thrown upon the history of the events thus recorded. the great importance of a strict construction of the translation and fidelity to the original is emphasized by the fact that the same word was never used in this record to express a different sense in different parts, nor were two different words ever used in different places to express the same meaning. it is, therefore, necessary to give every word of the original its exact fulness and force. the basis of the following critical translation is to be found in "mankind: their origin and destiny" (longmans & co., london, ), but a careful comparison has been made with other accepted authorities, and the root-meanings of the separate words have been carefully traced out, so that many necessary changes will be found to have been made in order to bring out the precise sense of the original. there is no actual literal, critical, etymological, and scientific rendering embraced in a single translation known to us, and which is complete in itself; but that which follows will be found, it is believed, to give every word its particular etymological shade of meaning, and to employ the same word in the same place, for the same purpose, and with the same signification as it was understood to have, in its original form, when first recorded. the specific root-meanings of the most important words used are further explained in detail in a separate section below. the use of aleim, "the powerful forces," in the plural, followed by the verb in the singular, is a hebraism, and indicates the collective character of the forces as specially energized, sent forth, and directed by jeove (jeova or jehovah is the chaldaic form of the word, the original hebrew being jeove), who does not appear by name in this narrative, though, as we shall see, specially delegated power from some higher source is that characteristic which is most emphasized throughout the record. these forces are personified, as is usual in ancient records (and, indeed, in modern thought), but they are in reality the "powers of god." the author of the work above referred to says, "the idea of moses was that there was a supreme god ... and that he only acts by means of his agents called aleim, the gods, in the plural and indefinite number, or embassadors, or voices." the ancient belief in the unity of all forces in one creative individuality is also most clearly shown in some of the oldest vedaic hymns of india (see max müller, "the veda"). "self (atman) is the lord of all things, self is the king of all things. as all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and the circumference, all things are contained in this self; all selves are contained in this self. brahman (force) itself is but self." of the religion of the ancient egyptians (see "evolution and christianity," by j. f. york) it is said, "the chief theological characteristic of this first of all known civilized religions is the doctrine of the divine unity. as m. de rougé says, 'one idea predominates, that of a single and primeval god; everywhere and always it is one substance, self-existent, and an unapproachable god.'" the egyptian cosmogony, as the fragments have come down to us (see professor arnold guyot, "creation"), is as follows: . the original gaseous form, and the darkness of matter. . the successive transformations. . light, as the first step in this development. . the separation of the waters below from the waters above the expanse. . periods of development of indefinite length. . the sun, moon, and earth organized last. the word mlactou, which occurs several times repeated in the summing up of this narrative, explains the character of aleim most fully, as specially energized and directed agencies or forces. this word never has any other meaning. even when applied to a king it was not a king as a monarch, but as the specially directed agent of god. i. samuel xxviii. , "the lord hath sent the kingdom out of thine hand; ... because thou obeydst not the voice of the lord." when, in exodus xiii. it is said that "jeove went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud," this is explained, in chapter xiv. verse , to mean that this pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night was mlac, a messenger, or agent. it is translated "angel" in the english version, but it was not a personal angel; it was a specially energized and directed force. in the earliest times it was not the god of fire, or of force, or of justice which men feared, but fire, or force, or justice; the anthropomorphic conception came later with the generalization of all fire, all force, or all justice. we say now that a malefactor fears the law; what he really fears, however, is punishment. in this record we are dealing with the primordial forces of god,--gravity, electricity, attraction, repulsion, cohesion, vital force, etc., etc., but acting with special energy for a predetermined result. of these forces dr. mccosh says, in his work on christianity and positivism, "one god, with his infinitely varied perfections,--his power, his knowledge, his wisdom, his love, his mercy; we should see that one power blowing in the breeze, smiling in the sunshine, sparkling in the stars, quickening us as we bound along in the felt enjoyment of health, efflorescing in every form and hue of beauty, and showering down daily gifts upon us. the profoundest minds in our day, and in every day, have been fond of regarding this force, not as something independent of god, but as the very power of god acting in all action; so that in him we live, and move, and have our being." in more rugged and virile form this was precisely the old mosaic philosophy, the philosophy of the arcana of the egyptian temples, and of the vedaic age of the aryans of india. where was the radiant center of this unfailing search-light which has poured its broad belt of dazzling brightness down to our day from those old, prehistoric ages? so de jouvencel, in his "genesis according to science," says, "we should not place the works of nature on one side and nature on the other. nature is a work and not a person." the word which in the english version is translated "rested," in the concluding verses of the narrative, does not mean rested from fatigue, but rested as a pendulum rests when it ceases to vibrate. had the word been rendered "came to a state of rest," it would have been far more accurate and true to the sense of the original. what is meant is that these pent-up forces had operated, under the guidance of jeove, to rupture a state of unstable equilibrium in the attenuated matter of space, just as similar forces are now said to gather energy to produce a volcanic eruption of the earth's crust, preceded by earthquakes and other vast disturbances radiating from the center of rupture of these tensions between the molecules of matter, accompanied by explosive expansion and all the phenomena of disorganization and repulsion, and succeeded by condensation, development, harmony, and final quiescence of these specially energized and self-opposing forces in a newly formed state of molecular equilibrium. to quote from professor guyot, "god rests as the creator of the visible universe. the forces of nature are now in that admirable equilibrium which we now behold, and which is necessary to our existence." in "the unity of nature" the duke of argyle says, "we strain our imaginations to conceive the processes of creation, whilst in reality they are around us daily." the words which conclude the third verse of chapter ii. are also imperfectly rendered in our english version, and this defect has led to a popular misconception almost universal. they are construed to mean "created--and made," as though marking a broad class distinction between the different processes before described. from this the inference has been drawn that while, for the more subordinate features, the word rendered "made" indicated that these were stages in the process of creation merely involving the use of coexisting materials, in the grander features of the work it was supposed that there had been a creation ab initio,--that is, out of nothing. whole libraries have been written on this theme; but the words used bear no such meaning; on the contrary, they signify the exact opposite. there is, however, a broad distinction between the interpretation of the two words; but it is that the word which is to be rendered "fashioned like the work of a sculptor" is narrower and not broader in significance than the simple word "made;" so that the former is included in, but is not generically distinct from, the latter. the word bra means that these portions of creation were fashioned with the care and artistic skill of a sculptor, as contradistinguished from turning out the productions in mass; this distinction does not relate to the origin, but to the workmanship. however interstellar or primordial space was formed, or when, if it ever was formed, there is nothing in this record which excludes a pre-existent space substantially like that which now is. what we see in the sky, among the nebulæ, are later developments of like solar systems, in like manner, from the midst of the substance of the same illimitable and eternal space. but biology has an interest in this account of creation equally as great as has cosmology. the word bra is first applied to the formation of the individualized substance of the heavens and the earth. they were fashioned or carved out like a sculpture from something on which the forces could operate. there was, of course, creation involved, but it was a mental, not a physical process. when a sculptor has completed his clay figure he has brought forth a great creation, perhaps, and the "creation" is still his own, though the figure be cast in bronze by hired workmen in the foundry, who execute the sculptor's will at two dollars a day, it may be, each. beyond this mental element there is no more creation, in its widest sense, than when a boy "creates" a new point on his pencil by guiding his hand and knife to sharpen it. when the "diffused light" came, it is not said that it was "fashioned like the work of a sculptor," or that it was even "made;" but that it "came into existence." "let there be light, and there was light," as the english version has it. but when the radiant energy of the sun came to be formed, on the fourth day, it did not "come into existence," nor was it "fashioned like the work of a sculptor;" it was "made." the reason is that it was not a development from the preceding "diffused light," but a new kind of light, made mechanically by the electrolysis of aqueous vapor around the sun's body, forming a hydrogen envelope, and by driving the furious torrents of electricity from the planets through this atmosphere, while the auroral, "diffused light" of the earth was gradually dying away during the process. hence there was no room for the word bra, or for the word iei (came into existence) here; the word to be used was osh. and when life was first introduced,--vegetable life, the primal life,--the word used is not bra; this life was not "fashioned" or developed from other life. but when animal life was afterwards introduced, the word used is bra; it was a refashioning. what was this life fashioned out of? it was not "made;" it did not "begin to exist;" it was developed. in this manner the earth was finally filled with animal life. then came the introduction of the human race. here we again have the word bra, thrice repeated; but when this introduction of mankind was first projected, and before it was executed, it was in these words, "we will make [the root osh] mankind;" or, in the english version, "let us make man." there seems here to have been a gradual ascent of living organisms by development, almost precisely in accordance with the most recent teachings of science. two essentially different kinds of light were successively produced, independently of each other; the earlier kind "came into being," and the later "was made." the substance or entity of the heavens and of the earth, generically, "was fashioned." three successive introductions of organic life not essentially different from each other occurred; the first is described thus: "let the earth bring forth; ... and the earth brought forth," in the english version; or "there shall be made to grow; ... and there was caused to arise suddenly out of the ground ... vegetation," as more accurately rendered. the second form of organic life, in order of time, the animal, was "fashioned." the third form, mankind, was also "fashioned," and this was done long subsequently to the introduction of the second. if the word bra had any signification of original creation it would have been applied to the first creation of life, for it was far more wonderful and original that there should be vegetable life which grew and developed, which brought forth flowers and then fruit, which formed germinative seeds, and from these successively and continuously reproduced its multifarious species, than that animal life should have been introduced long afterwards to repeat these same things which vegetation had been, in all its forms, from the lowest to the highest, already doing for untold ages,--from the third period of the earth's long history to the fifth; and more especially still when we consider that vegetable life and animal life, in their lowest forms, have no positive line of division between them. and if osh, which is applied to the genesis of solar light, be capable of the signification of original creation, then this word should have been applied to the generation of the "diffused light" of the second day, for the genesis of light is far more wonderful and original than the subsequent production of sunlight, after the forming earth had existed for two whole formative periods, from the second to the fourth, under the constant illumination of this universally diffused auroral light. if, on the other hand, the words applied to the first generation of light and the first generation of life be held to mark an original creation, then these words are never applied in this whole narrative to the genesis of the entity of the heavens, or the earth, or the sun and moon, or to animal life, or the life of man. the radiant light and heat of the sun were not made until the fourth day, while the introduction of vegetable life dates from the long antecedent third day of creation. prior to the development of the sun's thermal light there could have been, as we have already shown, no free oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere; and it is a remarkable circumstance that vegetation, which is the only form of organic life which could have existed and propagated its species in an atmosphere composed of carbonic, nitrogenous, and aqueous vapors, devoid of oxygen, is that particular form of life which has been selected for this purpose, and its advent placed prior to the making of the sun. it would have been far more reasonable (previous to our present knowledge of these things) to have placed the formation of the sun in advance of the introduction of life; it is surprising that this was not done, unless we give to these "ancients" a knowledge of the principles of natural science far beyond anything hitherto attributed to them. in the same connection there is described a stage preparatory to and leading up to the simultaneous development of the sun's light and heat, and the sifting out of hydrogen around the solar core, and of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere, which is equally remarkable. the "separation of the waters" described in verses and has never been fully rendered into english, or even understood in the original, as the words seemed meaningless in their literal sense until correctly interpreted by the facts set forth in the present work. we must first note that the separation of the waters of space to two opposite foci, with an intervening space of attenuated matter, and their condensation there into two entirely different bodies, was the work of the second day, while the formation of the terrestrial rain-clouds and seas, as connected together, was a work of the third day, and was not accomplished until then, which was long afterwards. these entirely different operations--different in time, place, character, and circumstance--have always been confounded with each other; but one is in reality systemic and the other merely local. in verse there was decreed an expanse or thinning (an attenuated region) in the center of the waters, and a separation was made by the formation of two "spots" (verse ), one under the expanse and the other above the expanse; the expanse was space, interplanetary space. professor arnold guyot, in his book on creation, says, "it is to be regretted that the english version has translated the hebrew word expanse by the word firmament.... the difficulties they [the commentators] have created for themselves arose ... from depriving it of its cosmogonic character and belittling it by reducing the great phenomena there described to a simple modification of the terrestrial atmosphere.... they forget that this thin covering of clouds is but a temporary and ever-changing one, and that the clouds are in that heaven rather than above it.... they forget that this is not the true heavens in which are spread the sun and moon and stars.... this grand day, so dwarfed and misunderstood, is the one in which are described the generations of the heavens, announced by moses, which otherwise find no place in the narrative of the creative week." the two foci of waters were the solar and terrestrial; around these bodies were gathered by the attraction of gravity, and there condensed, the aqueous vapors from the attenuated intervening matter of space; the earth by its rotation generated the enormous electrical currents which still continue; when these made their mighty leap across to the sun, the diffused auroral light around the earth gradually disappeared, hydrogen and oxygen began to be evolved at the opposite poles--the sun and the earth--from the condensed envelopes of aqueous vapor which surrounded them, the sun's hydrogen atmosphere was pierced, as in the pail-of-water experiment described in an earlier chapter of the present work, by the planetary electric currents, the sun became incandescent, and pari passu the earth became fitted, by the development of oxygen, for the abode of animal life. as taking part in this great mechanical transformation, the sun was said to have been "made;" it did not "come into being." just prior to the introduction of vegetable life--during the same creative epoch, in fact, and for the support of which life it was necessary--the waters under the expanse were condensed into rain-clouds and seas, and there is a curious reference (verse ) to the appearance of the earth's dryness "as produced by the action of an internal fire;" the gradual cooling of the earth by the radiation of its internal heat of condensation into space would account for this appearance, and, in connection with the diffused auroral light throughout the whole sky, would doubtless have sufficed for the support of vegetable life. in verse the fixed stars (the suns of other systems) are referred to, but in a parenthetical statement--almost deprecatory, in fact--that "the dim and almost extinct lights" the same forces created also, but when they were created is not stated in the record. the occasion for this incidental remark is to be found in the preceding statement that the two new luminaries, the sun and moon, were the two "superior bodies in size of the starry lights." having mentioned the stars in this comparison, the author feels called upon to add that the latter also had been similarly created,--that is, that they were not original existences, and of course they are not, but they were not created at that epoch, and are not said to have been. in chapter ii. verse , which opens the second narrative (quite a different history, by the way), jeove appears himself, joined with the aleim, and henceforth this personal connection is maintained; the english version translates this composite word "the lord god," which means the master god; the correct reading is, however, the "god of gods," or what we call the "god of the forces of nature," or the "god omnipotent." in the whole mosaic cosmogony there is nothing which can even suggest a gradually closing nebulous mass; the element of rotation is absent (and it would not have been understood by the people even if presented); but, with this exception, the processes of development are substantially in accord with what must really have taken place, and in the order described. but it is, as before stated, absolutely essential to understand the root-meanings of all the more important words used in the original. a superficial translation is not only meaningless, but misleading; whereas, when accurately understood, the record is one of the most remarkable ever presented to human intelligence. the words used were selected deliberately for their specific shades of meaning, and, unless these are properly rendered, to the uninformed the narrative will present a simple succession of startling phenomena, while to the educated student each of these changes carries within its verbal index its origin, its mode, and the knowledge of the forces at work. to the one it is a dramatic spectacle performed on the stage in front; to the other it is the same work as seen behind the curtain, with all the intermoving mechanism (the author's manuscript the sole guide), the interplay of complicated forces, the triumphant successes, the rapt attention, and even the sudden applause extorted at each wondrous climax from the skilled actors themselves, who are at the same time unceasingly engaged in working out the mighty drama of creation. one might readily believe that the original author of this record was thoroughly acquainted with the processes involved in the development of a solar system like our own from the diffused primordial matter of space, substantially as we have endeavored, in the present work, to deduce them from the most recent investigations and discoveries of science. of the watery vapors condensed above the expanse of space many of the ancient writers had a far more correct knowledge than had those who translated these chapters from the original into the various modern languages. in the psalms we read, "praise him, ... ye waters that be above the heavens;" in the song of the three holy children, "o all ye waters that be above the heavens." theophilus speaks of the "visible sky as having drawn to itself a portion of the waters of chaos at the time of the creation." saint augustine says that the firmament has been formed "between the upper and the lower waters," and quotes genesis i. and , as his authority. thousands of years ago, as far back as the days of the pythagoreans, and even long before, mankind was acquainted with the mariner's compass, telescopic tubes, and glass lenses; they knew that the moon receives her light by reflection from the sun, of the presence of mountains and valleys on the lunar surface, that her day and night are each a fortnight in length, that there were other planets known to the egyptians besides the seven known to the greeks (the brahmans reckoned fifteen of them), that the sun is the center of our planetary system, that the earth and the other planets revolve around it, that the earth is round and rotates on its own axis daily, that weight is a principal element in the maintenance of these rotations, that the fixed stars are suns, and that the milky way appears white from the number of stars which it contains. kircher quotes from an ancient syrian author the philosophy of the sidereal system, dividing it into many layers or spheres attached to orbits, each presided over by a spirit. in the eighth sphere are placed the fixed stars, "still higher two other layers of stars not less luminous, and of different sizes, the nebulæ and the small stars of the milky way, and the whole is surrounded by the celestial waters, which spread over the whole firmament, and which compose the great sea of light and the boundless ocean." the sources of all this wondrous knowledge can be traced back through chaldea, arabia, egypt, ethiopia, and, through the colony of meroë, to india. root-meanings of the principal words used in the mosaic narrative of creation. aleim ("corruptly called elohim by the modern jews, but always aleim in the synagogue copies") means the strong forces (or, by subsequent impersonation, subaltern gods), operating to carry out the purposes and execute the plans of jeove. al, the root, signifies strong, strength, a ram; al-e means strong in a personal sense; aleim (plural) means the forces, the strong-ones, the powers, and in egyptian mythology, the subordinate, or executive, gods, the demi-urgi. exodus vii. , "and the lord [jeove] said unto moses, see i have made thee a god [aleim] to pharaoh; thou shalt speak all that i command thee." bra, carved, cut, fashioned like the work of a sculptor, gave a new shape to, formed from unformed material. from br, a knife; br-i, to carve, to cut. brashit, in the commencement or beginning of individualized existence (with the initial preposition b-). b signifies in; it (which is related to at) signifies individualized existence; rash, a principle or beginning, or a commencement. at, connected with the chaldaic, signifies substance, essence, or individuality, "the thing itself" (latin, ens); it is correctly translated "individualized substance." eshmim, the combination of the preposition e with the substantive shmim, the word signifying of the visible heavens, or the planisphere. artz, the earth in a state of aridity, or as a generalized expression for the earth; ar signifies the earth, and the termination tz intensifies the signification of drought, whiteness, aridity; in contrast with this is adme, red earth, or productive earth or soil. u- is a conjunction, signifying and or then, in the sense of succession of time, something like our phrase "and then." teou does not mean "without form," nor does ubeou mean "and void," as rendered in our english version, at least not in the ordinary sense of these words. "teou refers to extinct life, or to existence shut up as in a tomb and in darkness, while u-beou refers to life which is about reappearing, but still hidden in the egg or the ovary, and waiting for the word which shall cause the dawn of creation to shine upon it." these words are more properly rendered "tomb-like darkness and undeveloped." eshc means darkness; not merely an intense darkness, but what may be denominated a "thick darkness;" it is an enshrouding darkness which compresses and hinders. it is precisely such a darkness as would be produced by the interstratified cloud-layers between the convolutions of a forming spiral nebula, or the cloud-strata surrounding the earth before electrolytic decomposition of the aqueous vapors had ensued. with the advent of the sun, in the narrative, this darkness and the term which expresses it disappear. teou-m is the word above explained, with the termination -m, expressing the idea of arrested, doubtful, indefinite, as applied to all existence; the word "undifferentiated nature" properly interprets its vagueness and general character of an abyss of being, in the etymological sense of "nature" as the totality of things at that time born or produced. rove means breath, in the sense of an expanding, liberating, or developing spirit; its literal meaning is "the breath, the spirit which dilates and frees." mrepht, brooded with incubating love; reph is composed of re, "to be full of good-will, to be agreeable," and eph, "to cover, to protect, to incubate, to brood." mim, the seeds of all beings, the waters. it is said, "the choice of this letter m, to signify water [the alphabetical egyptian letter m is represented by the two undulatory lines which in the hieroglyphics represent water], is connected with the egyptian ideas of the cause of the generation of living beings." numbers xxiv. , "he shall pour the waters out of his buckets, and the seed [zro] in the waters [b-mim]." the latter word is plural in form, but both singular and plural in sense. aour, diffused light; a light resembling the dawn, but quite distinct from the light of the sun. the latter was not established until the fourth day, and its advent is characterized by a new word, leair, "to cause light to move above the earth." joum is day, generically, and lile night. rqiô, the expanse; atrqiô, the individualized substance of the expanse. space, in the opinion of the egyptians, "not being a vacuum, but a material substance, moses could say, and was even compelled to say, 'the substance of space, that which constitutes it.'" osh, made. this word first occurs in verse , and is there applied to the making a separation between the waters or aqueous vapors condensed around the earth and those condensed around some similar spot "above, as regards the individuality of the expanse,"--to wit, the solar core or nucleus,--to which, attracted by gravity from the attenuated vapors of the space between, is due the subsequent establishment of the solar light and heat, as in an electrical arc light, and the presence of oxygen in the terrestrial atmosphere. these processes, involving the constitution of our atmosphere and of the sun's photosphere and chromosphere, were not completed until two subsequent cosmical periods had elapsed, from the third to the fifth. the word osh, in its different combinations and inflections, is also used in verse , where it signifies "making," as applied to fruit; "yielding" fruit, in verse ; "they made," as applied to the sun and moon, in verse ; "made," as applied to the entity of quadrupeds and higher animals generally, in verse ; "we will make," as applied to man, verse ; "had made," as applied to "every entity of creation," verse ; "had made," as applied to the specially directed work as mlactou, chapter ii. verse ; and finally, in the general summing up in verse of the second chapter, as an element in a compound substantive phrase "according to the making-act," or "in accordance with the making of creation." "oshout," it is said, "signifies a manual operation, carried on according to a previously conceived idea, or model." we find a similar use of the substantive infinitive with a preceding preposition in verse , chapter iii. "ctnout is derived from tne, a consoling word. tnout, the infinitive of the conjugation piel, adds to the word the act of causing to be done, and of doing with care." a similar construction, lraout, is employed in chapter ii. verse , translated in the english version, "and brought them unto adam to see what ..."; more literally, "as regards the act of seeing," or according to a vision, or show. that is, they were brought and presented to his sight. the object in writing these two words, bra and l-osh-out, together at the very end of the narrative was to conclusively establish the fact, beyond all possible doubt, that the whole work of creation was an orderly and harmonious progression. mlactou, which word is used twice in verse and once in verse of the second chapter, and not previously, is also introduced for specific emphasis. it means that the whole preceding work of creation was, in its nature, "the work of mlac," a messenger, or a specially energized and directed agency, sent to fulfil the appointed work of jeove. its purpose was to forever prevent the belief that the work of creation was due to mere natural forces, on the one hand, operating by chance; and, on the other, that these forces were independent gods carrying out their own purposes, and of their own will. it was set up as a double barrier against rationalism on the one side and polytheism on the other. it may be incidentally added that the popular belief that "adam was created out of the dust of the earth" is not in accordance with the original record. in the second narrative, chapter ii. verse , the word ophr is rendered "dust" in our english version, but it does not signify ordinary terrestrial dust at all; "its radical meaning is to volatilize a substance, to sublimate it." the true signification of the word used is analogous to a "material essence." the same word is used in numbers xxiii. as a synonym for "seed;" it is said that "the septuagint version translates ophr by sperma." the formation, described in the third chapter, of the female human being out of one of the ribs of adam, excised for that purpose (which is a matter of almost universal popular belief), is not, in reality, what is stated in the original. in verse of chapter ii. the words are rendered in our version, "and he took one of his ribs." what is really said, however, is "and he brought out another one from his sides." so the similar expression in verse in reality signifies, "caused to be made according to womankind the individualized substance of his side." the word translated "of his ribs" is precisely the same as is subsequently used by the same writer (exodus xxxvii. ) to designate the location of the supporting rings upon an altar of incense, and is there rendered, "by the two corners of it, upon the two sides." the defective translation is due to imperfect knowledge, at that time, of the processes of organic development. the true signification is that given in the "institutes of manu": "having divided his own sub-sistence, the mighty power became half male and half female." the words rendered "help meet" in verses and have a far higher meaning; "i will make him a help meet" should be translated, "i will cause to be made for him an overseeing help as a guide, an instructor, a revealer." and in verse of chapter iii., "and adam called his wife's name eve," the latter word is not translated; the correct rendering is, "and adam called the symbolic name of his wife the female serpent-wise revealer, she who explains, points out things, who instructs," for that is what the true root-meaning of eve signifies. the concluding words of this verse, "because she was the mother of all living," are obviously mistranslated, for not only was she not a mother at all, but she did not even conceive, as stated in the next chapter, until she had left the garden finally. the true signification is, "because she was the mother of all [spiritual, see verse , as contradistinguished from animal and vegetable] life." the female human being, the word translated woman, has the generic root-signification of "flame," while, prior to eve, that of the adamic man is the "red earth." as the male was formed from a material earthly essence, the female was created one remove further from the gross and material in the direction of the spiritual; and her powers were distinctively subjective, those of intuition, while those of the male were objective, those derived from instruction. even in the final curse (so called) the man turns back to the earth to earn his subsistence, while the woman turns forward to the instruction of the future men and women, the children; for the words, "in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children," have left one word of the original untranslated, and by supplying this the sense is entirely changed, "and conceiving, and bringing forth, in sorrow shalt thou bring up, care for, and train children." in those countries childbirth was never attended with much pain or sorrow. the obvious effect of the whole inspired or traditionary second narrative is to clearly differentiate the contrasted faculties of the two sexes, and the root-meanings of the words employed, whether moses himself perceived it or not, are a testimonial of the highest possible character for woman, instead of being, as rendered in the ordinary versions, a mark of inferiority, or even of degradation. in the garden scene, when she partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, she did not do it hastily or from mere temptation; it is said that "she considered it attentively;" the same word being used as was employed in the first narrative to mark the intense interest and almost superhuman character of the consideration by the aleim of the work, as its successive stages appeared, which they were delegated to perform, and which jeove himself directed. the prize, to her, far outweighed the penalty, and the aspiring sibyl dared to lift the innermost veil in the adytum of the temple, and grasp the lofty truths which made her as one of the aleim. so fell prometheus. and then, no sooner had the flame-crowned seer won her precious prize, than, woman-like, she turned and laid it before her husband, and he, the innocent one, "did eat." the serpent was not a mere snake, be it understood; it was the egyptian typhon, the dark spirit of doubt, the questioner, the tempter, the eternal if, the why, whence, what, and whither? it was her insatiable aspiration to reach the highest possible limits of human knowledge which gave strength to her daring, and not a childish fancy for an apple. all this, of course, is lost in the translation. it is as though the national standard of a mighty people had been disinterred from the remains of past ages, which had been borne aloft at the head of mighty armies for centuries, and for which thousands had gloriously died in battle in defence of a sacred cause, and which now, its past history untraced, has been catalogued as a brass bird of some sort mounted on a stick. it is to be regretted that there is no plain, popular work by a thoroughly capable scholar, without theological or anti-theological bias, which treats of the origin, form, root-derivation, usage, accurate signification, and construction of the comparatively few words employed in the ancient narratives which compose the first half-dozen chapters of genesis, and, we may add, the book of job; something like those inestimable works which deal with the ancient cosmogonic literature of egypt, babylonia, persia, india, china, phoenicia, and central america. nothing of this sort is to be found, at all events in a form accessible to the general reader, and such a work, in small compass, would be of the highest importance to popular instructors, to students, and to the public as well, for it would throw a flood of light on these extremely valuable but, hitherto, so illy-comprehended records. the mosaic narrative of creation. . aleim, the forces, fashioned like the work of a sculptor, in the commencement of individualized existence, the individualized substance of the heavens and the individualized substance of the earth. . and the earth was in tomb-like darkness and undeveloped, and there was compressive hindering darkness on the surface of undifferentiated nature. and the dilating and liberating spirit of the forces hovered with incubating love on the surface of the seeds of all beings, the waters. . then aleim said, there shall be a diffused light; and a diffused light was. . and aleim regarded with attention the individualized substance of the diffused light, because good. and aleim caused a separation to be made between the diffused light and between the compressive hindering darkness. . then aleim exclaimed for the diffused light, day! and for the compressive hindering darkness exclaimed, night! and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; first day. . then aleim said, there shall be an expansion obtained by a thinning in the center of the waters, and there was that which caused a separation to be made by occupying a spot, the waters according to the waters. . and aleim made the individualized substance of the expanse, and caused a separation to exist by the occupation of the spot, of the waters which are under as regards the expanse of space, and by the occupation of the spot, of the waters which are above as regards the expanse of space; and it was so. . then aleim exclaimed for the expanse of space, the heavens! and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; second day. . and aleim said, the waters which are underneath the heavens will tend directly, in order to meet in it, towards a single spot fixed upon for their meeting; and of dryness produced by the action of an internal fire the appearance shall be made; and it was so. . then aleim exclaimed for the dryness, earth! and for the spot fixed upon for the meeting of the waters exclaimed, seas! then aleim looked attentively at it, because good. . and aleim said, there shall be made to grow from the earth a dwarf vegetation which can be trodden under foot, a maturing plant causing to be sowed around it a seed, the strong and woody substance of fruit making fruit after his kind whose seed is in itself above the earth; and it was so. . and there was caused to arise suddenly and full of strength a dwarf vegetation, a maturing plant sowing around it seed after his kind; and the woody substance yielding fruit whose seed is in itself after his kind. then aleim considered it, because good. . and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; third day. . then aleim said, there shall be starry-lights in the expanse of space of the heavens to separate between the duration of the day and between the duration of the night; and they shall be for signs, and for seasons, and for the days which make the year, and for the repetitions of years. . and they shall be for luminous bodies in the expanse of space of the heavens to cause light to move above the earth; and it was so. . and aleim made a double individualized substance, the superior in size and excellence of the starry-lights, the individualized substance which was the greater of the luminous bodies to represent the rule of the day, and the lesser luminous body to represent the rule of the night. of the dim and almost extinct lights [the stars] they made the individualized substance also. . and aleim established these individualized substances in the expanse of space of the heavens to make light move above the earth. . and to be representatives of dominion during the day and during the night, and to separate between the continuance of diffused light and between the continuance of compressive hindering darkness; then aleim looked attentively at it, because good. . and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; fourth day. . then aleim said, the waters shall bring forth a swarm of swarming creatures having living breath; and that which flies, the birds, shall be made to fly with strength and fleetness above the earth in the space extended of the heavens. . and aleim fashioned like the work of a sculptor the individualized substance of those which are superior in size of the gigantic reptiles and every individualized substance having living breath, that moveth, which they had produced, swarming from the waters, according to their kind; and every individualized substance of flying thing with wings, after his kind. then aleim looked attentively at it, because good. . and aleim blessed these individualities by saying, propagate your species and multiply yourselves, and fill the individualized substance of the waters in the seas; and as for the flying thing, it shall multiply itself on the earth. . and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; fifth day. . then aleim said, from the earth shall be brought forth the living breath according to its kind, the quadruped, and the being which moveth about, and the terrestrial animal according to its kind; and it was so. . and aleim made the individualized substance of the animal of the earth according to his kind, and the individualized substance of the quadruped according to his kind, and every individualized substance that moveth about of red earth according to his kind. then aleim regarded it, because good. . then aleim said, we will make mankind of a like order of intellect with ourselves, and they shall extend their dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the bird of the heavens, and over the quadruped, and over all of the earth, and over all the moving beings that move about over the earth. . and aleim fashioned like the work of a sculptor the individualized substance of mankind in the exactness of a shadow cast upon a wall; on this shadow aleim carved the individuality; male and female they fashioned the individualized substance. . then aleim blessed the individualized substance. and aleim said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the individualized substance of the earth, and subdue it, and extend your dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over all life of the being which moveth about over the earth. . and aleim said, behold i have given for you every useful plant-substance yielding seed, yielding seed which there is over the surface of all the earth, and every individualized substance of tree which has in it fruit pertaining to a tree yielding seed, yielding seed for you, it shall be for food. . and for all animal life of the earth, and for everything that flies in the heavens, and for every being that moveth over the surface of the earth which has in it living breath, every individualized substance which is a green maturing plant shall be for food. and it was so. . then aleim looked at every individualized substance which they had made, and behold it was as good as possible. and there was a transition from light to darkness, and then there was a renewal of light; sixth day. (chapter ii.) . then the finishing was made of the heavens, and of the earth, and of all the orderly arrangement. . and aleim [the forces] finished on the seventh day the divinely appointed and directed work which they had performed; and they came again to a state of rest on the seventh day from all the appointed work which they had done. . then aleim blessed the individualized substance of the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it they returned to their primitive condition from all the divinely appointed and directed work which the forces had fashioned like the work of a sculptor, in accordance with the making of creation. chapter xv. conclusion. the harmony of nature's laws and operations. we have passed before us the different orders of celestial phenomena; we have called down the denizens of the starry skies and placed them on the witness stand, and we have interrogated them in the light of the evidence which they have given before; we have compared their different statements, and have found that in their testimony they all finally agree. instead of confusion, we find order; instead of complexity, simplicity; instead of discord, harmony; and through all we see the orderly progress of nature with uniform step, from stage to stage, higher and higher, until at last she stands triumphant, the handmaid of creative power, in the very center of the arch of the universe. we have taken the simplest operations which we find in progress around us, and have extended them to larger operations, constantly keeping in view their relevancy and the facts which form their sole support. mere speculation has been excluded, and theory has found its every step based on an established fact. in this way we may hope to make place for further investigation in this field by abler minds, and that the conclusions of science may then become so well understood and so firmly established that to go back to the "dead-and-dying" theories of solar energies will be like going back to ptolemy and tycho for our astronomy. we have considered the hypothesis which bases the energy of our sun upon his inherent heat, upon combustion, upon the accretion of meteoric streams, and upon his slow and gradual condensation of volume; and have found that all these hypotheses, singly or combined, fail to account for his energy through the vistas of the past, during which we know he must have shone as he now shines, and fail to account for more than a slow but inevitable decline, in the relatively near future, into eternal darkness and death. we have found that all these theories are alike, in that they recognize the sun itself as the only source of his energy, that his enormous emission of light and heat is almost entirely wasted in empty space, and that this will go on with the same frightful waste until he has squandered his whole patrimony and ends his melancholy career in the poor-house or the dungeon. we have, however, seen that even this will not save the wretched client, for he has already spent far more than he ever could have received originally by inheritance, and far more than he could have gained by gifts pitched in in bulk--like the poor colored brother's potatoes--through the window. we have therefore gone over the case anew, and have learned that enormous electrical currents are constantly passing between the earth and the sun, with practically no resistance, and this irrespective of any hypothesis, actual or possible; and these facts have solved at the outset one of the greatest conceivable difficulties,--to wit, that of the transmission through space of such essential currents. turning our attention to the more recent advances in electricity and the arts of electrical construction, we have found that induction machines, as contradistinguished from the older friction machines, operate in a manner strongly suggestive of the rotation of a planet through space, and we learn that the electrical potential of the air overhead increases constantly by an enormous multiplying number as we ascend, proving great electrical action in the regions immediately surrounding the earth, and which we have called the terrestrial electrosphere. we have also found that sun-spots and solar storms and other disturbances are at once reflected in our earth-currents, and are followed immediately by great electrical disturbances here and by extensive auroral displays at night. experiment shows that similar auroral displays may be produced with an electrical machine by interruption of the current leading to its principal condenser, thus demonstrating that the currents are from the earth to the sun, and not the converse. we have also found that while the solar atmosphere is largely composed of hydrogen gas, that of the earth and other planets is largely composed of oxygen, and that these gases, the constituents of water, are separately disengaged at the opposite electrical poles by the electrolytic action of a powerful current of electricity applied to the decomposition of aqueous vapors, in accordance with the established electrical law that any fluid which will transmit a current may be decomposed by it; hence we learn that our interplanetary space contains attenuated aqueous vapors, which we have also learned to be true from other sources. as our other planets, as well as the earth, are found to be surrounded with an atmosphere of dilute oxygen, and with aqueous vapors suspended in it, we know that their action upon the sun must be similar to that of the earth, and that the congeries of planets thus unite in their supply of electricity to the sun in constant and enormous currents. examining now the effects of passing powerful electrical currents through a compressed envelope of hydrogen gas surrounding a conductor, we find that great heat ensues, that the hydrogen becomes highly incandescent, and that the metallic nucleus within is raised to an extremely high temperature, and we also observe the same effects when the current is transmitted through the separated carbons of an electrical arc light. we have thus accounted for the constant supply of the energy which, transformed into light and heat, as in the last-mentioned experiments, the sun pours forth perpetually into space. we have also learned that electrical induction machines derive their electrical currents from the surrounding air, and also that no electricity can be generated in, or transmitted through, a vacuum, and hence we learn that the planets, by the rotation of their electrospheres in contact with the attenuated vapors of space, generate these powerful electrical currents with which the sun is supplied, and that the sun merely restores to the ocean from which, in another form, it was abstracted the light and heat which he emits, and that, instead of all being wasted except that which falls upon the planets, in fact that is the only part which actually, in one sense at least, is wasted: all the rest is deposited in bank, but that is "spent." the important generalization is thus arrived at, that the true source of solar energy is to be found in the attenuated vapors of space, and that the mode is that of the generation of electricity by the rotating planetary electrospheres, its transference through the aqueous vapors of interplanetary space to the sun, its passage under resistance through the compressed hydrogen envelope, its transformation there into light and heat, and its final emission or backpouring into space again. the molecular motions which give rise to light and heat in their passage through the vast distances of space are finally retarded by and disappear as radiated energy in the restoration or increase of the intermolecular tension of the vapors of space, and these processes continue, and must continue, to all eternity, if the sun exists and his planets continue to revolve in orderly circuit around him. if there be any permanent degradation of energy, it must be with reference to the total volume of infinite, or at least indefinite, space, and not with reference to the relatively minute spark of fire which we call the sun. we have also learned that the moon's electrosphere is repelled by that of its neighbor, the earth, and that whatever vapor and atmosphere it may have can exist only on its opposite side; and we have also learned that, by reason of the moon's peculiar axial rotation with reference to the earth, any other arrangement of the lunar moisture and air, even if such were possible, would have absolutely prohibited all life on that subordinate planet at any stage of its existence whatever. we have applied the above principles to the fixed stars, and have learned that, by the same law, the resplendent star itself is proof conclusive that it, too, must have planets rotating around it, and that these planets must have an oxygen atmosphere and clouds of aqueous vapor like our own. we have interpreted the double and multiple stars, and, by an extension of the same law, explained their frequently contrasted or complementary colors. the new stars which blaze up in sudden conflagration and then die out have no secrets when this new light is turned upon them; they, too, are but the faithful followers of the law; and the temporary and variable stars likewise fall into their appropriate categories and obediently move on with the procession. the comets,--the banner-bearers of the sidereal hosts,--which from the earliest ages have defied science to read their cabalistic legend, find it now "writ large" and in plain english. even the meteorites, the cosmical dust, the unorganized débris of space, are found to be amenable to the same law. when we turn in wider gaze to spy out the fantastic nebulæ on the very outer fringe of visible things, after we have separated out the star-clusters and organized galaxies of suns, we apply our touchstone to the irresolvable gaseous nebulæ, and lo! their mystery dissolves at a touch. we have even been able to picture the processes of the creation of solar systems and whole galaxies of suns in which the same law finds scope, and by its infinite and harmonious extension we learn that nature moves with a comprehensive plan, and is uniform in her infinite variety and eternal in her ceaseless activity. we have been told that-- "the poem of the universe no rhythm has nor rhyme; some god recites the wondrous song, a stanza at a time." but it is all a mistake; the loftiest strains which ever inspired the soul of mozart or of beethoven had not the ineffable harmony, nor the sweetest songs of the greatest poets the perfect rhyme, ever repeated and ever varied, of the universe. its orderly progress is like the onward movement of a mighty army, and there is but one grand commander, "but one god," and nature, that showeth forth his handiwork, "is his prophet." we have found that the "course of nature," the eternally youthful mother, is the same, whether in spinning a tendril in the garden, in weaving a whirlwind in the atmosphere, or in elaborating from the universal vapors of primordial space a solar system or a galaxy. and it is not a convulsive, spasmodic nature that we find; we do not love to associate great explosions, cataclysms, the destruction of worlds, or the extinction of suns with our ideas of nature. these seem not to be of nature. the nature we love is the gentle mother, uniform in her operations, kindly in her ways, beneficent in her results; the nature of the rain, the sunshine, seed-time and harvest and the sprouting seed again; ever patient, ever responsive, but in all as firm and steadfast as the foundations of eternity itself. so we have found her. we have assumed nothing; we have observed and endeavored to deduce from observation her systematic plan, for this is the voice of her law, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." to quote the words of matthew arnold, from out the darkness of the past we seem to hear her say,-- "will ye claim for your great ones the gift to have rendered the gleam of my skies? race after race, man after man, have thought that my secret was theirs, --they are dust, they are changed, they are gone! i remain." hasisadra's adventure essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley some thousands of years ago there was a city in mesopotamia called surippak. one night a strange dream came to a dweller therein, whose name, if rightly reported, was hasisadra. the dream foretold the speedy coming of a great flood; and it warned hasisadra to lose no time in building a ship, in which, when notice was given, he, his family and friends, with their domestic animals and a collection of wild creatures and seed of plants of the land, might take refuge and be rescued from destruction. hasisadra awoke, and at once acted upon the warning. a strong decked ship was built, and her sides were paid, inside and out, with the mineral pitch, or bitumen, with which the country abounded; the vessel's seaworthiness was tested, the cargo was stowed away, and a trusty pilot or steersman appointed. the promised signal arrived. wife and friends embarked; hasisadra, following, prudently "shut the door," or, as we should say, put on the hatches; and nes-hea, the pilot, was left alone on deck to do his best for the ship. thereupon a hurricane began to rage; rain fell in torrents; the subterranean waters burst forth; a deluge swept over the land, and the wind lashed it into waves sky high; heaven and earth became mingled in chaotic gloom. for six days and seven nights the gale raged, but the good ship held out until, on the seventh day, the storm lulled. hasisadra ventured on deck; and, seeing nothing but a waste of waters strewed with floating corpses and wreck, wept over the destruction of his land and people. far away, the mountains of nizir were visible; the ship was steered for them and ran aground upon the higher land. yet another seven days passed by. on the seventh, hasisadra sent forth a dove, which found no resting place and returned; then he liberated a swallow, which also came back; finally, a raven was let loose, and that sagacious bird, when it found that the water had abated, came near the ship, but refused to return to it. upon this, hasisadra liberated the rest of the wild animals, which immediately dispersed in all directions, while he, with his family and friends, ascending a mountain hard by, offered sacrifice upon its summit to the gods. the story thus given in summary abstract, told in an ancient semitic dialect, is inscribed in cuneiform characters upon a tablet of burnt clay. many thousands of such tablets, collected by assurbanipal, king of assyria in the middle of the seventh century b.c., were stored in the library of his palace at nineveh; and, though in a sadly broken and mutilated condition, they have yielded a marvellous amount of information to the patient and sagacious labour which modern scholars have bestowed upon them. among the multitude of documents of various kinds, this narrative of hasisadra's adventure has been found in a tolerably complete state. but assyriologists agree that it is only a copy of a much more ancient work; and there are weighty reasons for believing that the story of hasisadra's flood was well known in mesopotamia before the year b.c. no doubt, then, we are in presence of a narrative which has all the authority which antiquity can confer; and it is proper to deal respectfully with it, even though it is quite as proper, and indeed necessary, to act no less respectfully towards ourselves; and, before professing to put implicit faith in it, to inquire what claim it has to be regarded as a serious account of an historical event. it is of no use to appeal to contemporary history, although the annals of babylonia, no less than those of egypt, go much further back than b.c. all that can be said is, that the former are hardly consistent with the supposition that any catastrophe, competent to destroy all the population, has befallen the land since civilisation began, and that the latter are notoriously silent about deluges. in such a case as this, however, the silence of history does not leave the inquirer wholly at fault. natural science has something to say when the phenomena of nature are in question. natural science may be able to show, from the nature of the country, either that such an event as that described in the story is impossible, or at any rate highly improbable; or, on the other hand, that it is consonant with probability. in the former case, the narrative must be suspected or rejected; in the latter, no such summary verdict can be given: on the contrary, it must be admitted that the story may be true. and then, if certain strangely prevalent canons of criticism are accepted, and if the evidence that an event might have happened is to be accepted as proof that it did happen, assyriologists will be at liberty to congratulate one another on the "confirmation by modern science" of the authority of their ancient books. it will be interesting, therefore, to inquire how far the physical structure and the other conditions of the region in which surippak was situated are compatible with such a flood as is described in the assyrian record. the scene of hasisadra's adventure is laid in the broad valley, six or seven hundred miles long, and hardly anywhere less than a hundred miles in width, which is traversed by the lower courses of the rivers euphrates and tigris, and which is commonly known as the "euphrates valley." rising, at the one end, into a hill country, which gradually passes into the alpine heights of armenia; and, at the other, dipping beneath the shallow waters of the head of the persian gulf, which continues in the same direction, from north-west to south-east, for some eight hundred miles farther, the floor of the valley presents a gradual slope, from eight hundred feet above the sea level to the depths of the southern end of the persian gulf. the boundary between sea and land, formed by the extremest mudflats of the delta of the two rivers, is but vaguely defined; and, year by year, it advances seaward. on the north-eastern side, the western frontier ranges of persia rise abruptly to great heights; on the south-western side, a more gradual ascent leads to a table-land of less elevation, which, very broad in the south, where it is occupied by the deserts of arabia and of southern syria, narrows, northwards, into the highlands of palestine, and is continued by the ranges of the lebanon, the antilebanon, and the taurus, into the highlands of armenia. the wide and gently inclined plain, thus inclosed between the gulf and the highlands, on each side and at its upper extremity, is distinguishable into two regions of very different character, one of which lies north, and the other south of the parallel of hit, on the euphrates. except in the immediate vicinity of the river, the northern division is stony and scantily covered with vegetation, except in spring. over the southern division, on the contrary, spreads a deep alluvial soil, in which even a pebble is rare; and which, though, under the existing misrule, mainly a waste of marsh and wilderness, needs only intelligent attention to become, as it was of old, the granary of western asia. except in the extreme south, the rainfall is small and the air dry. the heat in summer is intense, while bitterly cold northern blasts sweep the plain in winter. whirlwinds are not uncommon; and, in the intervals of the periodical inundations, the fine, dry, powdery soil is swept, even by moderate breezes, into stifling clouds, or rather fogs, of dust. low inequalities, elevations here and depressions there, diversify the surface of the alluvial region. the latter are occupied by enormous marshes, while the former support the permanent dwellings of the present scanty and miserable population. in antiquity, so long as the canalisation of the country was properly carried out, the fertility of the alluvial plain enabled great and prosperous nations to have their home in the euphrates valley. its abundant clay furnished the materials for the masses of sun-dried and burnt bricks, the remains of which, in the shape of huge artificial mounds, still testify to both the magnitude and the industry of the population, thousands of years ago. good cement is plentiful, while the bitumen, which wells from the rocks at hit and elsewhere, not only answers the same purpose, but is used to this day, as it was in hasisadra's time, to pay the inside and the outside of boats. in the broad lower course of the euphrates, the stream rarely acquires a velocity of more than three miles an hour, while the lower tigris attains double that rate in times of flood. the water of both great rivers is mainly derived from the northern and eastern highlands in armenia and in kurdistan, and stands at its lowest level in early autumn and in january. but when the snows accumulated in the upper basins of the great rivers, during the winter, melt under the hot sunshine of spring, they rapidly rise, [ ] and at length overflow their banks, covering the alluvial plain with a vast inland sea, interrupted only by the higher ridges and hummocks which form islands in a seemingly boundless expanse of water. in the occurrence of these annual inundations lies one of several resemblances between the valley of the euphrates and that of the nile. but there are important differences. the time of the annual flood is reversed, the nile being highest in autumn and winter, and lowest in spring and early summer. the periodical overflows of the nile, regulated by the great lake basins in the south, are usually punctual in arrival, gradual in growth, and beneficial in operation. no lakes are interposed between the mountain torrents of the upper basis of the tigris and the euphrates and their lower courses. hence, heavy rain, or an unusually rapid thaw in the uplands, gives rise to the sudden irruption of a vast volume of water which not even the rapid tigris, still less its more sluggish companion, can carry off in time to prevent violent and dangerous overflows. without an elaborate system of canalisation, providing an escape for such sudden excesses of the supply of water, the annual floods of the euphrates, and especially of the tigris, must always be attended with risk, and often prove harmful. there are other peculiarities of the euphrates valley which may occasionally tend to exacerbate the evils attendant on the inundations. it is very subject to seismic disturbances; and the ordinary consequences of a sharp earthquake shock might be seriously complicated by its effect on a broad sheet of water. moreover the indian ocean lies within the region of typhoons; and if, at the height of an inundation, a hurricane from the south-east swept up the persian gulf, driving its shallow waters upon the delta and damming back the outflow, perhaps for hundreds of miles up-stream, a diluvial catastrophe, fairly up to the mark of hasisadra's, might easily result. [ ] thus there seems to be no valid reason for rejecting hasisadra's story on physical grounds. i do not gather from the narrative that the "mountains of nizir" were supposed to be submerged, but merely that they came into view above the distant horizon of the waters, as the vessel drove in that direction. certainly the ship is not supposed to ground on any of their higher summits, for hasisadra has to ascend a peak in order to offer his sacrifice. the country of nizir lay on the north-eastern side of the euphrates valley, about the courses of the two rivers zab, which enter the tigris where it traverses the plain of assyria some eight or nine hundred feet above the sea; and, so far as i can judge from maps [ ] and other sources of information, it is possible, under the circumstances supposed, that such a ship as hasisadra's might drive before a southerly gale, over a continuously flooded country, until it grounded on some of the low hills between which both the lower and the upper zab enter upon the assyrian plain. the tablet which contains the story under consideration is the eleventh of a series of twelve. each of these answers to a month, and to the corresponding sign of the zodiac. the assyrian year began with the spring equinox; consequently, the eleventh month, called "the rainy," answers to our january-february, and to the sign which corresponds with our aquarius. the aquatic adventure of hasisadra, therefore, is not inappropriately placed. it is curious, however, that the season thus indirectly assigned to the flood is not that of the present highest level of the rivers. it is too late for the winter rise and too early for the spring floods. i think it must be admitted that, so far, the physical cross-examination to which hasisadra has been subjected does not break down his story. on the contrary, he proves to have kept it in all essential respects [ ] within the bounds of probability or possibility. however, we have not yet done with him. for the conditions which obtained in the euphrates valley, four or five thousand years ago, may have differed to such an extent from those which now exist that we should be able to convict him of having made up his tale. but here again everything is in favour of his credibility. indeed, he may claim very powerful support, for it does not lie in the mouths of those who accept the authority of the pentateuch to deny that the euphrates valley was what it is, even six thousand years back. according to the book of genesis, phrat and hiddekel--the euphrates and the tigris--are coeval with paradise. an edition of the scriptures, recently published under high authority, with an elaborate apparatus of "helps" for the use of students--and therefore, as i am bound to suppose, purged of all statements that could by any possibility mislead the young--assigns the year b.c. as the date of adam's too brief residence in that locality. but i am far from depending on this authority for the age of the mesopotamian plain. on the contrary, i venture to rely, with much more confidence, on another kind of evidence, which tends to show that the age of the great rivers must be carried back to a date earlier than that at which our ingenuous youth is instructed that the earth came into existence. for, the alluvial deposit having been brought down by the rivers, they must needs be older than the plain it forms, as navvies must needs antecede the embankment painfully built up by the contents of their wheel-barrows. for thousands of years, heat and cold, rain, snow, and frost, the scrubbing of glaciers, and the scouring of torrents laden with sand and gravel, have been wearing down the rocks of the upper basins of the rivers, over an area of many thousand square miles; and these materials, ground to fine powder in the course of their long journey, have slowly subsided, as the water which carried them spread out and lost its velocity in the sea. it is because this process is still going on that the shore of the delta constantly encroaches on the head of the gulf [ ] into which the two rivers are constantly throwing the waste of armenia and of kurdistan. hence, as might be expected, fluviatile and marine shells are common in the alluvial deposit; and loftus found strata, containing subfossil marine shells of species now living, in the persian gulf, at warka, two hundred miles in a straight line from the shore of the delta. [ ] it follows that, if a trustworthy estimate of the average rate of growth of the alluvial can be formed, the lowest limit (by no means the highest limit) of age of the rivers can be determined. all such estimates are beset with sources of error of very various kinds; and the best of them can only be regarded as approximations to the truth. but i think it will be quite safe to assume a maximum rate of growth of four miles in a century for the lower half of the alluvial plain. now, the cycle of narratives of which hasisadra's adventure forms a part contains allusions not only to surippak, the exact position of which is doubtful, but to other cities, such as erech. the vast ruins at the present village of warka have been carefully explored and determined to be all that remains of that once great and flourishing city, "erech the lofty." supposing that the two hundred miles of alluvial country, which separates them from the head of the persian gulf at present, have been deposited at the very high rate of four miles in a century, it will follow that years ago, or about the year b.c., the city of erech still lay forty miles inland. indeed, the city might have been built a thousand years earlier. moreover, there is plenty of independent archaeological and other evidence that in the whole thousand years, to b.c, the alluvial plain was inhabited by a numerous people, among whom industry, art, and literature had attained a very considerable development. and it can be shown that the physical conditions and the climate of the euphrates valley, at that time, must have been extremely similar to what they are now. thus, once more, we reach the conclusion that, as a question of physical probability, there is no ground for objecting to the reality of hasisadra's adventure. it would be unreasonable to doubt that such a flood might have happened, and that such a person might have escaped in the way described, any time during the last years. and if the postulate of loose thinkers in search of scientific "confirmations" of questionable narratives--proof that an event may have happened is evidence that it did happen--is to be accepted, surely hasisadra's story is "confirmed by modern scientific investigation" beyond all cavil. however, it may be well to pause before adopting this conclusion, because the original story, of which i have set forth only the broad outlines, contains a great many statements which rest upon just the same foundation as those cited, and yet are hardly likely to meet with general acceptance. the account of the circumstances which led up to the flood, of those under which hasisadra's adventure was made known to his descendant, of certain remarkable incidents before and after the flood, are inseparably bound up with the details already given. and i am unable to discover any justification for arbitrarily picking out some of these and dubbing them historical verities, while rejecting the rest as legendary fictions. they stand or fall together. before proceeding to the consideration of these less satisfactory details, it is needful to remark that hasisadra's adventure is a mere episode in a cycle of stories of which a personage, whose name is provisionally read "izdubar," is the centre. the nature of izdubar hovers vaguely between the heroic and the divine; sometimes he seems a mere man, sometimes approaches so closely to the divinities of fire and of the sun as to be hardly distinguishable from them. as i have already mentioned, the tablet which sets forth hasisadra's perils is one of twelve; and, since each of these represents a month and bears a story appropriate to the corresponding sign of the zodiac, great weight must be attached to sir henry rawlinson's suggestion that the epos of izdubar is a poetical embodiment of solar mythology. in the earlier books of the epos, the hero, not content with rejecting the proffered love of the chaldaean aphrodite, istar, freely expresses his very low estimate of her character; and it is interesting to observe that, even in this early stage of human experience, men had reached a conception of that law of nature which expresses the inevitable consequences of an imperfect appreciation of feminine charms. the injured goddess makes izdubar's life a burden to him, until at last, sick in body and sorry in mind, he is driven to seek aid and comfort from his forbears in the world of spirits. so this antitype of odysseus journeys to the shore of the waters of death, and there takes ship with a chaldaean charon, who carries him within hail of his ancestor hasisadra. that venerable personage not only gives izdubar instructions how to regain his health, but tells him, somewhat _a propos des bottes_ (after the manner of venerable personages), the long story of his perilous adventure; and how it befell that he, his wife, and his steersman came to dwell among the blessed gods, without passing through the portals of death like ordinary mortals. according to the full story, the sins of mankind had become grievous; and, at a council of the gods, it was resolved to extirpate the whole race by a great flood. and, once more, let us note the uniformity of human experience. it would appear that, four thousand years ago, the obligations of confidential intercourse about matters of state were sometimes violated--of course from the best of motives. ea, one of the three chiefs of the chaldaean pantheon, the god of justice and of practical wisdom, was also the god of the sea; and, yielding to the temptation to do a friend a good turn, irresistible to kindly seafaring folks of all ranks, he warned hasisadra of what was coming. when bel subsequently reproached him for this breach of confidence, ea defended himself by declaring that he did not tell hasisadra anything; he only sent him a dream. this was undoubtedly sailing very near the wind; but the attribution of a little benevolent obliquity of conduct to one of the highest of the gods is a trifle compared with the truly homeric anthropomorphism which characterises other parts of the epos. the chaldæan deities are, in truth, extremely human; and, occasionally, the narrator does not scruple to represent them in a manner which is not only inconsistent with our idea of reverence, but is sometimes distinctly humorous. [ ] when the storm is at its height, he exhibits them flying in a state of panic to anu, the god of heaven, and crouching before his portal like frightened dogs. as the smoke of hasisadra's sacrifice arises, the gods, attracted by the sweet savour, are compared to swarms of flies. i have already remarked that the lady istar's reputation is torn to shreds; while she and ea scold bel handsomely for his ferocity and injustice in destroying the innocent along with the guilty. one is reminded of here hung up with weighted heels; of misleading dreams sent by zeus; of ares howling as he flies from the trojan battlefield; and of the very questionable dealings of aphrodite with helen and paris. but to return to the story. bel was, at first, excluded from the sacrifice as the author of all the mischief; which really was somewhat hard upon him, since the other gods agreed to his proposal. but eventually a reconciliation takes place; the great bow of anu is displayed in the heavens; bel agrees that he will be satisfied with what war, pestilence, famine, and wild beasts can do in the way of destroying men; and that, henceforward, he will not have recourse to extraordinary measures. finally, it is bel himself who, by way of making amends, transports hasisadra, his wife, and the faithful nes-hea to the abode of the gods. it is as indubitable as it is incomprehensible to most of us, that, for thousands of years, a great people, quite as intelligent as we are, and living in as high a state of civilisation as that which had been attained in the greater part of europe a few centuries ago, entertained not the slightest doubt that anu, bel, ea, istar, and the rest, were real personages, possessed of boundless powers for good and evil. the sincerity of the monarchs whose inscriptions gratefully attribute their victories to merodach, or to assur, is as little to be questioned as that of the authors of the hymns and penitential psalms which give full expression to the heights and depths of religious devotion. an "infidel" bold enough to deny the existence, or to doubt the influence, of these deities probably did not exist in all mesopotamia; and even constructive rebellion against their authority was apt to end in the deprivation, not merely of the good name, but of the skin of the offender. the adherents of modern theological systems dismiss these objects of the love and fear of a hundred generations of their equals, offhand, as "gods of the heathen," mere creations of a wicked and idolatrous imagination; and, along with them, they disown, as senseless, the crude theology, with its gross anthropomorphism and its low ethical conception of the divinity, which satisfied the pious souls of chaldaea. i imagine, though i do not presume to be sure, that any endeavour to save the intellectual and moral credit of chaldaean religion, by suggesting the application to it of that universal solvent of absurdities, the allegorical method, would be scouted; i will not even suggest that any ingenuity can be equal to the discovery of the antitypes of the personifications effected by the religious imagination of later ages, in the triad anu, ea, and bel, still less in istar. therefore, unless some plausible reconciliatory scheme should be propounded by a neo-chaldaean devotee (and, with neo-buddhists to the fore, this supposition is not so wild as it looks), i suppose the moderns will continue to smile, in a superior way, at the grievous absurdity of the polytheistic idolatry of these ancient people. it is probably a congenital absence of some faculty which i ought to possess which withholds me from adopting this summary procedure. but i am not ashamed to share david hume's want of ability to discover that polytheism is, in itself, altogether absurd. if we are bound, or permitted, to judge the government of the world by human standards, it appears to me that directorates are proved, by familiar experience, to conduct the largest and the most complicated concerns quite as well as solitary despots. i have never been able to see why the hypothesis of a divine syndicate should be found guilty of innate absurdity. those assyrians, in particular, who held assur to be the one supreme and creative deity, to whom all the other supernal powers were subordinate, might fairly ask that the essential difference between their system and that which obtains among the great majority of their modern theological critics should be demonstrated. in my apprehension, it is not the quantity, but the quality, of the persons, among whom the attributes of divinity are distributed, which is the serious matter. if the divine might is associated with no higher ethical attributes than those which obtain among ordinary men; if the divine intelligence is supposed to be so imperfect that it cannot foresee the consequences of its own contrivances; if the supernal powers can become furiously angry with the creatures of their omnipotence and, in their senseless wrath, destroy the innocent along with the guilty; or if they can show themselves to be as easily placated by presents and gross flattery as any oriental or occidental despot; if, in short, they are only stronger than mortal men and no better, as it must be admitted hasisadra's deities proved themselves to be--then, surely, it is time for us to look somewhat closely into their credentials, and to accept none but conclusive evidence of their existence. to the majority of my respected contemporaries this reasoning will doubtless appear feeble, if not worse. however, to my mind, such are the only arguments by which the chaldaean theology can be satisfactorily upset. so far from there being any ground for the belief that ea, anu, and bel are, or ever were, real entities, it seems to me quite infinitely more probable that they are products of the religious imagination, such as are to be found everywhere and in all ages, so long as that imagination riots uncontrolled by scientific criticism. it is on these grounds that i venture, at the risk of being called an atheist by the ghosts of all the principals of all the colleges of babylonia, or by their living successors among the neo-chaldaeans, if that sect should arise, to express my utter disbelief in the gods of hasisadra. hence, it follows, that i find hasisadra's account of their share in his adventure incredible; and, as the physical details of the flood are inseparable from its theophanic accompaniments, and are guaranteed by the same authority, i must let them go with the rest. the consistency of such details with probability counts for nothing. the inhabitants of chaldaea must always have been familiar with inundations; probably no generation failed to witness an inundation which rose unusually high, or was rendered serious by coincident atmospheric or other disturbances. and the memory of the general features of any exceptionally severe and devastating flood, would be preserved by popular tradition for long ages. what, then, could be more natural than that a chaldaean poet should seek for the incidents of a great catastrophe among such phenomena? in what other way than by such an appeal to their experience could he so surely awaken in his audience the tragic pity and terror? what possible ground is there for insisting that he must have had some individual good in view, and that his history is historical, in the sense that the account of the effects of a hurricane in the bay of bengal, in the year , is historical? more than three centuries after the time of assurbanipal, berosus of babylon, born in the reign of alexander the great, wrote an account of the history of his country in greek. the work of berosus has vanished; but extracts from it--how far faithful is uncertain--have been preserved by later writers. among these occurs the well-known story of the deluge of xisuthros, which is evidently built upon the same foundation as that of hasisadra. the incidents of the divine warning, the building of the ship, the sending out of birds, the ascension of the hero, betray their common origin. but stories, like madeira, acquire a heightened flavour with time and travel; and the version of berosus is characterised by those circumstantial improbabilities which habitually gather round the legend of a legend. the later narrator knows the exact day of the month on which the flood began. the dimensions of the ship are stated with munchausenian precision at five stadia by two--say, half by one-fifth of an english mile. the ship runs aground among the "gordaean mountains" to the south of lake van, in armenia, beyond the limits of any imaginable real inundation of the euphrates valley; and, by way of climax, we have the assertion, worthy of the sailor who said that he had brought up one of pharaoh's chariot wheels on the fluke of his anchor in the red sea, that pilgrims visited the locality and made amulets of the bitumen which they scraped off from the still extant remains of the mighty ship of xisuthros. suppose that some later polyhistor, as devoid of critical faculty as most of his tribe, had found the version of berosus, as well as another much nearer the original story; that, having too much respect for his authorities to make up a _tertium quid_ of his own, out of the materials offered, he followed a practice, common enough among ancient and, particularly, among semitic historians, of dividing, both into fragments and piecing these together, without troubling himself very much about those resulting repetitions and inconsistencies; the product of such a primitive editorial operation would be a narrative analogous to that which treats of the noachian deluge in the book of genesis. for the pentateuchal story is indubitably a patchwork, composed of fragments of at least two, different and partly discrepant, narratives, quilted together in such an inartistic fashion that the seams remain conspicuous. and, in the matter of circumstantial exaggeration, it in some respects excels even the second-hand legend of berosus. there is a certain practicality about the notion of taking refuge from floods and storms in a ship provided with a steersman; but, surely, no one who had ever seen more water than he could wade through would dream of facing even a moderate breeze, in a huge three-storied coffer, or box, three hundred cubits long, fifty wide and thirty high, left to drift without rudder or pilot. [ ] not content with giving the exact year of noah's age in which the flood began, the pentateuchal story adds the month and the day of the month. it is the deity himself who "shuts in" noah. the modest week assigned to the full deluge in hasisadra's story becomes forty days, in one of the pentateuchal accounts, and a hundred and fifty in the other. the flood, which, in the version of berosus, has grown so high as to cast the ship among the mountains of armenia, is improved upon in the hebrew account until it covers "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven"; and, when it begins to subside, the ark is left stranded on the summit of the highest peak, commonly identified with ararat itself. while the details of hasisadra's adventure are, at least, compatible with the physical conditions of the euphrates valley, and, as we have seen, involve no catastrophe greater than such as might be brought under those conditions, many of the very precisely stated details of noah's flood contradict some of the best established results of scientific inquiry. if it is certain that the alluvium of the mesopotamian plain has been brought down by the tigris and the euphrates, then it is no less certain that the physical structure of the whole valley has persisted, without material modification, for many thousand years before the date assigned to the flood. if the summits, even of the moderately elevated ridges which immediately bound the valley, still more those of the kurdish and armenian mountains, were ever covered by water, for even forty days, that water must have extended over the whole earth. if the earth was thus covered, anywhere between and years ago, or, at any other time, since the higher terrestrial animals came into existence, they must have been destroyed from the whole face of it, as the pentateuchal account declares they were three several times (genesis vii. , , ), in language which cannot be made more emphatic, or more solemn, than it is; and the present population must consist of the descendants of emigrants from the ark. and, if that is the case, then, as has often been pointed out, the sloths of the brazilian forests, the kangaroos of australia, the great tortoises of the galapagos islands, must have respectively hobbled, hopped, and crawled over many thousand miles of land and sea from "ararat" to their present habitations. thus, the unquestionable facts of the geographical distribution of recent land animals, alone, form an insuperable obstacle to the acceptance of the assertion that the kinds of animals composing the present terrestrial fauna have been, at any time, universally destroyed in the way described in the pentateuch. it is upon this and other unimpeachable grounds that, as i ventured to say some time ago, persons who are duly conversant with even the elements of natural science decline to take the noachian deluge seriously; and that, as i also pointed out, candid theologians, who, without special scientific knowledge, have appreciated the weight of scientific arguments, have long since given it up. but, as goethe has remarked, there is nothing more terrible than energetic ignorance; [ ] and there are, even yet, very energetic people, who are neither candid, nor clear-headed, nor theologians, still less properly instructed in the elements of natural science, who make prodigious efforts to obscure the effect of these plain truths, and to conceal their real surrender of the historical character of noah's deluge under cover of the smoke of a great discharge of pseudoscientific artillery. they seem to imagine that the proofs which abound in all parts of the world, of large oscillations of the relative level of land and sea, combined with the probability that, when the sea-level was rising, sudden incursions of the sea like that which broke in over holland and formed the zuyder zee, may have often occurred, can be made to look like evidence that something that, by courtesy, might be called a general deluge has really taken place. their discursive energy drags misunderstood truth into their service; and "the glacial epoch" is as sure to crop up among them as king charles's head in a famous memorial--with about as much appropriateness. the old story of the raised beach on moel tryfaen is trotted out; though, even if the facts are as yet rightly interpreted, there is not a shadow of evidence that the change of sea-level in that locality was sudden, or that glacial welshmen would have known it was taking place. [ ] surely it is difficult to perceive the relevancy of bringing in something that happened in the glacial epoch (if it did happen) to account for the tradition of a flood in the euphrates valley between and b.c. but the date of the noachian flood is solidly fixed by the sole authority for it; no shuffling of the chronological data will carry it so far back as b.c.; and the hebrew epos agrees with the chaldaean in placing it after the development of a somewhat advanced civilisation. the only authority for the noachian deluge assures us that, before it visited the earth, cain had built cities; jubal had invented harps and organs; while mankind had advanced so far beyond the neolithic, nay even the bronze, stage that tubal-cain was a worker in iron. therefore, if the noachian legend is to be taken for the history of an event which happened in the glacial epoch, we must revise our notions of pleistocene civilisation. on the other hand, if the pentateuchal story only means something quite different, that happened somewhere else, thousands of years earlier, dressed up, what becomes of its credit as history? i wonder what would be said to a modern historian who asserted that pekin was burnt down in , and then tried to justify the assertion by adducing evidence of the great fire of london in . yet the attempt to save the credit of the noachian story by reference to something which is supposed to have happened in the far north, in the glacial epoch, is far more preposterous. moreover, these dust-raising dialecticians ignore some of the most important and well-known facts which bear upon the question. anything more than a parochial acquaintance with physical geography and geology would suffice to remind its possessor that the holy land itself offers a standing protest against bringing such a deluge as that of noah anywhere near it, either in historical times or in the course of that pleistocene period, of which the "great ice age" formed a part. judaea and galilee, moab and gilead, occupy part of that extensive tableland at the summit of the western boundary of the euphrates valley, to which i have already referred. if that valley had ever been filled with water to a height sufficient, not indeed to cover a third of ararat, in the north, or half of some of the mountains of the persian frontier in the east, but to reach even four or five thousand feet, it must have stood over the palestinian hog's back, and have filled, up to the brim, every depression on its surface. therefore it could not have failed to fill that remarkable trench in which the dead sea, the jordan, and the sea of galilee lie, and which is known as the "jordan-arabah" valley. this long and deep hollow extends more than miles, from near the site of ancient dan in the north, to the water-parting at the head of the wady arabah in the south; and its deepest part, at the bottom of the basin of the dead sea, lies feet below the surface of the adjacent mediterranean. the lowest portion of the rim of the jordan-arabah valley is situated at the village of el fuleh, feet above the mediterranean. everywhere else the circumjacent heights rise to a very much greater altitude. hence, of the water which stood over the syrian tableland, when as much drained off as could run away, enough would remain to form a "mere" without an outlet, feet deep, over the present site of the dead sea. from this time forth, the level of the palestinian mere could be lowered only by evaporation. it is an extremely interesting fact, which has happily escaped capture for the purposes of the energetic misunderstanding, that the valley, at one time, was filled, certainly within feet of this height--probably higher. and it is almost equally certain, that the time at which this great jordan-arabah mere reached its highest level coincides with the glacial epoch. but then the evidence which goes to prove this, also leads to the conclusion that this state of things obtained at a period considerably older than even b.c., when the world, according to the "helps" (or shall we say "hindrances") provided for the simple student of the bible, was created; that it was not brought about by any diluvial catastrophe, but was the result of a change in the relative activities of certain natural operations which are quietly going on now; and that, since the level of the mere began to sink, many thousand years ago, no serious catastrophe of any description has affected the valley. the evidence that the jordan-arabah valley really was once filled with water, the surface of which reached within feet of the level of the pass of jezrael, and possibly stood higher, is this: remains of alluvial strata, containing shells of the freshwater mollusks which still inhabit the valley, worn down into terraces by waves which long rippled at the same level, and furrowed by the channels excavated by modern rainfalls, have been found at the former height; and they are repeated, at intervals, lower down, until the ghor, or plain of the jordan, itself an alluvial deposit, is reached. these strata attain a considerable thickness; and they indicate that the epoch at which the freshwater mere of palestine reached its highest level is extremely remote; that its diminution has taken place very slowly, and with periods of rest, during which the first formed deposits were cut down into terraces. this conclusion is strikingly borne out by other facts. a volcanic region stretches from galilee to gilead and the hauran, on each side of the northern end of the valley. some of the streams of basaltic lava which have been thrown out from its craters and clefts in times of which history has no record, have run athwart the course of the jordan itself, or of that of some of its tributary streams. the lava streams, therefore, must be of later date than the depressions they fill. and yet, where they have thus temporarily dammed the jordan and the jermuk, these streams have had time to cut through the hard basalts and lay bare the beds, over which, before the lava streams invaded them, they flowed. in fact, the antiquity of the present jordan-arabah valley, as a hollow in a tableland, out of reach of the sea, and troubled by no diluvial or other disturbances, beyond the volcanic eruptions of gilead and of galilee, is vast, even as estimated by a geological standard. no marine deposits of later than miocene age occur in or about it; and there is every reason to believe that the syro-arabian plateau has been dry land, throughout the pliocene and later epochs, down to the present time. raised beaches, containing recent shells, on the levantine shores of the mediterranean and on those of the red sea, testify to a geologically recent change of the sea level to the extent of or feet, probably produced by the slow elevation of the land; and, as i have already remarked, the alluvial plain of the euphrates and tigris appears to have been affected in the same way, though seemingly to a less extent. but of violent, or catastrophic, change there is no trace. even the volcanic outbursts have flowed in even sheets over the old land surface; and the long lines of the horizontal terraces which remain, testify to the geological insignificance of such earthquakes as have taken place. it is, indeed, possible that the original formation of the valley may have been determined by the well-known fault, along which the western rocks are relatively depressed and the eastern elevated. but, whether that fault was effected slowly or quickly, and whenever it came into existence, the excavation of the valley to its present width, no less than the sculpturing of its steep walls and of the innumerable deep ravines which score them down to the very bottom, are indubitably due to the operation of rain and streams, during an enormous length of time, without interruption or disturbance of any magnitude. the alluvial deposits which have been mentioned are continued into the lateral ravines, and have more or less filled them. but, since the waters have been lowered, these deposits have been cut down to great depths, and are still being excavated by the present temporary, or permanent, streams. hence, it follows, that all these ravines must have existed before the time at which the valley was occupied by the great mere. this fact acquires a peculiar importance when we proceed to consider the grounds for the conclusion that the old palestinian mere attained its highest level in the cold period of the pleistocene epoch. it is well known that glaciers formerly came low down on the flanks of lebanon and antilebanon; indeed, the old moraines are the haunts of the few survivors of the famous cedars. this implies a perennial snowcap of great extent on hermon; therefore, a vastly greater supply of water to the sources of the jordan which rise on its flanks; and, in addition, such a total change in the general climate, that the innumerable wadys, now traversed only by occasional storm torrents, must have been occupied by perennial streams. all this involves a lower annual temperature and a moist and rainy atmosphere. if such a change of meteorological conditions could be effected now, when the loss by evaporation from the surface of the dead sea salt-pan balances all the gain from the jordan and other streams, the scale would be turned in the other direction. the waters of the dead sea would become diluted; its level would rise; it would cover, first the plain of the jordan, then the lake of galilee, then the middle jordan between this lake and that of huleh (the ancient merom); and, finally, it would encroach, northwards, along the course of the upper jordan, and, southwards, up the wady arabah, until it reached some feet above the level of the mediterranean, when it would attain a permanent level, by sending any superfluity through the pass of jezrael to swell the waters of the kishon, and flow thence into the mediterranean. reverse the process, in consequence of the excess of loss by evaporation over gain by inflow, which must have set in as the climate of syria changed after the end of the pleistocene epoch, and (without taking into consideration any other circumstances) the present state of things must eventually be reached--a concentrated saline solution in the deepest part of the valley--water, rather more charged with saline matter than ordinary fresh water, in the lower jordan and the lake of galilee--fresh waters, still largely derived from the snows of hermon, in the upper jordan and in lake huleh. but, if the full state of the jordan valley marks the glacial epoch, then it follows that the excavation of that valley by atmospheric agencies must have occupied an immense antecedent time--a large part, perhaps the whole, of the pliocene epoch; and we are thus forced to the conclusion that, since the miocene epoch, the physical conformation of the holy land has been substantially what it is now. it has been more or less rained upon, searched by earthquakes here and there, partially overflowed by lava streams, slowly raised (relatively to the sea-level) a few hundred feet. but there is not a shadow of ground for supposing that, throughout all this time, terrestrial animals have ceased to inhabit a large part of its surface; or that, in many parts, they have been, in any respect, incommoded by the changes which have taken place. the evidence of the general stability of the physical conditions of western asia, which is furnished by palestine and by the euphrates valley, is only fortified if we extend our view northwards to the black sea and the caspian. the caspian is a sort of magnified replica of the dead sea. the bottom of the deepest part of this vast inland mere is about feet below the level of the mediterranean, while its surface is lower by feet. at present, it is separated, on the west, by wide spaces of dry land from the black sea, which has the same height as the mediterranean; and, on the east, from the aral, feet above that level. the waters of the black sea, now in communication with the mediterranean by the dardanelles and the bosphorus, are salt, but become brackish northwards, where the rivers of the steppes pour in a great volume of fresh water. those of the shallower northern half of the caspian are similarly affected by the volga and the ural, while, in the shallow bays of the southern division, they become extremely saline in consequence of the intense evaporation. the aral sea, though supplied by the jaxartes and the oxus, has brackish water. there is evidence that, in the pliocene and pleistocene periods, to go no farther back, the strait of the dardanelles did not exist, and that the vast area, from the valley of the danube to that of the jaxartes, was covered by brackish or, in some parts, fresh water to a height of at least feet above the level of the mediterranean. at the present time, the water-parting which separates the northern part of the basin of the caspian from the vast plains traversed by the tobol and the obi, in their course to the arctic ocean, appears to be less than feet above the latter. it would seem, therefore, to be very probable that, under the climatal conditions of part of the pleistocene period, the valley of the obi played the same part in relation to the ponto-aralian sea, as that of the kishon may have done to the great mere of the jordan valley; and that the outflow formed the channel by which the well-known arctic elements of the fauna of the caspian entered it. for the fossil remains imbedded in the strata continuously deposited in the aralo-caspian area, since the latter end of the miocene epoch, show no sign that, from that time onward, it has ever been covered by sea water. therefore, the supposition of a free inflow of the arctic ocean, which at one time was generally received, as well as that of various hypothetical deluges from that quarter, must be seriously questioned. the caspian and the aral stand in somewhat the same relation to the vast basin of dry land in which they lie, as the dead sea and the lake of galilee to the jordan valley. they are the remains of a vast, mostly brackish, mere, which has dried up in consequence of the excess of evaporation over supply, since the cold and damp climate of the pleistocene epoch gave place to the increasing dryness and great summer heats of central asia in more modern times. the desiccation of the aralo-caspian basin, which communicated with the black sea only by a comparatively narrow and shallow strait along the present valley of manytsch, the bottom of which was less than feet above the mediterranean, must have been vastly aided by the erosion of the strait of the dardanelles towards the end of the pleistocene epoch, or perhaps later. for the result of thus opening a passage for the waters of the black sea into the mediterranean must have been the gradual lowering of its level to that of the latter sea. when this process had gone so far as to bring down the black sea water to within less than a hundred feet of its present level, the strait of manytsch ceased to exist; and the vast body of fresh water brought down by the danube, the dnieper, the don, and other south russian rivers was cut off from the caspian, and eventually delivered into the mediterranean. thus, there is as conclusive evidence as one can well hope to obtain in these matters, that, north of the euphrates valley, the physical geography of an area as large as all central europe has remained essentially unchanged, from the miocene period down to our time; just as, to the west of the euphrates valley, palestine has exhibited a similar persistence of geographical type. to the south, the valley of the nile tells exactly the same story. the holes bored by miocene mollusks in the cliffs east and west of cairo bear witness that, in the miocene epoch, it contained an arm of the sea, the bottom of which has since been gradually filled up by the alluvium of the nile, and elevated to its present position. but the higher parts of the mokattam and of the desert about ghizeh, have been dry land from that time to this. too little is known of the geology of persia, at present, to allow any positive conclusion to be enunciated. but, taking the name to indicate the whole continental mass of iran, between the valleys of the indus and the euphrates, the supposition that its physical geography has remained unchanged for an immensely long period is hardly rash. the country is, in fact, an enormous basin, surrounded on all sides by a mountainous rim, and subdivided within by ridges into plateaus and hollows, the bottom of the deepest of which, in the province of seistan, probably descends to the level of the indian ocean. these depressions are occupied by salt marshes and deserts, in which the waters of the streams which flow down the sides of the basin are now dissipated by evaporation. i am acquainted with no evidence that the present iranian basin was ever occupied by the sea; but the accumulations of gravel over a great extent of its surface indicate long-continued water action. it is, therefore, a fair presumption that large lakes have covered much of its present deserts, and that they have dried up by the operation of the same changed climatal conditions as those which have reduced the caspian and the dead sea to their present dimensions. [ ] thus it would seem that the euphrates valley, the centre of the fabled noachian deluge, is also the centre of a region covering some millions of square miles of the present continents of europe, asia, and africa, in which all the facts, relevant to the argument, at present known, converge to the conclusion that, since the miocene epoch, the essential features of its physical geography have remained unchanged; that it has neither been depressed below the sea, nor swept by diluvial waters since that time; and that the chaldaean version of the legend of a flood in the euphrates valley is, of all those which are extant, the only one which is even consistent with probability, since it depicts a local inundation, not more severe than one which might be brought about by a concurrence of favourable conditions at the present day; and which might probably have been more easily effected when the persian gulf extended farther north. hence, the recourse to the "glacial epoch" for some event which might colourably represent a flood, distinctly asserted by the only authority for it to have occurred in historical times, is peculiarly unfortunate. even a welsh antiquary might hesitate over the supposition that a tradition of the fate of moel tryfaen, in the glacial epoch, had furnished the basis of fact for a legend which arose among people whose own experience abundantly supplied them with the needful precedents. moreover, if evidence of interchanges of land and sea are to be accepted as "confirmations" of noah's deluge, there are plenty of sources for the tradition to be had much nearer than wales. the depression now filled by the red sea, for example, appears to be, geologically, of very recent origin. the later deposits found on its shores, two or three hundred feet above the sea level, contain no remains older than those of the present fauna; while, as i have already mentioned, the valley of the adjacent delta of the nile was a gulf of the sea in miocene times. but there is not a particle of evidence that the change of relative level which admitted the waters of the indian ocean between arabia and africa, took place any faster than that which is now going on in greenland and scandinavia, and which has left their inhabitants undisturbed. even more remarkable changes were effected, towards the end of, or since, the glacial epoch, over the region now occupied by the levantine mediterranean and the aegean sea. the eastern coast region of asia minor, the western of greece, and many of the intermediate islands, exhibit thick masses of stratified deposits of later tertiary age and of purely lacustrine characters; and it is remarkable that, on the south side of the island of crete, such masses present steep cliffs facing the sea, so that the southern boundary of the lake in which they were formed must have been situated where the sea now flows. indeed, there are valid reasons for the supposition that the dry land once extended far to the west of the present levantine coast, and not improbably forced the nile to seek an outlet to the north-east of its present delta--a possibility of no small importance in relation to certain puzzling facts in the geographical distribution of animals in this region. at any rate, continuous land joined asia minor with the balkan peninsula; and its surface bore deep fresh-water lakes, apparently disconnected with the ponto-aralian sea. this state of things lasted long enough to allow of the formation of the thick lacustrine strata to which i have referred. i am not aware that there is the smallest ground for the assumption that the aegean land was broken up in consequence of any of the "catastrophes" which are so commonly invoked. [ ] for anything that appears to the contrary, the narrow, steep-sided, straits between the islands of the aegean archipelago may have been originally brought about by ordinary atmospheric and stream action; and may then have been filled from the mediterranean, during a slow submergence proceeding from the south northwards. the strait of the dardanelles is bounded by undisturbed pleistocene strata forty feet thick, through which, to all appearance, the present passage has been quietly cut. that olympus and ossa were torn asunder and the waters of the thessalian basin poured forth, is a very ancient notion, and an often cited "confirmation" of deucalion's flood. it has not yet ceased to be in vogue, apparently because those who entertain it are not aware that modern geological investigation has conclusively proved that the gorge of the penens is as typical an example of a valley of erosion as any to be seen in auvergne or in colorado. [ ] thus, in the immediate vicinity of the vast expanse of country which can be proved to have been untouched by any catastrophe before, during, and since the "glacial epoch," lie the great areas of the aegean and the red sea, in which, during or since the glacial epoch, changes of the relative positions of land and sea have taken place, in comparison with which the submergence of moel tryfaen, with all wales and scotland to boot, does not come to much. what, then, is the relevancy of talk about the "glacial epoch" to the question of the historical veracity of the narrator of the story of the noachian deluge? so far as my knowledge goes, there is not a particle of evidence that destructive inundations were more common, over the general surface of the earth, in the glacial epoch than they have been before or since. no doubt the fringe of an ice-covered region must be always liable to them; but, if we examine the records of such catastrophes in historical times, those produced in the deltas of great rivers, or in lowlands like holland, by sudden floods, combined with gales of wind or with unusual tides, far excel all others. with respect to such inundations as are the consequences of earthquakes, and other slight movements of the crust of the earth, i have never heard of anything to show that they were more frequent and severer in the quaternary or tertiary epochs than they are now. in the discussion of these, as of all other geological problems, the appeal to needless catastrophes is born of that impatience of the slow and painful search after sufficient causes, in the ordinary course of nature, which is a temptation to all, though only energetic ignorance nowadays completely succumbs to it. postscript. my best thanks are due to mr. gladstone for his courteous withdrawal of one of the statements to which i have thought it needful to take exception. the familiarity with controversy, to which mr. gladstone alludes, will have accustomed him to the misadventures which arise when, as sometimes will happen in the heat of fence, the buttons come off the foils. i trust that any scratch which he may have received will heal as quickly as my own flesh wounds have done. a contribution to the last number of this review (_the nineteenth century_) of a different order would be left unnoticed, were it not that my silence would convert me into an accessory to misrepresentations of a very grave character. however, i shall restrict myself to the barest possible statement of facts, leaving my readers to draw their own conclusions. in an article entitled "a great lesson," published in this review for september, : ( ) the duke of argyll says the "overthrow of darwin's speculations" (p. ) concerning the origin of coral reefs, which he fancied had taken place, had been received by men of science "with a grudging silence as far as public discussion is concerned" (p. ). the truth is that, as every one acquainted with the literature of the subject was well aware, the views supposed to have effected this overthrow had been fully and publicly discussed by dana in the united states; by geikie, green, and prestwich in this country; by lapparent in france; and by credner in germany. ( ) the duke of argyll says "that no serious reply has ever been attempted" (p. ). the truth is that the highest living authority on the subject, professor dana, published a most weighty reply, two years before the duke of argyll committed himself to this statement. ( ) the duke of argyll uses the preceding products of defective knowledge, multiplied by excessive imagination, to illustrate the manner in which "certain accepted opinions" established "a sort of reign of terror in their own behalf" (p. ). the truth is that no plea, except that of total ignorance of the literature of the subject, can excuse the errors cited, and that the "reign of terror" is a purely subjective phenomenon. ( ) the letter in "nature" for the th of november, , to which i am referred, contains neither substantiation, nor retractation, of statements and . nevertheless, it repeats number . the duke of argyll says of his article that it "has done what i intended it to do. it has called wide attention to the influence of mere authority in establishing erroneous theories and in retarding the progress of scientific truth." ( ) the duke of argyll illustrates the influence of his fictitious "reign of terror" by the statement that mr. john murray "was strongly advised against the publication of his views in derogation of darwin's long-accepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually induced to delay it for two years" (p. ). and in "nature" for the th november, , the duke of argyll states that he has seen a letter from sir wyville thomson in which he "urged and almost insisted that mr. murray should withdraw the reading of his papers on the subject from the royal society of edinburgh. this was in february, ." the next paragraph, however, contains the confession: "no special reason was assigned." the duke of argyll proceeds to give a speculative opinion that "sir wyville dreaded some injury to the scientific reputation of the body of which he was the chief." truly, a very probable supposition; but as sir wyville thomson's tendencies were notoriously anti-darwinian, it does not appear to me to lend the slightest justification to the duke of argyll's insinuation that the darwinian "terror" influenced him. however, the question was finally set at rest by a letter which appeared in "nature" ( th of december, ), in which the writer says that: "talking with sir wyville about 'murray's new theory,' i asked what objection he had to its being brought before the public? the answer simply was: he considered that the grounds of the theory had not, as yet, been sufficiently investigated or sufficiently corroborated, and that therefore any immature dogmatic publication of it would do less than little service either to science or to the author of the paper." sir wyville thomson was an intimate friend of mine, and i am glad to have been afforded one more opportunity of clearing his character from the aspersions which have been so recklessly cast upon his good sense and his scientific honour. ( ) as to the "overthrow" of darwin's theory, which, according to the duke of argyll, was patent to every unprejudiced person four years ago, i have recently become acquainted with a work, in which a really competent authority, [ ] thoroughly acquainted with all the new lights which have been thrown upon the subject during the last ten years, pronounces the judgment; firstly, that some of the facts brought forward by messrs. murray and guppy against darwin's theory are not facts; secondly, that the others are reconcilable with darwin's theory; and, thirdly, that the theories of messrs. murray and guppy "are contradicted by a series of important facts" (p. ). perhaps i had better draw attention to the circumstance that dr. langenbeck writes under shelter of the guns of the fortress of strasburg; and may therefore be presumed to be unaffected by those dreams of a "reign of terror" which seem to disturb the peace of some of us in these islands (april, ). [see, on the subject of this note, the essay entitled "an episcopal trilogy" in the following volume.] footnotes: [footnote : in may the tigris at bagdad rose - / feet-- feet above its usual rise--and nearly swept away the town. in a similarly exceptional flood did immense damage, destroying houses. see loftus, _chaldea and susiana,_ p. .] [footnote : see the instructive chapter on hasisadra's flood in suess, _das antlitz der erde,_ abth. i. only fifteen years ago a cyclone in the bay of bengal gave rise to a flood which covered square miles of the delta of the ganges, to feet deep, destroying , people, innumerable cattle, houses, and trees. it broke inland on the rising ground of tipperah, and may have swept a vessel from the sea that far, though i do not know that it did.] [footnote : see cernik's maps in _petermanns mittheilungen,_ erganzungashefte and , - .] [footnote : i have not cited the dimensions given to the ships in most translations of the story, because there appears to be a doubt about them. haupt (_keilinschriftliche sindfluth-bericht,_ p. : says that the figures are illegible.)] [footnote : it is probable that a slow movement of elevation of the land at one time contributed to the result--perhaps does so still.] [footnote : at a comparatively recent period, the littoral margin of the persian gulf extended certainly miles farther to the northwest than the present embouchure of the shatt-el arab. (loftus, _quarterly journal of the geological society,_ , p. .) the actual extent of the marine deposit inland cannot be defined, as it is covered by later fluviatile deposits.] [footnote : tiele (_babylonisch-assyrische geschicthe,_ pp. - ) has some very just remarks on this aspect of the epos.] [footnote : in the second volume of the _history of the euphrates,_ p. col. chesney gives a very interesting account of the simple and rapid manner in which the people about tekrit and in the marshes of lemlum construct large barges, and make them water-tight with bitumen. doubtless the practice is extremely ancient and as colonel chesney suggests, may possibly have furnished the conception of noah's ark. but it is one thing to build a barge ft. long by ft. wide and ft. deep in the way described; and another to get a vessel of ten times the dimensions, so constructed, to hold together.] [footnote : "es ist nichts schrecklicher als eine thatige unwissenheit," _maximen und reflexionen,_ iii.] [footnote : the well-known difficulties connected with this case have recently been carefully discussed by mr. bell in the _transactions_ of the geological society of glasgow.] [footnote : an instructive parallel is exhibited by the "great basin" of north america. see the remarkable memoir on _lake bonneville_ by mr. g. k. gilbert, of the united states geological survey, just published.] [footnote : it is true that earthquakes are common enough, but they are incompetent to produce such changes as those which have taken place.] [footnote : see teller, _geologische beschreibung des sud-ostlichen thessalien;_ denkschriften d. akademie der wissenschaften, wien, bd. xl. p. .] [footnote : dr. langenbeck, _die theorien uber die entstehung der korallen-inseln und korallen-riffe_ (p. ), .] the creation of god. by dr. jacob hartmann, m.d. st. louis medical college; bachelor of medicine, toronto university; m.b. trinity college, ontario; member of the college of physicians and surgeons, ontario; licentiate of the royal college of physicians and surgeons, edinburgh, scotland; member of the county medical society of new york, etc., etc. new york: the truth seeker company, lafayette place. contents. chapter i. the universal aspect, ii. the earth, iii. the chemical aspect, iv. the sun, v. genesis--the creation, vi. genesis--the garden of eden, vii. the deluge, viii. the scriptural god--the creation, ix. the creation of god--abraham, x. moses--confirmation of the idea of god, xi. samuel the kingmaker, xii. god save the king, xiii. jehova takes a rest, xiv. the end of national life, xv. the christian era, xvi. organic life--vegetable, xvii. organic life--animal, the master tissues. the muscular tissues. the nervous tissues. xviii. food and food-substances, xix. elimination of waste substances, in general. by the lungs. by the skin. by the kidneys. xx. digestion, nutrition, xxi. the elementary substances, xxii. alcohol and its effects on the system, xxiii. the soul--what is it? the mind. xxiv. sin and salvation, xxv. the ecclesiastical kindergarten, xxvi. rational review, xxvii. visions--bible dreams-revelations, xxviii. the planetary gods, xxix. every man his own god, tables { gateways to knowledge. { morals: whence they spring. xxx. the non credo, rules for human conduct. illustrations. map of the intellectual faculties--the mind, opp. title-page. map of theological retrogression, opp. p. map of the deluge and garden of eden, opp. p. preface. "si les nommes étaient capables de gouverner toute la conduite de leur vie par un dessein reglé, si la fortune leur était toujours favorable, leur âme serait libre de toute superstition." --spinoza, . "il n'y a pas de moyen plus efficace que la superstition pour gouverner la multitude." --quinte curce. "but in the temple of their hireling hearts gold is a living god, and rules in scorn all earthly things but virtue." "falsehood demands but gold to pay the pangs of outraged conscience; for the slavish priest sets no great value on his hireling faith." "but human pride is skillful to invent most serious names to hide its ignorance." --shelley. at this time, in this age of agitation, unrest, dissatisfaction, and doubt among the masses, and all classes, in every civilized part of the globe, in all communities and human organizations, in church and out of church, ecclesiastical bodies of all shades; besides the vast number of theories and doctrines of a popular socialistic, anti-poverty, communistic order, etc., a prevailing skepticism has seized the minds of men, as to the truth, validity, and stability of the entire religious fabric. the unsettled condition of the minds of men, the disturbing elements of the laboring classes, the church quarrels, clerical litigations, disputes, wrangling, and mutual hate about scriptural authenticity, its truth and supernaturalism, the heresies and blasphemies, the unsatisfactory condition of the roman church, the constant and unremitting papal correspondence, the petty bickering, the selfish zeal, the greed for money, the anxiety to raise funds for all kinds of ecclesiastical establishments, naturally arouse suspicion whether the idea of a god is not going out of fashion, whether the clergy has not lost faith in the book, whether the jew, the jehovistic aristocrat, has not been the primary inventor of these supernatural wares, whether the christian theologians are not beginning to lose their sway and grip and their pretended supernatural authority over their ignorant devotees. we may ask frankly, honestly, truthfully, and in perfect good faith: has not the time arrived for a grand and human reformation? for new methods of teaching, for new and more accurate ideas, for a more precise knowledge of the natural, for instructions in absolute facts, for a more thorough understanding of natural laws, for a broader comprehension of man himself and his surroundings, for an abandonment of all the supernatural subterfuge, ignorance, and superstition, of religious fables, miracles, false theories, and misleading doctrines as to god, with their immense sacrifice of human life. within the limits of the church nothing is to be hoped for, nor can anything be expected, except the greedy grasping of the hard-earned money of the ignorant laboring classes, the fanatical devotees, to sustain and uphold a mercenary priesthood, a rotten supernatural system that has proved so pernicious to mankind. europe, at one time the rich pasture for the holy roman catholic apostolic church, no longer pours the milk and honey into the supreme pontiff's lap as of yore. in a letter dated "rome, feb. d," ledochowski writes of leo xiii.'s solicitude for the good of religion in these parts: "the supreme pontiff has many reasons of sadness on account of the distresses which the impudent endeavors of wicked men are trying to bring upon christianity, especially in europe. on the other hand, it is a great consolation to him to see the increase of catholicism, with god's aid, elsewhere in the world." of course ledochowski signifies the pope's great admiration for the wonderful resources--for this flourishing, prolific, and generous american milch-cow. the roman administration, with that marvelous business tact so characteristic of that church, turns its tender attention, with all its pontifical flummery and grotesque maneuvers, to insinuate its methods upon this republic, to overawe us with a blaze of stupefaction, profounder ignorance and superstition, by honoring america with a resident tax-collector, and to save gods, their divinities, with the christ, holy ghost, virgin immaculate, saints, angels, and all the other theological absurdities. is it not high time for man and woman to learn that their dependence on any supernatural aid is futile, their prayers and appeals to an imaginary god worse than useless, their cringing fear for the so-called sacred authority cowardly, their submission to priestly rule and authority slavish, and the inculcating of biblical church lore stupefying? is it not time for man and woman to comprehend themselves, their powers, the uses of their several organs, their functions, and the natural laws that govern them? that ideas, thought, consciousness, intellect, understanding, imagination, knowledge, etc., etc., are but the functions of nervous matter? that everything we know, have discovered, developed, or produced, is the natural product of nerve tissue. in reviewing the history of this theologico-ecclesiastical organization--this jehovistic christianized system, from the very beginning to the present time, we find that this many-shaded, ever-changeable, greedy, grasping creed has done during the four thousand years of its existence a vast amount of mischief and little or no good. it had to be civilized instead of civilizing. instead of elevating their followers, priests rather made every effort to keep them in subjection, steeped in ignorance and superstition. in presenting these pages to the public, it is for the purpose of exposing some simple intelligible facts, some wholesome truths, some few scientific revelations discovered by men of eminence, knowledge, and wisdom, regarding ourselves, this terrestrial globe, and the universe at large of which we are part. it is not possible in modern times to force men to believe, to accept the impossible. at this period of mental transition, the tendency is to think, to reason, to gain knowledge and truth, to be self-supporting, self-sustaining, independent, free, and untrammeled by barbaric delusion and terrorism. they no longer fear and cower before a shadow of some supernatural imaginary thing or being that has no existence and never had. man must learn to know that man is an evolution of nature's forces, a product of this terrestrial globe; that all the physical and physiological phenomena of his fine muscular and nervous system are the natural products and functions of his organization; that whether soul, spirit, god or jehovah, they were evolved in the brain of man; that man, as man, with all his endowments, faculties, and capabilities, is part and parcel of this earth, a natural result of natural causes, and the supernatural, the god or gods, is the natural product of man's working faculties. the scientific world has long since discarded every idea of anything supernatural, declared the impossibility, falsity, and absurdity of the scriptural fable, and that god, jehovah, with all the ingenious priestly inventions, has proved itself pernicious and oppressive to humanity and contrary to intelligence, reason, and common sense. man to know his rights must know himself, his nature and his natural surroundings, and if he knows himself, he will learn that god did not create man, but that man created god, and that every man is and must be his own god to be a true man. know the natural, never mind the supernatural. the creation of god. chapter i. universal aspect. the beginning of intellectual development consists of observant experience. by frequent and repeated observation man acquired a familiarity with the subjects of that process--a clearer and better understanding of them. thus, the chaldean shepherds, while minding their flocks of sheep and cattle, lazily and continuously watched the sky and starry hosts, and by degrees recognized, and acquired a knowledge of, many of the stars, laying the foundation for astronomy. authorities state that they composed seventy-two volumes on that science, these books dating as far back as , b.c., treating of the polar star, venus, mars, and so on. it is possible that many errors attended their observations; many mistakes may have entered their explanations. that was natural, considering the remoteness of the times and the lack of facilities. knowledge and truth never come easily. the former is very hard to acquire, the latter very difficult to discover. every truth, every new idea, has to battle against old established notions. if the new idea is persisted in, which is ordinarily the case, a struggle must ensue. the old idea resists, refuses to yield, no matter how false, ridiculous, or pernicious it may be. yield, however, it must, and does in the course of time. truth must win in the long run, though it has to fight its way through depths of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition, sustained by hate, bigotry, terrorism, and persecution. as century after century passed in the dark ages, apostles of science and truth appeared, here and there, now and then, calm, dignified, patient, persistent and persevering, untiring, self-denying, men of superior intellect, unswayed and undismayed by existing authorities. these men gave us, though not a complete, a very ample revelation of nature, unfolding its mysteries, explaining its phenomena, making known the truth as far as men had been able to discover up to their time. nature with its laws man had to observe carefully in order to learn to unravel its secrets, its workings, its forces. there is no way to reveal them except through the mind of man. there are no means of knowing or discovering the intricacies and subtleties of nature's hidden and inexhaustible resources but by careful thought, reason, constant study and application. not a single problem has ever been solved--in fact, one cannot be solved--except by acquired intellectual powers, developed by the refining process of education of the great nervous centers of man. many scholars have devoted and still devote their time, their energy, their life, in search of new facts, new truths, concerning the stars, planetary system, and this terrestrial globe we live on especially. centuries before christ's time, and after, men were engaged in developing the science of astronomy--anaximander, hipparchus, ptolemy, copernicus, galileo, newton, herschel, and many others. these men were the apostles of truth, the teachers of facts, and some of them were martyrs to science. the great civilizer, the press of modern times, was recently filled with accounts about the planet mars, comet, etc., giving all the detailed information obtainable. everyone who reads the newspapers learns something about mars, and ventures to give his opinion, whether it is like the earth--inhabited, has seas or atmosphere, etc. so that, whatever new facts are revealed, new truths announced, the minds of men are made so much richer. knowledge, the progress of science, the discoveries of important facts, the improvements of political, social, or civil laws, do not come to us spontaneously, nor do they come to us suddenly in overpowering quantities; it is a process of gradual acquirement, a slow accumulation, to which every generation contributes its quota of observation and experience that makes up the total wealth of aggregate thought, and is handed down from generation to generation, our common inheritance. this common inheritance is neither all true nor all good. a large proportion that has been handed down to us by the ancients is not true or good, though it is believed to be true and good. the revelations of absolute truths, of actual facts, are of more recent date--discoveries made within the last few centuries. the spurious, so-called revelations are the works of antiquity, which are not based on truth or fact or knowledge or experience. the mental faculties of pristine men were primitive, and their ideas were as primitive. they lived in an age of infancy; it was all surprise, wonder, astonishment, and miracle. when kepler discovered the law that "planets revolve in ellipses with the sun at one focus," he worked hard for many days, and after many trials succeeded. he also discovered a second law, which he defines, "a line connecting the center of the earth with the center of the sun passes over equal spaces in equal times;" and his third law, "the squares of the times of revolutions of the planets about the sun are proportioned to the center of their mean distance from the sun." no one ever claimed for kepler, nor has he laid claim himself, that he was inspired by god, or received the idea through any supernatural agency. the hostile and bitter opposition that galileo met on the part of the christian church is too well known; but the importance of his discoveries, and the truth, remains. all intelligent persons ought to understand newton's law of gravitation. if they understood the full import and significance of that law, they would never believe in the absurd miracles of moses, joshua, elijah, christ and company. the law: "every particle of matter in the universe attracts every other particle of matter with a force directly proportional to its quantity of matter, and decreasing as the square of the distance increases." it is most remarkable--that man discovering great truths, concerning which there has never been any dispute, or controversy, or fight; that stand, unaltered and unchanged, forever. such men have not been inspired by god, jehovah, christ, or the holy ghost, or anything supernatural. they have accomplished their works by their powers of observation, great mental efforts, skillful explanation and elucidation, accomplished by hard and untiring work. it is astonishing that, in the presence of so many revealed natural truths, so many ascertained scientific facts, and numerous discoveries in this century, which is claimed to be much advanced in civilization, intelligent persons--teachers, preachers, priests, and those laying claim to scholarship--still believe that the visionary figures, the product of distorted imagination or hallucination, of men like isaiah, ezekiel, etc., were of supernatural origin. the incredible stories found in the bible, the fabulous inventions concocted in the imagination of some person or persons away in chaldea many thousand years ago, are still taught to be true, and the children in the sunday-schools are instructed to believe these absurdities. the undue haste exhibited in the first chapter of genesis, in creating the earth, etc., is one of those wonderful puzzles to a child's mind. it is a something that is not easily explained at length to young people without awaking the suspicion of its impossibility, and requires considerable ingenuity to satisfy inquiring minds concerning it. the supernaturalists get over it by a final and complete answer, that admits of no argument--that "with god everything is possible." that being absolutely untrue, the answer explains nothing, but has a tendency to stupefy the child and hinder its educational advancement, for the reason that such an answer puts a stop to all farther inquiry. this really has been the effect of this pernicious teaching for many centuries. all the stories, fables, myths, handed down to us from antiquity may be classed in the same category. there are many of them--yes, a perfect wilderness. all are true in part, but false as a whole. upon close examination we find glimmerings of truth in all of them. the difference lies in the kind, not in the quality. in the biblical story of creation, the writers had evidently observed, and knew, there were an earth, water, stars, and something above the earth which they called heaven, the atmosphere. that was the limit of their knowledge. they knew they existed, and things and objects that surrounded them existed, and they made an attempt in their primitive method to account for the manner in which these things came into existence. they could know nothing about it, because the most important discoveries were made thousands of years later. hesiod, b.c., in his "theogonia," invokes the muses who inhabit the heavenly mansions, and whose knowledge of generation and birth he had formerly sung: "tell, ye celestial powers, how first the gods and world were made; the rivers, and the boundless sea, with its strong surge. also, the bright, shining stars, and wide-stretched heaven above, and all the gods that sprang from them, givers of good things." the muses answer: "first of all existed chaos; next in order the broad-bosomed earth; then love appeared, the most beautiful of immortals. from chaos sprang erebus and dusky night, and from night and erebus came ether and smiling day." he gives a further description, which, like the foregoing, we know to be fiction, yet to contain elements of truth. we are not asked to believe all. he says: "look up, and view the immense expanse of heaven, the boundless ether in his genial arms clasping the earth. him callest thou god and jove." it is no easy matter for a man of ordinary education to form a notion of the mental crudeness of the lower type of the human race of our own times; it is far more difficult for him to divest his mind of all its acquisitions through study and observation, and reduce his ideas to the level of those progenitors of his race, the men of antiquity. when men had to struggle with savage beasts, it required superior intelligence to preserve themselves from destruction. that might have led to the worship of the strongest animals, such as the lion and the tiger. but no sooner did man learn the use of iron, which enabled him to kill these his gods, proving himself superior to the thing he worshiped, than these gods were thrown aside. so long as man was unable to explain the mysterious appearances of the sun, moon, and stars, he endowed them with his own intelligence. he worshiped what was to him incomprehensible, mighty, wonderful; made images representing their phenomena or forces for his adoration. in his mind he pictured the sun as a warrior clad in golden panoply, the pale moon he regarded as the queen, and the stars as an immense host of spirits and heroes. some interpreted the sun to be the child of darkness, the morning the bride of heaven, the clouds a fairy network, and the heat a friend of man; when the heat was very intense, then the sun was slaying his children. they would liken the dark clouds which rested on the earth to a terrible being whom they named the snake or dragon, that shut up the waters in his prisonhouse. when the thunder rolled they said that this hateful monster was uttering his hard riddles; and when, at last, the rain burst forth, they said that the bright sun had slain his enemy, and brought the stream of life for the thirsting earth. professor max müller says: "he begins to lift up his eyes; he stares at the tent of heaven, and asks, who supports it? he opens his ears to the winds, and asks them, whence and whither? he is awakened from darkness and slumber by the light of the sun, and him whom his eyes cannot behold, and who seems to grant him the daily pittance of his existence, he calls his life, his health, his brilliant lord and protector. he gives names to all the powers of nature." all sorts of names were invented to designate any particular force, phenomenon, or characteristic. in the vedas the sun has twenty different names, each one descriptive of the sun or its aspect. in persia the blazing sun was adored, and altars smoked perpetually of fire. in gaul and britain pillars were raised to the sun, altars to the moon, and fires were heaped under sacrificial caldrons to cardwen, the earth-goddess. man's ideas of course underwent modifications as civilization advanced. the religious idea had taken root and elaborated ramifications, and laws were evolved to govern them. the sun of prosperity shone; communities grew stronger and more numerous; from the worship of the physical laws of nature, the laws governing morality became involved. thus morals invaded nations, over which they enthroned their gods. every nation elaborated its own details, and slowly took its relative position. as these gods grew in importance men assumed the responsibility to guard them, and the function to attend them. thus a class called priests were chosen, elected, or self-appointed to minister to them. these functionaries at the same time assumed the moral and political guidance of nations or communities, and individuals. in this manner arose hundreds upon hundreds of gods: io, isis, jupiter, juno, etc., etc. the qualities of the gods, like the qualities of men, were good and bad. they were good and evil, light and dark, life and death, and were arranged to suit the time and occasion. when laws were established to govern society, obedience to these laws was declared to be right, disobedience wrong. men learned this; they became conscious of what was right and what was wrong. the ministration to these gods was acknowledged to be a righteous act. rules were established to prevent any violation or infringement of the duty due to these gods. a trespass in violation of anything considered sacred was regarded as an evil--a sin. slowly the consciousness of sin, of doing wrong, of violating the law, was recognized and established, and the attitude men assumed towards the gods, or their conduct towards them, was regarded as moral holiness, sanctity, or piety. the evolution of images, idols, gods and goddesses, was not the work of a day, but of very many centuries. the same may be said of sacrifices, worship, ceremonies, the laws concerning the same, holiness, sin, good and evil, sanctity, sacrilege, divinity, blasphemy, etc., etc. theologians, as well as theological philosophers and theorists, finding their pet notion of a god strangely interfered with and disturbed by the advancing progress in the knowledge of the natural sciences, bring to their aid additional proof to demonstrate the existence of a god, viz., that all races of men, wherever found, savage, barbarian, indian, african, etc., on the different parts of the earth's surface, believe in a something higher and greater or more powerful than themselves, a spirit, a soul, a supernatural being. unfortunately for their argument, this mental condition that is ascribed to the barbarians, etc., as being instinctive or innate--that is, this supernatural element--this having an idea of something they do not understand--proves the contrary, that there is no truth in their assumption. the very fact that they have gone through that process, or are going through it, shows it a kind of educational distemper of a lower order that all primitive races have to pass. as children who learn to read must first know their a b c, it is the road that leads to a higher grade of thought. they begin in surprise and wonder at the natural, concerning which they know nothing. they fear, they adore the forces they cannot overcome. they make images of them in their likeness and worship them. when, however, they have learned through experience to overpower them, they cease to respect them. new forms are adopted, modifications made, and lastly so changed that but a mere shadow of the original remains. all races began in a similar fashion, varying in form and method. the sun, clouds, atmosphere, seasons, oceans, thunder, and all other phenomena in nature--the inability to account for the existence of these led to worship, sacrifice, etc.; and images, idols, gods, originated; and in connection with them, stories, fables, myths, and fictions were supplied by the officiating priests or persons in attendance. the fanciful creations of the imagination hold good and will hold good so long as we do not know anything of the realities of life, of nature, of the actualities, of facts, of truth. but when the masses shall have learned more of nature, then the visionary, the imaginary god, the heirloom and heritage of our antiquated forefathers, will be thrown aside as the images were by abraham, the idols dismissed or discarded later. the relics, the remnants, of this barbarism still have a hold on the minds of men. our entire religious fabric rests upon the creation as related in the bible, handed down to us as the universally acknowledged text-book of all knowledge. the time was when it was dangerous to doubt, and imperiled one's safety or even life to openly state an opinion contrary to the supposed infallible assertions contained in the holy book. the man or men who originally wrote that part of genesis had not the remotest idea what he or they were talking about. he or they knew nothing of the subject-matter in consideration. the story told is like many other fables that had their origin in those early days of waking humanity. the great masses are not very much better off to-day as regards these notions. they still believe in the bible, and hang their hopes of salvation on its truth. the churches teach it, and it forms part and parcel of the church creed. it will therefore do no harm to present a few facts--that the holiest priest cannot contradict, that the most pious preacher must admit--that admit of no argument or controversy, because absolutely true. every intelligent person knows that we live on this earth; that this earth is also called the world, and that this world is a planet; that this planet belongs to a family of planets. this planet of ours, this earth, belongs to a system of planets known as the solar system. and the solar system is mainly comprised within the limits of the zodiacs. by the zodiacs is meant a belt of the celestial sphere. ° on each side of the ecliptic is styled the zodiac. this division is of very high antiquity, having been in use among the hindoos and egyptians. the zodiac is divided into twelve equal parts, of ° each, called signs, to each of which a fanciful name is given. the sun is the center. around him the planets revolve in ellipses. the sun itself has a diameter of , miles. the major planets revolving around the sun as far as known are as follows: name. distance from the sun. diameter. vulcan , , miles. unknown. mercury , , ,, , miles. venus , , ,, , ,, earth , , ,, , ,, mars , , ,, , ,, jupiter , , ,, , ,, saturn , , ,, , ,, uranus , , , ,, , ,, neptune , , , ,, , ,, it is not an easy matter to imagine that we are suspended in space; being held up, not by any visible object, but in accordance with the laws of universal gravitation, whereby each planet attracts every other planet and is in turn attracted by all. there are a number of minor planets, satellites, a moon, and meteors or shooting-stars, and comets, etc., etc. the sun, the great central globe, is so vast as to overcome the attraction of all the planets, and compel them to circle around him; next we come to the planets, each turning on its axis while it flies around the sun in an elliptical orbit; then accompanying them are the satellites or moons, each revolving about its own planet, while all whirl in a dizzy waltz about the central orb; next the comets, rushing across the planetary orbits at irregular intervals of time and space; and finally shooting-stars or meteors, darting hither and thither, interweaving all in apparently inextricable confusion. to make the picture more wonderful still, every member is flying with an inconceivable velocity, and yet with such accuracy that the solar system is the most perfect timepiece known. the moon's distance from the earth is , miles; and it has a diameter of , miles. the above gives some idea of the immensity of the solar system. and it is but one of the myriads of systems, and our earth a speck amidst it. if on a clear night we cast our eyes upwards, we behold a belt of closely dotted stars extending across the sky--the milky way. this galaxy, a luminous, cloudlike band, stretches across the heavens in a great circle, and contains myriads of stars, densely crowded together. herschel remarks that , stars once passed across the field of his great reflector in forty-one minutes, and says: "thus we are to think of our own sun as a star of the second or third magnitude, and of our little solar system as plunged far into the midst of the vortex of worlds, a mere atom along that "'broad and ample road whose dust is gold and pavement stars.'" chapter ii. the earth. this earth we live on is a planet, and belongs to the solar system of planets. it shines brightly, and appears to other worlds as other planets do to us. it is nearly , miles in circumference, and has a diameter of a little over , miles. it is five and a half times denser than water, and weighs about , , , , , , , tons. the atmosphere that surrounds this earth is like a shell that is two hundred to three hundred or more miles in thickness. we live at the bottom of an immense ocean of gaseous matter, which envelops everything, and presses upon everything with a force which appears, at first, perfectly incredible, but whose actual amount admits of easy proof. gravity being, so far as is known, common to all matter, it is natural to expect that gases, being material substances, should be acted upon by the earth's attraction, as well as solids and liquids. this is really the case, and the result is the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, which is nothing more than the effect of the attraction of the earth on the particles of air. the amount of pressure exerted upon every square inch of the surface of the earth, and the objects thereon, is from fourteen to fifteen pounds. this enormous force is borne without inconvenience by the animal frames, by reason of its perfect uniformity in every direction; and it may be doubled, or even tripled, without inconvenience. an important law which connects the volume occupied by a gas with the pressure made upon it, is expressed by mariotte in the following manner. this law is usually called mariotte's law: "the volume of gas is inversely as the pressure; the density and elastic force are directly as the pressure, and indirectly as the volume." this law has been found to be true no matter how rarefied the air. the atmosphere, like everything else on earth or connected therewith, and like all other planets known, and the earth itself, is composed of elements, as we shall see presently. the atmospheric air is composed of gases, elementary substances, known by the names of nitrogen and oxygen, with variable proportions of carbonic acid and watery vapors, and usually a trace of ammonia. besides these, there may occasionally be other substances present, depending upon local causes, as the odoriferous principles of plants and the miasmata of marshes, etc., etc. nearly three-fourths of the atmosphere is composed of nitrogen, while about one-fourth or less is oxygen. the following is the relative proportion: by weight. by measure. nitrogen . . oxygen . . ----- ----- its specific gravity is unity ( ), being the standard with which the density of all gaseous substances is compared. it is times lighter than water, and nearly , times lighter than mercury; cubic inches weigh grains. oxygen is necessary to combustion, to the respiration of animals, and to various other natural operations, by all of which that gas is withdrawn from the air. it is obvious that its quantity would gradually diminish, unless the tendency of these causes were counteracted by some compensating process. this, to some considerable extent, is accomplished by vegetation, as it is found that healthy plants, under the influence of the sun's light, constantly draw carbonic acid from the air, the carbon of which is retained, while the oxygen is returned. the atmosphere becomes less and less dense from the surface of the earth upwards. animals and vegetables exist in this atmosphere. they cannot exist in any other. all living things and beings live on this earth's crust. vegetables are fixed to the soil of this earth, while animals move freely upon it. the earth's crust.--sir charles lyell speaking of this earth's crust says: "by the 'earth's crust' is meant that small portion of the surface of our planet which is accessible to human observation, or on which we are enabled to reason by observations made at or near the surface. these reasonings may extend to a depth of several miles, perhaps ten miles; and even then it may be said that such a thickness is no more than / part of the distance from the surface to the center. the remark is just, but although the dimensions of such a crust are, in truth, insignificant when compared with the entire globe, yet they are vast and of magnificent extent in relation to man and to the other organic beings which people our globe. referring to this standard of magnitude, the geologist may admire the ample limits of his domain, and admit at the same time that not only the exterior of the planet, but the entire earth, is but an atom in the midst of the countless worlds surveyed by the astronomer. "the solid part of this earth consists of distinct substances, such as clay, chalk, sand, limestone, coal, slate, granite, and the like. it has been imagined that the various deposits on the earth's surface were created in their present form and in their present position. on the contrary, it has been shown that they have acquired their actual configuration and condition gradually, under a variety of circumstances, and at successive periods, during each of which distinct races of living beings have flourished on the land and in the waters, the remains of these creatures still lying buried in the crust of the earth. "the materials of this crust are not thrown together confusedly; but distinct mineral masses called rock are found to occupy definite spaces and to exhibit a certain order of arrangement. these rocks are divided into four great classes by reference to their different origin, or in other words by reference to the different circumstances and causes by which they have been produced. "the first two divisions, which will at once be understood as natural, are the aqueous and volcanic, or the products of water and those of igneous action at or near the surface.... the aqueous rocks, sometimes called sedimentary or fossiliferous, cover a larger part of the earth's surface than any other. these rocks are stratified, or divided into distinct layers or strata; these strata have been generally spread out by the action of water, like what we daily see taking place near the mouth of rivers or on the land during a temporary inundation. "the remains of animals, especially of aquatic species, are found almost everywhere, imbedded in stratified rocks; and sometimes, in the case of limestone, they are in such abundance as to constitute the entire mass of rock itself. shells and corals are the most frequent, and with them are often associated the bones and teeth of fishes, fragments of wood, impressions of leaves, and other organic substances. "when geology was first cultivated, it was a general belief that those marine shells and other fossils were the effects and proofs of the deluge of noah; but all those who have carefully investigated the phenomena have rejected this doctrine. a transient flood might be supposed to leave behind it, here and there upon the surface, scattered heaps of mud and sand and shingle, with shells confusedly intermixed; but the strata containing fossils are not superficial deposits, and do not simply cover the earth, but constitute the entire mass of mountains. ample proof of these reiterated revelations is given, and it will be seen that many distinct sets of sedimentary strata, each several hundreds or thousands of feet thick, are piled one upon the other in the earth's crust, each containing peculiar fossil animals and plants, which are distinguishable, with few exceptions, from species now living. the mass of some of these strata consists almost entirely of corals, others are made up of shells, others of plants turned into coal, while some are without fossil. "volcanic rocks are those which have been produced at or near the surface, whether in ancient or modern times, not by water, but by the action of fire or subterranean heat. these rocks are for the most part unstratified, and are devoid of fossils. "there are two other divisions of rock, called plutonic rocks, granite, etc., and metamorphic, or stratified crystalline rocks. the members of both these divisions of rocks agree in being highly crystalline and destitute of organic remains. "the composition of the aqueous rocks, mineral composition of strata: these may be said to belong principally to three divisions, as follows: " . arenaceous or siliceous rocks. beds of loose sand frequently met with, of which the grains consist entirely of silex, which term comprehends all purely siliceous minerals, as quartz and common flint. quartz is silex in its purest form; flint usually contains some admixture of alumina and the oxide of iron. silica is the mineral used in the manufacture of glass, mixed with a little potassium oxide and lime, or lead, etc. " . argillaceous rock. a mixture of silex or flint with a large proportion, usually about one-fourth, of alumina or argil; but in common language, any earth which possesses sufficient ductility, when kneaded up with water, to be fashioned like paste by the hand or by the potter's lathe, is called clay. such clays vary greatly in their composition. they are, in general, nothing more than mud derived from the decomposition or wearing down of various rocks. the purest clay in nature is porcelain clay or kaolin, which results from the decomposition of a rock composed of feldspar and quartz, and it is almost always mixed with quartz. (the kaolin of china consists of . parts of silex, . of alumina, . of lime, and . of water.)... one general character of all argillaceous rocks is to give out a peculiar, earthy odor when breathed upon, which is a test of the presence of alumina. " . calcareous rocks. these consist mainly of chalk--lime and carbonic acid. shells and corals also are formed of the same elements, with the addition of animal matter. any limestone which is sufficiently hard to take a fine polish is called marble. many of these are fossiliferous; but statuary marble, which is also called saccharine limestone, as having a texture resembling that of loaf-sugar, is devoid of fossil. siliceous limestone is an intimate mixture of carbonate of lime and flint, and is harder in proportion as the flinty matter predominates. marl slate bears the same relation to marl which shale bears to clay, being calcareous shale. magnesian limestone is composed of carbonate of lime and carbonate of magnesia; the proportion of the latter amounting in some cases to nearly one-half. it effervesces much more slowly and feebly with acid than common limestone. gypsum is a rock composed of sulphuric acid, lime, and water. it is usually a soft whitish-yellow rock, with a texture resembling loaf-sugar, but sometimes it is entirely composed of lenticular crystals. alabaster is a granular and compact variety of gypsum found in masses large enough to be used in sculpture and architecture. it is sometimes a pure snow-white substance. it is a softer stone than marble and more easily wrought." when geologists examine the earth's crust, they usually commence with the surface on which we live, and search downwards as far as possible. lyell constructed a tabular view of the fossiliferous strata. it must be borne in mind that we have no other methods of ascertaining the truth than by close observation, making diligent search, in order to discover what this earth's crust is made of. we have no supernatural facilities to give us information, and we are very certain there never were any. what information we are reckoned to have, handed down by our antiquated barbarian forefathers, is of a different nature. it refers--briefly stated--to the conduct of man, the manner in which he shall act as an individual, or collectively as a community; including a great number of what are considered now theatrical or mountebank ceremonies, fancy customs, sacrifices, and a repetition of certain phrases, ordinarily called prayers, accompanied by illustrative images and pictures, and movements of body--fantastic symbols and devices created and prescribed by man. having no other means of ascertaining facts, man was naturally compelled to search for testimony in the earth's crust--to discover what it is composed of; the kind of material; how it was formed; the time it took to form; the period that elapsed between formations; how the layers or strata were superposed one upon another; what substances were found in them; where organic life was first found; what it consisted of; when man first appeared. by examining this table we get a glimpse of the true state of things. this shows the order of superposition, or chronological succession, of the principal european groups: i. post-tertiary. a. post-pliocene. periods and groups. . recent. peat mosses, shell marls, with bones of land animals, human remains and works of art. newer parts of modern deltas and coral reefs. . post-pliocene. clay, marl, volcanic trap. all the shell of living specimens. no human remains or works of art. bones of quadrupeds, partly of extinct species. ii. tertiary. b. pliocene. . newer pliocene. boulder formation. cavern formation, or pleistocene. three-fourths of fossil shells of extinct species. a majority of the mammals extinct; but the genera corresponding with those now surviving in the same great geographical and zoological provinces. icebergs frequent in the seas; glaciers on hills of moderate height. . older pliocene. a third or more of the species of mollusca extinct. nearly, if not all, the mammalia extinct. c. miocene. . miocene. about two-thirds of the species of shells extinct. all the mammalia extinct. d. eocene. } fossil shells of the eocene period, with very . upper eocene. } few exceptions, extinct. all the mammalia of } extinct species, and the greater part of them . middle eocene. } of extinct genera. plants of upper eocene } indicating a south european or mediterranean . lower eocene. } climate; those of lower eocene a tropical } climate. iii. secondary. e. cretaceous--upper. . maestricht beds. yellowish-white limestone. large marine saurians, etc. . upper white chalk. marine limestone composed in part of decomposed corals. . lower white chalk. . upper green sand. . gault. dark-blue marl at base of chalk escarpment. numerous extinct genera--conchiferous cephalopoda, etc. . lower green sand. species of shells, etc., nearly all distinct from those of upper cretaceous. f. wealden. . weald clay, of fresh-water origin. shells of pulmoniferous mollusca. . hastings sand. fresh water. reptiles of, etc. . purbeck beds. limestone, calcareous slate, etc. roots of trees; plants, etc. g. oölite. . upper oölite. portland building-stone, sand. . middle oölite. oxford clay, dark-blue clay. large saurians. . lower oölite. preponderance of ganoid fish. plants chiefly cycads, conifers, and ferns. h. lias. . argillaceous limestone, marl clay. mollusca, reptiles, and fish analogous to the oölitic. i. trias. . upper trias. red, gray, green, blue, and white marls, and sandstone, with gypsum. batrachian reptiles. . middle trias. compact grayish limestone, with beds of muschelkalk, of dolomite and gypsum. . lower trias. plants different for the most part. iv. primary. j. permian. . upper permian. yellow magnesian limestone. organic remains both animal and vegetable, more allied to primary than to secondary period. . lower permian. marl slate. thecodont saurians, heterocercal fish, etc. k. carboniferous. . coal measures. great thickness of strata of fluvio-marine origin, with beds of coal of vegetable origin, based on soils retaining roots of trees. oldest of known reptiles. sauroid fish. . mountain. carboniferous or mountain limestone. limestone with marine shells and corals, etc. l. devonian. . upper devonian. yellow sandstone, paving and roofing stone. tribe of fish with hard coverings. no reptiles yet known. . lower devonian. gray sandstone. m. silurian. . upper silurian. tilestone. oldest fossil fish yet discovered. trilobites, etc. . lower silurian. caradoc sandstone, etc. no land plants yet known. footprints of tortoise, etc. . upper and lower cambrian. synopsis. post-tertiary. } } pliocene. } tertiary or cainozoic. } miocene. } } eocene. } } mesozoic. } cretaceous. } } jurassic. } secondary or mesozoic. } triassic. } } permian. } } carboniferous. } } devonian. } primary or paleozoic. } paleozoic. silurian. } } cambrian. } } the precise chemical action upon the elements composing these various geological formations at different remote periods, is no doubt difficult to ascertain. that there always has been some chemical action going on, and that it is continually going on, is certain. how and to what extent we can judge only from the experience of actual observation in the laboratory. mr. crale remarks: "the whole surface of the land is exposed to chemical action of the air, and of the rainwater with its dissolved carbonic acid, and in colder countries the frost. the disintegrated matter is carried down the slopes during heavy rain; and, to a greater extent than might be supposed, especially in arid districts, by the wind; it is then transported by the streams and rivers, which when rapid deepen their channels and triturate the fragments." darwin says: "if the theory be true" (speaking of the time elapsed since the cambrian lowest formation) "it is indisputable that before the lowest cambrian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the cambrian age to the present day; that during these vast periods, the world swarmed with living creatures. here we encounter a formidable objection; for it seems doubtful whether the earth, in a fit state for the habitation of living creatures, has lasted long enough. sir w. thompson concludes that the consolidation of the crust can hardly have occurred less than or more than million years ago, but probably not less than or more than millions of years. these very wide limits show how doubtful the data are; and other elements may have hereafter to be introduced into the problem. mr. crale estimates that about million years have elapsed since the cambrian period, but this, judging from the small amount of organic change since the commencement of the glacial epoch, appears a very short time for the many and great mutations of life, which have certainly occurred since the cambrian formation; and the previous millions of years can hardly be considered as sufficient for the development of the varied forms of life which already existed during the cambrian period." it seems almost impossible for an ordinary mind to grasp the magnitude of the figures, the span of life being so short. yet some idea may be formed when we compare the age of this earth's crust formation, the hundreds of thousands of years that passed in the evolution of man, and the brief space of time that has elapsed since he has become enabled to give an account of himself. as regards the thickness of the earth's crust, professor ramsey has given the maximum thickness, from actual measurement in most cases, of the successive formations in different parts of great britain; and this is the result: the paleozoic strata (not including igneous bed), , feet. secondary, , ,, tertiary, , ,, making altogether , feet; that is, very nearly thirteen and three-quarters british miles. büchner in his work on "force and matter" states: "the so-called coal formation alone required, according to bischoff, , , years; according to chevandier's calculation, , years. the tertiary strata required for their development about , years; and before the originally incandescent earth could cool down from a temperature of , degrees to , there must, according to bischoff's calculation, have elapsed a period of , , years. valger calculates that the time required for the deposit of the strata known to us must at least have amounted to , , years. i quote these figures simply to show how difficult it is, and the labor required, to form even a proximate idea as to the period of time that must have elapsed for the formation of the various strata known. that all animals were not created at once is certain beyond all cavil and dispute. the development of the various forms of life was an exceeding slow process, and lasted very many thousand centuries. that the earth's crust was not at certain stages of formation in a fit condition either to receive or to maintain the higher types of animal life, is well known. and we know that man's remains are found only in the uppermost surface of the earth's crust. max müller says in his "testimony of the rocks": "it was not until the earlier ages of the oölite system had passed away, that the class of reptiles received its fullest development. and certainly very wonderful was the development which it did then receive. reptiles became everywhere the lords and masters of the lower world. when any class of air-breathing vertebrates is very largely developed, we find it taking possession of all three terrestrial elements--earth, air, and water. last of all, the true placental mammals appear, and thus, tried by the test of perfect reproduction, the great vertebral division receives its full development." agassiz's "principles of zoology" says: "we distinguish four ages of nature, comprehending the great geological divisions, namely: " . the primary, or paleozoic age, comprising the lower silurian, the upper silurian, and the devonian. during this age there were no air-breathing animals. the fishes were masters of creation. we may therefore call it the reign of fishes. " . the secondary age, comprising the carboniferous, the trias, the oölite, and the cretaceous formations. this is the epoch in which air-breathing animals first appear. the reptiles predominated over the other classes, and we may therefore call it the 'reign of reptiles.' " . the tertiary age, comprising the tertiary formation. during this age terrestrial mammals of great size abound. this is the reign of mammals. " . the modern age, characterized by the appearance of the most perfect of created beings." the majority of mankind trouble themselves but little whether progress is made in any one of the branches of science or not. man has no time to think seriously of anything except to provide food for his family. the priest does his thinking, and he is made to contribute part of his labor to support the holy man who does the thinking for him. all he knows is that his soul or his spirit, his hereafter, and his god are well cared for, and he pays for it. yet every man ought to understand that all his rights, civil and political--all the freedom he enjoys--he has to thank science for procuring and securing. "shall it be seriously objected to the application of the sciences to philosophical problems that its results are not agreeable? that the truth is not always agreeable, nor always consolatory, nor always religious, nor always acceptable, is as well known as the old experience of the almost total absence of reward, either external or internal, provided for its exemplars. what this or that man may understand by a governing reason, an absolute power, a universal soul, a personal god ... is his own affair. the theologians, with their articles of faith, must be left to themselves; so of the naturalists with their science; they both proceed by different routes.... the same bloody hatred with which science was once persecuted by religious fanaticism would revive now, and with it the inquisition and auto-da-fé, and all the horrors with which a refined zealotism has tortured humanity would be resorted to, to satisfy the wishes of the theological cutthroats. a man in advance of his age beholds the struggle of the contending parties from a high point of view, and sees in the eccentricities of this contest merely the natural and necessary expression of the opposing elements which agitate our time. no one can doubt that truth will finally emerge the victor. it certainly will not be long before the battle becomes general. is the victory doubtful? the struggle is unequal; the opponents cannot stand against the trenchant arm of physical and physiological materialism, which fights with facts, that everyone can comprehend, while the opponents fight with suppositions and presumptions" (büchner). "science and faith exclude each other" (virchow). fools still cling to faith; wise men find the truth in science. note.--baily's "history of astronomy," part i, page , § , and part ii, pp. , , maintains that india has existed as a nation, as the records show, , , years. the indians divide this time into four principal periods: first period, that of innocence or simplicity, , , years; second period, , ; the third period, , ; and the ages of misfortune about , --cali-yon-gan period. similar statements are made by cicero ("de divinat," i, ), concerning the chaldeans: "condemnemus, inquam, hos aut stultitiæ aut vanitatis aut imprudentiæ qui millia annorum ut ipsi dicunt monumentis comprehensa continent." the atmosphere. the atmosphere is the gaseous envelope encircling the earth; and it constitutes the ocean of air at the bottom of which we live. we become aware of the existence of the air when we move rapidly and experience the resistance offered to the passage of our bodies, and also when the air is set in motion, giving rise to a wind. we notice the pressure of the atmosphere if we withdraw the air from beneath the hand by a powerful air-pump, for we then find that the hand is pressed down with a force equal to . kilos. on a square centimeter, or nearly lbs. on every square inch. the total atmospheric pressure which the human body has to support hence amounts to several tons. but this pressure is not felt under ordinary circumstances, because the pressure exercised is exerted equally in every direction. the instrument used for measuring the pressure of the air is termed a barometer, and the average pressure at the sea level is equal to that exerted by a column of mercury mm. high. the air being elastic and having weight, it is clear the lower layers of air must be more compressed than those above them, and hence the density of the air must vary at the different hights above the sea level. the density of the air being thus dependent on the pressure to which it is subjected, the higher strata of air become generally rarefied, and it is hence difficult to say whereabouts the air ceases, but it appears that the limit of the atmosphere is about to miles from the level of the sea. if the whole atmosphere were of the same density throughout as it is at the earth's surface, it would reach only to a height of a little more than five miles above the sea level. aqueous vapor is contained in the air in quantities varying in different localities and at different times, and depending mainly on the temperature of the air. air at a given temperature cannot contain more than a certain quantity of moisture in solution; and when it has taken up its maximum quantity, it is said to be saturated with aqueous moisture. the higher the temperature of the air the more water can it retain as vapor; and when air saturated with moisture is cooled, the water is deposited in liquid form in very small globules, forming a mist, fog, or cloud. this is the cause of the fall of rain, snow, and hail; when warm air heavily laden with moisture from the ocean passes into a higher and colder position, or meets with a stratum of air of lower temperature, it cannot any longer retain so much aqueous vapor, and a large quantity assumes a liquid form, falling as rain when the temperature is above the freezing-point, or crystallizing as snowflakes if the temperature is below that point. hail is caused by the congelation of raindrops in passing through a stratum of air below the freezing-point. the deposition of dew is caused by the rapid cooling of the earth's surface by radiation after sunset, and by the consequent cooling of the air near the ground below the temperature at which it begins to deposit moisture. in general the air contains from to per cent. of aqueous vapor of the quantities necessary to saturate it. if the quantity be not within these limits the air is either unpleasantly dry or unpleasantly moist. the air contains, besides the gases of oxygen and nitrogen, carbonic acid, ammonia, accidental impurities, and volatile organic matter, which latter is the most important, as it probably influences to a great extent the healthfulness of the special situation. we become aware of the existence of such organic putrescent substances when entering a crowded room from the fresh air; and it is probable that the well-known unhealthiness of marshy and other districts is owing to the presence of some organic impurities. we may have occasion to refer to this when speaking of the deluge, etc. chapter iii. the chemical aspect. by the word chemistry we understand the science which investigates the composition of all material substances, taking them apart or separating them, by a chemical process, and discovers the nature and properties of the minutest particle. these small particles have received the name, elements or elementary substances; that term is applied in chemistry to those forms of matter which have hitherto resisted all attempt to decompose them. "we know that we have earth, air, water, and we have seen in chapter ii that the earth's crust is made up of many substances, rocks, coral reefs, clay, marl, feldspar, quartz, limestone, granite, etc., etc. these substances are composed of small particles, or elements, and are called minerals or inorganic substances. there is another class of substances, called organic, that are derived from living things or beings. these are also taken apart or separated into their elementary substances. as plants or animals, all such elementary substances have received the name organic substances because plants and animals have organs of reproduction, hence the name. the taking apart of any substance into its constituent elements is called analysis by chemists. the same elements can also be put together to produce various substances; that is termed synthesis. chemists have adopted a name for each of the elements, and these names are represented by symbols, or letters. compound substances may contain two or more elements. when the composition of a substance is determined by splitting the compound into its elementary constituents a chemical analysis of that substance is said to have been made; and if the proportions by weight in which each of the constituents is present be determined, a quantitative analysis of the substance has been made, etc. by chemical action, we signify that which occurs when two or more substances so act upon one another as to produce a third substance differing altogether from the original ones in properties; or when a substance is brought under such conditions that it forms two or more bodies differing from the original one in properties. chemistry is called an experimental science. in investigating all the materials within his reach, whether solid, liquid, or gaseous, whether contained in the earth, sea, or air; whether belonging to the mineral, animal, or vegetable creation, the chemist finds himself obliged to divide substances into two classes: ( ) compound substances--those which he is able to split up into two or more essentially different materials; ( ) elements or simple substances--those which he is unable thus to split up, and out of which nothing essentially different from the original substances has been obtained. compound bodies are made up of two or more elementary substances chemically combined with each other; thus sulphur, copper, lead, are elementary bodies; out of each of these nothing different from sulphur, copper, lead, can be obtained; whereas when two of these bodies are heated together, a compound is formed from which both of the original elementary constituents can at any time be obtained. water is a compound body--it can be split up into two elementary gases, hydrogen and oxygen; common salt, again, is a compound of a gas (chlorine) with a metal (sodium); and limestone, clay, sugar, and wax may serve as examples of compound bodies; whilst phosphorus, charcoal, iron, mercury, and gold may be mentioned as belonging to the class of simple substances. as to physical properties of gases--they have weight, volume, diffusion, density, etc. theologians insist that there is a god, a god that was first introduced to us by a man with the name of abraham, advertised by moses, and has been palmed off upon the masses as a something exceedingly wonderful. a multitude of men who find it to their interest to advocate his pretended claims, are still doing their utmost to sustain their god. we are trying to discover where he is to be found, whether he is a local or a universal god, what he is composed of, whether he resides on earth permanently or transiently, whether he controls the entire solar system or more systems, whether he occasionally takes a trip to other planets; and if he has created everything we want to find out how he has created it. for that reason we have to search, taking a glimpse among the stars, in the earth, atmosphere, etc. since geology does not respond favorably, we are trying to discover what this earth is composed of. the elementary bodies at present recognized amount to sixty-four in number. of these about fifty belong to the class called metals. several of them are of recent discovery, and as yet very imperfectly known. the distinction between metals and certain non-metallic substances or metalloids, although very convenient for purposes of description, is entirely arbitrary, since the classes graduate into each other in the most indefinite manner. the following is a complete list of the elementary substances known, giving their names, symbols, and combining weight: symbols. metalloids. combining weight. elements of life: of primary importance. o oxygen [ ] ii h hydrogen i n nitrogen v c carbon iv elements of secondary importance. cl chlorine i . br bromine i i iodine i f fluorine i p phosphorus v s sulphur vi si silicon iv b boron iii se selenium vi . te tellurium vi mechanics, arts, science, and medicine. al aluminium iv . ca calcium ii (cuprum) cu copper ii . (ferrum) fe iron iv (plumbum) pb lead iv mn manganese iv (hydrargyrum) hg mercury ii (kalium) k potassium i . (argentum) ag silver i (natrium) na sodium i (stannum) sn tin iv zn zinc ii . (stibium) sb antimony v as arsenic v ba barium ii bi bismuth v cr chromium vi . co cobalt iv . (aurum) au gold iii in indium iv mg magnesium ii ni nickel iv . pd [ ] palladium iv . pt platinum iv . sr strontium ii . ti titanium iv w tungsten vi u uranium iv little known, rarely used. be beryllium ii . cd cadmium ii cs cæsium i cr cerium iv d didymium ii e erbium ii . ir iridium iv la lanthanum ii li [ ] lithium i mo molybdenum vi nb niobium v os osmium iv . rh rhodium iv . rb rubidium i . ru ruthenium iv . ta tantalum v tb terbium tl thallium iii th thorium ii . v vanadium v . y yttrium ii zr zirconium iii . all matter is made up of very small particles which are chemically indivisible and which are termed atoms, and the atom of each elementary substance differs essentially from that of every other. all the atoms of each element are alike, and chemical compounds are formed by the combination of unlike atoms. hence the smallest particle of a compound consists of a group of atoms. this group, which can be divided by chemical but not by mechanical means, is termed a molecule. the smallest particle of an element in a free state is, however, not a single atom, but a group of atoms mechanically indivisible, or a molecule. this explains why elementary bodies act more energetically and enter more readily into combination at the moment of their liberation from a combination than when in the free state. when chemical changes occur, it is the molecules which react upon one another, and the change consists in the change of position of certain atoms contained in the groups. when an element is set free from a compound, the liberated join together to form molecules, unless some body is present with which the element can combine. by an atom we therefore understand the smallest portion of a chemical element which can enter into a chemical compound; by a molecule, the smallest portion of a simple compound body which can occur in the free state or which can take part in a chemical action. all the elements, with the single exception of fluorine, combine with oxygen to form oxides. in this act of combination, which is termed oxidation, heat is always, and light is frequently, given off. when bodies unite with oxygen, evolving light and heat, they are said to burn, or undergo combustion. all bodies which burn in the air burn with increased brilliancy in oxygen gas; and many substances, such as iron, which do not readily burn in the air, may be made to do so in oxygen. oxygen is a colorless invisible gas, possessing neither taste nor smell. hydrogen is a colorless invisible gas, possessing neither taste nor smell. it is the lightest gas known, being . times lighter than air. it combines with oxygen to form water. nitrogen is a colorless, tasteless, inodorous gas, slightly lighter than air. it does not combine readily with bodies, and it is a very inert substance, neither supporting combustion or animal life, nor burning itself. it has, however, no poisonous qualities, and animals plunged into a jar of this gas die simply of suffocation from want of oxygen. nitrogen exists in a free state in the air, of which it constitutes four-fifths by bulk. it occurs combined in the bodies of plants and animals, and in various chemical compounds, such as nitre, whence the gas derives its name. carbon is a solid element; it is not known in the free state, either as a liquid or as a gas. carbon is remarkable as existing in three distinct forms, which in outward appearance or physical properties have nothing in common, whilst their chemical relations are identical. these three allotropic forms of carbon are ( ) diamond, ( ) graphite or plumbago, ( ) charcoal. these substances differ in hardness, color, specific gravity, etc., but they each yield on combustion in the air or oxygen the same weight of the same substance, carbonic acid or carbon dioxide. carbon is the element which is especially characteristic of animal and vegetable life, as every organized structure, from the simplest to the most complicated, contains carbon. if carbon were not present on the earth, no single vegetable or animal body such as we know could exist. in addition to the carbon which is found free in these three forms, and contained combined with hydrogen and oxygen in the bodies of plants and animals, it exists combined with oxygen as free carbon dioxide in the air, and with calcium and oxygen as calcium carbonate in limestone, chalk, marble, corals, shells, etc. plants are able when exposed to sunlight to decompose the carbon dioxide in the air, liberating the oxygen, and taking the carbon for the formation of their vegetable structure, whilst all animals, living directly or indirectly upon vegetables, absorb oxygen, and evolve carbon dioxide. thus the sun's rays, through the medium of plants, effect deoxidation, or reduction, whilst animals act as oxidizing agents with respect to carbon. oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon--these are the life-giving elements. they are the life-producing and life-sustaining elements. neither animal nor vegetable life can exist without them. the entire activity of nature depends upon them. every organic substance contains them. no organic substance can exist without them. the principle of life is due to them. from a blade of grass to an insect, from an insect to an animal, including man, one cannot emerge into life without these elements. the birth, growth, and development of plant and animal depend upon them, the sustenance and nurture. all our food-substances are almost wholly made up of these elements. no force, power, or energy can be produced without their presence. our muscular strength, our nervous force, our very thoughts, our imagination, as well as digestion, respiration, circulation of the blood, depend on these elements. our sensations, our pleasures, our pains, depend upon them. all the excitement and depression in life are dependent on them. the beauties of vegetation, all the various shades and colors of flower and blossom, the tints and odors, are dependent on them. no phenomenon in nature, no matter how terrible, delightful, or enchanting, can be manifested without these elements. no earthquake, thunder, storm, lightning, wind, hail, rain, snow, or ice could exist without them. no light, heat, or motion--in fact, none of the physical forces, could be evolved without them. our atmosphere, ocean, seas, rivers, forests, are composed of them. no art, science, mechanics, architecture, nor indeed anything that we now enjoy, could exist without them. gunpowder, dynamite, electricity, and all else are dependent on these elements. why attempt to enumerate the extraordinary roles they play on earth and in the universe? every plant would wither, every life would perish, without oxygen; this element may be truly called the breath of life. the creation of god is dependent on these elements, because were it not for man god would never have been. the ark, made of wood, was composed of them. the figure of christ, and the virgin mary, as she is called, as well as all the saints, were and are composed of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, etc. we know that these chemical elements enter into the composition of all things in nature--mineral, vegetable, animal. we also may be absolutely certain that no more elements exist now, at this present time, than existed ten, twenty, or one thousand million of years ago. chemical elementary substances have no greater relative weight towards one another, nor a greater volume, at this present time than they had at any time since the existence of this earth. the total weight of all elements that enter into the formation of this terrestrial globe has never varied, whether they were in solid, fluid, or gaseous state. the law of gravitation has always existed. elements that enter into the formation of organic beings, vegetable or animal, must in due time undergo decomposition and return to the same elements of which they were composed. the chemical action has always been the same. all substances are subject to chemical action when exposed to the primary elements, oxygen and hydrogen especially. an element can never be annihilated. it may not be out of place to mention some of the substances in daily use. for example, water is composed of oxygen and hydrogen. air is composed of oxygen and nitrogen. bread, of starch, sugars--oxygen, hydrogen and carbon. meats, of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen, etc. salt, of sodium and chlorine. vegetables, fruits, etc., of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. fats, of oil. alcohols, of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. the tissues of the animal body are composed of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. the combination of five elements produces electricity, thus: zinc (zn) + copper (cu) + sulphuric acid, which consists of hydrogen (h ), sulphur (s), and oxygen (o ), = electricity. a few examples in the changes of the combination of oxygen and hydrogen are shown in water. under conditions of heat and cold it becomes ice, steam, dew, rain, hail, snow, clouds, etc., etc. these phenomena are known. we merely mention these facts to show how much has been discovered by human skill, but of how much more remains to be discovered we can not form the slightest notion. all that has been done in the field of science has been of actual benefit to humanity. for the discoveries are based on fact and truth. they are ushered into this world to alleviate and to lighten the struggle and the burden of men. they come without oppression, without crime, without bloodshed. they come as the great benefactors of mankind. men would be much better off to-day if they received for their sunday lessons instruction in the natural, instead of wasting their precious time in repeating the silly twaddle of supernatural extravagance, that tends to stupefy instead of clearing up the understanding. scientific research has advanced so far, that not only are we able to know, from the discoveries made, the elementary composition of this earth, and all that belongs thereto, but other far more difficult problems have been partially solved. that is, with the aid of newly discovered instruments, we can ascertain, to a considerable extent, the elementary composition of the sun, stars, and distant planets. in dr. wollaston, and later fraunhofer, discovered and perfected an instrument called the spectroscope. it consists of a prism, fixed upon an iron stand, and a tube carrying a slit. when light passes through a slit it impinges upon a flint glass prism, by which it is dispersed. the light of burning metals has been tested in that manner. thus when any light passes through the slit of a spectroscope, the substance giving the light may be determined, the elements burning ascertained. if the solar spectrum be examined--the light of the sun's rays--numerous dark lines parallel with the edge of the prism are observed, and reveal a number of colors giving the following: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. these are intersected by fine black lines of different degrees of breadth and shade, which are always present, and always occupy the same relative position in the solar spectrum. these are called fraunhofer's lines. by the means of this instrument, the spectra of the sun, planets, and moon have been analyzed, and the color and position, the kind of metals these distant bodies are composed of. the sun's atmosphere, from experiments made, is known to contain metals, such as soda, iron, etc., in the condition of glowing gas, the white light proceeding from the solid or liquid strongly heated mass of the sun which lies in the interior. the metals hitherto detected in the sun's atmosphere are about fifteen or more--iron, sodium, strontium, cadmium, magnesium, calcium, chromium, nickel, barium, zinc, cobalt, manganese, aluminium, titanium, hydrogen, etc. so delicate is this instrument that / part of a grain of sodium can be detected, and a portion of lithium weighing / part of a grain has been detected; thus showing that there exists a very strong probability that the sun, planets, and moons are composed of similar, if not the same, elements that this earth is composed of. chapter iv. the sun. the colossus, or brazen statue of the sun, was placed across the mouth of the harbor of rhodes, its legs stretched to such a distance that a large ship under sail might easily pass between them. it was seventy cubits high, or a hundred english feet; its fingers were as long as ordinary statues, and few men with both arms could grasp one of its thumbs. scarcely sixty years had elapsed before this work of art was thrown down by an earthquake, which broke it off at the knees, in which position it remained till the conquest of rhodes by the saracens (a.d. ), when it was beaten to pieces and sold to a jew merchant, who loaded nine hundred camels with its spoils. anaxagoras ( b.c.) taught that there was but one god, and that the sun was only a fiery globe and should not be worshiped. he attempted to explain eclipses and other celestial phenomena by natural causes, saying that there is no such thing as chances, these being only names for unknown laws. for this audacity and impiety, as his countrymen considered it, he and his family were doomed to perpetual banishment. "man," said protagoras of abra ( b.c.), "is the measure of all things.... of the gods i know nothing, neither whether they be nor whether they be not; for there is much that stands in the way of knowledge, as well the obscurity of the matter as the shortness of human life." st. john begins his writings: "in the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god." but john, like many others of his time, knew nothing more than the use of words to make riddles, which he himself could not see through and no one else could understand. the man or men who first composed that part of scripture that informs us how the sun and earth were created, certainly knew nothing about it, because all that is at present known is of comparatively recent date. for many centuries, the established religion, the church, and the representatives of the theo-christian organization, did all in their power to prevent light from penetrating their hidden benighted doings. they looked upon themselves as being all in all, knowing all in all--as having had everything worth knowing revealed to them by an agency no one else had access to. the ideas of their mysterious doings, of their mysterious gods, are hidden from view in deep obscurity--like the temple of the egyptian isis, that bore the inscription: "i am all that is, that was, and that will be, and no mortal has lifted my veil." the ancient writers of the scripture were full of deep, mysterious ways, and their writings of hidden meanings. ordinary mortals were prohibited from making inquiry because the subject was considered too mysterious, and much too sacred. since then, many mysteries have been dissolved, or have been analyzed by the crucial test of science, and it has been discovered that there is nothing hidden except what our ignorance prevents us from knowing. we have lifted the sacred veil and looked into the temple of nature, as she is, and not as she appears. the more we search, the more we discover, the nearer we get to the truth. there is not the slightest reason why every man, woman, and child at proper age should not be instructed in matters wherein they are immediately interested, the knowledge whereof would undoubtedly be to their benefit. men have lived through centuries of fable, ages of fiction, long periods of myth. the christian god is as much of a myth as any myth that ever existed. humanity having passed through these various mental afflictions, gone through so many bloody surgical operations, we are, as it were, approaching a condition that will soon be declared as convalescent, and this most miserable of theological nurses may at not a very remote period be dismissed. we can say, without the slightest conscientious scruple, or fear of contradiction, with reason to sustain us and the light of science to prove the truth, that there is no god. there never was--except such a one as men have invented, held sacred, and worshiped. there is nothing sacred except what man makes sacred, nothing holy except what man makes holy, nothing divine except what man makes divine. he makes his own god, and he religiously, piously, devoutly prays to and worships it. the more regularly he does so, the more saintly he becomes, or esteems himself. for many thousand years the sun was worshiped, held sacred, sacrificed to, entempled, etc. as reason and understanding increased, they forsook him as a god, dismissed him as they had dismissed many gods before him. yet the sun was by far their greatest benefactor and best friend--more than they were aware of. the sun is , , miles from the earth. supposing a railway could be built to the sun, an express train traveling day and night, at the rate of thirty miles an hour, would require years to reach its destination. the light of the sun is equal to , wax candles held at a distance of one foot from the eye. the heat of the sun that we receive annually is sufficient to melt a layer of ice feet thick, extending over the whole earth. yet the sunbeam is only / part as intense as it is at the surface of the sun. moreover, the heat and light stream off into space equally in every direction. of this vast flood, but one twenty-three-hundred-millionth part reaches the earth. the diameter of the sun is about , miles. its volume is , , times that of the earth, i.e., it would take , , earths to make a globe the size of the sun. its mass is times that of all the planets and moons in the solar system, and , times that of the earth. its weight may be expressed in tons thus: , , , , , , , , , . the density of the sun is only about one-fourth that of the earth, or . that of water, so that the weight of a body transferred from the earth to the sun would not be increased in proportion to the comparative size of the sun. the sun rotates on his axis, like a wheel, once in about days. our astronomers tell us that the solar heat is gradually diminishing. in time the sun will cease to shine, as the earth did long since. newcomb says that in , , years, at the present rate, the sun will have shrunk to half its present size, and that it cannot sustain life on the earth more than , , years longer. of this we may be assured, there is enough heat to support life on our globe for millions of years to come. the sun consists of a central orb, liquid or solid, of exceeding brightness, which of itself would give a continuous spectrum, or in other words which emits all kinds of light. the sunlight is decomposed by means of the spectroscope, already alluded to, in order to discover the kind of elements it is composed of. therefore tyndall says: "i think we now possess knowledge sufficient to raise us to the level of one of the most remarkable generalizations of our age. it has long been supposed that the sun and planets have had a common origin and that hence the same substances are more or less common to them all. can we detect the presence of any of our terrestrial substances in the sun?... i have said that the bright bands of a metal are characteristic of the metal; that we can without seeing the metal declare its name from the inspection of the bands. the bands are, so to speak, the voice of the metal declaring its presence. "professor kirchhoff finds iron, calcium, magnesium, sodium, chromium, etc., in the sunlight spectrum. we know also the total amount of solar heat received by the earth in a year, and we can calculate the entire quantity of heat emitted by the sun in a year. conceive a hollow sphere to surround the sun, its center the sun's center, and its surface at the distance of the earth from the sun. the section of the earth cut by this surface is to the whole area of the hollow sphere as to , , , ; hence the quantity of solar heat intercepted by the earth is only / of the total radiation. "the heat emitted by the sun, if used to melt a stratum of ice applied to the sun's surface would liquefy the ice at the rate of , feet an hour. it would boil per hour , millions of cubic miles of ice-cold water. expressed in another form, the heat given out by the sun per hour is equal to that which would be generated by the combustion of a layer of solid coal feet thick entirely surrounding the sun; hence the heat emitted in a year is equal to that which would be produced by the combustion of a layer of coal miles in thickness. these are the results of actual measurements; and should greater accuracy be conferred on them by future determinations, it will not deprive them of their astonishing character. and this expenditure has been going on for ages, without our being able, in historic times, to detect the loss. when the tolling of a bell is heard at a distance, the sound of each stroke soon sinks, the sonorous vibrations are quickly wasted, and renewed strokes are necessary to maintain the sound. like the bell, "die sonne tönt nach alter weise. "but how is its tone sustained? how is the perennial loss made good? we are apt to overlook the wonderful in the common. possibly to many of us--and to some of the most enlightened among us--the sun appears as a fire differing from our terrestrial fires only in the magnitude and the intensity of its combustion. but what is the burning matter which can thus maintain itself? all that we know of cosmical phenomena declares our brotherhood with the sun--affirms that the same constituents enter into the composition of his mass as those already known to chemistry. but no earthly substance with which we are acquainted--no substance which the fall of meteors has landed on the earth--would be at all competent to maintain the sun's combustion. the chemical energy of such substances would be too weak, and their dissipation would be too speedy. were the sun a solid block of coal, and were it allowed a sufficient supply of oxygen to enable it to burn at the rate necessary to produce the observed emissions, it would be utterly consumed in , years. on the other hand, to imagine it a body originally endowed with a store of heat--a hot globe now cooling--necessitates the ascription to it of qualities wholly different from those possessed by terrestrial matter. if we knew the specific heat of the sun, we could calculate its rate of cooling. assuming this to be the same as that of water--the terrestrial substance which possesses the highest specific heat--at its present rate of emission, the entire mass of the sun would cool down , ° faht. in , years. in short, if the sun be formed of matter like our own, some means must exist of restoring to him his wasted power. the facts are so extraordinary, that the soberest hypothesis regarding them must appear wild. the sun we know rotates upon his axis; he turns like a wheel once in days: can it be the friction of the periphery of this wheel against something in surrounding space which produces the light and heat? such a notion has been entertained. but what forms the brake, and by what agency is it held, while it rubs against the sun? the action is inconceivable; but, granting the existence of the brake, we can calculate the total amount of heat which the sun could generate by such friction. we know his mass, we know his time of rotation; we know the mechanical equivalent of heat; and from these data we deduce, with certainty, that the entire force of rotation, if converted into heat, would cover more than one, but less than two, centuries of emission. there is no hypothesis involved in this calculation. "there is another theory, which, however bold it may at first sight appear, deserves our earnest attention. i have already referred to it as the meteoric theory of the sun's heat. solar space is peopled with ponderable objects. kepler's celebrated statement that 'there are more comets in the heavens than fish in the ocean' refers to the fact that a small portion only of the total number of comets belong to our system, and are seen from the earth. but besides comets, and planets, and moons, a numerous class of bodies belong to our system--asteroids, which from their smallness might be regarded as cosmical atoms. like the planets and the comets these smaller bodies obey the law of gravity, and revolve in elliptic orbits around the sun; and it is they, when they come within the earth's atmosphere, that, fired by friction, appear to us as meteors and falling stars. on a bright night twenty minutes rarely pass at any part of the earth's surface without the appearance of at least one meteor. at certain times (the th of august and the th of november), they appear in enormous numbers. during nine hours of observation in boston, when they were described as falling as thick as snowflakes, , meteors were calculated to have been observed. the number falling in a year might perhaps be estimated at hundreds or thousands of millions, and even these would constitute but a small portion of the total crowd of asteroids that circulate round the sun. from the phenomena of light and heat, and by the direct observation of encke, on his comet, we learn that the universe is filled with a resisting medium, through the friction of which all the masses of our system are drawn gradually toward the sun. and though the larger planets show, in historic times, no diminution of their periods of revolution, this may not hold good for the smaller bodies. in the time required for the mean distance of the earth from the sun to alter a single yard, a small asteroid may have approached thousands of miles nearer to our luminary. "following up these reflections we should infer that while this immeasurable stream of ponderable matter rolls unceasingly towards the sun, it must augment in density as it approaches the center of convergence. and here the conjecture naturally rises that that weak nebulous light, of vast dimensions, which embraces the sun--the zodiacal light--may owe its existence to these crowded meteors. however this may be, it is at least proved that the luminous phenomenon arises from matter which circulates in obedience to planetary laws; the entire mass constituting the zodiacal light must be constantly approaching, and incessantly raining its substance down upon, the sun. "we observe the fall of an apple and investigate the law which rules its motion. in the place of the earth we set the sun, and in place of the apple we set the earth, and thus possess ourselves of the key to the mechanics of the heavens. we now know the connection between hight of fall, velocity, and heat at the surface of the earth. in the place of the earth let us set the sun, with , times the earth's mass, and instead of a fall of a few feet, let us take cosmical elevations; we thus obtain a means of generating heat which transcends all terrestrial power. "it is easy to calculate both the maximum and the minimum velocity imparted by the sun's attraction to asteroids circulating round him; the maximum is generated when the body approaches the sun from an infinite distance as the entire pull of the sun being then expended upon it; the minimum is that velocity which would barely enable the body to revolve round the sun close to his surface. the final velocity of the former, just before striking the sun, would be miles a second, that of the latter miles a second. the asteroid on striking the sun with the former velocity, would develop more than , times the heat generated by the combustion of an equal asteroid of solid coal; while the shock, in the latter case, would generate heat equal to that of the combustion of upward of , such asteroids. it matters not whether the substances falling into the sun be combustible or not; their being combustible would not add sensibly to the tremendous heat produced by their mechanical collision. "here then we have an agency competent to restore his lost energy, and to maintain a temperature at his surface which transcends all terrestrial combustion. the very quality of the solar rays--their incomparable penetrating power--enables us to infer that the temperature of their origin must be enormous; but in the fall of asteroids we find the means of producing such a temperature. it may be contended that this showering down of matter must be accompanied by the growth of the sun in size; it is so; but the quantity necessary to produce the observed calorific emission, even if accumulated for , years, would defy the scrutiny of our best instruments. if the earth struck the sun it would utterly vanish from perception, but the heat developed by the shock would cover the expenditure of the sun for a century. "to the earth itself apply considerations similar to those which we have applied to the sun. newton's theory of gravitation, which enables us, from the present form of the earth, to deduce its original state of aggregation, reveals to us, at the same time, a source of heat powerful enough to bring about the fluid state--powerful enough to fuse even worlds. it teaches us to regard the molten condition of a planet as resulting from mechanical union of cosmical masses, and thus reduces to the same homogeneous process the heat stored up in the body of the earth, and the heat emitted by the sun. without doubt the whole surface of the sun displays an unbroken ocean of fiery fluid matter. on this ocean rests an atmosphere of flowing gas--a flame atmosphere, or photosphere. but gaseous substances, when compared with solid ones, emit, even when their temperature is very high, only a feeble and transparent light. hence it is probable that the dazzling white light of the sun comes through the atmosphere from the more solid portions of the surface.... in conclusion, thus writes professor thomson: 'the source of energy from which the solar heat is derived is undoubtedly meteoric.... the principal source--perhaps the sole appreciable efficient source--is in the bodies circulating round the sun at present inside the earth's orbit seen in the sunlight by us called "zodiacal light." the store of energy for future sunlight is at present partly dynamical--that of the motions of these bodies round the sun; and partly potential--that of their gravitation towards the sun. this latter is gradually being spent, half against the resisting medium, and half in causing a continuous increase of the former. each meteor thus goes on moving faster and faster, and getting nearer and nearer the center, until some time, very suddenly, it gets so much entangled in the solar atmosphere as to begin to lose its velocity. in a few seconds more it is at rest on the sun's surface, and the energy given up is vibrated across the district where it was gathered during so many ages, ultimately to penetrate as light the remotest regions of space.... "'the heat of rotation of the sun and planets, taken all together, would cover the solar emission for years; while the heat of gravitation (that produced by falling into the sun) would cover the emission for , years. there is nothing hypothetical in these results; they follow directly and necessarily from the application of the mechanical equivalent of heat to cosmical masses.'... "but, continues helmholtz, though the store of our planetary system is so immense as not to be sensibly diminished by the incessant emission which has gone on during the period of man's history, and though the time which must elapse before a sensible change in the condition of our planetary system can occur is totally incapable of measurement, the inexorable laws of mechanics show that this store, which can only suffer loss, and not gain, must finally be exhausted. shall we terrify ourselves by this thought? men are in the habit of measuring the greatness of the universe, and the wisdom displayed in it, by the duration and the profit which it promises to their own race; but the past history of the earth shows the insignificance of the interval during which man has had his dwelling here. what the museums of europe show us of the remains of egypt and assyria we gaze upon in silent wonder, and despair of being able to carry back our thoughts to a period so remote. still, the human race must have existed and multiplied for ages before the pyramids could have been erected. we estimate the duration of human history at , years; but vast as this time may appear to us, what is it in comparison with the period during which the earth bore successive series of rank plants and mighty animals, but no man? periods during which, in our own neighborhood (koenigsberg) the amber tree bloomed and dropped its costly gum on the earth and in the sea; when in europe and north america groves of tropical palms flourished, in which gigantic lizards, and after them elephants, whose mighty remains are still buried in the earth, found a home. different geologists, proceeding from different premises, have sought to estimate the length of the above period, and they set it down from one to nine million of years. the time during which the earth has generated organic beings is again small, compared with the ages during which the world was a mass of molten rocks. the experiments of bischoff upon basalt show that for our globe to cool down from , ° to ° centigrade would require millions of years. and with regard to the period during which the first nebulous masses condensed, so as to form our planetary system, conjecture must entirely cease. the history of man, therefore, is but a minute ripple in the infinite ocean of time. for a much longer period than that during which he has already occupied the world, the existence of a state of inorganic nature, favorable to man's existence, seems to be secured; so that for ourselves, and for long generations after us, we have nothing to fear. but the same forces of air and water, and of the volcanic interior, which produced former geological revolutions, and buried one series of living forms after another, still act upon the earth's crust. they, rather than those distant cosmical changes of which we have spoken, will end the human race, and perhaps compel us to make way for new and more complete forms of life, as the lizard and the mammoth have given way to us and our contemporaries. "grand, however, and marvelous as are these questions regarding the physical constitution of the sun, they are but a portion of the wonders connected with our luminary. his relationship to life is yet to be referred to. the earth's atmosphere contains carbonic acid, and the earth's surface bears living plants; the former is the nutriment of the latter. the plant seizes the combined carbon and oxygen and tears them asunder, storing the carbon and letting the oxygen go free. by no special force, different in quality from other forces, do plants exercise this power--the real magician here is the sun. we have seen how heat is consumed in forcing asunder the atoms and molecules of solids and liquids, converting itself into potential energy, which reappears as heat when the attractions of the separated atoms are again allowed to come into play. precisely the same considerations which we then applied to heat we have now to apply to light; for it is at the expense of the solar light that the decomposition of the carbonic acid is effected. without the sun the reduction cannot take place, and an amount of sunlight is consumed exactly equivalent to the molecular work accomplished. thus trees are formed, thus meadows grow, thus the flowers bloom. let the rays fall upon the surface of sand, the sand is heated, and finally radiates away as much as it receives; let the same rays fall upon a forest, the quantity of heat given back is less than that received, for the energy of a portion of the sunbeams is invested in building up the trees. i have here a bundle of cotton which i ignite; it bursts into flame, and yields a definite amount of heat; precisely that amount of heat was abstracted from the sun in order to form that bit of cotton. this is a representative case--every tree, plant, and flower, grows and flourishes by the grace and bounty of the sun. "but we cannot stop at vegetable life; for this is the source, mediate or immediate, of all animal life. in the animal body vegetable substances are brought again into contact with their beloved oxygen, and they burn within as a fire burns in a grate. this is the source of all animal power; and the forces in play are the same, in kind, as those which operate in inorganic nature. in the plant the clock is wound up, in the animal it runs down. in the plant the atoms are separated, in the animal they recombine. and as surely as the force which moves a clock's hands is derived from the arm which winds the clock, so surely is all terrestrial power drawn from the sun. leaving out of account the eruption of volcanoes and the ebb and flow of the tides, every mechanical action on the earth's surface, every manifestation of power, organic and inorganic, vital or physical, is produced by the sun. his warmth keeps the sea liquid, and the atmosphere a gas, and all the storms which agitate both are blown by the mechanical force of the sun. he lifts the rivers and glaciers up the mountains; and thus the cataract and avalanche shoot with an energy derived immediately from him. thunder and lightning are also his transmuted strength. every fire that burns and every flame that glows dispenses light and heat which originally belonged to the sun. in these days, unhappily, the news of battle is familiar to us, but every shock, and every charge, is an application or misapplication of the mechanical force of the sun. he blows the trumpet, he urges the projectile, he bursts the bomb. and remember this is not poetry, but rigid mechanical truth. he rears, as i have said, the whole vegetable world, and through it the animal; the lilies of the field are his workmanship, the verdure of the meadows, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. he forms the muscle, he urges the blood, he builds the brain. his fleetness is in the lion's foot; he springs in the panther, he soars in the eagle, he slides in the snake. he builds the forest, and hews it down, the power which raised the tree and that which wields the axe being one and the same. the clover sprouts and blossoms, and the scythe of the mower swings, by the operation of the same force. the sun digs the ore from our mines, he rolls the iron, he rivets the plates, he boils the water, he draws the train. he not only grows the cotton, but he spins the fiber and weaves the web. there is not a hammer raised, a wheel turned, or a shuttle thrown, that is not raised, and turned, and thrown by the sun. his energy is poured freely into space, but our world is a halting-place where the energy is conditioned. here the proteus works his spells; the self-same essence takes a million of shapes and hues, and finally dissolves into its primitive and almost formless form. the sun comes to us as heat; he quits us as heat; and between his entrance and departure the multiform powers of our globe appear. they are all special forms of solar power--the molds into which his strength is temporarily poured, in passing from its source through infinitude. "presented rightly to the mind, the discoveries and generalizations of modern science constitute a poem more sublime than has yet been addressed to the intellect and imagination of man. the natural philosopher of to-day may dwell amid conceptions which beggar those of milton. so great and grand are they, that in the contemplation of them a certain force of character is requisite to preserve us from bewilderment. look at the integrated energies of the world--the stored power of our coal fields; our winds and rivers; our fleets, armies, and guns; what are they? they are all generated by a portion of the sun's energy, which does not amount to / th of the whole. this, in fact, is the entire fraction of the sun's force intercepted by the earth, and, in reality, we convert but a small fraction of that fraction into mechanical energy. multiplying all our powers by millions of millions, we do not reach the sun's expenditure. and still, notwithstanding this enormous drain, in the lapse of human history we are unable to detect a diminution of his store; measured by our largest terrestrial standards, such a reservoir of power is infinite; but it is our privilege to rise above these standards and to regard the sun himself as a speck in infinite extension--a mere drop in the universal sea. we analyze the space in which he is immersed, and which is the vehicle of his power. we pass to other systems and other suns, each pouring forth energy like our own, but still without infringement of the law, which reveals immutability in the midst of change, which recognizes incessant transference and conversion, but neither final gain nor loss. this law generalizes the aphorism of solomon that there is nothing new under the sun, by teaching us to detect everywhere, under its infinite variety of appearances, the same primeval force. to nature nothing can be added; from nature nothing can be taken away; the sum of her energies is constant, and the utmost that man can do in the pursuit of physical truth, or in the application of physical knowledge, is to shift the constituents of the never-varying total, and out of one of them to form another. the law of conservation rigidly excludes both creation and annihilation. waves may change into ripples, and ripples into waves--magnitude may be substituted for number, and number for magnitude--asteroids may aggregate to suns, and suns may resolve themselves into flora and fauna, and flora and fauna melt in air--the flux of power is eternally the same. it rolls in music through the ages, and all the terrestrial energy--the manifestations of life, as well as the display of phenomena, are but the modulations of the rhythm" (tyndall lecture xii). chapter v. genesis--the creation. man must pass through infancy and childhood before he reaches manhood and maturity. races and nations also had to pass the stages of infancy and childhood, with all their mistakes, fancy, and fable. in these stages any kind of information and interpretation is readily accepted, without inquiry and without investigation, for the reason that they are not capable of either. to inquire, is the awaking of knowledge; and to investigate, requires understanding. whatever knowledge has been acquired, that knowledge can be imparted, but no more. if it be true, it cannot be denied or contradicted; if that knowledge be not true, it will be subject to denial, controversy, and dispute, when experience has ripened the understanding. childhood will listen to anything without contradiction. it accepts the matter as told and believes it. as years pass on, the story that once seemed so impressive and pretty, that was listened to so eagerly, loses its charm, for lack of truth. fairy tales of past ages were abundant. every locality had them, and was by them adorned in mystery and wonder. they were ordinarily recited with startling impressiveness. with awe places were pointed out of perhaps some strange apparition, or prodigious occurrence. all of such accounts were either deliberate inventions, or concoctions of a prolific imagination. early writings abound in them. the improbability of a story grows stronger the farther you go back in the history of humanity. many of these stories were incorporated in poems, in heroic legends, in tales of the mysterious births of kings and queens, descendants of gods. and the vast majority of the writers of antiquity mix fiction and fact, the possible with the impossible. they treat on the conduct of men, their deeds and misdeeds, according to the extravagant customs of the time. the book called scripture writings is composed of three elements--fiction, exaggeration, and fact. the fiction consists of all that portion of the writings that relates to god and his miraculous works. the exaggeration consists of impossible doings of men, such as accounts of miracle-healers, resurrectionists, flights to heaven, etc. the facts appertain to the jewish race actually--that they did exist as a nation, and conducted their affairs in as barbarous a fashion as their neighbors. for nearly two thousand years christianity has done its utmost to sustain the fiction portion as being absolutely true, and still it teaches these absurdities to be true, and anyone doubting their accuracy is liable to persecution. for every doubter of the current belief, whether in ancient or modern times, is subject to discipline of the church to which he belongs. recently in our own city many have been subjected to a mild form of persecution for doubting. they were declared to be heretics, blasphemers, etc. i speak of such men as dr. newton, dr. briggs, and others. yet, we must concede that every organization has a right to judge as to the qualifications of any one of its members, especially if he is an office-holder. they may reject or accept any member. but since his membership depends on whether he believes in their mode of interpreting this fiction, he must say that he believes it, and proclaim to others that it is true, though he knows it is not. nothing on earth has given rise to so much dispute, angry quarrel, bitter hatred and abuse, as this fiction. it has been the cause of more villainy, brutality, massacres, and bloody wars than all matters that concern humanity put together. science universally agrees that the biblical story has not a particle of truth in it; and the older it gets the more it suffers, the weaker it gets, and it finally must undergo complete dissipation, in the presence of the strong light of natural truth. we have a great deal to be thankful for, to have and to enjoy the privilege, the freedom, of exercising and giving expression to opinions concerning matters that have been considered too sacred to be contradicted or criticised. the time has come, or is coming very fast, that we shall be able to dispense with god, christ, the holy ghost, and the bible as a sacred text-book, both the old and new testament. in order to do this we must examine some portion of its text. we should do this for educational purposes. every man and woman should acquire a proper amount of knowledge, to enable them to think for themselves. every person knows, or ought to know, that priest and preacher are especially educated to keep the masses as ignorant as they can possibly keep them. it is their trade. it is their bread and butter, like that of every other trade or profession--it is their business, their function, their profit, to sustain and uphold this tottering fabric, this hollow sham, this aerial nothing, with not a truth, not even a shadow of a truth, to support it. chapter i, verse , of genesis: "in the beginning god created heaven and earth." verse : "the earth was without form and void." ( ) god could not have created the earth, as a planet distinct and separate by itself. this terrestrial globe belongs to a system of planets, and they are all not only dependent on one another, but all dependent on the sun for their existence. ( ) how can god create a planet, this earth? where did he get his material from? and was it possible for god to overcome the laws of gravitation? ( ) does it not seem strange that god, who seemed to have direct dealings with moses, did not give him more information about it? ( ) theologians claim that god is the architect, the designer, the first cause, the creator. why did it take god to make this terrestrial globe six days? if he was able to make it in six days, he might as well have made it in one day, yes, one hour. if the word was god, and god was the word, then the word ought to have displayed this magical art; he might have simply said, go! the term designer, architect, creator, implies skill, human skill, a being that has brain. ( ) as to heaven, that part that is scripturally indicated as heaven is the atmosphere. ( ) we are nowhere told where god was when he was doing all this work. whether he was floating in space among the meteors and asteroids, or had his residence on mars or venus, we are not informed. ( ) this earth always had a form. a globe that revolves round its own axis, once in twenty-four hours, and round the sun besides, cannot be without form. it must necessarily have a globular form; nor was it ever void. there is no such thing as a void in fact; it may appear so to one ignorant of natural phenomena. that was undoubtedly the case when that matter was written up. ( ) it must also be remembered that every planet in the system of the sun receives a portion of his light. the contact of the sun's rays with the elements of this earth is fatal to any such nonsensical proposition as a void. ( ) as to "the darkness on the face of the deep," that could exist only in isolated places, because of an intense fog or mist. the whole surface of the earth could not have a fog at one time. that is impossible. wherever the sun shines there is light. ( ) "and the spirit of god moved on the face of the waters." what waters? where? we know that only one thing in this solar system can disperse a fog; that is the sun. verse : "and god said, let there be light, and there was light." this is worse than childish; it is stupid. ( ) how could god have light when the sun was not made? ( ) and if the sun existed, it was silly on his part to say it. verse : "and god saw the light that it was good, and god divided the light from the darkness." how is it possible for any sane person to believe such nonsense, when everybody with a grain of common sense knows that light and darkness depend on the sun, as day and night do? and this is said to have constituted the first day's work. if any man will read it carefully he will perceive that the composition is of a nature to entertain simple-minded people, children, who are unable to understand the ordinary phases of nature. the second day's work is very droll. verse : "and god said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters," etc. verse : "and god made the firmament," and divided the waters which were under the firmament and the waters which were above the firmament, and it was so. verse : "and called the firmament heaven." there is not a particle of sense in this. if the firmament is heaven, and heaven the atmosphere, we know that we cannot have any water above the firmament. we may have clouds, or a certain quantity of moisture, but no water. if the atmosphere is overloaded with moisture, that moisture is sure to return to the earth in the shape of rain or other form. this portion is important to pious persons, that they may know where their souls go when they go to "heaven"--to the atmosphere! theologians and religious writers contend that this earth was in a state of aqueous solution. that is all wrong. we have not oxygen and hydrogen enough to produce such a state with. besides, if it was in an aqueous solution what became of the sixty-two elementary substances that never enter into the composition of water? nor can the majority of the elements be held in suspension by water. the specific gravity of the different elements cannot be suspended to please anybody. elisha is supposed to have performed that miracle; he made an axe-head swim ( kings vi, ). this same man also beheld a chariot of fire and horses of fire with which elijah went to heaven. it seems surprising that men who claim to know something of science insist upon this miraculous supernatural work. they ought to know better. they ought to know that neither god nor man can stop the chemical action of the elements in the presence or absence of the sun's heat. they ought to know that no supernatural power can suspend nature's forces, or nature's laws. they ought to know that no spirit, whether belonging to god or not, can effect such an aqueous solution as these pious gentlemen would have us believe. the third day's work is remarkable. it embraces the th to the th verses inclusive. "and god said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let dry land appear." was god ignorant of the existence of more oceans than one? of the numerous seas and lakes? or was this creation a local affair near the gulf of persia? there is a singular phraseology used: the first day's work is not qualified; the second day, "it was so;" on the third day, "it was so, it was good." thus, it seems, god did not discover the quality of his work until the third day, when he has it twice--"it was so," as if in surprise, and then that "it was good," as if he lacked self-reliance, or was uncertain how the work would turn out. verse : "and let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind," etc. it is a pertinent question, or questions: ( ) on what part of the globe were these planted? ( ) in what season of the year were they planted? ( ) did these thrive and flourish in the absence of sunlight? and ( ) in what kind of soil and in what locality? were these trees, grass, herbs, planted at the north pole, equator, in a subtropical or in a mild climate? was it winter, spring, summer, or autumn? was it sandy soil, as in the deserts of arabia, or hill, valley, or mountain? or was it really somewhere in chaldea where the story originated? remember, we have no sun yet. verse : "and the evening and the morning were the third day." god takes his rest during the night, like any other toiler on the surface of this terrestrial globe. he did not believe in working after proper hours. no doubt he started with sunrise and stopped at sunset, as shepherds and agriculturists usually do. and god simply suspended the natural operations and went to bed. i don't blame him. he was tired. then again, grass might and does grow in a season, but trees do not. it takes quite a number of seasons for trees to bear fruit. the elements that enter into their composition differ. some have more of one element, and grow on certain soil and flourish, while others do not. moreover, there are only certain localities on earth where the growth of any can be accomplished. the fourth day's work is something prodigious: verse : "and god said, let there be light in the firmament of the heaven" (in the eighth verse god calls the firmament heaven, but in the th calls it the firmament of the heaven) "to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." verse : "and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon earth: and it was so." verse : "and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser to rule the night: he made the stars also." the inventor or the writer of these passages had not the slightest conception of what he was talking about. he spoke and wrote of the mere appearance of what he beheld daily and nightly, the sun and the moon. they could not know, in those remote ages, the important role the sun plays in the solar system, because whatever is known thereon is of very recent date. talk of setting the sun in the firmament, , , miles' distance from the earth, considering its bulk, weight, and condition, is an outrage on common sense. it is a monstrous piece of stupidity to make children believe it, and it is an infamous fraud for any priest or preacher to teach it. writers in order to explain away the above difficulty quote, for example: "maimonides (born a.d.) in his guide, rashi ( ) and aben ezra ( ) in their commentaries, hold that the light of the first day was that of the sun itself, which revolving in its sphere from west to east and from east to west made a day of twenty-four hours. the scripture's saying that it was created on the fourth day is incident to its thus demonstrating its effects upon plants, which appeared on the third day; rain, which proceeded from the exhalations and vapors raised from the earth by the action of the sun's heat thereon, being necessary to their vegetation. therefore, it is clear that there was no new creation on the fourth day; but the heat implies that on that day the sun developed the effects of his heat on plants." this is one of many explanations of philosophical commentators who have tried to explain away the difficulty of creation, owing to the many doubts that arose in the minds of learned men about the tenth and eleventh centuries a.d.; and especially the greek philosophers, aristotle [ ] and others. volumes upon volumes have been written in order to explain away the difficulties theologians encounter. as science advances, explanations and reconciliations become more difficult. maimonides, in his pious enthusiasm, after having consulted aristotle and others, is not quite certain, but he claims (according to more, xi, ): "i propose to show that the creation of the world, as our religion teaches, is not impossible, and all philosophical reasonings to the effect that it is not so, as i have said, they may overthrow, but cannot make any objection against us. as for me, i stand firm in my belief on the question, of whether the world had a beginning or not. i accept the solution of this problem from the prophets, as the prophets explain these things, which speculation cannot reach," etc. (kusari i, , ). in other words, maimonides, the authors of the talmud, and all other writers, theological philosophers, hebrew and christian, prove the truth of the bible by the bible. one portion of scripture must prove another portion to be true. the jews use their own biblical authorities to demonstrate one another's statements. isaiah gives evidence for moses, and moses is made to testify for isaiah, and so the jewish philosophers whip the devil round the ring. the christians have a double hold. they have a new testament. they prove the statements made by persons figuring in the old testament by statements made in the new testament. that is, they make elijah, elisha, isaiah, ezekiel, moses, etc., give testimony for john, mark, matthew, and luke; and then make luke, matthew, mark, and john give evidence for moses, ezekiel, isaiah, elisha, elijah, etc. the majority of theological writings and commentaries, yes, all of them, were composed and written during the christian era, and nearly one-half of these after the twelfth century. all are employed with the same subject-matter. although they lay claim that the talmud and other works treat of mathematics, physics, medicine, etc., they knew little or nothing about these things, and the little they did know was mostly appropriated from the greek and other nations. it is not an unusual occurrence for modern thinkers to interpret the statements of ancient writers as they originally never intended. they spoke in enigmas, parables, simply philosophical phrases, without stating a single fact, implying nothing in particular and everything in general. "and he made the stars also." make the stars! we have shown in a previous chapter that this our solar system is but a speck among the starry host of the universe. from verse to inclusive, god created moving creatures in the water, and fowl that may fly above the earth. this general statement, like all other statements in the bible, is based on the principle that "with god everything is possible." unfortunately for god's adherents, that is absolutely not the case. the laws of nature are fixed, permanent. there is no exception in favor of any mortal and natural being, and certainly not for any supernatural and imaginary being. does it not seem strange that the only animal mentioned in the fifth and sixth days' performance is the whale? "great whales," it says. why great whales? they had heard something about the whale, he therefore received prominence, and was mentioned. they had no knowledge of other animals. or was this great whale purposely inserted to do that extraordinary service to jonah? and after all this work was done, god saw that it was good. evidently pleased with his handiwork. on the sixth day he finishes his work--he "brings forth living creatures." why living creatures? are not fish, fowl, and whales living creatures? next come cattle and creeping things. after he created the creeping things he made man. verse : "so god created man in his own image; in the image of god created he him, male and female created he them." if man was made in his own image, god's image, god must have the semblance of man, otherwise man would not be like him. if god has the semblance of man, and creates and desires, works and rests, like a man, he is a man, therefore cannot be supernatural--a god! verses , , : god places all that he has created at the service of man, giving him full control and dominion to make use of these benefits as he, man, thinks best. "and behold it was very good," and then god took a rest. the entire creation must have taken place in a mild or warm climate, in some isolated locality on the face of the globe. no mention is made of icebergs, snow or hail. there does not seem to have occurred the slightest impediment in any of the work done. no evolutionary period, except the night's rest god reserved for himself, in addition to the whole day sunday, or rather the seventh day. we are now prepared to make some very pertinent remarks and ask some very pertinent questions: ( ) what period elapsed from the time man was created to the time man could use words or speech intelligently? ( ) we may assume that no one was present at the time of creation, because man and woman were made the last thing on the sixth day. ( ) who was the first man that received this information? after how many generations or centuries was this news published, and to whom? ( ) we are not informed, even by the holy book, of the man's name who was the fortunate recipient of this valuable information. ( ) is it not highly probable that the man who first told this story might also have invented it? we have no proof to the contrary, except the mere say-so of somebody. the statement, as written, is well enough as a fable; that's all. as to fact, there is not a particle of truth to sustain it. but if men are determined to believe it, and are not open to conviction, if they are willfully blind to the truth, they must remain the slaves to a powerful ecclesiastical organization. the th verse, however, betrays its origin. when the sun and moon were made for seasons, days, and years, as also for signs, that shows a high degree of civilization. these divisions did not take place before man was created? were really these divisions made before a living creature inhabited this earth? for whom? for whose use? writing had not been invented. athates, or hermes, the egyptian, is supposed to be the founder of hieroglyphics, , b.c. and we do not hear of writing until , b.c. it is claimed that writing was taught to the latins by europa, daughter of agenar, king of phoenicia. the doctrine of the solar system as it is now accepted was first taught by pythagoras of samos about b.c. copernicus proved it in the sixteenth century, and newton demonstrated the truth fully in the year . history claims for the egyptians that they were the first who fixed the length of the year. the chaldeans and persians had adopted the lunar year before abraham ever dreamed of being exiled by his countrymen, the chaldeans. can any man be so silly as to believe that an almanac was made before man was created? there is not an intelligent priest living who is ass big enough to believe any such nonsense. chapter vi. genesis--the garden of eden. the custom of six days' labor and one day's rest is a human invention, and is based on the principles of economy, power-saving, labor-saving, and had been a recognized institution long before the date of the supposed creation. for if the statement of baily be true (and we have no right to discredit it), human beings have existed, in one state or another, above , , years. the record of the hebrew race is insignificant in comparison. the modern eight-hour movement is the outcome of the economic reforms of labor. had the composers of the scripture known something of it at that time god might have worked only eight hours instead of from sunrise to sunset. we cannot have the slightest doubt that the above first-given labor regulation existed long, long ago. the chaldeans had their mode of government, their laws, their social rules and regulations; other neighboring nations had theirs; it was therefore nothing new. this six days' labor clause was incorporated, but there was no need of a god to make it. verse : "and these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, when they were created, in the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens." what generations of heaven? verse : "and the lord god [in this chapter an extra title is assigned to god--it is the lord god! why?] formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul." this is a very grave error. man is not made of dust of the ground. there is comparatively very little dust in his composition. ( ) man contains no more dust than any other animal; the proportion of inorganic constituents in him and other animals is about the same. ( ) animals are constructed anatomically and physiologically the same. they have the same organs, the same number of muscles, and same number of bones, with some few exceptions. they are built on the same general principles as man; or rather, as man came later, we will say that man is constructed on the same general principles as the animals. ( ) the same mechanism and functions are to be found in the one as in the other--respiration, circulation, digestion, etc. ( ) the proportion of mineral matters contained in a man--or dust, as it is termed in scripture--is about / to / of the bodily weight. that is, a body weighing about to pounds would yield about / to pounds of dust, or rather ashes, and the largest proportion of these ashes comes from the solid framework, the skeleton, the bones, composed of phosphates and carbonate of lime. ( ) more than two-thirds of the body's weight is water--that is, hydrogen and oxygen. the principal elements found in the body are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon. there are traces of sulphur, etc., besides the mineral substances above alluded to. thus man is not made of dust, but of water, oxygen and hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. if they had made god say that he made man out of water, he would have been much nearer the truth. solomon repeats the same in his eccles. iii, : "all go unto one place; all are of dust, and all turn to dust again." in the burial service the same absurdity is repeated. alter your service, your prayer--put water in place of dust. or better, give all the four elements a chance. do not teach children we are made out of dust. it is not true. teach the young what is true. what is the good of lying because some man said, god said so? the "breath of life." is it not time that men of intelligence, in this age of progress and civilization we boast so much of, cease to pretend to believe such nonsense? it is absurd to talk of its being "parables" and "figures of speech." either the text means what it says, or it means nothing. there has been an immense amount of controversy over two hebrew words, viz.: nephesh--breath, respiring, life, life strength, animal soul; ruach--anamos, breath, wind, psyche, soul, spirit, etc. they thought that the life is in the blood. lev. xvii, : "for the life of the flesh is in the blood." gen. ix, , : "but the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof," etc., etc. this controversy has given rise to no end of studies, as psychology--derived from the word psyche,--soul. the literature that has been expended on this subject, psyche, soul, cannot be easily estimated. the matter has been twisted into a science, discussed, argued, lectured on, etc. on the word theo, theon--deos--god, societies and sects, etc., have been formed, as the theosophists. what is the breath of life that caused so much controversy, in church and out of church? oxygen. deprive a man of oxygen and he dies. deprive a beast of oxygen and it dies. oxygen thus is essential to life. neither man nor beast, as we said, can live without it. the issues which this has given rise to are bewildering--theological, metaphysical, theosophical, philosophical, agnostic, gnostic, spiritual, etc., etc. oxygen, however, covers the ground. it represents all, so far as the life of a body is concerned. we now come to paradise, or the garden of eden. we will try to locate this garden of eden geographically, as nearly as possible correctly. verse : "and the lord god planted a garden eastward of eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed." that was very kind of god. verse : "god planted the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." a wonderful tree surety. what is most to be regretted is that the species has become extinct. what a boon to humanity if but one tree were planted in every church. verse : "and a river went out of eden to water the garden; and from thence it parted, and became into four heads." verse : "the name of the first is pison; that is it which compasseth the whole land of havilah, where there is gold." verse : "and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone." verse : "and the name of the second river is gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of ethiopia." verse : "and the name of the third river is hiddekel; that is it which goeth toward the east of assyria. and the fourth river is euphrates." assyria was founded about b.c. and is situated near the persian gulf; and seems to be wedged in between the persian empire on the east, arabia on the west, or badien el arab, and on the southern point the gulf of persia. ethiopia comprises nubia, sennaar, and northern abyssinia, and takes in a stretch of country on the west shore of the red sea. the two countries are separated by the red sea, and by arabia, which extends from the east shores of the red sea to the west shores of the gulf of persia, and assyria. some one made a big blunder, or johnston's atlas is wrong, or they--god--made a mistake in the name. there is considerable distance between the two countries. assyria lies in asia and ethiopia in africa. egypt lies farthest north of what is usually known as ethiopia. assyria is hemmed in, north by armenia, west by media and susiana, south and southeast by babylon and mesopotamia. the river tigris is the dividing line on the south and southeast. the parachoatras and zagrus mountains form the dividing line on the western border, and armenia is the boundary on the north. chaldea is, comparatively speaking, a small tract of land situated between the river euphrates and the arabian desert, or badien el arab, with babylon on its north and the gulf of persia on the southwestern point. the river euphrates takes its rise in the gulf of persia and runs westward, and divides into four branches. the first branch, the pasitigris, runs somewhat westward through susiana; the second, chaosper or kirkhah, runs northward through susiana; the third, the river tigris, runs north, northwest, separating babylon from susiana by assyria; the fourth, the river euphrates, the farthest south, runs westward, etc. this is the only river near the gulf of persia that divides into four branches, and these are the four rivers that are indicated where the garden of eden was planted. this is near enough geographically to locate this garden which the lord god planted. it will indeed afford great pleasure for pious people to know whereabouts they can find the garden of eden. in this rapid-transit age, they can get an excursion ticket and reach this paradise in a few weeks. this garden was planted in chaldea. we will now see what god did next. verse : "and the lord god took the man, and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and keep it." god gave the position of gardener to mr. adam. the only stipulation in the contract between the lord god and adam was (verses , ), he could eat of every tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge. there is a god for you--wants to keep the man he made in his own image, a living soul, as ignorant and as stupid as possible; in addition tempting him to commit a wrong act. verse : "and the lord god said, it is not good that the man should be alone; i will make him a help meet for him." very considerate indeed on the part of god. verse : "and the lord god caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh thereof." this is the cleverest kind of surgical operation that was ever performed, without loss of blood, use of antiseptics or anesthetics, without ligature, etc. and out of this rib he made a woman. why did god make a man of dust and the woman out of the man's rib? why did he breathe into the nostrils of the man and forget to do it to the woman? the only reasonable explanation that can be given is that, in those days, among the chaldeans, woman was considered an inferior creature, possessing no soul. she was the slave sometimes, but the servant always. she was the creature of man's lust, of his passion, and she was placed in the bible by the man that wrote it in just the position and condition she occupied at that period. this is a gross falsehood, it is debasing, it is an infamous libel on truth. does any woman believe that she is a bone of her husband's bone, and flesh of his flesh? verse : "and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." what is there extraordinary about that? savage races up to this present time are found in many instances nude. cæsar describes the germans as bathing promiscuously in a nude state. columbus found our american indians nude. evidently a degree of civilization had already been attained when this story was evolved. the story had its origin in the romantic regions of chaldea, somewhere in the neighborhood of the persian gulf, near the river euphrates. the singer, the story-teller, or the traveling minstrel tramped from place to place, from one shepherd's tent to another, relating the story to his crude, barbarous countrymen, reciting the curious yet pretty fable of how man was made; the world made; the garden made; how gold, onyx, and bdellium were found, and where; lauding and glorifying their own country, and making out that they were the immediate descendants of the gods. every nation has its fairy tales, its fables, its myths, its songs, and its romances. whether they have their origin in egypt, or come down embellished from mount olympus, whether they are the fairy tales of the rhine, or those from the river euphrates in chaldea, they are only the products of imagination. "they spring from fountains and from sacred groves, and holy streams that flow into the sea" (od. x, ). next we come to chapter iii--the childish account of the serpent, and the woman and the fruit she ate. the serpent is made to say, verse : "for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil." the first knowledge they acquired was, that they discovered they were without clothes. "and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons." why sewed? with what? aprons were a very late invention, and were never intended for any such purpose. and then, the conversation between the lord god and adam! god calls for adam while he is hiding. god inquires with a chinese simplicity, "where art thou?" this is the blandest kind of conversation that has ever taken place between mortal man and a god. adam tells him that he has eaten some fruit. like the boy who had stolen jam out of the jar, it seems adam could not lie. god grows petulant, angry, cross; scolds him, and immediately deprives him of his position and turns him out of the garden. god had two reasons for doing what he did. one reason was to punish adam for disobedience; the second, that god got afraid of adam. verse : "and the lord god said, behold the man is become as one of us" (were there more gods than one?), "to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand; and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"---- was it the fear of competition--that men might interfere with god's occupation, infringe on his monopoly? it seems to have a priestly ring, this forbidding and preventing ordinary mortals to become intelligent. the story is so framed as to express the line of conduct of the higher towards the lower, of the slave towards his master, of the laborer towards his lord; and the th verse expresses the subjugation of the poor ignorant creature: "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." it is the church and the priest that have taken care to keep the dust in the eyes of the masses. they are the cherubim with a flaming sword that keep the masses away from the tree of life. chapter iv relates to the crime of murder. god instigates the crime. abel kept sheep. cain tilled the ground. cain brought vegetables to god, and abel brought the firstlings of his flock and fat. god's taste ran in the meat line; he was somewhat of an epicurean. he respected abel and his offering, but did not respect cain's. then god asks cain why he is cross, and after cain kills his brother abel, he, god, says: where is thy brother abel? and god dispossesses cain and drives him east of eden to arabia. a very arbitrary landlord this god. chapter v: the fourth chapter winds up with enos the son of seth. verse : "then began men to call upon the name of the lord." now, adam lived years, seth years, and enos years. god during this period was wholly occupied with these people. murder is the only incident of importance during the first thousand years. god takes a long rest for nearly , years before anything of importance occurs. this chapter treats of the genealogy, age, and death of the patriarchs from adam to noah. the records of creation are by no means harmonious. there are no less than one hundred and twenty opinions on the subject. the difference between the latest and remotest dates is no less than , years. here are some of the dates of the supposed creation of the world. they may be interesting to some, as showing the uncertainty and inaccuracy: hebrew, b.c. septuagint,  ,,  talmudistic,  ,,  scaliger,  ,,  petovias,  ,,  dr. hale,  ,,  etc. here we give the genealogy of adam and his line: age. adam, born b.c. died b.c. abel,  ,,   ,,  seth,  ,,   ,,  enos,  ,,  [ ] ,,  cainon,  ,,   ,,  mahaloled,  ,,   ,,  jared,  ,,   ,,  enos,  ,,   ,,  methuselah,  ,,   ,,  lamech,  ,,   ,,  enoch,  ,,   ,,  (translated?) noah,  ,,   ,,  bef. flood. } aft.   ,,   } we may venture to make a very strong interrogation mark after these years. they are, however, in harmony with the rest of the story. noah closes the fabulous period. we hear no more of god's doings until we come to abraham, b.c. and abraham reached the age of years only. chapter vi, on the sons of god, etc., is next. i beg to remind the reader we are still in chaldea, near the gulf of persia; near the river euphrates; near the garden of eden, where god created man; where we found gold and precious stones; the place where murder was committed; near arabia, etc. the geographical location is important, and let the reader also remember that the whole tract of land where all these transactions are supposed to have taken place is not so large as any moderate-sized state in our union. if you will examine a map of this particular region, it will help to bring the truth to your mind, and add considerably to your understanding. it is also well to bear in mind that in this small territory the art of agriculture was pursued, as well as fruit-growing, sewing was invented and aprons were made, and eve had an apron before she had a dress, and this high state of civilization existed as soon as man and woman appeared on earth! what a contrast with other barbaric, savage, and uncivilized tribes! eve had a decided advantage over the young female that was captured when columbus landed december th. she was perfectly naked; so says history. verse : "the sons of god saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives all which they chose." sons of god! was god married? if so, to whom? how many wives had he? how many sons and daughters? where was god's residence, if he had any? were his domestic relations pleasant or not? was his family large or small? pray give us some information. our theologians will tell us, "ah, that has a spiritual meaning." verse : "and the lord [not god] said: my spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh." who?--god? "yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty." this is a crafty statement, because it shows that the average length of life was the same as it is now, with some few exceptions, and as the fabulous age was past, the only way to get out of the difficulty was to give timely notice that extraordinary ages should not occur again. verse : "there were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of god came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown." who were these descendants of god that became mighty and men of renown? after god's sons intermarry with the daughters of men, the affairs of man grow worse, instead of better. and god grows despondent: verse : "and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." think of god's sons causing all this wickedness on earth. he ought to have brought them up better. what can we expect of a god that cannot raise his own children properly? "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart." this exhibits the profound ignorance of god. though he made man, he did not know what the various organs in the body were for. he ought to have known that the heart does not think. its function is to circulate the blood--a truth which was not discovered until by harvey, of england. verse : "and it repented the lord that he had made man on earth, and it grieved him at his heart." ha! god has a heart, and he has flesh, and he has sons; he knows what is good, evil, wickedness; repents and grieves; and has domestic relations with--evidently ladies, by whom he has children. we will not mind the preparations of the ark, or the shipbuilding instructions given by god. a god that knew something of mechanics, shipbuilding, dimensions, measurement, etc.--no wonder theologians call god a designer, an architect. he showed some skill in the construction of this boat. as soon as noah had everything prepared, had loaded his cattle, etc., food and provender, god was ready to destroy his own sons and their relations by drowning them. chapter vii. the deluge. as to the region where the deluge occurred--on the northern edge ascend the persian mountains; on the east the steep and lofty parallel chains of the indo-persian boundary mountains, and on the south the plateau for a thousand miles along the persian gulf and arabian sea is bounded by the wild terraced regions of beloochistan and faristan. the second division includes the mountainous regions of armenia, koordistan, and azerbijan. here the table-land is compressed about half its general width. from this plateau, of which a part is mentioned in scripture as the "mountains of ararat," rises the volcanic cone commonly styled mount ararat, to the hight of , feet above the sea level. the highlands of syria rise gradually from the neighboring desert to the hight of , feet in libanus and antilibanus, and slope steeply in terraces down to the narrow coastlands of phoenicia and palestine. of the syrian and arabian lowlands, the south is hot and arid, with almost no oasis; but the north is watered by the tigris and euphrates. near this isolated corner of asia, in the neighborhood of the persian gulf and the rivers euphrates and tigris, where the deluge is supposed to have occurred, in the lowlands of that region, chaldea, immense chains of mountains run in several directions, with highlands , feet above the level of the sea. verse : "for yet seven days, and i will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that i have made will i destroy from off the face of the earth." this deluge is supposed to have taken place about b.c. hale puts it at b.c. the sons of god came upon earth and married the daughters of men about b.c.; about this date ought to be nearer the flood. noah was years old when he floated in his ark. we will consider, first, a general deluge. a deluge over the whole earth is an impossibility. . we have to take in consideration the inequality of the earth's surface--lowlands, highlands, hills and mountains, plateaus, etc. as to mountains: asia possesses no less than sixty or seventy mountains, the highest being some , feet above the sea's level--the himalaya, everest. africa boasts of some thirty or forty mountains, the kenia and killamandja being , feet above the level of the sea, the other mountains grading downward in hight. europe is adorned with some seventy or eighty mountains, mount blanc being the highest, others ranging downwards. south america boasts of some forty or more mountains, the tupengater being the highest, , feet above the level of the sea. north america counts some seventy or more mountains, mt. elias being , above the level of the sea. we have plateaus and table-lands ranging from , feet above the level of the sea downward to near the sea's level. the great basins between the highest points of the earth's surface are filled with water. these immense expanses form oceans, seas, lakes, rivers. the ocean bed is just as uneven as the dry portion of the earth's surface. the numerous islands are the mountains of the ocean bed, some of greater, others of lesser extent. . the fluid part of the terrestrial globe fills the hollow places of the solid portion of the earth's crust. these are the great and small depressions, or greater and smaller basins. . the earth's weight has always been the same, neither increased nor diminished. this includes both the solid and liquid part of this terrestrial globe. . the fluid portion of this terrestrial globe has neither increased nor diminished. it cannot, because the quantity of oxygen and hydrogen is limited to this earth. none can get away, and none can come to it. . water may change its position, or state--split up into elements; make clouds, mist, hail, snow, or rain, or dew--but it ultimately returns to the great basin of water where it came from. . if water rises in any one locality beyond the ordinary sea level, water has diminished in some other locality. the quantity of water on the earth's surface has not increased, except in one locality. . rain cannot fall over the whole surface of this earth at one time. . there is always daylight and sunshine, night and darkness, on this earth. . heat and cold vary in the different parts of this earth. the atmosphere is different in the various parts of the earth's surface. there is a perpetual winter, summer, spring, or autumn in various parts on this globe. . the rays of the sun strike the various portions of the earth at different times. this variation in the direction of the sun's rays produces a corresponding variation in the intensity of the sun's heat and light at different places, and accounts for the difference between the torrid and the frigid regions, etc. . the atmosphere does not, and cannot, carry beyond a certain percentage of aqueous vapor. when it becomes overcharged the moisture must fall, in raindrops when the temperature is warm enough. . the sun's heat regulates the amount of aqueous vapor the atmosphere can carry in the form of clouds. when the atmosphere is fully saturated, rain must fall. . when the atmosphere is cool or cold, the raindrops congeal, and we have snow or hail. . there are regions on the earth where it never rains, probably never rained. the rainless region of asia is of vast extent. it includes part of tibet, the great desert of gobi, and part of mongolia--a space estimated to comprise about , , square miles. there are other rainless regions on the face of the earth's surface. there is a great diversity in the yearly amount of rainfall; the highest is about inches, the lowest and less. . there is no great difference between the polar and equatorial diameter of the earth, the average number of miles being about , . taking the above facts in consideration--the conformation of the earth's surface, the elevation above the sea level, table-lands or plateaus, and mountains, the fixed quantity of water upon the surface of the earth, the influence of heat and cold, the condition of the atmosphere, etc., a general deluge must be rigidly excluded. supposing it rained forty days and forty nights, how many inches of rainfall could we possibly get? we can know to an inch the quantity of rain that would fall. the water would certainly roll down the hills and mountains, fill up the lakes and rivers, overflow the banks, and rise in the lowlands to a certain hight. the deluge, noah's deluge, was a local affair, if it ever occurred. granting such a flood did take place, it never extended beyond that portion of asia, chaldea. supposing that the rivers tigris and euphrates may have overflowed and caused a flood say of fifty feet rise above the level of the sea (which is impossible, because the surplus waters would flow into the seas and oceans), how insignificant is the rise of fifty feet even in comparison with table-lands , feet above the sea-level, and mountains to , feet above the sea-level. as to the extent of the rainstorm that caused this deluge, i do not suppose that the clouds held in the atmosphere extended over , or say , , square miles over the region where the rain fell. as to collecting the animals for the ark from all over the globe, that is just as ridiculous as the deluge itself. it is to be presumed that the person or persons who wrote the first seven chapters of the bible had not the slightest idea of the geographical condition of the earth's surface. it was not known. they thought that their locality embraced the whole earth. even in columbus's time they had no idea of the extent of this earth. the seas that they probably had some knowledge of may have been the gulf of persia, the red sea, the mediterranean or arabian sea, probably the caspian. that was about the extent. they had means neither of land travel nor of navigation. verse : "fifteen cubits upward did the water prevail, and the mountains were covered." a cubit, standard, contains inches. fifteen multiplied by gives inches, or feet inches. how can feet inches of water cover plateaus , feet high and mountains like the ida, , feet, and the himalayas , feet in height? mount ararat in asia minor is , feet high. these are figures. they do not lie. we have here positive proof. i defy contradiction. every man and woman with a little sense can prove it. and any priest or clergyman that will maintain the truth of a general deluge after reading this statement, is either a fool, or a fraud and an infamous liar. in fact, the entire rainfall during the forty days and nights would have had as much effect on this globe as a pint of water would have to drown an elephant. verse : "and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man." verse : "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, all that was on dry land, died." verse : "and every living substance was destroyed, which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth; and noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." verse : "and the waters prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days." mount ararat is situated in persia about to miles south of the black sea, and about miles west of the caspian sea, about miles east of aleppo and the mediterranean sea, and about miles north of the gulf of persia, from mount sinai about , or more miles northeast, and a similar distance from the red sea. arabia is about miles across between the persian gulf and the red sea. the distance between the shores of the persian gulf and the caspian sea is about five hundred miles. the caspian chain of mountains are situated about two hundred miles north of mount ararat, and they extend from the sea of azof north, running southwest to the caspian sea. the entire tract of territory where this deluge is said to have occurred does not embrace one thousand miles in any given direction, and takes in but two countries--turkey and persia--and only a portion of either. it does not extend farther north than the caspian mountains and the black sea, east than the mediterranean sea, west than the caspian sea, and south than the persian gulf and arabia. turkistan, afghanistan, and beloochistan form the eastern boundary of persia. the twenty-six feet three inches of the rise of water in consequence of the rain could not have extended beyond the limits indicated above. at the period of the deluge there were immense countries east of turkistan, afghanistan, and beloochistan--russia north, the chinese empire and hindostan farthest south. europe and africa could not be reached. so that all living substance was not destroyed and could not be destroyed. nor was all living substance destroyed in the country where the flood occurred, because those living on high table-lands were out of reach of the flood. we must necessarily draw our own conclusions as to the truth or falsity of the statements contained in verses , , . some destruction of life may have taken place, limited to the locality. there are other evidences that go to show the incorrectness of the scripture. the hindoo era, or the era of the caleyung, dates b.c., seven hundred and fifty-six years before the deluge. this country was flourishing at the time of the flood. moreover, the hindoos counted their months by the progress of the sun through the zodiacs. keep the figures of the deluge in mind, b.c. china, north of hindostan and east of the deluged territory, was flourishing b.c. it was not touched by the flood. it had its own floods, separate and distinct from noah's. in b.c., one year after the flood, noah made wine from grapes. babylon was founded by belus b.c. astronomical observations were made b.c. bricks were made b.c. babylon was built b.c. all this region was in a state of civilization one hundred years later, when all men had been destroyed, and the region had been under water twenty-six feet three inches for one hundred and fifty days. one hundred years seems a long time, and a great deal can be done, that's true. in those days civilization was exceedingly slow. people did not progress so rapidly as we do in this new world. there are regions where hardly any progress has been made. they are at a standstill, as it is termed. the people live, feed, and die. the inconsistency, the untruth, of the story of the deluge will be palpable to everyone, if he or she will take the trouble to examine the geographical, physical, and historical facts. i especially call the attention of hysterical, fanatical theologians, supernaturalists, and the whole priestly class, to the declaration that god had nothing to do with this deluge; that the god in whom they believe must be an ass to think that he can drown out the whole terrestrial globe with forty days and nights' rain, with a rise of water of twenty-six feet three inches. it is impossible to enter into every detail in this brief statement. there is, however, ample proof that a general deluge never occurred, and that all animals, whether men or beasts, were never destroyed. how much honor it would reflect for a convention of clergymen, or a gathering of archbishops in saintly conclave assembled, to solemnly declare the whole beginning of genesis a fabrication, a fiction, a fable--that god had nothing to do with any such performance; that god could not do anything so foolish; that god never did anything contrary to the laws of nature; that neither god nor man could, if they wished, do anything contrary to the laws of nature. and that "we, the archbishops, bishops, and clergy in general, further declare and aver, that we, the sacred representatives of the ignorant masses, no longer believe that god, the so-called father almighty, created either heaven or earth, or beast or man, or anything; that we repudiate, deny, and reject all of the statements made in the book called the bible; that we do not believe in any supernatural interference; that we have erred and have misinstructed and misguided the masses; that the whole story is false, frivolous, and incredible; that neither the creation, as recited, nor the deluge, or any part thereof, as described, is true." chapter viii. the scriptural god--the creation. the chaldeans were undoubtedly great admirers of nature at the time we first hear the name of abraham mentioned in connection with the bible, about the year b.c. the people had already arrived at a high degree of civilization. the country belonged to the assyrian empire under ninus the jupiter, b.c. how long this section of country had been populated, and its inhabitants under a proper form of government, we have no record--in all probability, for many centuries. the chaldeans had already invented a judicial astrology, which was transmitted to the egyptians, greeks, and romans. the science of astronomy was known to them, and of it there are records as early as b.c. the science of arithmetic was used by them--in all probability invented by them; concerning it we have nothing recorded. the kingdom of babylon existed b.c. an art of architecture of some kind was already in use among its people, as we see from the fact that they had built important structures. we have no records as to the proficiency they had arrived at in any other branch of science or art. that the art of writing was known to them is probable, otherwise they could not have recorded certain facts about astronomy. the credit of first using hieroglyphics, b.c., is given to athates, or hermes, the egyptian. the correct division of the days of the week, the months, and the seasons may probably have been known to them, though the jews take the credit. that these chaldeans were great observers will not be disputed--otherwise they could not have discovered the fixed stars, planetary system, etc. that they must have had considerable intellectual qualities--perceptive powers and skill in reasoning--developed will be admitted, inasmuch as they were the inventors of astrology, and of what more we have no knowledge. they were great admirers of nature. we may infer that from the fact that they were students of astronomy, acute and close observers of nature. what myths or fables they had, we have at the present time no idea. we have no historical knowledge of these people. we know very little of their manners, culture, science, arts, degree of civilization. other events occurred about that period. a phoenician colony under partholani landed in ireland b.c. in b.c. the government of china was established--it had an imperial dynasty. fohi was the chinese monarch. in b.c. sicyon was king of greece. in b.c. egypt was established. in b.c. egypt was conquered by the shepherd kings of phoenicia. in b.c. ching hong teaches the chinese the art of husbandry, and the method of making bread from wheat and wine from rice. in b.c. pyramids and canals in egypt. the science of geometry begins to be cultivated. in b.c. sculpture and painting are employed to commemorate the exploits of asymandyas. we have no difficulty in arriving at a conclusion that considerable progress had been made in the art of government, in the political and social world, in the arts and sciences, and also in the moral and religious departments of life. as to whatever myths and fables they had, of their origin we know very little, or i may say nothing. the story of the creation and the deluge is in all probability native to the soil. the deluge was in all likelihood a local affair--an overflow of the river euphrates or the gulf of persia. whether it rained forty days and nights or more, water enough could not fall to the ground to do any serious damage, beyond the locality where it occurred. it would be not amiss even for the most pious, god-fearing man to understand that the rainwater that falls to the surface of the earth was originally taken from the waters that are found on the surface of the earth. the actual quantity of water on the earth was no more after the flood, or after any flood, than before. the water changes position from one locality to another; it does not increase or diminish in quantity, whether it consolidates, evaporates, or liquefies. whatever elementary form it may assume, the law of gravitation holds its elements down to mother earth. the idea entertained by many theologians, that the whole earth was covered with water, is absurd. we have not water enough on the surface of this earth to serve any such purpose. this problem is just as feasible as trying to drown a man in two inches of water--attempting to cover the entire earth with the water that is upon it. from historical evidence we gather that the people that inhabited this region occupied their time chiefly with raising cattle, and were prone both to the observation of nature and to superstition. the nervous system had at this time undergone considerable training and culture. their faculties were already developed. they discussed and reasoned about current subjects, especially about those subjects which were nearest and dearest to them--religion and politics. and we are still discussing the same subjects with as much eagerness, acrimony, and hate as these chaldean shepherds did. they were adorers of nature, which was perfectly in harmony with their occupation. the beauties, the phases, the phenomena of nature, these they could not explain. ignorant of their character and composition, not understanding the natural, they reasoned themselves into conclusions that there must be a power beyond that sets all these things in motion. they knew nothing of god. in all probability they created nothing new, but may have modified whatever was handed down to them by their fore-fathers--notions, customs, well-outlined rules of conduct, observances, policy, government, etc. the wiser and best-instructed portion of the community selected those things that to them were most beneficial, and for which they thought they ought to be grateful--in their wonderment and admiration they made selection of that which was to them most striking--and this gradually led to a systematization of certain qualities, certain excellences. all things in nature are object-teachers. when we have seen a thing several times, we know it--learn its qualities, etc. so the forefathers of the chaldeans, admiring nature, came to recognizing what was best, either in themselves or round about them. in order to present these ideas, powers, and excellences in the most striking manner to the senses, symbolic representations, or typical forms, were made, about in the same or similar manner as playthings are made to instruct and amuse children. all the idols and mythological gods are drawn from nature, associated and endowed with such qualities as the human beings had from time to time attained. the motives that suggested these were just as pure as any motives are now. we have symbols and idols among us at this day, four thousand years later. it makes no difference whether it is christ on a stick, the virgin mary on a canvas, or the sacred heart of a saint, it amounts to precisely the same thing; it is object-teaching--an object-lesson. these chaldeans had any number of symbols and idols, and men were assigned to watch and guard them. they had their ceremonies, their gowns or priestly garbs; they had their places for worship, out of doors or indoors--everything that gave beauty, dignity, and sanctity to their performances. in short, we may conclude that they had what may be called an established religion, with ceremonies, sacrifices, idols, as well as social, moral, and political rules to govern them. there was dissension in those days as there is now. men differed, argued, discussed; and differences arose. new ideas were intolerated then, as they are now. the old would not yield to the new. wrangling, anger, passion, jealousy, led to new formations, antagonistic to the old. the old systems had in all probability grown corrupt, domineering, cruel, selfish, and rapacious. a reformation of some kind was in order. men of ability and sagacity began to grow skeptical as regards the quality and ability of these numerous idols. something similar is agitating the world to-day. doubtless it is always to be found. abraham was an agitator, a reformer, if you will. josephus thus speaks of him (chap. vii): "he was a person of great sagacity, both for understanding all things and persuading his hearers, and not mistaken in his opinions; for which reason he began to have higher notions of virtue than others had, and he determined to renew and to change the opinions all men happened then to have concerning god; for he was the first that ventured to publish this notion: that there was but one god, the creator of the universe; and that as to other (gods) if they contributed anything to the happiness of men, each of them afforded it only according to his appointment, and not of their own power. his opinion was derived from the irregular phenomena that were visible both at land and sea, as well as those that happened to the sun and moon and all the heavenly bodies. 'if,' said he, 'these bodies had power of their own, they would certainly take care of their own regular motions; but since they do not preserve such regularity, they make it plain, that so far as they coöperate to our advantage, they do it not of their own abilities; but as they are subservient to him that commands them, to whom alone we ought justly to offer our honor and thanksgiving.' for which doctrines when the chaldeans, and the people of mesopotamia, raised a tumult against him, he thought fit to leave that country." in other words, he was driven from his country for sedition and heresy, when he was seventy-five years old. he settled down in a land called canaan, where he built an altar, and performed a sacrifice to god. in this manner abraham began to cultivate a reformation and religion among his own people, who were quite numerous. the egyptians at this period were in a flourishing condition. canaan was invaded by famine. so abraham went down to egypt, "both to partake of the plenty they enjoyed, and to become an auditor for their priests, and to know what they said concerning the gods; designing either to follow them, if they had better notions than he, or convert them to a better way, if his own notions proved the truer." at this time, too, much dissension, quarrel, and antagonism existed between the religious orders, and abraham was not going to lose such an excellent opportunity. josephus describes the condition of affairs as follows: "for whereas the egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, abraham conferred with each of them, and confuting the reasoning they made use of, every one for their own practices, he demonstrated that such reasoning was vain and void of truth; whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences, as a very wise man and of great sagacity when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. he communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy," etc. finding perhaps that he could not make proselytes he returned to canaan. he there divided the tract of land between himself and lot, each one pursuing his own particular course, abraham with his notions and lot with his, unable to agree. an incident worthy of notice occurred. the assyrians made war on a number of kings, the sodomites and lot among them. the assyrians conquered, and lot, among the rest, was made captive. abraham, with three hundred and eighteen men, pursued the assyrians, slew them, captured all they had, and gained a signal victory--thus showing that abraham was a power. lot's affairs with his daughters we pass over, since they have no special interest for us. abraham had several wives or women, by whom he had a number of children. he had six sons by katurah, ishmael by hagar, isaac by sarah, etc. none of the sons adopted his method of thinking except isaac, who at the age of twenty-five was to have been sacrificed to god. isaac, being a mild-mannered young man, generous, and obedient to his father's will, readily consented. upon that, abraham changed his mind. isaac then became the heir both of his property and of his ideas concerning god. abraham had two brothers, nahor and haron. haron left a son, lot, and two daughters, sarai and milcha. nahor married milcha and abraham married sarai. in this manner the family concentration began. and when isaac was forty it was decided that he should marry the granddaughter of his brother nahor, rebeka, the sister of laban. isaac in turn made choice of jacob as heir to his ideas and property--who took flight on account of esau, and landed safely at his uncle laban's house in mesopotamia. jacob married laban's daughters, leah and rachel, as well as their handmaids, zilpha and bilhah. now, laban and his family were idolators. so were esau and his family. rachel took along with her the images of the gods which, according to their laws, they used to worship in their own country, etc. jacob raised his children strict to the rules laid down by his grandfather and father; and the views as regards the rites of worship and circumcision, as well as god in the abstract with all the carnal passions and emotions of man that formerly were the attributes of the idols, as also the sacrifices. the story of joseph is too well known to be repeated. it is quite enough for our purpose that a famine drove this jacob's family, as it did abraham, to egypt, where they increased and multiplied during a period of nearly four hundred years; that joseph was famous in the land, and the king gave jacob and his children leave to live in heliopolis--for in that city the king's shepherds had their pasturage. this in brief is the story, stripped of the peculiar phraseology, which no doubt was in those days customary. the trouble had begun with terah, abraham's father, who hated the chaldeans; and the chaldeans returned the same with interest, i suppose. so they moved to haran in canaan and settled down on a tract of land, by the right of squatter sovereignty, as it would be called in our times. terah, the first squatter, turned this land over as a heritage to his son, abraham; abraham to isaac, and isaac to jacob. in this manner it became the promised land, the heritage of their fathers. it is no easy matter to suppress and eradicate a practice, a habit, a custom, once firmly ingrafted in a community. prohibit it as much as you will, it will be done secretly. so after circumcising the hamerites and shechemites, the sons of jacob slaughtered them, on account of the seduction of dinah, jacob's daughter. he and his family had to leave for fear of their neighbors, so jacob told his household to put away the strange gods that were among them, and "be clean and change your garments," he said (gen. xxxv, ). this abstract idea of god that abraham called into life was not so firmly rooted as might have been expected. the taint of the ancient gods more or less remained among them and occasionally cropped up here and there in a most prominent manner. for four hundred years we hear nothing of god or his workings--whether the jews flourished or were oppressed--nor have the other descendants ever made mention. abraham, isaac, and jacob call on this imaginary god when in an emergency, when some task has to be accomplished, some journey has to be undertaken, or a battle has to be fought. during the whole of the period they were in egypt, notwithstanding they were sorely oppressed, this god paid no attention to them, until a man arose that produced a great crisis in the affairs of this people, in the destiny of this family which had grown into a nation. this was really the first reformation--that is, modification--of the existing religious practices--their numerous gods, perhaps their rites, etc. the sacrifices the jews retained, with most of the usages and priestly rituals. how many reformations or modifications had taken place before abraham the reformer, we do not know; and how long these gods (they were very numerous) were in existence we know still less. the evolution of these idols, the existing gods, did not take place all of a sudden. it may have taken thousands of years for anything we know. it required considerable mental training to produce them. intelligence had assumed some importance, because the people had become proficient in argument, skillful in reasoning, and observers of nature. the ordinary barbarian possesses no such capabilities. his brain is not sufficiently cultured. so long as his wants are amply supplied, there is no necessity to exert himself, the nervous system lies inactive, and this inactivity involves the perpetuation of ignorance. we may reasonably presume that these chaldeans, these shepherds, had through many centuries of slow culture acquired the knowledge they possessed, the customs and habits they practiced, the laws they promulgated, and the rules of conduct enacted both for social and political purposes. and any innovation on the established laws was resisted and punished, pretty much as it is to-day. so when abraham, or terah his father before him, started the reformation, it caused a good deal of commotion and alarm. the upholders of the settled state of affairs were shocked. anger, passion, partisanship, ran their course then, as they do now. these idolators were just as intolerant then as christians are to-day. it was either submit or leave. thus abraham's and terah's leaving the land of their fathers and settling on a tract of land where they could cultivate their new idea, their new god, was without any special act, without miracle, without supernaturalism, without mystery, perfectly human, perfectly natural. chapter ix. the creation of god--abraham. god, such god as we know of now, like all other things and beings on this terrestrial globe was evolved very, very slowly in the minds of man--crude, ill-shapen, ill-fashioned, grotesque, barbarous, savage, semi-civilized: harmonizing with his existing mental condition and all his surroundings; a product of man's rudeness, of his uncultured nature, his inexperienced special senses, with his nervous system just emerging from an instinctive animal life to a grade or two above its former intelligence--the first step towards real humanity. god was not always presented to humanity in his present guise. oh, no; everyone with a moderate degree of intelligence who chooses to examine the records will find that god has undergone vast and important changes--changes in tendencies and character, conforming with the progressive or retrogressive forms of political and social life of the various communities, corresponding with the periods of the time in which they lived. the idea, in its primary conception, was slowly evolved, without special meaning or signification, dark, mysterious, incomprehensible. we may say, however, that this idea of god was endowed with characteristics best known to men, but of a higher quality than ordinarily then existing; largely reflecting their makers, an embodiment of their own powers and capabilities. there was a time, no matter how remote, when there were creatures resembling the present form of man but of inferior nervous development, that had no knowledge of either god or religion. nor had man in those ages any more intelligence than he had acquired by experience, or was necessary for his immediate use. it improved as the exigencies of his wants arose, fresh experience leading to new observations, slowly adding to the already accumulated stock. the intelligence of to-day would have been useless a hundred years ago, to the same race even, and of less use still two hundred years ago, and so on. it is very doubtful whether man at first was even conscious of his own existence, any more than the higher type of brute life. this consciousness slowly dawned upon him as his intelligence increased. a child is not conscious of its own existence. it exists so long as the necessary material is contributed towards its existence, or until it has grown strong enough to contribute towards its own. it may after a while acquire intelligence sufficient to become conscious of its own existence or not. the same rule holds good among the types of man such as we find on earth at the present time. during the early stages of man's existence, the muscular powers were exercised most, we may say almost exclusively, the special senses serving in their function as a guide for those powers, with the degree of intelligence obtained from the number of impressions received. these senses had acquired their several experiences from the necessities that from time to time were made manifest. there are writers who make use of extraordinary expressions in regard to nature, as for example, that nature is mighty, beautiful, wise, etc. nature is mighty only under certain conditions. peculiar combinations of elements are essential. the presence or absence of the sun's heat plays always an important part. nature's being beautiful depends largely upon the education of the senses, the capability of discerning symmetry, harmony, color, etc., and this is acquired by comparison, taste, and habit. what strikes one eye as beautiful, may have just a contrary effect on another, or be passed with perfect indifference by a third. as to wisdom, nature can be wise only through a cultured, well-educated, evenly balanced mind. the expression is applicable only to man. wisdom is a particular quality eminently and evidently the product of a highly trained nervous system. it is not an easy task at the present time to unravel the mental process of the earliest races of man that first led to the formation and the adoption of the idea that something existed more potent and more powerful than themselves. yet if we carefully examine the mental condition of some of the wild, barbarous nations existing at the present time, we may infer, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, the mental process the earliest races of man were capable of. races or tribes, no matter how low in the scale of civilization, that were perfectly secure in their possessions, amply provided by nature against the encroachments of other races, man or animals, existed right along perfectly content, exerting themselves just enough to gather in those substances which they found contributive to the sustenance of their lives. the surplus time was spent in gamboling, frisking, playing, amusing themselves in their primitive condition like children of nature as they were. progress they made none. there was no occasion for it. their senses were exercised to the extent of their immediate wants and no more. the natural head of the family or tribe was the oldest, the father. he controlled or governed his descendants. so long as the father was able to exercise his supreme power he was the recognized head, adviser, leader, etc. while in this condition, the primitive customs, habits, or usages practiced in their natural mode of living began, and continued with very few changes for ages. their language was as simple and crude as their mode of life, just sufficient for their wants. this mode of communication originated mainly from the necessities of life, as hunger, danger, pleasure, protection, surprise, fear, etc. for all these they found expressions, sounds that conveyed the notions to one another, quite intelligible among themselves. they adopted names for things and beings with which they came in contact in their daily lives, and for such instruments, utensils, and clothing as they from time to time invented or discovered by accident. the sounds that expressed their immediate necessity of communicating with one another, their wants--the cries of call, pain, etc.--had no form in particular, no grammatical construction, no rules. their emotions and passions were limited, because they knew no wants, no conflicts, other than those that arise from feelings inspired by their five senses. and they really had language enough for all purposes--suitable and ample for their condition in life. arts and sciences they had none. their simple domestic arrangements were as primitive as they were. their furniture consisted of little or nothing. cooking utensils they needed none. there was no occasion to cook; nature's food was ample. this they collected, selected, and fed upon. clothing they had no use for, in the warm climate they lived in. they were clad in nature's garb, male and female alike. innocence and virtue was well understood among them. they were moral in their way, committed no wrong--there was no occasion for it. there was plenty for everyone. the larders of nature were free, open, and plentiful. therefore all were satisfied and happy. wealth or property they had. all they surveyed was theirs. what belonged to one belonged to the other. mine and thine was unknown. the more civilized qualifications of property right developed many centuries later. commerce they knew nothing of. there was no need for that, since furniture, utensils, implements of agriculture, weapons, clothing of any kind, they had no use for. they had no laws--nor law-makers, nor justices, nor judges, nor any officials known in later times. and what is more, they had no god, or idol, or myth, or symbol, or worship, or prayer or religion, or soul, or spirit. nor did they know anything about what we indicate by the epithets physical or metaphysical, neither theological nor psychological, neither gnostic nor agnostic. they did not know of any of those things. these were evolved and invented later, as the necessities and exigencies arose, as their wants increased, and circumstances changed from internal to external conditions. consequently, their language was limited. they made use of a limited number of words, or produced articulate sound enough to express just what they wanted, and no more. they may have had two or three hundred different words or sounds in use. we have men to-day among us that have not many more words at command, and their ideas generally correspond in number and quality to their stock of words. the stock of words and the stock of ideas always depend upon the amount of experience and the amount of exercise the five senses have had; together with the urgencies and difficulties they have had to contend with. the power of observation is developed in accordance as the opportunities arise. each particular special sense develops its own faculties, from the practice, use, and experience of that sense, the role it is called upon to play as necessities arise. and as each object is perceived or observed by the special sense, it is recorded, a picture of the same is retained in the great nervous storehouse for future reference. the retention and recognition of the same goes to the formation of memory. as the stock of objects increases, words or sounds designating the same also increase in number, and the material for the formation of ideas is also largely increased. ideas can be formed only about such things as we know, or rather such things as any one special sense has been impressed with, has perceived and recognized. those things or beings by which any one sense has not been impressed, the mind neither has perceived nor is able to recognize. everyone, whether barbarian or civilized, is perfectly familiar with those things or beings that immediately surround him--that is, all those things and beings which the senses have already been impressed with, perceived and recognized. sounds, or words, have been invented to designate all such; and these are known; the picture representing any one object is retained, stored away in the great nervous storehouse, the brain--are remembered. the oftener a thing is perceived, the more familiar it becomes and the more easily recognized, the firmer it becomes fixed and the more easily it is recollected. thus primitive man, with his few wants, and these wants amply supplied by nature, had or invented names for all of them. these formed the earliest collection of names of objects--their appearance, their actions, their habits, etc. all these qualities were associated, identified, and presented by words, in due time, without the presence of the objects. that is to say, the simplest ideas were in this manner formed, and the ideas so formed corresponded with the number of words, and the number of words corresponded with the number of impressions received by the senses. each sense presents its share--one sense more, another less. a person may have received a large number of impressions on the organ of vision--a painter, for instance--and may have stored away a wealth of artistic knowledge, yet the sense of hearing may be exceedingly poor in the number of impressions received. such an individual would be rich in artistic ideas but comparatively poor in musical ideas. so it is with all the special senses. each sense receives impressions on its own account. it has its own special nervous center, and these special centers again are closely connected with the great mass of brain matter. collectively they have for their function, to receive impressions, retain them, store them away, recollect them, and reproduce them by articulate sound, or to recognize them. in this process then we have the formation of idea, memory, thought; recollection is the endeavor to call back, or form a figure of, an object once already perceived--felt by the senses. chapter x. moses.--the confirmation of the idea of god. we will here sketch the military career of moses. we omit the early incidents of the life of moses--his childhood, his growth, his education--and begin with his active life. "and the occasion he laid hold of was this: the ethiopians, who are next neighbors to the egyptians, made an inroad into their country, which they seized upon, and carried off the effects of the egyptians, who in their rage, fought against them, and revenged the affronts they had received from them; but being overcome in battle some of them were slain, and the rest ran away in a shameful manner, and by that means saved themselves, whereupon the ethiopians followed after them in the pursuit, and thinking that it would be an act of cowardice if they did not subdue all egypt, they went on to subdue the rest with greater vehemence; and when they had tasted the sweets of the country, they never left off the prosecution of the war; and as the nearest parts had not courage enough at first to fight with them, they proceeded as far as memphis, and the sea itself, while not one of the cities was able to oppose them. the egyptians, under this sad oppression, betook themselves to their oracles and prophecies" (josephus, ch. x). moses thereupon was appointed general of the egyptian army against the ethiopians, and conquered them in the following manner: "but moses prevented the enemies, and took and led his army, before those enemies were apprised of his attacking them; for he did not march by the river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his sagacity; for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents, which it produces in vast numbers, and indeed is singular in some of these productions, which other countries do not breed, ... when he had therefore proceeded thus on his journey he came upon the ethiopians before they expected him; and joining battle with them, he beat them, and deprived them of the hopes they had of success against the egyptians, and went on in overturning their cities, and indeed made great slaughter of these ethiopians. now when the egyptian army had once tasted of this prosperous success by the means of moses, they did not slacken their diligence, insomuch that the ethiopians were in danger of being reduced to slavery, and all sorts of destruction. and at length they retired to saba, which was the royal city of ethiopia, which cambyses afterwards named meroe, after the name of his own sister. this place was to be besieged with very great difficulty, since it was both compassed by the nile quite round, and the other rivers astapus and astaboms made it a very difficult thing for such as attempted to pass over them; for the city was situate in a retired place, and was inhabited after the manner of an island, being encompassed by a strong wall, and having the rivers to guard them from their enemies, and having great ramparts between the wall and the rivers, insomuch, that when the waters come with the greatest violence, it can never be drowned; which ramparts make it next to impossible for even such as are gotten over the rivers to take the city. however, while moses was uneasy at the army's lying idle (for the enemies durst not come to battle), an accident happened: tharbis was the daughter of the king of the ethiopians; she happened to see moses as he led his army near the walls, and fought with good courage, and admiring the subtlety of his undertakings, she believed him to be the author of the egyptians' success, when they had before despaired of recovering their liberty, and to be the occasion of the great danger the ethiopians were in, when they had before boasted of their great achievements, she fell deeply in love with him; and upon the prevalency of that passion, sent to him the most faithful of all her servants to discourse with him upon their marriage. he thereupon accepted the offer on condition she would procure the delivering up of the city; and gave her the assurance of an oath to take her to be his wife, and that when he had once taken possession of the city, he would not break his oath to her. no sooner was the agreement made, but it took effect immediately; and when moses had cut off the ethiopians, he gave thanks to god, and consummated his marriage, and led the egyptians back to their own land" (josephus, chap. v.) these are simple facts, wherein god plays no part. it is a human transaction, a conflict of forces; the strongest and most skillful wins. and when the last place of refuge, the fortress, is besieged, and the ethiopians are thoroughly beaten, the place seeming impregnable, the army discouraged, a woman, the king's daughter, betrays it, and moses is victorious. thermutis, his mother by adoption, raised him and educated him after the manner of princes. he was a great favorite. her influence gave him not only her protection, advice, and information, but other great advantages such as no other being could obtain, she being constantly at court and a sister to the king. it was no small glory, as well as experience, he reaped. that conquest made him the first man in the land. that jealousies, antagonism and hatred were engendered against him by his rivals, that conspiracies were formed, may readily be imagined, and that finally his life was threatened. finding it rather dangerous to remain in the country, since he was being closely watched, and all the roads were guarded, and being no doubt fully informed of the plot, moses fled. "he took flight through the deserts, where his enemies could not suspect he would travel; though he was destitute of food, he went on, and despised that difficulty courageously" (jos.). moses was born in b.c., and was made general of the egyptian army when he was about thirty-five or thirty-seven years of age. in b.c. he fled from egypt and arrived at midian. he made the acquaintance of a priest named raguel or jethro--his future father-in-law, for he married zipporah, jethro's daughter. aaron, his brother, three years older, being born b.c., must have been a man of considerable influence. he remained during moses's absence in egypt. the exodus of the israelites from egypt took place in . daring his forty years' stay with jethro he minded his cattle near mount sinai, where many supposed wonders are related to have occurred. that moses was not idle is self-evident. a man of that particular type could not remain inactive. what took place between him and aaron or between him and thermutis his stepmother is not recorded in history. that some systematic organization did take place is very probable. that all followed in the ordinary course of human events, is to be presumed. and that the plans were laid and matured, how these people were to be molded into a nation, and in what manner they were to leave egypt, we cannot have a reasonable doubt. it is more than likely that after the successful conquest, he was fired with the ambition to become a ruler himself. envy and jealousy prevented his ever assuming the crown of egypt, but what was to hinder him becoming the head and leader of his own people? in his solitary wanderings about mount sinai, he was inspired with the thought of delivering his own people, especially as the pharaoh, his former protector, was dead. having all the necessary material at hand in court and out of court, he proceeded to carry out his plans. moses was the man who created jehova. ex. vi, : "and i appeared unto abraham and isaac, and unto jacob by the name of god almighty; but by my name jehova was i not known to them." not likely! abraham, isaac, and jacob were of little or no culture. they were herdsmen who simply differed from their neighbors by substituting an imaginary god for the numerous images and idols that were then in fashion. they had not the remotest idea of the meaning of the god they worshiped, such as moses now put into the word god. it was no longer a mere abstract copy with him--a thing to dispute, to reason, to argue about. to moses it became a stern reality. the brain, the nervous system, the senses, the faculties, had undergone a revolution during the four hundred years. moses, with all the scholastic advantages, raised and educated to rule and govern man and nations, ambitious for power, a great general, a man of determination and force, a man that was capable of plotting against plotters, conspiring against conspirators, who deliberately and shrewdly went to work to organize his people--he conceived then the idea that the simple old-fashioned adonay--lord--had lost its importance, being a common-place, every-day god among the hebrews. he invented the unpronounceable jehova. it makes little difference whence it is derived, whether from io, jovis, jupiter, etc. jehova and mount sinai are inseparable. moses knew every stone and crag about that mountain. a man does not live near a mountain, especially a man of great vigor, action, and intellect, but that he observes every nook, every spot, every footpath, and every turn. the conception of jehova originated at mount sinai; and later the power, the establishing and the realization, of his ambition, of his jehova, took place. the miraculous pretensions and the wonderful workings that appear in the scriptural phraseology were no doubt necessary for the purpose of carrying out the scheme moses had concocted. in modern times we can regard it only as a very peculiar method of writing up a history. moses had his emissaries and leaders among his people. when they were told about the wonderful occurrences about mount sinai, and what the great jehova said to moses, the story was rehearsed and repeated--about the promised land, their preservation, their liberty. of course, what could they do otherwise than yield? their hopes were elated, and they were really interested, and believed that the god of their forefathers had sent moses as their deliverer. moses had already their confidence by his past history. the hero, the great conqueror of the ethiopians, the savior of egypt--that alone was an immense prestige. but when it was announced that the jehova, the lord god, etc., had said this and that to him, that he commanded him to do this and that, where is the miracle, where is the wonder, that they obeyed? when moses found that the hebrews would be obedient to whatsoever he should direct, as they promised to be, and were in love with liberty, he began his negotiations with the king of egypt, who had but lately received the government. as to his contest with the egyptian priests in performing their respective tricks, called miracles, what wonder that these ignorant creatures believed, when we find stupid people enough of all nations that believe in the miraculous cures of an old rag, purporting to have belonged to christ or some one else? whatever was done, and how it was done, we shall never know. that there was nothing supernatural about the transaction is absolutely certain. the people may have believed it to be supernatural, as many millions believe to this day. you may believe a circle to be square, but that does not make it so. the untutored brain is surprised at a trifle, astonished at what it does not understand, and regards every new trick as a miracle. neither abraham, isaac, nor jacob could perform miracles. they had no use for them, knew nothing of them, and really had not the talent to produce them. miracles had not been invented, or become the fashion. moses was undoubtedly a proficient master of the magic arts, and accomplished his purpose thereby. after all, those performances were simply a side-show. he knew the strength of his people. a general of his capacity does not undertake a task of that magnitude without calculating the convincing force to back his demands. six hundred thousand men on foot--besides children and women--organized under leaders, and no doubt equipped and ready for any emergency--an army of that size means a revolution of no small importance to a state. to avert greater danger, egypt let them go. henceforth moses is the imperial master of the situation, the dictator, the ruler, the lawgiver, as determined as he is imperious--"i am the lord thy god." and the man moses knew what he was talking about, and the class of people he was talking to. he was the organizer of the nation, the creator of jehova, the intimate of god. no other man throughout the bible before or after moses pretended to talk with god face to face except moses. and moses alone shall come near the lord (ex. xxiv, ). and he took every care that no other man should discover his secret workings. "i am that i am;" that is moses. "thus shalt thou say unto the children of israel, i am hath sent me unto you" (ex. iii, ). who but a man accustomed to command and be obeyed would dare use such language? moses was fully familiar with the locality; and mount sinai, where he developed his scheme, he would permit no one to approach. "take heed to yourself that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it; whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death" (ex. xix, ). he would brook no nonsense. he kept these poor ignoramuses in constant terror, in constant dread, of his jehova. these precautions were used, and terrible things threatened, so that no one should intrude upon his privacy on the mountain, and no doubt were necessary in order to secure his success. we have no clear account of the manner in which these people left egypt. the population must have numbered close upon three millions. this is entirely omitted. what god said to moses, and moses said to god, is continually repeated, but historical facts are wanting. we learn one important fact, however--they did not leave poor. when they departed from egypt this multitude had to be kept busy, otherwise they would lose confidence in jehova and in moses, and relapse into making images. what kind of a god was this jehova? in ex. xxxi we find him giving directions about working in brass, silver, gold, furniture, designating who should work at it; but god himself turns stone-mason--in verse we find two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written by the finger of god. if god had a finger, he had a whole hand. if he had one hand he may have had two. to write needs practice, sight, brain, and all other parts belonging to a man. no doubt, when the tables, etc., were written, it was done by a man. as to the ten commandments, they were not new with moses. they were a codification of chaldean and egyptian laws. the day of rest was recognized long ago in those slave-making days. it was a principle of economy, power-saving. six of the commandments are natural laws and are instinctively obeyed even among lower animals. all other laws were adopted from recognized customs and usages of the people, mostly taken from the egyptians, with some few alterations, perhaps, suitable to the existing emergency. when this republic was founded, there were actually no new laws made, but old laws modified to suit our case; thus the constitution was framed. moses did precisely the same thing. the laws were the recognized habits, practices, customs, laws, usages, long established among the nations in that region. and god, or jehova, had as much to do with the framing of them as he had with the constitution of this nation. leviticus may be truly called the cookery-book of jehova. just think of it, that god himself told them what to select and how to cook it. they were instructed to forsake the idols or the images of god, but retained the grosser barbaric practices of sacrificing. the detailed account given of the bill of fare is interesting. for a full description we beg to refer the reader to leviticus. human nature was strong in moses. he did what any man high in the affairs of a state would do. he installed his own relations into office--first his own tribe, the levites. these were immediately installed as a permanent bureaucracy, as well as aristocracy. they were the rulers, lawmakers, preachers, doctors, etc. (num. i, , et seq.). his brother aaron and his sons were at once installed in the permanent offices. a hereditary aristocracy was established and consecrated as priests of the nation (lev. viii). and the tribe of levi were also selected to minister unto the priests, aaron and sons. the actions of this supposed god are very curious, and even amusing. he assumes so many shades of color, character, and passion, just as a man would under various degrees of excitement, disappointment, and discontent. "whenever moses found it necessary to act with promptness and resolution he found it convenient to use his lord god, jehova, and usually with excellent effect. but when korah, dathan, and abiram rebel moses gives god advice (num. xvi, ). "and moses was very wroth, and said unto the lord: respect not thou their offering." he at once suppresses the rebellion with a strong hand and puts an end to it. wipe out of the biblical story the dust and cob-webs of superstition and ignorance, cleanse it of the mire and dirt of barbarism, and you find in moses a man of action, sagacity, and determination; skillful in the arts of war; a man of great will power, energy, and pluck, breaking down all barriers, overcoming all obstacles, conquering all difficulties, in order to secure the final success of his immense undertaking; the creator of jehova, the great i am, the maker of god, the leader of a great army, the organizer of a nation, the lawmaker, the lawgiver, the molder and master mind of this great work. his stratagem to preserve the egyptian army from serpents by filling baskets with ibises, who devour and destroy serpents, is an instance of his foresight, leading his army safely through the swamps without damage, during the war with the ethiopians. the great feature of moses's mount sinai expedition, and his absence for forty days, and the production of the ten commandments, keeps the theological world in a constant stew of wonder and admiration. from the point of reason, common sense, and the light we have now, there is nothing remarkable or wonderful about the forty days' absence or the ten commandments. moses was provided with all the food he needed, and all the assistance he needed, during his stay in the mountain. his own family, as well as his wife's relatives, knew all about the mountain, while the masses were kept at a respectful distance, on penalty of death. what are these ten commandments? . one god (the concentrated essence of the } chaldean gods), worship him only. } natural laws of . have no other god, image, etc. } self-preservation . don't swear by god. } and . rest on the seventh day (economy of } self-protection. muscular forces). } . honor thy parents. } . do not commit murder. . do not commit adultery. . do not steal. . do not bear false witness. . do not desire another man's property. all these laws had been in existence centuries before the coming of moses. nations had already adopted them, as a matter of necessity. crimes of murder and robbery, etc., were familiar among the chaldeans and other nations. when isaac sent messengers to nahor in order to secure rebeka for his wife, they had to pass through mesopotamia, "in which it was tedious traveling, both in winter, for a depth of clay, and in summer for a want of water; and besides this, for the robberies there committed" (jos.). it must be remembered that society had reached a degree of organization and civilization; that these fundamental principles, these natural laws, are observed to a considerable extent even among the lower animals, and that they were strictly enforced in every barbarian as well as more civilized community. in the codification of these laws by moses there is nothing wonderful, nothing miraculous, supernatural. the whole matter consisted in the adoption of these fundamental principles, these common-law usages, and the proclaiming of them as the laws to govern this newly organized nation, as all other nations had done centuries before them. the laws incorporated in the book of leviticus, etc., consisting in the regulation or government of the nation, appointing communities or families, dealing with food, dress, sacrifice, crime and its punishment, trade, commerce, domestic affairs, marriage, and above all church affairs, were mostly adoptions from other nations with certain modifications, written up in the manner we find them. the supernatural phenomena recited in the bible in the books of moses--what descended from heaven, clouds, pillars, earthquakes, thunder, lightning, rain, deluge, fire, etc., on and about mount sinai--and that god performed these wonders to oblige moses, because he exercised his influence in prayer upon jehova--form the greatest piece of nonsense that ever was written. clouds belong to the earth, are composed of earthly elements, are taken from the surface of the earth by a natural process and return to the earth by a natural process. neither god nor man can influence them. the same may be said of all other phenomena. water cannot be composed from any other elements than oxygen and hydrogen, and the silly theological twaddle cannot change it. what we ought to know is, at least something of the natural. the more we know of the natural the less we believe of the supernatural--in fact, the latter has largely disappeared. in time, let us hope, these childish delusions will be regarded as some of the remnants of the past and infantile ages of humanity. in all ages and at all times, men of great merit have been admired and honored by mankind. but the mythology and theology that enshrouds ancient heroes, the deification, the supernaturalism, the sanctity, the holiness, and the delusions that accompany and surround their actions, are entirely superfluous. we have outgrown these fables. and truly, these imaginary attributions, these visionary productions, have outlived their usefulness. whether it be moses, david, alexander, hannibal, cæsar, charlemagne, cromwell, frederick the great, napoleon, or washington, they were men, nothing but men, and their actions, as also the great good resulting from their actions, that benefited humanity, were natural, not influenced in any way or shape by the smallest particle of supernaturalism. josephus speaking of moses says: "he was one that exceeded all men that ever were in understanding, and made the best use of what understanding suggested to him. he had a very grateful way of speaking and addressing himself to the multitude. as to his other qualifications, he had such a full command of his passions, as if he hardly had any such in his soul, and only knew them by their names, as rather perceiving them in other men than himself. he was also such a general of an army as was seldom seen, as well as such a prophet as was never known, and this to such a degree that whatsoever he pronounced, you would think you heard the voice of god himself" (b. iv, ch. viii, ). the following verse in the bible is undoubtedly true: "and there was not a prophet since in israel like unto moses, whom the lord knew face to face." moses deserves all the credit for molding the chaldean god into shape, for creating jehova, and for inventing prophets and the jewish oracles. these oracles, or pretended consultations or inquiries of god, whether heathen or hebrew, were all of a similar nature and character. whenever the question asked was concerning the success or non-success of a battle, whether they should fight or not, the answer depended on the circumstances and the condition of affairs. if the army was well disciplined, had a good leader, a good general, better than the enemy, they were going to fight. if not so well organized, weaker numerically, or with an indifferent general, they would let fighting alone. the priests if well informed would give either a positive or a negative answer, but if they knew nothing about either party, they would deliver the answer of the oracle in such dubious expressions or terms, that let what would happen to the inquirer, the answer might be accommodated or explained to mean the event that came to pass. the expressions of the bible during and after the time of moses are of oracular form, and for that reason of a dubious nature, of marvelous elasticity, accommodating any and every opinion or inquiry, susceptible of a vast variety of interpretations. many portions may be made to mean anything or everything. there being nothing positive about these biblical expressions, followers of these doctrines have been explaining and explaining. and as new views or opinions are set afloat, clever talkers explain and explain, and grow enthusiastic in explaining. and as fashions change, the explanations change. for centuries these explanations and interpretations have been going on--over what? among the jews there were several sorts of oracles: as, first, those that were delivered viva voce, as when god spoke to moses; secondly, prophetic dreams, as those of joseph and others; thirdly, visions, as when a prophet in an ecstasy, a nervous, excitable condition, being properly neither asleep nor awake, had what they called supernatural revelations; fourthly, when they were accompanied with the wearing of an ephod, or the pectoral worn by the high priest, who was endowed with the gift of foretelling future things upon extraordinary occasions; and fifthly, by consulting the prophets or messengers sent by god. moses was the first great prophet, the first great general, the first great lawgiver, the first and only organizer, and with his death god, jehova, ceases to be active. everything appears wonderful or miraculous if we do not understand it, or are ignorant and credulous. thus it was with the manna, that usually falls in certain seasons of the year in that region. even moses himself did not know what it was, until it had stuck to his hands and he had tasted it. it was no special favor to the jews. it falls for all creatures alike, but is not used until it is discovered that it has reached the season when it is good to eat. nevertheless, it is in our bible accounted a miracle. no man has ever performed a miracle except to deceive or delude another, who is ignorant of what he is performing, or how it is performed. miracles are natural events occurring to those that are ignorant, or of little understanding; or they are intentionally performed with the intent to deceive, delude, or defraud. god himself, all believers should know, cannot perform a miracle, contrary to the laws of nature--whether it be the laws governing planets or the laws that govern the various phenomena that appear from time to time on earth. all are simply the result of some natural process. what shrewdness moses used, whatever cunning, whatever diplomacy, whatever wisdom or courage, was the production of his own will power, the evolution of his own brain, acquired by education and training. he utilized these powers to gain his ends, to the best advantage and welfare of the people he was trying to organize. he may have fully believed in the oracles he invoked, the conception of his own powerful imagination. he may have inspired himself by a concentration of nervous force, stimulated by the immense responsibility that rested upon him. the solitude he enjoyed in the mountain was of great service to his reflecting mind. it gave him an opportunity to analyze every detail, think over every circumstance, form his ideas and his plans. that it was to him a sanctuary, a holy retreat, we can easily imagine, as every place that becomes a retreat for great thinkers is a sanctum to them, and where, when they are deliberating, communing with themselves, it is no place for strangers to intrude. we must, however, not lose sight of an important fact--that whatever may be the products of the brain, of the nervous system, however stimulated or inspired the workings of the imagination and the production of ideas, evolving powerful thoughts, and however sublime and beautiful they may be, they are the effect of the educated faculties; the result of the combined forces of the great nervous centers. notwithstanding the sagacity and cleverness of moses, the barbarism and brutality of the age in which he lived was predominant in all his actions towards his enemies. neither god nor jehova had any mitigating sentiment, neither pity nor mercy. the ark was a superstitious symbol, and the priest the ready tool to carry out any system to deceive and delude the masses. the ark, the creation of moses, aaron, jethro & co., was nothing more than an idol of another form. whether the idol is in the image of somebody or a four-cornered box wherein lies the difference? for several centuries this wooden box plays an important role among these half-civilized barbarians. they were no better than their neighbors, and were not any farther advanced in civilization than the neighboring nations were--indeed, not so much. how christianity can hold that book, the bible, as sacred, as a guide for the present civilized age, is indeed a greater wonder and a far more complicated miracle than ever was performed in the bible. the superstitious, cowardly army of joshua refused to cross the river jordan, but the miracle was performed when the priest carried the ark across the river--which was fordable, because they could see the sand at the bottom, and the stream was neither strong nor swift. so the army forded the stream, following the wooden box. the same box was used before the walls of jericho. the falling of the walls is related in a mysterious fashion, but the slaughter of men, women, and children is made quite plain. the only thing saved was that prostitute rahab who betrayed the city--and that was all the doings of god and the box. joshua sends to ai three thousand men, and the israelites get beaten. then after some hocus-pocus joshua goes to ai with thirty thousand and he beats them, "and all the men and women that were killed at ai were twelve thousand" (josh, viii, ). and then he hanged the king of ai (verse ). and this was a miraculous victory. every natural phenomenon was interpreted as a miracle. a hailstorm, an aerial phosphorescence imitating sun and moon, the clouds, thunder, etc.--are all miracles, if they help to beat the enemy. and after the slaying was done the kings were hanged (x, ). altogether, joshua conquered thirty-one kings and took possession of their territories. these kingdoms could not have been very large affairs, since the whole land is not very large. the presumption is that superior numbers and better leadership in reality won the day. when the strong hand of moses and joshua has disappeared (jehova is no longer the stronghold) quarrels, outrages, and discontent arise. eleven tribes retire from the field of action. judah, the warrior tribe, does the fighting. the levites, this aristocratic tribe, watch and guide the nation, dwelling in the forty cities assigned to them. i mention these two tribes especially on account of the important role they play hereafter. a few statements of the mere facts will suffice. joshua dies in b.c. othniel succeeds. judah's military force fights and beats the canaanites. discord and fighting continue, until eglon the king of moab enslaves them, b.c. when eglon is killed they are freed for a short period, when jabin the canaanite subdues them. they are again freed and again enslaved, and so on. meantime they have their heroes, as shamgar, who kills six hundred philistines with an ox-goad, and samson, who kills one thousand philistines with a jawbone of an ass, etc. i will append to this chapter a description of some events of moses's career from tacitus, chapter iii: "many authors agree, that when once an infectious distemper was arisen in egypt and made men's bodies impure, bocchorius, their king, went to the oracle of (jupiter) hammon and begged he would grant him some relief against this evil, and he was enjoined to purge his nation of them, and to banish this kind of men into other countries, as hateful to the gods. that when he had sought for, and gotten them all together, they were left in a vast desert; that hereupon the rest devoted themselves to weeping and inactivity; but one of those exiles, moses by name, advised them to look for no assistance from any of the gods or from any of mankind, since they had been abandoned by both, but bade them believe in him, as in a celestial leader, by whose help they had already gotten clear of their present miseries. they agreed to it; and though they were unacquainted with every thing, they began their journey at random: but nothing tried them so much as want of water; and now they laid themselves down on the ground to a great extent, as just ready to perish, when a herd of wild asses came from feeding, and went to a rock overshadowed by a grove of trees. moses followed them, as conjecturing that there was (thereabouts) some grassy soil, and so opened large sources of water for them." chapter iv: "as for moses, in order to secure the nation firmly to himself, he ordained new rites, and such as were contrary to other men. all things are with them profane which with us are sacred; and again, those practices are allowed among them which are by us esteemed most abominable. they sacrifice rams by way of reproach to (jupiter) hammon. an ox is also sacrificed, which the egyptians worship under the name of apis," etc. chapter xi. samuel the kingmaker--the warwick of antiquity. our forefathers of antiquity, no matter to what nation they belonged, dressed every important event with a halo of mystery--fable, myth, and miracle. they knew no better. the mind, the brain, the senses, had reached a stage of development that might well be called childish, with sensuality and selfishness predominating. fighting, cruelty, and lust were the leading actions prompted. and as in the case of children, ghosts and hobgoblins scared them, shadows and darkness frightened them, unusual sights and noises surprised and alarmed them. and in their calmer moments they wondered. and any natural phenomenon was interpreted as miraculous if it aided any undertaking, and resulted favorably to them. wealth and women were considered the capital prizes in those days. (that was three thousand years ago; how is it with us?) they were men in physique, but children in the development of their mental faculties. it was then as it is now--every man talks about that which is uppermost in his mind; he makes his comparisons with those things he is most familiar with; his illustrations are drawn from those objects he sees most frequently; his language never extends beyond the number of words at his command; his memory is only equal to the number of things he has stored away; his mind is made up or composed of those ideas that he has gathered from the experience of his senses; his ideas from the number of objects he has come in contact with; his knowledge consists of that which he has learned; his thoughts and reflections extend to that which he knows and never beyond; his understanding depends on all these; and comparatively speaking, few men are in advance of the age in which they live. ideas, like other things terrestrial, have their birth, growth, development, maturity, and decline, and finally they partially or wholly disappear. the birth of the idea of god, without the various objective representations, had its origin in the mind of man; abraham being the first, or supposed to be the first, man who conceived the notion that these images, idols, were not the proper thing. he doubted the quality of the gods, and the principal objection to these idols was that they had ears that did not hear, eyes that could not see, etc., etc., but the new god, the later jehova, could. the strangest of all inconsistencies lies in the fact that while they endowed him with the human faculties, passions, emotions, desires, and feelings, there is nothing tangible about his body. nothing was accomplished with this god during several centuries in egypt. moses brought his jehova out--as a stern reality. he skillfully manipulated the idea. his own intellect and experience, his force and character, were concentrated in this jehova. his masterly organization, his discipline, his impressive sternness, imperative and imperial, his stupendous will power, left a lasting impress upon this people during the four centuries. this idea was nursed, nourished, and sustained by the levites, and when they found their influence was waning they established a concentrated form of government by selecting a sanhedrin or council of seventy and electing the most eligible person they could find on the recommendation of samuel as their king. this king was saul, whose reign, fortunately or unfortunately, did not last very long. competition and struggle with other nations had, if anything, an educational tendency. as they grew numerically stronger, jealousies arose. ambitious men were grasping for power, and contending faction naturally was the result. the story about the lost asses is like that about another ass we have heard of, that saw the angel and talked--we have many such, even at the present day. these stories are excellent fabrications to entertain juveniles with. and people must be precious asses to believe this nonsense, that god would be such an ass as to interfere with these asses. but something occurred which was perfectly human, and shows the character of the man. it happened to be one of those critical moments in a nation's existence. nahash the ammonite had made war against israel, and encamped against jabest-gilead. saul hearing of it, he did as follows ( sam. xi, ): "and he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coast of israel by the hands of messengers, saying, whosoever cometh not forth after saul and after samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. and the fear of the lord fell upon the people, and they came out with one consent." thus saul collected an army of three hundred thousand men. that is what may be termed practical politics. he was victorious over the ammonites. as to the prisoners of war, whether captured or having given themselves up, he caused their right eyes to be put out. he plucked their right eyes out, making them useless for war in the future. when he went to war against the philistines, his army observed how numerous the enemy were. god's army was scared and hid in caves. so he sent to samuel to consult the oracle, like any other respectable heathen. he also made a conquest of the amalekites, whom he utterly destroyed. the hebrews and these people had a grudge of several centuries' standing, because when the jews went out of egypt they requested permission to pass through the amalekites' country, which was refused them (ex. xvii, et seq.). but saul offended god by saving agag, the king of the amalekites, so said samuel ( sam. xv, , ). "then samuel said, bring ye hither to me agag, the king of the amalekites. and agag came to him delicately. and agag said, surely the bitterness of death is passed. and samuel hewed agag in pieces before the lord in gilgal." saul's tenderness and mercy towards agag displeased the stern, cruel priest and soldier. his, agag's, life had to pay the penalty of death, by the hand of the priest himself, for an offense his forefathers were presumed to have been guilty of, several centuries before. all barbarities, cruelties, and slaughter were done in jehovah's, god's, the lord's, name. the same pious crimes were repeated centuries later, under the pretext of doing some imaginary brutal god a great favor. for this transgression saul is rejected by this priestly warwick. for this human action this wily priest denounces him, and saul's act of kindness is interpreted by this domineering priest as a crime against his god. to carry out his political scheme, samuel went to beth-lehem. "and the elders of the town trembled at his coming" ( sam. xvi, ). the revengeful priest, with a nerve of iron and a will of steel, was not going to stand any nonsense. saul had not obeyed him to the letter--it is, off with your head! samuel with all the church palaver, priest discipline, and pious hypocrisy, selects a successor, without compunction, without ceremony, and david is anointed to reign instead of saul. from this time forth to the end of his life saul is constantly in hot water. he slinks to his home at gibeah ( sam. xv, ) like a whipped cur, rejected and excommunicated by the priest. full of apprehension and fear, he blunders at every step he takes. the priestly influence is gone, and god has departed from him and is now with david. the crafty samuel uses the expression, when others question the propriety of his action: "men do not see as god seeth." no! men must have no will except the priest's will. harassed and maddened by priestly cunning, jealous and angered at david's success in acts of heroism, saul loses courage, as well as prestige with the people, to such an extent that david finds it not a difficult task to organize a small army of his own, carrying on a sort of desultory war on his own account. samuel dies, having governed his people twelve years himself, and jointly with saul eighteen years. he was the greatest man, priest, and general since the times of moses, a man of singular sagacity and courage, no doubt right royal and honest in his intentions and to his nation. samuel did more to solidify the nation, and terrify neighboring nations, to infuse courage in his people and inspire them to acts of heroism, than any other of the judges, or any other man, during this period. a curious incident is related of the manner in which samuel came into the world. it is the first one of its kind in the bible. hannah, the wife of elkanah, had no children, or as the bible phrase has it, "the lord had shut up her womb" ( sam. i, , ). so she continued praying before the lord, and eli the priest marked her mouth (verse ). she conceived and bore a son, and she named him samuel. and eli the priest adopted samuel. "and the child did minister unto the lord before eli the priest" (ii, ). what the relations were between hannah and eli is not known, but that his own sons were not very righteous is testified to by the following passage ( sam. ii, ): "now eli was very old, and heard all that his sons did unto all israel; and how they lay with the women that assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation." it was not an unusual thing, in the temples of the heathens, for women to accommodate the gods whenever they felt piously inclined; and also the priests lost no opportunity to gratify their saintly passions, or permit others to gratify theirs so long as it was to benefit the church. samuel's father, or rather reputed father, did not belong to the priestly tribe. he was an ephrathite. eli his adopted father belonged to the priestly caste. i simply cite this story to show how completely human these holy jehovaists were. many crimes and disreputable acts were committed under the very shadow of the lord. yet jehova was pleased with anything these priests delighted in. eli was a heavy man (iv, ). fat, which i suppose they meant, shows he was a good liver. he broke his neck by falling off his seat on hearing the ark was taken by the philistines and israel beaten. when samuel took the reins of government he was still young. he subdued the philistines, regained the ark, and reorganized and consolidated the nation. he made saul king and general, and a stream of prosperity followed; the choice was a good one, and saul served his nation well so long as he was obedient to samuel's commands. saul's humanity got the better of him, he offended this stern, dictatorial priest, and lost his favor. david, his rival, was already chosen and in the field, on whom all samuel's influence and priestly glory was shed. now god deserted saul and his cause. henceforth the lord was with david. samuel was the first and only kingmaker; saul and david were his handiwork. he was a priest, a soldier and a statesman of more than ordinary capacity and qualities, far superior to any of the judges that governed israel during the last four centuries. he was stern and severe, but without blemish otherwise. he was, as far as we can learn from history, a relentless and cruel man towards his enemies. he was of immense will-power, resolute and energetic. he was honored to an extraordinary degree by the people for whom he accomplished so much. he left the nation at his death more firmly united than it had ever been--with an organized army, a stable government, and a well-filled treasury. it was samuel that really raised the nation to the utmost hight that it ever attained, for he laid the foundation for solomon's glory, the zenith of hebrew nationality. it is he that closes the second period of national life, the people having attained under him its maximum standing as a nation, and the greatness which culminated in solomon, and the only political unity as a nation that the hebrews ever had. a parallel may be drawn between the two periods. the egyptian period: four centuries or so pass without anything being done, until a man rises possessing the necessary qualifications to mold these people into a nation. the second period consists of a struggle with other nations, almost continuously, to exist. necessities arise; men present themselves who seize the opportunity to fill up the want for the time being, until the coming of samuel, the right man, at the right time, for the right place. he closes the second act of the hebrews' struggle for nationality by giving them a centralized form of government, and placing a king at their head to rule them. all the transactions of his life were human, natural. his conduct was perfectly in harmony with the age he lived in. the nation as a whole had become a little more civilized, and had reached as high a point of intelligence as it ever attained--that is, as a nation. thus far we have not seen anything in their history that other nations had not to contend with. to attribute their acts, individually or as a nation, to any supernatural power, to god, jehova, or the lord, is preposterous. in their dealings, their fightings, their cruelty, their brutality, their superstition, and their ignorance, they were in no sense superior to any of the contemporaneous nations. they were no better in their conduct than their neighbors. the strongest had always the best of it; the conquered had to submit to slavery or be killed, women are captured and used, and the plunder is divided. notwithstanding the priestly rule of the levites, the hebrews are constantly relapsing into idolatry, brought back to the fold, and relapsing again. the church was at this time used for all sorts of corrupt purposes. the jehova that had been brought into the theological world with such an immense boom by moses had expended a good deal of its original force. the remembrance of that stupendous crisis of the hebrew national existence was kept alive and the flames were fanned by priestly interest. the god after moses, the jehova, had shrunk into the lord, and the ark was the representative of god. "the ark of god was taken," ... "when she heard tidings of the ark of god" ( sam. iv, etc.). and the success or failure of the hebrews depended on the man who led them. with a weak man as general or leader they were beaten, with a strong man they won. other nations meanwhile had sprung into life, and become powerful, without jehova--without the god of the hebrews. they had, however, idols and images, which seemed to behave with far greater propriety than the god of israel. so well did these mythological deities manage their affairs, that they almost swallowed up the whole hebrew race. samuel, having established a kingdom, and crowned two kings, saul and david, dies, leaving these two competitors in the field. chapter xii. god save the king! that was the shout, with the commencement of the new era, when the tallest man in the nation appeared in the midst of the people that had assembled at the call of samuel ( sam. x, ). i will give a short chronology of this united kingdom under three kings--saul, david, and solomon: saul is made king dies rules over israel about years david born kills goliath reigns in hebron king over israel dies rules over israel about years solomon is born is crowned king lays foundation of temple dedicates the temple worships idols dies rules over israel about years these figures may not be accurate. they are as near as the dates can be had. josephus gives the dates as follows: saul reigned with samuel years after the death of samuel  ,,   david lived  ,,   reigned in hebron yrs m   ,,    ,, jerusalem years solomon lived  ,,   having reigned  ,,   there is a discrepancy somewhere. something is wrong in dates, like most other facts in the bible. david was twenty-three years old when he killed goliath. solomon was twenty-one years old when he was crowned king; according to josephus, fourteen years of age. we have no further interest in the dates of those men, but more in their acts and character. being the rulers of god's own chosen people--with jehova for a pilot, protector, and guide--with the wooden box, the ark, with all its mysterious secrets and its holy enchantments; priests, prophets, and sacrifices, with all their secret necromantic performances, these three men, with all their godly professions, were no better than they should have been, even for the age in which they lived. they were brutal, gross, and licentious. barbarous crimes were committed by them, with the sanction of their preposterous imaginary god--who is lauded at this present day to the very echo, but the most stupendous piece of folly that ever was palmed off on civilized humanity. saul, the first king, in exercising his terrible cruelty towards his enemies perhaps only followed the practices and customs of other nations. why this bloodthirsty man caused persons to be murdered; why he slaughtered all the inhabitants of nob, men, women, and children, because abimelech the priest supplied david with food, are some of those things that pulpit orators can best explain. the life of the priest was not sufficient to expiate the offense he had committed, but saul had his whole family exterminated. the ark was no longer available. jehova had taken the juvenile david in hand. the priestly oracle refused to be consulted. he, saul, had recourse to a fortune-telling woman of endor, who was employed to call up the spirit of samuel. saul's jealousies, his quarrels with david, and all his misdeeds, as well as bravery, may be read by those that feel an interest in the matter. he finally committed suicide by falling on his own sword, and the next day the philistines cut his and his sons' heads off, and deposited them before their idols, dagon, etc. where was god? can it be possible that our christian neighbors believe that the life and conduct of saul was directed by any supreme power? that god directed saul to do so many foolish, barbarous, and murderous acts? we shall probably be more interested in david, the man after god's own heart. david, like saul, was judiciously selected by samuel. david's acts and david's conduct were no different from the acts and conduct of any other man in his position and possessing his characteristics. he combined a good deal of philosophy with his bravery; if the psalms were written by him we have before us a higher type of brain culture, a mind that has undergone some training, is capable of analyzing its own feelings and giving expression to them. his comparisons never extend beyond that--beyond what he knows. he appeals to the higher qualities of men--their good acts, their virtues, their just conduct, their self-restraint, their passions, emotions, faults, and weaknesses. he recognizes them in others, and sees them reflected clearly in himself. his distress and his fears, his gladness and his joys, his trust in an unseen power, are all poetic, some sweet and sentimental. he speaks of his lord, of his god, as of the pleasant recollections of a dream. jehova had long since lost the stern reality of moses, and had changed with the changes the nation had undergone. the formalities had been kept up, the priestly luxuries had increased, the ceremonies were more formal and business-like, but the central power, the centralized government of the people, the mantle of authority, had been shifted from high priest to king. the god, jehova, was no longer the guide, the power it had been. for twenty-two years after the death of samuel, saul had conducted his government and fought his battles without god, ark, or priest, and sought advice and counsel from other and human sources. skeptics even at this early period began to doubt the existence of a god, "the fool saith in his heart, there is no god" (ps. xiv, ). the theocratic period of years from exodus to saul had already developed corruption in the church and licentiousness in the temple. the priestly power received a terrible blow at the hands of saul when he slaughtered the priest, abimelech, and his family, thus showing that the representative of god no longer inspired terror; that the priest was nothing more than any other man; that neither god, jehova, ark, nor any other sanctified paraphernalia could protect him, nor miracle interfere for his preservation. opinions were freely expressed, discussion arose, and arguments were not wanting to sustain the doubts that had arisen as to the genuineness, the truth, of the god they had adopted. neighboring nations had their gods. how was it, if their gods were not more potent, that they should win so many battles, and enslave the nation of the true god? the same or similar arguments that abraham brought to bear on the chaldean gods were now beginning to be used against jehova. david, besides being an excellent soldier, a brave general, was a dreamer, a man of imagination. god was to him a sublime vision, a reflected glory of the past. to him, an intense admirer of the beautiful, trees, hills, and valleys, and the phenomena of nature in general, were the wonders of his imaginary god. he was a musician, a poet, a dreamer, in his moments of leisure. everything he beheld courted, kindled his admiration, awoke new feeling in his sensitive nature, from a pretty flower to a beautiful woman. the conversations which he holds with his visionary god are the simplest and most confidential. he pours out his grievances and his delight to him. "thou hast put gladness in my heart.... i will both lay me down in peace and sleep" (ps. iv, , ). that christian translators of the bible presume to interpret certain passages and words to mean, to foretell, things or events that occurred one thousand years later, is an assumption, and warrantable neither by the text nor by the actions of the persons writing them. david is supposed to have written the psalms. when he speaks he refers mainly to himself, addresses himself personally to his lord. he, david, is himself interested. then again he speaks of man and things in general, without ever alluding to any one thing or body in the coming future. david's psalm ii is headed "the kingdom of christ." the writer had no more idea of christ than he had of peter the great at the time that that psalm was written. david wrote one hundred and fifty psalms as printed in the bible. in the headings, the superscriptions, the solicitude of christian believers, trying to torture meanings and significations out of sentences or expressions, led them to commit gross errors, as false as they are ridiculous. judge for yourself: psalm ii, --the kingdom of christ. "why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?" verse : "be wise, now therefore, o ye kings; be instructed ye judges of the earth." psalm xlv, --the majesty and grace of christ's kingdom. "my heart is inditing a good matter; i speak of the things which i have made touching the king; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer." verse --the duty of the church, etc. "hearken, o daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's house." psalm xlvi, --confidence which the church, etc. "god is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." psalm xlvii--the nations are exhorted cheerfully to entertain the kingdom of christ. psalm xlviii--the ornaments and privileges of the church. in not one of these psalms is there the slightest allusion to a church. it is the extravagant language of an exuberant mind, the outcome of an overwrought imagination upon the subject he was thinking about. psalm l, --the majesty of god in the church. psalm li, --he prayeth for the church. psalm lxviii, --for his care of the church. psalm lxxii, --david praying for solomon, etc.; and the truth of christ's kingdom. psalm xciii--the majesty and power of christ's kingdom. psalm cxviii, --coming of christ's kingdom, etc. the passage referred to, viz., verse , is: "open to me the gates of righteousness; i will go into them, and i will praise the lord." the absurdity of the interpretation is evident from the fact that out of one hundred and fifty psalms the christian bible-makers were able to find only five that could be twisted to make allusion to christ--the ii, xlv, lxxii, xcviii, and cxviii, and from these certain sentences were selected, and these verses have as much connection with christ or his kingdom as they have with the man in the moon. six of all the chapters are supposed to allude to the church; those are above cited. david had not the remotest notion what would or could happen at any time during his life, or at any time after his death. he was a child of circumstances like saul, and like many other men after and before them. the same may be said of moses and abraham. opportunity makes the man, if the man is fitting, able, to seize the opportunity when it occurs. no supernatural power had anything to do with any one of these men, or any man that figured in the bible, any more than god had to do with men that played prominent parts as leaders, rulers, kings, or governors of other nations. whatever power, skill, intellect, or imagination was developed, it was the proper sum-total of the experience, observation, and instruction of the world's progress. the hebrews perhaps had special advantages in some respects over other nations, through their migratory instinct or inclination. the contact with so many other nations gave them the advantage of a broader experience and a greater variety of culture. david had enjoyed special advantages. after his first heroic action, he became the leader of a band of desperadoes. and saul himself unwittingly helped him, by making the bargain with david that if he, david, brought him one hundred foreskins of the philistines, saul would give him his daughter michal for wife. david with his band of chosen men brought him two hundred, and thus obtained his wife michal. henceforth david leads a kind of bandit's life, with his six hundred brave followers, evading saul, who is in hot pursuit of him, and meantime fighting other nations, philistines, amalekites, etc.; levying contributions, making conquests, whenever and wherever there was a chance; falling in love easily and gracefully as the most expert leader of a gallant band. the pretty, attractive face of abigail, the wife of nabal, was an irresistible temptation. nabal died from fright, it is said. later in life when he happened to cast his eyes upon the beautiful nude figure of bathsheba, he immediately fell in love. since he was a man of action he satisfied his passion almost immediately, and poor uriah, a captain of his, was sent to the war to be killed. he was a shrewd and bold warrior, a great lover of woman, a philosopher and a poet. his psalms bear witness of his acts, deeds, and thoughts. in consequence of his overindulgence with women he contracted a disease, a disease of which he complains most bitterly. psalm iv: his bones are vexed, he is weary with groaning--"all night make i my bed to swim; i water my couch with my tears" (verse ). psalm xxxviii: he is in a sad plight: verse : "there is no soundness in my flesh;" verse : "my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness;" verse : "for my loins are filled with a loathsome disease; and there is no soundness in my flesh," etc. the gentleman in all probability was afflicted with a disease known as syphilis in its tertiary stage. there is more of it. a sober reading of these psalms will find them full of indications of human nature with its frailties, weaknesses, impulses, mixed with superstitious fear, a vivid imagination, and an excitable temperament. when his greatness had been established, many conquests made, great wealth accumulated, numerous victories gained, festivities were inaugurated. in order to honor god and the ark, david danced and jumped in complete undress before the box, in a true half-civilized fashion. we must not consider all these acts as faults. he simply followed the customs of the age. he was the highest representative type of the then struggling civilization. samuel began, saul developed, and david consummated a new era of this part of the world of human history--while other sections of the globe were keeping abreast in organizing and drilling the human race to a higher sort of culture, forming nations, establishing kingdoms, producing heroes, evolving lawgivers and poets, and advancing in the arts and war, etc. david died seventy years of age, leaving a large and numerous family. of his score of sons, there is none worth talking about, except solomon, his successor. the immense wealth he amassed laid the foundation for the glory of solomon, who spent it lavishly, luxuriously, freely. all in all david was an excellent character. he preserved the twelve tribes, exalting the nation, consolidating the government, making it respected and feared without, and giving them by his valor peace and security and prosperity for the next ruler and for the nation. this young gentleman, solomon, however, had been fed with a golden spoon. his senses and his passions were prematurely ripe. he did not have to search for opportunity; his desires were easily accommodated and satisfied. his indulgences were many and frequent, and his authority and arbitrariness were soon made manifest. he was surrounded with the best scholars of the day, and whatever facilities were then to be had were got, either in philosophical works or in other books. the higher studies consisted in close observance of moral conduct, and contemplation of the outer world without knowing anything more than the outward appearances. science, art, and mechanics were little known. the school of poesy had begun. theological disputes were in fashion, and thus theological doubt furnished ample food for conjecture, hypothesis, and imagination. men had already entered the field of controversy as to the falsity or the truth of the prevailing opinions. king solomon in all his glory was the greatest showman upon earth at the time he was living. let it be understood that it is not our purpose to write history. that has long since been exhausted; nothing new can be discovered. it may, however, be profitable to call attention to the fact that all these men that figure in the scripture were human, perfectly human. that they acted and spoke in accordance with the prevailing degree of intelligence and customs of nations. that in all their dealings and doings there is not one scintilla of evidence that they were anything else than perfectly natural. that they were struggling as a nation for a position among the family of nations. that their methods of warfare were no better than those of their neighbors. by good generalship, brave conduct, and hard fighting they gained influence, affluence, and prestige. by their conquests and victories they got into possession of a fair tract of land. by robbery and plunder they amassed an immense amount of wealth. by their continual successes under david's brave leadership they secured peace from their enemies, their surrounding neighbors; while those nations were subdued and weakened, the israelites became powerful and strong. a well-disciplined army, a strong and united nation, was the inheritance solomon received. he was the prince-royal--his father a clever king, and his mother the captain's wife, mrs. bathsheba, later queen-wife of david. he was the first real prince that had ever ruled israel--and also the one that caused their ruin, as a nation, by his extravagant and lascivious conduct. the scriptural story begins in kings, with the death of david. solomon, the prince of the blood, was now king in his stead. he ascended the throne when he was twenty-one years of age, having received every educational advantage of a prince. he, after moses, is the second ruler of israel that had been instructed and prepared for the high position he was about to occupy. that is the only comparison that can be made between him and moses. the latter was a giant of intellect, action, and determination, while the former was a luxurious debauchee and squanderer of his father's patrimony. why there should be so much adoration and adulation poured out on this man, i fail to see. because he built the temple and made profuse exhibition of his gold and silver? he could not have built it if his father had not plundered other nations, and given him, solomon, the money to build with. because he had an immense number of chariots and soldiers, decked with costly trappings? the money was there to provide these with, and later the people were pretty heavily taxed for his extravagance. the only real point of glory may perhaps lie in the fact that he had one thousand women to play with. we all know that he beats the record on that particular branch of human enterprise. there was truly none like him before or since. and lastly, we have his purported writings, consisting of the proverbs, ecclesiastes, and the songs of solomon. no sooner was he seated on his throne than he began to remove all objectionable persons, those that were likely to be troublesome or dangerous. his elder brother, adonijah, whose aspiration led him to great things, was dispatched by benaiah, solomon's future general. abiathar, the priest, he removed where he could do least damage. joab, david's general, who sought the altar of the temple for protection, solomon ordered benaiah to behead. zadock he made high priest in place of abiathar. shimei was the next man on the list for death, and benaiah received order to kill him. having removed all dangerous or antagonistic men, solomon settled himself firmly in his kingdom. those that are curious may read all about the temple, his house, the wall, cherubim, vessels and the like of gold, the royal palace, splendors, etc., etc. he became what is termed a glorious king, but luxury and women soon had their effect upon his judgment. he had reached the zenith of israel's greatness. he had touched the highest point of its eminence. it was the golden age of the hebrews--the age of pomp, pride, braggadocio, and exhilaration. jerusalem became the great center of attraction. everything obtainable was collected within its walls. no expense was spared. indeed, the city became the center of luxury, extravagance, and licentiousness. and solomon was surely, though slowly, paving the way for the destruction of the nation. the older he grew the worse he got. his reason gradually deserted him; he wasted his energy and his strength on his women, so that when he died he was despised, if not hated, by his people. and he left such a rotten condition of affairs that it tumbled to pieces almost before he was dead. in the course of human events, certain results follow a given line of conduct in the affairs of man. the current of events depends upon our actions, whether good or bad, better or worse. drain or waste of force and energy, of an individual or of a collective body as a community, state, or nation, slowly but surely weakens, undermining the natural healthy condition, and ultimately leads to a breaking down, and may bring about a final disintegration. solomon began his reign with an abundance. he had a plenty both of means and health; a most extraordinary opportunity, with an ample training and education; an immense, well-organized army; a stable, firm government, with a full quota of understanding or wisdom. as a rule men get wiser as they grow older. they acquire greater deliberation, sounder judgment, better understanding, more skill in the management of affairs, of man and of state. they are generally more conservative in their actions, more cautious in their dealings, more abstemious in their desires. their pleasures are restricted, their passions subdued, their wants few, and their pursuits in life so evenly regulated, their conduct so accurately adjusted, that a justice and a wisdom seem to guard every thought and every reflection. solomon's course was like that of a balloon. he started chockfull of wisdom. he was a marvel, and made a prodigious show. he was a startling phenomenon, the wonder of the age. (you know he asked god for wisdom and god gave it to him; why did not god keep him wise?) in old age he lacked wisdom. he had almost grown into a senseless imbecile. he was a squanderer of energy, a roué, a debauchee, a frivolous and licentious old man who frittered away his time and his brains on his women and their playthings. when the pomp, pride, vanity, show, and bluster of his youth and manhood were exhausted, all there was left was the remnants of a glaring painted show. he had, as it were, danced and skipped and capered, sung and spoken his lines, in a blaze of glory and extravaganza on the stage of human affairs; the curtain drops, and alas, you behold, when the paint and gorgeous dress are removed, a simpering, brainless old image-worshiper. but what a colossal church figure this man makes! what a miraculous personality he is made to be! what a wonderful creation of the christians' god! a pity some pope has not canonized him and manufactured him into a saint. as to his writings--if he really wrote them, and they were not compiled or written for him--it is to be regretted that his conduct was not regulated by them. a most astonishing perversion of truth is the attribution to the eight chapters of the song of solomon of the subject of the church's love unto christ. the following are the chief interpretations: chapter i, verse : "the song of songs, which is solomon's." meaning--the church's love unto christ. verse : "i am black, but comely, o ye daughters of jerusalem, as the tents of kedar, as the curtains of solomon." meaning--she confesseth her deformity. verse : "tell me, o thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon," etc. meaning--and prayeth to be directed to his flock. verse : "if thou know not, o thou fairest among women, go thy way forth," etc. meaning--christ directeth her to the shepherd's tent. verse : "i have compared thee, o my love, to a company of horses in pharaoh's chariots." meaning--and showing his love to her. verse : "we will make thee borders of gold and studs of silver." meaning--giveth her gracious promise. verse : "while the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof." meaning--the church and christ congratulate each other. chapter ii, verse : "i am the rose of sharon and lily of the valley." meaning--the mutual love of christ and his church. verse : "the voice of my beloved! behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills." meaning--the hope. verse : "my beloved spake and said unto me, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away." meaning--the calling of the church. verse : "o my dove, that art in the clefts of the rocks, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely." meaning--christ's care of the church. verse : "my beloved is mine and i am his: he feedeth among the lilies." meaning--the profession of the church, her faith and hope. chapter iii, verse : "by night on my bed i sought him whom my soul loveth: i sought him, but i found him not." meaning--the church's fight and victory in temptation. verse : "who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh, and frankincense, with all the powders of the merchant?" meaning--the church glorieth in christ. chapter iv, verse : "behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is like a flock of goats that appear from mount gilead." meaning--christ setteth forth the graces of the church. verse : "come with me from lebanon, my spouse," etc. meaning--he showeth his love to her. verse : "awake o north wind; and come thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. let my beloved come into his garden and eat his pleasant fruits." meaning--the church prayeth to be made fit for his presence. chapter v, verse : "i am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse. i have gathered my myrrh with my spice; i have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; i have drunk my wine with my milk; eat o friends; drink ye, drink abundantly, o beloved." meaning--christ awaketh his church with his calling. verse : "i sleep, but my heart waketh, it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undented; for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." meaning--the church having a taste of christ's love, is sick of love. verse : "what is my beloved more than another beloved, o thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?" meaning--a description of christ and his graces. chapter vi, verse : "whither is my beloved gone, o thou fairest among women? whither is my beloved turned aside? that we may seek him with them." meaning--the church professeth her faith in christ. verse : "thou art beautiful, o my love, as tirzah, comely as jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners." meaning--christ showeth the grace of the church. verse : "who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" meaning--and his love towards her. chapter vii, verse : "how beautiful are thy feet with shoes, o prince's daughter! the joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman." meaning--a further description of the church's graces. verse : "i am my beloved's, and his desire is towards me." meaning--"the church professeth her faith and desire." chapter viii, verse : "o that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! when i should find thee without, i would kiss thee; yea, i should not be despised." meaning--the love of the church to christ. verse : "set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is as strong as death; jealousy as cruel as the grave; the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame." meaning--the vehemency of love. verse : "we have a little sister; and she hath no breasts; what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?" meaning--the calling of the gentiles. verse : "make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountain of spices." meaning--the church prayeth for christ's coming. these are the verses specifically interpreted and marked for christian worshipers. it must be remembered that the most decent were selected. to say the interpretations are absurd, is putting it very mildly. solomon had no more idea of christ than he had of the laws of gravitation. he was describing and writing about that which was constantly occupying his mind and his time. he portrays a love-sick swain, with all the details that are pleasing both to his eye and to his fancy. he gloats and feeds upon his passions, thus: "his left hand should be under my head, and his right hand should embrace me" (viii, ). "how fair and how pleasant art thou, o love, for delights" (vii, ). "there are threescore queens and fourscore concubines, and virgins without number" (vi, ). "his mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely. this is my beloved," etc. (v, ). "thy lips, o my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue" (iv, ). "behold his bed, which is solomon's; threescore valiant men are about it," etc. (iii, ). "his left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me" (ii, ). "behold thou art fair, my love, behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes" (i, ). it is an outrage on decency even to attempt to construe the intent of these songs. the man sang about his woman, like any other swain who delights in his love. solomon enjoyed nude beauties, as many men do in our day, and he represented the various parts of the female anatomy most accurately. he reveled in the luxurious contemplation of them. pull down the curtain of hypocrisy and falsehood and let's have the truth--as it was, as it is. solomon died at a pretty fair old age, having lived ninety-four years. the country had been harassed by robbers, the factions began to be restless, conspiracies were forming, and the people were nervously yet patiently waiting for a chance to revolt. no sooner was he dead than the nation split into two kingdoms. henceforth this people as a nation is doomed. it soon disappears from the family of nations. but--where is jehova all this while? note.--"solomon's wickedness became intolerable, fully confirming my former observations, that his wickedness began early and continued very long" (josephus, bk. viii, chapter vii). the two kingdoms--judah, israel. david was dead; joab the great general had been decapitated by solomon; and what samuel, saul, and david had built up, solomon had been very successful in pulling down. ten tribes revolted immediately and formed the kingdom of israel, selecting jeroboam as their king, b.c. in order to establish a church, a temple, of his own, and his own gods, jeroboam made two golden heifers and built two little temples for them, claiming that men had built the temple at jerusalem as men had built the temples here, and so there was no difference between them. besides, they would save the journey to jerusalem. this change was immediately put into effect. one class or tribe was dissatisfied. those were the levites, and they emigrated to judea. this new kingdom of israel was not over-tranquil. prophets, and stump orators, agitators, naturally arose. dissension, bickering, and quarrels appeared. the outlook for the kingdom was not of the brightest. meantime jeroboam was in clover. rehoboam, the son of solomon, was made king of the two tribes, judah the fighting tribe and benjamin the king-giving tribe. besides these two tribes, we must not forget the levites, for because of them his kingdom was augmented. the priests of all israel were levites, and there were quite a multitude of them. rehoboam was a solomon on a very small scale. he had only eighteen wives and thirty concubines, and twenty-eight sons and threescore daughters. he followed in his father's footsteps and led a jolly life, as we should call it in our present age. in , four years after he ascended the throne, shishka, king of egypt, knowing of all the gold and silver solomon had stuck into the temple, invaded judea with some four hundred thousand men, etc., without opposition, cleared the temple of all the gold and everything of value, and returned home without striking a blow. rehoboam was a coward, he was afraid. as soon as judea was clear of shishka's army, rehoboam had these gold ornaments that had formerly decorated the temple, which had been carried away by shishka, replaced by brass trimmings of the same make and style, and delivered them to the keeper of the king's palace. these people were too like their brethren in israel, for "they built them high places, and images, and groves on every hill, and under every green tree" ( kings xiv, ). "and there was war between rehoboam and jeroboam all the days of his life" ( kings xv, ). these two nations therefore have been launched at a pretty fair pace on the downhill grade. judah, however, had the best of it. for the kingdom of israel lasted only two hundred and fifty-four years. shalmanezer, king of nineveh, takes samaria and carries the ten tribes into captivity. these are what are usually known as the lost tribes. lost nonsenses!--they had forsaken their former method of worship and adopted another. the kingdom of judah lasted to the time the temple was burnt, b.c., having lasted three hundred and eighty-seven years--one hundred and thirty-three years longer than the kingdom of israel. and what is more, these are the very jews that are scattered all over the world. these latter are the representatives of these three tribes, levi, benjamin, and judah. and if any person is curious enough to inquire of any jew to what tribe he belongs, he will receive the answer that he belongs to one of the three above mentioned, that originally formed the kingdom of judah. why they were preserved is nothing miraculous. it has nothing to do with god or jehova, or the ark, or any special grace, as people generally believe. the reason is plain and perfectly natural. the levites preserved them, the levites sustained them, the levites were the brainy race. the levites, the priestly tribe who were appointed by moses, himself one of that tribe, to be the rulers, governors, lawgivers, fosterers, priests and preachers, were the brain of the whole nation. they clung to the idea of nationhood with all their priestly might, craft, and ingenuity, and are still clinging to it, with all their might and main. judah and benjamin survived only because of the levites. the miracle-mongers. at b.c. abijah is king over judah. he reigns only three years. king asa follows, . nadab follows jeroboam, king of israel; dies; and baasha reigns in . "and there was war between asa, and baasha king of israel, all their days" ( kings xv, ). these facts go to show that fighting continued between israel and judah. foreign powers are now invited to help, and the struggle continues. in ahab is king of israel. it is during his reign that a new class of men rise, agitators, talkers, prophets, and small miracle-makers. elijah makes his appearance. jehu had already prophesied against baasha; he was a minor star in the field of prophecy. elijah the tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of gilead, "said unto ahab," etc., says kings xvii, . ahab was king of israel . no miracles are reported to have occurred after moses. joshua did not perform any, except that incident about the sun. during all these centuries from , the date of joshua's death, up to the reign of ahab, not a miracle-maker appears. there are strong men, bad men, fighting men, priests, brave generals, very wicked men, etc., but none performs a miracle. another class of men are soon to appear. they, however, do not make their appearance until a century later, or so. i mean the nervous men, the visionary dreamers and prophets of the type of isaiah. in addition, any number of soothsayers, necromancers, fortune-tellers, and quacks had entered into the business of miracle-making on a small scale. and a new school of skeptics and philosophic speculators slowly developed. civilization had not advanced much, but it nevertheless was progressing. the minds of men had undergone an evolution. the jehova of moses, or the simple abstract form of the chaldean idol of abraham, had lost its force, prestige, and importance. the ark, that sacred box, is completely lost sight of in these stirring times of revolution, rebellion, dissension, and fighting. the high priest since the time of saul had to take a subordinate position. he was the minor oracle, the fault-finder, sometimes the counselor, but never the leader. there was also great competition among the prophets. the trade had grown profitable, consequently false prophets, as they were termed, were trying to gain royal favor. the ideas about god and jehova had increased and multiplied. disputes and confusion swayed the people. idolatry flourished, and the gods of abraham and moses were to some extent still sustained by the relatives of the man who created jehova, moses. man's progress in thought, the evolution of the human brain, is slow and uncertain, especially when the line of advance is of a speculative and problematic character. it is not like a scientific question, that can be demonstrated; accompanied by actual proof and absolute certainty; with no discussion or equivocation, no denial or speculation; which once established remains forever the same. euclid's geometry has never been disputed. hippocrates in medicine--whatever he said that was known and true, remains unchanged. everything that is based upon facts lasts forever. chapter xiii. jehova takes a rest. god rests and lets the hebrews take care of themselves for a period of four hundred and seventy-six years. during these several centuries we hear nothing of miracle or of prophecy, of any importance. in fact, we have passed the only time god or jehova made himself at all conspicuous. he never appeared again so prominently. he made his exit with moses. when we hear of jehova it is but the mere echo of his former self. it is not our purpose to examine or criticise the balance of the old testament, but for the sake of showing how human and natural is all the course of these people struggling and making an attempt to exist as a nation, it will be well to consider the actual state of affairs of god's people, after they had become a nation. joshua, the disciple of moses, the general and leader after him, subdued and conquered the territory moses had indicated, and divided the land among eleven tribes. he followed the example of his master. he was a man of resolution and energy, and at this time he had a well-disciplined army. he was quick and active in his movements, with the prestige of moses to back him. he made war on neighboring nations, slaughtered, hanged, and conquered, sparing nothing. he was shrewd and strategic. he consolidated the nation. he was wise, eloquent, and persuasive. this closes the existence of the republican or theocratic form of government, not a very glorious career of the hebrews as a nation. nothing very remarkable occurs during these four centuries, but we have a variety of incidents, all interwoven with superstitious notions of a barbaric, miraculous nature. besides the introduction of the box, called the ark, female agitators and heroines are introduced. debora and barak deliver the people from sisera, by means of mrs. jael heber, who drives a tent-nail through his temple while he is asleep. then there is great rejoicing and another miracle is performed. meantime they were in slavery under the assyrians for eighty years--freed by othniel; under the moabites eighteen years--freed by one ehud. under the canaanites they were in slavery twenty years, and were delivered by barak and debora. the midianites afflicted the country for seven years, and gideon delivered them. and this period called the era of the judges winds up with the benjamites abusing the wife of a levite, from the effects of which she dies. thereupon the husband cuts the body up in twelve pieces and sends one to each of the twelve tribes--of course through his brother levites. war is made upon the benjamites whereby they are nearly exterminated. lust, robbery, plunder, slaughter, superstition, and barbarism marked these few centuries with little intermission. the levites had utilized the time in establishing the church and their priestly order, and that was actually the governing power during the four hundred and seventy-six years, but always under the name of the god of moses, and was therefore designated the theocratic form of government. i ask now in all seriousness, can anyone possessing a reasonable amount of understanding really believe that a god, such as jews and christians would make us believe that jehova is, could behave in the manner recited in the history of the judges? it is a poor god that cannot restrain his people from committing crimes and depredations, restraining their brutal instincts and passions, keeping them in order, at peace among themselves and with others. these intestine quarrels began in moses's time, at the formation and organization of the jews as a nation, and ceased only with their destruction. the church which was called into life by moses was firmly established during this period with all the priestly paraphernalia of an egyptian temple. aaron may rightly be considered as the first pope of the church, and the levites the priestly tribe. "and these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a miter, and a girdle, and they shall make holy garments for aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest's office. and they shall take gold, and blue, and purple, and scarlet and fine linen" (ex. xxviii, , ). these theatrical garments we have to this day in the christian churches. some additions have been made, corresponding and harmonizing with the events that have occurred since. we must not for one moment suppose that the hebrews were the only people that were active and struggled for existence--which existence in their case this jehova christendom still looks upon as most miraculous. as a nation the jews never invented anything. jehova is the only thing humanity at large has inherited, and he has been a cause of quarrel and discord ever since. joshua dies and saul is made king . other nations during this period advance more rapidly in civilization without god, without jehova, than the hebrews do with his assistance. dardanus, king of troy, is busy building cities b.c. danmoni invades ireland b.c. perseus establishes the kingdom of mycene b.c. crockery is made by the greeks b.c. all kinds of tools and weapons are being made. at olympic games are celebrated in greece. hercules makes his appearance and arrives in phrygia b.c. the trojan war begins and helen elopes with paris b.c. latinus in reigns in italy. in the temple of ephesus is burnt by the amazons. many nations may be cited using dancing music. singing had already developed. i cite these few items to show that the world was doing bravely without jehova or god. in the chinese not only knew of the mariner's compass, but were compiling a standard dictionary containing forty thousand characters--which is said to have been completed by pa-aut-she b.c. these brief statements, these few historical facts--and there are any number of them--i recite for the purpose of showing that other nations developed, other kingdoms existed, other peoples had already made considerable advances in art, science, lawmaking, government, priestcraft, without god, without jehova, without the ark. these other nations had their oracles, their ceremonies, their customs. and what is more, they still exist as nations. they no doubt had their wonders, their miracles, their spirits, their souls, their ghosts, their holy of holies, their sanctums, their angels, and their divinities, and whatever else has from time to time been invented to control and deceive the masses and to satisfy the priests. what everybody should understand is that these hebrews during the theocratic form of government were no better than, and in fact not so good as, other nations, or any of their neighbors. the stage of civilization has never yet advanced beyond the natural capacity and capability of the people at any time. whatever stage has been reached in the world's progress in the past, it was in harmony and corresponded with the degree of nervous culture that had been attained. and just in proportion as the senses were developed, intelligence and understanding advanced. the senses are the sole originators of ideas. the collective experience and training of these senses becomes the standard by which we may judge the height of knowledge any class of people may have reached. nations kept pace with one another, copying from one another, imitating or modifying or improving those things and conditions with which they were brought in contact, whether by travel, commercial intercourse, or war. all these means of communication served as a means of exchanging ideas, of adopting, rejecting, or improving whatever degree of civilization had been attained. at no time has any individual, community, or nation been especially favored by any supernatural endowment, influence, or miraculous contribution towards their advancement. but each has always been improved by the force, energy, power, of some individual or individuals whose training and education has been such as to fit him or them to concentrate and carry out the ideas that have perhaps been floating for a greater or lesser time in the intellectual atmosphere. when civilization has outgrown the swaddlings of the times, something must yield. a change is sure to be effected. although it may not take place without a struggle, or at once, ultimately it will and must attain the necessary accommodation. change or revolution has never yet taken place without some new ideas having been evolved. doubts have arisen, and processes of reasoning have been set in motion, plans made, in order to upset the old ideas, to replace them by the new. new ideas and improvements ripen slowly. the minds of men are not ready to receive and adopt them. skepticism as to the existing state of things makes way for the newer and advanced condition of affairs. our understanding and reasoning faculties are limited to the state of progress and the steps that have been made in the advancement of civilization. we may be a little before our time, but never very much. we could never have had an electric light if volta had not discovered the battery. nor would steam power be so generally used if the marquis of worcester had not had the idea suggested to him a.d. of a way to drive up water by fire, etc. men must learn to know and understand that all knowledge, whether belonging to mythology, idolatry, fable, romance, theology, philosophy, or science--all rules adopted for our mode of conduct, either as individuals, communities, or governments--are the products of the brain, evolved by degrees by a perfectly natural process. and just as we advance from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to puberty, from puberty to manhood, from manhood to maturity, from maturity to reasoning, from reasoning to judgment, from judgment to wisdom, so humanity has gone step by step, through many thousands of centuries perhaps, slowly improving in intelligence, accumulating experience. observing so many phenomena in nature they did not understand, it was all surprise and wonder. and not being able to account for them, in consequence of the infantile development of their nerve centers, admiration of their beauty and usefulness led to gratitude and worship. and they at length made themselves images representing these extraordinary phases. thus idols in all probability originated. like children with dolls, they dressed them, painted them, played with them, imitated living beings in their form and shape, endowing them with some of the best human qualities or virtues known to them. the collection of these representations, especially the most prominent ones, formed in due time the center or focus round which fables and myths gathered. the older they grew, the more they were honored, till at length they became established institutions. the history of the human race begins with fables, myths, childish stories, and with idols. these prevail until some one arises and either disputes their authenticity or proves them unreasonable. this tends to produce new ideas, disputes, conflicts, angry passions, and separation. differences of opinion concerning old ideas and methods lead to the formation of new ones, especially when the old ones cease to interest and become impracticable or burdensome. new ideas in time take the place of the old ones, improved, modified, and adapted to the existing circumstances and conditions. the levites had for several centuries attempted to govern the hebrews by means of ecclesiastical discipline, laws, and leadership, but finally discovered that it was anything but a success. every form had been tried. they were threatened with destruction, in spite of their jehova and the wooden box, the ark. some new stimulant had to be tried to bring about a more healthy condition of affairs. to consolidate the nation if possible, to infuse a new spirit, and divert ideas from discontent, turmoil, and dissension, a king was suggested. samuel finding a very tall man who bore an excellent reputation for courage and wise conduct, one of the tribe of benjamin, he selected him as a proper person to become king of the jews. this man's name was saul. samuel himself not only was a clever priest and prophet, but also possessed the necessary qualities to make a good general. it was he who defeated the philistines after they had gained one victory over the israelites and captured their ark. during this period of their existence as a republic, an ecclesiastical republic--the theocracy, as it is called--they had to contend and struggle, and undergo many vicissitudes. it was barbarian fighting against barbarian. regardless of their having on the one side jehova and the ark, and on the other side dagon & co., the victory always remained with the best-disciplined or more numerous army, which also possessed good generalship. chapter xiv. the end of national life. the hebrew monarchy established under saul b.c., continued and cemented under david, and weakened and ruined under solomon, terminated in the year b.c., lasting altogether one hundred and twenty years. this marks the culmination of national greatness and glory--and the rapid decline and disintegration. we now come upon the rise of a new class of men, prophets of a new school--visionary men, dreamers and agitators, reformers--besides miracle-mongers and fault-finders. discontent reigned. men began to sing the glories of their past greatness, the wonders of jehova, the miracles of moses, and the promises that the lord had made to their forefathers, abraham, isaac, and jacob, of the land that flowed with milk and honey. it seems almost unaccountable, even from a theological, christian standpoint, that god, jehova, the lord almighty, should not be able to exhibit his wonderful powers regularly, systematically, instead of by fits and starts, on special occasions, after intervening centuries. why should a god come and go by leaps and jumps, appearing and disappearing at distant ages, now helping and then punishing? why lead and mislead? why permit people to be so foolish and senseless as to create rival gods? why should he be jealous of a wooden god, or of any other kind of an idol? why should it be necessary to whip people into understanding god, knowing him? why were there so many thousand people slaughtered to force conviction of his marvelous powers? is it not an outrage on common sense for a god to stoop to mountebank tricks, subterfuge, and delusion, so-called miracles, in order to establish his existence, or his presence? if god made man, why did he not make him properly to begin with, so as to suit himself at least? why did he not make him so as to know the father right from the start? why should this almighty god, this jehova, keep his chosen people continually on the rack of transgression, crime, and folly? why did he create them so that they should so easily forget him, and devote their reverence, their veneration, their sacrifices, and their prayers to some brass or wooden image? the excuse so frequently made throughout the bible, as a reason for losing battles or being made captives, that the jews forsook their jehova, their god, is no extenuating circumstance. how comes it that the nations with the heathen gods were victorious and finally conquered the hebrew nation and led them forth as captives? the heathen gods must have been equal, indeed frequently superior, to the hebrew god, because they, the heathen gods, were so very often victorious, and finally subdued the hebrews. the two nations judah and israel fell into idolatry almost immediately. solomon even preferred ashtoreth, the goddess of the zidonians; and after milcom, the abomination of the ammonites ( kings xi, ), and how many other strange gods we have no record. israel began as a kingdom b.c.; jeroboam, a servant of solomon, was the first king and hoshea the last; shalmanezer, king of assyria, took samaria by force, and drove the ten tribes into media captives, in the year b.c.; this kingdom having lasted two hundred and fifty-four years, and having had during that time nineteen kings. the kingdom of judah lasted longer, beginning at the same time, b.c. rehoboam, the son of king solomon, was the first king. the captivity of judah and the destruction of jerusalem was completed b.c. judah had existed as a nation about three hundred and eighty-seven years. jehoiachin and zedekiah were the last kings. during this period they had about twenty-one kings. nebuchadnezzar, king of babylon, made a conquest of egypt, besieged jerusalem, pillaged and burnt the temple, and carried everything away that he could lay his hands on. with few exceptions, a worse, a more brutal set of men than these rulers never governed any nation. during their successive reigns, we find an unbroken succession of the barbarities which were at that time the generally recognized method of warfare, accompanied by licentiousness, and all the other savageries of these semi-civilized people. prophet traffic flourished in those days. there were as many kinds of prophets as there were gods, with a complement of priests to correspond. religious hate and intolerance was manifest on every occasion towards one another. to gain power and control the affairs of state was the chief aim and object. they would curse and destroy one another whenever a favorable opportunity occurred. two religious fanatics became especially conspicuous about b.c., elijah and later elisha. the antagonism and hostility between the leaders of factions was now very intense. jezebel slaughtered the prophets of her opponents, and elijah, who was the leader of the jehova faction, cursed and raved, and many hundred prophets of baal were slaughtered ( kings xviii, , ). it was brutality against brutality, crime against crime, savagedom against savagedom. the bloody struggle continued right along, the slaying being employed on any and every occasion. thus he caused the killing of the several fifties, as related in kings i. elijah was a zealot; harsh, bitter, and merciless to the opponents of his faith. as to the miracles, they answered the purpose well enough for a lot of ignorant, half-civilized country people. we have had similar tricks repeated by priests all along, deluding, cheating, and defrauding the poor simple-minded, ignorant classes. "and it came to pass as they still went on and talked, that behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" ( kings ii, ). how could a man go up to heaven? the atmosphere around this terrestrial globe is about two to three hundred miles in hight. the law of gravitation prevents the smallest particle from leaving the earth's surface, much more a body of the weight of a man. the whirlwind belongs to the earth, and never reaches beyond a certain hight. besides, everything taken up by a whirlwind or cloud in due time returns to mother earth. as for the horses and chariot of fire, in later days pious persons pretend to have seen similar appearances. a man sitting before a fire fancies he sees all kinds of pictures and faces; they are the reflections of his mind. so when one fancies representations of figures and objects in the clouds, or in the moon, they are either delusions of vision, or the fancied picture of the imagination. there are delusions of hearing. an unsound condition of the nervous system may produce hallucinations of such a nature; a disease or a mental derangement may occasion this sort of nervous disturbances. a new feature was introduced by these men--the healing art, resuscitating the supposed dead, casting out evil spirits, laying on hands, etc. a sillier piece of charlatanism was never put in print than elisha's miraculous resuscitating trick on a child in a cataleptic fit ( kings iv, , etc.). a craftier or more cunning piece of business was exciting jehu, king ahab's general, to rebel, and to slaughter the whole of the king's family. elisha sends a young prophet to jehu to pour oil on his head and anoint him king, on his promise to exterminate the king's family ( kings ix): "for the whole house of ahab shall perish; and i will cut off from ahab him that pisseth against the wall and him that is shut up and left in israel" ( kings ix, ). ahab, jezebel, and ahab's seventy sons were all slaughtered. all the great man's priests, and his kinsfolk, were slain. and elisha called together all the prophets of ahab's faction, all those that worshiped baal, and killed them all off. general jehu was made king as a recompense for the services he had rendered to the elisha faction. that was about b.c. usurpation, conspiracy, and bloody crimes mark this period. intrigue, robbery, spoilings, lust, and degradation seem epidemic in these nations. when they were not fighting each other, they were warring with these barbarities. elijah had undoubtedly a powerful party at his command when he prompted jehu to revolt and assume the reins of government. he had everything pretty well organized when elijah said, "and it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth hazael shall jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of jehu shall elisha slay." "yet i have left seven thousand in israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto baal" ( kings xix, , ). these seven thousand were no doubt his immediate disciples, not the commoner herd of people. he selected a man to succeed him, whom he no doubt knew well--a farmer, for elisha was plowing when he was chosen as chief agitator, arch-conspirator, and inheritor of all the rights and privileges of a revolutionary leader ( kings xix, , etc.). this plowman, prophet, and conspirator combines in himself also the healer, preacher, and leader, etc. he cures naaman's leprosy, causes iron to swim, brings blessings to some and curses to others. these knavish tricks succeeded with the ignorance and superstition of the day. the people could be swayed in any direction by a clever, determined, bold talker, consequently were easily excited into the committal of any acts, no matter how revolting or brutal. these political factions led by prophets and priests were not so gentle and polite towards one another as they are at the present day. the church ruled. gods of either side alternately were in power. those in power killed off those who were out of power. whether it is elijah or elisha, leaders of the jehova party, or queen jezebel, leader of the baal prophets of the other party, the result always depends upon numbers and clever leadership. ferocious brutality never ceases but for a short while. there is not a spark of humanity, no mercy, not an act of kindness or consideration. menahem was king of israel b.c. he smote tipsha and all that were therein. "and all the women therein that were with child he ripped up" ( kings xv, ). thus we have page after page marked with bloody crime in the book called sacred history, scripture, and what not. and alas! this is god's work, god's own book, god's own people. much has been said about the inaccuracies in the bible--the contradictions, the errors that are found. we are not concerned in any of them. we are interested in directing the attention of the reader to the book called holy scripture, a book believed to have been written by supernatural inspiration, relating to certain acts done by god; and these acts, accompanied by wonders, were performed for a people especially selected by him, that were under his protection, guidance, direct supervision; and their leaders, lawgivers, kings, priests, prophets, and teachers were by reason of their holiness in communication with this god, either directly or indirectly, and thereby were endowed with powers that rendered them capable of doing things contrary to the fixed laws of nature. we have endeavored to point to a few of the acts of the greatest and best men figuring in that book called scripture. these men were not divine nor were their acts divine. their acts were not humane, nor anything approaching what is understood to be humane at the present age. on the contrary, their acts were barbarous, savage, brutal, cruel, and in many instances outrageous. they, the hebrews, were no better than their neighbors the heathens, whatever their name or nationality might be. the heathen with their idols were just as good in war, in battle, as, if not better than, the jews were with their god, their jehova, and the ark, and finally succeeded in subduing the jews, burning their temple with god's ark, vessels, etc., taking them captives, and destroying them as a nation. it is evident from history that the principal men of the nation were corrupt; that both the kingdom of israel and that of judah were rotten to the core. they were continually warring with each other, as with other nations. their abuses gave rise to public agitators, who always found supporters. men of the elijah and elisha stamp never lose an opportunity, and they made the most of all of it while they lived. they introduced a school of thought and action that laid the foundation for new sects that culminated in the remote future. the belief in medical miracles was more firmly fastened upon the minds of their followers by the prophets, fortune-tellers, and healers, than by any class previous. other nations meantime were progressing in civilization--literature, the art of warfare, etc. greece was gaining laurels. homer appeared. hesiod wrote about b.c. tyrtæus's elegies, archilochus's satires, etc., about b.c. the persians and romans were rising and making rapid progress and conquest, soon to sweep smaller peoples and nations aside. these heathen made conquests, gained victories, transplanted the captives, and were altogether far more prosperous and successful with their idols than the hebrews were with their god. nothing else better proves that the struggles for supremacy among the human families were perfectly natural, each side depending always on their leaders, their skill in fighting, their bravery, and their organization; that their gods, their idols, their oracles, and their priests played but a small part in the transactions of life; and that all the gods, whether idols, or mythological, or jehovistic, and no matter of what nationality, had all about the same material value, power, and importance. from our modern standpoint all the gods may be classed in one category. we may safely pronounce them to be creatures of imagination, sprung into existence through ignorance, fears, and superstition. they are all alike false, frivolous, and foolish. they have not a particle of truth in them. and the gods that are now held in such high esteem by many people, are no better than the chaldean idols. judah is still struggling to retain her grip on her national life. every effort prolongs the agony. hezekiah is king b.c. isaiah is the prophet. romantic dreamer, songster, critic, and man of visions, he sees distress, ruin, and misery before him; recalls the glories of the past, but sees none of the faults; sees the greatness of the nation of solomon, david, and saul, and now beholds the national degradation. he laments this dreadful condition with a bitterness of feeling. then he hopes against hope that something will happen in the future that will bring about a happy state of his nation and reproduce the golden prosperity of those glittering ages that are gone. this man is a close observer, a visionary man, and a critic. he writes and sings of his own people, of his own country. in the introduction which he gives himself in isaiah i and ii, he presents his vision concerning judah and jerusalem, etc. he reproaches them for their sin, iniquity, corruption, etc.: "your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers" (i, ). his dream and hope of the future: "and he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (ii, ). this entire chapter, like most of the chapters of isaiah, is a work of the imagination. it is the fancy of a dreamer who mentally sees the thing he longs for. in his nervous exaltation, visions appear, incoherent, meaningless, except to himself. he brings different parts of different objects together, representing things and scenes he is familiar with, in the form of pictures, natural in parts but unnatural and impossible as a whole. "as for my people, children are their oppressors and women rule over them" (iii, ). he describes the "tinkling ornaments" about their feet, and their cauls and their round tires like the moon, their chains and bracelets and mufflers, the bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands and the tablets and the earrings, and the rings and nose-jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins, and the glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails, etc. this portion is no doubt realistic. it shows his mental condition and the mood he was in. his humor changes: "now i will sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard" (v, ). in this chapter he touches upon everything that strikes his fancy. hell, wind, land, instruments, lions, etc., etc., are all introduced. he rambles all over nature. imaginary ideas are mixed with realities indiscriminately, for illustration, comparison, lamentation, or complaining. high in the temple he sees the lord sit; sees the seraphim with six wings, etc. (vii). and in chapter viii he has a "great roll and writes in it with a man's pen concerning maher-shalal-hash-baz." verse : "and i went to the prophetess; and she conceived, and had a son. then said the lord to me, call his name maher-shalal-hash-baz" ( ). isaiah lived after the captivity of the ten tribes. he also knows of the constant fighting between the ten tribes and the two, israel and judah. israel has been carried away captive to other lands and its country has been given to a people called cutheans, or samaritans. these cultivated and adopted in some measure the jewish religion. in moments of despondency he refers to them as he refers to moab and other nations elsewhere. the whole christian faith seems to be based on the prophecy of the ninth chapter of isaiah, th and th verses. isaiah starts out in this chapter speaking of the time when god first lightly afflicted the land of zebulon and the land of naphtali, etc. in the th verse he says, "for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given," etc. that man has no reference to christ as maher-shalal-hash-baz. chapter viii, verse : "and he shall pass through judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck, and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of the land, o immanuel." this really means the son which the prophetess conceived, and called maher-shalal-hash-baz. chapter ix, verse : "manasseh and ephraim, and ephraim and manasseh; and they together shall be against judah," etc. he talks in a confused, mystified fashion, alluding now to this people, now to that; at one time to the tribes and at another to the moabites, assyrians, then to egypt or zion; dreams of tyrants, hypocrites, and his hopes revived about the remnants of israel. when he speaks of the child he has not the remotest dream of christ. he has no foreknowledge, except what his judgment suggests. he feels annoyed and irritated, then his hope and aspiration soothe and comfort him, and in chapter xi he describes a most happy state of affairs: "the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them" (verse ). "and the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox" (xi, ), etc. the wildest and most extravagant kinds of interpretation are given to various passages in isaiah. into them the theologians force a meaning: chapter xxxv, : "the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." christians say it means the joyful flourishing of christ's kingdom. in chapter xliii, verse , jehova declares: "i, even i, am the lord; and beside me there is no savior." he repeats it in chapter xliv, verse : "i am the first, and i am the last, and beside me there is no god." verse : "is there a god beside me? yea, there is no god; i know not any." chapter xlix: "listen, o isles, unto me; and hearken ye people from afar; the lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name." this is supposed to mean, christ being sent to the jews complaineth of them. chapter lv: "thus saith the lord, where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, whom i have put away? or which creditors is it to whom i have sold you? behold! for your iniquities you have sold yourselves, and for your transgression is your mother put away." it is said that this means, christ sheweth that the dereliction of the jews is not to be imputed to him, by his ability to save. this is the christian interpretation of the above passage. it is a misrepresentation of facts as well as meaning. why twist, torture, and falsify it? isaiah lived in stirring times. after the captivity of the ten tribes, the government and the people were corrupt. an invasion was at hand. sennacherib invades judea - b.c. the medes and assyrians were also fighting for supremacy. being an educated man, he knew the history of his nation--their trials, the triumph and the glory they had enjoyed, and the decline of this people with its pride and pomp to a passing away. he had ample material to supply his imagination; he therefore dreamed, sang praises, saw visions, hoping for something to turn up, miraculous or otherwise, to save the remnant of his nation. he cannot be compared to the two strong, rough miracle-mongers of israel, elijah and elisha, that had lived over a century before him. this idealistic dreamer had not the slightest knowledge of coming events, of what was to happen seven hundred years later. the minds of men had slowly undergone changes. the rigidity of the mosaic laws had undergone some modification, and some change in interpretation as to the meaning of the many commands and usages. with every battle and with every invasion new notions, new customs, were introduced. the transition was surely laying the foundation for various schools, which was inevitable as the intelligence and education progressed. after isaiah jeremiah comes, as a natural result of the age. manasseh, king of judah, had been carried captive to babylon, and restored to power b.c. ammon and josiah follow. the latter is killed, and his successor, jehoahaz king of judah, is deposed and carried to egypt . three years later nebuchadnezzar conquers jerusalem. jehoiachin reigns three months, and he is carried off captive to babylon, besides three thousand of the principal persons of dignity, and among these was ezekiel ( b.c.). zedekiah was appointed king. he was the uncle of jehoiachin, twenty-one years of age when he began his reign; a bad one it was, and he suffered for it. and he was the last of the kings of judah. in b.c. jerusalem was captured and destroyed, the temple burnt; the sons and friends of zedekiah were slain; zedekiah's eyes were put out, and he was bound and taken to babylon. jeremiah had spoken a good many truths, and given them ample warnings what would happen. he met with a great deal of opposition--was thrown into prison and made to suffer for his boldness. his exhortations and his appeals availed nothing. the heads of the high priests and those of the rulers were cut off. the destruction was complete. jeremiah wrote fifty-two chapters, and christian interpreters managed to find two places in this entire writing that indicated christ's kingdom: chapter xxiii, verse ; "behold the days come, saith the lord, that i will raise unto david a righteous branch, and a king shall reign and prosper and shall execute justice and judgment in the earth"--meaning, christ shall rule and save them. chapter xxxi, verse : "how long wilt thou go about, o thou backsliding daughter? for the lord hath created a new thing in the earth. a woman shall compass a man"--meaning, christ is promised. these are the only two spots whence any possible allusion can be drawn. this man is unlike the visionary, romantic dreamer isaiah, whose imagination and nervous exaltation kept him more or less in a state of excitability and carried him into regions of dreamland where his hopes and wishes were planted. jeremiah writes up the historical occurrences; passes judgment on his own people and on the nations his people had to struggle with, bewailing their corruption, wickedness, wretchedness, misery. he never dreams of christ or christianity, nor does he in any part allude to christ. he also, like isaiah, wrote and acted in accordance with the times he lived in. he was a steadfast friend to his disciple baruch. his lamentations describing the miserable state of jerusalem, bewailing its calamities, are perfectly human, and perfectly natural for a patriot and a poet of his time. ezekiel was in chaldea among the captives about b.c. this man is also largely endowed with a prolific imagination; he is a visionary man. he adopts a new method of talking; when the word of the lord comes to him, "son of man" is the manner in which he is addressed. jeremiah uses the expression, "sayeth the lord," or "the word to jeremiah from the lord saying"----isaiah uses, "thus saith the lord." ezekiel wrote forty-eight chapters. the following are interpreted to mean christ: chapter xxxiv, verse : "therefore thus saith the lord god unto them: behold i, even i, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle"--meaning, the kingdom of christ. chapter xxxvi, verse : "then will i sprinkle clean water upon you; and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will i cleanse you"--meaning, the blessings of christ's kingdom. chapter xxxvii, verse : "and the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes"--meaning, the promises of christ's kingdom. the political methods of governing nations which had their origin in the ages of barbarism, ignorance, and brutality, left the rotten remnants to construct upon them a system of rules for the guidance of the masses, to control, subjugate, and restrain their mental faculties, the development and advancement of their understanding, and to perpetuate the suppression of their higher intellectual powers. the beliefs in a god with the inferior natural human functions were handed down to us through many centuries, undergoing transitions and changes to suit the occasions, circumstances, and times. the toning down of the hebrew god is in the first instance mainly due to the beneficent influences of the heathen, as they were then called. the educational facilities the jews enjoyed during their captivity were of a better and higher order, and how much of the entire book called scripture is due to these opportunities afforded them we shall never know. history teaches us, however, that ezra, when cyrus was king of persia, b.c., was permitted to go to jerusalem to collect what manuscripts and data he could find, and he is credited to have written the chronicles b.c. how many more books or parts were written and compiled by ezra and his companions will remain a mystery. the work of resuscitating the nation--to recover its former importance, to reëstablish some of its former glory--was attempted seventy years later, under cyrus, who granted the jews the privilege to return and rebuild the temple. they were prompted to do this out of pure motives of patriotism, and it can be regarded only as a struggle to continue to exist as a portion of a historic people. the levites were instrumental in bringing about their return. the tribes were those belonging to the kingdom of judah. at this time an opposition temple and an opposition religion was established by the people of samaria, a mixture of cutheans and israelites. the rivalry and hatred towards each other was as intense as the hatred and bitter factional fight had been between the ten tribes and the two tribes israel and judah. affairs did not succeed well. there were quarrels, wrangles, application to higher authorities to arbitrate and decide their differences and disputes. new kings, new powers, came for conquest and plunder. new leaders, new governors, deceit, treachery, rebellion, assassination, mark these centuries under assyrians, persians, greeks, and romans, until b.c., when judea was made a roman province. meantime new sects had organized under different names, each one giving its interpretation as to the signification of the laws contained in the books that were handed down to them. from the multiplicity of opinions, sects, factions, and fanaticisms, the already modified ideas were about to undergo a farther transition, that helped to inaugurate what might well be termed a reformation. while this nation was crumbling to pieces other nations had advanced in civilization, in art, science, and literature, that never claimed to have done anything under the influence of a jehova, or any symbol representing him. these nations--greeks, romans, persians--seemed to have succeeded better with mythological gods than the jews with theirs. they had laws to govern them, which required neither smoke nor thunder to make them. man, plain man, made them. some were surrounded with mysterious ceremonies, symbols; others were not. lycurgus reforms the constitution of sparta b.c. carpets are made for tents about this time. the art of sculpture rises in egypt. buddha's religion is introduced into india, and an attempt is made to discover the primitive language of mankind by psameticus; and, what is of considerable importance, children are being educated in the grecian language and manners b.c. these facts are mentioned to show that nations that were not hampered with the jehovistic religion, that had no miracles, wonders, or arks, were more advanced in the national sciences, had made farther progress in the general civilization of mankind, than the hebrews. the electricity of amber was discovered by thales, and he also taught the spherical form of the earth as the true cause of lunar eclipses, b.c. schools of learning flourished in many places. authors appeared whose writings are classic to this day--sappho, alcæus, Æsop, pittachus. solon's legislation in athens superseded the laws of draco. it was not the mosaic god that made these people intelligent, gave them their understanding. their enlightenment was due simply to the natural processes of the great nervous centers, independent of all supernatural interference. the school of statuary was opened at athens by depoenus and scyllis. comedies were enacted on a cart by susarian and dolon. dials were invented by anaximander, etc. learning is encouraged at athens, and a public library is founded. all this and much more occurs about b.c. persia, too, is rapidly spreading its empire; growing powerful; progressing in wealth, commerce, and learning. zoroaster founds his philosophy, without bloodshed, rapine, or murder. rome is in a nourishing condition; takes its first census b.c.-- , citizens--spreading its empire. we must ever bear in mind that all these nations were called heathen, and their methods of belief are looked upon by christian teachers as much inferior to their own. confucius, the chinese philosopher, is not inferior in his morality to any of the moralists of the age in which he lived, b.c. and we may safely say he is equal even to the morals of to-day. manners, methods, and fashions change, but certain principles remain. we can examine the pages of the history of other human races and compare them with the jews, god's own chosen race, his own people, and the heathen takes the prize in every branch of science, art, and the progress of civilization. the hebrews for many, many centuries, with their blind infatuation with the supernatural, their constant superstitious practices of their ceremonial, their senseless devotion to an imaginary piece of extravagance, were so steeped in stupidity and ignorance that they had neither time nor inclination to observe and examine nature and its workings, so remained slaves to their preposterous practices. republics become fashionable. corinth starts with her republican form of government b.c., and rome follows in abolishing a regal government and establishing a republic b.c. the carthaginians make a voyage to great britain for tin, etc. sophocles, plato, socrates, aristophanes, and a host of renowned men rise to teach the world how to think, how to speak. philosophy, medicine, morality, poetry, history, comedy, tragedy, arts, and science had a firm hold on the public mind. a degree of refinement both in manner and in conduct prevailed among all classes. it was about this time that ezra and his companions were compiling--rather collecting--fragments for composing the book of chronicles. other books may have been compiled or written. nehemiah followed ezra. he rebuilt and repeopled jerusalem. for all that, nothing good of a permanent character was accomplished. time goes on, centuries accumulate; intelligence, experience, and a higher grade of civilization appear. nations grow more powerful. the struggle for supremacy continues, and judah, like a shuttlecock, is thrown about from nation to nation, now under one dominion and now under another. religious opinions, however, are forming. they are hostile, bitter, inimical towards one another; accompanied with all the hatred, jealousy, spite, that religious differences usually engender. they are all anxious to hold office, priestly or otherwise, consequently bribery, lying, and misrepresentation are the means used to gain the influence of those in power. the rivalry between the sects makes matters no better. the samaritan sect were already in existence when ezra returned to jerusalem. hostilities led to conflicts, and there was little peace between them. in judea there were several sects, holding various opinions. like so many political factions, each sought control, and tried to uphold its peculiar views and interpretations. the sadducees sprang into life about b.c. this sect believed that the soul dies with the body; "nor do they regard the observance of anything besides that the law enjoins them; for they think it an instance of virtue to dispute with those teachers of philosophy whom they frequent; but this doctrine is received but by few, yet by those still of greatest dignity. but they are able to do almost anything of themselves; for when they become magistrates, as they are unwillingly and by force sometimes obliged to be, they addict themselves to the notions of the pharisees, because the multitude would not otherwise hear them" (josephus). this sect, one would judge, consisted of the wealthy and more enlightened class. "the pharisees live meanly, despise delicacies in diet, and they follow the contract of reason; and what that prescribes for them, as good for them, they do; and they think they ought earnestly to strive to observe reason's dictates for practice. they also pay respect to such as are in years; nor are they so bold as to contradict them in anything which they have introduced; and, when they determine that all things are done by fate, they do not take away the freedom from men of acting as they think fit; since their notion is, that it hath pleased god to make a temperament, whereby what he wills is done, but so that the will of man can act virtuously or viciously. they also believe that souls have an immortal vigour in them, and that under the earth there will be rewards or punishments according as they have lived virtuously or viciously in this life; and the latter are to be detained in an everlasting prison, but that the former shall have power to revive and live again; on account of which doctrines they are able greatly to persuade the body of the people; and whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers and sacrifices, they perform them according to their directions; insomuch that the cities gave great attestation to them, on account of their entire virtuous conduct, both in the actions of their lives, and of their discourse also" (josephus). "the doctrine of the essenes is this, that all things are best ascribed to god. they teach the immortality of souls and esteem that rewards of righteousness are to be earnestly striven for, and when they send what they have dedicated to god unto the temple, they do not offer sacrifices, because they have more pure lustrations of their own; on which account they are excluded from the common court of the temple, but offer their sacrifices themselves; yet is their course of life better than other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry. it also deserves our admiration, how much they exceed all other men that addict themselves to virtue, and this in righteousness; and indeed to such a degree that as it hath never appeared among any other men, neither greeks nor barbarians, no, not for a little time, so hath it endured a long while among them. this is demonstrated by that institution of theirs, which will not suffer anything to hinder them from having all things in common; so that a rich man enjoys no more of his own wealth than he that hath nothing at all. there are about four thousand men that live in this way; and neither have many wives, nor are desirous to keep servants; as thinking the latter tempts men to be unjust; but as they live by themselves, they minister one to another. they also appoint certain stewards to receive the income of their revenues, and of the fruits of the ground; such as are good men, and priests, who are to get their coin and their food ready for them. of a fourth sect of jewish philosophers, judas the galilean was the author. these men agree in all other things with pharisaic notions; but they have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and say that god is to be their only ruler and lord. they also do not value dying any kind of death, nor indeed do they heed the deaths of their relations and friends, nor can any such fear make them call any man lord" (josephus). these matters are quoted to show the changes and modifications religious opinions were undergoing, and must have undergone for many centuries previously, until they reached the present stage. the arguments, discussions, and reasons given, as well as the beliefs adopted, differ only in degree and kind from those when abraham and his father dissented from the mode of worship then extant in chaldea, some one thousand nine hundred years previous, and from the modifications introduced by moses, the greater part of which were adopted from the egyptians--whence the jews really got the first taste of civilization. these religious notions of the jews are the opinions, simply the opinions, of a small branch of the human family. there are a great many others. during all these centuries little or nothing was known of the natural, of the more intimate relations of nature and nature's forces. and of all nations the jewish race knew the least. they were too much occupied with the supernatural to ever learn anything of the natural. the supernatural idea sprang from the mire of ignorance and barbarism and savagery. crime and outrage mark the centuries as it rolled along in the tide of human events, halting only when forced, and renewing its current when there was nothing to bar its way--struggling madly, conquering, fighting, subduing. life was of no value, and everything was brutally crushed under this monstrous supernatural idea, until at length it was brought to halt by superior natural forces that in time crushed and subdued it. after one thousand four hundred years of jehovaism, of various shades and hues, this religion emerges from the past ages to the coming centuries in a new garb, slightly improved, somewhat milder in temper, and wearing altogether a new mask, so that neither father abraham nor general moses would recognize his offspring. chapter xv. the christian era. we come to the beginning of the second two thousand years of modified jehovaism, called the christian era. the christian era, like the chaldean-abrahamic era, and like the mosaic-jehovistic era, was introduced in a mysterious manner. both the mosaic and the christian were accompanied with miracles, differing in degree and intensity, as also corresponding with the changes and transitions of the times, the progress of intelligence, and the development of brain power. if moses had made the attempt to perform his miracles in christ's time, he would have been hooted. he could not have deceived these masses with his tricks as he did the ignorant horde he led out of egypt. these people had no opinion, no idea, no intelligence. they were the obedient tools and slaves of anyone who exhibited superior skill to control them and keep them in subjection, as the catholic and greek church make the ignorant masses subservient to their will at this day. the small end of the wedge of science had begun to make its way into the dense solid mass of ignorance and superstition, through the thick coating of jehovistic supernaturalism. this thin end, however, opened a chink big enough to give us the first glimpse of the natural. men began to think, reason, calculate. their past experience made them think and compare the various conditions of man and things in nature. philosophy, arts, science, had taken root, in opposition to and in spite of any supernatural theory or any jehovistic influence. the natural is the proper antidote for this supernatural poison. greece was one of the first nations that helped to lift the heavy fog that obscured man's intellectual vision: b.c. aristæus writes a treatise on conic sections, dionysius invents catapultæ, aristotle, the founder of the peripatetics, logician and philosopher, plato, diogenes, demosthenes (philippics), etc., gausias of sycion invents caustic painting, the art of burning colors into wood and ivory, lysistratus invents molds from which to cast wax figures, the gnomon is invented or constructed to measure altitudes, euclid of alexandria writes his celebrated mathematics, that has never been contradicted or modified, and is used at the present day, dionysius the astronomer at alexandria finds the solar year to consist of days hours and minutes, archimedes the mathematician demonstrates the property of a lever and other mechanical powers, also the art of measuring solids and surfaces and conic sections, and constructs a planetarium, the art of making paper and printing invented by the chinese, attalus, king of pergamos, introduces a book with leaves of vellum, instead of rolls, pasidonius calculates the hight of the atmosphere to be stadia, scipio nascia invents a water clock, hipparchus lays the foundation of trigonometry, fixes the first degree of longitude, the meridian, these few citations i hope will be convincing proof of the progress made, thus showing that men were observing, reasoning, calculating, governed by demonstration and proof. it would have been impossible for moses, or any other man, to perform miracles of the nature theologians believe, at the time of christ. two conditions are always necessary for every miracle--profound ignorance on the one hand, and a clever fraud on the other. there are, however, another class of miracles, that are at all times in order; that are played and plied on human failing and human weakness, always coupled with ignorance on the one side, and dishonest scoundrelism, a fraud by a priest or church mountebank, on the other. in disturbances of nature, no one believes unless he has ocular proof and demonstration, knowing that these things are subject to natural laws and no one man could produce an earthquake or a thunderstorm. no man could stop the current of the mississippi river either by praying or by throwing a stick over it. what we can do, that has the appearance of a miracle, is to play upon the susceptibilities, failings, weaknesses, and imaginations of ignorant human nature. these cure-alls, these medical wonder-workers, these spiritual charlatans, these theological miracle-mongers, these fanatical frauds, were introduced more prominently in the bible story by the celebrated political agitators elijah and elisha. the christian form of religion is a modification of the hebrew, mixed with either greek or some other of the numerous doctrines existing at that period. the hero of this reformation is brought to our notice in what is scripturally called a miraculous manner. matthew introduces the subject by saying (i, ): "now the birth of jesus christ was in this wise: when as his mother mary was espoused to joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the holy ghost." we have noticed how (gen. vi, ) the sons of god married the daughters of men--who the lady was, the mother of these sons, we do not know, or by what process they were brought into this world. there are instances in the bible when prayer had the effect of producing that interesting condition on woman. we have also the example of eli, that fat, lascivious priest (whose sons entertained themselves behind the altar with the ladies) who assisted hannah when the lord closed her womb. the temple has served many outrageous purposes, and many amusing as well as instructive lessons might be gathered. fortunately the jewish temple is no exception. the heathen temples were equally guilty. during the reign of tiberius, the romans had a temple of isis, and they had a god called anubis. a man with the name of mundus fell in love with a married lady called paulina, who bribed the priests to permit him to appear to paulina in the temple as the god anubis. the priest representing the god anubis invited paulina to the temple in order to be entertained by that god. her husband, pleased with the favor, consented. paulina was entertained all night at the temple by what she supposed to be the god anubis, mundus representing him. paulina was delighted, her husband also, but mundus could not hold his tongue. tiberius heard of it; he caused the temple, priests, and all to be burnt, and mundus was exiled for three months. the priests were crucified. anyone curious to know particulars about this matter may consult history. in modern times, living as we do in an age of reason, fact, and science, we do not take the same view of these particular occurrences such as the bible speaks of as our forefathers, the ancients who lived in an age of fancy and imagination. the holy ghost, unless he is in the substantial form of a man, can accomplish nothing, and either mrs. mary joseph had committed an act of indiscretion before marriage, or joseph himself was the father. it would be far more decent for all parties concerned to legitimatize the child. the effect or result would be just the same, since the young gentleman is to be the great reformer of that age, clever, meek, mild, amiable as he is represented to be in the new testament. mark begins his gospel: "the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ, the son of god." luke begins historically and then tells his virgin story (i, ). john philosophizes, and tells us that (verse ) "no man hath seen god; the only begotten son which is in the bosom of the father, he hath declared him." in verse he is called the son of joseph. the entrance of christ into this world is the most stupid and ridiculous piece of nonsense that was ever written. if christ is the son of god he can be no relation of david, and joseph can certainly not be his father. or if the holy ghost was the cause of mary's condition before marriage, joseph condoned the offense by living with her, and is the father by adoption and not by nature; and can by no means be a relation or descendant of david. then again, if joseph is the father, jesus is not the son of god. in that case, he might be a relation of david, but no relation to god. men of ordinary education no longer believe either in the holy ghost, the manner of christ's coming, nor in his divinity. it is an absurd fabrication, an impossibility and contrary to nature. i repeat once more, that neither god, his spirit, nor his holy ghost, can perform anything that is in direct opposition to the laws of nature. the miracles that are attributed to jesus christ by matthew, mark, luke, and john are invariably of a medical nature; embracing all kinds--lepers, palsy, fevers, dropsy, the blind, the dumb, the lame--hemorrhages of women, casting out devils, curing lunatics, healing every disease. the manner of curing is very peculiar--by touch, by rebuke, by word, by spit and touch. a sample or two will suffice: mark vii, : "and they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand on him." : "and he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue." : "and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said unto him, ephphatha, that is, be opened." : "and straightway his ears were opened, and the strings of his tongue were loosed, and he spake plain." matt. xvii, , etc.: christ rebukes the devil out of a lunatic. chapter xx, : he touches the eyes of two blind men and they see. luke viii, : "and a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed by any." : "came behind him, and touched the borders of his garment; and immediately, her issue of blood stanched." chapter viii, (woman dead): "and put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called saying, maid, arise." : "and her spirit came again, and she arose straightway," etc. john ix, : "and as jesus passed by, he saw a man, which was blind from his birth." verse : "when he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay." luke xiv, : he cures a man of dropsy, etc. that these cures were actually performed is not very probable, for the simple fact that the art of medicine was little known, and least known among the jews. that these four witnesses really were present at the time these operations were performed, we have no proof. luke says christ cures blindness by touch; john makes him use spit and clay. we are not told that he was trying experiments. anyway, every operation was successful. raising people from the dead was equally successful. why should we wonder that such miracles could be performed among the lower classes, rude, uneducated, and poor? they were ready to believe any kind of plausible deception; and it was among this class that he found his adherents. these performances called miracles are supposed to have happened nearly two thousand years ago. at that time the masses were not to be compared to the masses of to-day in education, understanding, or in the progress made in every branch of art, science, literature, mechanics, etc. the church christianity has also progressed somewhat, and there can be no possible excuse for the priests of to-day affirming these pretended cures of christ. they ought to know that the notions of these things are due to feebleness of intellect in the uncultured brain, to the lack of understanding and the gullibility of the masses. christ and his disciples were as ignorant as the masses concerning medicine or the healing art. they knew absolutely nothing about it. at a.d., later , fathers of the then existing christian organizations approved of the entire contents. nay, a large part of it may have been manufactured by them. at this day there is no reason that men should not know better. every man, whether priest or layman, ought to understand that so-called miraculous cures can be performed only by men, priests or others, that premeditatedly, with intent, cheat, swindle, and defraud some portion of the public, in consequence of the ignorance of the one, and the superior knowledge, shrewdness, and cunning of the other. it is a flagrant abuse of authority, a miserable condition of our laws, a stupendous piece of bigotry, an outrage, that a man can be punished for speaking the truth, and it is an actual miracle that people are still so wonderfully stupid as to believe in the scandalous deception of the healing qualities of an old rag, a coat, pretended to have belonged to christ or some one else. recently we read in the daily paper, the sun: "berlin, sept. .--in treves, herr reichar has been sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment for ridiculing the holy coat and for attacking the roman catholic prelates because they encouraged the people to believe that it had healing qualities. his publisher, herr sonnenburg, was sentenced to three weeks' imprisonment. the chief charge against them was blasphemy." even in this city, some miserable cheat or cheats attempted to perpetrate the same sort of scoundrelism in one of the catholic churches. during the recent cholera desolation in hamburg, we read: "in all the churches services of prayer for the abatement of the plague have been held. they have been attended by crowds which have filled the buildings" (sun). in ancient times plagues were regarded as visitations from god; to-day we know that they are the products of filth and starvation. sanitary measures and food for the starving are needed, instead of prayer. the churches would answer a far better purpose converted into soup-kitchens and healthy lodging-houses for the poor and homeless. in russia the condition is still worse. the degradation of the masses is extreme. of the dreadful doings there we hear but the slightest echo. the russian priest is an ignorant, intolerant, selfish, tyrannical brute. in time of cholera the clergy walk in procession through the streets in church garb, with banners, crosses, candles, chanting and praying, while the dirt, filth, and cholera poison lie all around them. the pilgrimages to lourdes are another ecclesiastical swindle. the poor, miserable dupes are enticed in order to be plundered. from the tribune, "zola at lourdes," we quote: "nothing could be more truly sensational than the annual pilgrimage thither, the flocking to that shrine of tens of thousands of devotees, dozens of special trains running to it daily; the daily processions, with thousands of priests and tens of thousands of the laity; the fervent prayers of the supplicants, and the wild exaltation of those that are miraculously healed--or who believe themselves to be healed.... so m. zola, accompanied by mme. zola, were at lourdes, and following the crowd, proceeded at once to the holy grotto. he found it surrounded by more than twenty thousand people, of both sexes and of all ages and conditions. indeed in none of his novels is a more striking scene portrayed than that. in the afternoon the daily procession occurred. at its head marched no less than two thousand priests, monks, and nuns. then came the holy sacrament, borne beneath a silken canopy. after it came the sick and the suffering who had come thither to be cured. these were cripples on crutches or leaning on the arms of friends; the blind, led by their friends or fellow-pilgrims; sick and deformed infants in their mothers' arms; here and there a cripple and a blind man arm in arm, relying upon each other, the one for support, the other for guidance. behind these thousands came other thousands of suppliants, sightseers, perhaps some scoffers, while yet other thousands stood by and gazed upon the scene." it is indeed a miracle that we have so many such persons at this stage of progressive civilization. but the church and its priests have exerted every influence to prevent its advance. fortunately the world at large has outgrown this childish nonsense to some extent. the development of our civil laws, with a greater knowledge of the natural laws, keep the church and priestly fanatics in subjection. as to the resurrection of christ's body, or anyone else's body, we may put it down as fabulous and untrue. dead bodies do not rise--cannot rise. from the moment a body is dead the process of decomposition begins, and resuscitation is an impossibility. no one believes it, and the priest of this century even doubts it, though the manner of christ's birth and death forms the creed of christian believers, and reads as follows: "i believe in god, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in jesus christ his only son our lord, who was conceived by the holy spirit, born of the virgin mary, suffered under pontius pilate, was crucified, dead and buried. he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the father, whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. i believe in the holy ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." does anyone, except the most ignorant, believe any of the items contained in the above creed? the men that composed the old, and later the new testament, may have been sincere in their belief, may have acted from pure motives, and i give them credit that their endeavors were honest, that they knew no better. they could not know the truth, have knowledge of the natural. its forces, its capabilities, its phenomena--these were unknown to them. they erred, were mistaken in what they observed; that of itself is ample excuse for their opinions. no such excuse exists at this present time, and no men or set of men, however organized, priestly or otherwise, should be permitted to delude and stupefy the more ignorant portion of a community. the judge on the bench ought to know better than punish a man because he ridicules the efficacy of an old coat to cure miraculously. it is a disgrace to our civilization, and should not be tolerated. we have a right to criticise any idea, opinion, set of opinions, or ceremonies, no matter how ancient, how originated or by whom entertained or put into practice. we have as much right to protest against the truth or falsity of their statements, as any of our forefathers had in remote ages. any individual that permits his prejudices to get the better of his judgment, because he belongs to this or that church, is unfit to serve in a public capacity. the judge or magistrate that sentenced reichar and sonnenberg at treves deserves to be branded as the greatest jackass that ever decorated a bench. ridicule is the only weapon that wipes out these shameful practices, that helps to enlighten the masses, that elevates their thoughts and makes their understanding. it is disgraceful enough for the ancients to have crucified christ for his opinions, beheaded paul for his preaching, and crucified st. peter for his energy. abraham had a right to have his opinions. he differed with the chaldeans about their gods, ridiculed them, despised them, argued, reasoned, as best he knew how. he had to leave the land of his birth for his opinions. moses had a right to set up his jehova, organize a nation, and fight under his banner. he forced a success with superior numbers and superior skill. coming to christ, paul and peter had a right to their opinions. they suffered for their opinions, yet their opinions held. we of to-day have a right to deny the truth of their opinion. we have a right to deny any part or the whole of their doctrine, their pretensions, their errors; we have a perfect right to decline to accept their say-so for proof of anyone's having done certain things by supernatural aid. and neither church nor priest can force people to believe in their absurdities, when our reason, understanding, and common sense tell us that it is neither true nor possible. few men are so dull that they do not recognize the fact that it is unpleasant, as well as unprofitable, for an organized body of men, whether church or other organization, who have prospered, gained influence, control and authority over men, territory or wealth, by means of certain ideas or opinions, to be interfered with or encroached upon by a new and opposing organized body, with new ideas or opinions, lest the former might lose some of their influence, control, or authority over men, territory, or wealth. selfishness and self-preservation lie at the root of this, and every aggressive movement will be hindered, checked, or prevented if possible. chapter xvi. organic life--vegetable. the constituent elements that enter into vegetable life consist in the main of three elementary substances. these essential elements consist of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon. the secondary elementary bodies consist of nitrogen and earthy elements, sulphur and phosphorus. there are also found other elementary substances in lesser quantities in vegetable structures, as potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, silicon, aluminium, iron, manganese, chlorine, bromine, and iodine. these are the materials of which vegetables are made. vegetables derive all the materials of their fabric from the earth and the air. plants can possess no simple elements which these do not supply. they may take in, to some extent, almost every element which is thus supplied. the elements above mentioned are not of universal occurrence, nor are they all components of any one vegetable tissue. although plants and animals have no peculiar elements; though the materials from which their bodies spring, and to which they return, are common earth, water, and air, yet in them these elements are wrought into something widely different from any form of lifeless mineral matters, under the influence of what is usually termed the principle of life. this may be said to consist of a favorable condition brought about by the union of certain elements, under a moist atmosphere and a high temperature, combined with other powerful forces in nature. "when this terrestrial globe began to cool the matter predominating in the atmosphere was water or its elements oxygen and hydrogen, carbonic acid and nitrogen; under the influence of a high temperature, and powerful sources of electricity, numerous combinations were produced between the elements; first carburetted hydrogen, then a nitrogenous combination, more or less analogous to the albuminous matter which we know" (huxley). among the innumerable combinations nature produced, during a series of infinite ages, slowly undergoing transformation, the mixture of these substances, acting chemically upon one another, generating and regenerating at the expense of their surroundings, composed the first living being. this being was of excessive simplicity, comparable to the organisms which we call monera. the sun's heat acting upon these elements, and the elements acting upon one another, produced motion. heat is motion, expansion, restrained and acting in its strife upon the smallest particles of bodies. the principles of life were first produced by the action of the sun's heat upon these vitalizing elements, setting them in motion, generating the required force. the surrounding condition being favorable, the simplest form of physiological life was produced. once under the influence of what may now be termed the principle of life, in connection with which alone such phenomena are manifested, the three or four simple constituents effected peculiar combinations, giving rise to a few organizable elements--as they are termed, because of them the organized fabric of the vegetable or animal kingdom is built up. this fabric is in a good degree similar in all living bodies; the solid parts, or tissues, in all assuming the form of membranes, arranged so as to surround cavities, or form the walls of tubes, in which fluids are contained. such a structure is called organized structure, and the bodies so composed are called organized bodies, because such fabrics consist of parts coöperating with one another as instruments or organs adapted to certain ends, and through which alone the living principle, under whose influence the structure itself was built up, is manifested in the operations which the animal or plant carries on. there is in every organic fabric, a necessary connection between its conformation and the action it is destined to perform. this is equally true of the minute structure, or tissue, as revealed by the microscope, and of the larger organs which the tissues form in all plants and animals of the higher grades, such as a leaf, a petal, or a tendril, a hand, an eye, or a muscle. the term organization formerly referred to the possession of organs in this larger sense, that is, of conspicuous parts or membranes. it is now applied as well to the intimate structure of these parts, themselves made up of smaller organs through which the vital forces directly act. protoplasm, called by huxley the basis of physical life, is nothing more than a homogeneous albuminous matter. an isolated albuminoid is not living any more than an acid or a base equally isolated is a chemically active body. but a mixture of two or several albuminous substances (a protoplasm contains at least two) might be living, similarly as a mixture of an acid and a base demonstrates the chemical activity of the two bodies. but, whereas in the combination of an acid and a base, the formation of a new body puts an end to the dynamic manifestations of the mixture; the albuminous matter which by its union gives birth to a protoplasm, that is to say, to living matter, is capable of generating itself at the expense of the medium in which it is placed, and in proportion to the dynamic manifestations which it produces, gives birth to some rejected excreta in its midst. living matter may be roughly compared to an electric pile, the elements of which are capable of regenerating indefinitely. this continual exchange of the elements of living bodies and the medium in which they are placed, is one of the conditions of life. life is the continued organization, while the molecules constituting the organized body (organism) are in a state of mobile equilibrium, or a continual renovation. a grain of vegetation, or an animal (rotifera) slowly dried, might not manifest any vital property for a long time. far from constituting an example opposed to our definition, it on the contrary goes to corroborate it. whilst the chemical elements which compose it could not act one upon the other, it was necessary that they should be dissolved: corpora non agunt nisi sulta. one might compare these organisms to a pile where nothing except the fluid is wanting. the eggs of certain animals (birds, etc.), that require a certain heat in order to develop completely, furnish us a case analogous to those chemical actions which could not be accomplished in a perfect manner except by a sufficient elevation of temperature. the long discussions that have taken place in the last few years on this question, the attempted efforts to demonstrate or refute the heterogenic doctrine, have but indifferently served the purposes of science. they have made us at least to see more clearly the impotence of chemistry and physiology alone to solve the biological problem. it is impossible for anyone to study with care the organization of the infusoria, and even the protista, and believe that beings so complex are formed by spontaneous generation. the size of an animal or a vegetable signifies nothing in this question. the imperfections of the micrographic investigation have alone permitted the notion of the creation of beings such as the paramecia, the mucidina, etc. even in the more inferior protista, the bacteria, and other schizomycites, the hypothesis of heterogeny is reversed by the simple observation that these beings present a very complicated metamorphosis. an evolution, that is to say a series of supposed forcible metamorphoses, a special condition of the germ, resulting from heredity, consequently proves a generation dependent on other than anterior organisms. this reasoning, however, demonstrates in an unobjectionable manner that the first living beings were formed independent of all preëxisting organization, and that these beings were as little organized as possible. the latest progress in chemistry and in biology permits us to raise the veil partly in recovering the obscure origin of living matter. animal-vegetables, protista. when we behold the plants and animals that ordinarily surround us, the distinction between the animal and vegetable kingdom is somehow intuitive. and it seems a loss of time and trouble to indicate the character which separates these two from each other. it is not the same when we descend the scale of organisms. then we arrive at an inferior region where the distinction disappears gradually, and we soon conceive the existence of a frontier zone between the animal and vegetable, a neutral territory which has been designated the kingdom of protista. they reproach naturalists for admitting the kingdom of protista, accusing them of doubling the difficulty, instead of abolishing it; since it is necessary to establish a distinction between protista, on the one part animal, on the other vegetable. that objection could be made every time they established a new division in the organic kingdom. it does not signify anything for those who know that all divisions that trench on biology are purely subjective and that nature does not bend to our strict system of classification. natura non facit saltus. all living bodies can be decomposed into visible elements under the microscope, and these have been named plastides or cells. that word is employed in a more general sense. the most simple plastide is the cytode, a simple mass of protoplasm without a nucleus or membranous envelope. a cell in a restricted meaning of the word is a cytode presenting a nucleus, that is to say, a mass of protoplasm in the midst of which is a distinct part of the substance ambient differentiated by its aspect and its property. . plants and animals are always produced under the influence of a living body similar to themselves. . they develop from a germ or rudiment, and run through a course of changes, to a state of maturity. . plants increase by a process through which foreign materials are taken, made to permeate their interior, and deposited interstitially among the particles of the previously existing substance; that is, they are nourished by food. . plants and animals alone possess the power of assimilation, or the faculty of converting the proper foreign materials they receive into their own peculiar substance. . connected with assimilation, as a part of the functions of nutrition, is a state of internal activity and unceasing change in living bodies; these constantly undergoing decomposition and recomposition, particles which have served their turn being continually thrown out of the system as new ones are brought in. this is true of both plants and animals, but more fully of the latter. . the duration of living beings is limited. they are developed, they reach maturity, they support themselves for a time, then perish by death sooner or later. mineral bodies have no life to lose, and contain no internal principle of destruction. once formed, they exist until destroyed by some external power. they lie passive under control of physical forces. life. the great characteristic of plants and animals is life, which these beings enjoy, but minerals do not. we may safely infer that life is not a product, or result, of the organization; but is a force manifested in matter, which it controls and shapes into peculiar forms--into an apparatus, in which means are manifestly adapted to ends, by which results are reached that are in no other way attainable. as we rise in the scale of organized structure from plants through the various grades of the animal organization, the superadded vital manifestations become more and more striking and peculiar. but the fundamental characteristics of living beings--those which all enjoy in common, and which necessarily give rise to all the peculiarities above enumerated--are reducible to two, viz.: . the power of self-support, that of nourishing themselves by taking in surrounding mineral matter and converting it into their own proper substance; by which individuals increase in bulk or grow, and maintain their life; . the power of self-division or reproduction, by which they increase in number and perpetuate the species. a striking illustration may set both points in a strong light. the larva of the flesh-fly possesses such power of assimilation that it will increase its own weight two hundred times in twenty-four hours, and such consequent power of reproduction that linnæus did not exaggerate when he affirmed that "three flesh-flies would devour the carcass of a horse as quickly as a lion." the distinction between vegetable and mineral is therefore well defined. but the line of demarcation between plants and animals is by no means so readily drawn. ordinarily, there can be no difficulty in distinguishing a vegetable from an animal. all the questionable cases occur on the lower confines of the kingdom, which exhibit forms of the greatest simplicity of structure, and of a minuteness of size that baffles observation. even here the uncertainty may be attributed rather to the imperfection of our knowledge, than to any confusion of the essential characteristics of the two kinds of beings (the kingdom of protista above alluded to). the essential characteristics of vegetables doubtless depend upon the position which the vegetable kingdom occupies between the mineral and the animal, and upon the general office it fulfills. plants are those organized beings that live directly upon the mineral kingdom, upon the surrounding earth, air, water. they alone convert inorganic, or mineral, into organic matter; whilst animals originate none, but draw their whole sustenance from the organized matter which plants have thus elaborated. plants, having thus the most intimate relations with the mineral world, are generally fixed to the earth, or other substance upon which they grow, and the mineral matter upon which they feed is taken directly into their system by absorption from without, and is assimilated under the influence of light in organs exposed to the air, while animals, endowed with volition and capable of responding promptly to external impressions, have the power of selecting the food ready prepared for their nourishment, which is received into an internal reservoir or stomach. the permanent fabric of plants is composed of only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. the tissue of animals contains an additional element, viz., nitrogen. plants, as a necessary result of assimilating their inorganic food, decompose carbonic acid and restore its oxygen to the atmosphere. animals in respiration continually recompose carbonic acid, at the expense of the oxygen of the atmosphere and the carbon of plants. chapter xvii. organic life--animal. we have seen that the principal elements, the most active, that enter into the composition of plant life, that form the food substance for the support and nourishment of animals, are mainly composed of three elements, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon; that during evolution, growth, and development certain elements are absorbed and assimilated, while others, the gases, are exchanged. plants yield up oxygen and take in carbonic acid from the atmosphere, which they store up and elaborate. we have also seen that all the elements that enter into the composition of the various sorts of vegetation, are, chemically considered, seventeen in number. animal life. the animal, like the vegetable, is also composed of chemical elements, and by chemical analysis has been found to contain eighteen, as follows: . of primary or vital importance: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen. . of secondary importance, entering into the more solid structures: sulphur, phosphorus, calcium, sodium, chlorine, silicon, potassium, fluorine, magnesia, iron. . accidental constituents: magnesium, alumina, copper, and lead. the compounds found in the body are recognized as being derived from organic and inorganic substances. organic substances are obtained: . from plants and vegetables, and are termed carbohydrates or non-nitrogenous substances, being composed of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen--as starch, sugar, etc. . from animals: nitrogenous substances; these compounds contain oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen--as meat, white of eggs; these are also termed albuminous. . mineral, elements of inorganic origin, as soda, potassium, phosphorus, etc. the more highly organized tissues found in the animal are composed of five elements, as muscle, brain, blood; these are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and sulphur. albumen, for example, exists in most of the tissues of the body, but especially in the nervous tissue, lymph, chyle, blood, etc. fibrine is found most abundantly in the blood and the more perfect portions of the lymph and chyle. gelatinous substances are contained in the cellular or fibro-cellular tissues in all parts of the body, as tendons, ligaments, cartilages, bone, skin, mucous membranes, etc. chondrine is obtained from cartilages, etc. the general chemical composition of these substances is as follows: albumen. fibrine. gelatine. chondrine. carbon . . . . hydrogen . . . . nitrogen . . . . oxygen . . . sulphur . . . } . (inorganic } elements.) } phosphorus . . ------ ------ ------ ------ . . . . it will be observed that in the composition of these tissues, more than half of their constituent elements is carbon. there is but a very small quantity of hydrogen. the most abundant inorganic substance in the body is water, which is composed of oxygen one and hydrogen two (oh ). more than two-thirds of the body is made up of water. the body is composed of various structures. of the chief tissues of the human body, the weight is as follows: the skeleton . per cent. the muscles .  ,,   thoracic viscera (lungs, heart, etc.) .  ,,   abdominal viscera (liver, etc.) .  ,,   fat .  ,,   skin .  ,,   brain .  ,,   let us examine, briefly, each of these. the skeleton.--the skeleton, or solid framework of the body, is mainly formed of bones, but is completed in some parts by the addition of cartilages. the bones are bound together by means of ligaments, and are so disposed as to support the softer parts, protect delicate organs, and give attachment to the muscles by which the different movements are executed. there are two hundred and four bones in the body: the vertebral column contains the skull--cranium and face the hyoid bone--bone of the tongue ribs and sternum, forming the thorax the upper limbs--arms and shoulders the lower limbs small bones, including the patella or kneecap, to the number of the organic constituents form about . per cent of the composition of bone, while the remainder, . per cent, is inorganic matter; as follows: organic matter (gelatine and blood-vessels) . { phosphate of lime . { carbonate of lime . inorganic substances { fluoride of calcium . { phosphate of magnesia . { soda and chloride of sodium . the mineral or earthy matter enters very largely into the composition of bone. a fibrous membrane covers bone externally, and is called periosteum. the hollow bones contain marrow, composed of fat, parts; water, ; connecting tissue, . bones are supplied with blood-vessels, which carry the nutritious fluid to them. . the master tissues. primarily, it is the tissue, and not the blood, that gets loaded with carbonic acid, the latter simply receiving the gas from the former by diffusion, and the oxygen which passes from the blood into the tissues being at once taken up in some combination. . nearly one-half of the weight of the body consists of the skeletal muscles, and about one-quarter of the total blood in the body is contained in them. . the muscles are always producing carbonic acid (co ), and when they contract there is a sudden and extensive increase of the normal production. . oxygen is necessary for the life of the muscle; it is for the nervous tissue, but for muscular tissue especially. . when venous blood, instead of arterial, is sent through the blood-vessel of a muscle, the irritability speedily disappears, and unless fresh oxygen is administered the muscle soon ceases to act and dies. . the oxidation power is determined by the tissue and by the tissue only. . all the available evidence goes to show that oxidation takes place in all the tissues and not in the adjoining blood. the master tissues of the body are the muscular and nervous tissues. all other tissues may be regarded as the servants to these. these tissues are the all-important tissues in the body. the muscular tissues constitute and carry out the power, force, or energy of the body. they set the body in motion. they do the work. they regulate the delicate movements of the organs of special sense or function, as the eye, the ear, the tongue, the nose, larynx, thorax, abdomen; and fighting, defending, building, destroying, labor and mechanical skill of whatever nature, depend on them. of exercise, sport, pain and pleasure, sensation, emotion, expression of the face, in fact all in all in every act of life, the muscles, the voluntary muscles, must perform the work. they are called the muscles of animal life. they are voluntary; they may be set in action at will. for guidance, control, coördination, sensation, and motion, the muscular tissues are dependent on the nervous tissues. it is not difficult to understand, i think, as will be explained later on, that all muscular movements are perfectly natural, purely physical and mechanical. the nervous tissue will be a little more difficult to comprehend, for causes that are reasonable and plain. all animals are provided with two distinct sets of organs: . the master tissues, the nervous and muscular tissues, the voluntary muscular tissues, which are the organs of animal life, the voluntary, the active organs that do the work, consume the food, and throw off the waste material; and . the servants to these, the involuntary tissues, the organs of organic life that prepare the food, carry it to the master tissues, and bring away the waste material. the inherent qualities of both these sets of organs are instinctive, with this difference--the former, the voluntary, the controlling and working master tissues, are capable of development, progressively, acquiring intelligence, maturing into educatedness, etc. the latter, the involuntary, are simply servants to these, and they perform their functions in the same manner instinctively all through life. the muscular and nervous tissues are the educable tissue. by repetition, practice, and exercise they improve and at length exhibit certain degrees of skill in the performance of their work. on the other hand, the organs of mastication, deglutition, digestion, absorption, excretion, circulation, and respiration simply perform their functions instinctively, without possessing the capacity of improvement, and without regard to volition. these act involuntarily throughout life, as preparers and carriers of nourishment to the master tissues, and removers of waste material. the work of the muscular tissues is comparatively easy to understand. we can see the work done, can account for it, can demonstrate it. the performances are capable of absolute proof, and controversy therefore is out of question. the nervous tissues present quite another state of things. the great mass of cerebral matter, with all its complicated organs and their appendages, are hid within the cranium of the skull. we have no ocular proof of anything that is done by that structure, or of the manner in which the tissue acts. that we can see, hear, taste, and smell we know. we recognize the organs that perform these functions. sensation, feeling, memory, thinking, cannot so easily be accounted for. among the masses it is a mystery to-day. the doctrine of a dual existence in man is old, still it is held on to with remarkable tenacity. the church still teaches and preaches that soul or spirit is a part of some great personality or individuality not at all connected with nature--supernatural, divine, godly. this supernatural part, it is said, is placed in man some time during the process of birth. this subject will be more fully discussed farther on, in order to show what queer views theologians formerly held on some scientific subjects. i beg to quote from a talmudistic scholar and philosopher some thousand years ago: philosophico-anatomical views of a celebrated hebrew author, after talmudistic interpretation. jehuda ha-levi ben samuel, whose arabic name was abulhassan, considered an authority and philosopher of repute, was born in castile a.d. he adopted medicine for his profession, but was also a traveler, philosopher, and student, and a talmudistic scholar and writer. he wrote a book called "sepher hakusir: book kusari." it is a philosophico-theologico-scientific treatise, conducted in dialogue between himself and the king of kusar, who became convinced of the truth of his argument and was converted to the hebrew faith. in the fourth part, section , page , jehuda ha-levi is explaining the harmonious working of the whole universe, and in evidence thereof he cites the world, soul, and year, very learnedly setting forth the mysterious working of creation, the supernatural origin and significance of the hebrew letters, the secret and hidden meaning of their number, etc. this is based upon the principle that one rests on three, three on seven, and seven on twelve, as follows: letters: three mothers, a. m. sh. alof, mem, shin. world, air, water, fire. man, chest, abdomen, head. year, dampness, cold, heat. letters: seven double one. b. g. d. k. ph. r. t. bet, gimmel, dalet, kof, fe, rosh, tave. world: saturn, jupiter, mars, sun, venus, mercury, moon. man: wisdom, riches, dominion, life, kindness, posterity, peace. year: the seven days in the week. the twelve single one letters not mentioned--man: organs of hearing, seeing, smelling, speaking, tasting, begetting, dealing, walking, thinking, anger, laughing, sleeping. world: the twelve zodiacs. "one on three and three on seven and seven on twelve. and these numbers have their functions in common one with another. for example, 'the kidneys counsel,' 'the spleen laughs,' 'the stomach sleeps,' 'the liver gets angry.' it is not to be wondered at that the kidneys have power to give counsel; we observe something similar when the testicles have been removed; one that has been castrated is weaker than a woman; the beard does not grow, and, what is more significant, the person can no longer give advice, counsel. the spleen laughs because of her natural functions, by reason of the blood being protected against the black gall and thickening and turbidity, and from this clearness, purity, nothing but brightness and joy comes. the liver is angry because of the bitterness she forms. the stomach sleeps by reason that it stands in relation with the organs of nourishment. the heart is not thought of, because it is the king. no more do they take in consideration the lungs and diaphragm, because they are necessarily so constituted to be of service to the heart; accidentally only do they serve the rest of the body, and are originally not designed to serve. the brain is under the senses, which emanate from that organ, and are thence distributed. moreover, as to the organs that are situated below the diaphragm, therein lies a deep meaning. these are the primary vegetations, the primary generatives. the diaphragm separates the vegetative from the animal life, as the throat separates the animal from the rational (plato in his timæus explains). out of the primary generatives, out of the world vegetative, there where the root of being exists, the seed comes, and there the embryo is fashioned out of four elements. god has selected certain parts for his sacrifices--fat, blood, the peritoneum on the liver, the kidneys. on the contrary, he did not select the heart, or the brain, or the lungs, or the diaphragm. this is a deep mystery; the explanation is forbidden. therefore the prescript, that the jezisa is permitted to be studied only after undergoing some preparation, by few persons, and only under certain formalities," etc. maimonides, or moses ben maimon (rambam), - a.d., wrote god hazaker, the strong hand, a very celebrated commentary on the talmud. he held similar views, and is also considered a very learned authority. the muscular tissues. the voluntary muscles are for the most part placed in close relation with the skeleton, being attached to the hard parts, and moving these in different directions by their contraction. the muscles are all symmetrical, and with the exception of the sphincters and one or two others are in pairs. each muscle constitutes a separate organ, composed chiefly of contractile fibrous tissue, which is called muscular, and of other tissues and parts which may be regarded as accessory. thus muscular fibers are connected together in bundles or fasciculi, and these fasciculi are again embedded in and united together by a quantity of connective tissue, forming the perimysium; and the whole is usually inclosed in an external sheath of the same material. many of the muscles are connected at their more or less tapering extremities with tendons by which they are attached to the bones or hard parts; and the tendinous bands frequently run to a considerable length either on the surface of the muscle or between its fibers. there are two chief kinds of muscular tissue, the striped, and the plain or unstriped, and they are distinguished by structural peculiarities and mode of action. the striped form of muscular fibers is sometimes called voluntary muscle, because all muscles under the control of the will are constructed of it. the plain or unstriped variety is often termed involuntary, because it alone is found in the greater number of muscles over which the will has no power. the involuntary or unstriped muscles are made up of elongated, spindle-shaped fiber cells, which in their most perfect form are flat, from about / to / of an inch broad, and about / to / of an inch in length; very clear, and granular and brittle so that when they break they often have abruptly rounded or square extremities. the fibers of involuntary muscles form the proper muscular coats of the digestive canal, æsophagus, urinary bladder, trachea, bronchi, gall-bladder, blood-vessels, lymphatics, etc. to this kind of fiber, muscular fiber, the term organic is often applied. the sympathetic or ganglionic portion of the nervous system, which consists of a chain of ganglia connected by nervous cords, extends from the cranium to the pelvis, along each side of the vertebral column, and from which nerves with ganglia proceed to the viscera in the thoracic, abdominal, and pelvic cavities. by its distribution, as well as by its peculiar mode of action, this system is less immediately connected with the mind, as conducting either sensation or the impulses of the will; it is more closely connected than the cerebro-spinal system is with the processes of organic life. the muscles of animal life, or striped muscles, include the whole class of voluntary muscles, the heart, and those muscles neither completely voluntary nor completely involuntary, etc. all these muscles are composed of fleshy bundles called fasciculi, inclosed in coverings of fibro-cellular tissue, by which each is at once connected with, and isolated from, those adjacent to it. each bundle is again divided into smaller ones similarly ensheathed and similarly divisible; and so on, through an uncertain number of gradations, till we arrive at the primitive fasciculi or the muscular fibers peculiarly so called. muscular fibers consist each of a tube or sheath of delicate structureless membrane, inclosing a number of filaments or fibrils. they are of cylindrical form, or of prismatic with one or more sides, according to the manner in which they are compressed by adjacent tissues. their average diameter is about / of an inch, and their length never exceeds an inch and a half. the arrangement of the elementary substances in a muscular fiber (the sarcos element or protoplasm inclosed in the sarcolemna, the sheath) composing a muscular fiber may be compared to volta's pile or an electric battery. in fact, both muscle and nerve are made up of electrical molecules, each of the two ends of which is negative--though the development of the electrical current is at present very imperfectly known. besides, there is every reason to believe that the ground substance is similar in nature to ordinary protoplasm, but without the granular character commonly but not always exhibited. blood-vessels are largely distributed in the substance of a muscle, carrying the materials necessary for its nourishment and chemico-vital changes, and there are also lymphatic vessels as in other vascular parts of the body. nerves run through every muscle, by which the muscular contractions are called forth, and a low degree of muscular sensibility is conferred upon the muscular substance. the blood-vessels of the muscular tissues are extremely abundant, so that when they are successfully filled with a colored injection the fleshy parts of the muscle contrast strongly with its tendons. the arteries, accompanied by their veins, enter the muscle at various points and divide into branches, etc. the nerves of a voluntary muscle are of considerable size. their branches pass between the fasciculi and repeatedly unite with each other in form of a plexus, which is for the most part confined to a small part of the length of the muscle, or muscular division, in which it lies. the voluntary muscles to which distinct names have been given in the system amount to about , and they naturally fall under the following four great divisions (the muscles are symmetrical and with few exceptions are in pairs): a. in the axial part of the body: . muscles of the head and neck, . muscles of the vertebral column and trunk, b. in the limbs: . muscles of the upper extremities, . muscles of the lower extremities, flesh and blood have nearly the same ultimate composition. on evaporating parts of blood it yields parts of water and parts solid residue. the elements that enter into the composition of the solid matter are as follows: flesh. blood. carbon, . . hydrogen, . . nitrogen, . . oxygen, . . ashes, . . the general composition of a human muscle is shown by the following table: water, . { myosin and other matters, { elastic elements, etc. . solids. { soluble elements, . { gelatine, . { extractives, . { fats, . . the muscles of the flesh form a large proportion of the weight of the whole body. calculated for a man of pounds' weight: the skeleton, bone, lbs. the muscles,  ,,  the viscera, with skin, fat, blood, etc.,  ,,  the property of muscular tissue by which its peculiar functions are exercised, is its contractility--contraction or shortening. this is excited by all kinds of stimuli, applied either directly to the muscles, or indirectly to them through the medium of their nerves. the muscular tissues perform all the physical work--as locomotion, every kind of action and exertion--of the body. the quantity of blood circulated through the body is estimated to be from about / to about / part of the body's weight, and about / of that is distributed in the muscles. as regards the action of the muscles the following general principles ought to be kept in view: . that the force exerted by any muscle during its contraction is in proportion to the number of muscular elements or fibers composing the muscle. . that the extent of motion, in so far as it merely depends on the shortening of the fibers of the muscle, is in proportion to the length of the fibers. . that the direction of the force produced by a contracting muscle is in the line of the axis of the whole muscle if it runs straight between its opposite points of attachment, but in the line of the portion attached to the moving part of the muscle, or its tendon, if it be bent in its course, etc. the cerebro-spinal system. the nervous tissue. the nervous system consists of the cerebrum, pons varolii, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, the spinal cord with its nerves and the sympathetic ganglia, etc. the cerebrum or brain proper constitutes the highest and much the largest portion of the encephalon. the cerebrum consists of two halves, that are connected with each other by the corpus callosum, and with the peduncular masses of the cruri cerebri, the processus a cerebello ad cerebrum; the series of eminences, or cerebral centers or ganglia, concealed from view, named corpora quadrigemina, optic thalamus and corpora striata, etc. the cerebral hemispheres are by far the most bulky part of the cerebrum. various commissural structures unite the two hemispheres, including the corpus callosum and fornix; and some smaller structures, viz., the pineal gland, the petuitary bodies, and the olfactory bulb. the cerebral hemispheres together form an ovoid mass, in contact with the vault of the cranium, and with its smaller end forward, its greatest width being opposite to the parietal eminences. they are separated in the greater part of their extent by the great longitudinal fissure. the surface of the hemisphere is composed of gray matter, and is molded into numerous smooth tortuous eminences, named convolutions, or gyri, which are marked off from one another by deep furrows, called sulci. the cerebrum is divided into lobes for convenience of study, five in number, called frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal, sphenoidal, and central. the internal structure of the cerebrum is composed of white matter. it consists of tubular fibers varying in size in various parts, but in general still smaller than those in the cord, their average diameter being / of an inch. the fibers of white substance present no division. they are arranged in bundles, separated by a network of delicate connective tissue, consisting of cells, etc. the cells are of various forms and sizes--spheroidal, angular, fusiform, etc. the fibers radiate from the white center of each convolution in all directions into the gray cortex, having a course for the most part perpendicular to the free surface. in passing through the gray substance they are arranged in bundles about / of an inch in diameter, thus separating some of the nerve cells, etc. the olfactory tract and bulb, the corpora quadrigemina, corpora genicolate, optic thalamus, corpora striata, are all more or less mixed. they possess gray matter. the nerves immediately connected with the brain are of several kinds. and there are twelve pairs of them. they are called cerebral nerves. there are four kinds. . nerves of special sense. . nerves of common sensation. . nerves of motion. . mixed nerves of sensation and motion. the nerves of special sense may with great propriety be termed the nerves of observation, perception--the gateways of intelligence and education. i.--nerves of special sense: . the olfactory supplies the nose, special sense of smell. . the optic supplies the eye, special sense of sight. . the auditory supplies the ear, special sense of hearing. . part of the glosso-pharyngeal supplies the tongue and pharynx. . the gustatory, lingual branch of the fifth, supplies the tongue, sense of taste. ii.--nerves of common sensation: . the ophthalmic supplies the eye. . the superior maxillary supplies the upper jaw and teeth. . the inferior maxillary supplies the lower jaw and teeth. iii.--nerves of motion: . the third nerve, motor acuti. } } . the fourth nerve, trochlear or } supply the muscles pathetic. } of the eye. } . the fifth, branch of fifth. } } . the sixth, abducers. } . the facial nerve supplies the muscles of the face. . the hyperglossal supplies the muscles of the tongue. iv.--mixed nerves: . the pneumogastric supplies lungs, heart, stomach, larynx, etc. . the spinal accessory supplies some muscles of the back. the average weight of the brain in the adult male is about / ounces, a little more than three pounds avoirdupois; in the female ounces; the average difference between the two being from to ounces. the spinal cord has a length of about to inches, and weighs about / ounces. the spinal cord is a continuation of the medulla oblongata, is lodged in the spinal canal, and gives off pairs of nerves, that supply all the muscles of the body with sensitive and motor nerves. the medulla oblongata is pyramidal in form, having its broad extremity upwards. it is expanded laterally at its upper part. its length from the pons varolii to the lower extremity of the pyramid is about an inch and a quarter; its greatest breadth is nearly an inch; and its thickness from before backwards is about three-quarters of an inch. the medulla is the link between the brain and the spinal cord. the majority of centers for various organic functions are situated in it; as follows: . the respiratory center, with its neighboring convulsive center (venous blood excites convulsive centers, etc.). . the vaso-motor center. . the cardiac-inhibitory center. . the diabetic center, or center for producing artificial diabetes. . the center for deglutition. . the center for the movements of the æsophagus, with its vomiting center. . the center for reflex excitation of the secretion of saliva, with which may be associated the center through which the væjus (pneumogastric) influences the secretions of pancreatic juice, and possibly of the other digestive juices. . the center for the dilation of the pupil by means of the cervical sympathetic. from the surface of the medulla certain of the cranial nerves arise, namely the sixth (abducens), glosso-pharyngeal, pneumogastric, spinal accessory, etc. the fibers from the spinal cord pass upwards through the medulla oblongata and various other structures and finally reach the cerebrum. the cerebellum, or hinder brain, consists of a body, and of three pairs of crura or peduncles, by which it is connected with the rest of the cerebro-spinal axis. the cerebellum is covered with a gray cortical substance, rather darker than that of the cerebrum. its greatest diameter is transverse, and extends to about three and a half or four inches; its width from before backwards is about two or two and a half inches; and its greatest depth is about two inches, but it is much thinner round its outer border. it consists of two lateral hemispheres joined by a median portion called the vermiform process, and other structures therewith connected, etc. minute structure: the cortical gray substance is composed of an external clear gray layer, an inner grayish-red "granule" layer, and between the two a single layer of large cells with long processes, termed the corpuscles of porkinge (after the man who first described them). outside all is the layer of fibers and vessels of the pia mater. the external layer consists of a delicate matrix, probably of the nature of connective tissue, consisting of cells and fibers, etc. the cerebellum is probably concerned in the coördination of movements. its functions seem especially connected with afferent impulses proceeding from the semicircular coats. the spinal cord is a cylindriform column of nerve substance connected above with the brain, through the medium of the medulla oblongata, terminating below, about the lower border of the first lumbar vertebra, in a slender filament of gray or vesicular substance, the filum terminale, which lies in the midst of knots of many nerves forming the codæ equina. through the center of the cord, running in a longitudinal direction, is a minute canal, which is continuous through the whole length of the cord, and opens above into the space at the back of the medulla oblongata and pons varolii, called the fourth ventricle; the aqueduct of silvius connects it with the third ventricle, lateral and fifth ventricles, near the base of the brain. the cerebro-spinal fluid circulates in the interior of these ventricles and spinal cord. what precise mechanical function it subserves is only surmised, not known. the cerebro-spinal axis is protected by three membranes, named also meninges. they are: . an external fibrous membrane, named dura mater, which closely lines the interior of the skull, and forms a loose sheath in the spinal canal; . an internal areolo-vascular tunic, the pia mater, which accurately covers the brain and spinal cord; and, . an intermediate membrane, the arachnoid, which lies over the pia mater, the two being in some places in close connection, and in others separated by a considerable space. the sympathetic nerves are distributed in general to all the internal viscera, and to the coats of the blood-vessels. some organs, however, receive their nerves also from the cerebro-spinal system, as the lungs, the heart, and the upper and lower parts of the alimentary canal. the great gangliated cords consist of two series, in each of which the ganglia are connected by intervening cords. these cords are placed symmetrically in front of the vertebral column and extend from the base of the skull to the coccyx. with respect to the functions of the sympathetic nervous system, it may be stated generally that the sympathetic nerve fibers are simple conductors of impressions as those of the cerebro-spinal system are, and that the ganglionic centers have (each in its appropriate sphere) the like powers of conducting and of communicating impressions. the general processes which the sympathetic appears to influence, are those of involuntary motion, secretion, and nutrition. nerve centers. this term is applied to all those parts of the nervous system which contain ganglion corpuscles, or vesicular nerve-substance--i.e., the brain, spinal cord, and the several ganglia which belong to the cerebro-spinal and the sympathetic system. each of these nervous centers has a proper range of functions, the extent of which bears a direct proportion to the number of nerve fibers that connect it with the various organs of the body, and with other nervous centers; but they all have certain general properties and modes of action common to them as nervous centers. the brain does not issue any force, except when itself impressed by some force from within, or stimulated by an impression from without; neither do the other nerve centers without such previous impressions produce or issue motor impulses. the more certain and general office of all the nervous centers is that of variously disposing and transferring the impressions that reach them through the several centripetal fibers. in nerve fibers impressions are conducted only in the simple isolated course of the fiber; in all the nervous centers an impression may not only be conducted, but also communicated; in the brain alone it may be perceived. in all cases in which the mind either has cognizance of, or exercises influence on, the process carried on in any part supplied with the sympathetic nerve, there must be conduction of impressions through all the nervous centers between the brain and the part. but instead of, or as well as, being conducted, impressions made on nervous centers may be communicated from the fibers that brought them to others, and in this communication may be either transferred, diffused, or reflected. along nerve fibers impressions or conditions of excitement are simply conducted; in nerve centers they may be made to deviate from their course, and may be variously diffused, reflected, or otherwise disposed of. function of nerves. the office of nerves as simple conveyors or conductors of nervous impressions is of a twofold kind: . they serve to convey to the nervous centers the impressions made upon the peripheral extremities or parts of their course; . they serve to transmit impressions from the brain and other nervous centers to the parts to which they are distributed. for this twofold office of the nerves two distinct sets of nerve fibers are provided, in both the cerebro-spinal and sympathetic systems. those which convey impressions from the periphery to the center are classed together as centripetal or afferent nerves, or nerves of sensation--sensitive nerves. those, on the other hand, which are employed to transmit central impulses to the periphery are classed as centrifugal or afferent nerves or motor nerves, conveying impulses to the voluntary and involuntary muscles, etc. nerves are constructed of minute fibers or tubules full of nervous matter, arranged in parallel or interlacing bundles, which bundles are connected by intervening connective tissue in which their principal blood-vessels ramify. the size of nerve fibers varies, and the same fibers do not preserve the same diameter through their whole length, being largest in their course within their trunk and branches of nerves, in which the majority measure from / to / of an inch in diameter. as they approach the brain or spinal cord, and generally also in the tissue in which they are distributed, they gradually become smaller. in the gray or vesicular substance of the brain or spinal cord they generally do not measure more than from / to / of an inch. the chemical composition of nervous matter. like most of the other tissues of the body, the nervous substance contains a large proportion of water (from three-fourths to four-fifths of its weight). of the residue which remains after the removal of this by evaporation or other means, the larger part consists of a phosphuretted fat, which may be obtained crystallized, and in this condition was termed protagon. the crystalline substance, however, is in reality a mixture of two other substances, lecithin and neurin. cerebrin is also described as being frequently met with in conjunction with lecithin. lecithin. neurin. cerebrin. cholestrin. carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorus, oxygen, chapter xviii. food and food-substances. there are two kinds of food: . those food substances that are derived from the animal kingdom; and, . food substances that are derived from the vegetable kingdom. food is taken into the system to replace the material expended by the human body, or the waste products which are thrown off from the master tissues. definition: food may be defined to be any natural substance, vegetable or animal, recognized as such, that has undergone neither the process of fermentation nor that of putrefaction. food may be considered in its relation to two purposes--the nutrition of the tissues, and the production of heat. under the first of these heads will be included many other allied functions, as for example, secretion and generation; and under the second, not the production of heat only as such, but of all other forces correlated with it, which are manifested by the living body. foods derived from the animal kingdom are called nitrogenous substances, or azotized. they are also known by the name of proteids. these are mainly derived from meat, milk, eggs, etc. of several we will examine the chemical composition. it will be well to state in general terms that all food substances contain in their composition from two-thirds to three-fourths, or even more, of water--some more, some less. proteids. albumen. caseine. syntonin. gluten. gelatine. carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, r. non-nitrogenous substances. carbon. hydrogen. oxygen. . starch (amyloids), sugar cane, . oils and fats composed of stearic acid of mutton or beef, . mineral--saline matters, as chloride of sodium, phosphate of lime. animals cannot subsist on any but organic substances, and these must contain the elements which are naturally combined with them--in other words, not even organic compounds are nutritive unless they are supplied in their natural state. pure fibrine, pure gelatine, and other principles purified from the substances naturally mingled with them, are incapable of supporting life for more than a brief time. moreover, health cannot be maintained by any number of substances derived exclusively from one only of the two chief groups of elementary principles mentioned above. a mixture of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous organic substances, together with the inorganic principles which are severally contained in them, is essential to the well-being, and generally even to the existence, of an animal. the truth of this is demonstrated by experiments performed for the purpose; and is also well illustrated by the composition of the food prepared by nature as the exclusive source of nourishment to the young mammals, namely milk. the composition of milk is: human. cow's. water, solids, ---- ---- caseine, butter, sugar (with extracts), salts, --- --- carb. hyd. nit. oxy. sulph. r (unknown). caseine, in milk, it will be seen from the preceding table, the albuminous group of aliments is represented by the caseine, the oleaginous by the butter, the aqueous by the water, the saccharine by the sugar of milk. let us compare the composition of these four organic substances and water: oxy. hyd. carb. nitr. sulph. r (unknown element). water, sugar, oh + caseine, olein, among the salts of milk are phosphate of lime, alkaline and other salts, and a trace of iron; so that it may be briefly said to include all the substances which the tissues of a growing animal need for their nutrition and which are required for the production of animal heat. the yolk and albumen of eggs stand in the same relation as food for the embryos of oviparous animals, that milk does to the young mammalia; and affords another example of mixed food being provided as the most perfect nutrition. the composition of fowl's egg is: white. yolk. water, . . albumen, . . mucus, . yellow oil . salts, . . the food substances. . amyloids, starch and sugars. starch is derived from grain and vegetables, as wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, rice, sago, tapioca, beans, peas, etc. the vegetables contain from to per cent of water. starch and sugars are derived from such as potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, etc., etc. the fruits are largely composed of water, sugars, and acids. all these classes of food contain only three elements.--starch: carbon. hydrogen. oxygen. in their composition we have fifteen molecules of water presented carrying eighteen atoms of carbon. sugar: carbon. hydrogen. oxygen. in this case again we have eleven molecules of water carrying twelve atoms of carbon. this is the chemical composition of starch and sugar food. . fats are also composed of three elements only--carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. take the fat of mutton or pork: carbon. hydrogen. oxygen. all other animal oils and fats are composed of these three elements only. . albuminous substances--meats, beef, mutton, veal, pork, birds, and fish, of all descriptions. . besides these, mineral salts, already mentioned. . and lastly, water--of which by far the greatest quantity is consumed. the quantity of food ought to be in amount sufficient to replace the waste products of the body. an amount should be taken into the system equal in kind and quantity to the material expended. since we know the amount of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and the salts that are excreted by the kidneys, skin, and lungs, we may easily calculate the amount of various kinds of food needed to replace them. the outcome being known, the income can be regulated accordingly. the expenditure or waste, we have seen, in daily loss amounts in carbon to about , grains, and in nitrogen to grains; besides a certain quantity of water, etc. we therefore require starchy substances, meat and fat, water, etc., to replace the quantity lost. bread, for example, contains per cent of carbon and per cent of nitrogen. if bread alone, therefore, were taken as food, a man would require in order to obtain the requisite nitrogen , grains, containing of carbon, , grains; of nitrogen, grains--an excess of carbon above the amount required of , grains. but a combination of bread and meat would supply much more economically what was necessary: carbon. nitrogen. , grains of bread (rather more than pounds) contains , grs. grs. , grains of meat (about / pounds) contains ----- --- , so that / pounds meat and pounds of bread, or its equivalent, would supply the needful carbon and nitrogen with but little waste. from all these facts it will be plain that a mixed diet is the best and most economical for man; and the result of experience entirely coincides with what might have been anticipated on theoretical grounds only. the quality and quantity of foods to be taken depends largely upon their digestibility. the quantity of food necessary for a healthy man taking free exercise in the open air is as follows: meat ounces or pound avoir. bread and all other   ,,   ,, .  ,,     ,,   carbohydrates, fat, butter, /   ,,   ,, .  ,,     ,,   water   ,,   ,, .  ,,     ,,   the quantity and quality of food taken into the system every twenty-four hours, should depend upon the amount and kind of labor done, whether muscular or nervous, whether sitting or not, inactive or active, whether indoors or out of doors; upon the kind of atmosphere we breathe; upon season and climate, etc.; also upon the opportunities we have of throwing off the surplus carbon and nitrogen that the system has been overcrowded with. these conditions determine the proper variations of the income, since that has to be regulated and corrected by the outcome, and amounts after all to just so much carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus, saline matter, and water as are contained in the proteids, fats, carbohydrates, salts, and water. it matters little how food is prepared. the main feature is that the supply is equal to the loss, of good and wholesome quality. whether the food is manipulated by an artistic $ , cook or by a plain, clean housewife, the result is the same. whether the special sense of taste, the gustatory nerve, has or has not undergone a high course of training and education, the fact remains that all that can be supplied is the necessary material that has been expended by the work and labor done by the muscular and nervous tissues. the subjoined results, selected from boussingault, exhibit in a tabular form the relative quantity of organic and inorganic constituents in several kinds of herbage compared in several cases with the root or grain. the water was previously driven off by thorough drying: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- leaves of root of mangel- mangel- potato pea clover wheat wurzel. wurzel. tops. potatoes. straw. peas. hay. straw. wheat. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- carbon . . . . . . . . . hydrogen . . . . . . . . . oxygen . . . . . . . . . nitrogen . . . . . . . . . ashes . . . . . . . . . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ . . . . . . . . . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- subjoined is a table from the same work of the percentage of mineral substances taken up from the soil by various plants: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- substances acids oxide of which -------------------------------- iron, charcoal, yield ammonia moisture, ashes. carbonic. sulphuric. phosphoric. chlorine. lime. magnesia. potash. soda. silica. etc. and loss. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- potatoes . . . . . . . traces . . . mangel- wurzel . . . . . . . . . . . turnips . . . . . . . . . . . potato tops . . . . . . . traces . . . wheat . . . traces . . . traces . . . wheat straw . . . . . . . . . . . oats . . . . . . . . . . . oat straw . . . . . . . . . . . clover . . . . . . . . . . . pease . . . . . . . . . traces . french beans . . . . . . . . . traces . horse beans . . . . . . . . . traces . ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- chapter xix. the elimination of waste substances. the expenditures of the human body, or the waste products which arise from the activity of the master tissues, are thrown off by the excretory tissues, as the lungs, the skin, the kidneys, and the terminal part of the intestines. the lungs are hollow organs, and we may consider them as really two bags containing air, each of which communicates by a separate orifice with a common air tube, through the upper part of which, the larynx, they freely communicate with the external atmosphere. the orifice of the larynx is guarded by muscles, and can be opened or closed at will. each lung is partially subdivided into separate portions called lobes. the right lung has three lobes, and the left lung has two. each of these lobes, again, is composed of a large number of minute parts, called lobules. each pulmonary lobule may be considered a lung in miniature, consisting as it does of a branch of a bronchial tube, air-cells, blood-vessels, nerves, and lymphatics, with a sparing amount of areolar tissue. the terminal portion of each lobule is composed of a group of pouches or air-cells, which communicate with the intercellular air passages. these cells are of various forms, according to the mutual pressure to which they are subject. their cell walls are nearly in contact, and they vary from / to / of an inch in diameter. outside the cells a network of pulmonary capillaries is spread out so densely that the interspaces or meshes are even narrower than the vessels, which are on an average / of an inch in diameter. between the atmospheric air in the cells and the blood in the vessels nothing intervenes but the thin membrane of the cells and the capillaries, and the delicate epithelium lining the former. and the exposure of the blood to the air is the more complete because the folds of membrane between contiguous cells, and often the spaces between the walls of the same, contain only a single layer of capillaries, both sides of which are thus at once exposed to the air. the enlargement of the capacity of the chest in inspiration is a muscular act; the muscles concerned in producing the effect being chiefly the diaphragm, the external intercostal muscles, etc. from the enlargement produced in inspiration, the chest and lungs return in ordinary tranquil expiration by their elasticity; the force employed by the inspiratory muscles in distending the chest and overcoming the elastic resistance of the lungs and chest wall being returned as an expiratory effort when the muscles are relaxed. the acts of expansion and of contraction of the chest take up, under ordinary circumstances, a nearly equal time, and can scarcely be said to be separated from each other by an intervening pause. the quantity of air that is changed in the lungs in each act of ordinary tranquil breathing is variable, but probably to cubic inches are a fair average in the case of healthy young and middle-aged men. the total quantity of air which passes into and out of the lungs of an adult, at rest, in hours, has been estimated to be about , cubic inches. this quantity is largely increased by exertion; and it has been computed that the average amount for a hard-working laborer in the same time is , , . breathing air is the quantity of air which is habitually and almost uniformly changed in each act of breathing. complemental air is the quantity of air over and above this which a man can draw into the lungs in the deepest inspiration. after ordinary expiration, such as that which expels the breathing air, a certain quantity of air remains in the lungs which may be expelled by a forcible and deeper expiration; this is termed reserve air. but even after the most violent expiratory effort, the lungs are not completely emptied; a certain quantity of air remains in them, over which there is no voluntary control, which may be called residual air. its amount depends, in great measure, on the absolute size of the chest, and has been variously estimated at from to cubic inches. power of inspiratory power of expiratory muscles. muscles. . inches. weak . inches. .   ,,    ordinary .   ,,    .   ,,    strong .   ,,    .   ,,    very strong .   ,,    .   ,,    remarkable .   ,,    .   ,,    very remarkable .   ,,    .   ,,    extraordinary .   ,,    .   ,,    very extraordinary .   ,,    the blood as it moves through the respiratory organs is exposed to the air that alternately moves into and out of the air-cells and minute bronchial tubes. the blood is propelled from the right ventricle through the pulmonary capillaries in steady streams, and slowly enough to permit every minute portion of it to be for a few seconds exposed to the air, with only the thin walls of the capillary vessels and air-cells intervening. the atmosphere we breathe has in every situation in which it has been examined in its natural state a nearly uniform composition. it is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, carbonic acid, and watery vapor, with traces of other gases, as ammonia, sulphuretta, hydrogen, etc. of every volumes of pure atmospheric air, volumes consist of nitrogen and of oxygen, about. the proportion of carbonic acid is extremely small: , volumes of atmospheric air contains only about or of carbonic acid. the average quantity of watery vapor in the atmosphere in this country is about . per cent. the changes produced by respiration on the atmosphere are that: . it is warmed; . its carbonic acid is increased; . its oxygen is diminished; . its watery vapor is increased; . a minute amount of organic matter and of free ammonia is added to it. . the expired air is hotter than the inspired air. the temperature varies from ° to / °. . carbonic acid in respired air is always increased; but the quantity exhaled in a given time is subject to change from various circumstances. from every volume of air inspired about / per cent of oxygen is abstracted; while rather a smaller quantity of carbonic acid is added in its place. under ordinary circumstances, the quantity of carbonic acid exhaled into the air breathed by a healthy adult man amounts to , inches, or about grains, per hour. it is estimated that the weight of carbon excreted from the lungs is about grains per hour, or rather more than ounces in hours. of course the influence of age, sex, respiratory movements, external temperature, season of the year, purity of the respired air, hygrometric state of the atmosphere, period of day, food and drink, exercise and sleep, have to be taken in consideration. the oxygen of respired air is always less than in the same air before respiration, and its diminution is generally proportionate to the increase of the carbonic acid. it has been shown that for every volume of carbonic acid exhaled into the air . volumes of oxygen are absorbed from it; and that when the average quantity of carbonic acid, i.e., , cubic inches, or grains, is exhaled in the hour, the quantity of oxygen absorbed in the same time is , cubic inches, or grains. the nitrogen in the atmosphere, in relation to the respiratory process is supposed to serve only mechanically, by diluting the oxygen, and moderating the action upon the system. the most obvious change which the blood undergoes in its passage through the lungs is that of color, the dark venous blood being exchanged for the bright scarlet arterial blood. it gains oxygen, loses carbonic acid, becomes ° to ° f. warmer; it coagulates sooner and more firmly, and contains more fibrine. the venous blood as it issues from the right ventricle is loaded with carbonic acid. the oxygen present is insufficient to the whole of the hæmoglobin of the red corpuscles; much reduced hæmoglobin is present, hence the purple color of venous blood. as the blood-vessels pass through the capillaries of the lungs, this reduced hæmoglobin takes from the pulmonary air its complement of oxygen, all or nearly all the hæmoglobin of the red corpuscles becomes oxy-hæmoglobin, and the purple color forthwith shifts into scarlet. the hæmoglobin of arterial blood is saturated or nearly saturated with oxygen. passing from the left ventricle to the capillaries, some of the oxy-hæmoglobin gives up its oxygen to the tissues, becomes reduced hæmoglobin, and the blood in consequence becomes once more venous, with a purple hue. thus the red corpuscles by virtue of their hæmoglobin are emphatically oxygen-carriers. undergoing no intrinsic change in itself, the hæmoglobin combines in the lungs with oxygen, which it carries to the tissues; these, more greedy of the oxygen than itself, rob it of its charge, and the reduced hæmoglobin hurries back to the lung in venous blood for another portion. hæmoglobin combines loosely with carbonic oxide just as it does with oxygen, but the affinity with the former is greater than with the latter. while carbonic oxide readily turns out oxygen, oxygen cannot so readily turn out carbonic acid. this property of carbonic oxide explains its poisonous nature. respiratory changes in the tissues. arterial blood passing through the several tissues, becomes once more venous. a considerable quantity of the oxy-hæmoglobin becomes reduced, and a quantity of carbonic acid passes from the tissue into the blood. the blood which comes from a contracting muscle, is not only richer in carbonic acid, but also, though not to a corresponding amount, poorer in oxygen, than the blood which flows from a muscle at rest. a muscle is always producing carbonic acid, and when it contracts there is a sudden and extensive increase of the normal production. oxygen is necessary for the life of the muscle. when venous blood instead of arterial blood is sent through the blood-vessel of a muscle, the irritability speedily disappears, and unless fresh oxygen be administered the muscle soon dies. our knowledge of the respiratory changes in muscle is more complete than in the case of any other tissue; but we have no reason to suppose the phenomena of muscle are exceptional. on the contrary, all the available evidence goes to show that in all the tissues the oxidation takes place in the tissues and not in the adjoining blood. it is a remarkable fact, that lymph, serous fluid, bile, urine, and the other secretions contain no free or loosely combined oxygen, while the tension of carbonic acid in peritoneal fluid is as high as six per cent, and in bile and urine is still higher, etc. all these facts point to the conclusion, that it is the tissues, and not the blood, which become primarily loaded with carbonic acid, the latter simply receiving the gas from the former by diffusion; and that the oxygen which passes from the blood into the tissues is at once taken up in the same combinations, so that it is no longer removable by diminished tension. the production of carbonic acid in the muscle is not directly dependent on the consumption of oxygen. the muscles produce carbonic acid in an atmosphere of hydrogen. what is true of muscle is true also of other tissues and of the body at large. oxygen helps to wind up the vital clock; but once wound up, the clock will go on for a period without further winding (pflüger). to sum up, then, the result of respiration in its chemical aspect. as the blood passes through the lungs, the low oxygen tension of the venous blood permits the entrance of oxygen from the air of the pulmonary alveolus, through the thin alveolar wall, through the thin capillary sheath, through the thin layer of blood plasma, to the red corpuscles, and the reduced hæmoglobin of the venous blood becomes wholly, or all but wholly, oxy-hæmoglobin. hurried to the tissues, the oxygen, at a comparatively high tension in the arterial blood, passes largely into the tissues, in which the oxygen tension is always kept at an exceedingly low pitch, by the fact that the tissues, in some way at present unknown to us, pack away, at every moment, into some stable combination each molecule of oxygen which they receive from the blood. with much, but not all, of its oxy-hæmoglobin reduced, the blood passes on as venous blood. how much hæmoglobin is reduced will depend on the activity of the tissue itself. the quantity of hæmoglobin in the blood is the measure of limit of the oxidizing power of the body at large; but within that limit the amount of oxidation is determined by the tissue, and by the tissue alone. the skin is an excretory tissue, and consists principally of two layers, an external covering of epithelium, termed the cuticle or epidermis, and a layer of vascular tissue, named the corium derma or cutis vera. the integument serves ( ) for the protection of deeper tissues, ( ) as a sensitive organ in the exercise of touch, ( ) as an excretory organ, ( ) as an absorbing organ, ( ) for regulating the temperature of the body. within and beneath the corium are imbedded several organs with special functions, namely, sudoriferous or sweat glands, sebaceous or fat glands, and hair follicles; and on its surface are sensitive papillæ. the so-called appendages of the skin, the hair and nails, are modifications of the epidermis. sudoriferous glands: in the middle of each of the transverse furrows between the papillæ, and irregularly scattered between the bases of the papillæ in those parts of the surface of the body in which there are no furrows between them, are the orifices or ducts of the sudoriferous, or sweat glands, by which it is probable that a large portion of the aqueous and gaseous materials excreted by the skin are separated. each of these glands consists of a small lobular mass, which appears formed of a coil of tubular gland-duct surrounded by blood-vessels and imbedded in the subcutaneous adipose tissue. from this mass the duct ascends, for a short distance, in a spiral manner through the deeper parts of the cutis, then passing straight, and then sometimes again becoming spiral, it runs through the cuticle and opens by an oblique, valve-like apparatus. the sudoriferous glands are abundantly distributed over the whole surface of the body; but are especially numerous, as well as very large, in the skin of the palm of the hand. they are estimated from , to , in each superficial square inch. they are almost equally abundant and large in the skin of the sole. the glands by which the peculiar odorous matter of the axilla is secreted form a nearly complete layer under the cutis, and are like the ordinary sudoriferous glands, except in being larger and having very short ducts. in the neck and back, where they are least numerous, the glands amount to on the square inch. the total number is estimated, at , , ; and supposing the orifice of each gland to present a surface of / of a line in diameter (and regarding a line as equal to / of an inch) the whole of the glands would present an evaporating surface of about eight square inches. sebaceous glands secrete a peculiar fatty matter. like the sudoriferous glands, they are abundantly distributed over most parts of the body. the quantity of matter which leaves the human body by way of the skin is very considerable. it is estimated that while grains pass through the lungs per minute, as much as escape through the skin. the amount varies extremely. it is calculated that the total amount of perspiration excreted from the whole body in hours might range from to kilos. the total amount of perspiration is affected not only by the condition of the atmosphere, but also by the nature and quantity of food taken, the amount of fluid drunk, and the amount of exercise taken. it is also influenced by the mental condition, by medicines and poisons, by disease, and by the relative activity of the other excreting organs, more particularly the kidneys. the fluid perspiration or sweat, when collected, is found to be a clear colorless fluid, with a strong and distinctive odor varying according to the part of the body from which it is taken. besides accidental epidermic scales, it contains no structural elements. its reaction is generally acid, but in cases of excessive secretion may become alkaline. the average amount of solids is about . per cent, of which about two-thirds consists of organic substances. the chief normal constituents are ( ) sodium chloride (common salt), with small quantities of other inorganic salts; ( ) various acids of the fatty series, such as fermic, acetic, butyric acid, with probably other acids--ch o -c h o --c h o ; ( ) neutral fats and cholestrine; ( ) ammonia (nh ) (urea), and possibly other nitrogenous substances. the average loss by cutaneous and pulmonary exhalation in a minute is from to grains; the minimum, grains; the maximum, grains; of the average grains pass by the skin and by the lungs. the maximum loss by exhalation, cutaneous and pulmonary, in twenty-four hours is about / pounds; the minimum, about / pounds. valentine found the whole quantity lost by exhalation from the respiratory and cutaneous surfaces of a healthy man who consumed daily , grains of food and drink to be , grains, or / pounds. subtracting from this, for the pulmonary exhalation, , grains, and for the excess of the weight of the exhaled carbonic acid over that of the equal volume of the inspired oxygen, , grains, the remainder, , grains, or nearly / pounds, may represent an average amount of cutaneous exhalation in a day. the kidneys, two in number, are excretory organs. they are deeply seated in the lumbar region, one on each side of the vertebral column, at the back of the abdominal cavity, and behind the peritoneum. the kidneys measure about inches in length, / inches in breadth, and / inches in thickness. the left is usually longer and narrower than the right one. the weight of the kidney is usually stated to be about / ounces in the male and somewhat less in the female. the excretory apparatus consists of fine tubules (the tubuli urineferi), malpighian bodies, blood-vessels, nerves, and lymphatics, etc. the kidneys are highly vascular, and receive their blood from the renal arteries, which are very large in proportion to the organ they supply. each artery breaks up into four or five branches, these again subdivide and break up into capillaries in the substance of the kidney. the veins arise by numerous venous radicals from the capillary network of the kidney, as seen near the surface of the gland, and collect the blood from the capillary plexus around the convoluted tubules which mainly compose this part, the smaller veins joining together and ultimately forming a single vein and ending in the inferior vena cava. the kidneys are so arranged by their anatomical structure--that of the cortical and medullary substance, the tubuli urineferi, pyramids, malpighian bodies, etc.--that they separate from the blood the solids in a state of solution. the secretion takes place by the agency of the gland cells, and equally in all the parts of the urine tubes. the protoplasmic cells which line at least a large portion of the tubuli urineferi elaborate from the blood certain substances, and discharge them into the channels of the tubules. all parts of the tubular system of the kidney take part in the secretion of urine as a whole, but there is another provision of vessels for a more simple draining off of the water from the blood when required. the large size of the renal arteries and veins permits so rapid a transit of the blood through the kidneys that the whole of the blood is purified by them. the secretion of urine is rapid in comparison with other secretions, and as each portion is secreted, it propels that which is already in the tubes onwards into the pelvis of the kidney. thence, through the ureter, the urine passes into the bladder, into which its rate and mode of entrance has been watched. the urine does not enter the bladder at any regular rate, nor is there a synchronism in its movement through the two ureters. in a recumbent posture the urine collects for a little time in the ureters, then flows gently, and if the body is raised, runs from them in a stream till they are empty. its flow is increased in deep inspiration, or straining, and in active exercise, and in fifteen or twenty minutes after meals. substances taken into the stomach pass very rapidly through the circulation. it does not take longer than one minute for ferrocyanide of potassium to pass through. vegetable substances pass in from sixteen to thirty-five. neutral alkaline salts with vegetable acids, which were generally decomposed in transitu, made the urine alkaline in twenty-eight to forty-seven minutes. but the time of passage varied much; and the transit was always slow when the substances were taken during digestion. there are really two distinct parts in the kidney--the actively secreting part, the epithelium of the secreting tubules; and what maybe called a filtering part, the malpighian bodies. the specific gravity of urine is --that is, the average human urine. urine varies--in the morning before breakfast it is darker, urina sanguinis; urine secreted shortly after the introduction of any considerable quantity of fluid into the body, urina potus; and the urine evacuated immediately succeeding a solid meal of food, urina cibi. the last kind contains a larger quantity of solid matter than either of the others, the first and second being largely diluted with water. specific gravity: the morning urine is best calculated for analysis. the average healthy range may be stated at in the winter to in the summer, and variations of diet and exercise may make a great difference. in disease, the variations may be greater; sometimes descending in albuminaria to , and frequently ascending in diabetes, when the urine is loaded with sugar, to , or even to . the whole quantity of urine secreted in twenty-four hours is subject to variations according to the amount of fluid drunk, and the proportion of the latter passing off from skin, lungs, and alimentary canal. the average quantity voided in twenty-four hours by healthy male adults from twenty to forty years of age amounts to / fluid ounces. the chemical composition of urine. the average quantity of each constituent of the urine in , parts is: water (o h ), urea (c o n h ), . uric acid (c n h o ), . coloring matter, mucus, and animal extractive matter, . { sulphates (soda, potash), } . salts. { bisulphates (lime, soda, } { magnesia, ammonia), } { chlorides (sodium, potassium), } silica, etc., traces. --------- , . urea is the principal solid constituent of the urine, forming nearly one-half of the whole quantity of solid matter. it is also the most important ingredient, since it is the chief substance by which the nitrogen of decomposed tissue and superfluous food is excreted from the body. the salts excreted by the kidneys in hours are: urea (c n h o), grains. chloride of sodium (na cl),   ,,    phosphoric acid (h p o ),   ,,    sulphuric acid (h s o ), .   ,,    uric acid (c n h o ), .   ,,    the substances excreted consist mainly of carbonic acid gas (c o ), which is expired by the lungs, and urea (c n h o), which is expelled by the urine. these excretions, or expenditures, or waste products of the human body, present the carbohydrates--starch, sugars, and fats--and the proteids--meats and albumen--taken into the system as food. the daily average loss by the expenditure or waste products of the body is estimated to be about: carbon, , grains. nitrogen, to grains. besides salts and water. of all the elements of the income and outcome, the nitrogen, the carbon, and the free oxygen of respiration, are by far the most important. since water is of use to the body for merely mechanical purposes, and not as food in the strict sense of the word, the hydrogen element becomes a dubious one; the sulphur of the proteids, and phosphorus of the fats, are insignificant in amount; while the saline matters stand on a wholly different footing from the other parts of the food, inasmuch as they are not sources of energy, and pass through the body with comparatively little change. the correct income will consist of so much nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, phosphorus, saline matters, and water, contained in the proteids, fats, carbohydrates, salts, and water of the food, together with the oxygen absorbed by the lungs, skin, and alimentary canal. the outcome will consist of: . the respiratory products of the lungs, skin, and alimentary canal, consisting chiefly of carbonic acid and water, with small quantities of hydrogen and carburetted hydrogen, these two latter coming exclusively from the alimentary canal; . perspiration, consisting chiefly of water and salts, with urea by the skin, and other organic constituents of sweat amounting to very little; . the urine, which contains practically all the nitrogen really excreted by the body, as well as a large quantity of saline matter and water. heat and temperature. the average temperature of the human body in those internal parts which are more accessible, as the mouth and rectum, is from . ° to . ° f. the chief circumstances by which the temperature of the healthy body is influenced are the following: age. the average temperature of the new-born babe is only about ° f. above that proper to the adult. in old age the temperature rises again, and approaches that of infancy. sex. in the female slightly higher than in the male. exercise. active exercise raises the temperature of the body, through muscular contraction, etc. climate and season. in passing from a temperate to a hot climate, the temperature of the human body rises slightly, rarely more than ° to ° f. in summer the temperature of the body is a little higher than in winter, / ° to / ° f. cold alcoholic drinks depress the temperature / ° to °f. warm alcoholic drinks, as well as warm tea and coffee, raise the temperature about / ° f. in disease, as in pneumonia and typhus, it occasionally rises as high as ° or ° f. in asiatic cholera a thermometer placed in the mouth sometimes rises only to ° or ° f. the temperature maintained by mammalia of an active state of life averages ° f. in birds, the average is as high as ° f., the highest temperature, . °, being in the species of the linnets, etc. the sources and distribution of heat. wherever metabolism of protoplasm is going on, heat is being generated. all over the body heat is being set free; more abundantly in the more active tissues, and most of all in those tissues the metabolism of which leads to little or no external work. the metabolism of the tissues (including the blood) and of the food within the alimentary canal is the source of the heat of the body. but heat, being continually produced, is as continually being lost, as we have seen, by the skin, urine, and feces. the blood passing from one part of the body to another, and carrying warmth from the tissues where heat is being actively generated, to the tissues or organs where heat is being lost by conduction or evaporation, tends to equalize the temperature of the various parts and thus maintain a constant bodily temperature. taking the body as a whole, under normal conditions, the chief sources of the production of heat are the muscles, and the abdominal viscera, more especially the liver; and of these the liver deserves attention, inasmuch as it is always at work, whereas the heat produced by the muscles is at least largely dependent on their contracting, and they may remain at rest for a considerable period. the brain, too, may be regarded as a source of heat, since its temperature is higher than that of the arterial blood with which it is supplied. heat is lost by the skin, respiration, feces, etc. the great regulator, however, is undoubtedly the skin. the more blood passes through the skin the greater will be the loss of heat by conduction, radiation, and evaporation. the working of this heat-regulating mechanism is well seen in the case of exercise. since every muscular contraction gives rise to heat, exercise must increase for the time being the production of heat; yet the bodily temperature rarely rises as much as a degree c., if at all. by exercise the respiration is quickened and the loss of heat by the lungs increased. the circulation of blood is also quickened, and the cutaneous vascular areas becoming dilated, a large amount of blood passes through the skin. the expenditure of heat may be tabulated thus: by the skin, in conducting, radiating, and evaporating, . per cent. warming expired air, .  ,,   evaporating the water of respiration, .  ,,   in warming urine, etc., .   ,,   the circulation. the heart is a hollow muscular organ divided by a longitudinal septum into a right and a left half, each of which is again subdivided by a transverse constriction into two compartments communicating with each other, and named auricle and ventricle. the heart is inclosed in the pericardium and placed behind the sternum and costal cartilages on the border end or base, by which it is attached, being directed upwards, backwards, and to the right, and extending from the level of the fourth to that of the eighth dorsal vertebra, the apex downwards, forwards, and to the left. in size, it is about five inches long, three and a half in its greatest width, and two in its extreme thickness from the anterior to the posterior surface. the weight is from nine to ten ounces. the circulation of the blood.-- the body is divided into two chief cavities, the chest or thorax, and abdomen, by a curved muscular partition called the diaphragm or midriff. the chest is almost entirely filled with lungs and heart, the latter being fitted in, so to speak, between the two lungs, nearer to the front than the back of the chest, and partly overlapped by them. in the living body the heart and lungs are in constant rhythmic movement, the result of which is an unceasing stream of air through the trachea alternately into and out of the lungs, and an unceasing stream of blood into and out of the heart. the blood is conveyed away from the heart by the arteries and returned to it by the veins; the arteries and veins being continuous with each other, at one end by means of the heart, and at the other by a fine network of vessels called capillaries. the blood, therefore, in its passage from the heart passes first into the arteries, then into the capillaries, and lastly into the veins, by which it is conveyed back again to the heart--thus completing a revolution, or circulation. there are two circulations by which all the blood must pass--the one a shorter circuit from the heart to the lungs and back again, which is called the pulmonic; the other the larger circuit, from the heart to all parts of the body and back again, which is called the systemic; and a subordinate stream of blood, that has been collected by the blood-vessels of the intestines, passes by means of the portal vein through the liver, and is called the portal circulation. the principal force provided for constantly moving the blood on this course, is that of the muscular substance of the heart; other assistant forces are ( ) those of the elastic walls of the arteries, ( ) the pressure of the muscles among which some of the veins run, ( ) the movements of the walls of the chest in respiration, and ( ) probably to some extent the interchange of relations between the blood and the tissues which ensues in the capillary system during the nutritive processes. the right direction of the blood's course is determined and maintained by the valves of the heart. the heart is divided into two chief chambers or cavities--right and left. each of these chambers is again divided into an upper and lower portion called respectively auricle and ventricle, which freely communicate with each other. the right auricle communicates on the one hand with the veins of the general system and on the other with the right ventricle. the valvular curtain between the right auricle and the right ventricle is named the tricuspid; by it the auricle is guarded from the ventricle. the ventricle leads directly into the pulmonary artery and this in turn into the lungs. the pulmonary artery is guarded by three semilunar valves. the left auricle again communicates on the one hand with the pulmonary vein and on the other with the left ventricle, which is guarded by the mitral or bicuspid valve. the left ventricle leads directly into the aorta, which is also guarded by three semilunar valves. the aorta is a large artery which conveys the blood to the general system. the arrangement of the heart's valves is such that the blood can pass only in one definite direction, and this is--from the right auricle the blood passes into the right ventricle, and thence into the pulmonary artery, by which it is conveyed to the capillaries of the lungs. from the lungs, the blood, which is now purified and altered in color, is gathered by the pulmonary veins and taken to the left auricle. from the left auricle it passes into the left ventricle, and thence into the aorta, by which it is distributed to the capillaries in every portion of the body. the heart's action. the heart's action in propelling the blood consists in the successive alternate contractions and dilatations of the muscular walls of the two auricles and ventricles. the auricles contract simultaneously; so do the ventricles; their dilatations also are severally simultaneous; and the contractions of the one pair of cavities are synchronous with the dilatations of the other. valves--bi and tricuspid. during auricular contraction the force of the blood propelled into the ventricle is transmitted in all directions, but being insufficient to raise the semilunar valves, it is expended in distending the ventricle and in raising and gradually closing the auriculo-ventricular valves (tricuspid and bicuspid valves). these when the ventricle is full form a complete septum (partition) between it and the auricle. the arterial or semilunar valves are brought into action by the pressure of the arterial blood forced back towards the ventricles, when the elastic walls of the arteries recoil after being dilated by the blood propelled into them in the previous contraction of the ventricle. the sounds. when the ear is placed over the region of the heart two sounds may be heard at every beat of the heart, which follow in quick succession, and are succeeded by a pause or a period of silence. the first sound is dull and prolonged; its commencement coincides with the impulse of the heart and just precedes the pulse at the wrist. the second is a shorter and sharper sound, with a somewhat flapping character, and follows close after the arterial pulse. first sound. the chief cause of the first sound of the heart appears to be the vibration of the auriculo-ventricular valve, and also, but to a less extent, of the ventricular walls, and the coats of the aorta and pulmonary artery, all of which parts are suddenly put into a state of tension at the moment of ventricular contraction. the second sound is more complete than that of the first. it is probably due entirely to the sudden closure and consequent vibration of the semilunar valves when they are pressed down across the orifice of the aorta and pulmonary artery. pulse. the heart of a healthy adult man in the middle period of life acts from seventy to seventy-five times per minute. the frequency of the heart's action gradually diminishes from the commencement to near the end of life. in persons of sanguine temperament, the heart acts somewhat more frequently than in those of the phlegmatic; and in the female sex more frequently than in the male; in children, more frequently still. capacity. the capacity of the two ventricles is probably exactly the same. from the mean of various estimates taken, it may be inferred that each ventricle is able to contain on an average about three ounces of blood, the whole of which is impelled into the respective arteries at each contraction. every time the ventricles contract three ounces of blood are pumped out of the heart into the lungs and heart respectively. calculating seventy pulses per minute, the quantity of blood passing through the heart would be about ounces, or / pints per minute; or pints per hour, or , pints in hours. velocity. the velocity of the stream of blood is greater in the arteries than in any other part of the circulatory system, and in them it is greatest in the neighborhood of the heart and during the ventricular systole; the rate of movement diminishes during the diastole of the ventricles, and in the parts of the arterial system most distant from the heart. the rate is calculated to be about from to inches per second in the large arteries near the heart. the blood. blood is a tissue of which the red corpuscles are the essential and active elements, while the plasma is the liquid matrix. there are two kinds of corpuscles, the white and the red. the protoplasm of the white corpuscles is native indifferentiated protoplasm, in no respect fitted for any special duty, as far as we know at present. the white corpuscles are in reality embryonic structures, concerned chiefly in the production of other forms, such as red corpuscles, and it may be under certain conditions various elements of the other tissues. the red corpuscles have a definite respiratory function. but these form a part only of the blood. the largest portion of the blood, the whole mass of the plasma, is an unorganized fluid with no proper physiological (vital) properties of its own. its function is to serve as the great medium of exchange between all the tissues of the body. just as the whole organism lives on the things around it, its air and its food, so the several tissues live on the complex fluid by which they are all bathed and which is to them their immediate air and food. blood within the living vessel is a fluid; but when shed, or after the death of the vessels, becomes solid by the process known as coagulation. the average specific gravity of human blood is , varying from to within the limits of health. it has an alkaline reaction, which in shed blood rapidly diminishes up to the onset of coagulation. blood may, in general terms, be considered as consisting by weight of more than one-third and less than one-half of corpuscles, the rest being plasma, the corpuscles being supposed to retain the amount of water proper to them. human blood: corpuscles , plasma . the average quantity of fibrine in the human blood is said to be two per cent. composition of serum: in parts there are in round numbers: water, parts. proteid substance, to   ,,   fat extractives and saline matter, to   ,,   of the proteid substances the great mass consists of the so-called serum-albumen. composition of red corpuscles: the red corpuscles contain less water than the serum. in parts of red corpuscle there are: water, . solid, . the solids are almost entirely organic matter, the inorganic salts in the corpuscles amounting to less than per cent. in parts of dried organic matter of the corpuscles of human blood there are: hæmoglobin, . proteid substance, . lecithin, . cholestrin, . the blood is distributed as follows in round numbers: in the heart, lungs, large arteries and veins, about one-fourth. in the liver,  ,,      ,,      in the skeletal muscles,  ,,      ,,      in the other organs,  ,,      ,,      the average proportion of the principal constituents of the blood in , parts is: water, red corpuscles (solid residue), albumen serum, saline matter, . extractive fatty matter, . fibrine, . the chemical composition of hæmoglobin is: carb. hyd. iron. nit. oxy. sulph. . . . . . . mucine, . . . . proteids, . . . . . to . to . to . to . to . the organs of respiration. the principal organs of respiration consist of larynx, trachea, bronchi, lungs. the larynx is affixed to the upper end of the windpipe, and is not only the entrance for air into the respiratory organs from the pharynx, but also the organ of voice. the trachea measures from four inches to four inches and a half in length, and from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in width; but its length and width are liable to continual variations, according to the position of the larynx and the direction of the neck. the trachea divides into two branches, called bronchi, right and left. the right bronchus, wider and shorter than the left, measuring about an inch in length, passes outwards almost horizontally into the root of the right lung on a level with the fourth dorsal vertebra. the left bronchus, smaller in diameter but longer than the right, being nearly two inches in length, inclines downwards and outwards to reach the root of the right lung, which it enters on a level with the fifth dorsal vertebra--that is, about an inch lower than the right bronchus. the lungs, placed one on the right and the other on the left of the heart and large vessels, occupy by far the larger part of the cavity of the chest, and during life are always in accurate contact with the internal surface of its walls. each lung is attached at a comparatively small part of its flattened inner or median surface by a part named the root and by a thin membranous fold, which is continued downwards from it. the pleuræ are serous membranes forming two shut sacs, quite distinct from each other, which line the right and left side of the thorax, forming by their approximation in the middle line the mediastinal partition, and are reflected each upon the root and over the entire free surface of the corresponding lung. the lungs. each lung is irregularly pyramidal or conical, with its base downwards, and one side (the inner) much flattened. the broad concave base is of a semi-lunar form, and rests upon the arch of the diaphragm. the apex is blunt, and reaches into the root of the neck, above the first rib, where it is separated from the first portion of the subclavian artery by the pleural membrane. the lungs vary much in size and weight, according to the quantity of blood and mucous or serous fluid they may happen to contain, which is greatly influenced by the circumstances immediately preceding death, as well as other causes. the weight of both lungs together, as generally stated, ranges from to ounces, the more prevalent weights being found between and ounces. the proportion borne by the right lung to the left is nearly ounces to , taking the combined weight of the two at ounces. the lungs are not only absolutely heavier in the male than in the female, but appear to be heavier in proportion to the weight of the body. the general ratio between the weight of the lungs and body in the adult fluctuates between one to thirty-five and one to fifty. the average weight in twenty-nine cases, male and female: male. female. right lung, ounces. ounces. left lung,   ,,      ,,    --------- --------- ounces. ounces. the proportionate weight of the lungs to the body is: male. female. to to the substance of the lungs is of a light porous spongy texture, and when healthy is buoyant in water. specific gravity, . ; deprived of air, . . when pressed between the fingers, the lungs impart a crepitant sensation, which is accompanied by a peculiar noise, both effects being caused by the air contained in the tissue. on cutting the lung the same crepitation is heard. the pulmonary tissues are endowed with great elasticity, in consequence of which the lungs collapse to about one-third of their bulk when the thorax is opened. the root of each lung consists of bronchi, arteries, and veins, together with the nerves, lymphatic vessels, and glands, connected by areolar tissue, and inclosed in a sheath of the pleura. respiration consists of an expiration and an inspiration. the air passes in through the nose or mouth, through the larynx, trachea, bronchi, into the lungs. inspiration: by the contraction of certain muscles, the cavity of the thorax is enlarged; in consequence the pressure of the air within the lungs becomes less than that of the air outside the body, and this difference of pressure causes a rush of air through the trachea into the lungs until an equilibrium of pressure is established between the air inside and that outside the lungs. this constitutes inspiration. expiration: upon the relaxation of the inspiratory muscles (the muscles whose contraction has brought about the thoracic expansion), the elasticity of the chest walls and lungs, aided by the contraction of certain muscles and other circumstances, causes the chest to return to its original size, or even become smaller. in consequence of this the pressure within the lungs now becomes greater than that outside, and thus air rushes out of the trachea, until equilibrium is once more established. this constitutes expiration. the inspiratory and expiratory act together form a respiration. the fresh air introduced into the upper part of the pulmonary passages by the inspiratory movement contains more oxygen and less carbonic acid than the old air previously present in the lungs. by diffusion the new or tidal air, as it is frequently called, gives up the oxygen to, and takes carbonic acid from, the old or stationary air, and thus when it leaves the chest in expiration has been the means both of introducing oxygen into and of removing carbonic acid from it. by this ebb and flow of the tidal air and the diffusion between it and the stationary air, the air in the lungs is being continually renewed, through the alternate expansion and contraction of the chest. in what may be considered normal breathing, the respiratory act is repeated about seventeen times a minute; and the duration of the inspiration as compared with that of the expiration and such pause as exists, is about as ten to twelve. when the ordinary respiratory movements prove insufficient to effect the necessary changes in the blood, their rhythm and character become changed. normal respiration gives place to labored respiration, and this in turn to dyspnoea, which unless some restorative event occurs terminates in asphyxia. changes of the air in respiration: . the temperature of the expired air is variable, but under ordinary circumstances is higher than that of the inspired air. . the expired air is loaded with aqueous vapor. . the expired air contains about to per cent less oxygen and about per cent more carbonic acid than the inspired air, the quantity of nitrogen suffering but little change. thus: oxygen. nitrogen. carbon. inspired air contains . . . expired ,,     ,,    . . . while the air in passing in and out of the lungs is thus robbed of a portion of its oxygen, and loaded with a certain quantity of carbonic acid, the blood as it streams along the pulmonary capillaries undergoes important correlative changes. as it leaves the right ventricle it is venous blood of a dark purple or maroon color; when the blood has passed through the lungs and falls into the left auricle, it is arterial blood of a bright scarlet hue. in passing through the capillaries of the body from the left to the right side of the heart, it is again changed from the arterial to the venous condition. the average composition of this gas in the two kinds of blood is as follows. from volumes may be obtained: oxygen. carbonic acid. nitrogen. of arterial blood, ( ) vol. ( ) vol. to vol. of venous blood, - ( to ) ( ) vol. to vol. oxygen plays a most important role on this terrestrial globe. life, health, and food depend on it. this element penetrates, pervades, everything and everywhere, unites and disunites with all other elements, preserves and destroys. while its absence from a living being, whether plant or animal, is death. when a liquid such as water is exposed to an atmosphere containing a gas such as oxygen, some of the oxygen will be dissolved in the water, that is to say will be absorbed from the atmosphere. the quantity which is so absorbed will depend on the quantity of oxygen which is in the atmosphere above; that is to say, on the pressure of the oxygen; the greater the pressure of the oxygen, the larger the amount which will be absorbed. if, on the other hand, water containing a good deal of oxygen dissolved in it be exposed to an atmosphere containing little or no oxygen, the oxygen will escape from the water into the atmosphere. chapter xx. digestion, nutrition. in plant life the permanent fabric consists of only three elements--carbon, hydrogen, oxygen. we know that plants alone convert inorganic or mineral substances into organic matter, and that plants as a necessary result assimilate their inorganic food, decompose carbonic acid, and restore its oxygen to the atmosphere. vegetation is constructed of cells or vesicles, and has a cellular tissue. a cell is a living organism. it is that which makes up the tissue of plants. for the whole life of the plant is that of the cells which compose it; in them and by them its products are elaborated, and all its vital processes are carried on. cell multiplication by division, cell growth, cell modification, exist in plants. fluids are transferred from cell to cell by a process called endosmose. absorption takes place by the roots, and the substance absorbed is carried up into the leaves, even to the topmost bough of a tree, passing in its course many millions of apparently water-tight partitions. plants exchange gases, taking in carbonic acid and giving off oxygen. they evolve heat, have organs of reproduction, and elaborate the material for the final evolution of the seed. this seed, whether of grain, of vegetables, or of fruits, is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. and these constitute the starches and sugars which we find have been evolved by the vegetable or plant, and which form the food for animals. plants, then, convert the elementary substances, the crude material, into food. in doing so, they pass through the processes known as the essentials of life; these are, birth, growth, development, decline, and death. all organic compounds are transitory. they are constantly appearing and disappearing, composing and decomposing, organizing and disorganizing; and they are always dependent upon a certain degree of heat and moisture for their existence or non-existence. the universal constituents of plant life; of organic existence, which are indispensable to vegetation, are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. every vegetable substance is made up of at least eighty-eight to ninety-nine per cent of these elements. the proper vegetable structure, that is, the tissue itself, consists only of three of these elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen; while the fourth, nitrogen, is an essential constituent of the protoplasm, which plays so important a part in the formation of the cell, etc. plants prepare or elaborate out of these chemical elements food-substances composed of those elements--starches and sugars--upon which animals subsist. animals feeding upon these vegetable substances assimilate, elaborate, them into meat substances, flesh, or proteids. these again are composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. nitrogen plays the important role in proteids, being the distinguishing feature, as contrasted with substances of vegetable origin, the carbohydrates. thus man is provided with two kinds of food: derived from plants, carbohydrates; derived from animals, proteids, or albumens, besides water and mineral salts. these foods undergo certain preparations previous to being introduced into the system. in the system the food undergoes farther elaboration, to make it fit to enter into the circulation of the blood, in order to supply suitable material for the master tissues. we will now examine briefly the organs and their secretions that convert food-substances into blood, and, by the blood, into tissue. the solvents and diluents of food in the human animal economy are the saliva of the mouth, the gastric juice of the stomach, the pancreative juice of the pancreas, the bile of the liver, and the juices of the intestines--the succus entericus. the digestive apparatus consists mainly of the alimentary canal together with various glands of which it receives the secretions. the alimentary canal commences at the mouth and terminates at the anus. the average length is about thirty feet, about five or six times the length of the body. the part situated in the head and thorax consists of the organs of mastication, insalivation, and deglutition, and comprises the mouth with the teeth, the salivary glands, and the æsophagus or gullet. the parts contained in the abdomen and pelvis consist of the stomach and the small and large intestines. the glands which are most immediately connected with digestion are very numerous small organs, situated in the mucous membrane of the alimentary canal, and the larger glands, such as the salivary glands, pancreas, and liver, whose ducts open on its inner surface. the mouth is included between the lips and the throat, bounded by the lips, cheeks, tongue, and hard and soft palate. it communicates behind with the pharynx, and through the pharynx with the æsophagus. it is lined throughout with mucous membrane. the mouth contains teeth, in the upper jaw and in the lower jaw. the inferior maxillary bone, or lower jaw, is the only movable bone about the head. the teeth have for their functions biting, grinding, chewing, or triturating any hard food substance that may be introduced into the mouth. the tongue is a muscular organ covered with mucous membrane. by its muscular structure it takes part in the process of mastication and deglutition, and in the articulation of speech, while its mucous membrane, with common and tactile sensibility, is the seat of the sense of taste. the tonsils are two prominent bodies which occupy the recesses formed, one on each side of the fauces, between the anterior and posterior palatine arches and the pillars of the fauces. the saliva, which is poured into the mouth and there mixed with the food during mastication, is secreted by three pairs of glands named from their respective situation parotid, submaxillary, and sublingual. the parotid is the largest of three salivary glands. it lies on the side of the face, in front of the ear, and extends deeply into the space behind the ramus of the lower jaw. its weight varies from to drachms. it has a duct called the parotid or stenson's duct. it is about / inches long, and about a line and a half in thickness. its orifice is opposite the crown of the second molar tooth of the upper jaw. the submaxillary gland weighs about to / drachms, and is situated on the inner surface of the inferior maxillary. the duct is named wharton's, and is about inches in length. its orifice is found under the tongue. the sublingual gland weighs about a drachm. it is situated on the floor of the mouth. the ducts are called the ducti rivintiani. they are from to in number. they may be seen when the tip of the tongue is lifted up. saliva. mixed saliva, as it appears in the mouth, is a thick, glairy, generally frothy, turbid fluid. the quantity of saliva secreted in hours varies. the average amount is probably from two to three pints in hours. the composition of saliva is: water, . solids, . the solids are: pyaline, . fat, . epithelium and mucus, . { sulphocyanide of potassium, } { phosphate of soda, } salts, {    ,,     ,, lime, } . {    ,,     ,, magnesia, } { chloride of sodium, } {    ,,    ,, potassium, } ---- . the specific gravity varies from . to . . the rate at which saliva is secreted is subject to considerable variation. when the tongue and muscles concerned in mastication are at rest, and the nerves of the mouth are subject to no unusual stimulus, the quantity secreted is not more than sufficient, with the mucus, to keep the mouth moist. the purposes served by saliva are of several kinds: . acting mechanically in conjunction with mucus, it keeps the mouth in a due condition of moisture, and facilitates the movements of the tongue in speaking, and the mastication of the food. . it serves also in dissolving sapid substances and rendering them capable of exciting the nerves of taste. . by mixing with the food during mastication, it makes it a soft pulpy mass, such as may easily be swallowed. . saliva performs a chemical part in the digestion of food. it transforms starchy substances into dextrine and grape sugar. starch is a carbohydrate--carbon , hydrogen , oxygen . c h o + h o = c h o + (c h o ) + h o (grape sugar.) (dextrine.) ptyaline is the salient feature of saliva. it is known as a ferment--acting upon starch and converting it into dextrine and grape sugar. the action of saliva varies in intensity in different animals. the food after having been acted upon and prepared is propelled, by the act of deglutition, through the æsophagus into the stomach, by way of the pharynx. the pharynx is that part of the alimentary canal which unites the cavities of the mouth and nose to the æsophagus. it extends from the base of the skull to the lower border of the cricoid cartilage, and forms a sac open at the lower end, and imperfect in front, where it presents apertures leading into the nose, mouth, and larynx. the pharynx is about four and a half inches in length, and is considerably wider across than it is deep from before backwards. the æsophagus or gullet, the passage leading from the pharynx into the stomach, commences at the cricoid cartilage opposite the lower border of the fifth cervical vertebra, descends in front of the spine, passes through the diaphragm opposite the ninth dorsal vertebra, and ends by an opening at the cardiac orifice of the stomach. it is from nine to ten inches in length. the stomach is situated in the abdominal cavity. it lies in part against the anterior wall of the abdomen, and in part beneath the liver and diaphragm, and above the transverse colon. it is somewhat conical or pyriform in shape. the left part is the larger, and is named the cardiac, or splenic, the right is named the pyloric, extremity. the upper border is about three or four inches in length, is concave, and is named the lesser curvature, while the lower border is much longer, is convex, and forms the greater curvature. the dimensions vary greatly in different subjects, and also according to the state of distension of the organ. when moderately filled, its length is about ten to twelve inches, and its diameter at its widest part from four to five inches. it weighs when freed from other parts about four and a half ounces in the male and somewhat less in the female. the structure of the stomach consists of four coats--a serous, a muscular, an areolar, and a mucous coat. the external or serous coat is derived from the peritoneum. there are three kinds of muscular fibers--longitudinal, circular, and oblique, and the internal mucous lining is a rather thicker, soft, smooth, pulpy membrane, lying in ridges or rugæ, and containing a large number of glands--tubular or gastric glands, and another variety of gland called peptic, besides others. while the stomach contains no food, and is inactive, no gastric fluid is secreted; and mucus, which is either neutral or slightly alkaline, covers its surface. but immediately on the introduction of food into the stomach, the mucous membrane, previously quite pale, becomes slightly turgid and reddened with the influx of a large quantity of blood; the gastric glands commence secreting actively, and an acid fluid is poured out in minute drops, which gradually run together and flow down the walls of the stomach, or soak into the substance introduced. the quantity of this fluid secreted daily has been variously estimated; but the average for a healthy adult has been assumed to range from ten to twenty pints in twenty-four hours. the specific gravity of gastric juice has been found to differ little from that of water, varying from . to . , and the amounts of solid present to be very small, viz., about per cent. the chemical composition of gastric juice is: water, . solids, . { ferment, pepsin, and a trace of ammonia, . { hydrochloric acid, . solids, { chloride of calcium, . {    ,,    ,, sodium . {    ,,    ,, potassium, . { phosphate of lime, magnesia, and iron, . on starch gastric juice per se has no effect whatever, nor has healthy gastric juice any effect on grape sugar or cane sugar. on fats gastric juice is powerless. the essential property of gastric juice is the power of dissolving proteid matters (meats, albumens, nitrogenous substances), and converting them into a substance called peptones. gastric juice thus readily dissolves coagulated proteids which otherwise are insoluble, or soluble only with difficulty in very strong acids. certain conditions are required for the perfection of the process, which are all found in the stomach. the first is a temperature of ° f. second, minute division and constant movement favor digestion. third, the greater the surface presented to the action of the juice, the more rapid the solution. neutralization of the juice wholly arrests digestion. the digestive action of gastric juice on proteids, like that of saliva on starch, is a ferment action; in other words, the solvent action of gastric juice is essentially due to the presence in it of a ferment body called pepsin. the general effect of digestion of the stomach is the conversion of food into chyme, a substance of various compositions according to the nature of the food, yet always presenting a characteristic thick pultaceous grumous consistence. the small intestines commence at the pylorus and after many convolutions terminate in the large intestines. they measure on an average about twenty feet in length in the adult. for convenience they have been divided into three parts--the duodenum, which extends from eight to ten inches beyond the pylorus; the jejunum, which occupies two-fifths, and the ilium, which occupies three-fifths, of the rest of the canal. the mucous membrane, the interior coat, is the most important to the function of digestion. there are permanent folds, shelf-like processes, of the mucous membrane, called valvular conniventes. there are also villi and glands, as the glands of lieberkühn, of peyer, and of bruner. the glands of lieberkühn are thickly distributed over the whole surface of the large and small intestines. the glands of peyer are exclusively in the small intestine. they are found in greatest abundance in the lower part of the ileum near to the ileo-cæcal valve. they are met with in two conditions, viz., either scattered singly, in which case they are termed glandulæ solitairæ, or aggregated in groups varying from one to three inches in length and about half an inch in width, chiefly of an oval form, their long axes parallel with that of the intestines. in this state they are named glandulæ agminatæ. the latter are almost always placed opposite the attachment of the mesentery. in structure they are analogous to lymphatics or absorbent glands, and their office is to take up certain materials from the chyle, elaborate them, and subsequently discharge them into the lacteals, with which vessels they appear to be closely connected. bruner's glands are confined to the duodenum; they are most abundant and thickly set at the commencement of this portion of the intestines, and are provided with permanent gland ducts. the villi are confined exclusively to the mucous membrane of the small intestines. they are minute vascular processes, from a quarter of a line to a line and two-thirds in length. there are about fifty to ninety in number to a square line. each villus consists of a small projection of mucous membrane, and its interior is supported throughout by fine retiform or adenoid tissue. two or more arteries are distributed to each villus, and from their capillaries, which form a dense network, proceed one or two small veins, which pass out at the base of the villus. the lacteal vessels enter the base of each villus, and passing up in the middle extend nearly to the top, where it ends commonly by a closed and somewhat dilated extremity. the office of the villi is the absorption of chyle from the completely digested food of the intestines. the large intestine extends from the termination of the ileum to the anus. it is usually about five to six feet in length, being about one-fifth of the whole length of the intestinal canal. the large intestine is constructed of four coats like those of the stomach and small intestines, namely, the serous, the muscular, the areolar or submucous, and the mucous. it is divided into the ascending colon, transverse and descending colon, and rectum and anus. the cæcum is a short wide pouch, communicating with the lower end of the small intestines through an opening guarded by the ileo-cæcal valve. the appendix vermiformis is attached to the cæcum. the colon commences at the right groin, ascends to the liver, forms the hepatic flexure, then crosses transversely from right to left to the spleen, forms the splenic flexure, descends to the left groin, forms the sigmoid flexure, passes through the pelvis as the rectum, and terminates at the anus. the mucous membrane of the large intestines, like that of the small intestines, is lined throughout by columnar epithelium, but unlike it, is quite destitute of villi and is not projected in the form of valvular conniventes. the peritoneum, or serous membrane of the abdominal cavity, is by far the most extensive and complicated of serous membranes. like the others, it may be considered to form a shut sac, on the outside of which are placed the viscera, which it covers. the peritoneum forms the mesenteries and omenta for the stomach, small and large intestines, and ligaments for the liver, spleen, uterus, and bladder. the liver is a very important glandular organ, very constant in the animal series, being found in all the vertebrates, and, in a more or less developed condition, in most invertebrate tribes. it secretes bile, and appears to act upon the blood which is transmitted through it. the liver is the largest gland in the body, and by far the most bulky of the abdominal viscera. it measures from ten to twelve inches transversely from right to left, between six and seven inches from its posterior to its anterior border, and about three and a half inches from above downwards where thickest, which is towards the right and posterior part. the average bulk is about eighty-eight cubic inches. the ordinary weight in the adult is between to ounces, about one-thirtieth of the weight of the whole body. the liver is solid to the feel, and of a dull reddish-brown color, with frequently a dark-purplish tinge along the margin. it has an upper surface smooth and convex, and an under surface which is uneven and concave. the liver is divided into two unequal lobes, a right and a left, and on the under surface of the right lobe are three secondary lobes or lobules, named the lobe of spigolius, the caudate or tailed lobe, and the square lobe. it has five fissures or fossæ, described as the transverse or portal; the umbilical fissure and the fissure of the ductus venosus, together forming the longitudinal fissure; the fossa of the vena cava, and the fossa of the gall bladder. it is held in position by five ligaments formed by layers of peritoneum. the liver is situated on the right side of the body under the diaphragm. the convex surface is protected, on the right by the six or seven lower ribs, and in front by the cartilages of the same, and by the ensiform cartilage, the diaphragm of course being interposed. to the left of the longitudinal fissure the liver is in contact with the pyloric extremity and anterior surface of the stomach, on which it moves freely. when the stomach is quite empty, the left part of this surface of the liver may overlap the cardiac end of that organ. to the right of the longitudinal fissure the liver rests upon the first part of the duodenum and the hepatic flexure of the colon. farther back it is in contact with the upper part of the right kidney and suprarenal capsule. the two blood-vessels which supply the liver are the hepatic artery and the vena porta. the hepatic vein conveys the blood away from the liver. the lymphatics of the liver are large and numerous, forming a deep and a superficial set. the nerves are derived partly from the coeliac plexus and partly from the pneumogastric nerve, especially from the left pneumogastric. the excretory apparatus of the liver consists of the hepatic duct, the cystic duct, gall bladder, and common bile duct. the hepatic duct is formed by the union of a right and left branch, which issue from the bottom of the transverse fissure and unite at a very obtuse angle; it descends to the right, within the gastro-hepatic omentum. its diameter is nearly two lines, and its length nearly two inches. at its lower end it meets the cystic descending from the gall bladder, and the ducts uniting together at an angle form the common bile duct. the cystic duct is about one and a half inches in length. the gall bladder is a pear-shaped membranous sac, three or four inches long, about an inch and a half across its widest part, and capable of containing from to fluid drachms. the gall bladder is attached to the liver. the neck, gradually narrowing, becoming constricted, bends downward, and terminates in the cystic duct. the common bile duct (ductus communis choledicus), the largest of the ducts, being from two to three lines in width, and nearly three inches long, conveys the bile from the liver and the gall bladder into the duodenum by a common orifice, with the pancreatic duct on its inner surface, about three to four inches below the pylorus. the liver is an extremely vascular organ, and receives its blood supply from two distinct vessels, the portal vein and the hepatic artery, while the blood is returned from it into the inferior vena cava by the hepatic vein. its secretion, the bile, is conveyed from it by the hepatic duct, either directly into the intestines, or, when digestion is not going on, into the cystic duct, and thence into the gall bladder, where it accumulates until required. the portal vein, hepatic artery, and hepatic duct branch together throughout the liver, while the hepatic vein and its tributaries run by themselves. at the transverse fissure it is merged into the areolar investment called glisson's capsule, which surrounds the portal vein, hepatic artery, and hepatic duct, as they enter at this part, and accompanies them in their branches through the substance of the liver. the liver is made up of small roundish or oval portions called lobules, each of which is about / of an inch in diameter, and composed of minute branches of the portal vein, hepatic artery, hepatic duct, and hepatic vein; while the interstices of these vessels are filled by liver cells. these cells, which make up a great portion of the substance of the organ, are of rounded or polygonal form; about / to / of an inch in diameter. the function of the liver is the secretion of bile. the bile is a somewhat viscid fluid of a yellow, or greenish-yellow, color, a strongly bitter taste, and when fresh a scarcely perceptible odor. it has a neutral or slightly alkaline reaction, and its specific gravity is . . the composition of human bile is: water, . solids, . ------- , the solids are: biliary acids combined with alkalies (bilin), . fat, . cholestrin, . mucus and coloring matter, . salts, . ----- . bile is distinguished from the other alimentary secretions by the entire absence of proteids. the chemical composition of bilin, as compared with the organic parts of blood, is: carb. hyd. nitr. oxy. sul. bilin atoms, blood, { biliverdin, coloring matter, { glycocholic acid, { taurocholic acid, there seems to be some relationship between the coloring matters of the blood and bile; and it may be added, between these and that of the urine also; so that it is possible they may be, all of them, varieties of the same pigment, or derived from the same source. the quantity of bile discharged into the intestines is estimated to be about thirty to forty ounces secreted by an adult man in twenty-four hours. the purposes served by the secretion of bile may be considered to be of two principal kinds, viz., excrementitious and digestive. as an excrementitious substance, the bile serves especially as a medium for the separation of excess of carbon and hydrogen from the blood. though one of the chief purposes of the secretion of bile may appear to be the purification of the blood by ultimate excretion, yet there are many reasons for believing that while it is in the intestines it performs an important part in the process of digestion. bile has a slight solvent action on fats, and only a slight emulsifying power. its functions generally may be considered thus: . it assists in emulsifying fatty portions of food, thus rendering them capable of being absorbed by the lacteals. . bile facilitates the absorption of fatty matter. . bile, like the gastric fluid, has a strongly antiseptic power, and may serve to prevent the decomposition of food during the time of its sojourn in the intestines. . bile has been considered to act as a natural purgative, by prompting an increased secretion of the intestinal glands. . another very important function appears to be that of so acting upon certain constituents of the blood passing through it, as to render some of them capable of assimilation with blood generally, and to prepare others for being duly eliminated in the process of respiration. . an important influence seems also to be exerted by the liver upon the saccharine matters derived from the alimentary canal. the chief purpose of the saccharine and amylaceous principles of food is, in relation to respiration and the production of animal heat. the pancreas is a long, narrow, flattened gland of a reddish-cream color, larger at one end than at the other, and lying behind the stomach opposite the first lumbar vertebra. it is usually from to inches long, about / inch in average width, and / to inch in thickness. it weighs about / to / ounces. its principal excretory duct is called the pancreatic duct, and runs through the entire length of the gland from left to right. the duct opens in a common orifice with the ductus communis choledicus on the inner surface of the duodenum about inches below the pylorus. healthy pancreatic juice is a clear, viscid fluid, frothing when shaken. it has a very decided alkaline reaction. the pancreas in its minute anatomy closely resembles the salivary glands; and the fluid elaborated by it appears almost identical with saliva. the composition of pancreatic juice is: water, . solids, . the solids are: pancreatic, . inorganic bases and salts, . ----- . action of pancreatic juice. ( ) it acts on starch raw and boiled with great energy, rapidly converting it into grape sugar. ( ) on proteids (meats) it also exercises a solvent action, so far similar to that of gastric juice that by it the proteids are converted into peptones. ( ) on fats pancreatic juice has a twofold action: it emulsifies them, and it splits up neutral fats into their respective acids and glycerine. thus pancreatic juice is remarkable for the power it possesses of acting on all food-stuffs--on starch, fats, and proteids. succus entericus (intestinal juice). the precise action of this is not known. it has been said to act upon starch, to convert proteids into peptones, and to emulsify fats. on the other hand, each of these actions has been denied. the portal system of veins. the portal vein, or vena porta, collects the blood from the stomach, intestines, pancreas, and spleen; and carries it to the liver, from which the bile is secreted; ramifying after the manner of an artery in the substance of the liver and conveying to the capillaries of that organ the blood collected in the main trunk. this blood, together with that of the hepatic artery, after having served for the secretion of the bile and the nourishment of the liver, is withdrawn from that organ by the hepatic veins, and carried by them into the vena cava inferior. digestion begins at the mouth. food is masticated by the movement of the lower jaw, broken into small pieces, moistened by the saliva, and starchy substances are converted into sugar. no change takes place during the rapid transit through the æsophagus. in the stomach the proteids are acted upon by the gastric juice and converted into peptones. fats remain unchanged, and sugars are not acted upon. while these changes are proceeding, the thick grayish liquid, or chyme, formed by the imperfectly dissolved food, is from time to time ejected through the pylorus, accompanied even by large morsels of solid less digested matter. this may occur within a few minutes of food having been token, but the larger escape from the stomach probably does not begin till from one to two and lasts from four to five hours after the meal, becoming more rapid towards the end, such pieces as most resist the gastric juice being the last to leave the stomach. substances can be absorbed from the cavity of the stomach into the circulation. the presumption is, that the diffusible sugars and peptones pass by osmosis direct into the capillaries, and so into the gastric veins. in the small intestines the semi-digested food, or chyme, as it passes the biliary orifice causes a gush of bile, and at the same time the pancreatic juice which flows freely into the intestine at the taking of the meal, is secreted again with renewed vigor, when the gastric digestion is completed. the conversion of starch into sugar, which may have languished in the stomach, is resumed with great activity by the pancreatic juice. the pancreatic juice emulsifies fats, and also splits them into their respective fatty acids and glycerine, and the bile is able to a certain extent to saponify the free fatty acids. it also appears that the slight emulsifying power of the bile is much increased by the presence of soap; and as a matter of fact, the bile and pancreatic juice do largely emulsify the contents of the small intestines, so that the grayish turbid chyme is changed into a creamy-looking fluid, which has been called chyle. these products as they are formed pass into the lacteals or the portal blood-vessels. through the large intestine pass off indigestible or undigested constituents of the meal, and the gases generated. absorption takes place from the stomach, and occurs along the course of the small and large intestines, especially of water. the largest and most important part of the digested material passes away from the canal during the transit of food along the small intestines, partly into the lacteals, partly into the portal vein. digestion being, broadly speaking, the conversion of non-diffusible proteids and starch into highly diffusible peptones and sugar, and the emulsifying, or division into minute particles, of various fats, it is natural to suppose that the diffusible peptones and sugars pass by osmosis into the blood-vessels, and that the emulsified fats pass into the lacteals. that the great mass of the fat which enters the body from the intestines passes through the lacteals, there can be no doubt; and there is but little doubt that a considerable quantity of peptone and sugar does pass into the portal blood. chyle is a white milky-looking fluid, which after its escape coagulates, forming a not very firm clot. the nature of the coagulation seems to be exactly the same as that of blood. lymph seems to be blood minus red corpuscles, and chyle is lymph plus a very large quantity of minutely divided fats. it has been calculated that a quantity equal to that of the whole blood may pass through the thoracic duct in twenty-four hours, and of this it is supposed that about half comes from food through the lacteals, the remainder from the body at large; but these calculations are based on uncertain data. entrance of chyle into the lacteals. the lacteals begin at a club-shaped lymphatic space lying in the center of the villus, and connected with the smaller lymphatic spaces of the adenoid tissue around it; it opens below into the submucous lymphatic plexus from which the lacteals spring. the thoracic duct is the common trunk which receives the absorbents from both the lower limbs, from the abdominal viscera, from the walls of the abdomen, from the left side of the thorax, left lung, left side of the heart, and left upper limbs, and from the left side of the head and neck. it is from fifteen to eighteen inches long in the adult, and extends from the second lumbar vertebra to the root of the neck. at the last dorsal vertebra there is usually a dilation of the duct, of variable size, which is called the receptaculum chyli, and is the common place of junction of the lymphatics of the lower limbs and the trunks of the lacteal vessels. there are two sets of absorbent vessels--the lacteals, which convey the chyle from the alimentary canal to the thoracic duct; and the lymphatics, which take up the lymph from all the other parts of the body and return it into the venous system. there is a right lymphatic duct, about a quarter to a half inch in length, which receives the lymph from the absorbents of the right upper limb, the right side of the head and neck, the right side of the chest, the right lung and the right half of the heart, and the upper surface of the liver. the thoracic duct terminates on the outer side of the internal jugular vein, in the angle formed by the union of that vein with the subclavian, and the subclavian empties itself in the superior vena cava. lymphatics and lacteals are furnished with valves serving the same office as those of the veins, and for the most part constructed after the same fashion. lymph and chyle, unlike the blood, pass only in one direction, namely, from the fine branches to the trunk and so to the large veins, on entering which they are mingled with the stream of blood and form part of its constituents. in some part of their course all lymphatic vessels pass through certain bodies called lymphatic glands. analysis of lymph and chyle: lymph. lymph from chyle from thoracic duct. the lacteals. water, . . . fibrine, . . . albumen, . . . fat, . a little . extractive matter, . salts, . . . ------ ------- ------- . . . chyle having reached the lymphatic channels, its onward progress is determined by a variety of circumstances. putting aside the pumping action of the villi, the same events which cause the movement of the lymph generally, also further the flow of the chyle, and these are briefly as follows: . the wide-spread presence of valves in the lymphatic vessels causes every pressure exercised on the tissues in which they lie, to assist in the propulsion forward of the lymph. . considering the whole lymphatic system as a set of branching tubes passing from the extravascular regions just outside the small arteries and veins and capillaries, to the large venous trunks, it is obvious that the mean pressure of the blood in the subclavian at the junction with the jugular is the cause of the movement, etc., assisted perhaps by the respiratory movements, and other causes, as osmosis, etc. the average quantity of solid fecal matter evacuated by the human adult in twenty-four hours is about five ounces; an uncertain proportion of which consists simply of the undigested or chemically modified residue of the food, and the remainder of certain matters which are excreted in the intestinal canal. gases contained in the stomach and intestines. the sources of the gases contained in the stomach and bowels may be enumerated: . air introduced in the act of swallowing either food or saliva. . gas developed by the decomposition of alimentary matter, or of the secretions and excretions mingled with it in the stomach and intestines. . it is probable that a certain mutual interchange occurs between the gases contained in the alimentary canal, and those present in the blood of the gastric and intestinal blood-vessels. the movement of the intestines is peristaltic or vermicular, and is effected by the alternate contractions and dilatations of successive portions of the intestinal coats. the contractions, which may commence at any point of the intestine, extend in a wavelike manner along the tube. this is due to the involuntary longitudinal and circular muscular fibers contracting successively from above downwards and from behind forwards, etc. the movements take place slowly, and in health are commonly unperceived by the mind, but they are perceptible when they are accelerated under the influence of any irritation. chapter xxi. the elementary substances. we have thus far discovered that this terrestrial globe is composed of sixty-four elementary substances; that fifty belong to a class called metals, and the remaining fourteen are non-metallic and are called metalloids. we know with absolute certainty the elementary chemical composition of all the substances known to man; everything within the reach of man has been analyzed, whether of inorganic or of organic origin. we also know the principal elements that enter into the composition of organic substances, animal or vegetable. but a thing that is not generally known is the wonderful role certain elements play in nature, especially in the life of plants and animals. if we examine the extraordinary display of combination or composition of some of the elements--especially those that enter into the composition of organic substances--we shall find how few of these elements are essential for the production of life, and its maintenance; and we shall be surprised to find what force or power, and phenomena, they are capable of producing. we shall be surprised to see how nicely and delicately these elementary compositions are adjusted--with what precision the elements enter into combination with each other--and with what astonishing result. the union of the elements that enter into the composition of living matter, must always be very accurately balanced, to insure a healthy or normal condition of either plant or animal. a very slight deviation or change may prove either injurious or destructive to the living organism. in order to obviate writing the names of the elements, we propose to use symbols. the elementary substances that enter into the composition of living matter being few, it will not be difficult to recognize the meaning of the symbols. the four vital elements mentioned in a previous chapter are carbon. hydrogen. nitrogen. oxygen. symbols: c h n o the atmosphere we breathe, for example, is what is called a chemical mixture, and is composed of o n , with traces of ammonia, etc. the water we drink is a chemical composition, and is constituted by o h . the number placed against each element indicates the quantity of each one requisite, or found, in the composition, or chemical combination, of the substance indicated. take water for example. o (one) and h (two), that represents a chemical compound. it is most abundant, and is by far the most essential, in the formation of organic life. air, water, fire, are represented by the four elements c h n o. every power, every force known to man is dependent upon these. every kind of life is made up of these. of every phenomenon manifested by nature, whatever the display may be or where it may occur, these elements are the fundamental basis. protoplasm, which is acknowledged to be the base of physical life, is nothing more than a homogeneous mass of albuminous matter which is composed of c h n o--with a greater or less quantity of each of these elements. these elements enter into the formation of all gases, fluids, and solids. they are invisible at one time and visible at another. without taste or color or odor in a free state, or even in combination, they assume taste, color, and odor when the elements combine in certain proportions. they become either harmless or poisonous; create, maintain, or destroy life. oxygen is a tasteless, colorless, and inodorous gas. hydrogen is a colorless, tasteless, and inodorous gas. nitrogen is destitute of color, taste, or odor. carbon is a solid but becomes gaseous in combination with either oxygen or hydrogen. the diamond is one of the most remarkable substances known. it is always distinctly crystallized, often quite transparent and colorless, now and then having a shade of yellow, pink, or blue. carbon is also found as graphite or plumbago. it constitutes a large proportion of all organic structures, animal and vegetable. pure carbon, diamond, is the hardest substance known. in combination with oxygen and hydrogen it forms the softest of living matter, protoplasm. in combination with oxygen it is poisonous to all animal life, and beneficial to vegetable life. combined with hydrogen, it forms the gas we burn, and is destructive to animal life. it is the food-maker in the plant, and it is the food-provider for the animal. it is the combustive agent in nature, in vegetables and in animals. from a thunderstorm to a flickering flame of a candle, carbon displays its power. from the smallest and lowliest aquatic vegetable cell to the highest animal cell tissue, it is the important solidifying, heat-giving element. these elements when free have neither color, odor, nor taste. combined, however, they acquire odor, taste, and color. o and n, the atmosphere, has no color, taste, or odor. o and h, water, has no color, taste, or odor. n and h, ammonia, has color, taste, and odor. o and c is given off by animals, taken in by vegetables--carbonic acid. c and h, the gas, has taste, odor, and color. n and o produce a gas--laughing gas. any two of these elements may combine in the form of a gas, a liquid, or a solid. and any one may combine with any other element known and form a substance, a molecule. o combines with all the elements known. h    ,,     ,,  many. n    ,,     ,,  some. c    ,,     ,,  many. two elements form a substance. three elements form vegetable life. four elements form animal life. common salt is used daily with our food; is harmless and useful; it is known as the chloride of sodium. by analysis this compound is separated, analyzed, into chlorine and sodium. na stands for sodium, and cl for chlorine. combine cl with h. that forms hydrochloric acid, a strong poison, strong enough to dissolve marble. cl has little attraction for o. its chemical energies are principally exerted toward hydrogen and the metals. cl is one of the best disinfectants, and makes excellent bleaching material. na (sodium) combines with o, and h, and c. these are some of the combinations: na cl = common salt. cl h = hydrochloric acid, a poison. o na h = caustic soda. na n o = chili saltpetre. na c o = sodium, carbonate, etc. phosphorus and sulphur and other elements enter into combination with oxygen and hydrogen. both phosphorus (p) and sulphur (s) enter into organic life, but play a subordinate role. the vegetable cell contains liquid, solid, and air. the growing, vitally active cells are filled with liquid, namely o and h, charged with more or less nutritive assimilated matters, c, etc. sap--the liquid which is imbibed by the roots and carried upwards by the stem--this is the water impregnated with certain gaseous matter derived from the air, and minute portions of earthy matter dissolved from the soil under the influence of light. sap elaborated--from this we obtain the ternary substances composed of three elements, o c h; also substances composed of four elements, o c h n. the latter represents protoplasm or protein. vegetable chemical compounds, organic substances, can be produced only under certain vitalizing conditions and influences. wherever upon the surface of this earth, the sun's rays produce a certain degree of heat, temperature, c h o may combine and evolve vegetable life. in tropical climates, for example, notwithstanding the sun's heat, no vegetation grows on high mountain peaks that are covered with snow and ice year in and year out; nor will vegetation grow in the cold climate of the north. c h and o will produce vegetable life only in the presence of heat. heat is essential. and there is one source only whence it can be obtained, that is the sun. the climate, as the temperature, etc.; the quantity of elements, and the quality of soil, vary the products of vegetation. that accounts for the immense variety, the differences existing. the organic chemical combinations in vegetable life are infinite. and all these varieties depend on the numerical quantities of each of the elements c h o that enter any composition. the products of vegetation. c h o n starch food substances, sugar, grape,   ,,   cane, h o + oils, aniseed, etc., acids, tartaric,  ,,  , citric, etc., hydrocyanic, or prussic, acid, one of the strongest poisons, tannin or tannic acid, turpentine oil (composed of carbon and hydrogen only) we have other vegetable products called alkaloids, that are principally found in the bark and the leaves. a few examples will suffice: c h n o morphia, strychnine, quinine (sulphate h so ), the essence of coffee and tea, caffein or thein, the alcohols, acids, ethers, and so on, are all composed of these elements: c h o alcohol, acetic acid, the combinations are infinite. volumes are filled with organic chemistry. mere mention only can be made, to show the wonderful power these elements display when variously combined. the products of destructive distillation of coal yield a remarkable series of combinations: carb. hyd. light carburetted hydrogen, marsh gas, or fire-damp, is composed of (c h ) aceteline, another product, (c h ) heavy carburetted hydrogen, olefiant gas, the gas we burn, ethelene, (c h ) these may undergo a vast variety of changes and combinations. chloroform, alcohol, ethers, acids, oils and fats, resins, balsams, etc., etc., all have these elements in combination. does it not seem strange that the different numerical combinations of the same elements should have such different effects upon the animal system? why should starch and sugar compounds be good for the sustenance of animal life while other compounds of the same elements prove destructive to life? or, why should morphia have such a peculiar effect upon the animal tissues--especially the nervous? and why should alcohol have such a peculiar effect upon the master tissues of the body? the difference in the chemical composition of quinine and strychnine is not so very great, yet the action upon the system is by no means the same. the effect upon the tissues is not the same. those who believe in a god easily dispose of these questions by simply exclaiming, they are the wonderful works of god! that one drop of hydrocyanic acid upon the tongue of an animal should kill is very astonishing; that acid being composed only of one of carbon, one of hydrogen, and one of nitrogen (c n h). why should it paralyze the brain first, before it affects the heart, since it has to be carried by the blood through the circulation to the brain? the derangement of the functions of that center causes death. the revelations of these important combinations and actions man had to make for himself. they were not brought down to us on tablets of stone by some supernatural agent, nor did spirits or angels communicate the mysteries and the powers of these elements. it is owing to the development of man's intellectual faculties, that the combinations of these elements has been made possible. it was quite a discovery when it was found that nitre, sulphur, and charcoal made gunpowder. there are only five elements in that compound, viz., nitrogen, potassium, oxygen, carbon, and sulphur. chili saltpeter is used for domestic purposes. harmless to animal life, so is each one of these elements when they enter into combinations that are not destructive to life. the forces and powers exercised by any compound depend on the number and kind of elements that enter into the composition. and the influence that bears directly upon their mutual activity again depends, when in a state of nature, upon the presence of heat. when a seed, as of wheat or of any starchy vegetable, is thrown into the ground, it will not germinate except in the presence of a certain amount of moisture, and heat, the heat varying from ° to ° fahrenheit, in addition to free communication with the air. temperature, moisture, air, electricity, kind and quantity of the various elements in the soil present, cause the immense variations in plant life and plant compositions. yet the same elementary compositions will be found in the same species, and the same conditions generally will be required to reproduce them. each group of elements that enters into the composition of any substance, carries with it qualities and capabilities peculiar to itself, throughout the vegetable kingdom. its influence upon the animal economy will depend on the various atomic elements, and the quantities of each, that enter its combinations. for example, the atmosphere, the balance of power between o and n, is essential to both plant and animal. so with water, o h . and so with those foods, starch and sugars, c h o or c h o ; in each of these substances carbon has its complement of hydrogen and oxygen. that is, the carbon is, as it were, diluted in a sufficient quantity of water to make it suitable for food. rob it of its oxygen and it becomes a poison, an active poison. the less the quantity of oxygen in any substance of organic origin the more unfit it becomes as a food. and it becomes poisonous to the animal system in proportion as the oxygen is absent or removed from the composition. we have representatives of poisonous substances in alcohol, c h o, a mild poison; and in hydrocyanic acid, c n h, the strongest poison known. moreover, we see already peculiar manifestations in vegetable life, humble in character, low in degree. plants not only rest from activity, but have their sleep and exhibit sensible movement from irritation. the foliage of the locust, and of most leguminous plants, and that of oxalis and wood-sorrel, seem to have their sleep, as seen by the position of their leaves and blossoms. irritate the mimosa plant, as by roughly touching it, and the leaflets will suddenly change position. in the dionæa muscipula, or venus's flytrap, the touch of an insect, alighting upon the upper surface of the outspread laminæ, causes its sides to close suddenly, the strong bristles of the marginal fringe crossing each other like the teeth of a steel trap, and the two surfaces pressing together with considerable force, so as to retain, if not destroy, the intruder, whose struggles only increase the pressure which this animated trap exerts. it is evident that the elementary combinations under certain conditions and the influence of heat, will exhibit vital action, in an organic form--manifest phenomena of life, that are only in degree, and not in kind, inferior to the lowest plant life. the process is the same. the mode of living differs in degree, though the results are different. the combination and exchange of elements takes place in the simple plant life as in the higher animal life. the watery portion of plant life is composed of o and h , the same as water in a free state or water in animal life, and the combination of oxygen and hydrogen with carbon. the food substances are found in the vital machinery of vegetation. the characteristics of life exhibited in the lower grade of vegetation, are seen in a more perfect degree in animal life--respiration, exchange of gases, imbibition, absorption, assimilation, evolution of heat and motion, the power of incorporating material in its own substance, endosmosis, subjectibility to irritation, exhaustion, spontaneous movement, rest and sleep, capability of being influenced by various stimuli, etc., etc. the combination of o, c, and h, organized and vitalized, in conjunction with a few other less important elements, manifests in conformity with the laws of nature all functions and activities that plant lie is capable of realizing. it would neither be extravagant, nor an exaggeration, considering the important role these elements play in vegetation, if they were rightfully termed the soul-life of plants. chapter xxii. alcohol and its effects on the system. all substances taken into the stomach as food are of three kinds, carbohydrates, proteids, and fats. this means, starch, sugars, meats, and fats, besides water and some salts. food substances carry their own complement of water, serve nutritive purposes when taken into the system, and are easily dissolved by the various fluids in the body. food may be taken into the system for three purposes: . simply for the maintenance of health; . for fattening purposes; . for the sake of muscular energy. the body, the human body, consists, speaking in general terms, of carbohydrates, fats, and proteids, and water and saline matters. we have seen that the work done by the master tissues causes a loss, or produces a certain amount of waste material, consisting of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and some mineral matter--salts. this loss or waste has to be replaced in quantity and quality sufficient in order to maintain a healthy condition of the body. and, since we know the precise, or almost the precise, quantity of material excreted, which consists of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen, etc., we can also estimate, with considerable precision, the quantity needed to replace it. more than per cent of the entire weight of the body is made up of muscular tissue. the nervous tissue constitutes not quite two per cent. the chemical composition of muscular and nervous tissue--of the solid part only--is carbon. hydrogen. nitrogen. oxygen. sul. . . . . . to to to to to . . . . . the watery portion of the muscle is not mentioned. please notice the large quantity of carbon and the small quantity of hydrogen in the composition of the solid part of the muscle. we are aware that the muscles are always producing carbonic acid--that is, c and o --and when a muscle contracts, there is a sudden and extensive increase of the normal production. the blood that comes from a contracting muscle is richer in carbonic acid--that is, it contains one atom more of carbon and two atoms of oxygen more. the blood that has passed through the lungs changes from venous to arterial blood. the venous discharges about vols. of carbonic acid (c o ); the arterial carries away about vols. of oxygen (o) to the tissues. the carbohydrates taken into the system: oz. starch and sugars, about meats, proteids,  ,,   fats,  ,,   / water,  ,,   about ounces of saliva converts the starch into sugar. that is, the saliva changes starch (c h o ) into sugar (c h o ). meats are acted upon by the gastric juice, it requiring about ten to twenty pints to dissolve three-quarters to one pound of meat-stuff; and the substances in the stomach are changed into chyme. the fats are emulsified by the gall from the liver--about to ounces for to ounces of fat. and the pancreatic juice completes the work and still farther dissolves all three kinds of substances, so that, with the aid of the succus entericus, the whole mass is changed into a substance called chyle. all the carbohydrates and proteids in solution, together with the fluids taken into the system, are taken up by the veins of the abdominal organs and conveyed by the portal vein to the liver. passing through the liver, the blood is collected by the hepatic vein and emptied into the inferior vena cava. the fatty substances are taken up by the lacteals to the receptaculum chyli, passed up the thoracic duct, and poured into the left subclavian vein, which empties its contents into the superior vena cava. both streams of blood--venous blood--from the superior and inferior vena cava, pass into the right auricle, thence to the right ventricle, through the pulmonary artery into the lungs, there exchange the carbonic acid for oxygen, and return by means of the pulmonary veins into the left auricle, thence to the left ventricle, through the aorta into the general system--and to the master tissues. in the tissues the oxygen is taken up. that is, the oxygen passes from the blood to the tissues and the tissues throw off the carbonic acid, which the veins again carry to the right side of the heart. alcohol is composed of carbon two ( ), hydrogen six ( ), and oxygen one ( ) (c h o ). alcohol, like all poisonous substances, carries a small amount of oxygen. in composition it resembles very much, and probably is, a union of c h + h o, c h = ethane, olefiant gas, or heavy carburetted hydrogen. it is, in fact, a constituent of the gas we burn, procured from the destructive distillation of coal--in other words, coal gas. to make it plainer, ethane contains two of carbon, four of hydrogen + one molecule of water. when alcohol is taken into the system, it is almost immediately absorbed by the veins of the stomach, is carried at once by the portal vein to the liver, and returns from the liver by way of the hepatic vein to the inferior vena cava, to the right auricle, and to the lungs through the right ventricle. but the lungs cannot supply oxygen enough to satisfy the carbon of the alcohol. there is only one atom of oxygen in the composition of alcohol, and three more atoms of oxygen are needed to form carbonic acid (c o ). under ordinary, normal conditions, oxygen enough is inspired to satisfy the wants of the tissues for combustion purposes, but in the case of alcohol an extra demand for oxygen is made, and the lungs are not prepared to supply the demand. since oxidation takes place in the tissues and not in the blood, the blood, being overcharged with heavy carburetted hydrogen (c h ), unloads it into the tissue. the extra amount of carbon arriving at the tissue, robs it of its oxygen. the oxygen arriving from the lungs being insufficient, the tissue loses oxygen. the presence of oxygen is necessary for the maintenance of irritability. from the fact that no free oxygen is present in the muscular tissue the tension is nil or even less than nothing. when the carbon of the alcohol robs the tissues of its oxygen, the hydrogen is set free. what becomes of it? the muscular and nervous tissues contain from to per cent of carbon in their composition, and to per cent of hydrogen. the free hydrogen combines with the carbon of the tissues and forms carburetted hydrogen, with which the blood gets overloaded, and carries it to the other tissues. the nervous system, the brain, not receiving the oxygen necessary, in consequence of the blood being overcharged with both carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen, the nervous substance is first impaired, next exhausted, and lastly its normal activity extinguished. the muscles meantime through having been robbed of both oxygen and carbon--receiving no free oxygen or very little--and through the presence in the circulating fluid of carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen, lose the power to act. the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla oblongata, with all the other subordinate nervous centers, being impaired by the poison and the absence of oxygen, the nerves of volition lose control, the cerebrum has its will power impaired or entirely subdued, and the cerebellum loses the power of muscular coördination. thus, then, the master tissues become crippled. at first alcohol may have a stimulating effect on the nervous system; next, if the indulgence be continued, the nervous forces become exalted; finally, however, depression sets in, and proves at last a complete extinguisher of the intellectual faculties. the muscles first lose the power of coördination, the irritability and tension gradually cease, at length they refuse to act. the brain and muscles being helpless, the body lies in a state of stupor, motionless. the individual is temporarily deprived of his mental faculties, incapacitated, and completely oblivious to all his surroundings. the involuntary organs, however, may act. the stomach may eject its contents, having lost consciousness and will power. the urine and feces may pass off involuntarily. all organs have to suffer, but two more than all the rest--the liver and kidneys. the function of the liver, as we have already seen, is the secretion of the bile. that organ has still another important duty to perform, and that is in converting the starchy substances, or its already converted sugars, in to glycogen = c h o . the metabolic activity of the hepatic cells lies in the formation of glycogene. glycogene is a source of heat in the body. it is constantly present in the muscle, as a functional material no doubt. the chief purposes this substance serves are probably for respiration and production of animal heat. we must bear in mind that fats are composed of c, h, and o, and that both fats and carbohydrates serve nutritive purposes. whether any difference exists between the two we do not know at present, beyond the fact that in the final combination of the two, while carbohydrates require sufficient oxygen only to combine with their carbon, there being already sufficient oxygen in the carbohydrate itself to form water with the hydrogen, fats require in addition oxygen to burn off some of their hydrogen. alcohol is not convertible into glycogene. the six atoms of carbon are complemented by five molecules of water: c + o h = c h{ } o . as already stated, alcohol (c h o) contains only one molecule of water (h o + c h ethane). to convert the four of hydrogen into water, two of oxygen are needed--and to form carbonic acid three of oxygen are wanting. in this connection we may ask, is alcohol a food? no! alcohol is in no sense a food! as a stimulant it is very useful, in a certain class of exhausting diseases, but taken in large quantities alcohol acts as a slow poison. the action of the alcohol, which must pass through the liver, is certainly not beneficial. on the contrary, the function of the organ is interfered with and the tissues of which the liver is composed slowly but surely undergo a degenerative process. the alcoholic beverages differ. as for example, whisky, wine, and beer--of the three beer is probably the least injurious. by reason of the hops it contains it helps to allay nervous irritability. when taken continuously in large quantities, it leads to congestion of the liver and the accumulation of fat. beer contains only four to five per cent of alcohol, or thereabout. the effect of beer on some individuals is somewhat similar, in the increase of size, to the remarkable growth of some aquatic plants, as the gourd, in which the vegetable tissue cells are very large and increase very rapidly. the use of the stronger spirits leads to a degeneration of another kind--contraction of the liver, cirrhosis. the kidneys are the next to suffer severely by the alcoholic fluids. the whole blood is purified by the kidneys. the transit is very rapid; the elimination of impurities must necessarily be rapid. the body under the normal condition eliminates nitrogen chiefly; this is the urea and uric acid found in the diurnal excretion of urine of fifty-two ounces in the twenty-four hours. but if instead of a man drinking the ordinary allowance of fifty-two ounces of water, a man takes in several hundred ounces, as in the case of some beer-drinkers, it is evident that the kidneys have a great deal more work to perform than usual, in addition to the constant irritability the kidneys, like the liver and other organs, are subject to. the sobering up of a man after a drunk, consists in receiving oxygen sufficient in quantity into the tissues, to supply the amount he has lost. it takes several hours before sufficient oxygen has been introduced into the tissues to establish the normal equilibrium. the theories on alcohol are various. i quote some of the more important ones, briefly stated: liebig thought that alcohol disappeared by complete and rapid combustion. lallemand and perrin entertained the theory that alcohol was eliminated by the excretory organs. (that means, perhaps, that alcohol simply promenaded through the system.) parks was of opinion that alcohol is directly absorbed by the blood-vessels without undergoing any change or decomposition. another theory was that alcohol is converted into acetic acid (c h{ } o ); and that acetic acid is split up into carbonic acid (c o ) and water--which is impossible, as there is not oxygen enough for both c o and h o. it appears, then, that alcohol does not disappear by rapid combustion, except when taken in very small quantities and during a state of exhaustion, and then not by combustion. that alcohol is excreted there is no doubt, but when taken in large quantities it is not excreted without leaving its permanent mark behind it. nor is it absorbed by the blood-vessels without undergoing any change or decomposition, otherwise it would be excreted by the kidneys and skin. that the function of the brain is entirely suspended, for a time at least, needs no argument, because all will power is arrested, the nerves of special sense cease to act, all nerve-centers suspend operation, and the nerve-fibers no longer act as conductors of either motion or sensation. and the muscular tissues are no longer capable of irritation, stimulation, or coördination; contraction, flexion, and extension have been temporarily annihilated; the force, the power, and the action have succumbed to the harmful influence of alcohol. and the cause of it all is--too much carburetted hydrogen and the absence of oxygen. this has unbalanced the elements that normally enter into the composition of the tissue both of muscle and nerve. the master tissues, the nervous and muscular, that get drunk, they are the first to feel the stimulation, become excited, depressed, and exhausted. and finally let us sum up some of the effects of alcohol on the system: . it is a source neither of heat nor of energy, nor can it be stored up for future use, nor can it be assimilated in the tissues. . alcohol retards the motion of the blood. . it induces specific action after the manner of cumulative poisons. . by the veins and absorbents alcohol mixes with the blood, and immediately acts as a stimulant on all the tissues with which it is brought in contact. . it causes the retention of substances which ought to be eliminated. . it is shown by abundant testimony that the blood becomes surcharged with unchanged and unused material, and contains more carbon than normally, at times as much as to per cent. . alcoholic blood coagulates slowly and extravasates easily. . the susceptibility to disease is greater, the resisting force is diminished, and the healing process seriously interfered with. . oxygen is diverted from its proper functions, the exhalation of carbonic acid at the lungs is diminished, both absolutely and relatively, but the pulmonary aqueous vapor is not lessened. . the functions of the brain are at once stimulated, and all other organs are excited, and a train of phenomena is induced partly of a chemical nature and partly of a physical or vital. . alcohol produces a temporary increase of the heart's action, and a congestion of the whole of the pulmonary capillaries. . it irritates the parts, stimulating the glandular secretions, leads to congestion of the blood-vessels, in time forms spurious melanotic deposits and a gradual thickening of the gastric substance. . fat gradually is increased in the blood, and a milky character is imparted to the serum of the blood, and the red corpuscles in time assume a wrinkled and contracted appearance. . the water of the urine is diminished; the chlorides are greatly lessened, as well as the acids and bases. most people are concerned about themselves only to the extent of securing the immediate satisfaction of their senses. the superficial surroundings they utilize to cater to the enjoyment of such indulgences of acquired taste, habit, passion, feelings or emotions, as prove most gratifying to them, never thinking that their constitution is nothing more than a vitalized chemical machine, temporarily passing through its terrestrial cycle of physiological activity, beginning as a mass of protoplasm, and terminating, when it has gone through all the phases of animal existence, in the distribution of its chemical elements. the deranging effect of alcohol on the nervous and muscular tissues may be compared to the working of an ordinary battery. we know that the action and the force depend on the elements that enter into the composition of the battery, fluids and solids, zinc and copper, and sulphuric acid--representing zinc, copper, sulphur, oxygen, and hydrogen. the action of the zinc and copper depends upon the fluids. other fluids, though composed of three elements, would produce either not the same effect, or no effect at all. it stands to reason that, since we know the kind of fluid that will set the elements in action, we certainly should be very unwise to use another fluid that will either derange or destroy the battery's working capacity. the forces or force are in this instance produced by the combination of certain elements, and in order to continue the activity or action of these elements one upon the other, a constant supply must be kept up. the mechanism of muscular action, or nervous action, depends upon the supply of certain elements; they are continually replacing elements that are used up in the work they have to perform--that is, the function of brain or muscle. the moment elements are introduced that do not or cannot make up the loss of the working expenditure, that tend rather to disorganize or decompose the tissues, the functions and the natural forces are interfered with, weakened, or may be brought to a standstill. the effect of alcohol is much the same on all animals. i mean, that the master tissues of the lower animals will succumb to the influence of alcohol as readily as those of a human being. we know with certainty what gets drunk--where is the spiritual part of man? where is the soul? when the brain is intoxicated, its functions are more or less suspended, its controlling or governing action is lost over the muscular tissue, in addition to the muscles themselves being disabled. both tissues, having been robbed of their elementary equilibrium, consequently cease working. the moment the equilibrium is reëstablished, the tissues assume their functions the same as before. if a given number of specific parts enter into the construction of any mechanism in order to produce a certain amount of force and effect, the number of specific parts must always be present if the same force and effect is to be realized. brain and muscle are made up of a specific number of elements; these must be always present if we would have them produce the normal force and effect. when too much carbon and hydrogen and too little oxygen are introduced into the system, as in the case of alcohol, the derangement of these elements is felt in the poisonous effect, because enough oxygen cannot be supplied to keep up with the demand. chapter xxiii. the soul--what is it? dry truth, real knowledge, hard facts, are less interesting, less entertaining, than a plausible fable or a fanciful story. while the latter is listened to, with eagerness and pleasure, the former barely receives ordinary civility and attention. the effort requisite to understand and to think, requires resolution, determination, and fixed attention. the senses are not stimulated, the emotions and feelings not aroused, by mathematical problems or astronomical calculations. the muscular tissues are much more easily trained, disciplined, and educated than the nervous tissues. in the former we see immediate results. there is a pleasure in the pursuit, a palpable satisfaction in watching the muscular action and physical development. the most agreeable part about that kind of exercise, training--or education if you choose--is that it is easily acquired and soon put in practice, and much admired. it has other advantages in addition. the fatigue and exhaustion in consequence of muscular exercise, add no small amount of enjoyment to that already experienced, by having to replenish the spent energies, to fill the demand for new material called for. the gustatory and olfactory nerves are stimulated by odor of the viands provided, and what is still more important, the glandular activity that is set in motion produces an amount of exhilaration, so satisfactory that it is recognized as one of the principal features for every and on all occasions. "a feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry" (eccles. x, ). muscular action, however, cannot take place without nervous action. these two tissues are dependent one on the other. yet the muscular tissue may be considered as subordinate to the nervous tissue. while the muscular tissue may become totally inactive or incapacitated, or even removed, the brain tissue may retain its activity and continue to perform its functions. the very reverse takes place when the brain is either injured or removed. we know by experience, experiments, that injuries or other pathological changes will cause impairment to muscular tissue. it is hard to conceive, and harder still to understand, that an animal--man included--is nothing more than a vitalized machine, composed in the first place of two distinct working parts--muscular and nervous--while all the other portions have to perform duty in order to sustain them. the word function is a term applied to all tissues in general, as kidneys, liver, stomach, etc.; each has its function. so have muscles and nerves. the former has for its function contraction, while the latter has for its function to control and regulate that contraction. the first part of the machinery is governed and checked by the domination of the other. that dominion, that control, is termed volition, in other words, will power! . will power! what is it? it is a power which every animal possesses, and every animal exercises, in accordance with its particular organization and degree of organic development. . every animal has the power, with the aid of its senses--five senses of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling--to select substances from the vegetable and mineral kingdom, for its immediate want, for the sustenance of life. . it has the power of locomotion to go in search for those substances, and to carry them to a place of safety, for present or future use. it has the power to select the kind of food, to choose that which is beneficial and reject that which is injurious. the five senses direct in that selection. . the animal has will power to protect and defend his possessions--through his senses the brain directs and the muscles act. . the animal has will power, when the organs of procreation are developed, to choose a partner for the production of young. the senses serve in making the selection, as regards beauty, form, size, etc. . it has the will power to nourish and protect its young or to destroy it. . animals have the will power to build their habitation, their home, and furnish it in a manner best suited for their comfort. . animals have the power to articulate sound, and have the will to communicate with each other if they so desire, to antagonize or to quarrel. . they have the will power to select from the surrounding elements. they choose water, air, sunshine, high or low altitudes; they migrate from warm to cold, and from cold to warm, climates. . they have social intercourse among themselves; have a will power to organize as a band or body to protect themselves against the attacks of other organized bodies, to fight and to battle. . animals instruct their young--guide them and protect them, as well as feed them. they have their code of morals. they have all such functions as serenading, love-making, music, jealousy, pleasure, and anger. animals have judgment; they can compare and reflect on cold and heat, danger and tranquillity, comfort and discomfort. they can reject or accept. . they have memory, perception, and understanding. domestic and wild animals exhibit these peculiarities. they will manifest their likes and dislikes, hate and love, courage and cowardice. the will power depends on the nervous system--the cerebral hemispheres, the cerebrum or small brain, the thalamus opticus, corpus striata, corpora quadrigemina, the peduncles, medulla oblongata, spinal cord, etc. that is, all the organs that constitute the nervous machinery, that control the muscular tissues in all their acts, and keep a watchful outlook over all other organs of the body. the will power, then, is the power to act in accordance and in harmony with the things recognized, or the selection made by any of the five senses, discriminating between that which is good for them and that which is injurious, or good and evil. animals in selecting grass for food will avoid that which is injurious to them. the olfactory and gustatory nerves guide them. they will seek shelter, and evidently know what to do when a thunderstorm approaches, etc., etc. will power is a property, quality, or function belonging to all living creatures in common. the degree of will power depends upon the quality, quantity, and perfection of the nervous organization. man has will power in a measure greater as the nervous system is developed, educated, and perfected. morality--a quality that does not exclusively belong to man. what is morality? it is nothing more than a restraint, or check, on our actions and our feelings. it is the regulating of the actions of life towards ourselves and towards others. it is the obedience to recognized and established laws in a community, socially and politically. it means not to trespass against the laws of nature, against ourselves, or against our neighbors. animals restrain themselves and obey. morality differs according to the social customs and practices, and the civil laws regulating the same, which were made and adopted for mutual benefit and protection. these are either crude or refined, depending on the condition of society. to a limited degree animals have morality. man has it in a higher and more refined degree, according to the progress and culture attained. intelligence--animals possess intelligence, if the meaning of it is, to recognize sounds and figures, be obedient to the voice, understand what is said, perform certain acts, execute the will of a master, know the difference between right and wrong, express gratitude, exercise watchfulness, protect life and property, remember places and objects in general, be capable of some degree of improvement, susceptible of training and modification of conduct, etc., within the limits of the nervous power the animal has. what is the soul? is the soul something quite independent of matter? is it a something entire and complete in itself? a perfect part of a perfect whole? does the soul possess all the excellences and qualities theologians claim for it? whence does it come? what does it consist of? has it an existence separate and apart from the body? if so, where? in what state does it exist previous to entering the body? does every human being receive a like quality and quantity? has it consistency? density? elasticity? is there any connection between the soul principle and matter? spirit and soul, are they one and the same thing, or do they differ? if so, in what? what is substance soul and substance spirit? is it self-acting and self-existing? is the soul susceptible to training and education, and the reception of knowledge? or is the soul already trained, educated, and possessed of all the knowledge that is now known or likely to be known? does the will power reside in the soul? and is the nervous system subservient to the soul? is the soul endowed with passions and emotions? can the soul deteriorate, be injured or be afflicted? in what degree does the soul differ in the civilized and in uncivilized man? the theological soul has its origin in the bible, no doubt (from the word nephesh, breathing; the greek psyche: latin animas, chayu, breath of life). this word gave the impulse to a vast amount of thought and reflection, both theological and psychological. discussion and literature followed as extensive as there has ever been on any metaphysical topic. it may be interesting to learn some of the attributes of the soul. here is a partial list: "will, passion, love, joy, grief, anger, mirth, sorrow, revenge, contempt, hatred, honor, pride, humility, jealousy, despair, pity, compassion, love of fame, of music, of the marvelous, of notoriety, avarice, guilt, curiosity, astonishment, respect, desire, cheerfulness, melancholy, sense of beauty, sense of the sublime, sense of friendship, feeling of delight, selfishness, generosity, etc." the author of this concoction had not a very clear notion of what he was writing about, otherwise he would have known that animals have in common with man most of the emotions above recited. the soul is a display of nervous phenomena, exhibited under certain circumstances, differing only in intensity of expression, depending upon the kind and character of animal and man. it is one of the common tricks of trade--when theologians argue upon the immortality of the soul, they bring and ring in any amount of biblical evidence to sustain them. they prove nothing. they cannot prove anything. it is the standing puzzle. they try to unravel a mysterious something that is not mysterious. nor is there any need of mystery. what is essential for us to know is the truth, plain natural facts. there is nothing that we need be either ashamed or afraid of. if we have been deluded by errors made several thousand years ago, regarding the dual composition of man, or have been imposed upon and intentionally retarded in the onward progress, it is time to correct the error and remove the imposition. let us have a clear, intelligent view of things and look at them as they are. this mystery, like other mysteries, can be cleared up by the light of science and modern investigation. what is the difference between man and animal? articulate speech and the susceptibility of the brain matter to a high degree of culture. mind is a term employed to designate the collective acquirements of a man's brain. in proportion as the acquirements are greater or less, the mind is greater or smaller. these acquirements may be simple, complex, or profound. they may be biased, general, or scientific; they may be deep, learned, or superficial. they may be only a slight advance above the general animal instinct; or may have assumed a superior intelligence and may have arisen to a higher plane of intellectual qualities. the acquirement or evolution of mental power and intellectual capacity depends: . on the constitutionally inherited capacity and capability. . on the size and general conformation of the brain. . on the perfect condition of the organs of special sense. . on the quality of the nervous structure. . on the general physical constitution of the body. . on the evenly balanced equilibrium between the vital organs. . on the chemical elementary constituents that enter into the composition of the various tissues, especially the nervous tissue. . and lastly on the education, training, or culture. . i may add, suggestively, on the relative quantity and quality of the gray and white substance of the brain, etc., and perhaps on the depth of the sulci and the size of the convolutions and the general symmetry of the different lobes of the cerebrum, etc. the brain of an idiot is not susceptible to culture or education. he has all the senses, but of an inferior and imperfect order; a brain insufficient in quantity and quality to be capable of acquiring anything. no mind can be formed. the idiot has not any intellect. has he a soul? or supposing any portion of the brain is diseased and any one of the special senses ceases to act, as sight, hearing, or any part of the muscular tissue, and the intellect is impaired, either partially or wholly incapacitated, then has the soul suffered any damage, or does the soul remain intact? or supposing that a child is born blind, or that some one of the nerve centers controlling certain faculties of the brain is absent, and the education is necessarily limited to the remaining nerve centers, is the soul still complete and perfect? or in case of change of structure of the brain substance, as in softening of the brain; or in case of tumors, blood clots (thrombosis), or syphilitic disease, and paralysis either local or general resulting--depending on the seat of the disease--what has the soul to do with it? or in disease of the meninges (coverings); or in case of insanity, whatever morbid cause might have produced that condition, where is the soul? or when, in consequence of morbid changes, the mental and physical expressions, the actions, change, often extravagantly, is the soul affected thereby? when the body is afflicted with disease, does the soul suffer? at what period of fetal development is it that the soul enters the body? or does it enter at birth? the breath of life is oxygen. without that element one could not live. without it the newly born babe is more helpless than a lower animal. not a single special sense is fully developed. the brain substance is not fully developed. the babe has no power to will anything. it has no volition--except the act of nursing, and that is not a voluntary act. the organs over which will has no control are the first to act--an infant soils its linen involuntarily. it imbibes nourishment, as a mass of protoplasm imbibes moisture. it has neither will power nor desire. it cannot select. it has neither knowledge nor conscience. since none of the special senses is able to act, it has no perception of any kind whatsoever. it experiences only two sensations, pain and hunger. young birds and other young animals do the same. is there anything in this newly born babe of a supernatural character, such as a soul, spirit; the knowledge of god, or of good and evil? does there exist in this mass of organized protoplasm anything that may be called divine? is there aught innate? no! certainly not! there are what may be termed latent powers--not unlike latent heat--capable of being evolved. you may fashion anything out of it--in the religious line, brutal or uncivilized, etc. it will acquire any kind of speech, from the howling of a dog to the most refined language. it will contract any habit, from that of the lowest animal type to that of the most refined lady or gentleman. you may make either a cannibal out of it or the most fantastic gustatorian. it will either crawl, climb, or walk. it will live anywhere and anyhow. it will either parade nude, be painted, or wear a breechcloth, or wear a swell dress coat, or, if it be a female, a long trailing skirt with all sorts of gewgaws. in religion you may make anything out of this babe. you may make it believe the greatest nonsense. it will believe three gods in one or twenty-five gods in one. it will be a jew, a christian, a mohammedan, or the lowest brute on the face of the earth. this mass of vitalized matter is susceptible to training. the physical part, the muscular part, always develops and is readily trained. in a primitive state it requires but little discipline to acquire muscular strength. the muscular powers are the first to assert themselves. this master tissue, whenever and wherever it excels, receives honor and homage, and prevails among its companions. in barbaric ages this was the controlling force, the ruling spirit, the governing power. the nervous tissues require teaching. the senses must be trained, educated, cultured, refined. the impressions received through the nerve-centers by the senses are stored up in the cerebrum. though they are at first simple, crude, and incomprehensible, habit, use, or repetition enables them to familiarize us with the surrounding objects. if the brain is fully formed, the infantile education begins. by constant repetition of the same acts, the sense of satisfaction from feeding, and the sense of comfort from cleanliness, are slowly established in the experience of the child. hunger, cold, heat, and moisture will cause it to manifest its dissatisfaction by crying. it sleeps twenty out of the twenty-four hours, and wakes only to indicate its wants of either hunger or discomfort. the more regularly it is fed, and the more cleanly it is kept, the more peacefully will it rest and the more soundly will it sleep. when, however, an infant is born, though physically fully developed, with face fully formed, but acephalous, without brain--that is, when an arrest of development has taken place--the babe cannot live, it cannot breathe, because the principal part of the nervous system is wanting--the medulla oblongata, cerebrum and cerebellum, etc.--though the lungs, heart, and all other organs are perfectly developed. this arrest of development may take place at any time. it is thus that congenital malformations are produced. idiots are thus formed, or any other inferior formation of brain may take place. in proportion as the parts are present or wanting--the brain, or rather the nervous system--latent (better, inherent) qualities for future capabilities exist or do not exist. supposing the optic nerve is arrested in its development, or any organ with which it is immediately connected, the special sense of sight is wanting. though the eye itself, the organ of sight, may be perfect, all the training and education will never give it capability or skill in arts and sciences. this can never be acquired by that organ. you cannot educate that organ which you have not. whatever perfect brain formation exists may be trained, fashioned, educated, in any one of the thousands of directions one pleases. it may be given any bent or bias, good, bad, or indifferent--depending upon the influences that are brought to bear on the young brain while it is in the process of developing. an infant has no mind, intellect, thought, idea, memory, or any other nerve quality that nerve structure is capable of developing. talk of soul or spirit is absurd. it does not exist either in infant or in man any more than it exists in a plant or an animal--unless the term is applied to the collective functions of the great central organs, and in that case it would certainly not be supernatural. at the time when the books of moses were written--we need not even go so far back as when the fable of creation was first related--they knew nothing of circulation or of respiration, or of the nervous system. it was not even thought of. i believe you may search the bible from end to beginning and from beginning to end without finding such a thing. no such word as brain is mentioned. what is known of the nervous system is, comparatively speaking, of recent date. "what seems most marvelous is, that we, in the nineteenth century, boasting of a high grade of civilization, and, i may say, with all the modern improvements, should accept and still hold fast to an idea that originated in the brain of some barbarian four thousand or more years ago, away down in mesopotamia (now turkey) where they are still considered uncivilized. this is certainly very strange. but ah! that priestcraft! the mind. all the organs in the body are capable of performing their functions the moment the child is born. most organs have performed their functions prior to the child's birth. circulation, respiration, digestion, secretion, and excretion--these functions are performed at once. these are involuntary, and require no educational training. they are performed while the organism is otherwise entirely helpless. . the first few weeks.-- the nervous system is not developed. the special senses are not responsive--neither sight, hearing, taste, nor smell. there are no voluntary muscular movements, no coördinations of muscles. nervous and muscular tissues undeveloped. special senses undeveloped, no recognition. it has no mind--no faculties, morality, intellect, memory, reason, judgment. in short, it has nothing innate--no principle of either god, soul, or religion. no will power. the muscular and nervous tissues are not yet able to perform their functions, except such as are reflex and of an involuntary character. no expression. . a few weeks after birth.-- impressions of light perceptible. sensations slightly improved. expression still blank. no volition. no recognition. cry the only sound. . three months.-- special senses improved. the eye steadier. the child begins to recognize its mother, etc. utters sounds of satisfaction. perceives sounds indistinctly. no coördinate movement. upper extremities more active. expression of face improved--smiles. . six months.-- muscular tissues more developed--crawls. no coördination of muscular action. sight improved--recognizes mother, father, etc. excretions involuntary. expressions of pain and satisfaction more palpable. hearing improved--listens to sounds. playfulness. makes sounds of satisfaction and dissatisfaction more distinctly. no articulation. . one year.-- special senses more developed. coördination still imperfect. excretion involuntary. upper extremities more active. fear manifested. the dawn of want. recognizes a few objects. pleasure expressed as well as anger. likes and dislikes exhibited in some degree. beginning of articulation. sounds more distinctly recognized. sight more perfect. taste slightly developed. smell--no discrimination. a child one year old--(a) recognizes its parents imperfectly. has slight coördinate movement of the upper extremities, and beginning of coördination of the lower extremities. manifests its wants by making noises, but has no articulation. sensations of pleasure, pain, and anger are more plainly expressed. playfulness is greater. fear is exhibited. (b) it has no mind, no intellect, no will power. no god, no religion, no soul. no thought, no idea, no conscience. no faculties, no memory, no judgment. no knowledge of objects, or numbers. it knows nothing of comparison, relation, liberty, morality, love, hate, shame, joy, sorrow, despair, envy, ambition, pride, etc., etc. . second year.-- the master tissues begin to perform their functions--the muscular and nervous tissues. digestive apparatus more completely developed by the appearance of teeth. all the special senses more susceptible. voluntary muscles begin to act, though imperfectly. coördination still uncertain. muscles of articulation attempt to produce articulate sound--beginning to imitate. recognizes some objects; cannot discriminate. the sense of taste shows signs of development. the sense of smell--no discrimination. the sense of hearing recognizes simple sounds--voice. the sense of sight more distinct. the sense of feeling slightly improved. attracted by bright-colored objects. selfishness exhibited--seizes objects indiscriminately. shows fear; knows nothing of danger. manifestation of affection toward those who care and provide for its comfort. excretions still pass involuntarily. responds feebly to calls. playful. cognizant of light and darkness, indoors and out of doors. shows signs of preference. training begins; involuntary acts checked to a slight extent only. at the end of the second year the child (a) recognizes its parents and others about it. has coördinate movements comparatively correct of both lower and upper extremities. may manifest its wants by imperfect articulation. the sensations of pleasure, pain, and anger are more emphatic. (b) the will power is slight. the memory is very feeble. discrimination begins in simple matters. . third year.-- training progresses. coördination complete. nerve centers formed. will power attempted. it depends at this age upon the surroundings--the guidance, attention, direction given to the child. it is more susceptible to impression. memory improving. perception manifested, but little discrimination. articulates more perfectly. imitates to some extent. excretion controlled. playful, active. all the senses work. more subject to discipline--obeys more readily. teachable in right and wrong of a simple character. likes and dislikes more prominent. recognizes objects. begins to pronounce. at the end of this period there is no manifestation of anything innate. the child knows nothing. only the muscular tissues are more active, and the nervous tissues more susceptible to teaching. it has no faculty of any kind. the functions of the brain are more distinctly manifest through the organs of special sense. the child will become just what you make it; though the latent inherited qualities will give impulse to some directions more than others. thus inclinations and susceptibilities are awakened that may lead to greater or less distinction. all that the child thus far has developed is instinctive, checked and modified by those in whose care it is. the animal nature predominates, and the child at this stage will become a brute if left to itself. if the proper training, teaching, discipline, or education is from this time forth properly applied and the latent power judiciously brought out, mind and intellectual qualities may be developed--differing in degree and intensity--by the bias or bent given to the functions of the great nervous center. on the culture of this organ depends the kind of creature we may have when full grown in the shape of either man or woman. any kind of sentiment, belief, or superstition, prejudice, hate, brutality, humanity or inhumanity, good or bad habits, vicious or benign--with no end to the variety, such as we witness among ourselves and among the various nations upon earth--may be inculcated. it is brain function, brain culture, brain education, that produces greater or lesser minds, that evolves from mere intelligence the highest intellectual powers, that marks the difference between man and man from the meanest savage to the greatest philosopher and scientist. brain may exercise will power without training, culture, or education. the muscles may exercise strength without training, culture, or education. it is the systematic attention of the one as of the other, the frequent repetition, steady practice, that produces skill in the one, as in the other; it is the patient application and perseverance in the one as in the other, sustained by constitutional endurance, that makes the expert in the one as well as in the other. it is the united forces of the master tissues that have produced all that is and was, and will continue to produce all that ever will be. soul is the product of the imagination. it has no immortality, because it has no existence. there are a class of men that are interested in sustaining the delusion; these are the priesthood. what we want is not the salvation of souls, but the salvation of man. if soul is the collective name of brain product, or combined result of brain function and education, we need not disagree about the word. but if it is insisted upon that the word soul means something distinct and apart from the animal body, a supernatural manifestation, a supernatural gift or endowment, given to man at birth and to man only, and that this piece of supposed god enters the body at some period during birth and quits the body at death, it is not true! on the contrary, it is false. man has no soul, nor has any other animal, except that power that is produced by the nervous material. the brain has a function to perform, like every other tissue in the body. the muscular tissue, the liver tissue, etc., each perform their function. the great nervous centers and the special senses, being intimately connected, carry all impressions direct to the brain; the retention of impressions, the memorizing, the recollection, the formation of ideas, of thought, imagination, are the immediate functions of the nervous substance. these are secreted in a similar manner as the pancreas secretes pancreatin; with this distinction, that pancreatin is a fluid, while the quality of nerve function is a force, a power, a manifestation, or phenomenon if you choose. electricity is a product of a similar nature. there are other forces of a nature similar in character, the result of chemical combinations. let the blood be overcharged with carbonic acid and circulate in the brain, the nerve tissue will at first act irregularly, next very erratically, and finally stop its function altogether. the function of the brain is partially suspended in certain diseases, as in hysteria, epilepsy, and chorea or convulsions. and where there is no brain, or little brain, there is no function or very little function. the variety of brain, with its inequality of size, quantity, quality, the hereditary failings, opportunity, training, education, all, and much more, make up the sum total of mind. as you educate the brain, so the mind will be. it will exhibit energy and endurance, and perform its functions, in proportion as the nervous structure is healthy, the chemical constituents evenly balanced, and the equilibrium of all the organs and tissues of the body evenly and smoothly maintained, so that the molecular and chemical or vital and nervous elements of the brain perform each and every one its proper office. there is no immortality of the soul, nor is there such a thing as death of instinct. there is nothing immortal except the elementary substances, proper; they cannot be destroyed. all live bodies function, no matter how small or how simple; complex bodies also function, and each and every organ that enters into the composition performs its function. every phase, every phenomenon, is a manifestation of matter. thunderstorm, lightning, electricity, or thought--whatsoever it may be, call it by any other name, designate it or describe it how you will, we cannot separate any object from this terrestrial globe of matter. the elements composing this world gave birth to life, life manifests its energies in many forms, then returns again to the great ocean of elements whence it came. no soul you will ever find, trust not in its life or death; education makes the mind; oxygen is the life's breath. chapter xxiv. sin and salvation. what is sin? if we are able to ascertain what sin is, we shall probably understand why salvation should be extended to the one that sins, or to a community of sinners. everything has a beginning. we draw our deductions by comparison. men judge in part by their own experience, and in part by the experience of others. we see what is going on in our daily active life, how every work or enterprise, society or society reform, is started and set in active operation. every beginning is crude and awkward. rules adopted to govern a family circle, jar and chafe when introduced to govern larger bodies of individuals. what may seem good for a household government would hardly be suitable for a community, and the rules regulating the general community would hardly be available for a people or a nation. modifications in the rule of conduct are inevitable as families or communities increase numerically. they may be slow, imperceptible, and cause little disturbance. but sudden and radical changes produce quite another effect. they may cause simple irritation or friction among the elements composing the family or community, may cause temporary embarrassment, or may cause an eruption with considerable commotion, and accompanied with more or less serious effects. change in the methods of conducting and regulating the affairs of mankind, individually or collectively, in small family groups or in large communities, has ever been a matter, not only of great interest and deep concern to mankind, but also of bitter dispute, conflict, and hostility. it has ever been thus, from the time intelligence superseded instinct, with attempts to introduce innovations, new or improved methods regulating the conduct of either individuals or communities, or the general affairs of man. individual must yield to family, family to community, community to people, and people to nation. rules once established, no matter how rude, vulgar, or barbarous, or how enlightened and beneficial, were adopted to secure a general uniformity of conduct or line of action for each individual or family belonging to the community or people, for what was considered the best interest of the whole, and their mutual benefit and safety. the most primitive rules were instinctively adopted in the lower order of animal life, the laws of self-preservation and mutual protection. the individual conduct, in either family or community life, is governed accordingly. that is very evident, and requires but little observation to find the secret spring that explains the necessity for its existence. if a community, whether animals or men, are favorably located, have ample provision and comfort, they will live in peace and contentment, thrive, develop, without friction or trouble. let a lack of food arise, or let the numbers increase and produce a scarcity, strife is inevitable. new, other than peaceful, methods are adopted. either they quarrel and battle among themselves, or they go in search of food elsewhere--emigrate, in part or as a whole. if they meet with opposition, they will fight--the strongest takes possession, might asserts its right, and the conquerer becomes the ruling power. in the early stages of human civilization, thousands of years ago, the simplest primitive rules were established for the conduct and guidance of the individual living in the community--for, of course, mutual protection and self-preservation. humanity in a barbarous state adopted these rules, and handed them down from generation to generation until at length they were codified into laws. what are they? honor thy parents. do not commit murder. do not take another man's wife. do not bear false witness. do not take anything belonging to another. these are laws for self-preservation and mutual protection! if such simple rules were not recognized and established, neither life nor property would be safe. destruction of life and forcible possession of property would naturally lead to extermination. the family union is instinctive. the father, like the leader of a flock, is in authority. he is feared, therefore honored. a community soon learns from experience that "in union is strength." herds of cattle seem to know this, and are ever ready to protect and defend themselves collectively. the lowest savages, barbarians, observe among themselves the first, yes, primitive rules to govern them in community, in family. these rules arose from necessity. it was for each individual's interest, for family interest, and for the interest of the community at large, to adopt these rules, obey them and have them obeyed. these rules were for individual welfare, and for the common welfare of the community at large, the preservation of their lives and the protection of their life and property. so long as any community of human beings, whatever be their condition, have ample provision to satisfy their wants, and are secure from depredations from without, there will be no trouble. happiness and contentment, as well as peace and prosperity, will characterize their state. as to the relation between males and females, that regulates itself. all communities, barbarians and savages, have always some general recognized rule to guide them. female chastity is secure among all nations, high and low, civilized and uncivilized, whether they are decorated in a complete suit of nudity, a gauze covering, or a ball-room dress. there is no necessity of going back four or five thousand years. cæsar relates (lib. vi, ) that the germans were in complete undress costume when bathing promiscuously; yet they had their customs of marriage and marriage ceremonies. in this country we have had the same customs and may have again. when columbus arrived at one of the islands of the caribs, , a cacique and his family paid him a visit. this family consisted of two daughters, five sons, and five brothers. "one of the daughters was eighteen years of age, beautiful in form and countenance; her sister somewhat younger; both were naked, according to the custom of these islands, but were of modest demeanor" (irving). as a further illustration i quote from irving's description of the people that peter martyr met with. he relates: "it is certain that the land among the people is as common as the sun and water; and that 'mine and thine,' the seed of all mischief, have no place with them. they are content with so little, that in so large a country they have rather superfluity than scarceness; so they seem to live in the golden world, without toil, living in open gardens; not intrenched with dykes, divided with hedges, or defended with walls. they deal truly one with another, without laws, without books, without judges. they take him for an evil and mischievous man who taketh pleasure in doing hurt to another; and albeit they delight not in superfluities, yet they make provision for the increase of such roots whereof they make their bread, content with such simple diet, whereby health is preserved and disease avoided." possibly somewhere on the african continent there may still exist a people that live a life as simple and as happy as those in the time of columbus. but everything must yield before northern energy and christian greed; besides, the new-comers need the land for their surplus population. may we not ask, is not our present high state of civilization the natural outcome of our necessities in the struggle to exist? is not our high state of nervous development largely due to that struggle? indolence and inactivity produce nothing. activity and diligence produce and invent all things. all wrongful acts committed are either injuries done to ourselves, or injuries inflicted upon others. injuries done to ourselves are not necessarily sins. onanism, for example, is unquestionably injurious, yet is not recognized as a sin. it leads to the insane asylum, and in many instances underlies religious insanity. there are other disgusting practices that are neither injurious nor recognized as sins. the stomach commits no sin, but leads nevertheless to many wrongs, to one's self. all crimes are sins, but all sins are not crimes. and all injuries done to others are accounted both sins and crimes. what seems very strange yet is wonderfully true is that all sins and crimes against others find their origin in the indulgence of either stomach or sexual organs. starvation may lead to crime. hunger often drives to theft. extravagance, lust, and luxury lead to any variety of crime, from forgery to appropriating another man's wife. in the gratification of those two organs, passions, we find the cradle of all crime. and what we call morality means the proper regulation of these passions, of these organs. the church occasionally takes cognizance of sins, when discovered, that do not come within the category of crime, as was seen recently in the case of a major theobald who seduced his niece while nursing his invalid wife; he was suspended for one year, but saved his soul! all our civil justices in the city of new york are kept busy to regulate and to punish overindulgences of the stomach and some other petty wrongs. our criminal courts are kept busy in punishing those who have wrongfully appropriated other people's property, or injured or killed another. the superior civil courts attend to the disputes about property. why do those who adopt for their mode of livelihood the profession of theology want to exercise salvation? what have they to save? let us examine for what sins the deluge was brought, sodom and gomorrah were destroyed, and christ was crucified. the principal scriptural sins: cain commits murder, from jealousy, because god preferred meat to vegetables (gen. iv, ). gen. vi, : "and god saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." the contents of this sentence is absurd. the heart cannot imagine, or think. the function of the heart is the circulation of the blood. what this wickedness consisted of, we do not know. history has no record exactly where this flood or deluge took place. that it was localized is certain. it was in all probability nothing more than an overflow of the river euphrates--that is joined by the river tigris, and terminates in the gulf of persia--in consequence of a series of consecutive rainstorms, etc., and god had as much to do with this supposed deluge as he has to do with any deluge in the mississippi valley when that river overflows. gen. vi, : "and it repented the lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart." now we are getting at god's anatomy! man may labor under delusions--hear voices, etc. all those extravagant statements are perfectly excusable from our modern standpoint. all this wickedness is supposed to have taken place before the christian era, and we have still the same sort of wickedness on earth as there was then. barbarians inhabited that region--rude, crude, half-civilized herdsmen, not much superior to our indians. minding their flocks and increasing their families was their main occupation. abraham made no scruples in cohabiting with miss hagar, sarah's maid; nor had jacob any objections to miss bilhah, rachel's maid, nor did he scruple to accommodate miss zilpha, leah's maid, and later we read how reuben lay with bilhah, jacob's mistress. shechem seduced dina, jacob's daughter. her brothers simon and levi killed all the males, etc. at this time, we learn, harlots were in fashion. we have it recited, crime after crime--according to our modern notions--yet these barbarians were god's own people! after killing shechem, and hamor his father, and all the rest of the males, they took possession of their property. lot and his daughters is another instance of biblical ethics. this barbarian family, these shepherds, had their first experience in civilization when they reached egypt, and whatever they practiced later was adopted from that nation. they had received some training under egyptian rule for nearly four hundred and thirty years. during this period we hear nothing of sin or transgression. no sooner were they organized as a community than the sins, transgressions, and wickedness broke out anew, and continued right along in a greater or lesser degree through the patriarchal period, theocratic period, and monarchial period. during the entire national existence of nearly one thousand years to their captivity, we have recited sins, transgressions, and crime, crime, transgressions, and sin; and all are perfectly human, perfectly natural among barbarians, savages, half-civilized, and even civilized people. whether david lusts after a nude woman, or amnon forces his own sister, it reveals the weakness of animal human nature, and is a breach of the recognized laws, and a lack of discipline. all through the old testament the same story is repeated--sensuality, cruelty, and crime; and rebellion against the established laws. it is the burden of song and of prophecy--greed and scramble for power, the cause of continual dissension. the only time the jews were reasonably quiet was when they were exterminating other nations, plundering and taking forcible possession of their women and female children as well as their property. the great burden of sin throughout the old testament consists in the infringement of the law established by moses, to worship no other god except the one he manufactured--that is, a god endowed with all brutality and sensuality, without a representative form, a god that had all the senses and could utilize them. the wooden idol had these organs but could not use them, while the mosaic god had them not but could exercise all the functions of animal life. in the light of history, all ages display the same process in the human mind--the same passions and the same tendencies, held more or less under restraint, according to the laws, customs, and habits of the people. the jews during their whole career were more or less idolators, and were continually relapsing into the idolatry, of some one kind or another, of dead men, which was practiced under different celestial or animal emblems in the neighboring countries. and it was not ended until after the babylonish captivity, b.c., and when ezra returned to jerusalem, b.c., who collected the various manuscripts and put them into some sort of shape and started to rebuild the temple. this event took place during the reign of xerxes son of darius. ezra and his companions had been educated meanwhile. they had enjoyed the privilege of a babylonian education. they had the advantage of their learning, their philosophy. now they returned better equipped mentally than ever they were before their captivity. and for the first time they began to call themselves "holy seed" (chapter ix). they had intermarried with the canaanites, hittites, perizzites, jebusites, ammonites, moabites, egyptians, amorites, etc., (verse ) "so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands." verse , this priest goes into hysterics: "o my god, i am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee," etc. chapter x: he prays, confesses, and weeps and casts himself down before the house of god, etc. verse : "and separate yourself from the people of the land, and from the strange wives." of course their wives were sent adrift. that was the first time in their history that marriages were restricted to their own nation. this also is the first wholesale divorce on record. intermarriages they had been guilty of for many centuries, and they were never accounted a sin until the time of ezra. after this reformation the same sins continue, intermarriages perhaps excepted. the animal predominated, as it naturally would. selfishness was more prominent than ever. they knew the value of gold, and onyx stone, and bdellium. god had told them all about it in gen. ii, , . the commercial enterprise started with creation, and has continued. jehova had not half the romance and the poesy of zeus or jupiter. the latter had all the grecian refinement, while the former had all the barbarity of chaldea. thus, the identical sins continued through the remaining centuries until christ made his entry on this world's stage. he came opportunely. it was at a time of great agitation. judea was a roman province. pontius pilate was governor. corruption, fraud, and crimes of all descriptions were practiced and flourished. the temple served as a place for barter and business. sedition, parricide, greed, and seduction were the ruling crimes and passions. fanatics, heretics, and blasphemers were abundant. there were any number of religious factions, quarreling and fighting among themselves, hating one another heartily, and doing one another as much mischief as in their power lay. the frequent contact with foreign invading nations brought new notions, new customs and usages. new ideas consequently developed--sins and salvation of souls. and humility and meekness were put forth against arrogance of wealth, domineering, and priestly oppression. communistic and socialistic ideas are always a prolific field for the hungry, poor, and starving. "give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts," etc. (matt. vi, , ). christ's camel and needle story confirms it. the result was he had a following, preached reformation, and accusation and persecution put an end to his life. it had taken root, and a new sect was formed. was his life sacrificed for the sins of humanity? nonsense! this young man's death has not relieved any one, much more all future generations, of their sins. what? sacrifice a man to god in place of sheep and cattle? so long as men have senses and passions, so long as we have extremes of poverty and wealth, sin remains. the prevention of sin has never been the function of the church. the trespasses of the natural laws were not properly understood, and the masses are not educated up to that standard even now. each man and woman pays the penalty if he or she trespass against her or himself; and if they trespass or sin against another, our civil laws take care of that part. has humanity improved since the coming of christ? where do you find it? in the history of the catholic church? they have two kinds of sin, mortal and venial sin. mortal sin entails spiritual death. venial sin does not. mountains of literature have been written upon that one subject. hundreds of thousands of men have assumed the task of salvation for nearly two thousand years. what have they accomplished? what have the popes, bishops, and priests done? and what are they doing now? of what use are they? they have been more of a curse to the world than a benefit. we are too busy to look back at popish history, the power, the ignorance, the superstition, the darkness, and the persecution that overshadowed the world during the popes' tyrannical and bloodthirsty rule. greed, the chief characteristic of the churchmen, readily finds means to raise money for their use and benefit. in they sold indulgences for past and future sins. every crime was pardoned. luther and reformation came. did this change or eradicate the evil? no! god, christ, holy ghost, virgin mary, etc., assumed only a milder role, only a slight transformation. the catholic church has been the greatest curse of any church that ever existed. they started their anathemas (curses) at nice a.d., and have continued cursing, through the twentieth council at trent, a.d., and still continue. their power has to some extent been modified, but the spirit of intolerance only slumbers. they readily accommodate themselves to circumstances. if they cannot rule the nation, they will seize the schools and train the young, inculcating obedience to the church--that the youth shall be subservient to the priest and yield up their earnings to the pope's treasure. these are supported by the masses, assisted by the state, to teach stuff like the following sample: the litany of the blessed virgin. we fly to thy patronage, o holy mother of god! despise not our petitions, but deliver us from all dangers, o ever glorious and blessed virgin! lord have mercy on us. christ have mercy on us. lord have mercy on us. christ hear us. christ graciously hear us. god the father of heaven have mercy on us. god the son, redeemer of the world, have mercy on us. holy trinity, one god, have mercy on us. holy mary, } holy mother of god, } holy virgin of virgins, } mother of christ, } mother of divine grace, } mother most pure, } mother most chaste, } mother undefiled, } mother unviolated, } mother most amiable, } mirror of justice, } seat of wisdom, } cause of our joy, } spiritual vessel, } pray for us. mother most adorable, } mother of our creator, } mother of our redeemer, } virgin most prudent, } virgin most venerable, } virgin most renowned, } virgin most powerful, } virgin most merciful, } virgin most faithful, } vessel of power, } vessel of singular devotion, } mystical rose, } tower of david, } tower of ivory, } house of gold, } ark of the covenant, } gate of heaven, } morning star, } health of the weak, } refuge of sinners, } comforter of the afflicted, } queen of angels, } let us pray. queen of patriarchs, } queen of prophets, } queen of apostles, } queen of martyrs, } queen of confessors, } queen of virgins, } queen of all saints, } etc., etc., etc. from the time of luther up to the present, god, christ, holy ghost, virgin, etc., have been toned down considerably, until there is indeed very little left except a shade of god. our creeds now that have dismissed christ, holy ghost, and virgin, yet retain a hazy something which they still call god. the most erratic of these denominations yell themselves hoarse with shouting sin and salvation! the modern kindergarten of protestant fashionable church organizations, the society churches, the scholarly preachers, entertain their congregations with a novel sort of oratory and classic music. these represent a god at ease, a gentlemanly and mild sort of a god, with a constant aristocratic smile round his lips, as irresistibly attractive as money can make him. strong drastic terms, as purgatory, hell, and brimstone, are seldom heard. that sort of doctrine is usually reserved and dished up in furnace-like fashion to the poor, half-starved, ignorant sinners. chapter xxv. the ecclesiastical kindergarten. what shall we do to be saved? is a question asked by every religious fanatic. saved from what? ignorance? superstition? bigotry? or stupidity? from idiocy or imbecility? or, are we to be saved from poverty, hunger, starvation, misery and wretchedness, distress and degradation? barbarism, savagery, or uncivilization does not enter into consideration of these unfortunate conditions. they exist right in the midst of us, in the highest centers of human civilization. of what good is the talking of spiritual welfare, salvation, and heaven to a hungry stomach? of what good is it to grow eloquent over celestial conditions when the poor wretch has sunk into the mire of sloth and apathy, when darkness, misery, and disappointment hang over him like a pall at a funeral? is this the man that is sinning--when tempted to steal some trifle to satisfy hunger? self-preservation is the first law throughout organic nature. this poverty-stricken individual occupies the lowest strata of civilized life. he must be civilized--for the law makes him so. the starving must not eat, unless charity extends a helping hand. in the state of want and helplessness, all the inherent failings loom up into prominence, and aid to weaken the little resisting force remaining to withstand the temptation of wrongfully supplying his wants. the higher indulgences, either gustatory or sexual, are not within reach of the hungry and depressed; and salvation contemplated in the pleasures derived from overindulgence or excesses certainly does not apply to them. the class of persons in a position to satisfy both digestive and sexual pleasures we find in quite another catalogue of sinners. for some of these there is no salvation, for others there is what may be termed a reparatory saving power, viz., confession and atonement, for which the spiritual part of the body is not held responsible, but only the flesh. it is precisely the men who practice these flesh-begotten sins which the church from the time of st. paul to the present period has been trying to save, with little or no success. st. paul is the man who contributed more towards laying the foundation for the entire christian system than any other man in the bible. of course he claims to be an israelite of the seed of abraham and of the tribe of benjamin. jesus was of the same tribe--and probably the other apostles that figure in the new testament belonged to the same tribe. that tribe is of mixed blood on the mother side. whosoever desires to be fully informed upon that subject, let him read judges, xix, xx, and xxi chapters--a story of licentiousness, barbarism, and butchery the like of which cannot be found in any history. a levite with his concubine or wife came to gibeah to lodge overnight. some benjamites used and abused the woman till she died. the levite cut the woman up into twelve parts and sent one part to each tribe. israel came together in battle with the benjamites and slaughtered man, woman, and child. six hundred men escaped to the wilderness, unto the rock of rimmon. israel had sworn not to give them their daughters to wife, so they helped them to get wives elsewhere, by means that are very interesting, very savage, and very godly. i simply mention this incident to show that the tribe of benjamin was of mixed blood. it was not what would be called a natural divine selection, but a forced. paul with his half-grecian ideas, whose mind was permeated with grecian philosophy, used it largely in his argumentations, theologico-philosophic, and in his epistolary correspondence to enlighten and instruct his disciples. the israelites or jews up to the time of christ were not by any means a spiritual nation. they had a god of the flesh; a sort of cannibal god; a politico-religious god, in whose name every kind of horror and brutality was committed. this was not paul's god. the garb of socratic and platonic philosophy adorns the spiritual phase of paul's idea. the dual existence is distinctly set forth (cor. xv, ): "there is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." "for the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of god" (rom. viii, ). "likewise the spirit helpeth our infirmities" ( ). "for if ye live after the flesh ye shall die" ( ). "for as many as are led by the spirit of god, they are the sons of god" ( ). the notion of paul throughout his epistles of what he terms flesh and spirit, separating them as two distinct parts of the body, and as having a dual existence, on one side the spiritual, the godly, on the other the fleshy, the sinful, the earthly--is due to the educational doctrines that then were in vogue. the anatomical knowledge was limited, and the physiological workings of the nervous system, the functions of the brain, were entirely unknown. the flesh and spirit were the representatives of the muscular and nervous tissue, flesh of the muscular, spirit of the nervous. one of the most mysterious or hidden secrets was this function of the brain. the absence of any positive knowledge of the nervous system until recent times, caused many errors to creep in, and many false impressions were received by mistake; and these blunders through ignorance have remained to a very considerable extent fixed and unaltered. grecian philosophers who were attempting to give a reason, or account, for the various mental phenomena, came to conclusions which are to-day seen to be contrary to scientific truth. he, paul, embodied in his writings all the speculative philosophy known at his time. this dual existence had been taught among the greeks for several centuries. when paul wrote to the romans he was in corinth, and when he wrote to the corinthians he was at philippi, macedonia. the rest of his epistles were written partly from greece, but mostly from rome or italy. nowhere in the old testament is mention made of spirit and flesh after the manner of paul. they had no knowledge of grecian philosophy. of course the mental condition had undergone some changes from the time of ezra to christ. numerous sects had paved the way, and the ideas of various nations had been exchanged. a wonderful metamorphosis had taken place in the god during the one thousand five hundred years that passed between moses and paul. the ideal of moses was a barbarous, cruel god--a determined, imperative, imperious god, that had a purpose in view, a nation to form, a country to conquer. the prince of egypt, the successful general of a victorious army, talks; every word is a peremptory command. the strong, powerful will of an energetic man stands behind jehova. there is no philosophy, but all action. no ideality, but muscular force. no humbleness, meekness, or mildness, but the stern exercise of a power that never flinches in any undertaking; regardless of consequences; pitiless in battle; fearless in the struggle, once determined must reach success. there is no display of imagination, no spiritual reflection, no refinement, but there is only the coarse, vulgar, savage god of chaldean-egyptian modification. the god had undergone changes in the mental agitation of the times, and paul had accepted the god as he conceived him, through teachings then prevalent. an orator for a reformation, the cause of christ he had embraced, coupled with the learning of the grecian literature, his imagination led him to portray his god in the abstract--a refined ethereal being--in truth, a gentleman of a god. paul was the real founder of the past and modern church system, the giver of ideas, the furnisher of numerous themes that gave impulse to any number of shades of the various sects now in existence, the promulgator of modification, the pleader of a cause, the moralizer, the humble adviser and counselor of the lowly, ignorant, and poor. he was very earnest and sincere in the cause he had espoused, and, if anything, proud of it--"for i am not ashamed of the gospel of christ: for it is the power of god unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the jew first, and also to the greek" (rom. i, ). next to jew he was greek. no wonder that his mind was tainted with grecianism. his god was an alloy of greek and jew gods. the greek philosophy helped to refine and eliminate the barbarism and brutality out of the mosaic god. our modern mountebank preachers have nothing new to agitate and talk about in their fashionable decorated kindergartens of christianity. they are ever spinning round the same circle. they are sensational, mouthing and gesticulating before a crowd they wish to entertain, and for this they are very handsomely housed, fed, and otherwise recompensed. they are the greedy theological leeches of humanity. they suck the blood, but give nothing in return. have they advanced the cause of humanity? is humanity any wiser to-day than these poor ignorant creatures were at the time paul was trying to get a new idea into their untutored brain? here is a partial list of paul's complaints (rom. i, , , ): being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of god, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. for nineteen hundred years these christian saints have been trying to convert the world--jews included, for indeed they needed it--and what has been accomplished? does your kindergarten church teach aught that corrects the above evils? have you made them all into saints? paul's argument about circumcision is very ingenious. he proposes an inward circumcision for the outward--heart and spirit (rom. ii, ), circumcision through faith. his doctrine, the wages of sin is death but the gift of god is eternal life (rom. vi, ), is very mischievous. it leads men to give their flesh a full swing and leads them to a satiety of pleasure and satisfaction of earthly bliss--lust or licentiousness, and they let the godly or spiritual part take care of itself. this is not education, but stupefaction. yet our civilized spiritual purveyors of the soul are still chewing the same theological cud of nineteen hundred years ago. every transgression against ourselves, against our own body, is a transgression against the law of nature, and the body must pay the penalty. paul (rom. xiii, ) says, "let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and annoying." paul was a great believer in spiritual gifts. cor. xii--this chapter has given rise to more crazes, frauds, and cheats than paul ever dreamed of. verse : "now these are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit." verse : "but the manifestation of spirit is given to every man," etc. then he enumerates the gifts--faith-healing, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, speaking divers kinds of tongues, interpretation of tongues, etc. (cor. xii, , ). this of course opens a wide field for imposition and charlatanism. paul being an authority, cranks and "fakes" are not slow in taking advantage of it. a very large percentage of the masses are ignorant, easily made superstitious and bigoted. any nonsensical idea is swiftly impressed. they are satisfied with anything they are told--content with a filled stomach and salvation hereafter. this heavenly promise is an immense thing, an ecclesiastical bonanza. for thousands of years, it has been an extraordinary source of income. hundreds of thousands have lived in ease and luxury, have enjoyed heaven on earth, and let their poor ignorant dupes enjoy the hereafter. paul also gives the catholic church a right to use the anathema. cor. xvi, : "if any man love not the lord jesus christ, let him be anathema, maranatha"--"let him be accursed." the roman catholic church has made good use of it. from the time the nicean council was held every one of their canons--as their rules are termed--is accompanied by an anathema for every man that does not think, say, or believe as the church or its priests dictate. the church institution is so well organized and the system so well regulated, that they possess the means of squeezing the last cent out of poor ignorant parishioners. they have so many trapdoors to catch the weary simpleton, that if the money does not come through mass, it will come through indulgence, or unction, or sacrament, or anything and everything. they dispose of their spiritual wares at all prices--anywhere, everywhere, and at all times. here is an instructive example of teaching: "what is the blessed eucharist? ans. the body and blood, soul and divinity of jesus christ, under the appearance of bread and wine," etc. the immense amount of evil done by this church is something enormous to contemplate. if a papal medal in honor of the massacre of st. bartholomew's could be found and put up at auction, it would fetch a small fortune. literature was almost completely suppressed by this church, by laws published under the seal of the supreme pontiff. how few at the present day know anything of the history of the catholic church. their past, their terrible black past, with their god, their jesus christ, their holy ghost, their holy virgin, and their saints--what arrogance, ambition, pride, selfishness, greed, tyranny, licentiousness, terror and torture of the inquisition, bloody crimes and massacres, they were guilty of! reflection on these many diabolical outrages makes one's flesh creep, and one wonders why such an institution has not been swept from the face of the earth centuries ago. have they done any good upon earth? from the time of moses until after the time of luther, yes, up to the present time even, they have been continuously thrusting their idea of god into the minds of man with the sword, through blood and slaughter, with what result? has humanity improved? paul has much to say about the frailties of human nature ( tim. iv, , , ): "for men shall be lovers of their own self, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure," etc. the quarrels, dissensions, and protestations of the present day among the teachers and preachers of christianity are a topic of entertainment in our daily press. heresy, blasphemy, money disputes, briggs, smith, corrigan, wigger, etc.--what is it all about that will benefit humanity? priest and preacher, the modern teachers of the theological kindergarten, have not advanced any in their methods. the civil law holds them in check and keeps them within the bounds of their vocation. women, the decorations and attractions, the most numerous supporters of all church enterprises, are not held in very high estimation by paul. tim. ii, : "in like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." verse : "let the woman learn in silence with all subjection." verse : "but i suffer not a woman to teach nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence." the church kindergarten instructions are based upon the writings and teachings of both the old and the new testament. who wrote them, or who compiled them, matters little. they are the accepted doctrines of the church or churches. whether orthodoxy or heterodoxy, whether monotheism or polytheism, whether the idolatry of calf or idolatry of the figure of jesus or the virgin, it amounts to one and the same thing. it is of no serious consequence whether paul actually wrote the epistles or some one wrote them in his name several hundred years later; or whether john wrote his revelations; or moses the pentateuch; or whether the whole bible was compiled a thousand years after moses. the whole fabric is based upon error, partly due to the times when it was written, partly due to the state of civilization, to the educational status, to the ignorance and superstition of the times, the limited knowledge of nature, and the undeveloped mental faculties, the misinterpretation and misconstruction of every phase and phenomenon their perceptive faculties were unable to explain, the impressions received from the outward world or the feelings and emotions that agitated them within. it is no easy task to overcome the prejudices of the times in which we live. we are instinctively opposed to any innovation, whether the new ideas are an improvement on the old or not. for many generations, and for centuries, the various church organizations have been teaching the old, antiquated idea that the bible was a supernatural production, that either god had written it or had inspired man to do the work. what does it signify who wrote Æsop's fables, homer's iliad, the five books of moses, isaiah, or the new testament, or even shakespeare? they are written. the question really is, whether the contents are true, are fabulous or historically correct. for many years it has been a recognized fact that the bible is a composition of fable, fiction, facts, misunderstanding, and misstatement. we only need glance at the absurd trials that are now going on at this present time. these gentlemen, briggs and smith, are not the first to doubt the truth of the book. hundreds have doubted before them. it is skepticism that produces evolution and revolution in the accepted form of worship and faith and belief. abraham, socrates, christ, luther, and hundreds have doubted. they were skeptics in consequence of a superior insight into the propaganda of certain accepted beliefs. every speculative theory has been doubted. great sciences are never doubted. theology, the offspring of idolatry and mythology, is a purely speculative science--if indeed it can be classed as a science. therefore, it has always been laboring under a cloud of doubt. what wonder, then, that modern scholars, even clergymen, of superior ability, become skeptics when they compare modern science, modern truth, with ancient fable and falsehood? the debates on progressive sanctification, a middle state, whether sanctification is complete or incomplete at death--where is the heresy? where is the blasphemy? what are these overgrown, lopsided educated men thinking about--these self-constituted righteous bigots, what are they squabbling about? was not abraham a heretic and a blasphemer to the chaldeans, jesus christ a heretic and a blasphemer to the jews, socrates a heretic and a blasphemer to the greeks, luther a heretic and a blasphemer to the most holy apostolic roman catholic church? why, the entire theological doctrine, the whole spiritual code of morals, all the articles of faith and creeds and canons of the church, all the figures and carvings of christ, all the paintings, all the steeples, all the belfries on this earth's surface--what are they for? what are all the mountebank church costumes for? what is the use for a man to disguise himself in a stage costume of the egyptian period, to scare a lot of ignorant boobies? of what use are your incense, your prayer, and your blessing, your self-conceited holiness, your pretended sanctity, and your priestly hypocrisy? what is it all for? to save sinners? what shall we do to be saved? all this ecclesiastical humbug, preaching and pulpit noise and theological humbug, is about crushing out sin, saving the sinner, and all the supernatural thunder is brought to bear upon the great sinning organs--to wit, the stomach and the sexual organs, to regulate these. god and gods, angels, prophets, and spirits labored--and what is more monstrous and more extravagantly ridiculous, the young man jesus christ had to be sacrificed--to save you from overloading your stomach--or rather abusing your stomach--and from overindulging in sexual exercises. remember, every crime, known or unknown, recognized or not recognized, every evil and every wickedness, every abomination or pollution or defilement, springs from these two sources. i am not taking diseases into consideration, such as david describes in psalm xxxviii, for example. to satisfy the wants of these organs, leads to greed, selfishness, fraud, forgery, deception, falsehood, corruption, etc. the pleasures resulting therefrom are accompanied by vanity, pride, pamperedness, envy, jealousy, hate, discontent, etc. the indulgences are known as drunkenness, lust, lasciviousness, fornication, adultery, obscenity, debauchery, whoredom, luxury, revelry, and by many other terms. these form the theme of the prophets and the burden of the apostles. these are the sins, the vices, they have been trying to crush and wipe out with their theological absurdities for several thousand years. they have created all sorts of bugaboos to frighten fools, idiots, and stupid ignoramuses into discipline. they have created hell, purgatory, dark and deep pits, brimstone and fire. the gentleman devil, or mr. satan, presides over the lower regions, conducts their affairs, only to accommodate the spiritual fraternity, from the pope to the rev. sam patch. but in order to be saved, to go to heaven--an imaginary abode in the atmosphere, a sort of ethereal paradise in the upper strata of the air that surrounds this globe, either with or without sunlight--in order to get one up there some clown of a priest will mumble off masses, a sort of ribald fustian composition that will raise your spirit or your soul right up into the pure upper strata of this terrestrial atmospheric crust. of course if there are seven heavens you must pay accordingly. in case, however, you miss the aerial place, the heaven, and accidentally become one of the devil's subjects, it stands to reason that satan requires an extra fee to release you from eternal punishment--which the good, pious priest puts into his pocket. it is a pertinent question to ask our spiritual advisers, whether or not the christian kindergarten makes a specialty of guarding and regulating, by the celestial medium of the son of god, the holy ghost, the digestive apparatus and the organs of procreation. because all the sins and vices originate with these. the devil, or satan, holds his jubilee in the pleasures and extravagant indulgences of man and woman. the church has long since been deprived of its political power and importance. the civil law regulates minor and major crimes, and provides punishment therefor. the only function left for the christian church, the ecclesiastical kindergarten, is advisory, admonitory, accompanied with frivolous promises--be good, you well-dressed ladies and gentlemen; pray to our shadows, kneel before yon figure on the cross, sprinkle yourselves with holy water, and contribute liberally toward our support and sustain our kindergarten, then we bless you and give you a pass to the heavenly regions. basta! only believe, have faith, never mind about understanding, common sense, and reason, then you surely will be saved, and have a white and clean gown fresh from the laundry, a pair of wings, a golden crown, and you can have your choice of either a trumpet or a harp, which you may either blow or touch, and may sit at the feet of an old man with a long white beard, on a golden chair, his feet resting on the clouds, surrounded by an innumerable host of angels and cherubim that will make music everlasting, where spiritual fountains will keep you cool, oh, and a vast deal more which can not be here recited. anyone who desires a full and complete description of this celestial paradise, this heaven, including abraham's bosom, the right hand of jesus, his beloved father, and the holy ghost in the bargain, may obtain it by making proper application. ah! what a blessing it would be for the whole human family if the churches were utilized for educational purposes wherein truths, scientific truths, could be taught; where young people could meet to amuse themselves, or be instructed in something useful; where young men and women could entertain themselves by feeding off the tree of knowledge, instead of loafing round saloons, round the street corners, gambling-houses, dives or pool rooms. young and old must have a pastime, and a place to pass this time; if the state or community does not provide such places in densely populated districts, where are these poor, ignorant creatures to go to? talk about charity! a large bulk of our charities are advertising schemes. i do not call what i here advocate a charity, but a right. if we want to improve the public morals, if we desire to educate the young men and women, provide district temples for amusement and instruction, open from a.m. to p.m., where they may assemble after working hours, sit, talk, read, or play--may educate the brain, the nervous and muscular tissues, so that both these master tissues may perform their functions skillfully, naturally, and judiciously. our scientific scholars throughout the world have long since dispensed with the supernatural. know the natural, is the modern shibboleth. if you want to take care of the machine, understand the machinery, and if you want the coming generation to understand something about it, it is certain that the saloon is not the proper place for it. we ought to guard our public institutions with jealous care. our public non-sectarian schools are the places for our children. the public schools ought to be numerous enough to accommodate every citizen's children in the land. i think it bad grace for any foreigner to come here to give us advice upon that subject. archbishop satolli, papal ablegate, said at the recent meeting of the american archbishops in new york, on "the settling of the school question and the giving of religious education:" "to the catholic church belong the duty and divine right of teaching all nations to believe the truth of the gospel, and to observe whatsoever christ commanded. "for the rest the provisions of the council of baltimore are yet in force, and in a general way will remain so, to wit: not only out of our paternal love do we exhort catholic parents, but we command them, by all the authority we possess, to procure a truly christian and catholic education for the beloved offspring given them of god, born again in baptism unto christ, and destined for heaven, to shield and secure them throughout childhood and youth from the dangers of a mere worldly education, and therefore to send them to parochial or other truly catholic schools." the beloved offspring given them of god? nonsense! about as much born of god as a calf, or a flower. offspring are the natural result of a natural cause. "born again in baptism unto christ, and destined for heaven"--would it not be well to ascertain what the catholic church has ever done to elevate and educate the masses? does not the educational system of peter dens, satolli, and co. consist merely of: . to hear mass on sundays and all holy days of obligation; . to fast and abstain on the days commanded; . to receive worthily the blessed eucharist at easter, or within the time appointed; . to confess our sins at least once a year; . to contribute to the support of our pastor; . not to solemnize marriage at the forbidden times, nor to marry persons within the forbidden degrees of kindom or otherwise prohibited by the church nor clandestinely? the dirt and filth, the nauseating nastiness, of the cesspool of the "moral theology" of peter dens cannot be printed in the english language. or perhaps mr. satolli will educate the children to mumble over and over the litany of the blessed virgin, quoted in another chapter, and all the rest of the instructions in mortal sin, venial sin, precepts of the church, infidels and heretics, decalogue, grace, justification, merit, virtue of faith, articles of faith, apostolic creed, church visibility, marks, holiness, authority, infallibility, concerning ecclesiastical councils, supreme pontiff, signs of the cross, magic, miracles, sacrament, worship of relics, worship of images, resurrection, heaven, hell, perdition, purgatory, etc., etc. satolli and his confréres would rather have parish schools, to educate the young in their ecclesiastical stupidities, and draw the funds from the state treasury in order to sustain them. the roman catholic church, in its career as an educational medium, has not contributed one iota towards the progress and advancement of civilization. the opposition of its clergy has always been the severest and most bloody. humanity "owes them no thanks for the culture and privileges it now enjoys. the church interferes and checks every step forward. the clergy are determined to keep the masses ignorant as long as it is possible. greed, selfishness, rapacity, dominion, self-righteousness, and self-sanctification have ever been their chief characteristics. every act and every transaction is justifiable so long as their ends and objects are gained. satolli represents the pope's big toe, that is ready to be firmly planted on the neck of our public school system, whenever the power of state or nation is secured. the wily priests with their jesuitic craftiness never lose an opportunity. in a republic they are republicans, in a monarchy they are monarchists. they are anything and everything--but the church with all its abominations first. all else must be subservient to their will, to their power, to their use. they are intolerant, bigoted, and tyrannical all the time. whether it be to prevent the methodists from establishing a church in austria, or to intrude their priestly interference in the public school methods in waterford, saratoga, it is the same impudent aggression that has characterized them for ages. they are bound to keep the people ignorant, superstitious, and slaves to their system, in spite of all the existing civilizing influences. what we want, and what we must have, is a public school system of education free from all sectarian bias, with neither catechism nor bible-reading, neither prayers nor psalm-singing, but a thorough instruction in all matters of a nature directly beneficial in the conduct of this life. the state of transition is rapidly forcing itself upon the minds of men. they can no longer be held in submission. they believe no more in the antiquated notions of four thousand years ago--though modified and decorated to suit modern times. notwithstanding the ecclesiastical hedges, fences, walls, and draw-bridges that have been erected by priests' sagacity and cunning in order to prevent encroachments on their theological fortifications, it is plain that there is a natural wearing and tearing of effete notions of the past. that the structure, erected on a false and fictitious foundation, has already given way, protestants can testify. and as the protestants have yielded to dissenters, etc., so must they all gradually crumble--before the battering-ram of scientific truth first, next before the advancing intelligence of the masses, and lastly before the press, which indiscriminately lays bare before the public every wrangle, every squabble, and every dissension occurring among the followers of christ. neither faith, grace, nor brotherly love, the holy kiss of paul included, prevents these saintly gentlemen from exercising their greed, selfishness, and covetousness, as well as throwing dirt at one another. father corrigan vs. cahenslyism and wigger--they keep the pecuniary pot boiling. there is neither malice nor jealousy, but all is for the love of christ. dollars and cents? these pious brethren would scorn the idea. at professor smith's trial for heresy the ladies of mount auburn church presented the heretic with a basket of flowers. when in old times we find heretics tried by the roman catholic church, are heretics rightly punished with death? asks the priest. st. thomas answers in the affirmative. latimer and ridley were treated to an excellent bonfire at oxford, , for being heretics. nor did cranmer receive white and pink roses in a bed of fern leaves and smilax. what a change! professors smith and briggs are proud to be heretics. they are praised and complimented for being heretics, and no doubt will be well taken care of when these frivolous proceedings have terminated. guilty or not guilty, they have gained notoriety enough to place them in an excellent position for the rest of their lives. i call that a high, very sensible, and very respectable sort of martyrdom. both these gentlemen ought to be very grateful to science for having brought about such a change, that gives them the privilege of differing from their spiritual brethren and becoming respectable heretics with baskets of roses. o civilization, how much have we to thank you for all this! it is so lovely to be a heretic, a blasphemer, and a martyr in this present generation! what a pity that daniel's mene, mene, tekel upharsin is not quite applicable to the present condition of christianity. the great ecclesiastical bugbear of christianity, backed by their god, their son, holy ghost, virgin mary, saints, popes, heaven and hell, and their infinite methods of salvation, is nothing near so terrible as he used to be. that bugbear has been tamed, and is, comparatively speaking, gentle. his appetites and his passions have been subdued. indeed paul deserves no small credit for polishing the mosaic god. it is only occasionally that paul mentions his god's wrath or severity, and very mildly too. paul's god comes near being esthetic. the mosaic god is muscular and energetic. paul's god is mild and persuasive. the mosaic god was a fighting god, conquering territory and molding a political nation. paul's god has quite another line of business, sin-forgiving and soul-saving. the mosaic god was all alone engaged in business. paul's god is a firm--father, son, and holy ghost. the occupation of sin-forgiving and soul-saving is carried on with great ceremonials in our christian kindergartens, accompanied with music, prayer, and psalm-singing. the sins are derived, directly or indirectly, from two organs in the main--to wit, digestive and sexual. any man or woman that cannot perceive the truth of the above must be exceedingly obtuse. does anyone believe that the teachings and preachings, with all the complementary paraphernalia and other numerous accessories, are necessary to save us or guard us against transgressions or sin? supposing all the churches and buildings assigned to the worship of god or gods, and all the priests and preachers, disappeared from the surface of this terrestrial globe, would this planet come to a standstill, or the sun cease to shine? would the elements entering into the composition of the numerous substances found on or within this earth change their relative proportion, construction, or chemical relation? we need not have the slightest apprehension. new systems of ideas have always displaced and replaced the old systems. as we advance from cycle to cycle, this is continuously taking place. the hand gave way to the stick, the stick to the spade, the spade to the hand-plow, the hand-plow to oxen, oxen to horses, horses to steam, etc. it is the natural progress from one step to another, in every branch of thought, learning, and industry. it is a higher education and a better comprehension of the human machinery, a knowledge of the proper functions of the nervous and muscular tissues, a keener insight into the necessities of life, a regulation and control of the organs of organic life, a riper judgment, and a more evenly balanced brain power. the churches with their ethics and refined methods of the present day, with their eloquent admonitions constantly repeated, cannot be regarded in any other light than as a theological kindergarten for a fashionable musical sunday entertainment. chapter xxvi. rational review. reason and reflection. if any person with a, reasonable amount of intelligence will seriously reflect, he may gain sufficient information to satisfy himself as regards the true nature of the conditions that surround him. first try to the best of your ability to present in your mind the outlines of this terrestrial globe, this planet on which we live, with its mountains and its valleys; oceans, seas, and rivers; the two extreme poles, north and south; the center of the earth's surface and the equator, etc. next try to satisfy your mind that this planet has no immediate connection with any other planet--that it belongs to a system of planets that revolve round the sun, with a space or distance between them of many millions of miles. and that this planet is entire and complete in itself. whatever substances are about, upon, or within the earth, belong to this planet and no other. that not a particle of any substance can leave this earth, whether visible or invisible. that all formations, no matter of what character or nature, are made from substances belonging to this earth. that the size and weight of this globe has never changed. it is the same now as it was millions of years ago, or will be at any time in the future. that the quantity of water upon the surface of this earth, whether ocean, sea, lake, or river, has neither increased nor diminished. that the solid mineral portion of the earth has neither increased nor diminished either in size or weight. that the fluid, the watery portion, is susceptible to change of position and conditions on the surface of this earth, whether above the earth's surface or upon it. that all clouds, rain, vapor, mist, moisture, dew, snow, hail, must be and is taken from the waters on the surface of the earth, and when clouds, that have been taken from the waters of the earth, fall to the surface of the earth in the form of rain, vapor, mist, moisture, dew, snow, or hail, they simply return what has been temporarily taken or loaned from the waters of the earth. that in the case of all deluges, freshets, overflows, that have ever taken place, the waters that enter into their formation have been taken from the waters of the earth. the waters have simply changed position from one locality to another. that all ice formations are nothing more than solidified water. water crystallizes by the absence of sunlight, and melts in the presence of the sun's heat. that snow is nothing more than congealed water, and returns to water when heated. that the quantity of water remains the same. whether it rains forty days and nights, or a whole year, it is neither increased nor diminished. that the deepest portion of the earth's surface is filled with water. being fluid, it naturally fills up the hollows until it has found its level. if there is more water than it can hold, it will find its way into the next hollow. and the higher portions of the earth's surface will not and cannot be covered by water. such is the condition of the earth's surface that the deepest places on this terrestrial globe are filled with water; thus oceans, lakes, pools, and rivers are formed. that all living substances, whether vegetable or animal, are composed more than two-thirds of water. that more than two-thirds of the entire quantity of food taken daily into the animal economy consists of water. that is to say, we feed on more than two-thirds of water. nothing living can maintain its existence without two-thirds of water. second. all the material taken from the earth's surface, or from the interior of the earth's crust, for any purpose whatsoever, no matter how great the weight or volume may be, does not increase the weight of this earth, or diminish it. the material has simply been moved from one place and deposited in another. the building of one city, or ten thousand cities or more, would not add one pound more or less to the entire weight of this earth. all the stone, coal, iron, copper, silver, gold, lead, and all other mineral substances, used either in building, machinery, or anything human ingenuity can make or invent--all belong to this earth. no matter how great the bulk or quantity, it does not influence this earth one particle. moreover, this earth would not be in the slightest inconvenienced in its motion or evolution whether there were sixteen billion of persons on its surface, or ten million times as many. nor would it make the slightest difference to this terrestrial globe whether the entire animal creation was destroyed, or increased indefinitely. it would neither slacken its pace, increase its weight, diminish its size, change its poles, alter its seasons, nor in any other way be affected. the fluids, the solids, and the gases would relatively remain the same. let it be distinctly understood, that whatever change may take place in some remote future, say one billion million of years, more or less, this earth as a whole will be but little affected. vegetable and animal life may disappear, but the component parts of the earth cannot be destroyed or changed. furthermore, whatever is produced upon this earth by the inventive power of man's faculties, in the arts and sciences mechanical, the natural, and what is thought to be supernatural, whatsoever shape or character it may take, whether phase or phenomenon, an idea, thought, or imagination--in fact, every thing, every essence, from an angel to the devil, from a saint to a sinner, from a brass button to a god or gods, holy ghosts or divinities, all, all, are part and parcel of this earth. all there are recorded in any book, called sacred or profane, inspired or uninspired, visionary or materialistic, are the creations of the brain of man, inventions of the brain of man, concoctions and fabrications of the brain of man. whether devil, saint, angel, or god, they are of earth, earthly, chained to this terrestrial globe so long as there is a brain in human form that can exercise its faculties. third. no things can leave this earth, whether they are things visible, or things that are not visible. nothing can come to us from any distant planet, whether it is visible or not visible. all things or beings, whether visible or not visible, tangible or not tangible, perceptible or imperceptible, belong to this earth, are the products of the earth. all things, beings, forms, or shapes, whatever be their nature or consistence, however they have appeared or been produced, on any portion of the surface of this globe, are the products of this earth. all things, beings, forms, shapes, material, or what appears to be material, are produced upon the surface of this earth. all things, beings, forms, shapes, phases, or phenomena, and all manifestations, whether spiritual or supernatural, are the products of this earth, produced through the material composing the nervous matter, by the ordinary physiological mechanism of the animal economy. no psychological condition, as it is termed, can be produced without nervous matter. it is a function of nerve or brain material. it has no existence of itself. it is not a product foreign to matter. the soul is a term employed to represent in the abstract an intellectual product of, or the result of functional activity of, brain substance. where there is no brain there can be no soul. and souls differ in proportion to size, quality, quantity, educational or brutal development. the mind is the collective term for the entire product of nervous activity, from non-intellectual to intellectual activity. thus we have all kinds of minds--vulgar, brutal, licentious, pious, enlightened, educated, intellectual, refined, ideal, imaginary, etc., etc. a mind may be simple, mixed, complex, complicated, perverted, disordered, rational or irrational, etc., etc. the mind is of ages--infantile, childish, youthful, young, mature, deliberate, strong, weak, and senile, feminine or masculine, etc., etc. nervous effects not understood are interpreted to be supernatural, not the product of the matter composing brain; this is false. the so-called spiritual manifestations are, in plain terms, delusions for susceptible nervous conditions, and generally largely adulterated with fraud. nervous conditions bordering on hallucinations may easily be influenced by a strong nervous force and utilized for swindling purposes. there is as little truth in spirit manifestations as there was in the casting out of evil spirits or devils, as related in the bible. fourth. material prosperity consists in the accumulation of wealth, gained either by industry or inheritance. wealth is used: . to supply food sufficient in quantity to sustain bodily health. . to obtain clothing to protect the body from extreme heat, and also for decorative purposes. . to furnish domicile or housing to shelter the body against the inclemency of the weather, in luxury as our acquired taste may desire. . to give us the opportunities of an education and training that we could not otherwise obtain. . to provide for those that are dependent upon us for support, as children and old persons. . to exercise charitable acts, in aiding all those that are either disabled or unable to procure the necessities of life--clothing and shelter. remember that god has not created anything--either plant, animal, or man. while we resemble each other, we are not precisely constructed all alike. dogs are dogs, for example, yet a skye terrier is not so big as a newfoundland dog, nor is either fashioned the same as a bulldog. the same may be said of plants and trees. the structural tissue of all trees is wood, yet are the trees not all alike. nor can the wood tissue of the various trees be used for the same purpose. each one is useful in its own particular line or sphere. the same may be said of minerals as to their appearance, qualities, uses, etc., etc. each individual is simply the offspring of his parents. god has had nothing whatever to do in shaping or fashioning him. he has not endowed him with anything. he has given him neither a soul nor a body. he is a creature that has been placed upon this earth by his parents, with all the qualities, form, general construction, composition, and constitution of his parents. this hardly requires an explanation. every farmer and cattle-breeder understands it. we have every day illustrations with our race-horses, cattle, etc. two black persons cannot breed white children. they can mix them, yes. god had nothing at all to do with the selection of either the black man or white woman, or the white man or black woman. whatever seed is planted, that will grow, and no other. cabbage seed will yield cabbages, and nothing else. that law holds good in nature--like will produce like; subject, however, to modification of soil, temperature, moisture, of the immediate surroundings. but it will not change the cabbage. it may be finer, of improved quality, larger--that's all. the prevailing notion that we are all created free and equal, is nonsense. . we are not created. we are simply the offspring of our parents and inherit all the characteristics and qualities of our parents, which are subject to betterment, improvement, and a higher degree of culture, or deterioration, depending on circumstances and surroundings. . we are not born equal by any means, either in muscular strength, brain power, size, constitution, or wealth. therein lies the difference in the condition and surroundings of man, while we are spending this short-lived existence on this earth. . whether we are born free, depends upon what form of government we live under. we are free to comply with the laws of the government under which we are born, comply with the recognized moral and social laws in the midst of which our parents reside, where we first saw daylight. dismiss the silly notion from your mind that anything can help you, either priest or any supernatural agency. the priest may help as one man may help another. prayers can avail you nothing, nor blessings. every man, to be a man, must act the man! training, education, culture, makes him one. free yourself from priestly influence and church dominion, if you would be free. think and reason. throw off the shackles of ecclesiastical slavery. let your own brain work out your own salvation. never mind the jehova, the god of barbarism, the christ of delusion, or the holy ghost of the imagination. shake off the dust of superstition and ignorance if you would be free. it is the noblest work of man to make himself free--to make himself equal, not muscular--free from prejudice, free from superstitions, free from bigotry, free from ignorance, free from vice, free from passions, free from wrong-doing either to yourself or to your fellow-man. equal you can be in brain power, brain culture, in brain force, by brain culture, education, in the improvement and perfection of the intellectual faculties, so that we may exercise our understanding and judgment, free and untrammeled, to the benefit of ourselves and to the benefit of our neighbors. the perfection you imagine your god ought to be, exalt yourself to that perfection, and be an intelligent free man. chapter xxvii. visions--bible dreams--revelations. these are the fireworks of the imagination. isaiah's vision, chapter vi, , : "i saw the lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. "around it stood the seraphim; each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly," etc. ezekiel, chapter iii: son of man eats the roll. vision of chapter viii: "a fire below the loins, and the appearance of brightness, as the color of amber upwards," etc. chapter ix: "six men with slaughter weapons, clothed in white linen with a writer's inkhorn by the side." chapter x: "above the head of the cherubim there appeared over them as it were a sapphire-stone, as the appearance of the likeness of a throne." verse : "go in between the wheels even under the cherub, and fill thine hands with coals of fire," etc. verse : "and the house was filled with a cloud," etc. verse : "and there appeared in the cherubim the form of a man's hand under their wings." verse : "four wheels," etc. verse : "and their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and their wheels were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had." verse : and every one had four faces, the first face was the face of a cherub, the second the face of a man, the third that of a lion, the fourth the face of an eagle, etc. chapter xxii: sin. chapter xxiii: whoredoms. chapter xxxviii: boneyard. chapter xlvii: visions of holy waters. daniel's visions, dreams: verse : four great beasts came up from the sea. the first was a lion and had eagle's wings. the second was like a bear, it had three ribs in the mouth between the teeth, etc. the third was like a leopard, and had four wings of a fowl, and had four heads. the fourth a beast dreadful and terrible, strong exceedingly--had great iron teeth--and it had ten horns. a little horn came up; in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, a mouth speaking great things. throne whereon an ancient sat, the hair of his head like pure wool, garments snow-white, etc.; throne of fiery flame, wheels as burning fire. verse : "then i would know the truth of the fourth beast," etc. his teeth were iron, nails of brass, etc., etc. chapter viii: a ram had two horns; one was higher than the other. he saw the ram pushing westward, northward, southward, etc. verse : a he-goat with a horn between the eyes; the goat smote the ram, broke the two horns, etc. zechariah iv: a candlestick all of gold, a hood upon the top of it. seven lamps thereon, seven pipes to the seven lamps; two olive trees. chapter v: flying roll twenty cubits long, ten cubits broad. verse : two women, and the wind was in their wings; they had wings like a stork. chapter vi: four chariots between two mountains of brass. the first chariot had red horses, the second chariot had black horses, the third chariot had white horses, the fourth chariot had grizzled bay horses, etc. the most prominent men in the old testament that were endowed with high imaginative powers, were not many. the most noted among them were isaiah, b.c.; ezekiel, b.c.; daniel, b.c.; zechariah, b.c. these four visionary gentlemen lived during a very exciting, troublesome period. it was the ending of national life. there were continuous wars, constant changes, invasions, robberies, plunder, and all other barbaric crimes that ordinarily accompany these revolutionary events. israel was made captive b.c.--the lost ten tribes, as they are called. the conquest of jerusalem was b.c.; the captivity of judah and destruction of jerusalem, b.c. it must be remembered that all the prophets, so termed, lived during a time of approaching national dissolution, and date from the death of jonah, b.c., to the death of nehemiah, . these political preachers, agitators, and fault-finders were altogether some twenty in number. and when national life ceased, these prophets ceased. men of this particular type and character were no longer needed. they had outlived their usefulness. their national greatness was rapidly disintegrating--short-lived it was. luxury, licentiousness, and crime; rapacity, internal disorder, factional strife, lack of order and discipline, made them the prey of neighboring nations, that finally proved their destruction. it was not a question of god or jehovah or idols; it was a question of organization, discipline, and a higher civilization, that wiped the jews out as a nation. they struggled as long as they could maintain their existence as a nation. they were overpowered and subdued. it is not, therefore, surprising that these men appealed to their patriotism--their moral sense, of which they had but little--and made every endeavor to reform them. the national pride, love of country and patriotism, fired their imagination. they talked, wrote, and scolded in the name of the visionary god in fashion among them, employing the phraseology then in use, giving vent to their feelings, their passions, their lamentations, their dreams, their visions, the product of an over-excited nervous system, mixing poesy, philosophy, and facts indiscriminately; producing a heterogeneous, fantastic creation of the brain, part true, but false as a whole, dovetailed together as the fancy of the moment suggested. these rambling fireworks of the imagination have little meaning and less sense, except that they portray their feelings, emotions, and practical impressions for the time being. eliminate the facts out of their writings, and you obtain a residue of wild, incoherent ravings of an over-excited, over-heated brain. we hear nothing of any great mental disturbance or loss of equilibrium, until we reach a new crisis. for nearly four hundred years not a vision, not an angel, not a prophet, is heard of. the religious disputes, the ecclesiastical quarrels, the heated discussions, the hatred, hostility, and opposition that the differences of opinion engendered, caused considerable nervous irritation, mental excitement, and a display of the imagination. this new religion, this reformation, this new organization, produced no small amount of fermentation. it was all nervous, stimulated to a degree of exaltation, rising in intensity to enthusiasm and religious ecstacy, wherein many varieties of nervous phases were exhibited. st. john was on the isle of patmos when he wrote his revelations. he could not have chosen a more suitable spot for his visionary work. an isolated little island situated in the archipelago near asia minor, it is one of the smallest islands in that region. it could certainly not contain many inhabitants. it is surrounded by sea and exceedingly lonely. a man with a highly nervous temperament could almost see anything in that dreamland of melancholy and seclusion. john's visions resembled those of his predecessors several hundred years previous. but john came four hundred years later, and had the advantage of more culture. ideas had multiplied, experience had increased, the imagination was amplified. education had advanced, and the mental faculties were better developed. he had therefore the brain, the opportunity, and a very favorable locality, to dream, to have visions, and to imagine to his heart's content. he had the material, the impressions, and the state of mind to aid him. of course we take it for granted that john wrote these revelations--or some one imagined these things for him. john wrote to the seven churches, ephesus, smyrna, pergamos, thyatera, sardis, philadelphia, and laodicea. none of these places was any considerable distance from patmos. what he sees: chapter i: seven candlesticks. one was like (verse ) the son of man, clothed in garments down to the feet, girt about the paps with a golden girdle. verse : "his head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow." verse : his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. verse : he had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. the second and third chapters are advisory to the seven churches. in the fourth his imagination takes a great flight. a more romantic spot to have visions could not be found--about ° north of the equator, a beautiful sky, mild climate, calm waters, and a solemnity of surroundings that would impress a less imaginative mind. it would have a marvelous effect on an excitable fanatic zealot, brimful with fantastic religious notions. no wonder he beheld the doors of heaven open, and heard a sound of a trumpet--and he was immediately in the spirit; that is, he was either dreaming or in an ecstatic state, and could see all the things he did see with his eyes either closed or open. he saw a throne. one sat in it. it looked like jasper and sardonyx. and he saw a rainbow like emerald. round about there were twenty-four seats, wherein twenty-four elders were sitting clad in white raiment, with crowns of gold on their heads. thunder and lightning came out of the throne. there were seven lamps before the throne, and seven spirits of god, and before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal; and in the midst of the throne and round about were four beasts, full of eyes before and behind. the first beast was like a lion, the second beast was like a calf, the third beast had the face of a man, the fourth beast was a flying eagle. and the four beasts had each six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within. chapter v, : there stood a lamb with seven horns, seven eyes, seven spirits, etc. chapter vi: he saw a white horse, a red horse, a black horse, and a pale horse. the first had a crown, the second a sword, the third a pair of balances, on the fourth sat death and hell. there were seals opened, etc., etc. the fifth seal was the souls slain by the sword of god. the sixth seal, earthquake, the sun became black and the moon red, and the heavens departed as a scroll, etc. chapter vii: he sees four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow, etc. he saw another angel with a seal--for various tribes, etc.--very fanciful, very fantastic, very imaginative. chapter viii: the seventh seal opened. seven angels with seven trumpets standing before god. one angel stood with a golden censer. five filled the censer with fire. voices. thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. verse : the first angel sounded. there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood; trees and green grass were burnt up. verse : the second angel sounded. a mountain of burning fire was cast into the sea, and the third part of the sea became blood. verse : a third part of the creatures and a third part of the ships were destroyed. verse : the third angel sounded. a great star fell from heaven, burning. verse : the fourth angel sounded. a third part of the sun and moon were smitten, a third part of the stars, etc. chapter ix: the fifth angel sounded. a star falls into the bottomless pit. he mixes smoke, locusts, scorpions, torments, horns, battles, crowns of gold. verse : faces of men with hair of women and teeth of lions. he sees breastplates of iron. there is sound in the wings, sound in the chariots running to battle, etc., etc. verse : he sees the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them having breastplates of fire, and of jacinth and brimstone; and the heads of the horses were the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire, and smoke, and brimstone. verse : for their power is in their mouths and their tails; and their tails were like unto serpents, etc. chapter x, : seven thunders utter voices. john takes the little book out of the angel's hands, eats it up, and it is as sweet as honey but bitter in his belly. we pass on through the extravagances of the succeeding chapter to xvi. seven angels and seven plagues and seven vials of wrath. the first vial of wrath was poured upon earth; the second vial of wrath was poured upon the sea; the third vial of wrath was poured upon rivers and fountains of water; the fourth angel poured his vial upon the sun; the fifth angel poured his vial upon the seat of heat; the sixth angel poured his vial into the river euphrates, and the waters were dried up, unclean spirits like frogs came out of the mouth of the dragon, etc. the seventh angel poured his vial into air--voices--thunder--lightning. a more jumbled mass of hysterical nonsense was never concocted by the brain of man. with this silly twaddle of an over-excited nervous system, he continues to give vent to absurd impulses and perverted impressions of a theoleptic nature. in chapter xx he sees an angel from heaven having the keys of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. and he laid hold of the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and satan, and bound him a thousand years. verse : "and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up," etc., etc. verse : "and they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from god out of heaven and devoured them." verse : "and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beasts and the false prophets are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever," etc. that this so-called revelation is not the product of a healthy brain is self-evident. that john was reveling in the realms of fantasie, while he was laboring under a theological nightmare, is so palpable, that he might almost be accused of being a monomaniac. and that this abominable concoction of absurdities should form the basis of a system of moral education, and be tolerated as a supernatural production, is an outrage on common sense. the whole construction is the fabric of a man bordering on a state of hallucination, where fancy, fact, and fiction are indiscriminately mixed and compounded with the theoleptical effervescence of an almost demented enthusiast. there is not a particle of sense in the entire twenty-two chapters, except such as refer to earthly particulars. the combination is false in conception, and pernicious in its tendencies. he sees and hears things so glaringly ridiculous that it is really surprising that any sensible preacher can regard the writings in the light of seriousness. it is perhaps as unique an erratic compilation of material substances as was ever produced, based on ignorance, superstition, and a diseased mind. that man, st. john the divine, had no more conception of the size of this earth or its configuration than he had of electricity, or a steam-engine. of course i understand that theologians do not--or pretend not to--look upon the statements literally. they may interpret the contents of revelation from a spiritual point of view, nothing will or can relieve it of its defects. whatever he meant by his ravings, in those days, they do not contain a particle of practical sense. when he beheld the doors of heaven open and heard a sound of a trumpet, he was immediately in the spirit. then his mind spliced together thrones of jasper, emerald, seats, elders, white raiment, crowns of gold, seven lamps, seven spirits, a sea of glass, and four beasts full of eyes, a lion, calf, man, eagle, six wings, four horses, death and hell, seven angels, seven vials of wrath, hail, fire, blood, thunder, lightning, brimstone, a bottomless pit, etc., etc. thoughts were flying through his brain that embraced pretty much all he knew, that he had either heard, read about, or had had some personal experience of, bringing all the things, objects, substances, and phenomena to bear upon his imagination, forming ideas to illustrate his heaven or hell, his saints and sinners, his salvation and his perdition. the mind was in a state of delirious confusion. john's mind had had a larger experience, his imagination was more amplified and expanded, than the mind and imagination of his predecessors isaiah, ezekiel, daniel, and zechariah. the time and locality were not the same. the burden of john's thoughts was of a quite different nature. the nervous phenomena of theological excitement and irritation was purely visionary, while those of the old testament were largely tainted with the politics of their time. the former writers were loaded down with the expected ruin of their nationality; were filled with patriotism; were hoping and wishing for some one to come and help them out of their dire distress. their ideas and thoughts led them to flights of imagination within the limits of their knowledge. john was fully charged with the philosophy and teachings of his times, and he mustered all his knowledge to open the gulf between the two extremes of bliss and punishment, the saved and lost. thus he invented the appearance of heaven, with all the material substances, to exhibit its fearful glory, and showed the interior of his bottomless pit with its darkness, fire and brimstone. all these things might have appeared very terrible to the ignorant fishermen he had to deal with. it may still leave a strongly unpleasant impression on a great many of our ignorant population. very few sensible people take any stock in john's incoherent, erratic flight of imagination. it may be regarded as a very curious composition of antiquity--senseless, useless, meaningless; admirable in its way, but nothing more than a production of an overwrought, unbalanced, over-stimulated, and over-exalted imagination. we may distinctly perceive the progress that had been made in the evolution of the imagination, in the multiplication of ideas, in the amplification of thought, from abraham to moses, from moses to david, from david to isaiah, from isaiah to john. the nervous system, the brain, had undergone some modifications among these people, but not of a nature that was likely to be a lasting benefit to humanity. on the contrary, these speculative ideas caused a great deal of friction of thought, bitter quarrels, hatred, crime, and bloodshed. neighboring nations, who had neither jehova nor christ, revealed to us the light of science that never produced a friction nor a quarrel--being based on eternal truth. from the very beginning of their conception to the present day this remains unchanged, unaltered and untouched, a monument of truths, an inheritance for all future generations. the god-christ-holy-ghost idea has ever been a source of greed, selfishness, intolerance, bigotry, quarrel, hatred, licentiousness, cruelty, and crime. bickering and quarreling are still going on. and the grasping hand of greed holds the ignorant bigot by the throat to squeeze the last cent out of him, to enrich and aggrandize the most pernicious organization humanity was ever plagued with. heresy, blasphemy, is as fashionable to-day as it was in the rankest days of popery. fortunately the civil law reigns supreme, otherwise these ecclesiastical monomaniacs would be at each other's throats. at this stage of scientific civilization, we can afford to look on at the theological quarrels and antics as a result of a nervous craze that is perfectly harmless. after all it is but the physiological effect of an educational training, the development of the faculties and the evolution of the imagination; the brain functions in proportion to the progress made in the culture in general, harmonizing with the times, circumstances, and conditions of the period in which we live. every age has its turn in the evolution of the mental faculties, and it must go through its stage. the visionary period, the result of a theological hallucination of an over-exalted imagination, can occur only under certain favorable conditions, viz., on the one hand a highly susceptible nervous temperament, a strongly biased educational training, and an enthusiastic excitability, and on the other, an ignorant, bigoted, poor, and helpless population. shades of intellectual development. from barbarism to civilization, multiplicity of gods to nature, darkness to light. barbarism, savagery, ignorance, chaldaism. women barbarians. b.c. idolatry. astronomy. degraded a.d. . many gods. (paganism , , slaves. physical god. remaining). - b.c. very little light. hebrewism, , , . physiology, science, mathematics, mythology, women honored science breaking. - - b.c. greece a nation. ignorance, superstition. buddhism, , , . b.c. uncivilization (to our notion). confucianism. caste rule. brahmanism, , , . philosophy, , , gods. one god. mohammedanism, , , . tyrants. a.d. . polygamy. five gods. roman catholic still a.d. . father, son, and ghost, virgin, christianity, , , . degraded. a.d. . saints, relics, etc. idolatry, greek christianity, figure-painting, ignorance, , , . intolerance, non-progression, superstition, bigotry. dark ages. a.d. to . three gods. protestantism--luther, women to a.d. . class rule. calvin-- , , . sub- a.d. . progression, toleration, episcopalianism. ordinate. sects. a.d. . superstition, bigotry, presbyterianism. a.d. . civilization, selfishness, baptists. greed. methodism. wesley. one god. universalism. a.d. . enlightened, advancing. unitarianism. ethical culture. doubtful god. a.d. . latest theological a.d. . metamorphosis. no god. science, nature, fact, truth. manhood, womanhood. intellectual development. in modern times, if a man should attempt to rave after the style of john, he would certainly be declared a fit candidate for an insane asylum. what was possible on the isle of patmos by john would be an utter impossibility to-day. it is not because we have not religious fanatics enough, but education, reason, and science have advanced, so that such extravagant fire-works of the imagination would be declared evidence of an insane condition of the mind. on the following page a diagram of various shading shows the growth of intelligence and enlightenment of the various religious denominations, indicating the beginning of actual progress with the reformation, and how little there is left of the entire religious fabric that has been handed down these many centuries. the darkness of ignorance is still hiding the truth. the church is doing its utmost to train the young in the pernicious doctrine of superstition and falsehood of antiquity. the clergy would stop our public school system, if they could drag humanity back into the mire of brutality. the sooner the bible, with its god, jehova, jesus christ, the holy ghost, the prophets and the apostles, with all the angels, heaven, and hell, are placed under a glass case to be viewed and admired as a matter of antique curiosity the better. chapter xxviii. the planetary gods. the terrestrial god. why man should claim that the terrestrial god, the god that was created on this earth, extends his sway beyond the limits of this globe, is not easily accounted for. it is an assumption that is not at all warranted. we know that the composition of the planets that belong to the family of the solar system are the same as that of our own, this earth. all those worlds seem to be constructed of the same chemical elementary substances as this globe of ours, and working on the same general universal plan. that all the planets of the solar system, and the sun itself, possess the same common characteristics as this earth, is evident. the planets all move in the same direction round the sun. they all revolve upon their own axes, and round the sun. they have day and night, seasons and periods of revolution. they have their atmospheres, snows, rings, and all the necessary equipments of a planet proper. they seem to have seas, mountains, valleys, poles, equators, etc. some of the planets seem to be in a much higher state of organization than our own. take saturn, for example, with its series of rings and satellites, its immense distance from the sun, , , miles, moving at the rate of , miles per hour, and having a year equal to about years of our globe. he flourishes at a distance from us of about , , miles. he has a diameter of , miles. his volume is times that of the earth, and he receives his light from the sun, just the same as we do. it is admitted by astronomers that the saturnal scenery is most magnificent, and surpasses anything we are familiar with. the rings form immense arches, which span the sky and shed a soft radiance around; while in the strange beauty of the night eight moons in all their different phases, full, new crescent, or gibbous, light up the starry vault. we know that the planets are composed of the same elementary substances as this world whereon we live, that they are also surrounded with an atmosphere, have water upon them, receive the sun's heat, exhibit all the peculiar characteristics of this globe of ours, and all the planets seem to be obeying the same general universal laws. can anyone give us a plausible reason why there is no organized vital matter on our neighboring planets--plants, living creatures, similar to those found on this terrestrial globe? if the elementary substances are the same as those that are found on this earth, and they have a similar sunshine, heat, moisture, and temperature, all the forces may be presumed to be the same or similar. there is no reason that the elements should not enter into organic life of a similar, perhaps either inferior or superior, organization to that existing on this world? what is to hinder them? it is certainly possible, therefore probable. may we not assume that it is both possible and probable? those on earth who believe that this globe of ours was especially fitted up for us, made for man only, are very presumptuous. there was no special forethought for the adaptation or convenience of creatures like ourselves. as to the forethought, adaptation, or convenience, the hog, the elephant, the ass, and the fly enjoy their life just as much as men do. it is very convenient for them. but not more so than it is for man, and it is no more convenient for man than it is for the animals. we are certainly nearer the truth to say that the other planets are inhabited by beings, races, that may exhibit as much intelligence as, if not more than, we do on this globe. the conditions of light and heat may not be the same. the other planets may vary in form and structure, and have shapes not at all familiar to us. that, however, does not in any way interfere with the reasonable probability, nay, certainty, that they are inhabited. whether they are inhabited or not, matters little. yet we may safely make the inference that these planets are not simply placed in space for our convenience. may not the inhabitants of venus, mercury, mars, flora, mnemosene, jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune, etc., think that this earth has been created by their respective gods for their convenience? have they not as much right to have each of them a god as this earth is supposed to have? has not the god of jupiter as much right to be proclaimed by a portion of its inhabitants to be the creator of all the planets, sun, moon, and stars, as this sectarian, terrestrial god has? the right to this power, to this prerogative, is as much vested in the god of neptune or saturn, as in this earthly god. imagine the god of saturn complacently smiling at the arrogance of this pigmy of a terrestrial god. may not the god of venus have a preëmptory claim to the godship of this planetary system? or the god of uranus, or of any other of the planets? or possibly every planet has its god that acts as superintendent over his own territory, the laws of gravitation preventing his divinity from leaving his place of abode. or, perhaps there are no planetary gods--every solar system may have, perhaps, only one god, residing on the great sun himself, communicating directly with all his subject planets by the rays he sends forth. it is not at all unlikely that perhaps every solar system has its god. and over these many solar system gods, somewhere in the immensity of space, a god of immense magnitude may preside. so you may go on multiplying gods, sub-gods and superior gods, without end. where do we find that a man, or a set of men, have a right to arrogate to themselves the power or privilege to assume that this terrestrial god has anything at all to say or to dictate on any other planet? this earthly god has no more right to interfere with the business of mars or mercury than the god of saturn has a right to interfere with our earthly affairs. should it, however, transpire that any planetary god, whether he comes from uranus, or neptune, or any other planet, should interfere, we who were made in his image will assemble in the houses we have built for his sake, for the terrestrial god's sake, and pass resolutions advising our terrestrial god to say to the other planetary gods: "hands off, ye gods, if you please! for the sake of peace and harmony among the gods of this planetary system, we, representing this terrestrial god by proxy--since it really makes no great difference in the end of the great gathering-in of the elementary substances all organic beings are composed of--we, the organized elements of this earth, men, animals, plants, etc., more especially the highest organized beings, men, having a more perfected nervous system, being the elect of all terrestrial productions, claim the right to speak for our god, and proclaim to all planetary gods, potentates, majesties, holies of holies, or their representatives, that they have no right whatsoever to interfere with our terrestrial management. we can have our little local pet god or gods if we desire, so long as our methods do not in any way inconvenience them." let it be taken for granted that the same, elementary substances are found (of which we have evidence) in the sun and all the planets, and probably in the stars we see; that their gaseous fluids and solid substances are of similar nature to the elements known to us; and that they also receive the same sun's heat (or the distant stars may receive light and heat from some other suns), is it not more than likely that the conditions produced by the contact of these elements with the sun's heat, may resemble those we are familiar with? if there is heat there must be motion, there must be friction, there must be consumption and expenditure of heat, also expansion and contraction. if these forces exist, other forces necessarily must also exist, as cold from absence of heat, dynamic force, electric and magnetic forces. we may readily suppose that there are currents of air. water may be agitated by the wind. if atmospheres surround these planets there is only one source of heat that can keep them in a gaseous state, and that is the sun. heat from the same source keeps the oxygen and the hydrogen fluid. if evaporation and consolidation exist why should there not be aqueous vapor, rain, etc.? we must concede that the elements known as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon are found in these distant planets. we cannot be far wrong in supposing that there are carbonic acid, ammonia, and maybe other combinations. atoms certainly must exist, and molecules (a drop of water is a molecule). there may also be conductions of heat, of molecular motion. what then is to hinder the evolution of phenomena on these distant planets being regulated by laws very similar to the laws of this earth--radiation and absorption of heat, combustion and explosion, tension and velocity of the various elements, under peculiar circumstances favoring all these conditions? that elements wherever found possess the same physical properties when brought under the same influence of heat and moisture, there can be no doubt, whether they are farther removed, or nearer to the contact of the sun's rays. it is a fact, a well-established fact, that different substances require varying degrees of temperature to reduce them to a liquid, gaseous, or solid condition, and no matter where the temperature is produced the result will be the same. if, for example, a temperature can be procured on the surface of uranus, or saturn, sufficient to melt iron, lead, or silver, these metallic substances will melt at uranus or saturn as quickly as on the earth's surface. the laws regulating radiation, absorption, dispersion, or contraction, or any other phase the elementary substances may assume, under heat or pressure, etc.--these laws will hold good on any of the planets just as well as on this terrestrial planet. it is therefore far from unreasonable to presume that the organizable elements may have assumed a vitality on the distant planets, evolved and developed creatures in accordance with known laws, or laws that are still unknown to us. because it is perfectly natural for these substances to organize themselves into life, under a certain degree of temperature, moisture, and electricity, when these necessary elements are present--as natural as that oxygen and hydrogen make water, or that the sun's heat sets all the elementary substances into a state of activity. we have no reason to doubt that these planets, or even the sun, have not their own vital products just as well as this earth. these vital products may be of low grade, or of a very highly organized nature. we may assume, without fear of any great error, that wherever there are air and water there is life. because if there is heat it is a sun's heat, otherwise there could not be air and water. if there is a sun's heat, atmosphere, and water, there is certainly life, lowly or highly developed. the degree of organic development depends on the age of the planet--whether it has been in existence a few millions of years more or a few millions of years loss. these organic forms may have advanced to any degree of perfection and possess qualities like or unlike our own, or they may still exist in a very primitive state of evolution. let it be distinctly understood that on the degree of organic development depends whether they have reached our height of perfection of nervous development, or the development of a substance capable of performing functions similar to the brain substance animals are endowed with on this earth, with physiological action the same or similar--whether undergoing gradual changes, and accumulating experience, they may have arrived at that degree of perfection to be capable of thinking and reflecting, may have acquired understanding of a nature possessing all the fear, wonder, and ignorance of certain states of nervous development, where the ideas are just forming and imagination barely assuming form. they may, i say, have begun evolving their gods, or images representing the same, or may have reached that state of perfection that every creature is endowed with such powers, understanding, and reasoning, acquired by millions of years of training and education, that they constitute gods in themselves. or the creatures inhabiting these planets may be in a condition like that of creatures many, many ages past upon earth--may have no knowledge of gods or god, but are undergoing the necessary evolutionary changes that will ultimately bring them to that happy elysium, when they will be capable to produce their god or gods, as we have done on this earth. why is it not possible that a higher order of beings inhabiting saturn are at this moment employing instruments in order to ascertain the constitution and condition of this terrestrial globe, speculating on the probability whether this earth is inhabited or not? they may have positive knowledge that this planet has an atmosphere several hundred miles in depth. they may know its size, diameter, its distance from the sun, and that this planet revolves in an ellipse as the planet saturn does. they may also know that the elements are of the same nature; and that there are mountains, seas, an equator, a north and a south pole, but only one moon. looking at this planet as a star of this solar system, of perhaps the third or the fourth magnitude, nothing compared with their own, either in size, moons, belts, or other important features, these higher organized beings on saturn may be able to behold worlds beyond themselves far more vast than their own, and regard this planet, venus, mercury, etc., as very insignificant affairs. why may they not have appliances, modes of travel or communication, as far removed in intelligence from our highest order of beings, as the difference between a frog and the pope? we have no reason to exclude any supposition, however wild and extravagant, as to the conditions of other planets. it is not entirely imaginary. inferences may be drawn from what we know, and deductions made from our practical experience. this problem is safer to speculate on, having a solid basis to start with. those who believe in the actuality of an existing god have not a thing to base his existence on, except the natural functions of the brain. but if we concede that this earth has a god, what right have we to assume that each other planet has not a god of its own? we have no evidence to the contrary. who dares to state positively that they have not a god? why should this insignificant terrestrial planet god presume, or persons for him, that he controls and governs planetary bodies hundreds of times larger, and perhaps far more important, than this small solar system? how do we know that the inhabitants of other planets have not had angels, saints, and saviors? how do we know that they have not had beings who pretended to know all about their god, and were as brutal, as savage, and as demented as some of the persons figuring in scripture, or the tyrannical, bloody papists of the dark ages? the imagination of man supplied us with gods or a god on earth; the imagination is justified in supplying other planets with a god or gods. the god of jupiter, mars, or saturn, etc., may with as much force and propriety say, "i am that i am; i am the great i am, the creator of all things. you, planet earth, may be a little older, riper, more solidified, have a solid crust, yet remember our god is just as good as yours, and better. you have only one moon--a fossil world, a mere cinder. and, moreover, our god is fourteen hundred times larger than yours, because our globe is that much larger. our globe has a diameter of ninety thousand miles. and we have four satellites, or moons. our largest is as big as your whole earth. therefore, it is ridiculous for you to claim superiority. as to my neighbor saturn, with his eight moons and belts, his god smiles at your presumption. i, the god of jupiter, agree with the great god of saturn and others, that your terrestrial affected greatness is too ridiculous to be worthy of our serious consideration. in fact, it is absurd for your earthly godship to claim to have made the sun that great luminary that gives us all heat, light, and life." let us go but one step farther into space to show the fallacy of the assumption that this terrestrial god created all planets, stars, etc. at the present time it is considered that the star alpha (a) centauri in the southern hemisphere is the nearest to the earth. its distance is more than , times that of the earth from the sun, or twenty trillions of miles. light would require about four and a half years to travel this enormous distance. the stars which we see at such immense distances are suns. the vast distance at which the stars are known to be, precludes the thought of their shining, like the planets or the moon, by reflecting back the light of our sun. they must be self-luminous, and are doubtless each a center of a system of planets and satellites. our sun is but a star. as we see only the suns of these distant systems, so their inhabitants see only the sun of our system, and that as a small star. arrogant, conceited humanity, with an unbounded assurance and self-confidence, mixed with profound ignorance, have the impudence to claim that their terrestrial god created all the stars, suns, and planetary systems that are so far away in space that the eye of man cannot behold them--no, not even with the strongest instrument yet made. we may be compared to maggots on a big cheese, crawling over its surface; they may with equal propriety claim that their cheese is the only cheese ever created, and that it was made for their own special use, and that all other cheeses were made only for their benefit. some of the maggots might equally claim that there was only one god--the man who made the cheese. that is, that man, the maggot's god, made the cow that gave the milk that produced the cheese whereon the maggot dwelt. let every planet have its god, and every god its planet. much mystery lies in the word, you simply have to scan it. let every man his own god make, god in man, pure and elect, let common sense and reason wake! knowledge, truth, makes man perfect. go search your god through depths of space on suns and stars infinite. the mind expands to every place. to distance without limit. if you don't find the god you seek search within yourselves. perchance, you'll find your god, quite good and meek, but not in your ignorance. chapter xxix. every man his own god. writers and thinkers with a strong theological bias, seem to fear that the world would go to pieces if the scriptural god or gods were deposed. they seem to apprehend that the moral and political economy would seriously suffer, and the moral idea especially be destroyed. when these gentlemen find it impossible to reconcile the difficulties that overshadow the personal and triple-headed deities--that somehow they cannot make them harmonize with the recent discoveries and the development in natural sciences--they attempt to mold them so as to fit the requirements of the occasion. thus, it was discovered that the prime essence of the world is god, or something that pervades all nature; that he is the first great cause, and that this implies some huge mountain of will power, and an immense ocean of intelligence; that he is the creator of all things--that out of him this world emerged and out of the world all the various activities and objects were developed by the life inherent in the substances, etc. then again they represent him as a great designer--declare that god designed all things and beings, and put everything in shipshape order; and after the design was finished he set the machinery in motion. these, and interminable similar pet theories and excuses, are made for god to retain a foothold in the mind of man. clever brains and prolific imaginations have succeeded in clothing god, or gods, with all the attributes thus far discovered either in man, beast, planet, or space--extension, contraction, elasticity, etc.--modes, limitation, finite, infinite, absolute--everything, in fact, that has ever been printed in the largest encyclopedia known. these gentlemen should have had memories that the original doubts in abraham's mind were the result of common sense and reason; that he still retained the sensual qualities of the chaldean gods. the modifications and transitions of that first idea are very marked, as well as very numerous. by the time we reach christ, he is not the same. it is to be regretted that we have no compliments to waste on this god--alias jehova--because a more bloody, selfish, monstrous idea cannot be well portrayed, if the story in the bible be true. and certainly he, and his triple alliance, does not exhibit one redeeming quality during the centuries of christianity, because a more hideous, outrageous, criminal monster cannot be constructed, except by human ingenuity and by human devices. in another chapter we call the attention of the reader to some of the most barbarous abominations of the roman catholic church, and such a polluted set of butchering popes as words fail to give any adequate idea of. all this goes to show that this imaginary idea of god may be made to fit any person or any purpose. it is but reasonable to inquire, does god create the brain, or does the brain create god? that is really the entire question in a nutshell. we know, with absolute certainty, that god does not make brain, otherwise we should have it perhaps a little more uniform, and of a better quality. besides, all other animals possessing brain would, of course, be entitled to the knowledge of this god in proportion to the size, quantity, and quality of the brain. this, then, being impossible, we have no other means of arriving at the truth than by concluding that brain created god. every brain cannot create god; the great nervous centers may be insufficient, either in quantity or quality, to enable the brain to acquire qualifications that will give expression to more than the instinctive number of sensations and emotions. creatures generally are limited to the instinctive number of sensations and emotions; and act, move, and have their being in harmony with these. animals of all classes belong to this category, and not infrequently man, too. by that is meant, man in an uncultured state, and even among them the degree of experience and the power of observation make the difference between one set of savages and another. intelligence, understanding, and reasoning power depend on some kind of experience. the repetition of experience constitutes, in some measure, the training of the senses, and through the senses and the cerebral hemispheres the intellect is thus formed and mind developed. the intellectual acquirements may be limited by the ascendency of some predominating ideas or opinions that check progress. as for example, the absence of schools in communities, the forcible prevention of education, the prohibition of education by priestly authority of the church, and the suppression by ecclesiastics of all ideas except their own. this we may term limitation of brain culture by undue interference of the ascendent idea or ideas that limits the range of intelligence and subjects the will power to the control and direction of what the people presumed to be a greater right than their own. prescribed limits of education check or stunt the natural progress, and if any progress is made, the people must break through the prescribed limits, as was the case with luther, spinoza, voltaire, renan, etc. the ascendency of man over animals checks their further progress in the way of intelligence. the superior hostile intelligence holds possession and will not permit further development. as regards animals, we have taken possession of the earth, and have put a stop to all further advancement. supposing a man develops an idea, it is not an easy matter to persuade his next-door neighbor, who is his equal perhaps in intelligence; but, it is not difficult to inculcate his pet idea into his child. it is, as it were, virgin ground, and he plows it to his liking. he has complete control. he is master. he directs it as he wishes, and prevents others from planting strange ideas or ideas hostile or antagonistic to his own. in this manner we commence breeding ideas, and we continue breeding the same ideas, on the same principle as breeding pigeons or chickens; they are all of the same kind, if you don't cross them; and the more eggs you lay the more chickens you get, and if they multiply rapidly, especially if you have many hens to one rooster (as the jews had), what a multitude to spoil a garden-patch! that is precisely what happens, and that is what actually took place with abraham. we have also a natural limitation to brain culture. we may instance the orang-outang, the bushman, the negro, the idiot, etc.--brains that are not susceptible to much culture or education. the understanding, the development of the intellectual faculties, is limited of necessity. there is no possibility of going beyond their capacity; it will hold a given measure and no more. even among these, the range of intelligence may vary some degrees. impairment, effectiveness, or entire absence of any one of the senses, limits intellectual acquirements. the uniform activity of all the senses is thereby hindered. we have in addition innumerable varieties of brain in size, quality, quantity, form; as also inherited failings or diseased conditions. the qualities of god depend upon the qualities of the man. there has not yet been a god conceived by the human mind but greediness was the chief element. men made gods for others, whose inferior intellect was easily swayed to believe in great benefits they were to expect, but never got, yet were continually paying for. every man or woman is responsible for his or her acts, and no god--supposing there to be any--can save him or her. there can be no intercession between man, and nature or nature's laws. every living being is held to strict accountability to the prevailing forces and the controlling elements that compose it. it is always a question of unchangeable equilibrium between the elements and the surrounding medium, as to the kind of a god we may acquire. a man can see no farther than his sight will permit him. the organ of sight, the eye, may be so constituted that we can barely recognize the nearest object, or we may without difficulty distinguish the smallest object at a great distance. this condition, of seeing objects near, at a moderate distance, or far off, or not seeing at all, depends on the natural construction of the organ itself. the difference between the various qualities of sight is due to the proper qualities and shape of the various structures that enter into the composition of the organ of vision. every part must be perfect--the lens, the iris, the cornea, the vitreous humor, etc. not only must the parts be perfect, but they must also be in a healthy condition, to produce accurate vision. all this answers well for ordinary purposes in life, taking in such impressions as the apparatus of vision may from time to time receive. these are retained, stored up; thus memory of objects, the impressions of which have been recorded, may be recalled to mind either in actuality or in imagination. the education of that organ consists in the number, variety, and kind of impressions received. this constitutes the degree of educational experience, being regulated by the amount of knowledge of the greater or lesser number of objects that have been recorded through the retina on the great central nervous system. experience, long practice, matures and perfects the knowledge of all things that meet the eye; understanding becomes more thorough, intellect clearer, and judgment more accurate, enabling us by that means to recognize the smallest imperfection, the slightest deviation, and the most delicate shade of harmony, in color and form. we all know how hard it is for a child to recognize shapes, objects, colors, etc. we know its long and tedious repetitions of looking at one and the same thing an infinite number of times before it will recognize it. we know that a child will repeat things, or the names of things, without knowing anything about them; or, it may know the names of things yet not recognize the things when presented to its sight. the decision or judgment whether the thing is right and proper, is left to the person who has already had experience and acquired knowledge and understanding concerning these matters. thus the child may be directed rightly or wrongly, and its education must depend on the accuracy of the instruction received. however, the impressions received in the early part of life remain firm, and are not easily removed or eradicated, no matter how faulty, wrong, how perverse and false, they may be. the stronger and deeper the impressions and the longer they have become habituated to them, the harder it is to correct them, the more difficult to explain the errors. it is in such cases almost impossible to convince, and a tedious task to eradicate. by these early educational processes durable habits are acquired, that become persistent and remain during life; especially when no contrary influences have been brought to bear upon them to modify or correct them. it is almost an impossibility to train or educate the organ, whether sense of sight or ear, or the organ of voice, after a certain ago has been reached. an artist must start young in his artistic education if he has any desire to excel in that art--that is, if the organs of sight and touch are to be evenly balanced. so that whenever any person inherits the necessary qualities of sight and touch, and these become educated, i mean accurately trained, skill must result in excellence, and from that reach to a degree of perfection. the high art of painting becomes this man's ideal, and this ideal his god, if the education of the other senses has not materially interfered in shading his ideal, or the moral and social qualities, giving his productions a tone or tint that may cloud or brighten his efforts, not forgetting the inherent or acquired bias of other surroundings that may influence his mind. in the culture of music or of the ear, there is a wonderful difference in the kind of sounds a person has received as his earliest impressions, the number of sounds his scale of the notes consists of. what we term the monotonous sounds of chinese music delight the chinaman's ear, and he cannot conceive how it is possible for europeans to tolerate the immense amount of confusion that is usually displayed in an orchestra. yet the european is delighted with our music and finds the chinese music very dull. the same difference, but not to that degree, exists among the various european nationalities. sprightly france thinks british music very dull, etc. painting is an art, but everybody cannot paint, though everybody has sight and touch. that art requires a great deal of training. the vast majority of mankind are not able even to draw an accurate outline of any object. sight, the organ of vision, is a difficult organ to educate. the same difficulties confront us with other organs. a degree of perfection is requisite in the construction of the organ in order to confer the necessary qualification for a higher training. and here too the education consists of receiving impressions through the organ of hearing to the brain, and these, like the impressions of sight, are recorded, that is to say, they are retained, in memory, so that we may recall them, or recognize them, when familiar sounds strike the ear. any kind of simple sound is easily retained. a child will much more easily recognize the voice of a cat or a dog than a painting or a picture, and will remember the one but not recognize the other. there is certainly a difference in the educational capabilities of these organs. simple sounds are easily retained and easily reproduced. a simple combination of sounds are also retained without difficulty. thus it comes that we are all more or less imitators of sounds or simple melodies. these seem to contribute to our amusement more readily, either for our own satisfaction, or for the satisfaction of others, or both. these reproductions of sounds or melodies do not require any mental effort or physical effort. the organ of voice may be used--that is, we attempt to sing. we may hum, or we can pucker our lips together and whistle. each individual whistles in his own peculiar fashion, seldom two alike. they may be similar, but never alike. the fault may lie in the lips, the tongue, in the form of the opening made, the manner of blowing through the opening formed by the lips, the duration and strength of the expiration, dryness or moisture of the mouth, the thickness or flabbiness of cheeks, etc., etc. hence it comes that every man has his whistle. you may take a class and train them to whistle a melody, say "yankee doodle." each one will produce similar successive sounds or notes, so that that particular melody is recognized, but each one will have his own "yankee doodle," with peculiarities, characteristics peculiarly his own. if, for example, he is musically inclined, or has had any training in music, he or she may put a quaver or two in, as a variation, more or less. yet each one will still own his own whistle and pipe his own "yankee doodle." that is just what happens with god. we have no god, we never had one, but we have been educated up to one. in childhood we already hear the first indistinct sound, and we don't know whether it is the bark of a dog or the mew of a cat. by and by, as we grow older and are ready to attend sunday-school, or some other institution where these instructions are imparted, you learn the melody of "yankee doodle"--rather puzzling at first, but it comes. variations are put in to suit special cases and special occasions, and each individual member of any one class whistles his "yankee doodle" to the best of his ability--entirely his own; he is perfectly happy with it; it does not in any way interfere in the ordinary pursuits in life, his pleasures, his stomach, his diversion nor his business; and really it makes no difference where he is, in the street, in the factory, in the store, on the exchange, in the hovel or in the palace, he carries his "yankee doodle" with him. whistle it over a birth, over a wedding, or over a funeral, whistle it wherever you will, it is the same "yankee doodle." it is used on all occasions--in wars on the battlefield, or at peace on parade, etc. thus it happens that everyone, male or female, has his or her own peculiar "doodle." if the man or woman or child had never heard this melody they would certainly not have known anything about it, and therefore could not have enjoyed that particular melody. he or she might have heard another melody just as simple, perhaps just as stupid, but differently constructed. the culture of these theological ideas forms the fundamental groundwork of our educational church system, and each sect has its own method of planting its seed according to its peculiar notions. we must always bear in mind that before nerve tissue was developed, nerve force or thought could not exist; that the phenomena of imagination, or the product of a combination of ideas, the result of the impressions received by the senses, retained, and passing, connectedly or disconnectedly, through the brain, could not be effected except by experience and training. the idea of a god or gods impressed early in life, while the brain is being developed--the brain tissue of course--remains firmly rooted, and is very difficult to change or eradicate later in life. in case a change is ever produced, it takes place by a process of reasoning, when understanding has been acquired. the acceptance of an idea or an opinion requires little sense and no reasoning, and, indeed, no education. children believe anything they are told, until they grow older and learn to know better. men and women believe because they don't know better. accidentally they were placed in a particular groove of thinking, wherein they can glide forward, backward, round in a circle, perpetually, with ease and without interruption, without effort and without understanding. this perpetual gliding motion, within circumscribed limits, is over the same god, holy ghost, christ, sin and salvation, or the reverse; no advancement or progress. whatever has been accomplished in the affairs of men, has been done without the prescribed limits, and to that we owe our present civilization and material prosperity. whoever the first individual was that proposed worship, no matter how it originated, or what it was, or how crude, the thought was the product of some man's brain. whether he ever stood face to face with his own idea like moses, or mohammed, or anyone else, makes not the slightest difference. it was a man's individual notion, prompted by fear, ignorance, or astonishment. it is the work of the brain just the same. it was their idols, images, god, gods, and men that were endowed with divinity, were held sacred, worshiped, and honored. these human inventions were supplemented by other human inventions, rites and rituals, up to this present time. we discard ideas that have been tried and found wanting for modified or new ones--as abraham, moses, christ, mohammed, luther, wesley, etc. the notions of these men in turn have undergone the civilizing filtering process, until there is little left but the mere sound. the unitarians, for example, have stripped the christian trinity down to a skeleton. they seem to say: this was once the great bugaboo: you need not be scared, it's perfectly harmless. it has been civilized, you know. science did it. hell is out of fashion. heaven we have on earth, if we have the means to do it with. we can be angels if we wish to, saints if necessary, and holy if desirable. every man makes his own heaven, his own hell, his own angels, his own bliss, and his own god. yes, he has his own saints and his own divinities. a woman does precisely the same thing. the imagination supplies all the necessary material for their production, selected from natural objects and put together in a manner most pleasing, acceptable, and satisfactory to each one. we make them as good as we know how, as pretty and as delightful as our taste and fancy can create them. yet the kind of whimsical representations of the mind depends largely upon the condition of the nervous system, time of life, and our daily occupation. a young girl at puberty, whose mind is entering into that beautiful paradise of dreamland, blooming with buds of hopes and rosy wishes, experiences the delights of new sensations, creates her god, her jesus, or her holy ghost, to fill the nooks of her aspirations, with all the abounding exaltation and luxuries of her creative power. every cloud has wings, every star bright eyes that wink and beckon her to future bliss, to desires unknown yet longed for. she listens with eager ears for every sound. the zephyrs of the spring of life are wafting music to her ear. as she gazes with gushing eyes into ethereal space, she is searching the heavens for coming enchantment. her doll, the god or the plaything of childhood, has lost its interest, and all the pretty things that formerly were so pleasing have lost their charm, as the bell and smaller infantile toy had lost theirs before the doll had nestled into her affections. now a more realistic feeling permeates her senses, and beauties of a new and more attractive form occupy her agitated heart and brain. what is the awakening of these new emotions, the unfolding of these new sentiments, that seem to linger on the borderland of restrained passion? is it not the dawn of love, the transitory period, that bridge of nervous exaltation that leads from puberty to maternity? she has her own god, a figure to her notion as pure, refined, and beautiful as she can picture in the visions of her waking or sleeping dreamland mind. her sighs, her prayers, her devotions, are directed to him. this is her coming messiah, her angel, her everything, that is to realize all her hopes and expectations. it is her god. can a jockey or a prizefighter have feelings like these? the former has a horsey god, the latter a muscular. the fisherman, the sailor, the soldier, each in his sphere has his or her god. underlying all the busy activities of daily life, whatever feelings of care or pleasure each may experience, it is but upon rare occasions he puckers his lips to give vent to his devotional feelings and whistles his yankee doodle--his god! our gods are as we make them. if we are good our god is good, if we are pure our god is pure, and if our senses are subordinate to our reason and understanding our god will be one of reason and understanding, but if we are impure, bad, and evil-minded, our senses and passions ruling supreme, reason and understanding are subordinate in our god, and the evils of animal sense predominate. every man is his own god. as he is, so is his god. as he makes himself, so will his god be. as he protects himself, so god will protect him. as he guides himself, so will god guide him. whatsoever a man accomplishes for himself, that will god accomplish for him. whatsoever a man does for himself, that god will do for him. if a man supports himself, god will support him. if he neglects himself, god will neglect him. the more he depends on himself, the surer is his dependence on god. as he saves himself, so god will surely save him. as he injures himself, so will he be injured by god. as a man punishes himself, so will he be punished by god. god will help him who can help himself. if a man is true to himself, god will be true to him. by industry, economy, and sobriety you will confer blessings on yourself; you have no need of god to bless you. make yourself a good man or woman, and you will surely have a good god. a brutal man never has a meek god, a stingy man a generous god, nor a vicious man a merciful god. every man brings himself to the level of a brute or lower, or to the highest type of nobility of man. god never made man, but every man makes his god. the gateways through which knowledge enters the senses. the functions of the brain. perception--receiving impressions--retaining impressions--reproducing impressions--knowing--forming simple ideas--compound ideas--complex ideas--mixed ideas and complicated ideas--conducting, transferring, and reflexation-- coördination. sight. hearing. touch-feeling. smell. taste. recognition } comparing } discernment } attention } in retention } common. succession } identity } diversity } continuity contemplation distance distance distance color solidity solidity solidity figure figure shape shape shape { long size { thick size { thin dimensions dimensions softness softness softness hardness hardness hardness rough roughness roughness roughness smooth smoothness smoothness smoothness motion motion motion motion action action action action dryness dryness dry dryness moisture moisture moist moisture fluidity fluid fluidity fluidity vibration vibration vibration vibration heat heat heat heat cold cold cold cold pain pleasure odor odor expansion expansion expansion expansion contraction contraction contraction contraction resistance resistance relation relation relation rest rest rest unrest unrest sound appearance proportion proportion proportion proportion \----------------------------------v----------------------------------/ | produce sensations emotions--feelings-- ideation--thought--understanding-- reflection--recollection--deliberation--induction-- memory--imagination--judgment--intellect--will power--mind: the normal products of a healthy nervous system. (the abnormal result from a deranged condition of the cerebro-spinal system.) morals: whence they spring. to be moral means that the organs be properly and legitimately used, in accordance with the law of nature: stomach. sexual organs. for nutrition of the body. for the propagation of the species. wants normally supplied. satisfaction } { satisfaction contentment } lead to health and happiness, { contentment comfort } purity, chastity, love, { comfort pleasure } affection, joy. { pleasure peace } { peace abnormal use of the organs. starvation } { passion hunger } lead to vanity, negligence, indolence, { lust poverty } deception, discontent, selfishness, { overindulgence luxury } disease. { lasciviousness extravagance } { vice drunkenness } { whoredoms crime. sin. -------- will power intellectually used. industry, integrity, activity, honor, courage, goodness, charity, benevolence, sympathy, pity, humanity. -------- be wise, let the gods and church alone; they're false, contrary to nature's plan. trespass not, there's nothing to atone. be human, an upright man. all their rites and creeds are full of flaws. as nature's products, we thrive and grow. but we must be ruled by nature's laws if we'd happy be--ourselves must know. morals! are the laws we must obey. infringe them not, prayers cannot save. though blessed, we the penalty must pay. not to god, or church, or priest be slave! chapter xxx. the non credo. religion, supernaturalism, ecclesiastical control of human affairs, have done more harm than the good they have ever effected. for several thousand years they have been doing the worst of mischief--in spite of their conceited belief to the contrary--to actual enlightenment, to the advancement and prosperity of the masses, to the progress of nations generally. they have been a persistent barrier to every step forward, and have persecuted every idea that threatened in any way to interfere with their organized system. the sacred or hebraic nationality, steeped in barbarism, washed in cruelty, and bathed in the blood of humanity, was succeeded by another organized system, the roman catholic church, which was by no means an improvement upon the bible methods. they added savagery and cruelty of a more refined character. they associated with it a tyranny and a persecution that fairly blackens the pages of history. all was done, however, for the sacred cause, with the cant, sanctimoniousness, greed, and selfishness that only the church and its saintly priests could be capable of. these self-styled divine organizations ever have been, and are even now, inimical to the best social interests of humanity. their own aggrandizement was of greater importance to them than the welfare of the oppressed. they are the real promoters of class distinction. they are the promulgators of sectarian hate. they lessen the dignity of woman. they are the fomentors of prejudice and superstition. they are the supporters and sustainers of the opulent, the powerful, the wealthy and influential, to the detriment and debasement of the poor and more unfortunate classes. they are the actual enemies of virtue and simplicity of life--by their expensive church trappings, their gorgeous adornments, their costly decorations, their glaring exhibition, their glittering finery, their pompous display of church dress, their gilded magnificence, their showy grandeur, their ostentation and boastful ceremonies, overawing the senses, and subduing the humble, the ignorant, making them mentally more stupid, the slaves to a pernicious system of doctrine. in ancient times, in the days of antiquity, the males were the chief worshipers. they were the privileged portion of the community, who assumed the duties to come in direct contact with all that was considered sacred, holy, or divine. woman was considered as a defiled or polluted creature, unworthy or unfit to come within the sacred precincts of their temples or participate in any church affairs, or to minister in any of their ecclesiastical rites or ceremonies. women had nothing to say. they have nothing to say to this day, in the roman catholic church especially, and in the orthodox protestant denominations very little, because paul lays down the law in cor. xiv, : "let your women keep silence in your churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law." the sacred christian view of woman is that she is an inferior creature. she is the slave, the plaything, the toy of pleasurable gratification. god himself so ordained it, when he created adam out of the dust and eve out of one of adam's ribs. that was the chaldean mode of explaining her inferiority and of subjecting woman to man. these barbarians, first the hebrews, and christians later, did not think fit to place woman on a level with man. therefore they placed her in the lower scale of creation as a servant and handmaid to man. the heathens, the greeks especially, were more considerate, politer, and more refined towards women. women were honored by them, which is evident from the composition of the council of jupiter, the supreme divinity. this was composed of six gods, namely, jupiter, neptune, mercury, apollo, mars, and vulcan; and six goddesses, namely, juno, ceres, vesta, minerva, diana, and venus. to this assembly no other deities were admitted. there is some sense, reason, and humanity in this arrangement. it is very unlike the great masculine bully of a god, what christians call sacred and scriptural jehova, an intermeddling, sensual, beef-eating affair, who has sons and never tells any one where they came from, who the mother was (gen. vi, ): "and the sons of god," etc. vestal virgins were admitted by the romans to their temples, thus showing that woman was honored. she was equally privileged with man to minister to the sacred offices of the gods. civilization has advanced, progress has been made in the arts and sciences, the intellectual faculties are more developed, and to woman has been conceded her proper place among the learned and the more liberal portion of humanity. intellectually no line of demarcation is drawn. cultured brain is cultured brain, whether found in man or in woman. both sexes stand on the same platform, on an equal footing, and they receive equal honor and recognition if the mental capacity is equal. what is the relation of woman to-day to the respective churches to which she may belong? has the roman catholic church receded one step from her antiquated ecclesiastical position? or have the orthodox protestants? not one step! woman still holds the same degraded position in the christian church as she did a thousand years ago. circumstances have somewhat ameliorated the relative position of church and worshipers. formerly the males were the principal church attenders and worshipers. in modern times it is the women who make the congregations. the male, if he attends, does so to please the female more than himself. besides, the sexual attractions contribute very largely towards these sunday entertainments. "women" (says maudsley, in his "pathology of mind," ch. iv, page ) "are naturally more prone to religious worship than man, and more apt to fall into a morbidly subjective habit, first, because of the preponderance of the affective life in them, and secondly, because they have not the distracting and correcting and intellectually hardening influences of outside interests and pursuits which men have. if unmarried women chance to come, as by reason of those conditions they are apt to do, under the ignorant and misapplied zeal of unwise priests who mistake for deep religious feeling what is really morbid self-feeling springing at bottom from unsatisfied instinct or other uterine action upon the mind, the mischief is greatly aggravated. it were well if those who make it their business to guide the consciousness of mankind through the manifold changes and chances of life were to be at the pains to inquire how much supposed religious feeling may be due to physiological causes, before they sanction or enjoin a repeated introspection of the feelings. he whose every organ is in perfect health knows not he has a body, and only becomes conscious that he has organs when something wrong is going on; in like manner a healthy mind in the sound exercise of the functions is little conscious that he has feeling, and only gets very self-conscious when there is something morbid in the processes of its activity. the ecstatic trances of such saintly women as catherine de sienne and st. theresa, in which they believed themselves to be visited by their savior and to be received as veritable spouses into his bosom, were, though they knew it not, little else than vicarious sexual orgasm; a condition of things which the intense contemplation of the naked male figure, carved or sculptured in all its proportions on the cross, is more fitted to produce in women of susceptible nervous temperament than people are apt to consider. every experienced physician must have met with instances of single and childless women who have devoted themselves with extraordinary zeal to habitual religious exercises, and who having gone insane as a culmination of their emotional fervor, have straightway exhibited the saddest mixture of religious and erotic symptoms--a boiling over with lust, in voice, face, gesture, under the pitiful degradation of disease. on such persons the confessional has had sometimes the most injurious effect, more especially in those churches which spring romanism in their ritual, have not placed confession under the stringent regulations and safeguards with which the roman catholic church surrounds it. the fanatical religious sects, such as the shakers and the like, which spring up from time to time in communities and disgust them by the offensive way in which they mingle love and religion, are inspired in great measure by sexual feelings. on the one hand, there is probably the cunning of a hypocritical knave or the self-deceiving duplicity of a half-insane one, using the weaknesses of weak woman to minister to his vanity or to his lust, under a religious guise; on the other hand, there is an exaggerated self-feeling, rooted often in sexual passions, which is unwittingly fostered under the cloak of religious emotion, and which is apt to conduct to madness or to sin. in such case the holy kiss of love owes its warmth to the sexual impulse which inspires it, consciously or unconsciously, and the mystical religious union of the sexes is fitted to issue in a less spiritual union. without doubt, an excessive development of the emotional life in any other direction would be equally pernicious. all that the unwise religious teacher can be blamed for is his disposition to foster the egotistic development of emotion, without considering its real origin, by the overwhelming importance which he teaches the individual to attach to himself and his destiny. instead of urging him to lessen the gap between himself and nature until he loses self in a sympathetic oneness with nature, he stimulates him to widen it more and more until he rises to the insane conceit of himself as something entirely distinct from nature--an unrelated, spiritual essence, for whose benefit the universe and all that there is has been specially created. assuredly were not man now, as he always has been, instinctively wiser than his creeds, were he not moved by a deeper impulse than consciousness can give account of, he would make no progress in civilization." the church has lost its grip on the male portion of society. they have considerably outgrown the ecclesiastical swaddling of scriptural doctrine of the ancient and modern theology. the woman is the stronghold as worshiper, and sustainer of the sacred masculine prerogative whom they can easily influence. by reason, as the holy book claims, of their intellectual feebleness, women are the submissive tools of cunning priests, sentimental and emotional appeals, and yield readily to their extravagant dictum. the priests exhort them, with their conventional religious phraseology, to be partakers of some mysterious glory to be found somewhere in infinite space. keeping ever in sight the same stupefying refrain of the orthodox prayer and blessing: "blessed and glorious trinity, trinity in unity, three--one, three persons in one god, tri-personal, triune, coeternal, coequal, god-man, o lord god! who art one god, one lord! not one only person, but three persons in one substance! o lord god! lamb of god! son of the father! o god the son, redeemer of the world! o god the holy ghost, proceeding from the father and the son! the blessing of god almighty, the father, son, and holy ghost, be among you. god the father, god the son, god the holy ghost, bless, preserve, and keep you. glory be to the father, and to the son, and to the holy ghost. now to god the father, god the son, and god the holy ghost, be all honor and glory. jesus christ, who with thee and the holy ghost, liveth and reigneth ever, one god, world without end," etc. these are the terms and doxologies, forms of prayer and blessings. can anyone conceive a more meaningless set of phrases? these are automatically repeated year in and year out, with the same intonation, gesture, whirling and buzzing in a circle. do not the brains become blunted, the senses dulled? or is it a mere mechanical effort, accompanied by an extraordinary amount of insincerity and actual duplicity of character? the conceit of these theological gentlemen, claiming divine superiority, is in consequence of the frequent repetition of the above vapid nonsense, that they are the truly chosen and elect, separate and apart from other people. though they accept and place trust in the above creed, god, son, and holy ghost, and delude themselves with prayers, blessings, psalm-singing, and the rest of supernatural subterfuge, do they believe that it will save them--save their bodies from dissolution, when the vital organs have ceased to perform their functions? these fixed delusions are not wholesome. encouraging them is misleading and deceiving those who are ignorant of the actual state of nature. it is playing upon the weak and simple-minded. it means corrupting their morals and their understanding. it is paralyzing to every human effort. it is degrading manhood and womanhood. analyze the meaning of the belief, the language employed, the associations of ideas, and seriously consider the amount of sense you can discover. does not this rigid system of changeless belief prevent intellectual development? does it not bar proper inquiry into the phenomena of nature? does it not encourage a cowardly dependence on priestcraft and hypocritical cunning? does it not extinguish every impulse towards the evolution of thought? does it not stamp out the energies and aspirations of man and woman? is not the kneeling and praying before some daub of a picture or the figure of some supposed god or saint debasing and degrading to the individual? is not the act of prayer a humiliating acknowledgement either of an enfeebled mind or of a contemptible slave? is not the will power subdued and deteriorated and the natural energy destroyed? are not the functions of the brain seriously interfered with, the mental faculties checked in the normal process of development, and the powers of reason stifled by the asphyxiating influences of prayer? does it not blunt the sense of responsibility, breed insincerity, foster falsehood, promote lying, and offer a premium for wrong-doing and a shelter for crime? imagine the stupefying effect of counting beads. the "rosary" is a series of prayers, and consists of fifteen decades. each decade contains ten ave marias, marked by small beads, preceded by a pater noster, marked by a larger bead, and concluded by a gloria patri. five decades make a chaplet, which is a third of a rosary. what a sluggardizing effect on the intellect, what a suppression of intelligence, and how near it brings them to the borderland of monomaniacs, by the constant mumbling of those insipid compositions. the sooner we get rid of the belief in this supernatural intervention in human affairs the better for our physical, moral, and mental welfare. every time the priest induces his pupil to repeat a prayer, he stupefies and degrades his pupil. he knocks the pins of self-restraint and self-reliance right from under him. the blessing the pupil receives, and the forgiveness at the confessional, shift the responsibility for his acts off his shoulders, thus leading him to believe himself irresponsible for any wrong he may commit. the absurd doctrine inculcated, that god made him necessarily makes him irresponsible. if god was a fool big enough to make him bad, or silly, why should he be responsible? the priest who helps to maintain and sustain this belief, helps to weaken the pupil's mind and rather gives him license to indulge than restrains him. you are taught to deceive yourselves and deceive others by prayer, but you cannot bribe nature; you cannot deceive nature. the penalty must be paid for every transgression. and prayers are absolutely useless, nay, every prayer is an admission of an act of cowardice, just as every blessing pronounced is a humiliation to those receiving it. what necessity is there for a man who is supposed to teach morality to be dressed like a clown in scarlet, purple, or other-colored coat and decorated with an antiquated headgear like a mountebank going through a series of peculiar gesticulations and ceremonials of buffoonery, in order to sustain this ecclesiastical humbug? would it not be better to train the intellect by teaching the young how to observe accurately, to reason soundly from facts, to think honestly and act sincerely, have the truth revealed and nature and nature's laws soundly and practically interpreted? an insight into the secret workings of nature would lead to a more precise adjustment on the part of man to his complex surroundings, guard cautiously against the infringement of nature's laws, and correspondingly produce gain in intellectual power. how can a man be otherwise than reckless, or willfully disobedient, to laws he is entirely ignorant of, though he brings certain punishment upon himself? can there be any better discipline than to learn the cause and know the root of all evils, in order to avoid them, thus improving the morals and inducing one to take earnest pains to do well in the future? there is more satisfaction in doing right than many may think, if people were instructed how. unfortunately, the ecclesiastical mills of forgiveness are too busy teaching supernatural follies, which actually mislead the ignorant and the foolish. as a foolish woman spoils her own child by her own silly conduct, so the supernatural creeds have spoilt humanity by perverting the moral responsibility in teaching their pernicious beliefs. wonder why the world has not become better? teach men the moral and physical laws of nature, by lessons of experience, that may guide them in their conduct through life. teach them to learn prudence, and observe them faithfully and sincerely. good, natural, healthy thoughts produce good actions; by their frequent repetition, generate good habits of doing well, of doing right. the nervous structures that are brought into play, the mental activities, function these excellences, developing these faculties, generating higher moral feelings. we finally come to regard as doing wrong acting contrary to our acquired habit. good impulses to act right and do well come out of good feelings. to act otherwise becomes repugnant to our acquired habits, our second nature, and is judged unwise by our reason and understanding. let nature teach you to be wise, and when you understand the natural you will cease to believe in aught supernatural. do not believe in a god--there is no such thing. do not believe in the divinity of any man, whether he be called moses, jesus christ, or martin luther. do not believe that the book called the bible, sacred scripture, and testaments, new or old, is sacred, holy, or inspired by any supernatural being. do not believe the story of the creation as recited in the five books of moses--they are not true. it is a fiction, a sort of fairy tale. it is the work of the imagination of man. do not believe in any miracle. no man can perform a miracle, except to the ignorant and stupid. no man in the bible ever performed a miracle. those said to have been performed were deceptions, tricks, and delusions. do not believe in the holy ghost. there are no ghosts, either holy or unholy. and above all, do not give credence to that very silly piece of nonsense, that the holy ghost committed adultery with mrs. mary joseph, the reputed mother of jesus christ. nor believe that the young man jesus was the son of god, nor that he came upon earth to save the world from sinning. do not believe that there are three gods in one, father, son, and holy ghost; nor god the father, god the son, or god the holy ghost. this fallacy, compounded of hebraic theology and grecian mythology, is an absurd fabrication--this trinity in unity, and unity in trinity. do not believe in a heaven, nor in a hell. you make your own heaven, and your own hell. nor place any reliance on future rewards, or future punishments. your good conduct will bring your rewards and your bad conduct your punishments. do not believe in angels, spirits, or any supernatural existences. have no faith in anything you do not understand. place no reliance on divine interference. do not follow blindly any ecclesiastical teachings. rely upon yourself. let reason and common sense be your guide. do not pray--praying makes a coward of you. nor place confidence in the blessing of any man, be he the pope or some fanatical preacher. never kneel before any image, whether it be the nude figure of christ, or a daub painting of the virgin mary. do not be the dupe of priestly cunning. do not be afraid of anything except your own bad deeds, your vicious habits, and your own transgressions. some rules and duties in life. health is essential for physical and mental labor. the maintenance of health consists in having proper food, proper clothing, and proper shelter. work is a duty, nature demands it. exercise that duty. earn so much as will provide the necessary comforts in life. indolence is a vice, and laziness a crime. they are of no good to their practicers, and a curse to others. economy is a law of nature. save your surplus produce of industry. it comes useful in time of need. avoid excesses of all kinds. do not overtax or over-stimulate the organs of the body. luxuries are injurious to health. remember the stomach is only a receptacle for food and not a cesspool for all kinds of refuse. cleanliness of stomach and body is necessary for the healthy action both of mind and body. a rigid adherence to the natural rules is the surest safeguard against disease. make judicious use of everything. abuse neither yourself nor others. each individual is his own guardian over his own acts. he himself is responsible for his own misdeeds, whether through ignorance, want of proper education or understanding, or weakness. our guide through life should be: speak the truth always. let yes and no be the form of speech. every promise fulfill. never deceive yourself, or deceive others. promise nothing you cannot perform. honesty is ennobling, dishonesty debasing. let every word and act be strictly reliable, never waver or fail in your integrity. be punctilious in your duties towards others. do not cheat yourself or your neighbors. misrepresentation is wrong. have confidence in yourself, others will have confidence in you. do not slander others, lest you do an injury, doing evil without benefit to yourself. a slanderer is despised. let your motives be pure, your purpose upright. be mild in speech, even in temper. kind words are inexpensive. anger and passion are brutal qualities, be human. do not get excited over trifles, it does not prolong life. if your habits are bad, mend them. good impulses come from good feelings, as bad impulses from bad feelings. our character is molded by our habits, as our habits are by our instruction. by your conduct gain the esteem of your fellow-men. it is better to be loved than hated. injure no one. despise no one. be neither prejudiced nor bigoted. gain the respect of every man, and respect those that deserve to be respected. obey the existing laws. learn to depend on yourself. trust in your own judgment, none will be so true to you as yourself. hope is delusive, action is certain. reveal not your own thoughts to others lest they betray you. confidence, self-possession, and presence of mind guard against surprises. do not mind other people's business, you may not find time to mind your own. negligence is a fault, diligence is a virtue. frivolity is the froth of life. it has neither strength nor substance. there is more satisfaction in an ounce of peace than in a ton of wrangling. control your appetites, subdue your passions, if you would be human. remember there is no heaven beyond this life, therefore make your home and your life as beautiful as you can. few wants well supplied, is better than many wants unsatisfied. desire nothing you cannot obtain, it will save you annoyance. do not assume to be what you are not. nature has marked you. do not be tempted by trifles, life is too short and time too precious. pleasures are enjoyable where the senses are not overstrained. be not too proud, nor too vain, no matter how great you are; man, like the animal, is composed only of eighteen elements. ambition is laudable, when others are not made to suffer. do not try to be greater than you are; a gill will never fill a pint. gain understanding, and let reason and common sense guide you in all your acts. look out. save your honor, your integrity, and your character. our duty on earth is to be good, to do right, and contribute to the betterment of our fellow-men. the higher we rise in intelligence, the farther we are removed from the brute. free yourself from all supernatural notions, all antiquated beliefs, and all superstitions. the humanization of mankind marks the progress of civilization. the excitement of pleasure is not lasting; exhaustion stops all enjoyment; too much sunshine is fatiguing; too much laughter is trying. empty stomachs make a bad audience, hunger breeds discontent. poverty is degrading; it ruins health, breeds disease, and lowers the morals. neglect yourself and everybody will neglect you. lost opportunities are seldom recovered. the higher you climb the farther you are removed from the lower levels. one wrong act loses the balance of integrity, our esteem suffers. one grain of intelligence is worth a pound of brute force. be prudent, discreet, and deliberate in all transactions in life, but quick in decision. distrust persuasive, bland, smooth, suave talkers. a pious hypocrite is the worst of frauds. your own faults are the greatest misfortune. a brave man is never discouraged, and simpletons are the prey for sharpers. don't be a coward in danger, or pray when disaster overtakes you. self-abuse is the worst abuse. your expenditure should never exceed your income. aspire to be better, not worse. you cannot get wealthy on nothing. millionaire and beggar belong to this earth, whether living or dead. our success in life depends on the quality of brain. polished steel is of greater value than common iron ore, so are intellectual faculties of greater worth than uncultured brains. the weaker must yield to the stronger. the friction of life is great; the less the resisting force, the sooner it yields. in the struggle the strongest survive. tenacity to life and tenacity to our possessions lead to success. let those who accumulate great wealth unjustly, yield it readily to those who are most in need. a man can accumulate vast riches only by the industry of many, never by his own. remember dead men enjoy nothing, therefore be wise, be reasonable, make your heaven on earth, your paradise of your home. be your own god, your own savior, your own priest. notes [ ] explanation.--the roman numerals placed opposite the above list of elementary substances present the difference or equivalent or saturating power of each element. hydrogen, for example, is a monad, a simple particle, or atom, or unit. oxygen is a dyad, represented by ii, two. it requires two atoms of hydrogen to saturate one of oxygen, or its equivalent, to form water. a triad, iii, requires three monads; a tetrad, iv, four; a pentad, v, five; a sexad, vi, six units or monads, their respective equivalents or saturating power. a monad or monogenic element replaces another one by one. an atom of a polygenic element, that is, a dyad, etc., on the other hand, always takes the place of, or is equivalent to, two or more atoms of a monogenic element. [ ] important. [ ] exception. [ ] aristotle, b.c., logician and philosopher, founder of the peripatetics. [ ] weights and measures were invented about this period. file was produced from scans of public domain works at the university of michigan's making of america collection.) the deluge in the light of modern science. a discourse. by william denton. wellesley, mass.: denton publishing company. . the deluge in the light of modern science. if the bible is god's book, we ought to know it. if the creator of the universe has spoken to man, how important that we should listen to his voice and obey his instructions! on the other hand, if the bible is not god's book, we ought to know it. why should we go through the world with a lie in our right hand, dupes of the ignorant men who preceded us? it can never be for our soul's benefit to cherish a falsehood. science is, perhaps, the best test that we can apply to decide the question. science is really a knowledge of what nature has done, and is doing; and since the upholders of the divinity of the bible believe that it proceeded from the author of nature, if their faith is true, it cannot possibly disagree with what science teaches. science is a fiery furnace, that has consumed a thousand delusions, and must consume all that remain. we cast into it astrology and alchemy, and their ashes barely remain to tell of their existence. old notions of the earth and heavens went in, and vanished as their dupes gazed upon them. old religions, old gods, have become as the incense that was burned before their altars. i purpose to try the bible in its searching fire. fear not, my brother: it can but burn the straw and stubble; if gold, it will shine as bright after the fiery ordeal as before, and reflect as perfectly the image of truth. the bible abounds with marvellous stories,--stories that we should at once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say impossibility, if we should find them in any other book. but, among all the stories, there is none that equals the account of the deluge, as given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of genesis. it towers above the rest as mount washington does above the new-england hills; and, as travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, i suppose that many would be pleased to examine this lofty story, and see how the world of truth and actuality looks from its summit. according to the account, in less than two thousand years after god had created all things, and pronounced them very good, he became thoroughly dissatisfied with every living thing, and determined to destroy them with the earth. he thus expresses himself: "i will destroy man, whom i have created, from the face of the earth,--both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that i have made them." again he says to noah, "the end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them, and behold i will destroy them with the earth." why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things be destroyed? what had the larks, the doves, and the bob-o-links done? what had the squirrels and the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be destroyed? he proceeds to inform noah how he will do this: "and behold i, even i, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." and we are subsequently informed that "every thing that was in the dry land died." but why not every thing in the sea? were the dogs sinners, and the dog-fish saints? had the sheep been more guilty than the sharks? had the pigeons become utterly corrupt, and the pikes remained perfectly innocent? it may be, that the apparent impossibility of drowning them by a flood suggested to the writer of the story the necessity of saving them alive. but noah was righteous; and god determined to save him and his family, eight persons, and by their instrumentality to save alive animals sufficient to stock the world again after its destruction. to do this, noah was commanded to build an ark, three hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty high. it was to be made with three stories, and furnished with one door, and one window a cubit wide. into this ark were to be taken two of every sort of living thing, and of clean beasts and of birds seven of every sort, male and female, and food sufficient for them all. there are differences of opinion about the length of the cubit: most probably it was about eighteen inches; but taking it at twenty-two inches, the largest estimate that i believe theologians have made, the ark was then five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety-one feet eight inches broad, and fifty-five feet high. leaving space for the floors, which would need to be very strong, each story was about seventeen feet high; and the total cubical contents of the ark were about one hundred and two thousand cubic yards. scott, in his commentary, makes it as small as sixty-nine thousand one hundred and twenty yards; but the necessity for room was not as well understood in his day. each floor of the ark contained five thousand six hundred and one square yards, and the three floors sixteen thousand eight hundred and three square yards, the total standing-room of the ark. into this were to be taken fourteen of each kind of fowl of the air or bird. how many kinds or species of birds are there? when adam clarke wrote his commentary, two thousand three hundred and seventy-two species had been recognized. ornithology was then but in its infancy, and man's knowledge of living forms was very limited. lesson, according to hugh miller, enumerates the birds at six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species; gray, in his "genera of birds," estimates the number on the globe at eight thousand. let us not crowd noah, but take the six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species of lesson. fourteen of each of these would give us eighty-seven thousand seven hundred and twenty-four birds,--from the humming-bird, the little flying jewel, to the ostrich that fans the heated air of the desert,--or over five for every yard of standing-room in the ark. if spaces were left for the attendants to pass among them, to attend to the supply of their daily wants, the birds alone would crowd the ark. but, beside the birds, there were to be taken into the ark two of every sort of unclean beast and fourteen of every sort of clean beast. the most recent zoölogical authorities enumerate two thousand and sixty-seven species of mammals, or, as they are commonly called, beasts. of cetacea, or whale-like mammals, sixty-five; ruminantia, or cud-chewers, one hundred and seventy-seven; pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammals, such as the horse, hog, and elephant, forty-one; edentata, like the sloth and ant-eater, thirty-five; rodentia, or gnawers, such as the rat, squirrel, and beaver, six hundred and seventeen; carnivora, or flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six; cheiroptera, or bats, three hundred and twenty-eight; quadrumana, or monkeys, two hundred and twenty-one; and marsupialia, or pouched mammals, like the opossum and kangaroo, one hundred and thirty-seven. if we leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and male and female of these, a total of three thousand six hundred and fifty. but, besides these, there were to be taken into the ark fourteen of every kind of clean beast. and what are clean beasts? the scriptural answer is, animals that divide the hoof and chew the cud; and of these at least one hundred and seventy-seven species are known. fourteen of each of these added, make a total of six thousand one hundred and twenty-eight mammals, from the mouse to the elephant. these beasts could not be piled one upon another like cord-wood; they could not be promiscuously crowded together. the sheep would need careful protection from the lions, tigers, and wolves; the elephant and other ponderous beasts would require stalls of great thickness; much room would be required to enable them to obtain needful exercise, and for the attendants to supply them with food and water; and a vessel of the size of the ark would be taxed to provide for these beasts alone; and to crowd in, and preserve alive, beasts and birds, was an absolute impossibility. but there are of reptiles six hundred and fifty-seven species; and noah was to take into the ark two of every sort of creeping thing. two hundred of these reptiles are, however, aquatic: hence water would not seriously affect them; but crocodiles, lizards, iguanas, tree-frogs, horned frogs, thunder-snakes, chicken-snakes, brittlesnakes, rattlesnakes, copperheads, asps, cobras de capello, whose bite is certain death, and a host of others, must be provided for. it would not do to allow these disagreeable individuals to crawl about the ark; and nine hundred and fourteen of them would require considerable space, whether they could obtain it or not. by this time, the ark is doubly crowded; but its living cargo is not yet completed. a dense cloud of insects, and a vast army destitute of wings, make their appearance, and clamor for admission. the number of articulates that must have been provided for is estimated at seven hundred and fifty thousand species,--from the butterflies of brazil, fourteen inches from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, to the almost invisible gnat, that dances in the summer's beam. ants, beetles, flies, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, wasps, bees, moths, butterflies, spiders, scorpions, grasshoppers, locusts, myriapods, canker-worms, wriggling, crawling, creeping, flying, male and female, here they come, and all must be provided for. nor are these the last. the air-breathing land-snails, of which we know four thousand six hundred species, could never have survived a twelve months' soaking; and they must therefore be cared for. the nine thousand two hundred of these add no little to the discomfort of the trebly-crowded ark. now let the flood come: all are lodged in the ark of safety, and are ready for a year's voyage. but we forget: the ark has not yet received one-half of its cargo. the command given unto noah was, "take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee and for them;" and we are expressly told that "according to all that god commanded noah, so did he." food for how long? the flood began in the "sixth hundredth year of noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month." noah, his family, and the animals, went in seven days before this time, and left the ark the six hundred and first year of noah's life, the second month, and the twenty-seventh day of the month. they were therefore in the ark for one year and seventeen days. what a quantity of hay would be required, the material most easily obtained! an elephant eats four hundred pounds of hay in twenty-four hours. since there are two species of elephants, the african and the indian, there must have been four elephants in the ark; and, supposing them to live upon hay, they would require three hundred tons. there are at least seven species of the rhinoceros; and fourteen of these, at seventy-five tons each, would consume no less than one thousand and fifty tons. the two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight clean beasts,--oxen, elk, giraffes, camels, deer, antelope, sheep, goats, with the horses, zebras, asses, hippopotami, rodents, and marsupials--could not have required less than four thousand five hundred tons; making a total of five thousand eight hundred and fifty tons. a ton of hay occupies about eighteen cubic yards; and the quantity of hay required would fill a hundred and five thousand three hundred cubic yards of space, or more than the entire capacity of the ark. if these animals were fed on other substances than hay, the extra difficulty of obtaining and preserving those substances would counterbalance any advantage that might be gained by the economy of space. a vast quantity of grain would be necessary for thousands of birds, rodents, marsupials, and other animals; and large granaries would be required for its storage. what flesh would be needed for the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, wild-cats, wolves, bears, hyenas, jackals, dogs, and foxes, martens, weasels, eagles, condors, vultures, buzzards, falcons, hawks, kites, owls, as well as crocodiles and serpents! not one but would eat its weight in a month, and some much more. a full-grown lion eats fifteen pounds of flesh in a day: there are two species of lions; and the four would eat twenty-two thousand pounds in a year. there would be, at least, three thousand animals feeding upon flesh; and, if we calculate that they averaged two pounds of flesh a day, this would give a total of more than two million and a quarter pounds of flesh to be stored up and distributed. and since dried, salted, or smoked meat would not answer, this flesh must have been taken into the ark alive. it would be equal to more than thirty thousand sheep at seventy-five pounds each; a great addition to the original cargo, and necessitating an extra quantity of hay for their food, till their turn came to be eaten. fish would be required for the otters, minks, pelicans, of which there are eight species, and must therefore have been fifty-six individuals in the ark; one hundred and five gulls, for there are fifteen species; one hundred and twelve cormorants, forty-nine gannets, one hundred and forty terns, two hundred and eighty-seven kingfishers, beside storks, herons, spoonbills, penguins, albatrosses, and a host of others; mollusks for the oyster-catcher, turnstone, and other birds. the fish could not be preserved after death in any way to answer for food, and must therefore have been alive: large tanks for the purpose of keeping them would take up considerable of the ark's space. the water in such tanks would soon become unfitted for the respiration of the fish, and there must have been some provision, by air-pumps or otherwise, for charging the water with the air essential to their existence. many animals live upon insects; and this must have been the most difficult part of the provision to procure. there are nineteen species of goatsuckers; and there must have been in the ark two hundred and sixty-six individuals. these birds feed upon flies, moths, beetles, and other insects. what an innumerable multitude must have been provided for the goatsuckers alone! but there are a hundred and thirty-seven species of fly-catchers; and noah must have had a fly-catcher family of nineteen hundred and eighteen individuals to supply with appropriate food. there are thirty-seven species of bee-eaters; and there must have been five hundred and eighteen of these birds to supply with bees. a very large apiary would be required to supply their needs. but, beside these, insects for swallows, swifts, martins, shrikes, thrushes, orioles, sparrows, the beautiful trogans and jacamars, moles, shrews, hedgehogs, and a multitude of others, too numerous to mention, but not too numerous to eat. ants, also, for the ant-eaters of america, the aard-vark of africa, and the pangolin of asia. the great ant-eater of south america is an animal sometimes measuring eight feet in length. it lives exclusively on ants, which it procures by tearing open their hills with its hooked claws, and then drawing its long tongue, which is covered with glutinous saliva, over the swarms which rush out to defend their dwelling. many bushels of ants would be needed for the pair of ant-eaters before the ark landed on ararat. how were all the insects caught, and kept for the use of all these animals for more than a year? a hundred men could not catch a sufficient number in six months. and, if caught, how could they be preserved, together with the original stock of insects necessary to supply the world after the deluge? some insects eat only bark; others, resinous secretions, the pith, solid wood, leaves, sap in the veins, as the aphid, flowers, pollen, and honey. wood, bark, resin, and honey might have been supplied; but how could green leaves, sap, flowers and pollen, be furnished to those insects absolutely requiring them for existence? thirty species of insects feed on the nettle, but not one of them could live on dried nettles. rösel calculates that two hundred species subsist on the oak; but the oak must be in a growing condition to supply them with food. in no other way, then, could the insects have been preserved alive than by large green-houses, the heat so applied as to suit the plants of both temperate and tropical climates, and the insects so distributed among them, that each could obtain its appropriate nourishment. fruit would be necessary for the four hundred and forty-two monkeys, for the plantain-eaters, the fruit-pigeons of the spice islands that feed on nutmegs, for the toucans and the flocks of parrots, parroquets, cockatoos, and other fruit-eating birds. as they did not know how to can fruit in those days, and dried fruit would be altogether unsuitable, there must have been a large green-house for raising all manner of fruit necessary for the frugivorous multitude. _how were the various animals obtained?_ the command given to noah was, "two of every sort shalt thou _bring_ into the ark." animals, as is now well known, belong to limited centres, outside of which they are never found in a natural state; and naturalists know that these centres were established ages before the time when the deluge is supposed to have occurred. thus, hugh miller, in his "testimony of the rocks," says, "we now know that every great continent has its own peculiar fauna; that the original centres of distribution must have been, not one, but many; further, that the areas or circles around these centres must have been occupied by their pristine animals in ages long anterior to that of the noachian deluge; nay, that in even the latter geologic ages they were preceded in them by animals of the same general type. there are fourteen such areas, or provinces, enumerated by the later naturalists;" and cuvier, quoted by miller, says, "the great continents contain species peculiar to each; insomuch, that whenever large countries, of this description, have been discovered, which their situation had kept isolated from the rest of the world, the class of quadrupeds which they contained has been found extremely different from any that had existed elsewhere. thus, when the spaniards first penetrated into south america, they did not find a single species of quadruped the same as any of europe, asia, or africa." the white bear is never found except in the arctic regions; the great grizzly bear is only found in the neighborhood of the rocky mountains. nearly all the species of mammals found in australia are confined to that country, as the wingless birds of new zealand are confined to that, and the sloth, armadillo, and other animals, to south america. a journey to the polar regions would be necessary to obtain the white bear, the musk-ox, of which seven would be required, since it is a clean beast; seven reindeer, likewise; the white fox, the polar hare, the lemming, and seven of each species of cormorant, gannet, penguin, petrel, and gull, some of which are as large as eagles, as well as mergansers, geese, and ducks, certain species of which are only found in the frigid zone. noah or his agents must have discovered greenland and north america thousands of years before columbus was born: they must have preceded behring, parry, ross, kane, and hayes in exploring the arctic regions. they searched the ice-floes and numerous islands of the arctic seas, snow-shoed, over the frozen _tundras_ of siberia, to be certain that no living thing escaped them; then, after catching and caging all the animals, conveyed them, with all manner of food necessary for their sustenance, together with ice to temper the heat of the climate to which they were for more than a year to be exposed, returned to the nearest port, and, after a toilsome journey from the sea-coast to armenia, arrived at their destination. how many of these animals would survive the journey? and, of those that did, how many would survive the change of climate and habits? another party must have visited temperate america; traversed new england in its length and breadth, forded wide streams, made their way through unbroken wildernesses, traversed the great lakes, roamed over the rocky mountains, and secured the black bear, cinnamon bear, wapiti or canadian stag, the moose, american deer, antelope, mountain sheep, buffalo, opossum, rattlesnake, copperhead, and an innumerable multitude of other animals--insects birds, reptiles, and mammals, that are only to be found in the temperate regions of america. a voyage to south america must have been made to obtain tapirs, pumas, peccaries, sloths, ant-eaters, armadillos, fourteen each of the llama, alpaca, and vicuna, beside monkeys, birds, and insects innumerable. a vessel nearly as large as "the great eastern" must have been employed, or a number of smaller ones, to accommodate the collectors, the animals, and food for a voyage across the atlantic. there must have been, at least, a thousand men, wandering through the woods of brazil, along the valley of the amazon, the orinoco, and the la plata; paddling up the streams, scaling the mountains, roaming over the pampas, climbing the tall trees, turning over every stone and log, and exploring every nook, to discover the snails, bugs, insects, worms, reptiles, and other animals indigenous to south america, from the isthmus to tierra-del-fuego. there must have been obtained four elephants, for there are two species, the asiatic and the indian; fourteen rhinoceroses, one of which is found only in south africa, another in the island of java, and a third in sumatra; two hippopotami, and possibly four, for some authorities say there are two species. fourteen giraffes, since they are clean beasts, must have been caught and driven from central africa (many more, indeed, must have been caught, that the required number might reach the ark and be preserved); twenty-eight camels, two hundred and eighty oxen (for there are twenty species, and they are clean); and no less than thirteen hundred and eighty-six deer and antelope, of which there are ninety-nine species recognized: these to be collected in various parts of europe, asia, northern and southern africa, and america. new zealand must have been visited to obtain its wingless birds; mauritius for its dodo, then living; australia for its marsupials and other peculiar animals; and every large island, and most of the small ones, to obtain those forms of life that are only to be found in each. from the island of celebes, they must have taken the eighty species of birds that are confined to it, which would require them to catch, cage, feed, and convey eleven hundred and twenty specimens: a no small job of itself. ten men that could accomplish that, and carry them safe to armenia, would do all that men could do in ten years. from the philippine islands, the seventy-three species of hawks, parrots, and pigeons, peculiar to them; which would require, since fourteen of every kind of bird were to be taken into the ark, no less than one thousand and twenty-two specimens. from new guinea, and the neighboring islands, two hundred and fifty-two of the magnificent birds of paradise, since there are eighteen species. a faint idea of the difficulties encountered and overcome by noah's agents may be gathered from what wallace, in his recent work on the malay archipelago, informs us respecting these birds of paradise. "five voyages to different parts of the district they inhabit, each occupying in its preparation and execution the larger part of a year, produced me only five species out of the fourteen known to exist in the new-guinea district." if it took wallace, with all the assistance that he had from various officials, five years to obtain five species, represented by dead birds, how long did it take noah's agents to obtain eighteen species represented by two hundred and fifty-two live birds? wallace could only obtain two alive, and for these he had to pay five hundred dollars. if the antediluvian sinners were any thing like the modern ones, noah must have been richer than the rothschilds, or he never could have obtained their services; which he must have done, or it could never be truthfully said, "according to all that god commanded him, so did he." the collection of the land-snails alone would be no small tax. seventy-four are peculiar to great britain: hence there must have been a hundred and forty-eight snails collected from that island. six hundred species are found in southern europe alone, and twelve hundred must have been collected from there; eighty in sicily, ten in corsica, two hundred and sixty-four in the madeira islands, a hundred and twenty in the canary islands, twenty-six in st. helena, sixty-three in southern africa, eighty-eight in madagascar, a hundred and twelve in ceylon, a hundred in new zealand, and others on every large and some of the small islands of the globe. the world must have been circumnavigated many times before the vessel of magellan was built, and every island visited and ransacked ages before the time of captain cook. but it seems surprising, since these voyages must have been performed by the sinful antediluvians, that they did not save themselves in their ships when the flood came; for vessels that could perform such voyages would certainly have survived the flood more readily than the clumsy ark. but was it really done? a thousand men in ten years, with all the appliances of modern art,--steamboats, railroads, canals, coaches, and express companies,--could not accomplish it in ten years; nor ten times the number of men keep all the animals alive in one spot for one year, if they were collected together. "but," says the christian, "noah never did collect them: no intelligent person in this day ever supposes that he did." what then? "the bible expressly declares that 'they went in unto noah into the ark.' by instinct, such as leads the swallow to take its distant flight at the approach of winter, they came from all parts of the globe to the ark of safety." it is true that one account does say that they came in unto noah, for there are two very different stories of the deluge mixed up in those chapters of genesis; but, although flying birds might perform such a feat as going twelve thousand miles to the ark, which would be necessary for some, how could other animals get there? it would be impossible even for some birds. how could the ostriches of africa, the emus of australia, and the rheas of south america, get there,--birds that never fly? there are three species of the rhea, or south-american ostrich; and forty-two of these would have a journey of eight thousand miles before them, by the shortest route: but how could they cross the atlantic? if they went by land, they must have traversed the length of the american continent, from patagonia to alaska, crossed at behring's strait when it was frozen, and then travelled diagonally across nearly the whole continent of asia to armenia, after a journey that must have required many months for its completion. the sloths, that have been confined to south america ever since the pliocene period at least, must have taken the same route. how they crossed the mountain streams, and lived when passing over broad prairies, it would be difficult to say. a mile a day would be a rapid rate for these slow travellers, and it would therefore require about forty years for them to arrive at their destination. but, since the life of a sloth is not as long as this, they must have bequeathed their journey to their posterity, and they to their descendants, born on the way, who must have reached the ark before the door was closed. the land-snails must have met with still greater difficulties. impelled by most wonderful instinct, they commenced their journey full a thousand years before the time; and their posterity of the five hundredth generation must have made their appearance, and been provided with a passage by the venerable noah. scott, who wrote a commentary on the bible seventy or eighty years ago, must have seen some of these difficulties, though with nothing like the clearness with which science enables us to see them now. he says, "there must have been a very extraordinary miracle wrought, perhaps by the ministration of angels, in bringing two of every species to noah, and rendering them submissive to him and peaceable with each other; yet it seems not to have made any impression on the hardened spectators." think of a troop of angels fly-catching, snail-seeking, and bug-hunting through all lands, lugging through the air, horses, giraffes, elephants, and rhinoceroses, and dropping them at the door of the ark. one has crossed the atlantic with rattlesnakes, copperheads, and boas twined around him, almost crippling his wings with their snaky folds; and another with a brace of skunks, one under each wing, that the renewed world may not lack the fragrance of the old. what a subject for the pencil of a raphael or doré! had the "hardened spectators" beheld such a scene as this, noah and his cargo would have been cast out of the ark, and the sinners themselves, converted by this stupendous miracle, would have taken passage therein. not only must there have been a succession of most stupendous miracles to get the animals to the ark, but also to return them to their proper places of abode. but few of them could have lived in the neighborhood of ararat, had they been left there. how could the polar bear return to his home among the ice-bergs, the sloths to the congenial forests of the new world, and all the mammals, reptiles, insects, and snails to their respective habitats, the homes of their ancestors for ages innumerable? to return them was just as necessary as to obtain them, and, though less difficult, was equally impossible. _how could eight persons, all that were saved in the ark, attend to all these animals!_ nearly all would require food and water once a day, and many twice. in a menagerie, one man takes care of four cages,--feeds, cleans, and waters the animals. in the ark, each person, women included, must have attended each day to ten thousand nine hundred and sixty-four birds, seven hundred and sixty-six beasts, one hundred and fourteen reptiles, one thousand one hundred and fifty land-snails, and one hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred insects. few persons have an idea of the difficulty of keeping even the common birds of a temperate climate alive in confinement for any length of time. food that is quite suitable in a wild state may be fatal to them when they are kept in the house. linnets feed on winter rape-seed in the wild state, but soon die if fed upon it in-doors. "they are to be fed," says bechstein, "on summer rape-seed, moistened in water; and their food must be varied by the addition of millet, radish, cabbage, lettuce and plantain-seeds, and sometimes a few bruised melon-seeds or barberries." nightingales, he says, should be fed on meal, worms, and fresh ants' eggs: but, if it is not possible to get these, a mixture of hard egg, ox-heart minced, and white bread may be given; but this often kills the birds. no such food would do for noah's nightingales, then, or where would have been the nightingale's song? they must have been fed on meal, worms, and _fresh_ ant's eggs. how they were obtained, we have, of course, no knowledge. bechstein says that larks may be fed with "a paste made of grated carrot, white bread soaked in water, and barley or wheat meal, all worked together in a mortar. in addition to this paste, larks should be supplied with poppy-seed, bruised hemp, crumb of bread, and plenty of greens, such as lettuce, endive, cabbage, with a little lean meat or ant-eggs occasionally." he says the cage should be furnished with a piece of fresh turf, often renewed, and great attention should be paid to cleanliness. the care of the birds in the ark probably fell to the women. as they had not read bechstein, or any other author on bird-keeping,--and thousands of the birds must have been total strangers to them,--how did they know what diet to supply them with, and where could they get it, supposing they had time to supply them at all? if the difficulty was great to keep the birds of a temperate climate, how much greater must it have been to keep tropical birds in a climate altogether unsuited to them? the two birds of paradise bought by wallace were fed, he says, on rice, bananas, and cockroaches: of the last, he obtained several cans from a bake-house at malta, and thus got his paradise birds, by good fortune, to england. but how many cans of cockroaches would be necessary for two hundred and fifty-two of such birds,--the number in the ark? and where were the bake-houses from which the supply might be obtained? to keep this vast menagerie clean would have required a large corps of efficient workers, especially when we remember that there was but one door in each story, as some suppose; or one door to the whole ark, as the story seems to teach, and this door was closed; and but one window, and that apparently in the roof. the augean stable, the cleansing of which was one of the labors of hercules, can but faintly indicate what must have been the condition of the ark in less than a month, supposing the animals to subsist as long. _whence came the water that covered the earth to the tops of the highest mountains?_ "all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered," says the record. and to do this, it rained for forty days and forty nights. a fall of an inch of water in a day is considered a very heavy rain in great britain. the heaviest single rain recorded fell on the khasia hills in india, and amounted to thirty inches in twenty-four hours. if this deluging rain could have continued for forty days and nights, and had it fallen over the entire surface of the globe, the amount would only have been one hundred feet; which, instead of covering the mountains, would not have covered the hills. but, of course, such a rain is only possible for a very limited time, and on a small portion of the earth's surface. sir john leslie, in "the encyclopedia britannica," says, "supposing the vast canopy of air, by some sudden change of internal constitution, at once to discharge its whole watery store, this precipitate would form a sheet of scarcely five inches thick over the surface of the globe." but if the water that covered the earth above the tops of the highest mountains came by rain, it must have rained seven hundred feet a day for forty days! or there must have fallen each day, according to sir john leslie's estimate, more than fourteen hundred times as much water on the earth as the atmosphere contained! but the writer says, "the fountains of the great deep were broken up." to the jews, who supposed, with david, that god had founded the earth upon the seas, and established it upon the floods, this meant something; but, in the light of geology, we see that it only demonstrates the ignorance of the man who wrote and the people that believed the story. adam clarke, commenting on this passage, says, "it appears that an immense quantity of water occupied the centre of the antediluvian earth; and, as this burst forth by the order of god, the circumambient strata must sink in order to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the elevated waters." if true, it would not have assisted in drowning the world one spoonful. for if the strata sank anywhere to fill the hollow previously occupied by the water, it would only make the mountains so much higher in comparison: hence it would require just that much extra water to cover them. in the light of geology, however, the notion is sufficiently absurd. a mile and a half deep, the earth's interior is hot enough to convert water into steam; there is, therefore, no chance for water to exist in its centre, or anywhere near it. _it is as great a difficulty to discover where the water went when the flood was over._ we are told that the fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain was restrained. but this could do nothing towards diminishing the water. all that it could possibly accomplish would be to prevent the rise of the water. but we are also told that "god made a wind to pass over the earth." all that the wind could do, however, would be to convey to the atmosphere the moisture it took up in vapor; and this could not have lowered the water a yard. the highest mountain, kunchinginga, is more than twenty-eight thousand feet high; the flood prevailed one hundred and fifty days, and abated two hundred and twenty-five; and if this abatement was done by the wind, it must have blown an ocean of water from the entire surface of the earth, one hundred and twenty-five deep, every day for eight months! all the hurricanes that ever blew, blowing at once, would be the gentlest zephyr of a summer's eve, compared with such a wind as that; and by what possibility could such a craft as the ark survive the storm? a question, proper to be asked is, _how were the animals supplied with light?_ and how did the attendants see to wait upon them in the first and second stories of the ark? there was but one window, and that only twenty-two inches in size, and it appears to have been in the third story. it was a day when kerosene was unknown, and tallow dips were uninvented. how did these animals live in the darkness? and, above all, how did noah and his family supply their wants? it could have been no easy or pleasant thing to wait upon hungry lions, tigers, crocodiles, and rattlesnakes in the dark, to say nothing of the danger. _how did they breathe?_ there was but one twenty-two inch window; the ark was "pitched within and without with pitch;" "the lord shut him in." talk of the black hole of calcutta: it must have been pure as the breath of morning compared with the condition of the ark in one day. _where did they obtain water for drink?_ supposing all the additional water needed to drown the world was fresh, when mingled with the water of the sea, as much as one-tenth of it would be salt water, and this would render it utterly unfit for drink. provision must therefore have been made for water; and a space certainly half as large as the ark must have been taken up for the water necessary for this immense multitude. _the fish, mollusks, crustaceans (such as our crabs and lobsters), and all corals, must have died if such a flood had taken place_,--the fresh-water fish from the salt water at once added to their proper element, and the salt-water fish and other marine forms from so large an addition of fresh water. for months, there could have been no shore: what is now the margin of the sea was buried miles deep; and all the fucoidal vegetation, upon which myriads of animals subsist, must have perished, and the animals with it, if the change in the constitution of the water had not killed them. every time a man swallows an oyster, he has evidence that the noachian deluge did not take place. _the plants must have perished also._ how many of our trees, to say nothing of the grasses and feeble plants, could endure a soaking of nearly twelve months' duration? some of the very hardiest seeds might survive, but the number could not be large. the present condition of vegetation upon the globe is another evidence, then, that this deluge did not take place. _when the ark landed on mount ararat, and the animals went forth, how did they subsist?_ as they went down the mountains, the carnivorous animals would have devoured a large portion of the herbivorous animals saved in the ark. beside the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, and other carnivorous mammals, amounting to eight hundred and ninety-two, there were in the ark six hundred and sixty-six eagles, for there are forty-eight species; one hundred and forty-four buzzards, fourteen hundred and forty-two falcons, one hundred and forty hawks, two hundred and thirty-eight vultures, and eight hundred and ninety six owls. what chance would a few sheep, rabbits and squirrels, rats and mice, doves and chickens, have, among this ravenous multitude? how could the ants escape, with ant-eaters, aard-varks and pangolins on the watch for them as soon as they made their appearance? there were as many dogs as hares, as many cats as mice. how long a lease of life could the sheep, hares, and mice, calculate upon? before the herbivorous animals had multiplied, so as to furnish the carnivorous animals with food, they must all have been destroyed, after all the pains taken for their preservation. noah should have given the herbivora, at least a year's start, especially since the vegetation of the globe was so deficient. but we are told that the species of animals may have been much fewer in the days of noah; and, therefore, much less room would be necessary. a single pair of cats, say some, may have produced all the animals of the cat kind; a pair of dogs, all the animals that belong to the dog family. such an explanation might have been given when zoölogy was little known, and geology had no existence; but there is no place for it now. animals change, it is true, and all species have probably been produced from a few originals; but the process by which this is accomplished is so slow in its operation, that we have no knowledge of the formation of a new species. we know that lions, tigers, and cats of various species, existed long before the time of the deluge, and dogs, wolves and foxes; and we find mummied cats, dogs, and other animals in egypt, as old or older than the deluge, so little changed from those of the present time in the same locality, that we cannot recognize any difference between them. _"you seem to forget that all things are possible with god: he could have packed these animals into an ark of one-half the size, brought them altogether in the twinkling of an eye, and returned them as rapidly."_ and you seem to forget that the account in genesis gives us no hint of any such miracle. noah was to take the animals to him, and to take unto him of all food that is eaten; and, as hugh miller remarks, "the expedient of having recourse to supposititious miracle in order to get over a difficulty insurmountable on every natural principle, is not of the nature of an argument, but simply an evidence of the want of it. argument is at an end when supposititious miracle is introduced." but, if a miracle was worked, it was not one, but ten thousand of the most stupendous miracles, and entirely unnecessary ones. this, the rev. dr. pye smith saw, when he said, "we cannot represent to ourselves the idea of all land animals being brought into one small spot, from the polar regions, the torrid zone, and all the other climates of asia, africa, europe, and america, australia, and the thousands of islands,--their preservation and provision, and the final disposal of them,--without bringing up the idea of miracles more stupendous than any that are recorded in scripture. the great decisive miracle of christianity,--the resurrection of the lord jesus,--sinks down before it." it is a favorite method with the advocates of special revelations to show their agreement with the operations of natural law, till a difficulty is met with that cannot be answered, when they flee at once to miracle to save them. but, in this case, miracle itself cannot save them. geology furnishes us with evidence that no such deluge has taken place. according to hugh miller, "in various parts of the world, such as auvergne in central france, and along the flanks of etna, there are cones of long-extinct or long-slumbering volcanoes, which, though of at least triple the antiquity of the noachian deluge, and though composed of the ordinary incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. according to the calculations of sir charles lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over the forest-zone of etna during the last twelve thousand years." archæology enters her protest equally against it. we have abundance of egyptian mummies, statues, inscriptions, paintings, and other representations of egyptian life belonging to a much earlier period than the deluge. with only such modifications as time slowly introduced, we find the people, their language, and their habits, continuing after that time, as they had done for centuries before. lepsius, writing from the pyramids of memphis, in , says, "we are still busy with structures, sculptures, and inscriptions, which are to be classed, by means of the now more accurately determined groups of kings, in an epoch of highly flourishing civilization, as far back as the fourth millennium before christ." that is one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years before the time of the flood. lyell says that "chevalier bunsen, in his elaborate and philosophical work on ancient egypt, has satisfied not a few of the learned, by an appeal to monumental inscriptions still extant, that the successive dynasties of kings may be traced back without a break, to menes, and that the date of his reign would correspond with the year , b.c.;" that is nearly thirteen hundred years before the time of the deluge. strange that the whole world should have been drowned and the egyptians never knew it! from the "types of mankind," we learn that the fact is "asserted by lepsius, and familiar to all egyptologists, that negro and other races already existed in northern africa, on the upper nile, , years b.c." but this is only forty-eight years after the deluge. what kind of a family had noah? was amalgamation practised by any of noah's sons? if all the human occupants of the ark were caucasians, how did they produce negro races in forty-eight years? the facts again compel us to announce the fabulous character of this genesical story of the deluge. _"no intelligent person now believes that it was a total deluge: buckland, pye smith, miller, hitchcock, and all christian geologists, agree that it was a partial deluge, and the account can be so explained."_ how strange that god should dictate an account of the deluge that led everybody to a false conclusion with regard to it, till science taught them a better. but let us read what the account says, and see whether it can be explained to signify a partial deluge. to save the bible from its inevitable fate, such men as buckland, smith, miller, hitchcock, and other bible apologists, it is evident from their writings, were ready to resort to any scheme, however wild. i read (gen. vi. ), "i will destroy both man and beast, and the creeping thing." how could a partial deluge accomplish this? (v. ); "the end of all flesh is come before me. i will destroy them with the earth." how could all flesh be destroyed with the earth by any other than a total deluge? (v. ); "i do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die." not only is man to be destroyed, but all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven, and every thing in the earth is to die. can this be tortured to mean a partial deluge? (vii. ); "and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered; and all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. and every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth, and noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." had the man who wrote this story been a lawyer, and had he known how these would-be-bible-believers, and at the same time geologists, would seek to pervert his meaning, he could not have more carefully worded his account. it is not possible for any man to express the idea of a total flood more definitely than this man has done. he does not merely say the hills were covered, but "_all_" the hills were covered; and lest you should think that he certainly did not mean the most elevated, he is careful to say "all the _high_" hills were covered; and lest some one should say he only meant the hills in that part of the country, he says expressly "all the high hills that were _under the whole heaven were covered_." he is even so cautious as to introduce the phrase "_whole_ heaven," lest some one in its absence might still think that the deluge was a partial one. to make its universality still more evident, he says, "all flesh died that moved upon the earth." this would have been sufficiently definite for most persons, but not so for him; he particularizes so that none may escape,--"both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man." to leave no possibility of mistake, he adds, "all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died." can any thing more be needed? the writer seems to see that some theological professor may even yet try to make this mean a partial deluge; and he therefore says, "every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; they were destroyed from the earth." is it possible to add to the strength of this? he thinks it is; and he therefore says, "noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark." could any truthful man write this and then mean that less than a hundredth part of the earth's surface was covered. if not a total flood, why save the animals, above all the birds? all that noah and his family need to have done would have been to move out of the region till the storm was over. if a partial flood, how could the ark have rested on the mountains of ararat? ararat itself is seventeen thousand feet high, and it rises from a plateau that is seven thousand feet above the sea-level. a flood that enabled the ark to float on to that mountain could not have been far from universal; and, when such a flood is accounted for on scientific principles, it will be just as easy to account for a total flood. _"the flood was only intended to destroy man, and therefore only covered those parts of the earth that were occupied by him."_ the bible states, however, that it was intended to destroy every thing wherein was the breath of life; and your account and the bible account do not at all agree. but, if man was intended to be destroyed, the flood must have been wide-spread. we know that africa was occupied before that time, and had been for thousands of years, by various races. we learn, from the recent discoveries in the swiss lakes, that man was in switzerland before that time; in france, as boucher's and rigollet's discoveries prove; in great britain, as the caves in devonshire show; in north america, as the fossil human skull beneath table mountain demonstrates. hence, for the flood to destroy man alone at so recent a period, it must have been as wide spread as the earth. even according to the bible account, the garden of eden, where man was first placed, was somewhere near the euphrates; and in sixteen hundred years the race must have rambled over a large part of the earth's surface. the highest mountains in the world, the himalayas, are within two thousand miles of the euphrates. that splendid country, india, would have been occupied long before the time of the deluge; and, on the flanks of the himalayas, man could have laughed at any flood that natural causes could possibly produce. _"how do you account, then, for these traditions of a deluge that we find all over the globe?"_ nothing more easy. in all times floods have occurred; some by heavy and long-continued rains, others by the bursting of lake-barriers or the irruption of the sea; and wherever traditions of these have been met with, men with the bible story in their minds have at once attributed their origin to the noachian deluge. _"but jesus and the apostles indorse the account of the deluge."_ granted; but does that transform a fable into a fact? they believed the story just as our modern theologians believe it; because they were taught it when they were children, and had not learned better. jesus says (matt. xxv. - ), "but as the days of noe were, so shall also the coming of the son of man be. for, as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the son of man be." if the man had regarded the story as false, he never would have referred to it in such a manner. and, in this manifestation of credulity on the part of jesus, we can see the very false estimate placed upon him by so large a portion of the people of this country. let the truth be spoken, though jesus and all other idols be overthrown. so he would say, if alive, or he was not as good and intelligent a man as i think he was. by this story the bible stands or falls as a divine book. it falls, as we see, and takes its place with all other human fallible productions. for knowledge, we go to nature, our universal mother, who gives her bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting gospel to all people. transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. variant spellings have been retained. hyphenation has been standardised. on the method of zadig essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley retrospective prophecy as a function of science "une marque plus sure que toutes celles de zadig." [ ]--cuvier. it is an usual and a commendable practice to preface the discussion of the views of a philosophic thinker by some account of the man and of the circumstances which shaped his life and coloured his way of looking at things; but, though zadig is cited in one of the most important chapters of cuvier's greatest work, little is known about him, and that little might perhaps be better authenticated than it is. it is said that he lived at babylon in the time of king moabdar; but the name of moabdar does not appear in the list of babylonian sovereigns brought to light by the patience and the industry of the decipherers of cuneiform inscriptions in these later years; nor indeed am i aware that there is any other authority for his existence than that of the biographer of zadig, one arouet de voltaire, among whose more conspicuous merits strict historical accuracy is perhaps hardly to be reckoned. happily zadig is in the position of a great many other philosophers. what he was like when he was in the flesh, indeed whether he existed at all, are matters of no great consequence. what we care about in a light is that it shows the way, not whether it is lamp or candle, tallow or wax. our only real interest in zadig lies in the conceptions of which he is the putative father; and his biographer has stated these with so much clearness and vivacious illustration, that we need hardly feel a pang, even if critical research should prove king moabdar and all the rest of the story to be unhistorical, and reduce zadig himself to the shadowy condition of a solar myth. voltaire tells us that, disenchanted with life by sundry domestic misadventures, zadig withdrew from the turmoil of babylon to a secluded retreat on the banks of the euphrates, where he beguiled his solitude by the study of nature. the manifold wonders of the world of life had a particular attraction for the lonely student; incessant and patient observation of the plants and animals about him sharpened his naturally good powers of observation and of reasoning; until, at length, he acquired a sagacity which enabled him to perceive endless minute differences among objects which, to the untutored eye, appeared absolutely alike. it might have been expected that this enlargement of the powers of the mind and of its store of natural knowledge could tend to nothing but the increase of a man's own welfare and the good of his fellow-men. but zadig was fated to experience the vanity of such expectations. "one day, walking near a little wood, he saw, hastening that way, one of the queen's chief eunuchs, followed by a troop of officials, who appeared to be in the greatest anxiety, running hither and thither like men distraught, in search of some lost treasure. "'young man,' cried the eunuch, 'have you seen the queen's dog?' zadig answered modestly, 'a bitch, i think, not a dog.' 'quite right,' replied the eunuch; and zadig continued, 'a very small spaniel who has lately had puppies; she limps with the left foreleg, and has very long ears.' 'ah! you have seen her then,' said the breathless eunuch. 'no,' answered zadig, 'i have not seen her; and i really was not aware that the queen possessed a spaniel.' "by an odd coincidence, at the very same time, the handsomest horse in the king's stables broke away from his groom in the babylonian plain. the grand huntsman and all his staff were seeking the horse with as much anxiety as the eunuch and his people the spaniel; and the grand huntsman asked zadig if he had not seen the king's horse go that way. "'a first-rate galloper, small-hoofed, five feet high; tail three feet and a half long; cheek pieces of the bit of twenty-three carat gold; shoes silver?' said zadig. "'which way did he go? where is he?' cried the grand huntsman. "'i have not seen anything of the horse, and i never heard of him before,' replied zadig. "the grand huntsman and the chief eunuch made sure that zadig had stolen both the king's horse and the queen's spaniel, so they haled him before the high court of desterham, which at once condemned him to the knout, and transportation for life to siberia. but the sentence was hardly pronounced when the lost horse and spaniel were found. so the judges were under the painful necessity of reconsidering their decision: but they fined zadig four hundred ounces of gold for saying he had seen that which he had not seen. "the first thing was to pay the fine; afterwards zadig was permitted to open his defence to the court, which he did in the following terms: "'stars of justice, abysses of knowledge, mirrors of truth, whose gravity is as that of lead, whose inflexibility is as that of iron, who rival the diamond in clearness, and possess no little affinity with gold; since i am permitted to address your august assembly, i swear by ormuzd that i have never seen the respectable lady dog of the queen, nor beheld the sacrosanct horse of the king of kings. "'this is what happened. i was taking a walk towards the little wood near which i subsequently had the honour to meet the venerable chief eunuch and the most illustrious grand huntsman. i noticed the track of an animal in the sand, and it was easy to see that it was that of a small dog. long faint streaks upon the little elevations of sand between the footmarks convinced me that it was a she dog with pendent dugs, showing that she must have had puppies not many days since. other scrapings of the sand, which always lay close to the marks of the forepaws, indicated that she had very long ears; and, as the imprint of one foot was always fainter than those of the other three, i judged that the lady dog of our august queen was, if i may venture to say so, a little lame. "'with respect to the horse of the king of kings, permit me to observe that, wandering through the paths which traverse the wood, i noticed the marks of horse-shoes. they were all equidistant. "ah!" said i, "this is a famous galloper." in a narrow alley, only seven feet wide, the dust upon the trunks of the trees was a little disturbed at three feet and a half from the middle of the path. "this horse," said i to myself, "had a tail three feet and a half long, and, lashing it from one side to the other, he has swept away the dust." branches of the trees met overhead at the height of five feet, and under them i saw newly fallen leaves; so i knew that the horse had brushed some of the branches, and was therefore five feet high. as to his bit, it must have been made of twenty-three carat gold, for he had rubbed it against a stone, which turned out to be a touchstone, with the properties of which i am familiar by experiment. lastly, by the marks which his shoes left upon pebbles of another kind, i was led to think that his shoes were of fine silver.' "all the judges admired zadig's profound and subtle discernment; and the fame of it reached even the king and the queen. from the ante-rooms to the presence-chamber, zadig's name was in everybody's mouth; and, although many of the magi were of opinion that he ought to be burnt as a sorcerer, the king commanded that the four hundred ounces of gold which he had been fined should be restored to him. so the officers of the court went in state with the four hundred ounces; only they retained three hundred and ninety-eight for legal expenses, and their servants expected fees." those who are interested in learning more of the fateful history of zadig must turn to the original; we are dealing with him only as a philosopher, and this brief excerpt suffices for the exemplification of the nature of his conclusions and of the methods by which he arrived at them. these conclusions may be said to be of the nature of retrospective prophecies; though it is perhaps a little hazardous to employ phraseology which perilously suggests a contradiction in terms--the word "prophecy" being so constantly, in ordinary use, restricted to "foretelling." strictly, however, the term prophecy applies as much to outspeaking as to foretelling; and, even in the restricted sense of "divination," it is obvious that the essence of the prophetic operation does not lie in its backward or forward relation to the course of time, but in the fact that it is the apprehension of that which lies out of the sphere of immediate knowledge; the seeing of that which, to the natural sense of the seer, is invisible. the foreteller asserts that, at some future time, a properly situated observer will witness certain events; the clairvoyant declares that, at this present time, certain things are to be witnessed a thousand miles away; the retrospective prophet (would that there were such a word as "backteller!") affirms that, so many hours or years ago, such and such things were to be seen. in all these cases, it is only the relation to time which alters--the process of divination beyond the limits of possible direct knowledge remains the same. no doubt it was their instinctive recognition of the analogy between zadig's results and those obtained by authorised inspiration which inspired the babylonian magi with the desire to burn the philosopher. zadig admitted that he had never either seen or heard of the horse of the king or of the spaniel of the queen; and yet he ventured to assert in the most positive manner that animals answering to their description did actually exist and ran about the plains of babylon. if his method was good for the divination of the course of events ten hours old, why should it not be good for those of ten years or ten centuries past; nay, might it not extend ten thousand years and justify the impious in meddling with the traditions of oannes and the fish, and all the sacred foundations of babylonian cosmogony? but this was not the worst. there was another consideration which obviously dictated to the more thoughtful of the magi the propriety of burning zadig out of hand. his defence was worse than his offence. it showed that his mode of divination was fraught with danger to magianism in general. swollen with the pride of human reason, he had ignored the established canons of magian lore; and, trusting to what after all was mere carnal common sense, he professed to lead men to a deeper insight into nature than magian wisdom, with all its lofty antagonism to everything common, had ever reached. what, in fact, lay at the foundation of all zadig's argument but the coarse commonplace assumption, upon which every act of our daily lives is based, that we may conclude from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent to produce that effect? the tracks were exactly like those which dogs and horses leave; therefore they were the effects of such animals as causes. the marks at the sides of the fore-prints of the dog track were exactly such as would be produced by long trailing ears; therefore the dog's long ears were the causes of these marks--and so on. nothing can be more hopelessly vulgar, more unlike the majestic development of a system of grandly unintelligible conclusions from sublimely inconceivable premisses such as delights the magian heart. in fact, zadig's method was nothing but the method of all mankind. retrospective prophecies, far more astonishing for their minute accuracy than those of zadig, are familiar to those who have watched the daily life of nomadic people. from freshly broken twigs, crushed leaves, disturbed pebbles, and imprints hardly discernible by the untrained eye, such graduates in the university of nature will divine, not only the fact that a party has passed that way, but its strength, its composition, the course it took, and the number of hours or days which have elapsed since it passed. but they are able to do this because, like zadig, they perceive endless minute differences where untrained eyes discern nothing; and because the unconscious logic of common sense compels them to account for these effects by the causes which they know to be competent to produce them. and such mere methodised savagery was to discover the hidden things of nature better than _a priori_ deductions from the nature of ormuzd--perhaps to give a history of the past, in which oannes would be altogether ignored! decidedly it were better to burn this man at once. if instinct, or an unwonted use of reason, led moabdar's magi to this conclusion two or three thousand years ago, all that can be said is that subsequent history has fully justified them. for the rigorous application of zadig's logic to the results of accurate and long-continued observation has founded all those sciences which have been termed historical or palaetiological, because they are retrospectively prophetic and strive towards the reconstruction in human imagination of events which have vanished and ceased to be. history, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, is based upon the interpretation of documentary evidence; and documents would have no evidential value unless historians were justified in their assumption that they have come into existence by the operation of causes similar to those of which documents are, in our present experience, the effects. if a written history can be produced otherwise than by human agency, or if the man who wrote a given document was actuated by other than ordinary human motives, such documents are of no more evidential value than so many arabesques. archaeology, which takes up the thread of history beyond the point at which documentary evidence fails us, could have no existence, except for our well grounded confidence that monuments and works of art or artifice, have never been produced by causes different in kind from those to which they now owe their origin. and geology, which traces back the course of history beyond the limits of archaeology, could tell us nothing except for the assumption that, millions of years ago, water, heat, gravitation, friction, animal and vegetable life, caused effects of the same kind as they now cause. nay, even physical astronomy, in so far as it takes us back to the uttermost point of time which palaetiological science can reach, is founded upon the same assumption. if the law of gravitation ever failed to be true, even to a small extent, for that period, the calculations of the astronomer have no application. the power of prediction, of prospective prophecy, is that which is commonly regarded as the great prerogative of physical science. and truly it is a wonderful fact that one can go into a shop and buy for a small price a book, the "nautical almanac," which will foretell the exact position to be occupied by one of jupiter's moons six months hence; nay, more, that, if it were worth while, the astronomer-royal could furnish us with as infallible a prediction applicable to or . but astronomy is not less remarkable for its power of retrospective prophecy. thales, oldest of greek philosophers, the dates of whose birth and death are uncertain, but who flourished about b.c., is said to have foretold an eclipse of the sun which took place in his time during a battle between the medes and the lydians. sir george airy has written a very learned and interesting memoir [ ] in which he proves that such an eclipse was visible in lydia on the afternoon of the th of may in the year b.c. no one doubts that, on the day and at the hour mentioned by the astronomer-royal, the people of lydia saw the face of the sun totally obscured. but, though we implicitly believe this retrospective prophecy, it is incapable of verification. in the total absence of historical records, it is impossible even to conceive any means of ascertaining directly whether the eclipse of thales happened or not. all that can be said is, that the prospective prophecies of the astronomer are always verified; and that, inasmuch as his retrospective prophecies are the result of following backwards, the very same method as that which invariably leads to verified results, when it is worked forwards, there is as much reason for placing full confidence in the one as in the other. retrospective prophecy is therefore a legitimate function of astronomical science; and if it is legitimate for one science it is legitimate for all; the fundamental axiom on which it rests, the constancy of the order of nature, being the common foundation of all scientific thought. indeed, if there can be grades in legitimacy, certain branches of science have the advantage over astronomy, in so far as their retrospective prophecies are not only susceptible of verification, but are sometimes strikingly verified. such a science exists in that application of the principles of biology to the interpretation of the animal and vegetable remains imbedded in the rocks which compose the surface of the globe, which is called palaeontology. at no very distant time, the question whether these so-called "fossils," were really the remains of animals and plants was hotly disputed. very learned persons maintained that they were nothing of the kind, but a sort of concretion, or crystallisation, which had taken place within the stone in which they are found; and which simulated the forms of animal and vegetable life, just as frost on a window-pane imitates vegetation. at the present day, it would probably be impossible to find any sane advocate of this opinion; and the fact is rather surprising, that among the people from whom the circle-squarers, perpetual-motioners, flat-earthed men and the like, are recruited, to say nothing of table-turners and spirit-rappers, somebody has not perceived the easy avenue to nonsensical notoriety open to any one who will take up the good old doctrine, that fossils are all _lusus naturae._ the position would be impregnable, inasmuch as it is quite impossible to prove the contrary. if a man choose to maintain that a fossil oyster shell, in spite of its correspondence, down to every minutest particular, with that of an oyster fresh taken out of the sea, was never tenanted by a living oyster, but is a mineral concretion, there is no demonstrating his error. all that can be done is to show him that, by a parity of reasoning, he is bound to admit that a heap of oyster shells outside a fishmonger's door may also be "sports of nature," and that a mutton bone in a dust-bin may have had the like origin. and when you cannot prove that people are wrong, but only that they are absurd, the best course is to let them alone. the whole fabric of palaeontology, in fact, falls to the ground unless we admit the validity of zadig's great principle, that like effects imply like causes, and that the process of reasoning from a shell, or a tooth, or a bone, to the nature of the animal to which it belonged, rests absolutely on the assumption that the likeness of this shell, or tooth, or bone, to that of some animal with which we are already acquainted, is such that we are justified in inferring a corresponding degree of likeness in the rest of the two organisms. it is on this very simple principle, and not upon imaginary laws of physiological correlation, about which, in most cases, we know nothing whatever, that the so-called restorations of the palaeontologist are based. abundant illustrations of this truth will occur to every one who is familiar with palaeontology; none is more suitable than the case of the so-called _belemnites._ in the early days of the study of fossils, this name was given to certain elongated stony bodies, ending at one extremity in a conical point, and truncated at the other, which were commonly reputed to be thunderbolts, and as such to have descended from the sky. they are common enough in some parts of england; and, in the condition in which they are ordinarily found, it might be difficult to give satisfactory reasons for denying them to be merely mineral bodies. they appear, in fact, to consist of nothing but concentric layers of carbonate of lime, disposed in subcrystalline fibres, or prisms, perpendicular to the layers. among a great number of specimens of these belemnites, however, it was soon observed that some showed a conical cavity at the blunt end; and, in still better preserved specimens, this cavity appeared to be divided into chambers by delicate saucer-shaped partitions, situated at regular intervals one above the other. now there is no mineral body which presents any structure comparable to this, and the conclusion suggested itself that the belemnites must be the effects of causes other than those which are at work in inorganic nature. on close examination, the saucer-shaped partitions were proved to be all perforated at one point, and the perforations being situated exactly in the same line, the chambers were seen to be traversed by a canal, or _siphuncle,_ which thus connected the smallest or aphical chamber with the largest. there is nothing like this in the vegetable world; but an exactly corresponding structure is met with in the shells of two kinds of existing animals, the pearly _nautilus_ and the _spirula,_ and only in them. these animals belong to the same division--the _cephalopoda--_as the cuttle-fish, the squid, and the octopus. but they are the only existing members of the group which possess chambered, siphunculated shells; and it is utterly impossible to trace any physiological connection between the very peculiar structural characters of a cephalopod and the presence of a chambered shell. in fact, the squid has, instead of any such shell, a horny "pen," the cuttlefish has the so-called "cuttle-bone," and the octopus has no shell, or, at most, a mere rudiment of one. nevertheless, seeing that there is nothing in nature at all like the chambered shell of the belemnite, except the shells of the _nautilus_ and of the _spirula,_ it was legitimate to prophesy that the animal from which the fossil proceeded must have belonged to the group of the _cephalopoda._ _nautilus_ and _spirula_ are both very rare animals, but the progress of investigation brought to light the singular fact, that, though each has the characteristic cephalopodous organisation, it is very different from the other. the shell of _nautilus_ is external, that of _spirula_ internal; _nautilus_ has four gills, _spirula_ two; _nautilus_ has multitudinous tentacles, _spirula_ has only ten arms beset with horny-rimmed suckers; _spirula,_ like the squids and cuttle-fishes, which it closely resembles, has a bag of ink which it squirts out to cover its retreat when alarmed; _nautilus_ has none. no amount of physiological reasoning could enable any one to say whether the animal which fabricated the belemnite was more like _nautilus,_ or more like _spirula._ but the accidental discovery of belemnites in due connection with black elongated masses which were: certainly fossilised ink-bags, inasmuch as the ink could be ground up and used for painting as well as if it were recent sepia, settled the question; and it became perfectly safe to prophesy that the creature which fabricated the belemnite was a two-gilled cephalopod with suckers on its arms, and with all the other essential features of our living squids, cuttle-fishes, and _spirulae._ the palaeontologist was, by this time, able to speak as confidently about the animal of the belemnite, as zadig was respecting the queen's spaniel. he could give a very fair description of its external appearance, and even enter pretty fully into the details of its internal organisation, and yet could declare that neither he, nor any one else, had ever seen one. and as the queen's spaniel was found, so happily has the animal of the belemnite; a few exceptionally preserved specimens have been discovered, which completely verify the retrospective prophecy of those who interpreted the facts of the case by due application of the method of zadig. these belemnites flourished in prodigious abundance in the seas of the mesozoic, or secondary, age of the world's geological history; but no trace of them has been found in any of the tertiary deposits, and they appear to have died out towards the close of the mesozoic epoch. the method of zadig, therefore, applies in full force to the events of a period which is immeasurably remote, which long preceded the origin of the most conspicuous mountain masses of the present world, and the deposition, at the bottom of the ocean, of the rocks which form the greater part of the soil of our present continents. the euphrates itself, at the mouth of which oannes landed, is a thing of yesterday compared with a belemnite; and even the liberal chronology of magian cosmogony fixes the beginning of the world only at a time when other applications of zadig's method afford convincing evidence that, could we have been there to see, things would have looked very much as they do now. truly the magi were wise in their generation; they foresaw rightly that this pestilent application of the principles of common sense, inaugurated by zadig, would be their ruin. but it may be said that the method of zadig, which is simple reasoning from analogy, does not account for the most striking feats of modern palaeontology--the reconstruction of entire animals from a tooth or perhaps a fragment of a bone; and it may be justly urged that cuvier, the great master of this kind of investigation, gave a very different account of the process which yielded such remarkable results. cuvier is not the first man of ability who has failed to make his own mental processes clear to himself, and he will not be the last. the matter can be easily tested. search the eight volumes of the "recherches sur les ossemens fossiles" from cover to cover, and nothing but the application of the method of zadig will be found in the arguments by which a fragment of a skeleton is made to reveal the characters of the animal to which it belonged. there is one well-known case which may represent all. it is an excellent illustration of cuvier's sagacity, and he evidently takes some pride in telling his story about it. a split slab of stone arrived from the quarries of montmartre, the two halves of which contained the greater part of the skeleton of a small animal. on careful examinations of the characters of the teeth and of the lower jaw, which happened to be exposed, cuvier assured himself that they presented such a very close resemblance to the corresponding parts in the living opossums that he at once assigned the fossil to that genus. now the opossums are unlike most mammals in that they possess two bones attached to the fore part of the pelvis, which are commonly called "marsupial bones." the name is a misnomer, originally conferred because it was thought that these bones have something to do with the support of the pouch, or marsupium, with which some, but not all, of the opossums are provided. as a matter of fact, they have nothing to do with the support of the pouch, and they exist as much in those opossums which have no pouches as in those which possess them. in truth, no one knows what the use of these bones may be, nor has any valid theory of their physiological import yet been suggested. and if we have no knowledge of the physiological importance of the bones themselves, it is obviously absurd to pretend that we are able to give physiological reasons why the presence of these bones is associated with certain peculiarities of the teeth and of the jaws. if any one knows why four molar teeth and an inflected angle of the jaw are very generally found along with marsupial bones, he has not yet communicated that knowledge to the world. if, however, zadig was right in concluding from the likeness of the hoof-prints which he observed to be a horse's that the creature which made them had a tail like that of a horse, cuvier, seeing that the teeth and jaw of his fossil were just like those of an opossum, had the same right to conclude that the pelvis would also be like an opossum's; and so strong was his conviction that this retrospective prophecy, about an animal which he had never seen before, and which had been dead and buried for millions of years, would be verified, that he went to work upon the slab which contained the pelvis in confident expectation of finding and laying bare the "marsupial bones," to the satisfaction of some persons whom he had invited to witness their disinterment. as he says:--"cette operation se fit en presence de quelques personnes a qui j'en avais annonce d'avance le resultat, dans l'intention de leur prouver par le fait la justice de nos theories zoologiques; puisque le vrai cachet d'une theorie est sans contredit la faculte qu'elle donne de prevoir les phenomenes." in the "ossemens fossiles" cuvier leaves his paper just as it first appeared in the "annales du museum," as "a curious monument of the force of zoological laws and of the use which may be made of them." zoological laws truly, but not physiological laws. if one sees a live dog's head, it is extremely probable that a dog's tail is not far off, though nobody can say why that sort of head and that sort of tail go together; what physiological connection there is between the two. so, in the case of the montmartre fossil, cuvier, finding a thorough opossum's head, concluded that the pelvis also would be like an opossum's. but, most assuredly, the most advanced physiologist of the present day could throw no light on the question why these are associated, nor could pretend to affirm that the existence of the one is necessarily connected with that of the other. in fact, had it so happened that the pelvis of the fossil had been originally exposed, while the head lay hidden, the presence of the "marsupial bones," though very like an opossum's, would by no means have warranted the prediction that the skull would turn out to be that of the opossum. it might just as well have been like that of some other marsupial; or even like that of the totally different group of monotremes, of which the only living representatives are the _echidna_ and the _ornithorhynchus._ for all practical purposes, however, the empirical laws of co-ordination of structures, which are embodied in the generalisations of morphology, may be confidently trusted, if employed with due caution, to lead to a just interpretation of fossil remains; or, in other words, we may look for the verification of the retrospective prophecies which are based upon them. and if this be the case, the late advances which have been made in palaeontological discovery open out a new field for such prophecies. for it has been ascertained with respect to many groups of animals, that, as we trace them back in time, their ancestors gradually cease to exhibit those special modifications which at present characterise the type, and more nearly embody the general plan of the group to which they belong. thus, in the well-known case of the horse, the toes which are suppressed in the living horse are found to be more and more complete in the older members of the group, until, at the bottom of the tertiary series of america, we find an equine animal which has four toes in front and three behind. no remains of the horse tribe are at present known from any mesozoic deposit. yet who can doubt that, whenever a sufficiently extensive series of lacustrine and fluviatile beds of that age becomes known, the lineage which has been traced thus far will be continued by equine quadrupeds with an increasing number of digits, until the horse type merges in the five-toed form towards which these gradations point? but the argument which holds good for the horse, holds good, not only for all mammals, but for the whole animal world. and as the study of the pedigrees, or lines of evolution, to which, at present, we have access, brings to light, as it assuredly will do, the laws of that process, we shall be able to reason from the facts with which the geological record furnishes us to those which have hitherto remained, and many of which, perhaps, may for ever remain, hidden. the same method of reasoning which enables us, when furnished with a fragment of an extinct animal, to prophesy the character which the whole organism exhibited, will, sooner or later, enable us, when we know a few of the later terms of a genealogical series, to predict the nature of the earlier terms. in no very distant future, the method of zadig, applied to a greater body of facts than the present generation is fortunate enough to handle, will enable the biologist to reconstruct the scheme of life from its beginning, and to speak as confidently of the character of long extinct beings, no trace of which has been preserved, as zadig did of the queen's spaniel and the king's horse. let us hope that they may be better rewarded for their toil and their sagacity than was the babylonian philosopher; for perhaps, by that time, the magi also may be reckoned among the members of a forgotten fauna, extinguished in the struggle for existence against their great rival, common sense. footnotes: [footnote : "discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe." _recherches sur les ossemens fossiles,_ ed. iv, t.i. p. .] [footnote : "on the eclipses of agathocles, thales, and xerxes," _philosophical transactions,_ vol. cxliii.] the rise and progress of palaeontology this is essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley that application of the sciences of biology and geology, which is commonly known as palaeontology, took its origin in the mind of the first person who, finding something like a shell, or a bone, naturally imbedded in gravel or rock, indulged in speculations upon the nature of this thing which he had dug out--this "fossil"--and upon the causes which had brought it into such a position. in this rudimentary form, a high antiquity may safely be ascribed to palaeontology, inasmuch as we know that, years before the christian era, the philosophic doctrines of xenophanes were influenced by his observations upon the fossil remains exposed in the quarries of syracuse. from this time forth not only the philosophers, but the poets, the historians, the geographers of antiquity occasionally refer to fossils; and, after the revival of learning, lively controversies arose respecting their real nature. but hardly more than two centuries have elapsed since this fundamental problem was first exhaustively treated; it was only in the last century that the archaeological value of fossils--their importance, i mean, as records of the history of the earth--was fully recognised; the first adequate investigation of the fossil remains of any large group of vertebrated animals is to be found in cuvier's "recherches sur les ossemens fossiles," completed in ; and, so modern is stratigraphical palaeontology, that its founder, william smith, lived to receive the just recognition of his services by the award of the first wollaston medal in . but, although palaeontology is a comparatively youthful scientific speciality, the mass of materials with which it has to deal is already prodigious. in the last fifty years the number of known fossil remains of invertebrated animals has been trebled or quadrupled. the work of interpretation of vertebrate fossils, the foundations of which were so solidly laid by cuvier, was carried on, with wonderful vigour and success, by agassiz in switzerland, by von meyer in germany, and last, but not least, by owen in this country, while, in later years, a multitude of workers have laboured in the same field. in many groups of the animal kingdom the number of fossil forms already known is as great as that of the existing species. in some cases it is much greater; and there are entire orders of animals of the existence of which we should know nothing except for the evidence afforded by fossil remains. with all this it may be safely assumed that, at the present moment, we are not acquainted with a tittle of the fossils which will sooner or later be discovered. if we may judge by the profusion yielded within the last few years by the tertiary formations of north america, there seems to be no limit to the multitude of mammalian remains to be expected from that continent; and analogy leads us to expect similar riches in eastern asia, whenever the tertiary formations of that region are as carefully explored. again, we have, as yet, almost everything to learn respecting the terrestrial population of the mesozoic epoch; and it seems as if the western territories of the united states were about to prove as instructive in regard to this point as they have in respect of tertiary life. my friend professor marsh informs me that, within two years, remains of more than distinct individuals of mammals, belonging to twenty species and nine genera, have been found in a space not larger than the floor of a good-sized room; while beds of the same age have yielded reptiles, varying in size from a length of feet or feet to the dimensions of a rabbit. the task which i have set myself to-night is to endeavour to lay before you, as briefly as possible, a sketch of the successive steps by which our present knowledge of the facts of palaeontology and of those conclusions from them which are indisputable, has been attained; and i beg leave to remind you, at the outset, that in attempting to sketch the progress of a branch of knowledge to which innumerable labours have contributed, my business is rather with generalisations than with details. it is my object to mark the epochs of palaeontology, not to recount all the events of its history. that which i just now called the fundamental problem of palaeontology, the question which has to be settled before any other can be profitably discussed, is this, what is the nature of fossils? are they, as the healthy common sense of the ancient greeks appears to have led them to assume without hesitation, the remains of animals and plants? or are they, as was so generally maintained in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, mere figured stones, portions of mineral matter which have assumed the forms of leaves and shells and bones, just as those portions of mineral matter which we call crystals take on the form of regular geometrical solids? or, again, are they, as others thought, the products of the germs of animals and of the seeds of plants which have lost their way, as it were, in the bowels of the earth, and have achieved only an imperfect and abortive development? it is easy to sneer at our ancestors for being disposed to reject the first in favour of one or other of the last two hypotheses; but it is much more profitable to try to discover why they, who were really not one whit less sensible persons than our excellent selves, should have been led to entertain views which strike us as absurd, the belief in what is erroneously called spontaneous generation, that is to say, in the development of living matter out of mineral matter, apart from the agency of pre-existing living matter, as an ordinary occurrence at the present day--which is still held by some of us, was universally accepted as an obvious truth by them. they could point to the arborescent forms assumed by hoar-frost and by sundry metallic minerals as evidence of the existence in nature of a "plastic force" competent to enable inorganic matter to assume the form of organised bodies. then, as every one who is familiar with fossils knows, they present innumerable gradations, from shells and bones which exactly resemble the recent objects, to masses of mere stone which, however accurately they repeat the outward form of the organic body, have nothing else in common with it; and, thence, to mere traces and faint impressions in the continuous substance of the rock. what we now know to be the results of the chemical changes which take place in the course of fossilisation, by which mineral is substituted for organic substance, might, in the absence of such knowledge, be fairly interpreted as the expression of a process of development in the opposite direction--from the mineral to the organic. moreover, in an age when it would have seemed the most absurd of paradoxes to suggest that the general level of the sea is constant, while that of the solid land fluctuates up and down through thousands of feet in a secular ground swell, it may well have appeared far less hazardous to conceive that fossils are sports of nature than to accept the necessary alternative, that all the inland regions and highlands, in the rocks of which marine shells had been found, had once been covered by the ocean. it is not so surprising, therefore, as it may at first seem, that although such men as leonardo da vinci and bernard palissy took just views of the nature of fossils, the opinion of the majority of their contemporaries set strongly the other way; nor even that error maintained itself long after the scientific grounds of the true interpretation of fossils had been stated, in a manner that left nothing to be desired, in the latter half of the seventeenth century. the person who rendered this good service to palaeontology was nicolas steno, professor of anatomy in florence, though a dane by birth. collectors of fossils at that day were familiar with certain bodies termed "glossopetrae," and speculation was rife as to their nature. in the first half of the seventeenth century, fabio colonna had tried to convince his colleagues of the famous accademia dei lincei that the glossopetrae were merely fossil sharks' teeth, but his arguments made no impression. fifty years later, steno re-opened the question, and, by dissecting the head of a shark and pointing out the very exact correspondence of its teeth with the glossopetrae, left no rational doubt as to the origin of the latter. thus far, the work of steno went little further than that of colonna, but it fortunately occurred to him to think out the whole subject of the interpretation of fossils, and the result of his meditations was the publication, in , of a little treatise with the very quaint title of "de solido intra solidum naturaliter contento." the general course of steno's argument may be stated in a few words. fossils are solid bodies which, by some natural process, have come to be contained within other solid bodies, namely, the rocks in which they are embedded; and the fundamental problem of palaeontology, stated generally, is this: "given a body endowed with a certain shape and produced in accordance with natural laws, to find in that body itself the evidence of the place and manner of its production." [ ] the only way of solving this problem is by the application of the axiom that "like effects imply like causes," or as steno puts it, in reference to this particular case, that "bodies which are altogether similar have been produced in the same way." [ ] hence, since the glossopetrae are altogether similar to sharks' teeth, they must have been produced by sharklike fishes; and since many fossil shells correspond, down to the minutest details of structure, with the shells of existing marine or freshwater animals, they must have been produced by similar animals; and the like reasoning is applied by steno to the fossil bones of vertebrated animals, whether aquatic or terrestrial. to the obvious objection that many fossils are not altogether similar to their living analogues, differing in substance while agreeing in form, or being mere hollows or impressions, the surfaces of which are figured in the same way as those of animal or vegetable organisms, steno replies by pointing out the changes which take place in organic remains embedded in the earth, and how their solid substance may be dissolved away entirely, or replaced by mineral matter, until nothing is left of the original but a cast, an impression, or a mere trace of its contours. the principles of investigation thus excellently stated and illustrated by steno in , are those which have, consciously or unconsciously, guided the researches of palaeontologists ever since. even that feat of palaeontology which has so powerfully impressed the popular imagination, the reconstruction of an extinct animal from a tooth or a bone, is based upon the simplest imaginable application of the logic of steno. a moment's consideration will show, in fact, that steno's conclusion that the glossopetrae are sharks' teeth implies the reconstruction of an animal from its tooth. it is equivalent to the assertion that the animal of which the glossopetrae are relics had the form and organisation of a shark; that it had a skull, a vertebral column, and limbs similar to those which are characteristic of this group of fishes; that its heart, gills, and intestines presented the peculiarities which those of all sharks exhibit; nay, even that any hard parts which its integument contained were of a totally different character from the scales of ordinary fishes. these conclusions are as certain as any based upon probable reasonings can be. and they are so, simply because a very large experience justifies us in believing that teeth of this particular form and structure are invariably associated with the peculiar organisation of sharks, and are never found in connection with other organisms. why this should be we are not at present in a position even to imagine; we must take the fact as an empirical law of animal morphology, the reason of which may possibly be one day found in the history of the evolution of the shark tribe, but for which it is hopeless to seek for an explanation in ordinary physiological reasonings. every one practically acquainted with palaeontology is aware that it is not every tooth, nor every bone, which enables us to form a judgment of the character of the animal to which it belonged; and that it is possible to possess many teeth, and even a large portion of the skeleton of an extinct animal, and yet be unable to reconstruct its skull or its limbs. it is only when the tooth or bone presents peculiarities, which we know by previous experience to be characteristic of a certain group, that we can safely predict that the fossil belonged to an animal of the same group. any one who finds a cow's grinder may be perfectly sure that it belonged to an animal which had two complete toes on each foot and ruminated; any one who finds a horse's grinder may be as sure that it had one complete toe on each foot and did not ruminate; but if ruminants and horses were extinct animals of which nothing but the grinders had ever been discovered, no amount of physiological reasoning could have enabled us to reconstruct either animal, still less to have divined the wide differences between the two. cuvier, in the "discours sur les revolutions de la surface du globe," strangely credits himself, and has ever since been credited by others, with the invention of a new method of palaeontological research. but if you will turn to the "recherches sur les ossemens fossiles" and watch cuvier, not speculating, but working, you will find that his method is neither more nor less than that of steno. if he was able to make his famous prophecy from the jaw which lay upon the surface of a block of stone to the pelvis of the same animal which lay hidden in it, it was not because either he, or any one else, knew, or knows, why a certain form of jaw is, as a rule, constantly accompanied by the presence of marsupial bones, but simply because experience has shown that these two structures are co-ordinated. the settlement of the nature of fossils led at once to the next advance of palaeontology, viz. its application to the deciphering of the history of the earth. when it was admitted that fossils are remains of animals and plants, it followed that, in so far as they resemble terrestrial, or freshwater, animals and plants, they are evidences of the existence of land, or fresh water; and, in so far as they resemble marine organisms, they are evidences of the existence of the sea at the time at which they were parts of actually living animals and plants. moreover, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, it must be admitted that the terrestrial or the marine organisms implied the existence of land or sea at the place in which they were found while they were yet living. in fact, such conclusions were immediately drawn by everybody, from the time of xenophanes downwards, who believed that fossils were really organic remains. steno discusses their value as evidence of repeated alteration of marine and terrestrial conditions upon the soil of tuscany in a manner worthy of a modern geologist. the speculations of de maillet in the beginning of the eighteenth century turn upon fossils; and buffon follows him very closely in those two remarkable works, the "theorie de la terre" and the "epoques de la nature" with which he commenced and ended his career as a naturalist. the opening sentences of the "epoques de la nature" show us how fully buffon recognised the analogy of geological with archaeological inquiries. "as in civil history we consult deeds, seek for coins, or decipher antique inscriptions in order to determine the epochs of human revolutions and fix the date of moral events; so, in natural history, we must search the archives of the world, recover old monuments from the bowels of the earth, collect their fragmentary remains, and gather into one body of evidence all the signs of physical change which may enable us to look back upon the different ages of nature. it is our only means of fixing some points in the immensity of space, and of setting a certain number of waymarks along the eternal path of time." buffon enumerates five classes of these monuments of the past history of the earth, and they are all facts of palaeontology. in the first place, he says, shells and other marine productions are found all over the surface and in the interior of the dry land; and all calcareous rocks are made up of their remains. secondly, a great many of these shells which are found in europe are not now to be met with in the adjacent seas; and, in the slates and other deep-seated deposits, there are remains of fishes and of plants of which no species now exist in our latitudes, and which are either extinct, or exist only in more northern climates. thirdly, in siberia and in other northern regions of europe and of asia, bones and teeth of elephants, rhinoceroses, and hippopotamuses occur in such numbers that these animals must once have lived and multiplied in those regions, although at the present day they are confined to southern climates. the deposits in which these remains are found are superficial, while those which contain shells and other marine remains lie much deeper. fourthly, tusks and bones of elephants and hippopotamuses are found not only in the northern regions of the old world, but also in those of the new world, although, at present, neither elephants nor hippopotamuses occur in america. fifthly, in the middle of the continents, in regions most remote from the sea, we find an infinite number of shells, of which the most part belong to animals of those kinds which still exist in southern seas, but of which many others have no living analogues; so that these species appear to be lost, destroyed by some unknown cause. it is needless to inquire how far these statements are strictly accurate; they are sufficiently so to justify buffon's conclusions that the dry land was once beneath the sea; that the formation of the fossiliferous rocks must have occupied a vastly greater lapse of time than that traditionally ascribed to the age of the earth; that fossil remains indicate different climatal conditions to have obtained in former times, and especially that the polar regions were once warmer; that many species of animals and plants have become extinct; and that geological change has had something to do with geographical distribution. but these propositions almost constitute the frame-work of palaeontology. in order to complete it but one addition was needed, and that was made, in the last years of the eighteenth century, by william smith, whose work comes so near our own times that many living men may have been personally acquainted with him. this modest land-surveyor, whose business took him into many parts of england, profited by the peculiarly favourable conditions offered by the arrangement of our secondary strata to make a careful examination and comparison of their fossil contents at different points of the large area over which they extend. the result of his accurate and widely-extended observations was to establish the important truth that each stratum contains certain fossils which are peculiar to it; and that the order in which the strata, characterised by these fossils, are super-imposed one upon the other is always the same. this most important generalisation was rapidly verified and extended to all parts of the world accessible to geologists; and now it rests upon such an immense mass of observations as to be one of the best established truths of natural science. to the geologist the discovery was of infinite importance as it enabled him to identify rocks of the same relative age, however their continuity might be interrupted or their composition altered. but to the biologist it had a still deeper meaning, for it demonstrated that, throughout the prodigious duration of time registered by the fossiliferous rocks, the living population of the earth had undergone continual changes, not merely by the extinction of a certain number of the species which had at first existed, but by the continual generation of new species, and the no less constant extinction of old ones. thus the broad outlines of palaeontology, in so far as it is the common property of both the geologist and the biologist, were marked out at the close of the last century. in tracing its subsequent progress i must confine myself to the province of biology, and, indeed, to the influence of palaeontology upon zoological morphology. and i accept this limitation the more willingly as the no less important topic of the bearing of geology and of palaeontology upon distribution has been luminously treated in the address of the president of the geographical section. [ ] the succession of the species of animals and plants in time being established, the first question which the zoologist or the botanist had to ask himself was, what is the relation of these successive species one to another? and it is a curious circumstance that the most important event in the history of palaeontology which immediately succeeded william smith's generalisation was a discovery which, could it have been rightly appreciated at the time, would have gone far towards suggesting the answer, which was in fact delayed for more than half a century. i refer to cuvier's investigation of the mammalian fossils yielded by the quarries in the older tertiary rocks of montmartre, among the chief results of which was the bringing to light of two genera of extinct hoofed quadrupeds, the _anoplotherium_ and the _palaeotherium._ the rich materials at cuvier's disposition enabled him to obtain a full knowledge of the osteology and of the dentition of these two forms, and consequently to compare their structure critically with that of existing hoofed animals. the effect of this comparison was to prove that the _anoplotherium,_ though it presented many points of resemblance with the pigs on the one hand and with the ruminants on the other, differed from both to such an extent that it could find a place in neither group. in fact, it held, in some respects, an intermediate position, tending to bridge over the interval between these two groups, which in the existing fauna are so distinct. in the same way, the _palaeotherium_ tended to connect forms so different as the tapir, the rhinoceros, and the horse. subsequent investigations have brought to light a variety of facts of the same order, the most curious and striking of which are those which prove the existence, in the mesozoic epoch, of a series of forms intermediate between birds and reptiles--two classes of vertebrate animals which at present appear to be more widely separated than any others. yet the interval between them is completely filled, in the mesozoic fauna, by birds which have reptilian characters, on the one side, and reptiles which have ornithic characters, on the other. so again, while the group of fishes, termed ganoids, is, at the present time, so distinct from that of the dipnoi, or mudfishes, that they have been reckoned as distinct orders, the devonian strata present us with forms of which it is impossible to say with certainty whether they are dipnoi or whether they are ganoids. agassiz's long and elaborate researches upon fossil fishes, published between and , led him to suggest the existence of another kind of relation between ancient and modern forms of life. he observed that the oldest fishes present many characters which recall the embryonic conditions of existing fishes; and that, not only among fishes, but in several groups of the invertebrata which have a long palaeontological history, the latest forms are more modified, more specialised, than the earlier. the fact that the dentition of the older tertiary ungulate and carnivorous mammals is always complete, noticed by professor owen, illustrated the same generalisation. another no less suggestive observation was made by mr. darwin, whose personal investigations during the voyage of the _beagle_ led him to remark upon the singular fact, that the fauna, which immediately precedes that at present existing in any geographical province of distribution, presents the same peculiarities as its successor. thus, in south america and in australia, the later tertiary or quaternary fossils show that the fauna which immediately preceded that of the present day was, in the one case, as much characterised by edentates and, in the other, by marsupials as it is now, although the species of the older are largely different from those of the newer fauna. however clearly these indications might point in one direction, the question of the exact relation of the successive forms of animal and vegetable life could be satisfactorily settled only in one way; namely, by comparing, stage by stage, the series of forms presented by one and the same type throughout a long space of time. within the last few years this has been done fully in the case of the horse, less completely in the case of the other principal types of the ungulata and of the carnivora; and all these investigations tend to one general result, namely, that, in any given series, the successive members of that series present a gradually increasing specialisation of structure. that is to say, if any such mammal at present existing has specially modified and reduced limbs or dentition and complicated brain, its predecessors in time show less and less modification and reduction in limbs and teeth and a less highly developed brain. the labours of gaudry, marsh, and cope furnish abundant illustrations of this law from the marvellous fossil wealth of pikermi and the vast uninterrupted series of tertiary rocks in the territories of north america. i will now sum up the results of this sketch of the rise and progress of palaeontology. the whole fabric of palaeontology is based upon two propositions: the first is, that fossils are the remains of animals and plants; and the second is, that the stratified rocks in which they are found are sedimentary deposits; and each of these propositions is founded upon the same axiom, that like effects imply like causes. if there is any cause competent to produce a fossil stem, or shell, or bone, except a living being, then palaeontology has no foundation; if the stratification of the rocks is not the effect of such causes as at present produce stratification, we have no means of judging of the duration of past time, or of the order in which the forms of life have succeeded one another. but if these two propositions are granted, there is no escape, as it appears to me, from three very important conclusions. the first is that living matter has existed upon the earth for a vast length of time, certainly for millions of years. the second is that, during this lapse of time, the forms of living matter have undergone repeated changes, the effect of which has been that the animal and vegetable population, at any period of the earth's history, contains certain species which did not exist at some antecedent period, and others which ceased to exist at some subsequent period. the third is that, in the case of many groups of mammals and some of reptiles, in which one type can be followed through a considerable extent of geological time, the series of different forms by which the type is represented, at successive intervals of this time, is exactly such as it would be, if they had been produced by the gradual modification of the earliest forms of the series. these are facts of the history of the earth guaranteed by as good evidence as any facts in civil history. hitherto i have kept carefully clear of all the hypotheses to which men have at various times endeavoured to fit the facts of palaeontology, or by which they have endeavoured to connect as many of these facts as they happened to be acquainted with. i do not think it would be a profitable employment of our time to discuss conceptions which doubtless have had their justification and even their use, but which are now obviously incompatible with the well-ascertained truths of palaeontology. at present these truths leave room for only two hypotheses. the first is that, in the course of the history of the earth, innumerable species of animals and plants have come into existence, independently of one another, innumerable times. this, of course, implies either that spontaneous generation on the most astounding scale, and of animals such as horses and elephants, has been going on, as a natural process, through all the time recorded by the fossiliferous rocks; or it necessitates the belief in innumerable acts of creation repeated innumerable times. the other hypothesis is, that the successive species of animals and plants have arisen, the later by the gradual modification of the earlier. this is the hypothesis of evolution; and the palaeontological discoveries of the last decade are so completely in accordance with the requirements of this hypothesis that, if it had not existed, the palaeontologist would have had to invent it. i have always had a certain horror of presuming to set a limit upon the possibilities of things. therefore i will not venture to say that it is impossible that the multitudinous species of animals and plants may have been produced, one separately from the other, by spontaneous generation; nor that it is impossible that they should have been independently originated by an endless succession of miraculous creative acts. but i must confess that both these hypotheses strike me as so astoundingly improbable, so devoid of a shred of either scientific or traditional support, that even if there were no other evidence than that of palaeontology in its favour, i should feel compelled to adopt the hypothesis of evolution. happily, the future of palaeontology is independent of all hypothetical considerations. fifty years hence, whoever undertakes to record the progress of palaeontology will note the present time as the epoch in which the law of succession of the forms of the higher animals was determined by the observation of palaeontological facts. he will point out that, just as steno and as cuvier were enabled from their knowledge of the empirical laws of co-existence of the parts of animals to conclude from a part to the whole, so the knowledge of the law of succession of forms empowered their successors to conclude, from one or two terms of such a succession, to the whole series; and thus to divine the existence of forms of life, of which, perhaps, no trace remains, at epochs of inconceivable remoteness in the past. footnotes: [footnote : _de solidoiintra solidum,_ p. --"dato corpore certa figura praedito et juxta leges naturae producto, in ipso corpore argumenta invenire locum et modum productionis detegentia."] [footnote : "corpora sibi invicem omnino similia simili etiam modo producta sunt."] [footnote : sir j. d. hooker.] the lights of the church and the light of science essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley there are three ways of regarding any account of past occurrences, whether delivered to us orally or recorded in writing. the narrative may be exactly true. that is to say, the words, taken in their natural sense, and interpreted according to the rules of grammar, may convey to the mind of the hearer, or of the reader an idea precisely correspondent with one which would have remained in the mind of a witness. for example, the statement that king charles the first was beheaded at whitehall on the th day of january , is as exactly true as any proposition in mathematics or physics; no one doubts that any person of sound faculties, properly placed, who was present at whitehall throughout that day, and who used his eyes, would have seen the king's head cut off; and that there would have remained in his mind an idea of that occurrence which he would have put into words of the same value as those which we use to express it. or the narrative may be partly true and partly false. thus, some histories of the time tell us what the king said, and what bishop juxon said; or report royalist conspiracies to effect a rescue; or detail the motives which induced the chiefs of the commonwealth to resolve that the king should die. one account declares that the king knelt at a high block, another that he lay down with his neck on a mere plank. and there are contemporary pictorial representations of both these modes of procedure. such narratives, while veracious as to the main event, may and do exhibit various degrees of unconscious and conscious misrepresentation, suppression, and invention, till they become hardly distinguishable from pure fictions. thus, they present a transition to narratives of a third class, in which the fictitious element predominates. here, again, there are all imaginable gradations, from such works as defoe's quasi-historical account of the plague year, which probably gives a truer conception of that dreadful time than any authentic history, through the historical novel, drama, and epic, to the purely phantasmal creations of imaginative genius, such as the old "arabian nights" or the modern "shaving of shagpat." it is not strictly needful for my present purpose that i should say anything about narratives which are professedly fictitious. yet it may be well, perhaps, if i disclaim any intention of derogating from their value, when i insist upon the paramount necessity of recollecting that there is no sort of relation between the ethical, or the aesthetic, or even the scientific importance of such works, and their worth as historical documents. unquestionably, to the poetic artist, or even to the student of psychology, "hamlet" and "macbeth" may be better instructors than all the books of a wilderness of professors of aesthetics or of moral philosophy. but, as evidence of occurrences in denmark, or in scotland, at the times and places indicated, they are out of court; the profoundest admiration for them, the deepest gratitude for their influence, are consistent with the knowledge that, historically speaking, they are worthless fables, in which any foundation of reality that may exist is submerged beneath the imaginative superstructure. at present, however, i am not concerned to dwell upon the importance of fictitious literature and the immensity of the work which it has effected in the education of the human race. i propose to deal with the much more limited inquiry: are there two other classes of consecutive narratives (as distinct from statements of individual facts), or only one? is there any known historical work which is throughout exactly true, or is there not? in the case of the great majority of histories the answer is not doubtful: they are all only partially true. even those venerable works which bear the names of some of the greatest of ancient greek and roman writers, and which have been accepted by generation after generation, down to modern times, as stories of unquestionable truth, have been compelled by scientific criticism, after a long battle, to descend to the common level, and to confession to a large admixture of error. i might fairly take this for granted; but it may be well that i should entrench myself behind the very apposite words of a historical authority who is certainly not obnoxious to even a suspicion of sceptical tendencies. [ ] time was--and that not very long ago--when all the relations of ancient authors concerning the old world were received with a ready belief; and an unreasoning and uncritical faith accepted with equal satisfaction the narrative of the campaigns of caesar and of the doings of romulus, the account of alexander's marches and of the conquests of semiramis. we can most of us remember when, in this country, the whole story of regal rome, and even the legend of the trojan settlement in latium, were seriously placed before boys as history, and discoursed of as unhesitatingly and in as dogmatic a tone as the tale of the catilline conspiracy or the conquest of britain.... but all this is now changed. the last century has seen the birth and growth of a new science--the science of historical criticism.... the whole world of profane history has been revolutionised.... if these utterances were true when they fell from the lips of a bampton lecturer in , with how much greater force do they appeal to us now, when the immense labours of the generation now passing away constitute one vast illustration of the power and fruitfulness of scientific methods of investigation in history, no less than in all other departments of knowledge. at the present time, i suppose, there is no one who doubts that histories which appertain to any other people than the jews, and their spiritual progeny in the first century, fall within the second class of the three enumerated. like goethe's autobiography, they might all be entitled "wahrheit und dichtung"--"truth and fiction." the proportion of the two constituents changes indefinitely; and the quality of the fiction varies through the whole gamut of unveracity. but "dichtung" is always there. for the most acute and learned of historians cannot remedy the imperfections of his sources of information; nor can the most impartial wholly escape the influence of the "personal equation" generated by his temperament and by his education. therefore, from the narratives of herodotus to those set forth in yesterday's "times," all history is to be read subject to the warning that fiction has its share therein. the modern vast development of fugitive literature cannot be the unmitigated evil that some do vainly say it is, since it has put an end to the popular delusion of less press-ridden times, that what appears in print must be true. we should rather hope that some beneficent influence may create among the erudite a like healthy suspicion of manuscripts and inscriptions, however ancient; for a bulletin may lie, even though it be written in cuneiform characters. hotspur's starling, that was to be taught to speak nothing but "mortimer" into the ears of king henry the fourth, might be a useful inmate of every historian's library, if "fiction" were substituted for the name of harry percy's friend. but it was the chief object of the lecturer to the congregation gathered in st. mary's, oxford, thirty-one years ago, to prove to them, by evidence gathered with no little labour and marshalled with much skill, that one group of historical works was exempt from the general rule; and that the narratives contained in the canonical scriptures are free from any admixture of error. with justice and candour, the lecturer impresses upon his hearers that the special distinction of christianity, among the religions of the world, lies in its claim to be historical; to be surely founded upon events which have happened, exactly as they are declared to have happened in its sacred books; which are true, that is, in the sense that the statement about the execution of charles the first is true. further, it is affirmed that the new testament presupposes the historical exactness of the old testament; that the points of contact of "sacred" and "profane" history are innumerable; and that the demonstration of the falsity of the hebrew records, especially in regard to those narratives which are assumed to be true in the new testament, would be fatal to christian theology. my utmost ingenuity does not enable me to discover a flaw in the argument thus briefly summarised. i am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the jewish scriptures. the very conception of the messiah, or christ, is inextricably interwoven with jewish history; the identification of jesus of nazareth with that messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the hebrew scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. if the covenant with abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by jahveh; if the "ten words" were not written by god's hand on the stone tables; if abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as theseus; the story of the deluge a fiction; that of the fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of rome--what is to be said about the messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? and what about the authority of the writers of the books of the new testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of christian dogma upon legendary quicksands? but these may be said to be merely the carpings of that carnal reason which the profane call common sense; i hasten, therefore, to bring up the forces of unimpeachable ecclesiastical authority in support of my position. in a sermon preached last december, in st. paul's cathedral, [ ] canon liddon declares:-- "for christians it will be enough to know that our lord jesus christ set the seal of his infallible sanction on the whole of the old testament. he found the hebrew canon as we have it in our hands to-day, and he treated it as an authority which was above discussion. nay more: he went out of his way--if we may reverently speak thus--to sanction not a few portions of it which modern scepticism rejects. when he would warn his hearers against the dangers of spiritual relapse, he bids them remember 'lot's wife.' [ ] when he would point out how worldly engagements may blind the soul to a coming judgment, he reminds them how men ate, and drank, and married, and were given in marriage, until the day that noah entered into the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. [ ] if he would put his finger on a fact in past jewish history which, by its admitted reality, would warrant belief in his own coming resurrection, he points to jonah's being three days and three nights in the whale's belly (p. )." [ ] the preacher proceeds to brush aside the common--i had almost said vulgar--apologetic pretext that jesus was using _ad hominem_ arguments, or "accommodating" his better knowledge to popular ignorance, as well as to point out the inadmissibility of the other alternative, that he shared the popular ignorance. and to those who hold the latter view sarcasm is dealt out with no niggard hand. but they will find it difficult to persuade mankind that, if he could be mistaken on a matter of such strictly religious importance as the value of the sacred literature of his countrymen, he can be safely trusted about anything else. the trustworthiness of the old testament is, in fact, inseparable from the trustworthiness of our lord jesus christ; and if we believe that he is the true light of the world, we shall close our ears against suggestions impairing the credit of those jewish scriptures which have received the stamp of his divine authority. (p. ) moreover, i learn from the public journals that a brilliant and sharply-cut view of orthodoxy, of like hue and pattern, was only the other day exhibited in that great theological kaleidoscope, the pulpit of st. mary's, recalling the time so long passed by, when a bampton lecturer, in the same place, performed the unusual feat of leaving the faith of old-fashioned christians undisturbed. yet many things have happened in the intervening thirty-one years. the bampton lecturer of had to grapple only with the infant hercules of historical criticism; and he is now a full-grown athlete, bearing on his shoulders the spoils of all the lions that have stood in his path. surely a martyr's courage, as well as a martyr's faith, is needed by any one who, at this time, is prepared to stand by the following plea for the veracity of the pentateuch:-- "adam, according to the hebrew original, was for years contemporary with methuselah, who conversed for a hundred years with shem. shem was for fifty years contemporary with jacob, who probably saw jochebed, moses's mother. thus, moses might by oral tradition have obtained the history of abraham, and even of the deluge, at third hand; and that of the temptation and the fall at fifth hand.... "if it be granted--as it seems to be--that the great and stirring events in a nation's life will, under ordinary circumstances, be remembered (apart from all written memorials) for the space of years, being handed down through five generations, it must be allowed (even on more human grounds) that the account which moses gives of the temptation and the fall is to be depended upon, if it passed through no more than four hands between him and adam." [ ] if "the trustworthiness of our lord jesus christ" is to stand or fall with the belief in the sudden transmutation of the chemical components of a woman's body into sodium chloride, or on the "admitted reality" of jonah's ejection, safe and sound, on the shores of the levant, after three days' sea-journey in the stomach of a gigantic marine animal, what possible pretext can there be for even hinting a doubt as to the precise truth of the longevity attributed to the patriarchs? who that has swallowed the camel of jonah's journey will be guilty of the affectation of straining at such a historical gnat--nay, midge--as the supposition that the mother of moses was told the story of the flood by jacob; who had it straight from shem; who was on friendly terms with methuselah; who knew adam quite well? yet, by the strange irony of things, the illustrious brother of the divine who propounded this remarkable theory, has been the guide and foremost worker of that band of investigators of the records of assyria and of babylonia, who have opened to our view, not merely a new chapter, but a new volume of primeval history, relating to the very people who have the most numerous points of contact with the life of the ancient hebrews. now, whatever imperfections may yet obscure the full value of the mesopotamian records, everything that has been clearly ascertained tends to the conclusion that the assignment of no more than years to the period between the time of the origin of mankind and that of augustus caesar, is wholly inadmissible. therefore the biblical chronology, which canon rawlinson trusted so implicitly in , is relegated by all serious critics to the domain of fable. but if scientific method, operating in the region of history, of philology, of archaeology, in the course of the last thirty or forty years, has become thus formidable to the theological dogmatist, what may not be said about scientific method working in the province of physical science? for, if it be true that the canonical scriptures have innumerable points of contact with civil history, it is no less true that they have almost as many with natural history; and their accuracy is put to the test as severely by the latter as by the former. the origin of the present state of the heavens and the earth is a problem which lies strictly within the province of physical science; so is that of the origin of man among living things; so is that of the physical changes which the earth has undergone since the origin of man; so is that of the origin of the various races and nations of men, with all their varieties of language and physical conformation. whether the earth moves round the sun or the contrary; whether the bodily and mental diseases of men and animals are caused by evil spirits or not; whether there is such an agency as witchcraft or not--all these are purely scientific questions; and to all of them the canonical scriptures profess to give true answers. and though nothing is more common than the assumption that these books come into conflict only with the speculative part of modern physical science, no assumption can have less foundation. the antagonism between natural knowledge and the pentateuch would be as great if the speculations of our time had never been heard of. it arises out of contradiction upon matters of fact. the books of ecclesiastical authority declare that certain events happened in a certain fashion; the books of scientific authority say they did not. as it seems that this unquestionable truth has not yet penetrated among many of those who speak and write on these subjects, it may be useful to give a full illustration of it. and for that purpose i propose to deal, at some length, with the narrative of the noachian deluge given in genesis. the bampton lecturer in , and the canon of st. paul's in , are in full agreement that this history is true, in the sense in which i have defined historical truth. the former is of opinion that the account attributed to berosus records a tradition-- not drawn from the hebrew record, much less the foundation of that record; yet coinciding with it in the most remarkable way. the babylonian version is tricked out with a few extravagances, as the monstrous size of the vessel and the translation of xisuthros; but otherwise it is the hebrew history _down to its minutiae._ (p. ). moreover, correcting niebuhr, the bampton lecturer points out that the narrative of berosus implies the universality of the flood. it is plain that the waters are represented as prevailing above the tops of the loftiest mountains in armenia--a height which must have been seen to involve the submersion of all the countries with which the babylonians were acquainted (p. ). i may remark, in passing, that many people think the size of noah's ark "monstrous," considering the probable state of the art of shipbuilding only years after the origin of man; while others are so unreasonable as to inquire why the translation of enoch is less an "extravagance" than that of xisuthros. it is more important, however, to note that the universality of the deluge is recognised, not merely as a part of the story, but as a necessary consequence of some of its details. the latest exponent of anglican orthodoxy, as we have seen, insists upon the accuracy of the pentateuchal history of the flood in a still more forcible manner. it is cited as one of those very narratives to which the authority of the founder of christianity is pledged, and upon the accuracy of which "the trustworthiness of our lord jesus christ" is staked, just as others have staked it upon the truth of the histories of demoniac possession in the gospels. now, when those who put their trust in scientific methods of ascertaining the truth in the province of natural history find themselves confronted and opposed, on their own ground, by ecclesiastical pretensions to better knowledge, it is, undoubtedly, most desirable for them to make sure that their conclusions, whatever they may be, are well founded. and, if they put aside the unauthorised interference with their business and relegate the pentateuchal history to the region of pure fiction, they are bound to assure themselves that they do so because the plainest teachings of nature (apart from all doubtful speculations) are irreconcilable with the assertions which they reject. at the present time, it is difficult to persuade serious scientific inquirers to occupy themselves, in any way, with the noachian deluge. they look at you with a smile and a shrug, and say they have more important matters to attend to than mere antiquarianism. but it was not so in my youth. at that time, geologists and biologists could hardly follow to the end any path of inquiry without finding the way blocked by noah and his ark, or by the first chapter of genesis; and it was a serious matter, in this country at any rate, for a man to be suspected of doubting the literal truth of the diluvial or any other pentateuchal history. the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the geological club (in ) was, if i remember rightly, the last occasion on which the late sir charles lyell spoke to even so small a public as the members of that body. our veteran leader lighted up once more; and, referring to the difficulties which beset his early efforts to create a rational science of geology, spoke, with his wonted clearness and vigour, of the social ostracism which pursued him after the publication of the "principles of geology," in , on account of the obvious tendency of that noble work to discredit the pentateuchal accounts of the creation and the deluge. if my younger contemporaries find this hard to believe, i may refer them to a grave book, "on the doctrine of the deluge," published eight years later, and dedicated by its author to his father, the then archbishop of york. the first chapter refers to the treatment of the "mosaic deluge," by dr. buckland and mr. lyell, in the following terms: their respect for revealed religion has prevented them from arraying themselves openly against the scriptural account of it --much less do they deny its truth--but they are in a great hurry to escape from the consideration of it, and evidently concur in the opinion of linnaeus, that no proofs whatever of the deluge are to be discovered in the structure of the earth (p. ). and after an attempt to reply to some of lyell's arguments, which it would be cruel to reproduce, the writer continues:-- when, therefore, upon such slender grounds, it is determined, in answer to those who insist upon its universality, that the mosaic deluge must be considered a preternatural event, far beyond the reach of philosophical inquiry; not only as to the causes employed to produce it, but as to the effects most likely to result from it; that determination wears an aspect of scepticism, which, however much soever it may be unintentional in the mind of the writer, yet cannot but produce an evil impression on those who are already predisposed to carp and cavil at the evidences of revelation (pp. - ). the kindly and courteous writer of these curious passages is evidently unwilling to make the geologists the victims of general opprobrium by pressing the obvious consequences of their teaching home. one is therefore pained to think of the feelings with which, if he lived so long as to become acquainted with the "dictionary of the bible," he must have perused the article "noah," written by a dignitary of the church for that standard compendium and published in . for the doctrine of the universality of the deluge is therein altogether given up; and i permit myself to hope that a long criticism of the story from the point of view of natural science, with which, at the request of the learned theologian who wrote it, i supplied him, may, in some degree, have contributed towards this happy result. notwithstanding diligent search, i have been unable to discover that the universality of the deluge has any defender left, at least among those who have so far mastered the rudiments of natural knowledge as to be able to appreciate the weight of evidence against it. for example, when i turned to the "speaker's bible," published under the sanction of high anglican authority, i found the following judicial and judicious deliverance, the skilful wording of which may adorn, but does not hide, the completeness of the surrender of the old teaching:-- "without pronouncing too hastily on any fair inferences from the words of scripture, we may reasonably say that their most natural interpretation is, that the whole race of man had become grievously corrupted since the faithful had intermingled with the ungodly; that the inhabited world was consequently filled with violence, and that god had decreed to destroy all mankind except one single family; that, therefore, all that portion of the earth, perhaps as yet a very small portion, into which mankind had spread was overwhelmed with water. the ark was ordained to save one faithful family; and lest that family, on the subsidence of the waters, should find the whole country round them a desert, a pair of all the beasts of the land and of the fowls of the air were preserved along with them, and along with them went forth to replenish the now desolated continent. the words of scripture (confirmed as they are by universal tradition) appear at least to mean as much as this. they do not necessarily mean more." [ ] in the third edition of kitto's "cyclopaedia of biblical literature" ( ), the article "deluge," written by my friend, the present distinguished head of the geological survey of great britain, extinguishes the universality doctrine as thoroughly as might be expected from its authorship; and, since the writer of the article "noah" refers his readers to that entitled "deluge," it is to be supposed, notwithstanding his generally orthodox tone, that he does not dissent from its conclusions. again, the writers in herzog's "real-encyclopadie" (bd. x. ) and in riehm's "handworterbuch" ( )--both works with a conservative leaning--are on the same side; and diestel, [ ] in his full discussion of the subject, remorselessly rejects the universality doctrine. even that staunch opponent of scientific rationalism--may i say rationality?--zockler [ ] flinches from a distinct defence of the thesis, any opposition to which, well within my recollection, was howled down by the orthodox as mere "infidelity." all that, in his sore straits, dr. zockler is able to do, is to pronounce a faint commendation upon a particularly absurd attempt at reconciliation, which would make out the noachian deluge to be a catastrophe which occurred at the end of the glacial epoch. this hypothesis involves only the trifle of a physical revolution of which geology knows nothing; and which, if it secured the accuracy of the pentateuchal writer about the fact of the deluge, would leave the details of his account as irreconcilable with the truths of elementary physical science as ever. thus i may be permitted to spare myself and my readers the weariness of a recapitulation of the overwhelming arguments against the universality of the deluge, which they will now find for themselves stated, as fully and forcibly as could be wished, by anglican and other theologians, whose orthodoxy and conservative tendencies have, hitherto, been above suspicion. yet many fully admit (and, indeed, nothing can be plainer) that, as a matter of fact, the whole earth known to him was inundated; nor is it less obvious that unless all mankind, with the exception of noah and his family, were actually destroyed, the references to the flood in the new testament are unintelligible. but i am quite aware that the strength of the demonstration that no universal deluge ever took place has produced a change of front in the army of apologetic writers. they have imagined that the substitution of the adjective "partial" for "universal," will save the credit of the pentateuch, and permit them, after all, without too many blushes, to declare that the progress of modern science only strengthens the authority of moses. nowhere have i found the case of the advocates of this method of escaping from the difficulties of the actual position better put than in the lecture of professor diestel to which i have referred. after frankly admitting that the old doctrine of universality involves physical impossibilities, he continues:-- all these difficulties fall away as soon as we give up the universality of the deluge, and imagine a _partial_ flooding of the earth, say in western asia. but have we a right to do so? the narrative speaks of "the whole earth." but what is the meaning of this expression? surely not the whole surface of the earth according to the ideas of _modern_ geographers, but, at most, according to the conceptions of the biblical author. this very simple conclusion, however, is never drawn by too many readers of the bible. but one need only cast one's eyes over the tenth chapter of genesis in order to become acquainted with the geographical horizon of the jews. in the north it was bounded by the black sea and the mountains of armenia; extended towards the east very little beyond the tigris; hardly reached the apex of the persian gulf; passed, then, through the middle of arabia and the red sea; went southward through abyssinia, and then turned westward by the frontiers of egypt, and inclosed the easternmost islands of the mediterranean (p. ). the justice of this observation must be admitted, no less than the further remark that, in still earlier times, the pastoral hebrews very probably had yet more restricted notions of what constituted the "whole earth." moreover, i, for one, fully agree with professor diestel that the motive, or generative incident, of the whole story is to be sought in the occasionally excessive and desolating floods of the euphrates and the tigris. let us, provisionally, accept the theory of a partial deluge, and try to form a clear mental picture of the occurrence. let us suppose that, for forty days and forty nights, such a vast quantity of water was poured upon the ground that the whole surface of mesopotamia was covered by water to a depth certainly greater, probably much greater, than fifteen cubits, or twenty feet (gen. vii. ). the inundation prevails upon the earth for one hundred and fifty days and then the flood gradually decreases, until, on the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ark, which had previously floated on its surface, grounds upon the "mountains of ararat" [ ] (gen. viii. ). then, as diestel has acutely pointed out ("sintflut," p. ), we are to imagine the further subsidence of the flood to take place so gradually that it was not until nearly two months and a half after this time (that is to say, on the first day of the tenth month) that the "tops of the mountains" became visible. hence it follows that, if the ark drew even as much as twenty feet of water, the level of the inundation fell very slowly--at a rate of only a few inches a day--until the top of the mountain on which it rested became visible. this is an amount of movement which, if it took place in the sea, would be overlooked by ordinary people on the shore. but the mesopotamian plain slopes gently, from an elevation of or feet at its northern end, to the sea, at its southern end, with hardly so much as a notable ridge to break its uniform flatness, for to miles. these being the conditions of the case, the following inquiry naturally presents itself: not, be it observed, as a recondite problem, generated by modern speculation, but as a plain suggestion flowing out of that very ordinary and archaic piece of knowledge that water cannot be piled up like in a heap, like sand; or that it seeks the lowest level. when, after days, "the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained" (gen. viii. ), what prevented the mass of water, several, possibly very many, fathoms deep, which covered, say, the present site of bagdad, from sweeping seaward in a furious torrent; and, in a very few hours, leaving, not only the "tops of the mountains," but the whole plain, save any minor depressions, bare? how could its subsistence, by any possibility, be an affair of weeks and months? and if this difficulty is not enough, let any one try to imagine how a mass of water several perhaps very many, fathoms deep, could be accumulated on a flat surface of land rising well above the sea, and separated from it by no sort of barrier. most people know lord's cricket-ground. would it not be an absurd contradiction to our common knowledge of the properties of water to imagine that, if all the mains of all the waterworks of london were turned on to it, they could maintain a heap of water twenty feet deep over its level surface? is it not obvious that the water, whatever momentary accumulation might take place at first, would not stop there, but that it would dash, like a mighty mill-race, southwards down the gentle slope which ends in the thames? and is it not further obvious, that whatever depth of water might be maintained over the cricket-ground so long as all the mains poured on to it, anything which floated there would be speedily whirled away by the current, like a cork in a gutter when the rain pours? but if this is so, then it is no less certain that noah's deeply laden, sailless, oarless, and rudderless craft, if by good fortune it escaped capsizing in whirlpools, or having its bottom knocked into holes by snags (like those which prove fatal even to well-built steamers on the mississippi in our day), would have speedily found itself a good way down the persian gulf, and not long after in the indian ocean, somewhere between arabia and hindostan. even if, eventually, the ark might have gone ashore, with other jetsam and flotsam, on the coasts of arabia, or of hindostan, or of the maldives, or of madagascar, its return to the "mountains of ararat" would have been a miracle more stupendous than all the rest. thus, the last state of the would-be reconcilers of the story of the deluge with fact is worse than the first. all that they have done is to transfer the contradictions to established truth from the region of science proper to that of common information and common sense. for, really, the assertion that the surface of a body of deep water, to which no addition was made, and which there was nothing to stop from running into the sea, sank at the rate of only a few inches or even feet a day, simply outrages the most ordinary and familiar teachings of every man's daily experience. a child may see the folly of it. in addition, i may remark that the necessary assumption of the "partial deluge" hypothesis (if it is confined to mesopotamia) that the hebrew writer must have meant low hills when he said "high mountains," is quite untenable. on the eastern side of the mesopotamian plain, the snowy peaks of the frontier ranges of persia are visible from bagdad, [ ] and even the most ignorant herdsmen in the neighbourhood of "ur of the chaldees," near its western limit, could hardly have been unacquainted with the comparatively elevated plateau of the syrian desert which lay close at hand. but, surely, we must suppose the biblical writer to be acquainted with the highlands of palestine and with the masses of the sinaitic peninsula, which soar more than feet above the sea, if he knew of no higher elevations; and, if so, he could not well have meant to refer to mere hillocks when he said that "all the high mountains which were under the whole heaven were covered" (genesis vii. ). even the hill-country of galilee reaches an elevation of feet; and a flood which covered it could by no possibility have been other than universal in its superficial extent. water really cannot be got to stand at, say, feet above the sea-level over palestine, without covering the rest of the globe to the same height. even if, in the course of noah's six hundredth year, some prodigious convulsion had sunk the whole region inclosed within "the horizon of the geographical knowledge" of the israelites by that much, and another had pushed it up again, just in time to catch the ark upon the "mountains of ararat," matters are not much mended. i am afraid to think of what would have become of a vessel so little seaworthy as the ark and of its very numerous passengers, under the peculiar obstacles to quiet flotation which such rapid movements of depression and upheaval would have generated. thus, in view, not, i repeat of the recondite speculations of infidel philosophers, but in the face of the plainest and most commonplace of ascertained physical facts, the story of the noachian deluge has no more claim to credit than has that of deucalion; and whether it was, or was not, suggested by the familiar acquaintance of its originators with the effects of unusually great overflows of the tigris and euphrates, it is utterly devoid of historical truth. that is, in my judgment, the necessary result of the application of criticism, based upon assured physical knowledge to the story of the deluge. and it is satisfactory that the criticism which is based, not upon literary and historical speculations, but upon well-ascertained facts in the departments of literature and history, tends to exactly the same conclusion. for i find this much agreed upon by all biblical scholars of repute, that the story of the deluge in genesis is separable into at least two sets of statements; and that, when the statements thus separated are recombined in their proper order, each set furnishes an account of the event, coherent and complete within itself, but in some respects discordant with that afforded by the other set. this fact, as i understand, is not disputed. whether one of these is the work of an elohist, and the other of a jehovist narrator; whether the two have been pieced together in this strange fashion because, in the estimation of the compilers and editors of the pentateuch, they had equal and independent authority, or not; or whether there is some other way of accounting for it--are questions the answers to which do not affect the fact. if possible i avoid _a priori_ arguments. but still, i think it may be urged, without imprudence, that a narrative having this structure is hardly such as might be expected from a writer possessed of full and infallibly accurate knowledge. once more, it would seem that it is not necessarily the mere inclination of the sceptical spirit to question everything, or the wilful blindness of infidels, which prompts grave doubts as to the value of a narrative thus curiously unlike the ordinary run of veracious histories. but the voice of archaeological and historical criticism still has to be heard; and it gives forth no uncertain sound. the marvellous recovery of the records of an antiquity, far superior to any that can be ascribed to the pentateuch, which has been effected by the decipherers of cuneiform characters, has put us in possession of a series, once more, not of speculations, but of facts, which have a most remarkable bearing upon the question of the truthworthiness of the narrative of the flood. it is established, that for centuries before the asserted migration of terah from ur of the chaldees (which, according to the orthodox interpreters of the pentateuch, took place after the year b.c.) lower mesopotamia was the seat of a civilisation in which art and science and literature had attained a development formerly unsuspected or, if there were faint reports of it, treated as fabulous. and it is also no matter of speculation, but a fact, that the libraries of these people contain versions of a long epic poem, one of the twelve books of which tells a story of a deluge, which, in a number of its leading features, corresponds with the story attributed to berosus, no less than with the story given in genesis, with curious exactness. thus, the correctness of canon rawlinson's conclusion, cited above, that the story of berosus was neither drawn from the hebrew record, nor is the foundation of it, can hardly be questioned. it is highly probable, if not certain, that berosus relied upon one of the versions (for there seem to have been several) of the old babylonian epos, extant in his time; and, if that is a reasonable conclusion, why is it unreasonable to believe that the two stories, which the hebrew compiler has put together in such an inartistic fashion, were ultimately derived from the same source? i say ultimately, because it does not at all follow that the two versions, possibly trimmed by the jehovistic writer on the one hand, and by the elohistic on the other, to suit hebrew requirements, may not have been current among the israelites for ages. and they may have acquired great authority before they were combined in the pentateuch. looking at the convergence of all these lines of evidence to the one conclusion--that the story of the flood in genesis is merely a bowdlerised version of one of the oldest pieces of purely fictitious literature extant; that whether this is, or is not, its origin, the events asserted in it to have taken place assuredly never did take place; further, that, in point of fact, the story, in the plain and logically necessary sense of its words, has long since been given up by orthodox and conservative commentators of the established church--i can but admire the courage and clear foresight of the anglican divine who tells us that we must be prepared to choose between the trustworthiness of scientific method and the trustworthiness of that which the church declares to be divine authority. for, to my mind, this declaration of war to the knife against secular science, even in its most elementary form; this rejection, without a moment's hesitation, of any and all evidence which conflicts with theological dogma--is the only position which is logically reconcilable with the axioms of orthodoxy. if the gospels truly report that which an incarnation of the god of truth communicated to the world, then it surely is absurd to attend to any other evidence touching matters about which he made any clear statement, or the truth of which is distinctly implied by his words. if the exact historical truth of the gospels is an axiom of christianity, it is as just and right for a christian to say, let us "close our ears against suggestions" of scientific critics, as it is for the man of science to refuse to waste his time upon circle-squarers and flat-earth fanatics. it is commonly reported that the manifesto by which the canon of st. paul's proclaims that he nails the colours of the straitest biblical infallibility to the mast of the ship ecclesiastical, was put forth as a counterblast to "lux mundi"; and that the passages which i have more particularly quoted are directed against the essay on "the holy spirit and inspiration" in that collection of treatises by anglican divines of high standing, who must assuredly be acquitted of conscious "infidel" proclivities. i fancy that rumour must, for once, be right, for it is impossible to imagine a more direct and diametrical contradiction than that between the passages from the sermon cited above and those which follow:-- what is questioned is that our lord's words foreclose certain critical positions as to the character of old testament literature. for example, does his use of jonah's resurrection as a _type_ of his own, depend in any real degree upon whether it is historical fact or allegory?... once more, our lord uses the time before the flood, to illustrate the carelessness of men before his own coming.... in referring to the flood he certainly suggests that he is treating it as typical, for he introduces circumstances--"eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage "--which have no counterpart in the original narrative. (pp. - ). while insisting on the flow of inspiration through the whole of the old testament, the essayist does not admit its universality. here, also, the new apologetic demands a partial flood: but does the inspiration of the recorder guarantee the exact historical truth of what he records? and, in matter of fact, can the record with due regard to legitimate historical criticism, be pronounced true? now, to the latter of these two questions (and they are quite distinct questions) we may reply that there is nothing to prevent our believing, as our faith strongly disposes us to believe, that the record from abraham downward is, in substance, in the strict sense historical (p. ). it would appear, therefore, that there is nothing to prevent our believing that the record, from abraham upward, consists of stories in the strict sense unhistorical, and that the pre-abrahamic narratives are mere moral and religious "types" and parables. i confess i soon lose my way when i try to follow those who walk delicately among "types" and allegories. a certain passion for clearness forces me to ask, bluntly, whether the writer means to say that jesus did not believe the stories in question, or that he did? when jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the deluge really took place, or not? it seems to me that, as the narrative mentions noah's wife, and his sons' wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and i should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. moreover, i venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of god's methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? if no flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of "wolf" when there is no wolf? if jonah's three days' residence in the whale is not an "admitted reality," how could it "warrant belief" in the "coming resurrection?" if lot's wife was not turned into a pillar of salt, the bidding those who turn back from the narrow path to "remember" it is, morally, about on a level with telling a naughty child that a bogy is coming to fetch it away. suppose that a conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in france, in the domination of a robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him? like all other attempts to reconcile the results of scientifically-conducted investigation with the demands of the outworn creeds of ecclesiasticism, the essay on inspiration is just such a failure as must await mediation, when the mediator is unable properly to appreciate the weight of the evidence for the case of one of the two parties. the question of "inspiration" really possesses no interest for those who have cast ecclesiasticism and all its works aside, and have no faith in any source of truth save that which is reached by the patient application of scientific methods. theories of inspiration are speculations as to the means by which the authors of statements, in the bible or elsewhere, have been led to say what they have said--and it assumes that natural agencies are insufficient for the purpose. i prefer to stop short of this problem, finding it more profitable to undertake the inquiry which naturally precedes it--namely, are these statements true or false? if they are true, it may be worth while to go into the question of their supernatural generation; if they are false, it certainly is not worth mine. now, not only do i hold it to be proven that the story of the deluge is a pure fiction; but i have no hesitation in affirming the same thing of the story of the creation. [ ] between these two lies the story of the creation of man and woman and their fall from primitive innocence, which is even more monstrously improbable than either of the other two, though, from the nature of the case, it is not so easily capable of direct refutation. it can be demonstrated that the earth took longer than six days in the making, and that the deluge, as described, is a physical impossibility; but there is no proving, especially to those who are perfect in the art of closing their ears to that which they do not wish to hear, that a snake did not speak, or that eve was not made out of one of adam's ribs. the compiler of genesis, in its present form, evidently had a definite plan in his mind. his countrymen, like all other men, were doubtless curious to know how the world began; how men, and especially wicked men, came into being, and how existing nations and races arose among the descendants of one stock; and, finally, what was the history of their own particular tribe. they, like ourselves, desired to solve the four great problems of cosmogeny, anthropogeny, ethnogeny, and geneogeny. the pentateuch furnishes the solutions which appeared satisfactory to its author. one of these, as we have seen, was borrowed from a babylonian fable; and i know of no reason to suspect any different origin for the rest. now, i would ask, is the story of the fabrication of eve to be regarded as one of those pre-abrahamic narratives, the historical truth of which is an open question, in face of the reference to it in a speech unhappily famous for the legal oppression to which it has been wrongfully forced to lend itself? have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh? (matt. xix. .) if divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of genesis, what is the value of language? and again, i ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the fall as a "type" or "allegory," what becomes of the foundation of pauline theology?-- for since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. for as in adam all die, so also in christ shall all be made alive ( corinthians xv. , ). if adam may be held to be no more real a personage than prometheus, and if the story of the fall is merely an instructive "type," comparable to the profound promethean mythus, what value has paul's dialectic? while, therefore, every right-minded man must sympathise with the efforts of those theologians, who have not been able altogether to close their ears to the still, small, voice of reason, to escape from the fetters which ecclesiasticism has forged; the melancholy fact remains, that the position they have taken up is hopelessly untenable. it is raked alike by the old-fashioned artillery of the churches and by the fatal weapons of precision with which the _enfants perdus_ of the advancing forces of science are armed. they must surrender, or fall back into a more sheltered position. and it is possible that they may long find safety in such retreat. it is, indeed, probable that the proportional number of those who will distinctly profess their belief in the transubstantiation of lot's wife, and the anticipatory experience of submarine navigation by jonah; in water standing fathoms deep on the side of a declivity without anything to hold it up; and in devils who enter swine--will not increase. but neither is there ground for much hope that the proportion of those who cast aside these fictions and adopt the consequence of that repudiation, are, for some generations, likely to constitute a majority. our age is a day of compromises. the present and the near future seem given over to those happily, if curiously, constituted people who see as little difficulty in throwing aside any amount of post-abrahamic scriptural narrative, as the authors of "lux mundi" see in sacrificing the pre-abrahamic stories; and, having distilled away every inconvenient matter of fact in christian history, continue to pay divine honours to the residue. there really seems to be no reason why the next generation should not listen to a bampton lecture modelled upon that addressed to the last:-- time was--and that not very long ago--when all the relations of biblical authors concerning the whole world were received with a ready belief; and an unreasoning and uncritical faith accepted with equal satisfaction the narrative of the captivity and the doings of moses at the court of pharaoh, the account of the apostolic meeting in the epistle to the galatians, and that of the fabrication of eve. we can most of us remember when, in this country, the whole story of the exodus, and even the legend of jonah, were seriously placed before boys as history; and discoursed of in as dogmatic a tone as the tale of agincourt or the history of the norman conquest. but all this is now changed. the last century has seen the growth of scientific criticism to its full strength. the whole world of history has been revolutionised and the mythology which embarrassed earnest christians has vanished as an evil mist, the lifting of which has only more fully revealed the lineaments of infallible truth. no longer in contact with fact of any kind, faith stands now and for ever proudly inaccessible to the attacks of the infidel. so far the apologist of the future. why not? _cantabit vacuus._ footnotes: [footnote : _bampton lectures_ ( ), on "the historical evidence of the truth of the scripture records stated anew, with special reference to the doubts and discoveries of modern times," by the rev. g. rawlinson, m.a., pp. - .] [footnote : _the worth of the old testament,_ a sermon preached in st. paul's cathedral on the second sunday in advent, th dec., , by h. p. liddon, d.d., d.c.l., canon and chancellor of st. paul's. second edition revised and with a new preface, .] [footnote : st. luke xvii. .] [footnote : st. luke xvii. .] [footnote : st. matt. xii. .] [footnote : _bampton lectures,_ , pp. - .] [footnote : _commentary on genesis,_ by the bishop of ely, p. .] [footnote : _die sintflut,_ .] [footnote : _theologie und naturwissenschaft,_ ii. - ( ).] [footnote : it is very doubtful if this means the region of the armenian ararat. more probably it designates some part either of the kurdish range or of its south-eastern continuation.] [footnote : so reclus (_nouvelle geographie universelle,_ ix. ), but i find the statement doubted by an authority of the first rank.] [footnote : so far as i know, the narrative of the creation is not now held to be true, in the sense in which i have defined historical truth, by any of the reconcilers. as for the attempts to stretch the pentateuchal days into periods of thousands or millions of years, the verdict of the eminent biblical scholar, dr. riehm (_der biblische schopfungsbericht,_ , pp. , ) on such pranks of "auslegungskunst" should be final. why do the reconcilers take goethe's advice seriously?-- "im auslegen seyd frisch und munter! legt ihr's nicht aus, so legt was unter."] none from images provided by the million book project. _creation and its records_. [greek: pistei nooumen kataertisthai tous aionas rhêmati theou eis to mi ek fainomenon to blepomenon gegonenai.]--heb. xi. . creation and its records. a brief statement of christian belief with reference to modern facts and ancient scripture. by b.h. baden-powell, c.i.e., f.r.s.e. contents * * * * * _part i._ chapter i. introductory chapter ii. the element of _faith_ in creation chapter iii. the doctrine of creation stated chapter iv. creative design in inorganic matter chapter v. the creation of living matter chapter vi. the marks of creative intelligence in the evolution of organic forms chapter vii. the descent of man chapter viii. further difficulties regarding the history of man chapter ix. concluding remarks _part ii._ chapter x. the genesis narrative--its importance chapter xi. scripture methods of revelation chapter xii. methods of interpreting the narrative--assumptions of meaning to certain terms chapter xiii. the genesis narrative considered generally (i.) the first part of the narrative (ii.) the second part chapter xiv. the interpretation supported by other scriptures chapter xv. and supported by the context chapter xvi. the details of the creation narrative _appendix._ professor delitzsch on the garden of eden chapter i. _introductory_ among the recollections that are lifelong, i have one as vivid as ever after more than twenty-five years have elapsed; it is of an evening lecture--the first of a series--given at south kensington to working men. the lecturer was professor huxley; his subject, the common lobster. all the apparatus used was a good-sized specimen of the creature itself, a penknife, and a black-board and chalk. with such materials the professor gave us not only an exposition, matchless in its lucidity, of the structure of the crustacea, but such an insight into the purposes and methods of biological study as few could in those days have anticipated. for there were as yet no science primers, no international series; and the "new biology" came upon us like the revelation of another world. i think that lecture gave me, what i might otherwise never have got (and what some people never get), a profound conviction of the reality and meaning of facts in nature. that impression i have brought to the attempt which this little book embodies. the facts of nature are god's revelation, of the same weight, though not the same in kind, as his written word. at the same time, the further conviction is strong in my mind, not merely of the obvious truth that the facts and the writing (if both genuine) cannot really differ, but further, that there must be, after all, a true way of explaining the writing, if only it is looked for carefully--a way that will surmount not only the difficulty of the subject, but also the impatience with which some will regard the attempt. like so many other questions connected with religion, the question of reconciliation produces its double effect. people will ridicule attempts to solve it, but all the same they will return again and again to the task of its actual solution. that the latter part of the proposition is true, has recently received illustration in the fact that a review like the _nineteenth century_, which has so little space to spare, has found room in four successive numbers[ ] for articles by gladstone, huxley, and h. drummond, on the subject of "creation and its records." may i make one remark on this interesting science tournament? i can understand the scientific conclusions professor huxley has given us. i can also understand mr. gladstone, because he values the writing as the professor values the facts. but one thing i can _not_ understand. why is professor huxley so angry or so contemptuous with people who value the bible, whole and as it stands, and want to see its accuracy vindicated? why are they fanatics, sisyphus-labourers, and what not? that they are a very large group numerically, and hardly contemptible intellectually, is, i think, obvious; that a further large group (who would not identify themselves wholly with the out-and-out bible defenders) feel a certain amount of sympathy, is proved by the interest taken in the controversy. yet all "reconcilers" are ridiculed or denounced--at any rate are contemptuously dismissed. can it be that the professor has for the moment overlooked one very simple fact? [footnote : november, december, ; and january, february, .] the great bulk of those interested in the question place their whole hope for their higher moral and spiritual life in this world and the next on one central person--the lord jesus christ. if he is wrong, then no one can be right--there is no such thing as right: that is what they feel. it will be conceded that it is hardly "fanatical" to feel this. but if so, surely it is not fanatical, but agreeable to the soberest reason, further to hold that this (to them sacred) person did (and his apostles with him) treat the book of genesis as a whole (and not merely parts of it) as a genuine revelation--or, to use the popular expression, as the _word of_ god. that being so, can it be matter for surprise or contemptuous pity, that they should be anxious to vindicate the book, to be satisfied that the master was not wrong? that is the ultimate and very real issue involved in the question of genesis. as long as people feel _that_, they must seek the reconciliation of the two opposing ideas. if the attempt is made in a foolish or bitter spirit, or without a candid appreciation of the facts, then the attempt will no doubt excite just displeasure. but need it always be so made? as to the first part of my proposition that attempts to reconcile religion and science are received with a certain dislike, it is due partly to the unwisdom with which they are sometimes made. prof. h. drummond speaks of the dislike as general.[ ] if this is so, i, as a "reconciler," can only ask for indulgence, hoping that grace may be extended to me on the ground of having something to say on the subject that has not yet been considered. nor, as regards the impatience of the public, can i admit that there is only fault on one side. in the first place, it will not be denied that some writers, delighted with the vast, and apparently boundless, vision that the discovery (in its modern form) of evolution opened out to them, did incautiously proceed, while surveying their new kingdom, to assert for it bounds that stretch beyond its legitimate scope. [footnote : in the introduction to his well-known book, "natural law in the spiritual world."] religionists, on the other hand, imagining, however wrongly, that the erroneous extension was part of the true scientific doctrine, attacked the whole without discrimination. while such a misapprehension existed, it was inevitable that writers anxious alike for the dignity of science and the maintenance of religion, should step in to point out the error, and effect a reconciliation of claims which really were never in conflict. it is hardly the fault of "religionists" that it was at first supposed that one _could_ not hold the doctrine of evolution without denying a "special" creation and a designing providence. it was on this very natural supposition that the first leading attack--attributed to the bishop of oxford--proceeded. and the writer fell into the equally natural mistake of taking advantage of the uncompleted and unproved state of the theory at the time, to attack the theory itself, instead of keeping to the safer ground, namely, that whatever might ultimately be the conclusion of evolutionists, it was quite certain that no theory of evolution that at all coincided with the known facts, offered any ground for argument against the existence of an intelligent lawgiver and first cause of all; nor did it tend in the slightest to show that no such thing as creative design and providence existed in the course of nature. what the discovery of evolution really did, was to necessitate a revision of the hitherto popularly accepted and generally assumed and unquestioned notion of what _creation_ was. and it has long appeared to me, that while now the most thoroughgoing advocates of evolution generally admit that their justly cherished doctrine has nothing to say to the existence of a creator, or to the possibility of design--which may be accepted or denied on other grounds--the writers on the side of christianity have not sufficiently recognized the change which their views ought to undergo. as long as this is the case, there will continue to be a certain "conflict," not indeed between science and religion, but of the kind which has been vividly depicted by the late dr. draper. it can scarcely have escaped the notice of the most ordinary reader that, in the course of that interesting work, the author has very little to say about religion--at any rate about religion in any proper sense of the term. the conflict was between a church which had a zeal for god without knowledge, and the progress of scientific thought; it was also a conflict between discovered facts, and facts which existed, not in the bible, but in a particular interpretation, however generally received, of it. the present work is therefore addressed primarily to christian believers who still remain perplexed as to what they ought to believe; and its aim is to prevent, if may be, an unreasonable alarm at, and a useless opposition to, the conclusions of modern science; while, at the same time, it tells them in simple language how far those conclusions really go, and how very groundless is the fear that they will ever subvert a true faith that, antecedent to the most wonderful chain of causation and methodical working which science can establish, there is still a divine designer--one who upholds all things "by the word of his power." the doctrine of evolution is still the _ignotum_ to a great many, and it is therefore, according to the time-honoured proverb, taken _pro magnifico_, as something terribly adverse to the faith. nor can it be fairly denied, as i before remarked, that some of the students of the theory have become so enamoured of it, so carried away by the intoxication of the gigantic speculation it opens out to the imagination, that they have succumbed to the temptation to carry speculation beyond what the proof warrants, and thus lend some aid to the deplorable confusion, which would blend in one, what is legitimate inference and what is unproved hypothesis or mere supposition. it only remains to say that the basis of this little book is a short course of lectures in which i endeavoured to disarm the prejudices of an educated but not scientifically critical audience, by simply stating how far the theory of cosmical evolution had been really proved--proved, that is, to the extent of that reasonable certainty which satisfies the ordinary "prudent man" in affairs of weight and importance. i have tried to show that evolution, apart from fanciful and speculative extensions of it, allows, if it does not directly establish, that the operation of nature is not a chance or uncontrolled procedure, but one that suggests a distinct set of lines, and an orderly obedience to pre-conceived law, intelligently and beneficently (in the end) designed. there are obviously two main points which the christian reader requires to have made clear. the first is that, the modern theory of evolution being admitted, the constitution of matter in the universe and the principles of development in organic life, which that theory establishes, not only do not exclude, but positively demand, the conception of a divine artificer and director. the second point, which is perhaps of still greater weight with the believer, is that where revelation (which is his ultimate standard of appeal) has touched upon the subject of creation, its statements are not merely a literary fancy, an imaginary cosmogony, false in its facts though enshrining divine truth, but are as a whole perfectly true. whatever novelty there may be, is to be found in the treatment of the second subject. the first portion of the work is only a brief and popular statement of facts, quite unnecessary to the scientific reader but probably very necessary to the large body of churchmen, who have not studied science, but are quite able to appreciate scientific fact and its bearings when placed before them in an untechnical form, and divested of needless details and subordinate questions. but it is around the supposed declarations of scripture on the subject of creation that the real "conflict" has centred. let us look the matter quite fairly in the face. we accept the conclusion that (let us say) the horse was developed and gradually perfected or advanced to his present form and characteristics, by a number of stages, and that it took a very long time to effect this result. now, if there is anywhere a statement in holy writ that (_a_) a horse was _per saltum_ called into existence in a distinctive and complete form, by a special creative _fiat_, and that (_b_) this happened not gradually, but in a limited and specified moment of time, then i will at once admit that the record (assuming that its meaning is not to be mistaken) is not provably right, if it is not clearly wrong; and accept the consequences, momentous as they would be. if, in the same way, the record asserts that man, or at least man the direct progenitor of the semitic race,[ ] was a distinct and special creation, his bodily frame having some not completely explained developmental connection with the animal creation, but his higher nature being imparted as a special and unique creative endowment out of the line of physical development altogether, then i shall accept the record, because the proved facts of science have nothing to say against it, whatever drs. buchner, vogt, häckel, and others may assert to the contrary. [footnote : with whose history, as leading up to the advent of the saviour in the line of david, the bible is mainly concerned.] in the first of my two instances, the popular idea has long been that the sacred record _does_ say something about a direct and separate creative act; and this idea has been the origin and ground of all the supposed conflict between science and "religion." as long as this idea continues, it can hardly be said that a book addressed to the clearing up of the subject is unnecessary or to be rejected _per se_. as to the method in which this subject will be dealt with, i shall maintain that the scripture does _not_ say anything about the horse, or the whale, or the ox, or any other animal, being separately or directly created. and the view thus taken of the record i have not met with before. this it is necessary to state, not because the fact would lend any value to the interpretation--rather the contrary; but because it justifies me in submitting what, if new, may be intrinsically important, to the judgment of the church; and it also protects me from the offence of plagiarism, however unwitting. if others have thought out the same rendering of the genesis history, so much the better for my case; but what is here set down occurred to me quite independently. a study of the real meaning of the record, in the light of what may be fairly regarded as proved facts, cannot be without its use to the christian. if it be true that a certain amount of information on the subject of creation is contained in revelation, it must have been so contained for a specific purpose--a purpose to be attained at some stage or other of the history of mankind. it is possible also that the study will bring to light a probable, or at any rate a possible, explanation of some of those apparent (if they are not real) "dead-locks" which occur in pursuing the course of life history on the earth. such considerations will naturally have more weight with the christian believer than with those who reject the faith. but at least the advantage of them remains with the believer, till the contrary is shown. the extreme evolutionist may cling to the belief that at some future time he will be able to account for the entrance of life into the world's history, that he will be able to explain the connection of mind with matter; or he may hope that the sterility of certain hybrid forms will one day be explained away, and so on. but till these things _are_ got over, the believer cannot be reproached as holding an unreasonable belief when his creed maintains that life is a gift and prerogative of a great author of life; that mind is the result of a spiritual environment which is a true, though physically intangible, part of nature; and that the absence of any proof that variation and development cross certain--perhaps not very clearly ascertained, but indubitably existing--lines, points to the designed fixing of certain types, and the restriction of developmental creation to running in certain lines of causation up to those types, and not otherwise. it can never be unreasonable to believe anything that is in exact accordance with facts as ascertained at any given moment of time--unless, indeed, the fact is indicated by other considerations as being one likely to disappear from the category of fact altogether.[ ] enough has thus, i hope, appeared, to make the appearance of this little work, at least excusable; what more may be necessary to establish its claim to be read must depend on what it contains. i have only to add that i can make no pretension to be a teacher of science. i trust that there is no material error of statement; if there is, i shall be the first to retract and correct it. i am quite confident that no correction that may be needed in detail will seriously affect the general argument. [footnote : at present it is an ascertained fact that certain chemical substances are elements incapable of further resolution. but there are not wanting indications which would make it a matter of no surprise at all, if we were to learn to-morrow that the so-called element had been resolved. such a fact is an example of what is stated in the text; and a belief based on the absolute and unchangeable stability of such a fact would not be unassailable. but none of the above stated instances of "dead-lock" in evolution are within "measurable distance" of being resolved.] chapter ii. _the element of faith in creation._ in the extract placed on the title-page, the author of the epistle clearly places our conclusion that god "established the order of creation"--the lines, plans, developmental-sequences, aims, and objects, that the course of creation has hitherto pursued and is still ceaselessly pursuing,[ ] in the category of _faith_. of course, from one point of view--very probably that of the writer of the epistle--this conclusion is argued by the consideration that the human mind forms no distinct conception of the formation of solid--or any other form of--matter _in vacuo_, where nothing previously existed. and what the mind does not find within its own power, but what yet _is true_ in the larger spiritual kingdom beyond itself, is apprehended by the spiritual faculty of _faith_. [footnote : [greek: kataertisthai tous aionas]. this implies more than the mere originating or supplying of a number of material, organic, or inorganic (or even spiritual) forms and existences. whatever may be the precise translation of [greek: aion], it implies a chain of events, the cause and effect, the type and the plan, and its evolution all included.] but from another point of view, the immediate action of faith is not so evident. if, it might be said, the law of evolution, or the law of creation, or whatever is the true law, is, in all its bearings, a matter to be observed and discovered by human science, then it is not easy to see how there is any exercise of faith. we should be more properly said to _know_, by intellectual processes of observation, inference, and conclusion, that there was a law giver, an artificer, and a first cause, so unlimited in power and capacity by the conditions of the case, that we must call him "divine." and many will probably feel that their just reasoning on the subject leads them to knowledge--knowledge, i.e., as approximately certain as anything in this world can be. but the text, by the use of the term [greek: aion], implies (as i suggested) more than mere production of objects; it implies a designed guidance and preconceived planning. if it were merely asserted that there is a first cause of material existence, and even that such a cause had enough known (or to be inferred) about it, to warrant our writing "first cause" with capitals, then the proposition would pass on all hands without serious question. but directly we are brought face to face, not merely with the isolated idea of creation of tangible forms out of nothing (as the phrase is), but rather with the whole history and development of the world and its inhabitants, we see so many conflicting elements, such a power of natural forces and human passions warring against the progress of good, and seeming to end only too often in disaster, that it becomes a matter of _faith_ to perceive a divine providence underlying and overruling all to its own ends. the fact is, that directly we make mention of the "aeons"--the world's age histories--we are met with that protean problem that always seems to lurk at the bottom of every religious question: why was _evil_ permitted? mr. j.s. mill, many readers will recollect, concluded that if there was a god, that god was not perfectly good, or else was not omnipotent. now of course our limited faculties do not enable us to apprehend a really absolute and unlimited omnipotence. we _can_ only conceive of god as limited by the terms of his own nature and being. we say it is "impossible for god to lie," or for the almighty to do wrong in any shape; in other words, we are, in this as in other matters where the finite and the infinite are brought into contact, led up to two necessary conclusions which cannot be reconciled. we can reason out logically and to a full conclusion, that given a god, that god must be perfect, unlimited and unconditioned. we can also reason out, _provided we take purely human and finite premises_, another line of thought which forbids us to suppose that a perfect god would have allowed evil, suffering, or pain; and this leads us exactly or nearly to mr. mill's conclusion. whenever we are thus brought up to a dead-lock, as it were, there is the need of _faith_, which is the faculty whereby the finite is linked on to the infinite. for this faith has two great features: one is represented by the capacity for assimilating fact which is spiritual or transcendental, and therefore not within the reach of finite intellect; the other is represented by the capacity for reliance on, and trust in, the god whose infinite perfections we cannot as finite creatures grasp or follow. in the difficult scheme of the world's governance, in the storms, earthquakes, pestilences, sufferings of all kinds--signs of failure, sickness, and decay, and death, signs of the victory of evil and the failure of good--we can only _believe_ in god, and that all will issue in righteous ends. and our belief proceeds, as just stated, on two lines: one being our spiritual capacity for knowing that god is, and that we, his creatures, are the objects of his love; the other being the fact that we only see a very little end of the thread, or perhaps only a little of one thread out of a vast mass of complicated threads, in the great web of design and governance, and that therefore there is wide ground for confidence that the end will be success. we rely confidently on god. if it is asked, why is it a part of faith to have a childlike confidence in an unseen god?--we reply, that the main origin of such confidence is to be found in the wonderful condescension of god exhibited in the incarnation, the cross, and the resurrection. this is not the place to enter on a detailed examination of the essential importance of these great central facts of christian belief in establishing faith in the unseen, and distinguishing its grasp from the blind clutches of credulity; but a single consideration will suffice at least to awaken a feeling of a wide _vista_ of possibility when we put it thus: do we wonder at the spectacle of a righteous man, passing his life in suffering and poverty, seemingly stricken by the divine hand?--but is not the case altered when we reflect _that the hand that thus smites is a hand itself pierced_ with the cross-nails of a terrible human suffering, undergone solely on man's account? it can be proved easily, by exhaustive examples, to be the case, that wherever the finite is brought into contact with the infinite, that there must be a dead-lock, a leading up successively to two conclusions, one of which is almost, if not quite, contrary to the other. a very striking instance of this is the question of predestination and free-will. from the finite side, i am conscious that i am a free agent: i can will to rise up and to lie down. it is true that my will may be influenced, strongly or feebly, by various means--by the effect of habit, by the inherited tendency of my constitution, by some present motive of temptation, and so forth: but the _will_ is there--the motive-influence or inclining-power is not the will, but that which affects or works on will. a _motive_ pulls me this way, another pulls me that; but in the end, my _will_ follows one or the other. i can, then, do as i please. on the other hand, infinite knowledge must know, and have known from all eternity, what i shall do now, and at every moment of my future being: and for omnipotence to know from all eternity what will be, is, in our human sense, practically undistinguishable from the thought that the power has predestined the same; and man cannot of course alter that. here, then, by separate lines of thought, we are brought to two opposite and irreconcilable conclusions. it is so always. we cannot ourselves imagine how a fixed set of laws and rules can be followed, and yet the best interests of each and every one of god's creatures be served as truly as if god directly wielded the machinery of nature only for the special benefit of the individual. the thing is unthinkable to us: yet directly we reason on the necessarily _unlimited_ capability of a divine providence, we are led to the conclusion that it must be possible. here then is the province of _faith_.[ ] [footnote : the scripture clearly recognizes the two opposing lines. in one place we read, "thou hast given them a law which _shall not be broken_;" in another, "all things work together for good to them that love god."] it is by faith, then--combined with only a limited degree of knowledge, founded on observation and reasoning--that we understand that "the aeons were constituted by the word of god, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear" (the phenomenal has its origin in the non-phenomenal). while allowing, then, the element of faith in our recognition of a creator and moral governor of the world, our care is in this, as in all exercises of faith, that our faith be reasonable. we are not called on to believe so as to be "put to confusion," intellectually, as tait and balfour have it. chapter iii. _the doctrine of creation stated_. it will strike some readers with a sense of hopelessness, this demand for a reason in our faith. a special and very extensive knowledge is required, it seems, to test the very positive assertion that some have chosen to make regarding the "explosion" of the christian faith in the matter of creation. we are told in effect that every thing goes by itself--that given some first cause, about which we know, and can know, nothing, directly primordial matter appears on the scene, and the laws of sequence and action which observed experience has formulated and is progressively formulating are given, then nothing else is required; no governance, no control, and no special design. so that in principle a creator and providence are baseless fancies; and this is further borne out by the fact, that when the christian faith ventures on details as to the mode of creation it is certainly and demonstrably wrong. if these propositions are to be controverted, it must be in the light of a knowledge which a large body of candid and earnest believers do not possess. fortunately, however, the labours of many competent to judge have placed within the reach of the unscientific but careful student, the means of knowing what the conclusions of science really are, as far as they affect the questions we have to consider. at least, any inquirer can, with a little care and patient study, put himself in a position to know where the difficulty or difficulties lie, and what means there are of getting over them. his want of technical knowledge will not be in his way, so far as his just appreciation of the position is concerned. without pretending to take up ground which has already been occupied by capable writers whose books can easily be consulted, i may usefully recapitulate in a simple form, and grouped in a suitable order, some of the points best worth noting. the theory of cosmical evolution is not, in its general idea, a new thing. the sort of evolution, however, that was obscurely shadowed forth by the early sages of india (much as it is the fashion now to allude to it) really stands in no practical relation to the modern and natural theory which is associated with the name of charles darwin, and which has been further taken up by mr. herbert spencer and others as the foundation for a complete scheme of cosmic philosophy. the theory is now, in its main features, admitted by every one. but there are a few who would push it beyond its real ascertained limits, and would substitute fancies for facts; they are not content to leave the _lacunae_, which undoubtedly do exist, but fill them up by hypothesis,[ ] passing by easy steps of forgetfulness from the "it was possibly," "it was likely to have been," to the "it must have been," and "it was"! to all such extensions we must of course object; there are gaps in the scheme which can be filled in with really great probability, and in such cases there will be no harm done in admitting the probability, while still acknowledging it as such. an overcautious lawyer-like captiousness of spirit in such matters will help no cause and serve no good purpose. nor is it at all difficult in practice to draw the line and say what is fairly admissible conjecture and what is not. there are other gaps, however, that at present, no real analogy, no fair inferential process, can bridge over; and to all speculations on such subjects, if advanced as more than bare and undisguised guesses, objection must be taken. if this one line had been fairly and firmly adhered to from the first, it can hardly be doubted that much of the acrimony of controversy would have been avoided. it is just as essential at the present moment to insist on the point as ever. but to proceed. stated in the extreme form, the theory is, that given matter as a beginning, that matter is thenceforth capable, by the aid of fixed and self-working laws, to produce and result in, all the phenomena of life--whether plant, animal, or human--which we see around us. matter developes from simple to complex forms, growing by its own properties, in directions determined by the circumstances and surroundings of its existence. [footnote : it is enough to instance the theories of dr. buchner and, in earlier days, of oken. the häckel and virchow incident in this connection, and the noble protest of the latter against positive teaching of unproved speculation, are in the recollection of all.] if i may put this a little less in the abstract, but more at length, i should describe it thus[ ]:-- astronomers, while watching the course of the stars, have frequently observed in the heavens what they call _nebulae_. with the best telescopes these look like patches of gold-dust or luminous haze in the sky. some nebulae, it is supposed, really consist of whole systems of stars and suns, but at so enormous a distance that with our best glasses we cannot make more out of them than groups of apparent "star-dust" but other nebulae do not appear to be at this extreme distance, and therefore cannot consist of large bodies. and when their light is examined with the aid of a spectroscope, it gives indications that such nebulae are only masses of vapour, incandescent, or giving out light on account of their being in a burning or highly heated condition. [footnote : the biological evolutionist will, i am aware, object to this, saying that the origin of the cosmos and nebular theories are matters of speculation with which he is not concerned--they are no part of evolution proper. but i submit that the general philosophical evolution does include the whole. at any rate, the materialist view of nature does take in the whole, in such a way as the text indicates.] now, it is supposed that, in the beginning of the world, there was, in space, such a nebula or mass of incandescent vapour, which, as it was destined to cool down and form a world, philosophers have called "cosmic gas." this cosmic gas, in the course of time, began to lose its heat, and consequently to liquefy and solidify, according to the different nature of its components; and thus a globe with a solid crust was formed, the surface of which was partly dry and partly occupied by water, and diversified by the abundant production of the various earths, gases, metals, and other substances with which we are familiar. these substances, in time, and by the slow action of their own laws and properties, combined or separated and produced further forms. but to come at once to the important part of the theory, we must at once direct our attention to four substances; these would certainly, it is said (and that no doubt is quite true) be present; they are oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon. the first three would be, when the earth assumed anything like its present conditions of temperature and air-pressure, invisible gases, as they are at present; the fourth is a substance which forms the basis of charcoal, and which we see in a nearly pure form crystallized in the diamond. now, if these substances are brought together under certain appropriate conditions, the oxygen and hydrogen can combine to form _water_; the carbon and the oxygen will form _carbonic acid_; while nitrogen will join with hydrogen to form that pungent smelling substance with which we are familiar as _ammonia_. again, let us suppose that three compound substances--water, carbonic acid, and ammonia--are present together with appropriate conditions; it is said that they will combine to form a gummy transparent matter, which is called _protoplasm_. this protoplasm may be found in small shapeless lumps, or it may be found enclosed in cells, and in various beautifully shaped coverings, and it is also found in the blood, and in all growing parts or organs of all animals and plants of every kind whatsoever. protoplasm, then, is the physical basis of life. simple, uniform, shapeless protoplasm, combined out of the substances just named, first came into existence; and as, however simple or shapeless, it always exhibits the property of life, it can henceforth grow and develop from simpler to ever increasingly complex forms, without any help but that of surrounding circumstances--the secondary causes which we see in operation around us. if some readers should say they have never seen _protoplasm_, i may remind them where every one has, at some time or another, met with it. if you cut a stick of new wood from a hedge, and peel off the young bark, you know that the bark comes off easily and entire, leaving a clean white wand of wood in your hand; but the wand feels sticky all over. this sticky stuff is nothing more than transparent growing protoplasm, which lies close under the inner bark. at first, the materialist holds, protoplasm appeared in very simple forms, just such as can still be found within the sea, and in ponds. but the lower organized forms of life are extremely unstable, and a different _environment_ will always tend to evoke continuous small changes, so that there may be advance in forms of all kinds. for if by chance[ ] some creature exhibits a variation which is favourable to it in the circumstances in which it is placed, that creature will be fitter than the others which have not that variation. and so the former will survive, and as they multiply, their descendants will inherit the peculiarity. thus, in the course of countless generations, change will succeed change, till creatures of quite a complex structure and specialized form have arisen. as the circumstances of life are always infinitely various, the developments take place in many different directions; some fit the creature for life in deep seas, some for flying in the air, some for living in holes and crevices, some for catching prey by swift pursuit, others for catching it by artful contrivance, and so forth. many changes will also arise from protective necessity: if an insect happens to be like a dead leaf, it will escape the notice of birds which would snap up a conspicuously coloured one; and so the dull-coloured will survive and perpetuate his kind, while the others are destroyed. on the other hand, beauty in colour and form may have its use. this is chiefly exhibited in the preference which the females of a species show for the adorned and showy males. [footnote : not really of course "by chance," but simply owing to such circumstances as cannot be accounted for by any direct antecedents.] supposing an organism developed so far as to be a bird, but only with dull or ugly feathers. by accident one male bird, say, gets a few bright-coloured feathers on his head. here his appearance will attract birds of the other sex; and then by the law of heredity, his offspring are sure to repeat the coloured feathers, till at last a regularly bright-crested species-arises. in this way _natural variability_, acted on by the necessities of _environment_ (which cause the _survival of the fittest_ specimens) and the principle of _heredity_, viz., that the offspring repeat the features of the parents, aided by the principle of _sexual selection_, have been the origin and cause of all the species we see in the world. thus we have an unbroken series--certain substances condensing out of cosmic vapour, some of them combining to form the variety of rocks, soils, metals, &c., and others giving rise to protoplasm which grows' and develops into a thousand shapes and hues, of insect, fish, reptile, bird, and beast. and then it is, that charmed with the completeness and symmetry of such a theory, and overlooking the difficulties that crop up here and here--demanding some power from without to bridge them over--certain extreme theorists have rushed to the conclusion that in all this there is no need of any external creator or providence--nothing but what we call secondary causes, ordinary causes which we see at work around us all day and every day. how inconceivable, they add, is the truth of the book of genesis, which asserts the successive creation of fully-formed animals by sudden acts of command; and all accomplished in a few days at the beginning of the world's human history! this i believe to be a fair outline, though of course a very rough and general one, of the theory of evolution as regards the forms of matter and living organisms. now it will at once strike the candid reader, that even granted the whole of the scheme as stated, there is _nothing_ in it that has any answer to the objection,--but may i not believe that a wise creator conceived and established the whole plan--first creating matter and force, then superadding life at a certain stage, and then drawing out the type and design according to which everything was to grow and develop? is not such a production and such a design the true essence of creation? can all these things happen _without_ such aid? let us then look more closely at some of the steps in the evolution just described. and let us stop at the very beginning--the first term of the series. we may agree (in the absence of anything leading to a contrary conclusion) that matter may first have appeared as a cosmic gas, or incandescent vapour in space. it is probable, if not certain, that our earth is a mass that has only cooled down on the surface, the centre being still hot and to some extent, at any rate, molten; and in the sun we have the case of an enormous globe surrounded with a _photosphere_, as it is called--a blaze of incandescent substances, which our spectroscopes tell us are substances such as we have on earth now in cooled or condensed condition--iron, oxygen, hydrogen, and other such forms of matter. first of all, how did any _substance_, however vapoury and tenuous, come to exist, when previously there was nothing? if we admit, that there was a time when even cosmic gas did not exist, then there must have been _an agent_, whose _fiat_ caused the change. and as that agent does not obviously belong to the material order, it must belong to the spiritual or non-material; for the two orders together exhaust the possibilities of existence. if, however, it is urged that "primal matter"--cosmic vapour--containing the "potentiality" of all existence, is eternal and alway existed of itself, then we are brought face to face with innumerable difficulties. in the first place, the existence of matter is not the only difficulty to be got over; not the only dead-lock along the line. we pass it over and go on for a time, and then we come to another--the introduction of life. i will not pause to consider that here; we shall see presently that it is impossible to regard life as merely a quality or property of matter. when we have passed that, we have a third stoppage, the introduction of _reason_ or _intelligence_; and then a fourth, the introduction of the _spiritual faculties_, which cannot be placed on the same footing as mere reason. so that to get over the first point, and dispense with a cause or a creator of matter, is of no avail: it is incredible that there should be no creator of matter, but that there should be a creator of life--an imparter of reason, an endower of soul. but let us revert to the first stage and look at the nature of matter. chapter iv. _creative design in inorganic matter._ i take as self-evident the enormous difficulty of self-caused, self-existent matter. and when we see that matter _acting_, not irregularly or by caprice, but _by law_ (as every class of philosopher will admit), then it is still further difficult to realize that matter not only existed as a dead, simple, inactive thing, but existed with a folded-up history inside it, a long sequence of development--not the same for all particles, but various for each group: so that one set proceeded to form the _object_, and another the _environment_ of the object; or rather that a multitude of sets formed a vast variety of objects, and another multitude of sets formed a vast variety of environments. when we see matter acting by law, then if there is no creator, we have the to us unthinkable proposition of law without a lawgiver! on the other hand, if we shut out some of the difficulties, keep our eye on one part of the case only--and that is what the human mind is very apt to do--we can easily come round to think that, after all, _elementary_ matter--cosmic gas--is a very _simple_ thing; and looks really as if no great power, or intellect, were required to account for its origin. after all, some will say, if we grant your great, wise, beneficent, designing creator, the finite human mind has as little idea of a self-existing god, as it has of self-existing matter and self-existing law. _you_ postulate one great mystery, _we_ postulate two smaller ones; and the two together really present less "unthinkableness" to the mind than your one. that is so far plausible, but it is no more. to believe in a god is to believe in one existence, who necessarily (by the terms of our conception) has the power both of creating matter, designing the forms it shall take, and originating the tendencies, forces, activities--or whatever else we please to call them--which drive matter in the right direction to get the desired result. to believe not only that matter caused itself, but that the different forces and tendencies, and the aims and ends of development, were self-caused, is surely a much more difficult task. it is the existence of such a _variety_, it is the existence of a uniform tendency to produce certain though multitudinous results, that makes the insuperable difficulty of supposing _matter always developing_ (towards certain ends) to be self-caused. the advocates of "eternal matter" really overcome the difficulty, by shutting their eyes to everything beyond a part of the problem--the existence of simple matter apart from any laws, properties, or affinities. but the simplest drop of water, in itself, and apart from its mechanical relations to other matter, is really a very complex and a very wonderful thing; not at all likely to be "self-caused." water is made up, we know, of oxygen and hydrogen--two elementary colourless, formless gases. now we can easily divide the one drop into two, and, without any great difficulty, the two into four, and (perhaps with the aid of a magnifying glass) the four into eight, and so on, _as long as_ the minute particle _still retains the nature of water_. in short, we speak of the smallest subdivision of which matter is capable without losing its own nature, as the _molecule_. all matter may be regarded as consisting of a vast mass of these small molecules. now, we know that all known matter is capable of existing either in a solid, liquid, or gaseous form, its nature not being changed. water is very easily so dealt with. some substances, it is true, require very great pressure or very great cold, or both, to alter their form; but even carbonic acid, oxygen, and hydrogen, which under ordinary conditions are gases, can with proper appliances be made both liquid and solid. pure alcohol, has, i believe, never been made solid, but that is only because it is so difficult to get a sufficient degree of cold: there is no doubt that it could be done. it might be supposed that the molecules of which dead matter (whether solid, liquid, or vapourous) is composed, were equally motionless and structureless. but it is not so: every molecule in its own kind is endowed with marvellous properties. in the first place, every molecule has a double capability of motion. in the solid form the molecules are so packed together that, of course, the motion is excessively restricted; in the liquid it is a little easier; in the gaseous state the molecules are in a comparatively "open order." in most substances that are solid under ordinary conditions, by applying heat continuously we first liquefy and ultimately vapourize them. in those substances which under ordinary conditions are _gas_ (like carbonic acid, for instance), it is by applying cold, with perhaps great pressure as well, that we induce them to become liquid and solid; in fact, the process is just reversed. as we can most easily follow the process of heating, i will describe that. first, the solid (in most cases) gets larger and larger as it progresses to liquefaction, and when it gets to vapour, it suddenly expands enormously. take a rod of soft iron, and reduce it to freezing temperature: let us suppose that in that condition it measures just a thousand inches long. then raise the temperature to degrees (boiling point), and it will be found to measure , inches. why is that? obviously, because the molecules have got a little further apart. if you heat it till the iron gets liquid, the liquid would also occupy still more space than the original solid rod; and if we had temperature high enough to make the melted iron go off into vapour, it would occupy an enormously increased space. i cannot say what it would be for iron vapour; but if a given volume of water is converted into vapour, it will occupy about , times the space it did when liquid, though the weight would not be altered. it may here be worth while to mention that it is not invariably true that a substance gets contracted, and the molecules more and more pressed together, as it assumes a solid form. there is at least one exception. if we take , pints of steam, the water, as i said, on becoming cool enough to lose the vapourous form, will shrink into a measure holding a single pint; if we cooled lower still, it will get smaller and smaller in bulk (though of course not at all at the same rate) till it arrives at a point when it is just going to freeze; then suddenly ( degrees above the freezing point) it again begins to expand. ice occupies more space than cold water; its molecules get arranged in a particular manner by their crystallization. on the admission of an _intelligent_ creator providing, by beneficent design, the laws of matter, it is easy to give a reason for this useful property. it prevents the inhabitants of northern climates being deprived of a supply of water. as it is, the solid water or ice expands, and, becoming lighter, forms at the top of the water, and the heavier warmer water remains below. but if ice always got denser and sank, the warmer liquid would be perpetually displaced and so come up to the surface, where it would freeze and sink in its turn. in a short time, then, all our water supplies would (whenever the temperature went down to freezing, which it constantly does in winter) be turned into solid ice. this would be a source of the gravest inconvenience to the population of a cold climate. if we deny a designing mind, the alternative is that this property of water is a mere chance. but to return to molecules. molecules are endowed with an inherent faculty of motion; only under the conditions of what we call the solid, they are so compressed, that there is no room for any motion appreciable to the senses. even if the solid is converted into vapour, the molecules are still much restrained in their movements by the pressure of the air. but of late years, great improvements (partly chemical, partly mechanical) have been made in producing perfect _vacua_; that is to say, in getting glass or other vessels to be so far empty of air, that the almost inconceivably small residue in the receptacle has no perceptible effect on the action of a small quantity of any substance already reduced to the form of gas or vapour introduced into it. dr. w. crookes has made many beautiful experiments on the behaviour of the molecules of attenuated matter in _vacua_. the small quantity of vapour introduced contains only a relatively small number of molecules, which thus freed from all sensible restraint within the limits of the glass vessel used, are free to move as they will; they are observed to rush about, to strike against the sides of the vessel, and under proper conditions to shine and become _radiant_, and to exhibit extraordinary phenomena when subjected to currents of electricity. so peculiar is the molecular action thus set up, that scientific men have been tempted to speak of a fourth condition of matter (besides the three ordinary ones, solid, liquid, and gaseous), which they call the ultra-gaseous or radiant state of matter. this marvel of molecular structure seems already to have removed us sufficiently far from the idea of a simple inert mass, which might be primordial and self-caused. but we have not yet done. even imagining the extreme subdivision[ ] of the particles in one of dr. crookes' vacuum globes, the particles are still water. but we know that water is a compound substance. the molecule has nine parts, of which eight are hydrogen and one oxygen--because that is the experimentally known proportion in which oxygen and hydrogen combine to form water. as we can (in the present state of our knowledge) divide no farther, we call these ultimate fragments of simple or elementary substance _atoms_. [footnote : as to the possibility of _indefinite_ subdivision of matter, see sir w. thomsons's lecture, _nature_, june, , _et seq._] every substance, however finely divided into molecules, if it is not a simple substance, must therefore have, inside the _molecular_ structure, a further _atomic_ structure. and in the case of unresolvable or "elementary" substance, the molecule and the atom are not necessarily the same. for though there is reason to believe that, the molecule of these does consist, in some cases, of only one atom--in which case the atom and the molecule are identical; in other cases, the molecule is known to consist of more than one atom of the same element; and the atoms are capable of being differently arranged, and when so arranged have different _properties_ or behaviour, though their nature is not changed. this property is spoken of by chemists as _allotropism_. no chemist on earth can detect the slightest difference in _constitution_ between a molecule of _ozone_ and one _oxygen_; but the two have widely different properties, or behave very differently. there is thus a great mystery about atoms and their possible differences under different arrangement, which is as yet unsolved. those who wish to get an insight into the matter (which cannot be pursued farther here) will do well to read josiah cooke's "the new chemistry," in the international scientific series. the mind is really lost in trying to realize the idea of a fragment of matter too small for the most powerful microscope, but existing in fact (because of faultless reasoning from absolutely conclusive experiments), and yet so constituted that it is _practically_ a different thing when placed in one position or order, from what it is when placed in another. turning from this mystery, as yet so obscure, to what is more easily grasped, we shall hardly be surprised to learn, further, that every kind of, atom obeys its own laws, and that while atoms of one kind always have a _tendency to combine_ with atoms of other kinds, it is absolutely impossible to get them to combine together except on certain conditions. the difference between combination and mixture is well known. shake sand and sugar in a bag for ever so long, but they will only _mix_, not _combine_ or form any new substance even with the aid of electric currents; but place oxygen and hydrogen gas under proper conditions, and the gases will disappear, and water (in weight exactly equal to the weight of the volume of gases) will appear in their place. it is only certain kinds of atoms that will combine at all with other kinds; and when they do so combine, they will only unite in absolutely fixed proportions, so that chemists have been able to assign to every kind of element its own combining proportion. the substances that will combine will do so in these proportions, or in proportions of any _even multiple_ of the number, and in no other. thus fourteen parts of nitrogen will combine with sixteen of oxygen; and we have several substances in nature, called nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, nitric di-oxide, &c., which illustrate this, in which fourteen parts of nitrogen combine with sixteen oxygen or fourteen nitrogen with a multiple of sixteen oxygen, or a multiple of fourteen nitrogen combine with sixteen oxygen, and so on. see now where we have got to. when we had spoken of a tiny fragment of primal matter--a drop of water, for instance--it seemed as if there was no more to be said; but no, we found ourselves able to give a whole history of the molecules of which the substance consists; and when we had considered the molecule, we found a further beautiful and intricate order of _atoms_ inside the molecule, as it were. and there is no reason to suppose that science has yet revealed all that is possible to be known about atoms and molecules; so that if further wonders should be evoked, the argument will grow and grow in cumulative force. let me sum up the conclusion to be drawn from these facts in a quotation from a discourse of sir john f.w. herschel. "when we see," says that eminent philosopher, "a great number of things precisely alike, we do not believe this similarity to have originated except from _a common principle independent of them_; and that we recognize this likeness, chiefly by the _identity of their deportment under similar circumstances_ strengthens rather than weakens the conclusion. "a line of spinning jennies, or a regiment of soldiers dressed exactly alike and going through precisely the same evolutions, gives us no idea of independent existence: we must see them act out of concert before we can believe them to have independent wills and properties not impressed on them from without. "and this conclusion, which would be strong even if there were only two individuals precisely alike in _all_ respects and _for ever_, acquires irresistible force when their number is multiplied beyond the power of imagination to conceive. "if we mistake not, then, the discoveries alluded to effectually destroy the ideas of an _eternal_ self-existent matter by giving to each of its atoms the essential characters at once of a _manufactured_ article and of a _subordinate agent_." in other words, continuing the metaphor of the trained army, we see millions upon millions of molecules all arranged in regiments, distinct and separate, and the regiments again made up of companies or individuals, each obeying his own orders in subordination to, and in harmony with, the whole: are we not justified in concluding that this army has not been only called into being by some cause external to itself; but further, that its constitution has been impressed upon it, and its equipments and organization directed, by an infinite intelligence? there is, then, no such thing to be found in nature as a simple, structureless "primal matter" which exhibits nothing tending to make self-causation or aboriginal existence difficult to conceive. to look at matter in that light is not only to take into consideration a _part_ of the case; it is really to take what does not exist, a part that exists only in the imagination. the simplest form of matter we can deal with, exhibits within itself all the wondrous plan, law, and sequence of the molecular and atomic structure we have sketched out; and when we consider that, having taken matter so far, we have even then only introduced it to the verge of the universe, ushered it on to the threshold of a great "aeon," when and where it is to be acted on by "gravitation" and other forces, to act in relation to other matter, and to be endowed perhaps with life, we shall feel that the self-existence--the uncaused existence of matter, and of the principles on which matter proceeds or acts, is in reality not a less mystery than the self-existence of a designing and intelligent cause, but one so great as to be itself "unthinkable." chapter v. _the creation of living matter_. we now come to _living_ matter; directing attention, first, to that elementary form of life as exhibited in simple protoplasm and in the lower forms of organism, and then to the perfect forms of bird and beast. in each case, we shall find the same evidence of design and intelligence, the same proof of "contrivance" and purpose, which we cannot attribute to the mere action of secondary causes. the simplest form in which life is manifested is in a viscid gelatinous substance without colour or form, called _protoplasm_. wherever there is life there is protoplasm. protoplasm, as before remarked, lies just under the bark in trees, and is the material from which the growth of the wood and bark cells and fibres proceeds. protoplasm, is also present in the muscles and in the blood, and wherever growth is going on. but protoplasm also exists by itself; or, more properly speaking, there exist living creatures, both plant and animal, which are so simple in structure, so low in organization, that they consist of nothing but a speck of protoplasm. such a creature is the microscopic _amoeba_. sometimes these little specks of protoplasm are surrounded with beautifully formed "silicious shells--a skeleton of radiating _spiculae_ or crystal-clear concentric spheres of exquisite symmetry and beauty.[ ]" the simplest _amoeba_ however, has no definite form; but the little mass moves about, expands and contracts, throws out projections on one side and draws them in on the other. it exhibits irritability when touched. it may be seen surrounding a tiny particle of food, extracting nutriment from it and growing in size. ultimately the little body separates or splits up into two, each part thenceforth taking a separate existence. [footnote : professor allman.] now it is claimed that such a little organism contains the potentiality of all life; that it grows and multiplies, and develops into higher and higher organisms, into all (in short) that we see in the plant and animal world around us. this, it is argued, is all done by natural causes, not by any direction or guidance or intervention of a divine agency. here we must stop to ask how this protoplasm, or simplest form of organic life, came to exist? how did it get its _life_--its property of taking nourishment, of growing and of giving birth to other creatures like itself? the denier of creation replies, that just in the same way as, by the laws of affinity, other inanimate substances came together to produce the earth--salts and other compounds we see in the world around us--so did certain elements combine to form protoplasm. this combination when perfected has the property of being alive, just as water has the property of assuming a solid form or has any other of the qualities which we speak of as its properties. now it is perfectly true that, treated as a substance, you can take the gummy protoplasm, put it into a glass and subject it to analysis like any other substance. but simple as the substance appears, composition is really very complicated. professor allman tells us that so difficult and wonderful is its chemistry, that in fact really very little is known about it. the best evidence we have, i believe, makes it tolerably certain that protoplasm consists of a combination of ammonia, carbonic acid, and water, and that every molecule of it is made up of atoms, of which are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen.[ ] but no chemist has ever been able either to account theoretically for such a composition, still less to produce it artificially. it is urged, however, that it may be only due to our clumsy apparatus and still very imperfect knowledge of chemistry, that we were unable artificially to make up protoplasm. [footnote : nicholson ("zoology," p. ) gives for albumen, which is nearly identical with protoplasm--carbon, ; hydrogen, ; nitrogen, ; oxygen, ; sulphur, . these figures nearly equal those in the text, being those figures multiplied each by (approximately) and without the trace of sulphur.] and of course there is no answer to a supposition of this sort. nevertheless there is no sort of reason to believe that protoplasm will ever be made; nor, if we could succeed in uniting the elements into a form resembling protoplasmic jelly, is there the least reason to suppose that such a composition would exhibit the irritability, or the powers of nutrition and reproduction, which are essentially the characteristics of _living_ protoplasm. it is not too much to say that, after the close of the controversy about spontaneous generation, it is now a universally admitted principle of science that life can only proceed from life--the old _omne vivum ex ovo_ in a modern form.[ ] but here the same sort of argument that was brought forward regarding the possibility of matter and its laws being self-caused, comes in as regards life. [footnote : _see_ "critiques and addresses," t.h. huxley, f.r.s., p. . so much is this the case, that it is really superfluous, however interesting, to recall the experiments of dr. tyndall and others, which finally demonstrated that wherever primal animal forms, bacteria and other, "microbes," were produced in infusions of hay, turnip, &c., apparently boiled and sterilized and then hermetically sealed, there were really germs in the air enclosed in the vessel, or germs that in one form or another were not destroyed by the boiling or heating. dr. bastian's argument for spontaneous generation is thus completely overthrown. _(see_ drummond, "natural law," pp. - .)] the argument in the most direct form was made use of by professor huxley, but it is difficult to believe that so powerful a thinker could seriously hold to a view which will not bear examination, however neatly and brilliantly it may go off when first launched into the air. the argument is that life can only be regarded as a further property of certain forms of matter. oxygen and hydrogen, when they combine, result in a new substance, quite unlike either of them in character, and possessing _new_ and different properties. the way in which the combination is effected is a mystery, yet we do not account for the new and peculiar properties of water (so different from those of the original gases) as arising from a principle of "aquosity," which we have to invoke from another world. the answer is that the argument is from analogy, and that there is not really the remotest analogy between the two cases. it is true that, as far as we know, electricity is necessary to force a combination of the requisite equivalents of oxygen and hydrogen into water. but though we do not know why this is, or what electricity is, we can repeat the process as often as we will. but mark the difference; the water once existing is obviously only a new form of matter, in the same category with the gases it came from: it neither increases in bulk, nor takes in fresh elements to grow, and give birth to new drops of water. but protoplasm has something quite different--for there may be dead protoplasm and living protoplasm, both identical to the eye and to every chemical test. in either condition, protoplasm, as such, has _properties_ of the same nature (though not of the same kind) as those of water, oxygen gas, or any other matter; it is colorless, heavy, sticky, elastic, and so forth; but besides all that (without the aid of electricity or any physical force we can apply) one has the power of producing more protoplasm--gathering for itself, by virtue of its inherent power, the materials for growth and reproduction. if directly water was called into existence it could take in nourishment, and divide and go on producing more water--and if some water could do this, while other water (which no available test could distinguish from it in any other respect) could not, then we _should_ be perfectly justified in giving a special name to this power, and calling it "aquosity" or "vitality" or anything else, it being out of all analogy to anything else which we call a "property" of matter. in the introduction of life into the _aeon_ of organic developmental history, we have a clear and distinct period, as we had when _matter_ came into view, or when _the change_ was ushered in which set the cosmic gas cooling and liquefying, and turning to solid in various form. the fact is that every organic form, whether plant or animal, derived from the protoplasmic compounds of carbon-dixoide, ammonia and water, is, as mr. drummond puts it,[ ] "made of materials which have once been inorganic. an organizing principle, not belonging to their kingdom, lays hold of them and elaborates them." [footnote : "natural law," p. .] thus by the introduction of life we have a vastly enlarged horizon. before, in the organic world, we had only the "principle" of solidifying or crystallizing, liquefying, and turning to gas or vapour, ever stopping when the state was attained. or if a combination was in progress, still the result was only a rearrangement of the same bulk of materials (however new the form) in solid, liquid, or gas, but no increase, no nutrition, no reproduction. in the organic world we have something so different, that whether we talk of "property" or "principle," the things are entirely distinct. the essential difference, stated as regards the mere facts of irritability or motion, nutrition and reproduction, is so grandly sufficient in itself, that one almost regrets to have to add on the other facts which further emphasize the distinction between _life_ and any _property_ of matter. but these further facts are highly important as regards another part of the argument. for while what has just been said almost demonstrates the necessity of a giver of life from a kingdom outside the organic, the further facts point irresistibly to the conclusion that we must predicate more about the giver of life that we can of an abstract and unknown cause. the original protoplasm, when dead, is undistinguishable by the eye, by chemical test, or by the microscope, from the same protoplasm when living; and living protoplasm, again, may be either animal or vegetable. both are in every respect (externally) absolutely identical. yet the one will only develop into a _plant_, the other only into an _animal._ nor does it diminish the significance of the fact to say that the differentiation is _now_ fixed by heredity. if we suppose protoplasm to be only a fortuitous combination of elements, what secondary or common natural cause will account for its acquisition of the fixed difference? it is true that some forms of plants exhibit some functions that closely approach the functions of what we call animal life; but, as we shall see presently, there is no evidence whatever that there is any bridge between the two--we have no proof that a plant ever develops into an animal. here is one of the gaps which the theory of evolution, true as it is to a certain extent, cannot bridge over; and we must not overlook the fact. we shall revert to it hereafter. can it be believed, then, that protoplasm, as the origin of life, is self-caused, and self-developed? and this is not all. i must briefly remind my readers that the way in which animal protoplasm deals with the elements of nutrition is quite opposite to that which plant protoplasm follows. i might, indeed, have mentioned this at an earlier stage, when i mentioned professor huxley's comparison of the chemical action in the formation of water with what he assumed to be the case in the formation of protoplasm. when water is formed, the two gases disappear, and an _exactly equal weight_ of water appears in their place; but if living protoplasm is enabled to imbibe liquid or other nutriment containing ammonia, water, and carbonic acid, there is no disappearance of the three elements and an equivalent weight of living protoplasm appearing in its place. protoplasm consumes the oxygen and sets free the carbonic acid. both kinds of protoplasm do this, until exposed to the light; and then a difference is observed; for under the influence of light, animal protoplasm alone continues to act in this way, and vegetable protoplasm begins at once to develop little green bodies or corpuscles in its cells, and afterwards acts in a totally opposite way, taking the carbon into its substance and giving off the oxygen.[ ] [footnote : certain _fungi_ seem to afford an exception to this. the above is, i believe, true as a theoretical action of plants and animals in protoplasmic form. but practically, in all higher developments of either kind, other distinctions come into play; e.g., that plants can make use of inorganic matter, gases, and water, and elaborate them into organic matter. animals cannot do this, they require more or less solid food--always requiring "complex organic bodies which they ultimately reduce to much simpler inorganic bodies. they are thus mediately or immediately dependent on plants for their subsistence" (nicholson, "zoology," th ed. p. ). it is perhaps with reference to this that in the book of genesis the creator is represented as giving _plant_ life to the service of man and animals--while nothing is said of the preying of _carnivora_ and _insectivora_ on animal life.] not only then has each kind of protoplasm its own mysterious character impressed on it, and is compelled to act in a certain way; but still further, each particle of animal and vegetable protoplasm, when directed into its _general_ course of development as _plant or animal_, will again only obey a certain course of development in its own line. but we must proceed a step further; for those who would believe in the sufficiency of unaided evolution, bid us bear in mind how very elementary the dawn of instinct or the beginning of reason is in the lowest forms which are classed as animal, and how very small is the gap[ ] between some highly organized plants and some animal forms, and argue therefore that they may justly regard the distinction as of minor importance, and hope that the "missing link" will be yet discovered and proved. at any rate, they minimize the difference, and urge that it is of no account if at least they can establish the sufficiency of a proved development extending unbroken from the lowest to the highest animal form. and having fixed attention on this side, no doubt there is a long stretch of smooth water over which the passage is unchecked. [footnote : at the risk of repetition i will remind the reader that nature contains _nothing like_ a progressive scale from plant to animal. it is _never_ that the highest plant can be connected with the lowest animal as in one series of links. the animal kingdom and the plant kingdom are absolutely apart. both start from similar elementary proteinaceous structures; and both preserve their development upwards--each exhibiting _some_ of the features of the other. it is at the bottom of each scale that resemblance is to be found, _not_ between the top of one and the lowest members of the other.] the evolution theory is that all the different species of animals, birds, and other forms of life have been caused by the accumulation and perpetuation of numerous small changes which began in one or at most a few elementary forms, and went on till all the thousands of species we now know of were developed.[ ] it _is_ a fact that all organic forms have a certain tendency to vary. i need only allude to the many varieties of pigeons, horses, cattle, and dogs which are produced by varying the food, the circumstances of life and so forth, and by selective breeding. the contention then is: given certain original simple forms of life, probably marine or aquatic--for it is in the water that the most likely occur--these will gradually change and vary, some in one direction, some in another; that the changes go on increasing, each creature giving birth to offspring which exhibits the stored-up results of change, till the varied and finished forms--some reptile, some bird, some animal--which we now see around us, have been produced. and at last man himself was developed in the same way. all this, observe, is by the action of just such ordinary and natural causes as we now see operating around us--changes in food and in climate, changes in one part requiring a corresponding change in others, and so on. [footnote : the reader may find this admirably put in wallace, "contributions to the theory of natural selection," p. .] nature contains no sharply drawn lines. plants are different from animals; but there are animals so low down in the scale of life that it is difficult to distinguish them from plants. pigeons are distinct from pheasants, but the line at which the one species ends and the other begins is difficult to draw. this fact seems to invite some theory of one form changing into other. accordingly the evolutionist explains the working of the process which he asserts to be sufficient to produce all the various forms of life in our globe. after stating this more in detail than we have previously done, we shall be in a better position to judge if the process (which in the main we have no desire to deny or even to question) can dispense with _guidance_ and the fixing of certain lines and limits within which, and of certain types towards which, the development proceeds. that is our point. it is hardly necessary to illustrate the enormous destruction of life which goes on in the world. even among the human race, the percentage of infants that die in the first months of their life is very large. but in the lower forms of life it is truly enormous. only consider the myriads of insects that perish from hunger or accident, and from the preying of one species on another. if it were not so, the world would be overrun by plagues of mice, of birds, of insects of all kinds, and indeed by creatures of every grade. the term "struggle for existence" is, then, not an inapt one. all forms of living creatures have to contend with enemies which seek to prey upon or to destroy them, with the difficulty of obtaining food, and with what i may call the chances of nature--cold, storms, floods, disease, and so forth. now, it is obvious that if some creatures of a given kind possess some accidental peculiarity or modification in their formation which gives them (in one way or another) an advantage over their fellows, these improved specimens are likely to survive, and, surviving, to have offspring. it is this perpetuation of advantageous changes, originally induced by the circumstances of environment, that is indicated by the term "natural selection." nature chooses out the form best suited to the circumstances which surround it, and this form lives while the others die out. and this form goes on improving by slow successive changes, which make it more and more fit for the continually changing circumstances of its life. subordinate also to this natural selection is the principle that bright colour and other special qualities may be developed in the males of a race, because individuals with such advantages are more attractive, and therefore more easily find mates, than dull-coloured or otherwise less attractive individuals. of each of these principles i may give a simple example. supposing a species of bird with a soft slender beak to be placed on an island, where the only food they could obtain was fruit enclosed in a hard or tough shell or covering. supposing some birds accidentally possessed of a beak that was shorter and stouter than the others', these would be able to break open the shell and get at the fruit, while the others would starve. some of the descendants of the birds with the stout beaks would inherit the same peculiarity, and in the course of several generations there would thus arise a species with short and strong, perhaps curved, beaks just fitted to live on fruits of the kind described. in a similar way the webbed feet of birds that swim were developed by their aquatic habits. and so with the long slender toes of the waders, which are so well fitted for walking over floating aquatic plants. of the other principle, sexual selection, a familiar example is the bright and showy colouring of the male birds of many species: the females of their species, as they need protection while helplessly sitting on their eggs, are dull-coloured like the bark of trees or the sand, among which their nests lie hid. some of the himalayan pheasants exhibit this peculiarity to a marked degree. originally, it is said, the male bird, which was more brightly coloured than the rest, got mated more easily by the preference shown to him for his bright colour. the question is, can we suppose all this to go on, by self-caused laws and concurrence of circumstances, without a pre-existing design for the forms to reach or an external guidance in the processes? chapter vi. _the marks of creative intelligence in the evolution of organic forms_. the heading of this chapter does not mark a new departure, for we have been tracing existing forms of matter from the first, and have already seen the necessity of believing in creative intelligence and guidance. we have seen that inorganic matter, with what we call its molecular or atomic structure, cannot be reasonably regarded as self-caused; and we have concluded with sir j.f.w. herschell that the sight of such a well-arranged army, performing its evolutions in a regular and uniform manner, irresistibly suggests a great commander and designer. we have further found that the advent of life demands a power _ab extra_. we have called attention to the gap, between plant and animal, which is ignored or made light of, chiefly on account of the close approach of the two kingdoms. but there is one broad distinction, namely, that of elementary reason and no reason, or of consciousness and unconsciousness, which is, in itself, a sufficient difficulty to pull us up shortly. we have not yet fully considered this matter, because it will come more appropriately at a later stage, and in the _à fortiori_ form. but we have justly noted it here. we cannot account for the most elementary reason by any physical change; there is no analogy between the two. the connection of mind and matter is unexplainable; and no theory of development of physical form can say why, at any given stage, physical development begins to be accompanied by brain-power and _consciousness_. admit candidly that the addition of intelligence at a certain stage, however mysteriously interwoven with structural accompaniments, is a gift _ab extra_, and we have at least a reasonable and so far satisfactory explanation. but when we have got an animal form, however simple and elementary, with at least a recognizable "potentiality" of intelligence, we enter, as i said, a long stretch of apparently smooth water, over which, for an important part of our passage, we seem able to glide without any difficulty from the necessary intervention of the so-called supernatural. i have, then, to show that even here there is really no possibility of dispensing with a creator who has a purpose, a designed scheme, and a series of type-forms to be complied with. in order to fully exhaust the question how far natural selection is capable of accounting for everything, it would be necessary to take a very wide view of natural history and botany, which it is quite impossible for us to attempt. but this is not necessary for our purpose. we are perfectly justified in selecting certain topics which must arise in the discussion. if, in studying these points, we find that _there_ at least the intervention of a controlling power becomes necessary, and the absence of it leaves things without any reasonable explanation, then we shall have good and logical ground for holding to our faith in the universal presence of such a power. no chain is stronger than its weakest link. if secondary causes cannot succeed at any one part of the chain, it is obvious that they fail as a universal explanation. this part of the work has already been done far better than i could do it. in the first eight chapters of mivart's "genesis of species" [ ] the argument has been ably and clearly put, and whatever answer is possible has been given by darwin and others; so that the world may judge. all that can here be usefully attempted, is, by way of reminder, to reproduce some main topics on which no real answer has been given. these are selected, partly because they are less abstruse and difficult to follow than some which might be dealt with, partly because they are calculated to awaken our interest, and partly because the conclusion in favour of a continual providence; working through organized law and system, appears to follow most clearly from them. [footnote : second edition, .] the points i would call attention to are the following:-- (i) that as natural selection will only maintain changes that have been _beneficial_ to the creature, it is contrary to such a law, if acting entirely by itself, that that there should be developments (not being mere accidental deformities, &c.) disadvantageous to the creature. and yet the world is full of such. ( ) that there are forms which cannot be accounted for on the evolutionist supposition, that they were gradually obtained by a series of small changes slowly progressing towards a perfect structure. they would be of no use at all unless produced _at once and complete_. ( ) that natural selection, as apart from a divine designer, altogether fails to account for _beauty_, as distinguished from mere brilliancy or conspicuousness, in nature. whereas, if we suppose the existence of a beneficent creator, who has moral objects in view, and cares for the delight and the improvement of his creatures,[ ] and looking to the known effects on the mind of beauty in art and in nature, the existence is at once and beyond all cavil explained. [footnote : "he hath made everything _beautiful_ in his time" (eccles. iii. ii).] ( ) that we have positive evidence against _uncontrolled_ evolution (uncontrolled by set plan and design i.e.) and a strong presumption in favour of the existence of created _types_; so that evolution proceeds towards these types by aid of natural laws and forces working together (in a way that our limited faculties necessarily fail to grasp adequately);[ ] and so that, the type once reached, a certain degree of variation, but never _transgression_ of _the type_, is possible. further, that on this supposition we are able to account for some of the unexplained facts in evolutionary history, such as _reversion_ and the _sterility of hybrids_; and to see why there are gaps which cannot be bridged over, and which by extreme theorists are only feebly accounted for on the supposition that as discovery progresses they _will_ be bridged over some day. [footnote : "also he hath set the world in their heart, so that _no man can find out the work that god maketh_ from the beginning to the end" (eccles. iii ii).] ( ) lastly, that there is no possibility of giving _time_ enough on any possible theory of the world's existence, for the evolution of all species, unless _some_ reasonable theory of creative arrangement and design be admitted. the great objection--the descent of man and the introduction of reason, consciousness, and so forth, into the world, will then form two separate chapters, concluding the first division of my subject. there is one point which the reader may be surprised to see omitted. it is, that if these slow changes were always going on, why is not the present world full of, and the fossil-bearing rocks also abounding in, _intermediate forms_, creatures which _are on their way_ to being something else? but there are reasons to be given on this ground which make the subject a less definite one for treatment. it is said, for example, that in the fossil rocks we have only such scanty and fragmentary records, that it is not possible to draw a complete inference, and that there is always the possibility of fresh discoveries being made. such discoveries have, it is asserted, already been made in the miocene and again in later rocks; different species of an early form of _horse_ which are (and this we may admit) the ancestral or intermediate forms of our own horse, have been found. i therefore would not press the difficulty, great as it is, because of the escape which the hope of future discovery always affords. i will take this opportunity to repeat that in this chapter i say nothing about the difficulty which arises from the introduction of elementary reason or instinct, and of consciousness, into the scale of organic being; that will more appropriately fall in with the consideration of the development of man, where naturally the difficulty occurs with its greatest force. ( ) i come at once to the great difficulty that, if all existing forms are due to the occurrence of changes that helped the creature in the struggle for existence, how is it possible now to account for forms which are not advantageous? yet such forms are numerous. of this objection, the existence of imperfect or neuter bees and ants is an instance. the modification in form which these creatures exhibit is of no advantage to them. it _is_ a great advantage, no doubt, to the other bees; but then this introduces a view of some power _making_ one thing for the benefit of another, not a change in the form itself adapted of course to its _own_ advantage--since natural laws, forces, and conditions of environment could not conceivably _design_ the advantage of another form, and cause one to change for the benefit of that other. why is it, again, that crabs and crayfish can only grow by casting off their shells, during which process they often die, as well as remain exposed defenceless to the attacks of enemies? why should stags shed their horns also, leaving them defenceless for a time? other animals do not do so, and there is nothing in the nature of the horn which requires it. this brief allusion is here sufficient. mr. mivart's work gives it at large. ( ) passing next to the question of the advantage of _incomplete stages_--portions of a mechanism only useful when complete, the most striking examples may be found in the vegetable kingdom. the fertilization of flowering plants is effected by the pollen, a yellow dust formed in the anthers, which is carried from flower to flower. in the pines and oaks, this is done by the wind. but in other cases insects visit a flower to get the honey, and in so doing get covered with pollen, which they carry away and leave in the next flower visited. now one of our commonest and most useful plants, the red clover, is so constructed that it can only be fertilized by humble bees. if this bee became extinct, the plant would die out; how can such a development be advantageous to it? but the contrivances by which this process of fertilization is secured are so marvellous, that i confess i am completely staggered by the idea that these contrivances have been caused by the self-growth and adaptation of the plant without guidance. there is a plant called _salvia glutinosa_[ ]--easily recognized by its sticky calyx and pale yellow flowers. the anthers that bear the pollen are hidden far back in the hood of the flower, so that the pollen can neither fall nor can the wind carry it away; but the two anthers are supported on a sort of spring, and directly a bee goes to the flower and pushes in his head to get the honey, the spring is depressed and both anthers start forward, of course depositing their pollen on the hairy back of the bee, which carries it to the stigma of the next flower. this process can be tested without waiting for a bee, by pushing a bit of stick into the flower, when the curious action described will be observed. it is very easy to say that this admirable mechanical contrivance is of great use to the plant _in its complete_ form; but try and imagine what use an intermediate form would have been! if development at once proceeded to the complete form, surely this marks _design_; if not, no partial step towards it would have been of any use, and therefore would not have been inherited and perpetuated so as to prepare for further completion. but many other plants have a structure so marvellous that this objection is continually applicable. let me only recall one other case, that of the orchid, called _coryanthes macrantha_. in this flower there are two little horns, which secrete a pure water, or rather water mixed with honey. the lower part of the flower consists of a long lip, the end of which is bent into the form of a bucket hanging below the horns. this bucket catches the nectar as it drops, and is furnished with a spout over which the liquid trickles when it is too full. but the mouth of the bucket is guarded by a curiously ridged cover with two openings, one on each side. the most ingenious man, says mr. darwin, would never by himself make out what this elaborate arrangement was intended for. it was at last discovered. large humble bees were seen visiting the flower; by way of getting at the honey, they set to work to gnaw off the ridges of the lid above alluded to; in doing this they pushed one another into the bucket, and had to crawl out by the spout. as they passed out by this narrow aperture, they had to rub against the anthers and so carried off the pollen. when a bee so charged gets into another bucket, or into the same bucket a second time, and has to crawl out, he brushes against the stigma, and leaves the pollen on it. i might well have adduced this plant as another instance of the first objection, since it may well be asked, how could such a development, resulting in a structure which presents the greatest difficulty in the way of fertilization, be beneficial to the plant? but here the point is that, even if any one could assert the utility of such an elaborate and complicated development, and suppose it self-caused by accident or effect of environment, it certainly goes against the idea that all forms are due to an _accumulation of small changes_. for these curious contrivances in the case of _salvia, coryanthes_, and other plants, would in any case have been no use to the plant till the whole machinery _was complete_. now, on the theory of slow changes gradually accumulating till the complete result was attained, there must have been generation after generation of plants, in which the machinery was as yet imperfect and only partly built up. but in such incomplete stages, fertilization would have been impossible, and therefore the plant must have died out. just the same with the curious fly-trap in _dionoea_. whatever may be its benefit to the plant, till the whole apparatus as it now is, was _complete_, it would have been of no use. in the animal kingdom also, instances might be given: the giraffe has a long neck which is an advantage in getting food that other animals cannot reach; but what would have been the use of a neck which was becoming--and had not yet become--long? here intermediate stages would not have been useful, and therefore could not have been preserved.[ ] in flat fishes it is curious that, though they are born with eyes on different sides of the head, the lower eye gradually grows round to the upper-side. as remarked by mr. mivart, natural selection could not have produced this change, since the _first steps towards it_ could have been of no possible use, and could not therefore have occurred, at least not without direction and guidance from without. mr. darwin's explanation of the case does not touch this difficulty. [footnote : this species was instanced because the lectures which form the basis of the book were originally delivered at simla, in the n.w. himalaya, where, at certain seasons, the plant is a common wayside weed. mr. darwin notices a similar and, if possible, more curious structure in a species of _catasetum_.] [footnote : see this fully explained by mivart, "genesis of species," pp. , ( nd edition).] ( ) the third point, the occurrence of so much _beauty_ in organic life, is perhaps one of the most conclusive arguments for design in nature. here, if possible, more clearly than elsewhere, i see a total failure of "natural causes." we are told that the beauty of birds (for instance) is easily accounted for by the fact, that the ornamented and beautiful males are preferred by the other sex; and that this is an advantage, so the beauty has been perpetuated; and the same with butterflies and beetles. we are told also that bright-coloured fruits attract birds, who eat the soft parts of the fruit and swallow the hard stone or seed which is thus prepared for germination, and carried about and dispersed over the earth's surface. again, showy coloured flowers attract insects, which carry away pollen and fertilize other flowers. all this is perfectly true; but it entirely fails to go far enough to meet the difficulty. now passing over such difficulties as the fact that bright colours in flowers _do not_ attract insects in many cases, but much more inconspicuous flowers if they have a scent (mignonette, for example) _do_; passing over such a fact as that afforded by the violet, which (as some may not be aware) has two kinds of flower, one scented and of a beautiful colour, the other green and inconspicuous, and it is the _latter, not the former_ which is usually fertile;--passing over all detailed difficulties of this kind, i allude only to the one great one, that in all these cases, besides mere bright colour, conspicuousness or showiness, there is a great and wonderful beauty of pattern, design, or colour arrangement, in nature. now there is not a particle of evidence to show that any animal has, to the smallest extent, a _sense of beauty_. on the contrary it is most improbable. the sense of artistic beauty is not only peculiar to man, but only exists in him when civilized and cultivated. uneducated people among ourselves have no sense of landscape and other beauty. how then can it exist in animals? if there was nothing to explain but a uniform bright and showy colour, natural selection might be sufficient to account for it. how is it, then, that this is not the case? we have not only colour, but colour diversified in the most elaborate and charming manner. look at the exquisite patterns on a butterfly's wing! look at the various delicate arrangements of colour and pattern in flowers; or look again at the arrangement of colour on a humming-bird--sometimes the tail, sometimes the breast is ornamented, sometimes a splendid crest covers the head, sometimes a jewelled gorget or ruff surrounds the throat; and these are not uniformly coloured, but exhibit metallic and other changes of lustre not to be imitated by the highest art. but to fully realize this, i had best refer to a more familiar instance. let any one examine--as an object very easily procurable in these days--a peacock's feather. no doubt the whole tail when expanded is very brilliant; but look closely at the structure of a single feather; is all this arrangement needed only to make the tail bright or conspicuous? observe how wonderfully the outer parts are varied; part has a metallic lustre of copper, part has this also shot with green: then there is a delicate ring of violet with a double yellowish border, all quite distinct from the inmost gorgeous "eye" of green, blue, and black, and all arranged on the same feather! take, again, the so-called diamond beetle of brazil; here the wing case is black studded all over with little pits or specks, which as a whole only give it a powdery pale-green colour; but place it in the sunlight and look at it with a magnifying glass--each little speck is seen to be furnished with a set of minute metallic scales showing green and red flashes like so many diamonds. how does such a delicate ornament answer the demands of mere conspicuousness? but there is a stronger case than this. i before alluded to the exquisite symmetry of the silicious and crystalline coverings of some of the simplest forms of marine animalcules; and also i may here add the beautiful colouring of _shells_ sometimes on the _inside_.[ ] in what possible way would this beauty serve for any purely _useful_ purpose? [footnote : see mivart, p. .] lastly, how are we to account for the beauty of autumnal tints in woods, or coloured _leaves_ in plants such as the _caladium_? the beauty is of no conceivable use to the plant. "in canada the colours of the autumn forest are notorious. even on cloudy days the hue of the foliage is of so intense a yellow that the light thrown from the trees creates the impression of bright sunshine, each leaf presents a point of sparkling gold. but the colours of the leafy landscape change and intermingle from day to day, until pink, lilac, vermilion, purple, deep indigo and brown, present a combination of beauty that must be seen to be realized; for no artist has yet been able to represent, nor can the imagination picture to itself, the gorgeous spectacle.[ ]" have we not here an exhibition which cannot be accounted for on any principle of natural utility? [footnote : "quarterly review," , p. .] ( ) the fourth point, as previously stated, will be best treated by stating beforehand what is the conclusion come to, and then justifying it. my suggestion is that if we suppose a continuous evolution without a series of designs prescribed before life began to develop, and without any external guidance, then we are lost in difficulties. we cannot account for why variation should set in in the very different ways it does, nor why such a vast variety of divergent results should be produced. we cannot account for the tendency to reversion to a previous type, when artificial or accidental variation is not continually maintained,[ ] nor for the sterility of hybrids; nor, above all, for evolution performing such freaks (if i may so say) as the origination of our small finches and the tropical humming-birds from earlier vertebrates through the mesozoic reptiles, the pterodactyles, _odontornithes_ and subsequent forms. supposing that the almighty designer created a complete _cosmos_ of ( ) the starry heavens and the planetary system, ( ) then a scheme whereby earth and water were to be duly distributed over our planet; ( ) established the relations by which the external heavenly bodies were to regulate our seasons, tides, and times (as we know they do). ( ) suppose, further, that the designer did not make "out of nothing" the series of finally developed animals as we now have them, but "made the animals make themselves"--that is to say, created the type, the ideal form, and adapted the laws and forces which constitute environment, so that development of form should go on regularly towards the appointed end, but in separate and appropriate channels, each terminating when its object had been attained. suppose these conditions (which, as we shall afterwards see, are what revelation, fairly interpreted, declares) to exist; all the known _facts_, and also the fairly certain _inferences_ of evolution, are then accounted for. [footnote : pigeon fanciers know that when they have once obtained, by crossbreeding and selection, a particular form or feather, the utmost care is needed to preserve it. if the parents are not selected the progeny wilt gradually revert towards the original wild pigeon type.] we have neither by revelation nor physical discovery an exact _scheme_ of all the types, nor which of the elementary forms were destined to remain unchanged throughout. but some scheme of created types we surely have. whether what we call _species_[ ] are all types or not, we cannot say; probably not. all we can be sure of is that there are definite lines somewhere. we see the sterility of some hybrids, for instance, which would seem to indicate that while some forms can conjugate and their offspring remain fertile, others (approaching, as it were, the verge of separation) give rise to hybrids which are or not absolutely sterile,[ ] according as they approach, or are more remote from, the designed barrier-line. and at that point the separation is insuperable. certain forms of _carnivora_ and _ungulata_ seem to be for ever apart--not only the two great orders, but even subdivisions within them. reptiles and birds, on the other hand, unlike as they at first sight seem, have no type line drawn to separate them; that, at least, is one of the more recent conclusions of biological science. [footnote : it should be borne in mind that what we call a _species_ as distinct from a mere variety, is a more or less arbitrary or provisional thing dependent on the state of science for the time. species are constantly being lumped together by some and separated by others. it follows most probably, that while some species are really types--i.e., one can never pass into the other and lose its essentials, unless it is destined to disappear (like the pterodactyle), not being wanted in the whole scheme--other species are really only varieties, and maybe lost or modified without limit.] [footnote : we may well regard the mule as a peculiar form just such as the evolutionist would rejoice to see: here is a modified species, which has qualities different from those of either of the parent stock, and well fitted "to struggle for existence." yet this modified race would, if left to itself, die out.] in other cases where variation has occurred, and especially when it is artificially--i.e., by the aid of selective breeding--caused or favoured, there is the constant tendency to _revert_, which is at once intelligible if there is a type scheme to be maintained. if there were a series of created types, there may naturally have been what i may call sub-types; which would be certain well-marked stages on the way to the final form. such sub-type forms would naturally occur at different ages, and being marked would show their place in the scale, and their connection with the ultimate perfect form. such a possibility would exactly account for the series of _eohippus, hipparion_, and horse, which we have already instanced; and still more so for the rise and disappearance of the great mesozoic saurians when their object was fulfilled. deny guidance and type, and everything becomes confused. why should variation take certain directions? how comes it that natural forces and conditions of life so occur and co-operate as to produce the variety of changes needed? and there is also one other general objection which i desire to state. why should _development_ have gone in different directions _towards the same object_? i grant that different circumstances would produce different changes, but not for the same purpose. for example take eye-sight. the world shows several types of eye. the _insect_ eye quite unlike any other; the crustacean eye also distinct; and birds, fishes, and animals having an eye which is generally similar and is somewhat imitated by the eye of the _cuttle fish_ (which is not a _fish_, but a _cephalopod_). again, granted that _poison_ is a useful defence to creatures: how is it given so differently?--to a serpent in the tooth; to a bee or a scorpion in the tail; to a spider in a specially adapted _antenna_, and to the centipede in a pair of modified legs on the _thorax_. one would have supposed that natural causes tending to produce poison weapons would have all gone on the same lines. and, curiously, in some few cases, we have a sameness of line. about twelve species--all fish--have an electric apparatus, familiar to most of us in the flat sea-fish called _torpedo_ and in the fresh-water eel called _gymnotus_. the only answer the anti-creationist can give to this dissimilarity of development is that there are many vacant places in the polity of nature, and that development takes place in that direction which fits the creature to occupy a vacant place, and is, therefore, diverse. it seems to me that this--the only answer that can he given--is necessarily a modified form or mode _of creation._ how can _natural causes_ know anything about a polity of nature and a vacant place, here and there, so that the creature must develop in one way or another to fill it? another set of cases is the production of similar functional results by most diverse means, as in the case of flying animals, birds, pterodactyles, and bats; here there is a widely different modification of the fore-arm and other bones, all for the same purpose. the reader will do well to refer to mr. mivart's book on this subject. again, the question of types seems to be pointed to in the curious fact of what i may call the double development of birds from reptiles. mr. mivart says, "if one set of birds sprang from one set of reptiles and another set from another set of reptiles, the two sets could never by 'natural selection' only have grown into such perfect similarity." yet we can trace the _struthious_ birds (those that, like ostriches, do not fly) through the dinosaurs and _dinornis_, and the flying carinate birds though pterodactyles, _archaeopteryx_, and _icthyornis_, &c. it might well be added to this part of the subject, that granted that developmental changes were often small, that progress was attained little by little, this does not appear to have been always the case. the discoveries of the fossil species of horse,[ ] _eohippus, hipparion_, and so forth, clearly establish a developmental series, and the ancient forms are claimed as the ancestor of the modern horse; but these (professor owen tells us) differed more from one another than the ass and the zebra (for instance) differ from the horse. still, of course it may be that there are still undiscovered intermediate forms; and in any case there need be no desire to detract from the value of the series, as really pointing towards a gradual perfection of the horse from a ruder ancestor up to the latest type. but having reached the type, and though that type exhibits such (considerable) variations as occur between the shetland pony, the arab, and the dray-horse, we have still no difficulty in recognizing the essential identity; nor is there any evidence or any probability that the horse will ever change into anything essentially different. all the fossil bats, again, were true bats: and so with the rhinoceroses and the elephants. granting the fullest use that may be made of the imperfection of the geological record, it is difficult to account for this, and still more for the absence of intermediate forms (particularly suitable for preservation) of the _cetaceae_. the zeuglodons from eocene down to pliocene, the dolphins in the pliocene, and the _ziphoids catodontidae_, and _balaenidae_ in the pliocene, are all fully developed forms, with no intermediate species. [footnote : the series is thus (nicholson, p. ):-- . _eohippus_--lower eocene of america; fore-feet have four toes and a rudimentary thumb or pollex. . _orohippus_ (about the size of a fox)--eocene. . _anchitherium_--eocene and lower miocene; three toes, but and are diminutive. . _hipparion_--upper miocene and pliocene; still three toes, but more like the modern horse and and still further diminished. . _pliohippus_--later pliocene, very like equus. . _equus_--post-pliocene.] mr. mivart remarks, "there are abundant instances to prove that considerable modifications may suddenly develop themselves, either due to external conditions or to obscure internal causes in the organisms which exhibit them.[ ]" if it is not so, granted to the full the imperfection of the geologic record, but remembering the cases where we _do_ find intermediate forms; we ask why should they not be preserved in other cases? if they ever existed we should surely see _more_ changing forms; not only such as are more or less uncertainly divided species, but whole orders running one into another. no evidence exists to show that any bird has gradually passed into an animal, nor a carnivorous beast become ruminant, or _vice versâ._ [footnote : p. ] [transcriber's note: chapter viii] the analogy of changes that are known will not bear extension enough to prove, even probably, any such change. surely if our conclusion in favour of a divine design to be attained, and a providential intelligence directing the laws of development, is no more than a belief, it is a probable and reasonable belief: it certainly meets facts and allows place for difficulties in a way far more satisfactory than the opposite belief which rejects _all_ but "secondary" and purely "natural" causes. so clear does this seem to me, that i cannot help surmising that we should never have heard of any objection to divine creation and providential direction, if it had not been for a prevalent fixed idea, that by "creation" _must_ be meant a final, one-act production _(per saltum)_ of a completely developed form, where previously there had been nothing. such a "creation" would of course militate against _any_ evolution, however cautiously stated or clearly established. and no doubt such an idea of "creation" was and still is prevalent, and would naturally and almost inevitably arise, while nothing to the contrary in the _modus operandi_ of creative power was known. what is more strange is that the current objection should not now be, "your _idea of creation_ is all wrong," rather than the one which has been strongly put forward (and against which i am contending), "there is no place for a creator." ( ) this is the only other _general_ point that remains to be taken up in connection with the theory that all living forms are due to the gradual accumulation of small favourable changes without creative intervention. the objection is that we cannot obtain the inconceivably long time required for the process of uncontrolled and unaided evolution. i am not here concerned to argue generally for the shortness or longness of the periods of geological time; let us, for the purposes of argument, admit a very wide margin of centuries and ages; but _some_ limit there must be. the sun's light and heat, for one thing, are necessary, and though the bulk of combustible material in the sun is enormous, there must be some end to it. sir william thomson has calculated (and his calculations have never been answered) that on purely physical grounds, the existence of life on the earth must be limited to some such period as millions of years; and this is far too short for uncontrolled evolution. we know from fossils, that species have remained entirely unaltered since the glacial epochs began, and how many generations are included even in that! if no change is visible in all that time, how many more ages must have elapsed before a primitive _amoeba_ could have developed into a bird or a mammal? in florida mr. agassiz has shown that coral insects exist unchanged, and must have been so for , years. when we remember also the enormous destruction of life that takes place, supposing that in a given form a few creatures underwent accidental changes which were beneficial and likely to aid them--still what chances were there that the creatures which began to exhibit the right sort of change should have died before they left offspring! the chances against them are enormous: and the chances have to be repeated at every successive change before the finally perfected or advanced creature took its place in the polity of nature. moreover, there is the chance of small changes being lost by intercrossing: our own cattle-breeders have most carefully to select the parents, or else the favourable variety soon disappears. how then, seeing the power of stability which at least some forms are found to exhibit--seeing too the enormous chances against the survival of the particular specimens that begin to vary, and the further chances of the loss of variety by intercrossing; how can we get the millions of millions of years necessary to produce the present extreme divergence of species? the fact is that the force of this objection is likely to be undervalued, from the mere difficulty of bringing home to the mind the immeasurable time really demanded by uncontrolled evolution. nor is the question of time left absolutely to be matter of belief or speculation. for here and there in the geological records of the rocks, we _have_ certain intermediate forms--or forms which we may fairly argue to be such. but looking at the very considerable differences between the earlier and the later of these forms--differences greater than those which now separate well-defined species, it seems questionable whether any of the divisions of tertiary time, taking all the circumstances into consideration, could be lengthened out sufficiently to accomplish the change. at any rate, if any particular example be disallowed, the general objection must be admitted to be weighty. now the intervention of any system of created designs of animal form--however little its details be understood--and the production of variations under _divine guidance_ which would lead more directly to the accomplishment of such forms as the complicated flowers of orchids above described, would unquestionably tend to shorten the requisite time. there would, by a process of reasoning easily followed, be an immediate reduction of the ages required, within practicable limits, though the time must still remain long. more than that is not necessary. the ussherian chronology is not of divine revelation, though some persons speak of it as if it was. there is not the shadow of a reason to be gleaned from the bible, nor from any other source, that the commencement of orderly development, the separation of land and water, earth and sky, and the subsequent provision of designs for organic forms of life and the first steps that followed the issue of the design, began six thousand years ago, or anything like it. it can be shown, indeed, that _historical_ man, or the specific origin of the man spoken of as adam, dates back but a limited time; and it is calculable with some degree of probability how far; but that is all. we are therefore in no difficulty when ample time is demanded; but we are in the greatest straits when the illimitable demands of a slowly and minutely stepping development, perpetually liable to be checked, turned back, and even obliterated, have to be confronted with other weighty probabilities and calculations regarding the sun's light and heat, and the duration of particular geologic eras. chapter vii. _the descent of man_. we now approach a special objection which always, has been (and i shall be pardoned, perhaps, for saying _always will be_) the _crux_ of the theory of unaided, uncreated evolution--the advent of reasoning, and not only reasoning, but self-conscious and god-conscious man. here again the lines of argument are so numerous, and the details into which we might go so varied, that a rigid and perhaps bald selection of a few topics is all that can be attempted. but i may remark that naturalists are far from being agreed on this part of the subject. agassiz rejects the evolution of man altogether. mr. st. g. mivart, while partly admitting, as every one else now does, the doctrine of evolution, denies the descent of man. mr. wallace, the great apostle of evolution, opposes darwin, and will have none of his views on the descent of man; and professor huxley himself says that, while the resemblance of structure is such that if any "process of physical causation can be discovered by which the genera and families of ordinary animals have been produced, the process of causation is amply sufficient to account for the origin of man," still he admits that the gulf is vast between civilized man and brutes, and he is certain that "whether _from_ them or not, man is assuredly not _of_ them." the first difficulty i shall mention is, however, a structural one. supposing that an ape-like ancestor developed into man, on the principles of natural selection; then his development has taken place in a manner directly contrary to the acknowledged law of natural selection. he has developed backwards; his frame is in every way weaker; he is wanting in agility; he has lost the prehensile feet; he has lost teeth fitted for fighting or crushing or tearing; he has but little sense of smell; he has lost the hairy covering, and is obliged to help himself by clothes.[ ] if this loss was ornamental it is quite unlike any other development in this respect, since no other creature has the same; for ornamental purposes the fur becomes coloured, spotted, and striped, but not lost. it is easy to reply that man being _intelligent_, his brain power enables him to invent clothes, arms, implements, and so forth, which not only supply all deficiencies of structure, but give him a great superiority over all creatures. but how did he get that intelligence? by what natural process of causation (without intelligent direction) is it conceivable that, given a species of monkey, all at once and at a certain stage, structural development should have been retarded and actually reversed, and a development of brain structure alone set in? nor, be it observed, has any trace of _man_ with a rudimentary brain ever been discovered. savages have brains far in excess of their requirements, and can consequently be educated and improved. the skull of a prehistoric man found in the neanderthal near dusseldorf is of average brain capacity, showing that in those remote ages man was very much in capacity what he is at present. [footnote : it is remarkable that the loss of the hairy covering is most complete when it is most wanted: the back, the spine, and the shoulders are in nearly all races unprotected; and yet the want of a covering from the heat or cold is such that the rudest savages have invented some kind of cloak for the back.] it must, however, be admitted that the special difficulties of the origin of man are not purely structural. we do not know enough of the divine plan to be able to understand why it is that there is a certain undeniable unity of form, in the two eyes, ears, mouth, limbs and organs generally of the animal and man. moreover, much is made of the fact, as stated by a recent "edinburgh reviewer," that "the physical difference between man and the lowest ape is trifling compared with that which exists between the lowest ape and any brute animal that is not an ape.[ ]" this fact no doubt negatives the idea put forward by bishop temple and others, that if there was an evolution of man, it must have been in a special branch which was foreseen and commenced very far back in the scale of organic being. for the structural difference might not require such a separate origin; while the mental difference, affording objections of a different class, will not allow of _any_ such evolution at all. that there is _some_ connection between man and the animal cannot be denied, and consequently, in the absence of fuller information, very little would be gained by insisting on the purely _physical_ development question. the bible states positively that the man adam (as the progenitor of a particular race, at any rate) was a separate and actual production, on a given part of the earth's surface. all that we need conclude regarding that is that there is nothing known which entitles us to say, "this is not a fact, and therefore is not genuine revelation." [footnote : no. , july, , p. .] moreover, as to the question of the possibility of human development generally, there are certain considerations which directly support our belief. for example, directly we look to the characteristic point, the gift of intellect, we can reasonably argue that the action of a creator is indispensable. the entrance of consciousness and of reason, however elementary, marks something out of all analogy with the development of physical structure, just as much as the entrance of life marked a new departure in no analogy with the "properties" of inorganic matter. from the first dawn of what looks like _will_ and _choice_ between two things, and something like a _reason_ which directs the course of the organism in a particular way for a particular object, we have an altogether new departure. the difficulty commences at the outset, and even in the animal creation; it is merely continued and rendered more striking when we take into consideration the higher development of intellect into power of abstract reasoning, self-consciousness and god-consciousness. it is perfectly true that the difference between the "instinct" of animals and the reason and mind of man, is one of degree rather than kind. as christians, we have no objection whatever to a development of reason from the lowest reason solely concerned with earthly and bodily affairs to the highest powers searching into deep and spiritual truths. but such a development, though it is parallel to a physical development--as spiritual law appears to be always parallel (as far as the nature of things permits) to physical laws--still is a development which cannot under any possible circumstances dispense with an external spiritual order of existence, and one which cannot be physically caused. nor is it conceivable that man should develop a consciousness of god, when no god really exists externally to the consciousness.[ ] [footnote : for our consciousness of god is obviously very different from a figment of the imagination, or the sort of reality experienced in a dream. this is not the place to develop such an argument, but it seems to me more than doubtful whether we can even _imagine_ something _absolutely_ non-existent in nature. when the artist's imagination would construct, e.g., a winged dragon, the concept is always made up of _parts which are real_--eyes like an alligator, bat-wings, scales of a fish or crocodile, and so forth. all the members or parts are real, put together to form the unreal. i do not believe that any instance of a human conception can be brought forward which on analysis will not conform to this rule.] the main objection, then, that i would press is, that admitting any possibility of the development of man from a purely physical and structural point of view, admitting any inference that may be drawn fairly from the undoubted connection (increasingly great as it is as we go upwards from the lower animal to the ape) between animals and man, that inference never can touch the descent of man as a whole; because no similarity of bodily structure can get over the difficulty of the mental power of man. we have to deal not with a part of man, but with the whole. the difficulty cannot be got over by denying _mind_ as a thing _per se_; for all attempts to represent mind as the _mere_ product of a physical structure, the brain, utterly fail. nobody wishes to deny what dr. h. maudsley and others have made so plain to us, that mind has (in one aspect, at any rate) a physical basis--that is, that no thought, imagination, or combination of thought, is known to us _apart from_ change and expenditure of energy in the brain. nor can we, by any process of introspection or observation of other subjects, separate the mind from the brain and ascertain the existence of "pure mind," or soul, experimentally. but still, there is no possibility of getting the operations of mind out of mere cell structure, unless an external power has added the mind power, as a faculty of his endowing; then he may be allowed to have connected that faculty ever so mysteriously with physical structure; we are content. and i must insist on the total failure of all analogy between the development of bones or muscles and the development of mind; and even if we grant a certain stage of instinct to have arisen, we are still in the dark as to how that could develop into intellect such as man possesses, including a belief in god. on this subject let us hear professor allman. between a development of material structure and a development of intellectual and moral features, the professor says, "there is no conceivable analogy; and the obvious and continuous path, which we have hitherto followed up, in our reasonings from the phenomena of lifeless matter to those of living form, here comes suddenly to an end. the chasm between _unconscious_ life and _thought_ is deep and impassable, and no transitional phenomena are to be found by which, as by a bridge, we can span it over.[ ]" there can be _life_ or _function_ without _consciousness_ or _thought;_ therefore, even if we go so far as to admit that life is only a property of protoplasm, there can be no ground for saying that _thought_ is only a property of protoplasm. [footnote : british association address.] "if," says professor allman, "we were to admit that every living cell were a conscious and thinking thing, are we therefore justified in asserting that its consciousness with its irritability is a property of the matter of which it is composed? the sole argument on which this view is made to rest is analogy. it is argued that because the life phenomena, which are invariably found in the cell, must be regarded as a property of the cell, the phenomena of consciousness by which they are accompanied must also be so regarded. the weak point in the argument is the absence of all analogy between the things compared: and as the conclusion rests solely on the argument from analogy, the two must fall to the ground together." try and assign to matter all the properties you can think of, its impenetrability, extension, weight, inertia, elasticity, and so forth, by no process of thought (as mr. justice fry observes in an article in "the contemporary review [ ]") can you get out of them an adequate account of the phenomena of mind or spirit. we just now observed that consciousness, thought, and so forth, are never exhibited apart from the action of the brain; some change in the brain accompanies them all. we do not deny that. but it is obvious that thought being manifested in the presence of cerebral matter or something like it, is a very different thing from thought being a _property_ of such matter, in the sense in which polarity is the property of a magnet, or irritability of living protoplasm. [footnote : october, , p. .] to all this i have seen no answer. the way in which the opponents of christian beliefs meet such considerations appears to be to ignore or minimize them, so as to pass over to what seems to them a satisfactory if not an easy series of transitions. if life is after all only a "property" of matter, then given life, a brain may be produced; and as mind is always manifested in the presence of (and apparently indissolubly united with) brain structure, it is not a much greater leap to accept _life_ as a property of _matter_ than it is to take _thought_ as a property of a certain _specialized physical structure_. it is true that the distance is great between the instinct of an animal and the abstract reasoning power of a newton or a herbert spencer; but (as we are so often told) the difference is of degree not of kind, and as the brain structure develops, so does the power and degree of reason. as to the difference in man, that he is the only "religious" animal--the one creature that has the idea of god--that is a mere development of the emotions in connection with abstract reasoning as to the cause of things. no part of our mental nature is more common to the animal and the man than the emotional; and if in the one it is mere love and hatred, joy and grief, confidence and fear, in the other the emotions are developed into the poetic sense of beauty, or the awe felt for what is grand and noble; and this insensibly passes into _worship_, the root of the whole being fear of the unknown and the mysterious. that is the general line of argument taken up. even accepting the solution (if such it maybe called) of the two first difficulties--life added spontaneously or aboriginally to matter, and thought and consciousness added to organism--still the rest of the path is by no means so easy as might at the first glance appear. development in brain structure certainly does not always proceed _pari passu_ with a higher and more complex reasoning. in actual fact we find high "reasoning" power, quite unexpectedly here and there, up and down the animal kingdom. some _insects_, with very little that can be called a brain at all, exhibit high intelligence; and some animals with smaller brains are more docile and intelligent than others with a much larger development. the ape, in spite of his close physical approach to the structure of man, and his still greater relative distance from the other animal creation, is not superior (if he is not decidedly inferior) in reason or intelligence to several animals lower down in the scale. savages, again, have a brain greatly in excess of their actual requirements (so to speak). hence the mere existence of brain, however complex, does not indicate the possession of mental power. there is reason to believe that all thought and exercise of the mind--in fact, every step in the process of "education," whereby an ignorant person is brought at last to apprehend the most abstract propositions--is accompanied by some molecular (or other) change. so that a person who has been carefully educated has the brain in a different state from that of an exactly similarly constituted person whose brain has been subjected to no such exercise. but even if this action could be formulated and explained, it would not follow that thought is the _product_ of the molecular change; or that, _vice versâ_, if we could artificially produce certain changes, in the brain, certain thoughts and perceptions would thereon coexist with the changes, and arise in the mind of the subject forthwith. and if not, then no process of physical development accounts for grades of intellect; we have only mind developing as mind. but the theory of evolution will have nothing to do with any development but physical; or at any rate with mental development except as the result of physical: it knows nothing of pure mind, or spiritual existence, or anything of the sort. in the nature of things we can have neither observation nor experiment in this stage. we cannot by any process develop the lower mind of an animal into the higher mind of man, and prove the steps of the evolution.[ ] it is important to remember that the power of _directing the attention by a voluntary process of abstraction_, is one that distinctively belongs to man. it is an effort of will, of a kind that no animal has any capacity for. by it alone have we any power of abstract reasoning, and it is intimately concerned with our self-consciousness and memory, and with our language. i am quite aware that animals possess something analogous to a language of their own; they can indicate certain emotions and give warning, and so forth, to their fellows. but that language could never develop into human language, or the animal will (such as it is) ever rise to a human will, or animals become endowed with self-consciousness, unless they could acquire the power of voluntarily abstracting the mind from one subject or part of a subject and fixing the attention on another. we cannot formulate any process of change whereby the lower state could pass on to or attain to the higher in this respect. [footnote : we can of course follow the sort of mental development which is traceable when we consider the origin of our own sagacious and faithful dogs in the wild prairie dog: but this development is always in contact with the mind of man, and is, as it were, the result of man's action, as man's development in mind and soul is the result of god's action.] therefore again we conclude that the higher reason is a gift _ab externo_. if we take a step further to the "spiritual" or "moral" faculties of man, we have the same difficulty intensified, if indeed it does take a new departure. to examine the question adequately would require us to go into the deep waters of psychology; and here we should encounter many matters regarding which there may be legitimate doubt and difference of opinion, which would obscure and lead us away from our main line of thought. this i would willingly avoid. but it is quite intelligible, and touches on no dangerous ground, when we assert that there is a distinct ascent--an interval again raising developmental difficulties, directly we pass from the intellectual to the moral. we may wonder at the high degree of intelligence possessed by some animals; but we are unable to conceive any animal possessing a power of abstract reasoning, having ideas of beauty (as such), or of manifesting what we call the poetic feeling. and still more is this so when we look at the further interval that lies between any perception of physical phenomena, any reasoning in the abstract, or investigation of mathematical truth, and the overmastering sense of obligation to the "moral law," or the action of the soul in its instinctive possession of the conception of a divine existence external to itself. it is because of this felt difference that we talk of the "spiritual" as something beyond and above the "mental." the distinction is real, though we must not allow ourselves to be led too far in attempting to scan the close union that, from another point of view, exists between the one and the other. in a recent number of "the edinburgh review,[ ]" the author complains of bishop temple thus: "he uses the word spiritual in such a way that he might be taken to imply that we had some other faculty for the perception of moral truths, in addition to, and distinct from, our reason." and the writer goes on to make an "uncompromising assertion of reason as the one supreme faculty of man. to depreciate reason (he says) to the profit of some supposed 'moral' illative sense, would be to open the door to the most desolating of all scepticisms, and to subordinate the basis of our highest intellectual power to some mere figment of the imagination." [footnote : july, , p. , in the course of the article to which i have already alluded.] on the other hand, some writers (claiming to derive their argument from the scriptures) have supposed they could assert three distinct natures in man--a spiritual, a mental (or psychic), and a bodily. now there is no doubt that, rightly or wrongly (i am not now concerned with that), the bible does distinctly assert that a "breath of lives" [ ] was specially put into the bodily form of man, and adds that thereby "man became a living soul." but it is also stated of the animal creation that the breath of life was given to them,[ ] and animals are said to have a "soul" (nephesh).[ ] so that neither in the one case nor the other have we more than the two elements: a body, and a life put into it; though of course the man's "life" (as the plural indicates, and other texts explain) was higher in kind than that of the animal. [footnote : the plural of excellence appears to mark something superior in the spirit of man over that of the animals. also compare job xxxiii. , "the breath of the almighty hath given me life," with isa. xlii. and zech. xii. .] [footnote : though not in the plural of excellence. see gen. vi , vii. , &c.] [footnote : gen. i. , margin of a.v.] st. paul, it is true, speaks of the "whole spirit, and soul, and body.[ ]" but our lord himself, in a very solemn passage (where it would be most natural to expect the distinction, if it were absolute and structural, to be noticed), speaks of the "soul and body" only.[ ] the fact is that we are only able to argue conclusively that, besides the physical form, we have a non-material soul, or a self. and our lord, whose teaching was always eminently practical, went no further. we are conscious of a "self"--something that remains, while the body continually grows and changes. there was in _punch_, some time ago, a picture of an old grandfather, with a little child looking at a marble bust representing a child. "who is that?" asks the little one; and the old man replies, "that is grandfather when he was a little boy." "and who is it now?" rejoins the child. one smiles at the picture, but in reality it conceals a very important and a very pathetic truth. nothing could well be greater than the outward difference between the grey hairs and bowed figure and the little cherub face; and yet there was a "self"--a soul, that remained the same throughout. in platonic language, while the [greek: eidôlon] perpetually changes, the [greek: eidos] remains. we have, therefore, evidence as positive as the nature of the subject admits that we are right in speaking of the _body and the soul, or self_. and as we cannot connect the higher reasoning, and, above all, conscience and the religious belief, as a "property" of physical structure, we conclude that the scripture only asserts facts when it attributes both to the soul, as a spiritual element or nature belonging to the body. man is essentially one;[ ] but there is both a material and a non-material, a physical and a spiritual element, in the one nature. but, being a spiritual element, that part of our nature necessarily has two sides (so to speak). it has its point of contact with self and the world of sense, and its point of contact with the world of spirit and with the great spirit of all, from whom it came. _because_ of that higher "breath of lives" given by the most high, man possesses the faculty of _consciousness of god_ (i.e., the higher spiritual faculties), besides the consciousness of self, or merely intellectual power regarding self and the external world. therefore, when an apostle desires to speak very forcibly of something that is to affect a man through and through, in every part and in every aspect of his nature, he speaks of the "whole spirit, soul, and body." to sum up: all that we know from the bible is that god gave a "soul" (nephesh) to the animals, in consequence of which (when united to the physical structure) the functions of life and the phenomena of intelligence are manifested. so god gave a non-material, and therefore "spiritual," element to human nature; and this being of a higher grade and capacity to that of the animal world, not only in its union with physical structure, makes the man a "living soul"--gives him an intelligence and a certain reason such as the animals have, but also gives him, as a special and unique endowment; the consciousness of self (involving--which is very noteworthy--a consciousness of its own limitations) and the consciousness of god. hence man's power of improvement. if the man cultivates only the self-consciousness and the reason that is with it, the scriptures speak of him as the "natural or psychic man;" if he is enabled by divine grace to develop the higher moral and spiritual part of his nature, and to walk after the spirit, not after the flesh, he is a "spiritual man." [footnote : thess. v. .] [footnote : matt. x. .] [footnote : the well-known argument of st. paul regarding the resurrection in cor. xv. (ver. , &c.) is well worthy of consideration in this connection. he deals with man as _one whole_; nothing is said about a man being (or having) a spirit separate from his soul and his body, and that spirit being given a higher body than it had upon earth; but of the whole man, soul _and_ body, being raised and changed into a man, also one whole, with a more perfect body--a body more highly developed in the ascending scale of perfection. i do not forget the passage where the same apostle ( cor. v. ) speaks of being in the body, and absent from the lord; and of being "clothed upon;" but this does not in any way detract from the importance of the treatment of the subject in the first epistle.] it is idle to speculate whether the "nephesh" of the animals, or the "living self" of the man, is an entity separate from the body, and capable of existing _per se_--of its own inherent nature--apart from it. we do not know that animal forms are the clothing of a lower-graded but separate spiritual form, or that such an animal soul or spirit can exist separately from the body; and we do not _know_ (from the bible)--whatever may be the current language on the subject--that man's spirit is in its nature capable of anything like permanent separate existence.[ ] man is essentially one; and when the physical change called death passes over him, it does not utterly obliterate the whole being. the non-material element is not affected any more than it is by the sleep of every night; and the man will be ultimately raised, not a spiritual or immaterial form, but provided, as before, with a body, only one of a higher capacity and better adapted to its higher environments--the "spiritual body" of st. paul, in a word. the original union of mind and matter is, on any possible theory, mysterious; and the separation of them for a time is neither less so, nor more. all this is perfectly true, whether the non-material element in man's nature is _necessarily_, inherently and _by nature_, immortal or not--a question which i do not desire to enter on. hence it is that a certain element of truth is recognized in the protest of the edinburgh reviewer. on the other hand, as we have not only intelligence, emotions (which are possessed in lower degree by animals), self-consciousness, the power of abstract reasoning, and the higher faculties of the imagination,[ ] but also the consciousness of god and the commanding sense of right and wrong; and seeing that the last-named are different in kind from the former, we give them a separate name, and speak of the moral or spiritual nature or capacity of man, as well as the intellectual or mental. some (by the way) choose "moral" to include both, holding that ethical perceptions arise out of (or are intimately connected with) our sense of god. others would make a further distinction, and confine "moral" to the (supposed) bare ethical perception of duty or of right and wrong, and add "spiritual" to distinguish the highest faculty of all, whereby man holds communion with his maker and recognizes his relation to him. [footnote : this remark does not, of course, in any way touch the question whether the spiritual part of a man is conscious in the interval between death and resurrection, or whether it can be made sensible in any way whatever to living persons.] [footnote : the poetic sense, the perception of the beautiful, &c.] whether this further distinction is justified or not, there is a distinction between the moral and the purely intellectual; and we are justified in using different terms for things that are _practically_ different. this the edinburgh reviewer seems to have forgotten. it was necessary to my argument to enter on this somewhat lengthy examination of the spiritual nature of man, because, while we acknowledge the unity of man, we are compelled to recognize in his religious sense and aspirations and capacities something quite disparate--something that we could not get by a natural process of growth from such beginnings of reason as are observed in the lower animals. i am aware that dr. darwin conceived that the religious feeling of man might have grown out of the natural emotions of fear,[ ] love, gratitude, &c., when once men began to question as to the explanation of the phenomena of life, and to ascribe the forces of nature to the possession of a spirit such as he himself was conscious of: and with much more positive intent, mr. h. spencer has also, after most painstaking inquiries, formulated what he conceives to be the origin of religious belief in man. he refers us to the early belief in a "double" of self, which double could be projected out of self, and remained in some way after death, so as to become the object of fear, and ultimately of worship. when this ancestor-worship resulted in the worship of a multitude of "genii" (whose individuality, as regards their former earthly connection, is more or less forgotten), then the idea of attaching the numerous divinities or ancestor-souls to the ocean, the sky, the sun, the mountains, and the powers of nature, arises; whence the poetic systems of ancient polytheistic mythology. gradually men began to reason and to think, and they refined the polytheism into the "higher" idea of one great, central, immaterial all-pervading power, which they called god. [footnote: see the "descent of man," vol. i. p. (original edition). but it is right to state that the subject is not treated in any way whatever so as to argue that the religious belief is a fancy, or development of fancy, with no god and no facts about god behind it.] mr. spencer, in effect, concludes that this "god" is only man's own idea of filling up a blank, of explaining the fact that there must be an ultimate first cause of whatever exists, and there is also a great source of power of some kind external to ourselves.[ ] i am not going here to enter on any special argument as to the validity of these theories in their relation to the direct question of the nature and existence of god. what we are here concerned with is, whether they enable us to exclude the idea of a gift and a giver of spiritual or mental (we will not quarrel about terms) nature to man, and whether, by any fair reasoning from analogy, we can suppose man's reason and his "_sensus numinis_" to arise by the mere stages of natural growth and development. dr. darwin's supposition takes no notice of the moral law and its influence; indeed he adopts[ ] the view that conscience is no sense of right and wrong, but only the stored up and inherited social instinct, a sense of convenience and inconvenience to the tribe and to the individual, which at last acts so spontaneously and rapidly in giving its verdict on anything, that we regard it as a special sense. it would of course be possible to expend much time and many words in argument on this subject. there is not, and never will be, any direct evidence as to the origin of conscience; and as that sense (like any other power of our mental nature) is capable of being educated, evoked, enlightened, and strengthened, and may also by neglect and contradiction deteriorate and wither away, there is ample room for allowing a certain part of the theory.[ ] but many people who examine their own conscience will feel that the description certainly does not suit them; there are many things which conscience disapproves, of which no great evil consequences to themselves or any one else are felt. conscience is constantly condemning "the way that seemeth good unto a man." _ultimately_ no doubt, there is real evil at the end of everything that conscience warns a man against; but not such as "inherited experience" is likely to recognize. is it, for instance, the experience of the mass of men, as men, that the "fleshly mind is death, but the spiritual mind is life and peace"? is not rather the world at large habitually putting money-making, position-making, and the care of the things of the body, of time, and of sense, in the first place; and is not the moral law perpetually warning us that the fashion of the world passes away, and that what seems gold is in reality tinsel? as far as the condemnation that conscience passes on the broad evils which affect society--"thou shalt not steal," "thou shalt not lie," or so forth--no doubt it is supported by the transmitted sense of inconvenience; but who has told it of the evil of things that do not affect our social state? and who has changed the inconvenient, the painful, into the _wrong_? it is one thing to instinctively avoid a theft or a falsehood, even if the first origin of such instinct were the fear of consequences or the love of approbation; it is quite another--the inward condemnation of something which "the deceitfulness of sin" is able to excuse, and which the world at large would regard as permissible or at least venial. even if inherited use has its full play, there is still a something wanted before the one can be got into (or out of) the other. why, again, are savages prone to imagine natural phenomena to be caused or actuated by "spirits"? surely it is because there _is_ consciously a spirit in man, and a higher power, even god, outside, who exists, though man in his ignorance has many false ideas regarding him. [footnote : it is not necessary to my immediate argument, and therefore i do not press it into the text (though i should be sorry to seem to forget it for a moment), to urge that st. paul draws a clear distinction between the intellectual faculties and the higher spiritual ones, when he assures us that the clearest intellect alone cannot assimilate the truths of religion. for the spiritual faculties have been in man grievously deadened and distorted (to say the least of it), so that his intellectual faculties, bright and highly developed as they may be, will always prove insufficient for the highest life in the absence of the "grace of god." it is exactly analogous to the case of a man whom we might suppose to have his sense of sight, touch, &c., distorted, and he himself unable to correct them by aid of the senses of others. however acutely he might exercise his reason, he would be continually wrong in his conclusions. see cor. ii., the whole, but specially vers. , .] [footnote : "descent of man," vol. i. p, .] [footnote : the attempt (already alluded to) to separate moral and spiritual, to imagine something that is ethical, apart from the religious idea, has lent some strength to these ideas of the moral sense; but in fact, the moral sense is _inseparably_ connected with the idea of god, and his approval and disapproval. the idea of god may be obscured and lost, but conscience is the surviving trace of it; the circumference that accounts for the broken arc.] it is an objection of the same order that applies to the other theory (mr. spencer's). there can be little doubt that in many respects it is true: as an account of all _human_ systems of religion it is adequate and natural; but it breaks down hopelessly when we try to use it to explain how the conception of god originated in the mind. just as there is a felt difference--not of degree or in form, but essential and radical in its nature--between the _undesirable_ and the _wrong_, so there is a difference between the idea of a mysterious thing towards which apprehension or awe is felt, and the conception of god. granted that man believed in his own spirit or double, and attributed similar immaterial motor powers as a cause for the wind and waves, and so forth; granted that he at last "refined" this into the belief in one spirit whose power was necessarily great and varied--the origin is still unexplained. how did man get the idea of a personal spirit or double--no such thing, _ex hypothesi_ existing? how did he get to formulate the idea of a _god_ when he had simplified his group of many spirits into one? if man is created with a consciousness of his own inner-self, _as a self_, he is able naturally to imagine a like self in other beings; if he has an idea of god innate in him, he can assimilate the truth when it is at last presented to his mind; and that is why he feels that it _is_ a refinement; a rising from the lower to the higher (because from falsehood to truth), to let the many gods give place to the one god. if the idea of god has been obscured, and the power of its apprehension deadened, the man can only grope about helplessly, fashioning this explanation of nature and that--all more or less false, but all dimly bearing witness to the two absolute facts, that there is an inner non-material self, and an external non-material god. if then there are insuperable difficulties in connecting thought with matter by any process of unaided development, there are also great difficulties, even when thought in a rudimentary form is given, in conceiving it developed into man's reason, or man's religious belief, by any known process of "natural" causation. chapter viii. _further difficulties regarding the history of man_. there are, however, some other matters connected with the history of man on the globe, unconnected with psychological development, but which demand notice, as making the argument against an undesigned, unaided development of man a cumulative one. it is urged that whatever may be thought of the connection of man with the animal creation, at any rate the received christian belief regarding the origin of man--especially his late appearance on the scene--is contrary to known facts, and that we have to mount up to a vast geologic antiquity to account for what is known from exhumed remains in caves and lake dwellings, and the like. now no one pretends that the history of man is free from doubt and difficulty, but the doubt and difficulty are not confined to the "orthodox." for the inferences to be drawn from the exhumed remains are equally doubtful whatever views be adopted. i shall not go into great length on this subject, partly because some recent popular tracts of canon rawlinson, mr. r.s. pattison, and others, have already made the ordinary reader familiar with the main outlines of the subject; and still more because, be the views of archaeologists what they may, it is impossible for any rational person to contend either that they can be reduced to anything like unity among themselves, or that they lead to any conclusion favourable to the belief in the self-caused and undesigned evolution of man. it may be regarded as known, that at the dawn of history, mankind was passing through what may be called a bronze age, in which weapons of bronze were used before tools of iron were invented. but this age was preceded by one in which even bronze was unknown. stone implements, and some of bone and horn, were alone used. it is also well ascertained that there were two _widely divided_ stone ages. the latter, distinguished by the polishing of the stones, is described as the _neolithic_; the former, in which flint and other hard stone fragments were merely chipped or flaked to an edge, is called the _palaeolithic_. it is hardly contended that the neolithic age could have been more than four or five thousand years ago. there is always the greatest difficulty in fixing any dates because from the nature of the case written records are absent, and the stages of growth in the history of peoples overlap so. we know that sharp flakes of stone were still used for knives in the time of moses and joshua. we are not out of the stone age yet, as regards some portions of the globe; and it is quite possible that parts of the earth, not so very remote, may have been still in the midst of a stone age when assyria, chaldaea, and egypt were comparatively highly civilized. it is also fairly certain that between the neolithic or smooth-stone age, and the palaeolithic, certain important geological changes took place, though those changes were not such as to have demanded any very great length of time for their accomplishment. the palaeolithic stone implements are found in river gravels and clays, along the higher levels of our own thames valley, that of the somme in france, and in other places. they are also found at the bottom of various natural caverns. no human bones have been found as yet with the implements, but the bones of large numbers of animals have. and it seems certain that the men who made the implements were contemporaries of the animals, because in the later part of the age, at any rate, they drew or scratched likenesses of the animals on bone. among these representations are figures of the _mammoth_ an extinct form well known to the reader by description and museum specimens of remains. the animals contemporary with these primeval men were the mammoth, species of rhinoceros and hippopotamus, the "sabre-toothed" lion, the cave-bear, the reindeer, besides oxen, horses, and other still surviving forms. in his address to the british association in sir john lubbock called attention to the fact that these animals appear to indicate both a hot and a cold climate, and he referred to the fact (known to astronomers) that the earth passes through periods of slow change in the eccentricity of its orbit, and in the obliquity of the ecliptic. the result of the latter condition is, to produce periods of about , years each, during one-half of which the northern hemisphere will be hotter, and in the other the southern. at present we are in the former phase. but the obliquity of the ecliptic does not act alone; the eccentricity of the orbit produces another effect, namely, that when it is at a minimum the difference between the temperatures of the two hemispheres is small, and as the eccentricity increases, so does the difference. at the present time the eccentricity is represented by the fraction . . but about , years ago the eccentricity would have been as great as . to . . the result, it is explained, would have been not a uniform heat or cold, but extremes of both; there would probably have been short but very hot summers, and long and intensely cold winters. this, sir john lubbock thought, might account for the co-existence of both hot and arctic species, like the hippopotamus and rhinoceros on the one hand, and the musk-ox and the reindeer on the other. but such considerations really help us little. in the first place, it is only an assumption that the fossil hippopotamus _was_ an animal of a hot climate--it does not in any way follow from the fact that the now existing species is such; nor if we make the assumption, does it explain how, if the hot summer sufficed for the tropical hippopotamus, it managed to survive the long and cold winters which suited the arctic species. moreover, no such calculations can really be made with accuracy: we do not know what other astronomical facts may have to be taken into consideration, nor can we say when such "periods" as those which are so graphically described, began or ended. in this very instance, we know that the mammoth only became extinct in comparatively recent times, since specimens have been found in siberia, with the hair, skin, and even flesh, entirely preserved. granted that the intense cold of the siberian ice effected this, it is impossible to admit more than a limited time for the preservation--not hundreds of thousands of years. professor boyd dawkins is surely right in stating that the calculations of astronomy afford us no certain aid at present in this inquiry. as regards the geological indications of age, the best authority seems to point to the first appearance of man in the post-glacial times: that is to say, that the gravels in which the palaeolithic implements are found were deposited by the action of fresh water after the great glacial period, when, at any rate, northern europe, a great part of russia, all scandinavia, and part of north america were covered with icefields, the great glaciers of which left their mark in the numerous scoopings out of ravines and lake beds and in the raising of banks and mounds, the deposit of boulders, and the striation of rocks _in situ_, which so many districts exhibit. the few instances in which attempts have been made, in italy or elsewhere, to argue for a pliocene man (i.e. in the uppermost group of the tertiary) have ended in failure, at least in the minds of most naturalists competent to judge. one of the most typical instances of the position of the implement age has been discovered by fraas at shüssenried in suabia; here the remains of tools and the bones of animals (probably killed for food) were found in holes made in the glacial _débris_. but here, again, it is impossible to say when this glacial age terminated, and whether man might not have been living in other more favoured parts while it was wholly or partially continuing. in scandinavia no palaeolithic stone implements have been found, from which it may be inferred that the glacial period continued there during the ages when palaeolithic man hunted and dwelt in caves in the other countries where his remains occur. the best authorities do not suppose that the men _originated_ in the localities where the tools are found; and there is so little known about the geology of central asia (for example) that it is impossible to say whether tribes may not have wandered from some other places not affected by the glaciation we have spoken of. again, the gravels and brick earths containing the tools are just of the kind which defy attempts to say how long it took to deposit and arrange them. it may be taken as certain, that after the one age ceased and the first men appeared, the beds in which their relics occur have been raised violently, and again depressed and subjected to great flushes and floods of water. the caves have been upheaved, and the gravels are found chiefly along the valleys of our present rivers, but at a much higher level, showing that there was both a higher level of the soil itself and a much greater volume of water. the straits of dover were formed during this period. but none of these changes required a very long time; and if we can trace back the later stone age, which shows remains of pottery and other proofs of greater civilization, to the dawn of the historic period not more than or years ago, there is nothing in the nature of the changes which, as we have stated, intervened between the palaeolithic and neolithic periods, that need have occupied more than a thousand or two of years. upheavals of strata and disruptions may be the work of but a short time, or they may be more gradual. and as to the effect of water, that depends on its volume and velocity; no certain rule can be given. our own direct experience shows that very great changes may take place in a few hundred years. "the estuaries," remarks mr. pattison,[ ] "around our south-eastern coast, which have been filled up in historical times, some within the last seven hundred years to a height of thirty feet from their sea-level, by the gradual accumulation of soil, now look like solid earth in no way differing from the far older land adjoining. the harbours out of which our plantagenet kings sailed are now firm, well-timbered land. the sea-channel through which the romans sailed on their course to the thames, at thanet, is now a puny fresh-water ditch, with banks apparently as old as the hills. in bede's days, in the ninth century, it was a sea-channel three furlongs wide." [footnote : "age and origin of man"--present-day tract series.] thus we are in complete uncertainty as to the date of the palaeolithic man, or as to the time necessary to effect the changes in the surface of the earth which intervened between it and the later stone ages. but there is nothing which conflicts with the possibility that the whole may have occurred within some , years. for the supposition of mons. gabriel mortillet that man has existed for , years, there is neither evidence nor probability. his theory is derived from an assumption that the geologic changes alluded to occupied an immense time; and the further assumption (if possible still more unwarranted) that the old race which used the chipped stone tools remained stationary for a very long period, and very gradually improved its tools and ultimately passed into the neolithic stage when the art of pottery became known, however rudely. but, in point of fact, we are not required by our belief in scripture to find any date for the origin of man, at least not within any moderate limits (not extending to scores of thousands of years). the bible was not intended to enable us to construct a complete science of geology or anthropology, and the utmost that can be got out of the text is that a date can be _suggested_ (not proved) for one particular family (that of adam) by counting up the generations alluded to in holy writ before the time of abraham. but these are manifestly recorded in a brief and epitomized form; nor do all the versions agree. we may well believe that a watchful providence has taken care of the record of inspiration, but we know it has been done by human and ordinary agency. the bible is god's gift to his church, and the church has been made in all ages the keeper of it. now in the matter of early dates and numbers, an unanimous version has not been kept. according to the construction adopted in the septuagint, the creation of adam would go back , years, while the vulgate gives , years. dr. hale's computation makes , years, and the ussherian , ;[ ] the samaritan version is, i believe, further different from either. as it is, the facts show nothing inconsistent with an approximation to these several periods. as to any absolute date for the appearance of man as a species, no calculation is possible, because of a certain doubt, which no one can pretend to resolve, as to whether the scriptures do assert the creation of _all_ mankind at any one period. if, owing to more positive discoveries in the future compelling us to put further back the date of man's first appearance upon earth, we have to suppose a beginning before the time of adam, we are reminded that there is an allusion in the sixth chapter of the book called genesis to "the sons of god" and the "daughters of men." now this passage cannot conceivably refer to angels; nor can we ignore its existence, however doubtful we may feel as to its meaning.[ ] [footnote : i take these figures from mr. r.s. pattison.] [footnote : the text which speaks of god making "of one blood all nations for to dwell on the face of the earth," would naturally apply to the races existing when the speaker uttered the words: it would be as unreasonable to press such a text into the service of _any_ theory of the creation of man, as it was absurd for the inquisition to suppose that the psalmist, when asserting that god had made the "round world so fast that it could not be moved," was contradicting the fact of the earth's revolution round the sun.] it can hardly be denied that such a text opens out the _possibility_ of an earlier race than that of adam; in that case the creation of adam would be detailed as the creation of the direct progenitor of noah, whose three sons still give names (in ethnological language) to the main great races of the earth, with whom exclusively the bible history is concerned, and especially as the direct progenitor of that race of whom came the israelites, and in due time the promised seed--the messiah. i do not say this _is_ so, nor even that i accept the view for my own part; i only allude to the possibility, without ignoring any of the difficulties--none of which, however, are insuperable--which gather round it. it is certainly a very remarkable fact that all about this region in which the semitic race originated, traditions of creation somewhat resembling the account in genesis, the institution of a week of seven days, and a sabbath or day of rest from labour, existed from very early times; and with these traditions, a belief in distinct races, one of which owned a special connection with, or relation to, the creator. here i may appeal to the work of mr. george smith and his discoveries of tablets from the ancient libraries of assyria. originally, the country to which i have alluded consisted of assyria in the centre and babylonia to the south; while to the east of assyria was a country partly plain and partly hill, which formed the "plain of shinar" and the hills beyond occupied by accadian tribes, from whose chief city, ur, abraham, the forefather of the jews, emigrated. the assyrian documents are copies of babylonian originals, but the babylonian kingdom itself was a semitic one founded on the ruins of an earlier population, the inhabitants of the plain of shinar and the mountains beyond. some time between and b.c. the semitic conquerors of babylonia took possession of the plains, and some time later conquered also the accadian mountaineers. the babylonians possessed and translated the old accadian records: the assyrian tablets are mostly, but not all, copies, again, of the babylonian transcripts. the celebrated "creation tablets," which contain an account closely corresponding to genesis, are among those which were not copied from accadian originals; and they do not date further back than the reign of assur-bani-pal, the sardanapalus of the greeks; who reigned in the seventh century b.c. they may therefore be derived from the bible, not the bible from them. it would seem from some earlier (accadian) tablets, that a different account of the creation existed among them. but though it is doubtful how far the accadians had preserved this account, or at least had others along with it, _they had a seven days week_ and _a sabbath_. all this points to _one_ original tradition, which specified days of creation and a sabbath, though it got altered and distorted, so that the true account was preserved as one among many local variations. this goes to prove the immense antiquity of the story, which is not affected by the fact that the actual inscription of it which we at present have, dates only about b.c. the point here, however, interesting in the legends, is that they contained the idea of a special connection of one particular race with the creator, and of other races, or of one other race, besides. as far as the possibility of bringing forward the history of mankind as any aid to the theory of evolution is concerned, i might have very well let the subject alone, or even noticed it more briefly than i have done. for, in truth, there is no _evidence_ whatsoever, and all that the denier of creation can resort to is a supposed analogy and a probability that the peculiarities of man could be accounted for in this way or in that. but the main purpose of my brief allusion is to introduce the fact that, as far as any evidence to the contrary goes, we have an absolutely sudden appearance of man on the scene, and no kind of transitional form. not only so, but there is no trace of any gradual development of man when he did appear. there was the first palaeolithic man; then a considerable geologic perturbation of the earth's surface, resulting in the upheaval of the cliffs in which the caves of remains occur, and in the alteration of the gravel beds in which the human remains are found; and then the neolithic age, with its evidently greater civilization (as evidenced by pottery, &c.) connected with early and traditional, but still with recent, history; but no trace of any development of one race into the other. the absence of all progressive change is forcibly indicated by the measurements of ancient skulls, which, though not found along with the flint tools, have been found elsewhere. it has been fully shown that they differ in no respect from the skulls of men at the present day; while the skulls of the apes most nearly anthropoid, or allied to the human form, remain as widely separated in brain-capacity as ever.[ ] thus the fact remains, that no intermediate form between the ape and the lowest man has been discovered, and that there is nothing like any progressive development in the races of man. these facts, taken together with what has been brought forward in the last chapter, show how completely the theory of the descent of man breaks down; how utterly unproved and untenable is the idea that he should have been evolved by natural causes and by slow steps from any lower form of animal life. [footnote : the gorilla has a brain size of . cubic inches; the chimpanzee and ourang-outang (in the males) from . to . inches. according to dr. j. barnard davis the average of the largest class of european skulls is . , that of the australian . cubic inches.] chapter ix. _concluding remarks_. it will naturally be asked, "if there is all this objection to some parts of the theory of evolution, or to that theory in an extreme or absolute form, how is it that it has been so eagerly accepted in the ranks of scientific men?" the answer is, in the first place, because the theory of evolution is to a great extent true. when men speak of controversy with the evolutionist and so forth, they of course mean such as insist on carrying the doctrine to a total and even virulent denial of any divine control at all. and it must, i think, be admitted that much of the theological opposition offered to the doctrine was aimed at _this_ aspect of it. at first, men zealous for what they believed to be divine truth, did not discriminate; they saw that the then new idea of evolution was, in many branches of its application, still very poorly proved, and they conceived that it could not be accepted apart from a total denial of religion. we have grown wiser in the course of time: misconceptions have been swept away; and everybody may be content with the assurance that there is no necessary connection even, far less any antagonism, between evolution and the christian faith at all. we may admit all that is known of the one without denying the other. where the controversy has to be maintained is, that some will insist (like professor häckel) in carrying evolution beyond what evidence will warrant; and not only so, but will insist on polemically putting down all religion on the strength of their improved theories. if "evolutionists" complain of the treatment they have received at the hands of "theologians," they will at least, in fairness, admit that there has been some misconception, some error on both sides. what we maintain is, that evolution (i.e., here, as always, unlimited, uncontrolled evolution) still fails to account for many facts in nature; that we are still far from holding anything like a complete scheme in our hands; there may be _limits_ to the wide circle of progressive changes, to the results of development, of which we are ignorant; and there is, above all, in that most important of all questions--the descent of man--an absolute want of proof of animal _descent_ (i.e., in any sense which includes the "soul" or spiritual faculties of man). hence that evolution in no way clashes with an intelligent christian belief. in saying this, i would carefully avoid undervaluing the services which the evolution theory has rendered, and is rendering, to science. even in its first form as a mere hypothesis, it was an eminently suggestive one; there was from the first quite truth enough in it to make it fruitful, and many working hypotheses have been immensely useful in science, which have in the end been very largely modified. before darwin's wonderfully accurate mind and marvellous skill in collecting and making use of facts, turned the current of natural science into this new channel, men seemed to be without an aim for their naturalist's work. the _savant_, for example, procured an animal evidently of the cat tribe, and another species like a polecat. he knew as a fact that the feline teeth had a certain structure, and that the dental formula of the viverrine animals is different. here, then, he could distinguish and perhaps name the species; but what more was to be done? all natural history as a study seemed to end in classifying and giving long names to plants and animals. the evolution theory at once gave it a new object. why is the dental formula of the _viverrinae_ different? what purpose has the long spur in the flower of _angraecum_, or the marvellous bucket of _coryanthes_, the flytrap of _dionaea_, the pitcher of _nepenthes_? what is the cause, what is the purpose, what is the plan in the scheme of nature, of these structures? under the stimulus of such questions naturalists woke up to new views of classification, to new experiments, inquiries, and to research for facts and the explanation of facts, in all quarters of the globe. no wonder that science rose, under such an impulse, as a butterfly from its chrysalis. but some will not be satisfied with any scheme the parts of which are separated, or which admits of anything unknown or unexplainable. they want to unite all into one grand and simple whole, which glorifies their own intelligence, and does not force them to humble patience and waiting for more light. and then the fatal enmity of the human heart--which is a plain fact, an undeniable tendency--delights to get rid of the idea of god's sovereignty, the humbling sense that everything is at his absolute disposal, and nothing could be but as he wills it. it seems so satisfactory to eliminate all external mysterious power, to make the whole "_totus teres atque rotundus_"--having started the great machine of being _somehow_ to see it all expand and unroll of itself and advance to the end. imagination leaps the chasms, minimizes the difficulties, passes from the possible to the certain, from the "may have been" to the "must have been" and to "it was so," and, fascinated with the _completeness_ of its scheme, commences to denounce and revile as ignorant and unscientific all that would, calmly appeal to evidence, and confess ignorance, or at least a suspended judgment, in any stage where the evidence is negative or incomplete. it has been well observed that "men are so constituted that completeness gives a special kind of satisfaction of its own, and a habit of specially regarding the general uniformity of nature begets a desire to assume its absolute and universal uniformity." there _is_ a great mystery underlying life and the plan in which the animal form, the organs of sight, hearing, and the rest, run through the whole creation: and, given a mystery, there is always ample room for speculation. taking firm hold of the facts of development and variation, the extreme evolutionist is carried away with the idea of having the same principle throughout: he is impatient of any line or any check; he is therefore prepared to ignore all difficulties, to hope against hope for the discovery of to him necessary--but, alas, non-existent--intermediate forms, till at last he comes to deny, not only his god, but his own soul, as a spiritual and supra-physical entity.[ ] [footnote : those who want a specimen of the way in which extreme evolutionists will _romance_ (it can be called nothing else) will do well to read dr. häckel's "history of creation," only they must be on their guard at every step. the author constantly states as facts (or, perhaps, with an impatient "must have been") the existence of purely hypothetical forms, of which there is _no kind_ of evidence. to such ends does the love of completeness lead!] such extremes are no part of true science, and have neither helped the progress of knowledge, nor advanced the condition of mankind. but, on the other hand, let us hear no more of a sweeping condemnation of the theory of evolution as a whole; let us beware of any insistence on, or assumption of, the supposed fact that god created separately--ready-made and complete--all known animal forms, bringing them up from the ground, like the armed men in the greek legend, from the dragon's teeth. we have no more right to dogmatize and assume a scheme of creation from a popular and long-accepted interpretation of the bible, than the evolutionist has to ignore the palpable evidences of divine guidance and design, and construct a theory or organic being which ignores both. part ii. chapter x. _the genesis narrative--its importance_. we have now completed the first portion of our inquiry: there remains the second, which, to a large class, at any rate, will appear of not less importance. for the scriptures, which they have been taught to trust, contain a brief but direct and positive statement regarding creation, as well as numerous other less direct allusions to the subject, all (as far as i know) in unquestioned harmony with the first. is the account in the book of genesis true? it is necessary to answer this question, because, even if a general belief in an almighty author and designer of all things is shown to be reasonable, still the scripture ought surely to support the belief; and it would be strange if, when we came to test it on this subject, we found its professed explanations would not stand being confronted with the facts. no one will, i think, deny that the question is important. writers of the "anti-theological" school still continue to insist on the falsity of the mosaic narrative, as if the error was not yet sufficiently slain, and was important enough to be attacked again and again. and theological writers, down to the most modern, continue to explain the text in one way or another;--besides, _they_ admit the importance, under any circumstances. i do not forget that there is a school of thought, which is distinctly christian in its profession, but does not allow the importance. it would regard the narrative as addressed to jews only, and therefore as one which does not concern us. if that was all, it would not be needful for me to discuss the position. but it has been held, not only that the narrative does not concern us, but _also_ that it is certainly inaccurate. this view i cannot adopt: it seems not quite fair to ourselves, and not quite fair to the jews. let me explain what i mean. if we have nothing to do with the narrative, let us abstain _equally_ from defending it _or_ pronouncing it wrong--that is for ourselves. as to the jewish church, a little more must be said. let us admit, at any rate for argument's sake, that the separation between the jewish formal and ceremonial religion and christianity is as wide as can be wished. nor would i undervalue the importance of insisting on pure christianity, as distinct from judaism. and, further, let us (without any question as to ultimate objects) regard the narrative as primarily addressed to jews, and let us admit that it may have been unimportant, for the purpose of the first steps in divine knowledge, that any account should be given of creation beyond the primary fact that all idolatrous cosmogonies were false, and that the unseen god of israel alone made the heavens and the earth "in the beginning." why should the jews have received that truth through the medium of a story of which the whole framework was false, and nothing but the moral true? the framework, moreover, is one so plainly _professing to be fact_, that it was certain to be received as such by a simple people. it seems to me that there is something very suspicious, something repugnant to notions of truth and honest dealing, in the possible communication of underlying divine truth through the medium of stories, which are not stories on the face of them, but profess and pretend to be statements of fact and authoritatively made. but, further, it cannot be denied that, whatever allowance may have to be made under the early jewish dispensation for the ideas and weaknesses of a semi-barbarous people, whatever "winking" there may have been "at times of ignorance," the main object was, by a gradual revelation,[ ] by a system of typical ordinances and ceremonies, to lead up to the full spiritual light of the christian dispensation. everything written, said, or done, was a step--however small an one--always tending in the one direction, according to the usual law of evolution. the christian believer may then look back to the early stages as imperfect foreshadowings and dim illustrations of the whole truth; but he would, i should think, on any ordinary principles, be shocked to find truth developed out of positive error. and should the error have been discovered, as it now is[ ] (in the view of these i am contending against), this discovery might have arrested the further development of divine truth altogether. if moses, or whoever wrote the book of genesis--we will not cavil at that--was allowed to compose his own fancies or beliefs on the subject of creation, _and to state them as divine fact_ (no matter that the reader at the time was not able to find out the error), would not grave suspicion attach to whatever else he put forward? who could tell that, on any other subject, the plainest and most direct statement of fact was not equally a fancy, only embodying or enshrining (under the guise of its errors) some real divine facts? if genesis i. is unreliable, we have a case of a writer going out of his way to add to certain truths, which might easily have been stated by themselves, a number of positive declarations, _as of divine authority_, regarding facts, which are not facts. [footnote : i am not aware of any authority, living or dead, who has gone so far as to deny that god's revelation to the jewish church was in any way connected with christianity; that it was not even a stage of progress, or preparatory step towards the kingdom of christ.] [footnote : and was _sure to be_ sooner or later, when a science of biology and palaeontology became possible.] the great truths that god is really the maker and author of all things, and that man has a spiritual being, and so forth, surely _gain nothing_ from being conveyed to the world in the folds of a fable. and when it is not in a confessed fable, but a fable put forth as fact--"god said," "god created," "it was so"--not only is there no gain, but our sense of fitness and of truth receive a shock. a parable is always discernible as a parable, a vision as a vision. when our lord, for example, tells us of the ten virgins, we do not suppose him to be revealing the actual existence of ten such maidens, wise and foolish. we know that he is reading a lesson of watchfulness. but looking at the genesis narrative, who could suppose it to be a parable? if sober, unmistakable statement of fact is possible, we surely have it here, in intention, at least. the plan of teaching truth in an envelope of error is _per se_ difficult to conceive. but how much worse is it when we consider--what criterion does mankind possess for disinterring and distinguishing the elements of truth? if in religion we had only to do (as some would perhaps contend) with obvious enforcements of common morality and kindness, there might be a possibility of getting over the difficulty, because man would possess some kind of criterion whereby to distinguish what was fictitious, by the simple process of considering whether any given statement bore on morals or not. such a test would not indeed go very far, because the human race is by no means agreed on all moral questions; nor does it always find it easy to say what is, and what is not, directly or indirectly connected with morals. but, in fact, the scope of religion cannot be so confined: and then the difficulty returns; for a revelation that tells us anything of the nature of god and his method of government, of the nature of our own being and of a future state, must necessarily go beyond our own ethical knowledge and powers of judging, or it would not be a revelation. supposing that the revelation regarding such vital subjects is occasionally conveyed through the medium of erroneous statements, where in any given case would be the certainty as to what was divine truth, and what not so? this argument applies equally to another school of thinkers, who do not care to tell us what the narrative in itself means: who believe that god did not do what he is said to have done in genesis, and yet who hold that the narrative is in a sense inspired, and that we may learn from it the great facts that god (and none other) originated all things--that man has a spiritual element in his nature, and that woman is equal in nature, but subordinate in position, to man, and so forth. not only is enlightened judgment, even, inadequate to pronounce with certainty on how much is true; but the strange feeling still remains, if god designed to teach us these truths only, why was it not possible to enable the writer[ ] to state them without the (purely gratuitous) error? the sufferance of such a strange and unnecessary mixture of error seems rather like that "putting to confusion" of the human mind, which we feel sure the great teacher would never willingly perpetrate. [footnote : for on the supposition stated, there _is_ a revelation in the text. nor could any class of believer deny this. it is entirely unnecessary to define the kind and extent of insphation. but "all scripture is '_theopneustos_'"--i leave the word purposely untranslated ( tim. iii. ); that surely means that the divine spirit exercised _some kind_ of continuous control over the writers.] nor, again, can the narrative be got over by saying it is a poetic side or aspect of the facts, and not to be taken literally. if any one knows exactly what this means, and can tell us always how to translate the matter into plain language, it is to be wished that he would enlighten the world as to the process. but even if such process exists infallibly and universally, still, one would suppose, the narrative must, to begin with, be unmistakable poetry. and here, again, the narrative bears every mark of an intention to state facts, not poetic aspects of facts. nor can we take the narrative as belonging to a familiar class in scripture where a dream is used as a vehicle of communication. in those cases there is really no room for doubt; the visible facts themselves are obviously designed only to typify or represent some other facts. the events stated in genesis are not of this class. those, therefore, who would be content with getting over the narrative without caring for its details, can, i must suspect, have hardly given adequate attention to the form and to the contents of the narrative as it stands. not only are the statements positive, but, taking any interpretation whatever of them, they are not nearly imaginative enough to suit the purpose. they have an obvious amount of relation to fact which has never been denied.[ ] if the narrative is purely human even (and that the school we are considering do not aver), how did the writer come to be accurate even to that extent? take only the order of events. i admit it does not correspond with the geologic record in the way commonly asserted; yet it has a very remarkable relation to that sequence. now, in any case, the writer could have had no knowledge of any kind _of his own_ on the subject: how did he hit on this particular arrangement?[ ] it is a mere matter of calculation on the well-known rules of permutation and combination to realize in how many different ways the same set of events could have been arranged; the number is very considerable. and he could derive no assistance from any similar existing narrative. if we conclude from the assyrian discoveries that a non-biblical but similar narrative existed, still it is certain that the principal one we as yet have is so late in date, that it is more likely to be derived from the bible than the bible from it. and though, on referring to the earlier tablets, we find traces of the same narrative, it is so obscured by idolatrous and false details, that the bible writer must have had to make a virtually new departure to get his own simple narrative. a re-revelation would be required. as to all other cosmogonies, egyptian, indian, and buddhistic, nothing can be more opposed in principle and in detail than they are to the severe and stately simplicity and directness of the mosaic. [footnote : not even, for example, by professor häckel.] [footnote : how, for example, did the writer come to introduce the adjustment of hours of daylight and seasons in the _middle_, after so much work had been done? how did he come to place _birds_ along with fish and water monsters, and not separately?] we cannot, then, account for the narrative on human grounds; nor can we suppose that any inspiring control would have given the author so much truth, and yet allowed so much error. all this points to only one of two possible conclusions: either the narrative is not inspired at all, and is a mere misleading story, into which the name of god is introduced by the author's piety--and so really teaches us nothing, since it is not revelation; _or_ the narrative is, as a whole, divinely dictated, and must be true _throughout_, if we can only arrive by due study at its true meaning. that part of it is, or may be, true, even on the most cursory study, is not denied; that it is _all_ true will appear, i think, in the sequel. but there is a shorter and simpler reason why the rejection of the narrative in genesis would be a direct blow to christian faith. the plain truth is that it can hardly be denied, by any candid student of the new testament, that our lord and his apostles certainly received the early chapters of genesis as of divine authority. this has always been perceived by the whole school of writers opposed to the faith. they therefore continue to attack these early revelations, and rejoice to overturn them if they can, because they are aware that hardly any chapters in the bible are more constantly alluded to and made the foundation of practical arguments by our lord and his apostles. if these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the divine knowledge of our lord as the son of god, and the inspiration of his apostles, are called in question. in the new testament, especially, there are repeated and striking allusions to adam, the temptation of the woman by the serpent, and the entrance into the world of sin and death. our lord himself places the whole argument of his teaching on marriage and the permissibility of divorce on genesis ii. (_cf_. st. matt. xix. and st. mark x.). in st. john viii. our lord clearly alludes to the edenic narrative when he speaks of the tempter as a "manslayer ([greek: anthropoktonos]) from the beginning." still more remarkable is the argument of st. paul in romans v.; altogether based as it is on the historical verity of the account of the fall; and other allusions are to be found in cor. xi. , in cor. xi. , in the epistle to the ephesians, and elsewhere. in short, there are at least sixty-six passages in the new testament, in which the first eleven chapters of genesis are directly quoted or made the ground of argument. of these, six are by our lord himself, two being direct quotations;[ ] six by st. peter, thirty-eight by st. paul, seven by st. john, one by st. james, two by st. jude, two by the assembled apostles, three by st. luke, and one by st. stephen. [footnote : st. matt. xix. ; st. luke xvii. ; and perhaps we might add a third--st. matt. xxiii. .] we cannot, in fact, possibly avoid the conclusion that our lord and his apostles admitted the divine origin and historical truth of these chapters. therefore, we are bound as christians to accept them, and that without glossing or frittering away their meaning, when we have arrived, by just processes, at what that meaning really is. the fact just stated further warns us against accepting an indefinite interpretation which, while it acknowledges the truth of the general conclusion, still virtually, if not in so many words, allows that the details may be wholly inaccurate. chapter xi. _scripture methods of revelation_. passing, then, to a consideration of the explanations of the narrative that may be or have been given at various times, i would first call attention to the fact, that it seems in many instances to have been the distinct purpose of divine inspiration to allow the meaning of some passages to be obscure; perhaps among other reasons, that men might be compelled to study closely, to reason and to compare, and thus to become more minutely acquainted with the record. especially in a case of this sort, where the world's knowledge of the facts would necessarily be gradual, was it desirable that the narrative should be confined in scope, and capable of being worked out and explained by the light of later discoveries; because, had the narrative really (as has long been supposed) been revealed to tell us what was the actual course of evolution of created forms on earth, it would not only have occupied a disproportionate space in the sacred volume, but would have been unintelligible to the world for many centuries, and would have given rise to much doubting and false argument, to the great detriment of men's spiritual enlightenment. it would have diverted men's minds from the great moral and conclusion of the whole (and here it is that the "moral" or conclusion is so important) to set them arguing on points of natural science. the bible was never intended (so far we may agree with all the schools of thought) to be a text-book on biology or geology. we need rather to be impressed with the great facts of god's sovereignty and providence, and to know definitely that all the arrangements of our globe and all forms of life are due to divinely-created types. this is exactly secured by the narrative as it stands; but such a purpose would not be served by a narrative which, while it contained these great facts, had them enwrapped in a tissue of unnecessary and false details. and therefore it is, if i may so far anticipate my conclusion, that the narrative has no direct concern with how, when, and where, the creation slowly worked itself out under the divine guidance which is still elaborating the great purpose of the "ages"; it confines our attention to what god, the great designer, did and said in heaven, as preliminary to all that was to follow on earth. the former was not a proper subject for revelation, because man would in time come to learn it by his studies on earth; but the latter all ages could only learn--the first as well as the latest--from a divine revelation. again, let me address a few words to those who are tempted, half unconsciously perhaps, to think that any lengthy prelude and "elaborate" explanation of genesis must condemn the narrative _à priori_, or be derogatory to the dignity of revelation. why the narrative should be brief and concise i have just suggested. that it needs explanation of _some_ sort is inevitable, because it _must_ be put into human language; and directly such language is employed, we come upon such terms as "let there be," "he created," and "days," which do not always call forth the same ideas in all minds. it will not have escaped the attention of any earnest student, that scripture has several different methods of describing things so as to reveal them to men. this, a moment's reflection will enable us to expect. however high and wonderful the things to be stated are, in order to be brought within reach of human understanding _they must be expressed in terms of human thought and experience_; and these are imperfect and essentially inadequate. hence it is, that many truths have to be brought before us in special or peculiar ways. how, for instance, are we told of the temptation and fall of man? how are we to understand what was meant by the tree of life or the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or by the serpent speaking and beguiling eve? we are at a great loss to give a precise explanation, though the practical meaning is not difficult. the facts may be none the less true, though from their transcendental character it may have been necessary to put them down in mysterious, possibly even in merely allegorical, language. another instance of this might be given in the account of satan in the presence of the lord as described in the book of job, or of the lying spirit described by micaiah when prophesying before ahab. it maybe that these narratives describe to us transactions in a world beyond our own, which _could_ only be conveyed to us in figures or in imperfect form. when st. paul was caught up into the third heaven, he "heard unspeakable things" which it was not _possible_ for him to utter--the medium of expression was wanting. divine or mysterious things have, then, to be described in peculiar language which is not always easy to understand. nor, having respect to the varying requirements of the different ages, or the circumstances of the time and of the inspired writer, is it easy to understand why any particular form of communication was selected, though doubtless if we knew more we should see a good reason for it. this gives us one class of scripture passages--of methods of revelation. on the other hand, there are in scripture many facts of the highest import, and in themselves of transcendent magnitude, which are yet capable of being stated without any possibility of our interpreting or understanding the narrative in more ways than one. when it is stated that christ jesus rose from the dead, we know beyond all reasonable doubt what is meant. the fact may be true or false, but the narrative of the fact needs no explanation; there are no terms which need expansion--which could bear more than one possible meaning, and which could be used accordingly in one sense or another. this instances a second class. again, we can bring forward yet another class of scripture revelations, namely, passages which are necessarily understood with reference to certain other matters which are unexpressed but are taken for granted, or in which the words used may bear more than one meaning, or a meaning which is uncertain or obscure. if the unexpressed matter can be supplied without doubt, then all ages will agree in the interpretation; and if the terms can (by reference to context or otherwise) be explained, the same result follows: if not, then in interpreting the narrative, each age will _make its own assumption_ regarding the terms used, on the basis of such knowledge as it possesses. it follows, then, inevitably, that if the state of knowledge varies, the interpretation will be different according to the different standard of knowledge, according to which the necessary assumptions are made. and yet all the while the authority of the passage itself is not touched. as it is unquestionable that such different classes of passage do occur in scripture, it is merely a question of criticism whether any given passage is of this class or that, and whether its terms do admit of or require explanation. it is no doubt possible to make mistakes and to err by refusing the direct meaning, and giving to the terms an assumed meaning for which there is no real necessity.[ ] we have always to be on our guard against giving special meanings to words where they are not required; but granted that caution, there undoubtedly are passages in which either the terms themselves are not plain, or in which they may really have a meaning different from the ordinary one. [footnote : as, for example, where persons desirous to get over the plain reference to baptism in st. john iii. , try to explain away the term "water" to mean something metaphorically but not actually water.] to descend from the general to the particular, it is obvious that the account of creation in genesis i., ii. is in such a form that we must assume our own ideas of the term "day" therein employed, and also those to be attached to "created" and similar terms. in early times, no one would take "day" to mean anything else but an earth day of the ordinary kind, and no one would question whether or not the whole existing animals and plants, or their ancestors, appeared on earth in six such days, or whether anything else was meant. again, by the time st. augustine was writing, a little more knowledge of nature and a little more habit of reasoning about the origin of things was in the world, and that knowledge led people to suppose that creation meant only the making of things "out of nothing," but that it would take longer than six times twelve hours, so that "days" might mean "periods." and people imagined for a long time that--taking for an example the work in the middle of the narrative--there was a time when the earth emerged from the tumult of waters, that it then got covered with plants, the waters remaining barren of life; but that when the plants had come up all over the ground, then the waters all at once became full of all sorts of sea-shells, fish, and monsters of the deep, and so on. they did all this, by naturally _assuming_ that the terms "creation," "day," &c., meant what the _existing state of knowledge_ at the time suggested. at the present day, one would have supposed that every one must feel that while the term "day" might or might not admit of explanation, certainly _creation_ (i.e., terms implying it) did require very great care in interpreting, and very great consideration as to what they really meant but however that may be, we have here a passage which _must_ have an explanation; and which must have an explanation that depends on the state of knowledge. the utility of revelation is not negatived by this necessary result of the employment of human language in describing the facts. it was _not_ necessary before, that all should be understood; it may be now increasingly necessary in the purposes of god that it should be. at any rate the fact is so, that in former days people did not possess the data for knowing fully what creation meant, and certainly they do now possess it to a very much greater extent at least. always men could learn from the narrative what it always was important for them to learn, namely, god's sovereignty and authorship. it is in this way that the value of the _general_ teaching of the narrative comes out, and not by trying to allow a mixture of truth and falsehood in revelation. all is and always was true; but _all_ the truth was not equally extractable at all times. again: the dignity of the old written revelation is not compromised because god has virtually given a further revelation in his works, i.e., by enabling man to know more about the rock-strata and the succession of life on the earth. that is what it really comes to. it should never be forgotten that the book of nature _is_ a revelation. the _works_ of god, if interpreted truly, are evidence of the same nature as the _word_ of god if interpreted truly. god has created man and his reason. it is impossible to suppose that it can be unrighteous reasoning in god's sight, to derive from the facts of nature any legitimate conclusion to which those facts point. it is childish to believe that god created ready-made--if i may so speak--rocks with fossils in them, marks of rain-drops showing which way the wind blew at the time, foot-prints of birds, animals with remains of the prey they had been feeding on, in their stomachs, and so forth. it is perfectly reasonable and right to conclude certainly, that those creatures were once living beings; that the surface of the earth was once a soft sediment which received the impression of the rain-drops as they fell; and that stratified rocks were deposited out of lakes and seas, as we see alluvial strata deposited at the present day. it is impossible, therefore, that (if we are not misled by appearances) any well-ascertained fact can be contrary to the truth of god as explained by revelation. if we are not sure of the facts of nature, we must wait patiently till further knowledge enlightens us, and must not hastily conclude that the bible is wrong. the repeated corrections which successive years have compelled us to make in conclusions which were once firmly accepted and proclaimed as "truths of science," should teach us caution in this respect. nor, lastly, is it any reproach to the church, as keeper of the divine revelation, that its opinion of certain passages should vary with the growth of knowledge. it would be hardly necessary to make this obvious remark but for the fact that it has been reproached against christian belief, that science is contrary to the bible, and that the church has ever had to confess itself wrong, after having persecuted people for not following its peculiar views. it is, indeed, unfortunate that a blind zeal for god has led, in the past, to persecution; the church failing to see that such men as galileo and bruno never denied god at all, nor did their discoveries really contradict the word. but persecution is not a sin peculiar to the church; it is a sin of human nature. it is also true that christian views may be wrong, but the fault is in the views, not in the bible. scientific men, of all people, should be the last to complain of _change_ in views, seeing that what was science two hundred years ago is now (much of it) exploded nonsense. there is no harm whatever in changing our views about the meaning of difficult passages--provided we never let go our hold on the central truth, and put the error to our own account, not saying that the word itself is wrong. it may, in this connection, be at once observed that any particular explanation, or that one which i propose presently to suggest, of the first chapters of genesis, may not commend itself to the reader, and yet the general argument i have adduced will hold good notwithstanding. all that i care to contend is, that science does not contradict a syllable of the narrative on _one_ possible interpretation, and that changes in view as to interpretation are no arguments against the truth of the passage itself. chapter xii. _methods of interpreting the narrative--assumptions of meaning to certain terms._ returning, then, to the narrative in the book of genesis, i think we may take it as clear that the passage stands in such a concise and condensed form, that it is obviously open to _be interpreted_. further, that we should not be surprised if the interpretation at the present day, with our vastly increased knowledge of nature, is different from what it was in earlier times. i make no apology for repeating this so often, because it is really amazing to see the way in which "anti-theological" writers attack what _they suppose_ to be the interpretation of the narrative, or what some one else supposes to be such, and seem to be satisfied that in so doing they have demolished the credibility of the narrative itself. if you choose to assume that creation as spoken of by the sacred writer means some particular thing, or even if the mass of uneducated or unreflecting people assume it and you follow them, i grant at once that the narrative can be readily made out to be wrong. permit me, then, to repeat once more, that the narrative is in human language, and uses the human terms "created," "made," and "formed," and that these terms _do_ (as a matter of fact which there is no gainsaying) bear a meaning which is not invariable. hence, without any glossing or "torturing" of the narrative, we are under the plain obligation to seek to assign to these terms a true meaning _with all the light that modern knowledge_ can afford. now (having already considered the school of interpretation which declines to attend to the exact terms) we can confine our attention to two classes of interpreters. one explains the term "days" to mean long periods of time; the other accepts the word in its ordinary and most natural sense, and endeavours to eliminate the long course of developmental work made known to us by palaeontological science, and supposes all that to have been passed over in silence; and argues that a final preparation for the advent of the man adam was made in a special work of six days. all the well-known attempts at explanation, such as those of pye-smith, chalmers, h. miller, pratt, and the ordinary commentaries, can be placed in one or other of these categories. now, as regards both, i recur to the curious fact (already noted) that it seems never to enter into the conception of either school to inquire for a moment what the sacred writer meant by "created"--god "created"--god said "let there be." it _is_ curious, because no one can reasonably say "these terms are obvious, they bear their own meaning on the surface;" a moment's analysis will scatter such an idea to the winds. yet the terms _are_ passed by. the commentators set themselves right earnestly to compare and to collate, to argue and to analogize, on the meaning of the term "days;" the other term "created" they take for granted without--as far as i am aware--single line of explanation, or so much as a doubt whether they know what it really means! the interpretation that i would propose to the judgment of the church is just the very opposite. it seems to me that the word _day_ as used in the narrative needs no explanation; it seems to me that the other does. as regards the term "day," it is surely a rule of sound criticism never to give an "extraordinary" meaning to a word, when the "ordinary" one will give good and intelligible sense to a passage. and looking to the fact that, after all, when the days of genesis _are_ explained to mean periods of very unequal but possibly enormous duration, that explanation is not only quite useless, but raises greater difficulties than ever, i should think it most likely that the "day" of the narrative should be taken in the ordinary sense. but of this hereafter. on the other hand, with regard to the terms "creation,[ ]" "created," "let there be," and so forth, i find ample room for the most careful consideration and for detailed study before we can say what is meant. even then there remains a feeling of profound mystery. for at the very beginning of every train of reflection and reasoning on the subject, we are just brought up dead at this wonderful fact, the existence of _matter_ where previously there had been _nothing_. the phrase "created _out of_ nothing" is of course a purely conventional one, and, strictly speaking, has no meaning; but we adopt it usefully enough to indicate our ultimate fact--the appearance of matter where previously there had been nothing. nor is the difficulty really surmounted by alleging such a mere _phrase_ as "matter is eternal," for we have just as little mental conception of self-existent, always--and _without beginning_--existent matter, as we have of "creation out of nothing." [footnote : the entire silence of commentators regarding the doubtful meaning of "creation" is so surprising, that i have had the greatest difficulty in persuading myself that the explanation i propose is new. yet certainly i have never come across it anywhere.] the human mind has always a difficulty when it is brought face to face with something that is beyond the scope not only of its own practical, but, even of its theoretical or potential ability. the "creation," therefore, of matter by a divine power is matter of _faith_, as i endeavoured to set forth in the earlier pages of this little work; but it is _reasonable_ faith, because it can be supported by sound reasoning from analogy and strong probability. all our attention, then, i submit, should be directed to understanding what is "creation" in the sacred narrative. chapter xiii. _the genesis narrative considered generally._ i.--the first part of the narrative. § . _objections to the received interpretations_. taking the narrative as it stands, we find it to consist of two parts. first, a general statement, of which no division of time is predicated, and which is unaccompanied by any detail. second, there is an account seriatim of certain operations which are stated to have been severally performed one on each of six days. as regards the first portion, we have no definite knowledge of scientific truth with which to compare the narrative. it is obviously necessary for some divine teacher to tell us authoritatively that god originated and caused the material earth, and the systems of suns and stars which men on the earth's surface are able to discern in the "heavens." we are consequently informed that in the beginning--there is no practical need for defining further--"god created the heavens and the earth." here the question arises whether the hebrew "bara," which is a general term, alludes to the first production of material, or to the moulding or fashioning of material already (in terms) assumed to exist. i think that the conclusion must be that the best authority is in favour of the idea of absolute origination of the whole;--the bringing the entire system into existence where previously there was a perfect blank. but even if the secondary meaning of "fashioned" or "forged" be allowed, we have still an intelligible rendering. for in that case the first origination of matter is tacitly assumed by the term itself, and the statement would be, that the matter of the future cosmos so existing, the divine artificer fashioned or moulded it into the orderly fabric it has come to be. the narrative then at once refers to our earth, with which, and with its inhabitants, the whole volume is to be in future directly concerned. "the earth was (or became) without form and void (chaotic), and darkness was on the face of the deep (or abyss)." we have no positive knowledge of what the first condition of terrestrial matter was, apart from revelation. the remarkable discoveries that the spectroscope has enabled, and the facts learned from the physical history of comets and meteorites, can do no more than make what is known as the "nebular hypothesis" highly probable. but it is amply sufficient for our purpose to point out, that if it is true that matter originated in a nebulous haze to the particles of which a spiral rotatory motion had been communicated, and if (confining our attention to one planet only) that attenuated matter gradually aggregated in a ring or rings, and then consolidated into a solid or partly solid globe, then the results are briefly, but adequately and sublimely, provided for by the form of the mosaic statement. matter thus aggregating would have developed an enormous amount of heat, and there would have been a seething mass of molten mineral matters, with gases and other materials in the form of vapours, which would have gradually cooled and consolidated. vast masses of water would in time be formed on one hand, and solid mineral masses on the other; the latter would contract as cooling progressed, causing great upheavals and depressions and contortions of strata. and before the advent of life-forms, it is not difficult to conceive that the first state of our globe was one which is intelligibly and very graphically described as being "without form and void." nothing more than that, can, from actual physical knowledge, be stated.[ ] it is also stated that this confused elemental state of our earth was accompanied at first by darkness. material darkness that is--for the potentiality of light and order was there; the spirit of god "moved" (or brooded) upon the face of the abyss. this presents no difficulty of interpretation, and may therefore be passed over for the present. [footnote : it would be hardly necessary (but for some remarks in the course of the gladstone-huxley controversy) to observe that the term "void" does not imply vacuity or emptiness, as of _substance,_ but absence of defined form such as subsequently was evolved.] practically, indeed, there has been no grave difficulty raised over this first portion. and if it is argued (on the ground of what i have already in general terms indicated) that the term "created" will, on my own interpretation, get us into difficulties, i reply that here, in its position and with the context, there is no room for doubt, for clearly the word implies _both_ the great primary idea of the divine design or plan formulated in heaven, _and_ the subsequent result in time and space.[ ] this will become more clear when i have further explained the subject. [footnote : and of course if the true sense be "fashioned" or "moulded," the question does not arise.] ii.--the second part of the narrative. but from this point the narrative commences to be more precise, and to exhibit a very singular and altogether unprecedented division of creative work into "days." now i have already indicated my doubt whether we ought to import any unusual meaning to explain this term. in the first place, the objection that till the movements and relations of the sun to the earth were ordained there would be no _measure of a day_ will not stand a moment's examination. nor will the further objection sometimes made, that even with the sun, a day is a very uncertain thing: for example, a day and a night in the north polar regions are periods of month-long duration, quite different from what they are in england, or at mount sinai. obviously, a "day" with reference to the planet for which the term is used, means the period occupied by one rotation of the planet on its own axis. the rotation of the earth is antecedent to anything mentioned in the narrative we are considering. in the nature of things, it would have been coeval with the introduction of the _prima materies_--at least if any nebular hypothesis can be relied on. the "day" would be there whether it were obscured by vapours or not, and whether specially made countable and recognizable by what we call the rising and setting of the sun, or not, and whether we were standing in nova zembla or in australia. nor is it of much use to refer to the general use of "day" for indefinite periods, which is just as common in the english of to-day as it was in the hebrew of the old testament. but the double use of the term in different senses has become general, just because it was found in practice that no confusion ordinarily resulted; and surely such a practice would not have been common, or at any rate would have been specially avoided in the sacred volume, wherever any mistake or confusion was likely or even possible. no one can mistake what is meant when allusion is made to "the day in which god made the heaven and the earth." no one falls into doubt when the "days" of the prophets are spoken of--any more than they do now when a man says, "such a thing will not happen in my _day_." whenever in daniel, or in similar prophetic writings, the term "day" is used in a peculiar sense as indicating a term of years, we have no difficulty in recognizing the fact from the context and circumstances of the narrative; nor am i aware that any controversy has ever arisen regarding the use of the term "day" _in any passage of scripture excepting in this_. this fact alone is suspicious; the more so, because there is absolutely nothing in the context to indicate that anything but an ordinary day is intended. not only so, but there _is_ in the context something that does very clearly indicate (and i think dr. réville is perfectly justified in insisting on this) that an ordinary terrestrial day is meant. one of the primeval institutions of divine providence for men, my readers will not need to be reminded, was that of a "sabbath," which any one reading the text would understand to mean a day, and which the jews--the earliest formal or legal recognizers of it--_did_ so understand, and that under direct divine sanction. if the _days_ of genesis mean indefinite periods of aeonian duration, how is the seventh _day_ of rest to be understood? but even if these difficulties are overcome, absolutely nothing is gained by taking the day to be a period. i presume that the object of gaining long periods of time instead of days in reading the mosaic record, is to assume that the narrative means to describe the actual production on the earth of all that was created; in other words, to assume a particular meaning for the words "created," "brought forth," &c and then to make out that if a whole age is granted, science will allow us a sequence of a "plant age" a "fish and saurian age," a "bird age," and a "mammalian age";--that is, in general terms and neglecting minor forms of life. but then _to make any sense at all with the verses_ we are bound to show that each age preceded the next--that one was more than partly, if not quite completely, established _before_ any appearance of the next. it is to this interpretation that professor huxley alludes when he says, in his first article,[ ] "there must be some position from which the reconcilers of science and genesis will not retreat--some central idea the maintenance of which is vital, and its refutation fatal.... it is that the animal species which compose the water population, the air population, and the land population,[ ] respectively, originated during three successive periods of time, and only during those periods of time." [footnote : "nineteenth century," december, , pp. - .] [footnote : these (unfortunate) terms are mr. gladstone's.] for my own part, i hasten to say that, as one of the despised race of "reconcilers," not only is this idea no central position from which i will not retreat, but one which i should never think of occupying for one moment. but on the view of the _periods_, some such position must be taken up. and if so, i must maintain that professor huxley has shown--if indeed it was not obvious already--that the idea of a series of periods, and in each of which a certain kind of life began and culminated (if it was not fully completed) _before_ another began, is untrue to nature. this, therefore, cannot have been intended by the author of genesis. i will here interrupt my argument for a moment to say that there is a _certain degree_ of _coincidence_ between the succession of life on the earth as far as it is explained by palaeontological research, and the order of creation stated in genesis; but that is not concerned with any forced interpretation of the term "day." the coincidence is just near enough to give rise to a desire to identify creative periods with the series shown by the fossil-bearing rocks; while it is attended with just enough of difference to furnish matter for controversy, and to expose the interpreters to be cut up. but to return. nothing, i submit, is gained by getting _day_ to mean period. let us put the matter quite squarely. let us take day to mean period, and let us take all the verses to mean the _process_ of _producing_ on earth the various life-forms. in order to come at once to the point, let us begin with the time when the dry land and the waters are separate. at that moment, there is nothing said (or implied) about life already having begun in either water or on dry land. god commanded plants to grow; consequently during that _whole period_ nothing but plants, and that of all the kinds and classes mentioned, should appear either in water or on land. that period being done, then came the command for water animals, fish and great monsters, and also birds. we ought, accordingly, to come next upon a whole period in which no trace of anything but plants and these animals can be found; and lastly, we ought to find the period of mammalia, smaller reptiles, _amphibia_ and insects (creeping things). that is the fair and plain result of what comes of supposing the terms "let there be," &c., to mean _production on earth of the thing's themselves_, and that the days are long _periods_. all overlapping of the periods is inadmissible. all meaning is taken away, if we allow of fish (e.g.) appearing in the middle of our first period; for god did not command another day's work till after the first was completed--"there was evening and there was morning, a first day" (period), &c. no; to suit the text so interpreted, we must have a full _period_ of plants with no fish; then a period of both but no insects, no creeping things, no animals; and so on. now it is quite idle to contend any longer, that any such state of things ever existed. if we pass over the long series of the most ancient strata in which doubtful forms of obscure elementary plant and animal life appear _almost_ together, we shall come to shell-fish, and crustaceans fully established in the water, and scorpions, and some insects even on land, _before_ plants made any great show. for the carboniferous--_the_ age of acrogen plants, _par excellence_--does not occur till after swarms of _trilobite_ crustaceans had filled the sea and passed away, and after the devonian fish-age had nearly passed away; and so on throughout. the groups in nature overlap each other so closely, that though plant-life (in elementary forms) probably had the actual start; virtually the two kingdoms--plant and animal--appeared almost simultaneously. there is nothing like the appearance of a first period in which one _alone_ predominated. and long before the plants are established in all classes, the great reptiles, birds, and some mammals, had appeared. the seed-bearing plants--true grasses and exogens with seed capsules (angiosperms) did not appear till quite tertiary times. that is the essential difference between the facts and the theory. if we make a diagram, and let the squares represent the main groups, the order (according to the period interpretation) ought to be as in a, whereas it really more resembles b. thus. [illustration: the dotted extensions of the squares indicate the fore runners of the families, i.e., their first indications in the ages.] [illustration: _a new interpretation suggested_] but then it will be asked, if the day means only an ordinary day--not a long period--what is there that actually could have happened, and did happen, in _three days_ (for that is the real point, as we shall see), such as the writer describes as the third, fifth, and sixth days? i answer that on those days, and on the previous ones, god did exactly what he is recorded to have done. after the creation of light (first day), and the ideal adjustment of the distribution of land and water (second day), he (_a_) "_created_," on the third day, plants, from the lowest cryptogam upwards; then (_b_) paused for a day (the fourth) in the direct work of creating life-forms, to adjust certain matters regarding times and seasons, and regulation of climate, which doubtless would not be essential during the early stages of life evolution, but would become so directly a certain point was reached; then (_c_) resumed the direct creating work (fifth day), with fishes, great reptiles,[ ] and birds (grouped purposely so, as we shall see); and, lastly (_d_), before the day of rest, created the group of mammals (_carnivora_ and _herbivora_), the "creeping things" of the earth, and man (also grouped together). [footnote : this term may be here accepted for the moment--not to interrupt the argument. it will be more fully dealt with in a subsequent chapter.] but some one will ask, you then accept the earlier theory, that the whole life-series that is now revealed to us by the rocks, from the laurentian to the recent, is excluded from the narrative; and that some special acts of creation, regarding only modern and surviving life-forms, were made immediately before man appeared? by no-means; for such a theory is not only in itself improbable, but is contrary to all the evidence we possess of life-history on the earth, and is so hopeless that it is really not worth serious examination and refutation. we have no evidence of any such gap--such sudden change in the history of life. nor is it possible to find any place in the mosaic story at which we could reasonably interpolate a _long_ period, such as that indicated by the entire series of rock strata. for a great part of such a period, not only must there have been a regular succession of life just the same in nature (though specifically different) as that now on earth, but a regular distribution of land and water, and a settled action of the sun and the seasons, would be required. no; we must give up all the older methods which try to ignore the study of the word "created," or to assume for it a meaning that it is not intended to bear. all depends, then, on what is meant by such terms as "created," "let there be," "let the earth bring forth," &c. perhaps it has occurred to but few of my readers seriously to examine into their own mental conception of an "act of creation." some will readily answer, "of course it means only that at the divine _fiat_, any given species--say an elephant--appeared perfect, trunk, tusks, and all the peculiar development of skull and skeleton, where previously no such creature had existed." but what possible reason have they for this conclusion? none whatever. it has simply been carelessly assumed from age to age, because people at first knew no better; and when they began to know better, they did not stop to amend their ideas accordingly. of course, as professor huxley puts it, millions of pious jews and christians[ ] supposed _creation_ to mean a "sudden act of the deity"--i.e., to mean just what the knowledge of the time enabled them to imagine. they could do nothing else. the state of knowledge fifty years ago would not have rendered it possible for an article like professor huxley's (that to which allusion has several times been made) to have been written at all. what wonder, then, that the multitude did not understand what _creation_ meant, and that a reasonable interpretation of the word has only become possible in quite recent times? surely all that is the fault of the reader, not of the text. i do not even care that the writer himself did not fully apprehend the subject. when a human prophet is entrusted with the divulgation of high and wonderful things, it is quite possible that he may have been to greater or less extent in the dark as to all or some of the communication he was writing. [footnote : article quoted, p. .] all that can be reasonably required is that the narrative, as it stands, shall be consistent with actual truth, and shall at no time come to be provably at variance with it. but let us look at the word "creation" more closely. we accept what we are told, that in the beginning god called into existence force and matter, the material or "physical basis," and all other necessaries of life. suppose, then (even dropping the question of evolution, in order to satisfy the "pious millions"), that this "matter" was all ready (if i may so speak) to spring into organized form and being to take shape on earth--what shape should it take? why (e.g.) an elephant? why not any other animal, or a nondescript--a form which no zoologist could place, recognize, or classify? the _form_, the ideal structure, the _formula_, of the genus elephant must somehow have come into existence _before_ the obedient materials and the suitable forces of nature could work themselves together to the desired end. mr. mivart has defined "creation" at page of his "genesis of species." there is original creation, derivative or secondary creation (where the present form has descended from an ancestor that was originally "directly" created), and conventional creation (as when a man "creates a fortune," meaning that he produces a complex state or arrangement out of simpler materials). that is perfectly true, so far; but it is only a verbal definition, and still does not go inside, into the _idea_ involved. we must go farther. in every act of creation, two requisites can clearly be distinguished: ( ) the matter of life, and the forces, affinities, and local surroundings necessary; and ( ) the type, plan, ideal, or formula, to realize or produce which, the forces and the matter are to act and react. this second is all-essential; without it the first would only produce a limbo of "unaccomplisht works of nature's hand, abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixt.[ ]" [footnote : "paradise lost," iii. .] no _creation_ in _any_ sense whatever could come out of it. in the same way, when we speak of the divine artificer "creating," or saying "let there be," there are two things implied: (i) the divine plan or type-form, and its utterance or delivery (so to speak) to the builder-forces and materials; ( ) the result or the translation into tangible existence of the divine plan. in every passage speaking of creation it _possible_ that both processes may be implied; it may be clear from the text (as in genesis i. ) that this is so. but it is equally possible that the first point only, which in some aspects is really the essential matter, is alone spoken of. and i submit that, given the general fact that god originated everything in heaven and earth (as first of all stated generally in genesis i. - ), the essential part of the _detailed_ or _specific_ creation subsequently spoken of, was the divine origination of the types, the ideal forms, into which matter endowed with life was to develop; _without_ any _necessary_ reference to how, or in what time, the divine creation was actually realized or accomplished on earth. it may be that the _form_ so conceived and drawn in nature's book by the divine designer is a final form, up to which development shall lead, and beyond which (at least in a material sense) it shall not go; or it may be that it is a type intended to be transitory;[ ] but _both the intermediate and final forms must take their origin first in the divine mind, and be prescribed from the heavenly throne,_ before the obedient matter and forces and the life-endowment could co-operate to result in the realization of the forms and the population of the globe. [footnote : the idea which i am endeavouring to make clear is well illustrated by another passage in one of the mosaic books--the account of the tabernacle. moses had no idea of his own of the structure, its furniture, implements, or the forms of these. the narrative expressly states that the divine power originated the designs, and caused moses to understand them. in a human work the designer would have drawn the objects with measures and specifications, and given the papers to the workmen. with the divine work, where the design is in the divine thought, and the workmen and builders are forces and elementary matter, the process is a mystery, but in its practical bearing is understood from analogy. the tabernacle was truly god's _creation_, because it was all commanded in design and "pattern" by the almighty before moses put together the materials that realized the pattern in the camp of israel.] the reason why it is the _essential_ part, is, that when once the divine command issued, the result followed inevitably--that will "go without saying." in human affairs, also, we speak of the architect having _created_ the palace or cathedral, or the ironclad; meaning thereby not the slow process of cutting and joining stone, or riveting steel plates, but the higher antecedent act of mind in evoking the ideal form and providing for all contingencies in the adaptation and subsequent working of the finished structure. and if we limit this use of the term "creation" somewhat in speaking of human works, it is because the concept of the human mind so often fails of realization; that it is one thing to design, and another to accomplish. the grandest design for a palace may fail to stand because some peculiarity of the stone has been forgotten, or some character of foundation and subsoil has been misunderstood. the noblest form of turret-ship may prove useless because the strength of some material will not correspond to the ideal, or some curve of stability has been miscalculated. not only this: man may create, as a sculptor, the ideal form for his to-be statue, or the dramatist his character; but the perfect realization, either in marble or in an actual being, may be impossible; the ideal remains "in the air." the ideal, therefore, is not the major part of "creation" in a human work. but with the divine work it is otherwise. the divine thought in creation and its result are separated by no possibility of failure. given the matter and the laws of force and of life, directly the great designer has uttered his thought to those that are his builders, they _must_ infallibly and without discord, work through the longest terms, it may be, of an evolutionary series, till, every transitional condition passed, the final form emerges perfect. our very verbal definition, admitting as it does "derivative" creation, implies this. we all speak of ourselves as "created." how so? we are not produced ready made. nor do we wholly solve the matter by saying that we are "created" because we are born from parents who (if we go far enough back) originated in a first production from the hand of nature. we are really "created" because the _design_--the _life-form of us_, which matter and force were to work together to produce--was the direct product of the divine mind.[ ] my question, therefore, of the genesis interpreters is: why will you insist on the text meaning only the second element in creation--the production on earth, and not the design or its issue in heaven? the former we could find out some day for ourselves; we _have_ found out some of it (though only some) already; the latter we could never know unless we were told. surely it is the "_dignus vindice nodus_" in this case. to tell us the earth's history within a brief space would be impossible, and would have been for ages unintelligible if it could have been told; to tell us of god's creation is possible--for it has been done; and the record, unless misread, is intelligible for all time. the narrative, if it is a revelation of divine creation in heaven, takes up ground that none can trespass on. none can say "it is not so," unless either he will show that the words will not bear the meaning, or that the context and other scripture contradict it. [footnote : "_in thy book_ were all my members written, while _as yet there were none_ of them" (psa. cxxxix. ). "how did this all first come to be you? _god thought about me_ and i grew."--_macdonald_.] so soon as the matter of earth and heaven (and all that is implied therewith) originated "in the beginning," the narrative introduces to our reverent contemplation the solemn conclave in heaven, when, in a serial order and on separate days, god declared, for the guidance of the ever potentially active forces, and for materials ever (as we know) seeking combination and resolution,[ ] the _form_ which the earth surface is (it may be ever so gradually) to take and the _life-forms_ which are to be evolved. that this creative work was piecemeal, and on separate days, we know from the narrative. _why_ it was so arranged we do not know. vast as was the work to be done, almost infinite as was the complexity of the laws required to be formulated, it _could_ have all been done at once, in a moment of time; for time does not exist to the divine mind. but seeing that the work was to be on earth, and for the benefit of creatures to whom the divisions of time were all-important, we can dimly, at least, discern a certain fitness and appropriateness in the gradual and divided work. [footnote : the reader will recognize that there is not the least exaggeration in this. it is plain matter of fact, as i have endeavoured to show in the earlier chapters of this book. everywhere we see _force_ ready to be evoked by the proper method. everywhere we see _molecular_ motion, and a perpetual combination and resolution of elements and compounds, whether chemical or mechanical.] chapter xiv. _the interpretation supported by other scriptures._ in interpreting the narrative before us, we have an important aid which has hardly received the attention it deserves. i allude to the other passages of scripture which were written by men undoubtedly familiar with the book of genesis. now, in more than one of them, i find the idea that the creation spoken of is the _divine work in heaven_, and not the subsequent and long process of its realization on the surface of our globe, fully confirmed. in the beautiful thirty-eighth chapter of the very ancient book of job, we find a distinct allusion to a time when god "laid the foundations" of the earth, prescribed "its measures," made a "decreed place" for the sea, and framed the "ordinances of heaven," and this in presence of the heavenly host assembled-- "when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy.[ ]" [footnote : job xxxviii. . the sons of god are clearly the angels (_cf_. job i, ).] the same idea can be gathered from the text which i have placed on the title-page of this book. "by faith we understand that the aeons (the whole system of nature in its various branches, physical, moral, and social) were ordained ([greek: kataertisthai]) by the word of god." the _process_ of actual development is here passed over, as not being the main thing; what attracts attention is the divine design, the "framing" of the wonderful ideal or ordinance without which the "aeons" could not proceed to unfold themselves. i do not mean, of course, for a moment to imply that, after god had formulated the laws and designed the forms, he left the working out of the results to themselves. i should be sorry if, in bringing into prominence what has generally been overlooked, i seemed to throw the rest in the shade. god's providence and continued supervision are as important in themselves as the original design:--but this is not the central idea embodied in the passage. there is another scriptural allusion which suggests the idea of a heavenly conclave, and great act of creation in heaven. it may be considered somewhat remote, and even fanciful--but the fact is recorded _both_ in the old testament and the new, and _something_ must be meant by it. and, moreover, other and very meaningless interpretations have been from the earliest times given, so that i can hardly omit the subject if i would. i refer to the permanent presence in heaven, around the divine throne, of the singular forms of being called _cherubim_, which seem to indicate some mysterious connection between the life-forms of earth and the inhabitants of heaven, and some permanent representation of typical created forms in heaven. in ezekiel, chapter i., and again in chapter x., this vision is presented to us. the prophet was to be prepared, by a very vivid exhibition of the power and glory of god as the author and ruler of the universe, to appreciate the depth of degradation to which the jews had fallen in their rejection of such a god as their lord and king and of the justice of the terrible overthrow which was the consequence of that rejection. the vision then displayed (as i understand it) god surrounded by the typical forms of creation and the irresistible forces of nature. all forms of life, all energies of nature, were thus shown to be his creatures. there, around the throne, were four "cherubim" of remarkable appearance. they were accompanied by the appearances of fiery orbs like beryl stones, revolving in all directions with ceaseless energy. any account of this vision that i can give is, however, pitiable beside the inexpressibly sublime picture drawn in ezekiel, to which i must refer the reader for his own study. and imagine what the feelings of the prophet must have been when, fresh from the impression of this grandeur of creation--this glory and irresistible power of god as the centre and great mover of all, he was taken to witness the pitiable sight of the jews turning away from his worship, and to see their elders burning incense before walls covered with "every form of creeping things and abominable beasts--all the idols of the house of israel![ ]" how must the vision have prepared him to realize the depth of degradation with which he had to contend, and have fired him with energy to denounce it! there is, then, i think, considerable probability in the contention that the vision represents god in creation, surrounded by the types of creation and the forces of nature. there is, no doubt, the ancient tradition that the four cherubim meant the four gospels; and this has now become deeply associated with ecclesiastical symbolism. but i submit that this is only a fancy which can best be left to church embroidery and stained windows; it is unworthy of any serious notice. the beings are described, it will be observed, with great minuteness: all have the same characteristic powers of rapid motion, and all have _human hands_, a fact that so strikes the prophet that he repeats it three times.[ ] these four cherubim, then, seem to me clearly to indicate the archetypes of creation, the great design-forms of created life, showing themselves the progressive scale from the animal to the man and the angel. and these four great types exactly answer to the resulting groups of created life. we have the development of _reptilia_ into _birds_ as one final type; consequently one face of each cherub has the bird type--the eagle head[ ]. two other faces on each give us the _animal_ type, one representing again the great order carnivora (the lion), the other the herbivorous ungulates (the ox or calf); while the fourth face indicates the last development, _man_. [footnote : ezek. viii. .] [footnote : see chapters i. , x. , and x. . remark, in passing, that the human hand has always been the subject of wonder as an evidence of divine skill in creation. sir charles bell's bridgewater treatise, on the human hand as illustrating the proof of divine wisdom and contrivance in creation, is just as good an argument _for design_ now as ever it was. i cannot here resist the temptation to notice one of those small points in which the accuracy of the bible is so constantly brought to light. the popular notion of angels gives them wings as well as hands--a form quite impossible from the natural history point of view; _all_ animals of the vertebrate orders never have _more_ than two pairs of limbs. and in winged animals the fore-limbs become wings. the popular notion about angels is, however, artistic, not biblical. just the contrary in fact. here _is_ a vision of a mysterious form with wings and hands, but how?--the figures are fourfold; and being winged, each division might have been winged like the eagle, so each cherub would have had _eight_ wings. but as one of the divisions had a human face and human hands, the prophet only saw _six_ wings to each, leaving one division where, nature's _divine type_ being obeyed, there were _hands_, and consequently no wings.] [footnote : reptiles are unrepresented, perhaps as not being a final type.] i would say here, as regards the animal creation being represented by a double form, that it is most curious to notice that this double division of animals is found throughout scripture, and seems to have its counterpart in the actual facts of creation on earth. accompanying these created beings in this remarkable vision were "wheels" which appeared to be spheres within spheres, revolving with ceaseless activity and never turning, but always going forward. the wheels were full of eyes. it appears to me probable that these symbolize--and if so the symbol is at once full of meaning and grandeur--the inevitable, ever wakeful energies and forces of nature, the marvellous agency of electricity, chemical affinity, heat, attraction, repulsion, and so forth. we are accustomed to speak of "blind force;" but here observe the wheels are _full of eyes_, ever vigilant to fulfil the purpose for which they are appointed. and this representation of _forces_ appears necessary to complete a symbolic representation of god in nature: since the world is made up of dead matter, of living forms, and of forces or energies which are in ceaseless motion and action, producing the changes which in fact constitute the working of the whole system. i cannot help thinking, therefore, that the imagery of this vision lend support to the belief that there was a great creation enacted in heaven, which was followed by the actual carrying out of the processes on earth, _but which has retained its representative forms in the heaven itself_. had this vision stood alone, it might have been passed over, on the ground that it deals with high and transcendental matters, and that it would be hardly safe to let a practical argument rest too much on it. but the fact is that again in the new testament a very similar vision is mentioned (in the fourth chapter of the book of revelation): here again the four living creatures represent the typical forms of life, the bird, the carnivorous and herbivorous animals, and man; and it will be observed that in this case there is hardly room to doubt that we have an exhibition of _creation_, for there is express allusion to it in the address of the elders--"thou hast _created all things_, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." chapter xv. _and supported by the context._ but a step further is necessary: if the conclusion that i have come to, by accepting "day" in its ordinary and natural sense, and by giving a hitherto overlooked (and so far a new) meaning to "creation," is sound, it must not only be rendered probable by reference to other parts of scripture written when genesis was much nearer its original publication than it is now; it is still (before all things) necessary, that the interpretation adopted should be conformable to the context. and i have heard it objected that there are verses which imply not only a divine act in heaven, with the sons of god in conclave around the throne--sublime and wonderful picture!--but also distinctly indicate a corresponding action on earth, and so require us to include in our rendering of "creation" _both_ the ideas which (page ante) i have admitted may, on occasion be required by the terms. for example: after the creative command in verses , , , , and , is declared, it is followed by the words of fulfilment--"and it was so;" and in verse , when god has said "let the earth bring forth grass, &c.", in the next verse it is positively recorded that the earth _did_ bring forth grass, &c. i of course admit all this, but it is in no way opposed to my suggestion. the _commencement_ of the _result_ probably, if not necessarily, followed immediately on the issue of the finished command, viz., the promulgation of the forms to be obtained and the processes to be followed. the _whole_ result did not become accomplished then and there, in the time mentioned, or exactly in the order mentioned: we know that for a fact. take, for example, the case of _vegetation_. here the author, in terms at once precise and universally intelligible, speaks of "vegetation[ ]" (grass of the a.v.), "herb yielding seed," and "trees yielding fruit," thereby exhaustively enumerating the members of the vegetable kingdom. [footnote : nothing more is meant by the hebrew "_deshe_." the true "grasses" (_graminea_),--cereals, bamboos, &c., are certainly not intended, for these are all conspicuously flowering plants, "herbs yielding seed," and therefore coming under the second plainly defined group. but the general term "sproutage" or "vegetation" is just adapted to signify the mass of cryptogamic plant-life, the mosses, lichens, algae, and then ferns, &c., which evidently formed the first stage of plant-life on the globe.] now, as a matter of fact, there was no one long (or short) period during which the whole of this command was realized, _before_ the next creative act occurred. at first _algae_ and low forms of vegetable life appeared; and doubtless we have lost myriads upon myriads of such lower forms of plant-life in the early strata, because such forms were ill calculated for fossil-preservation, owing to the absence of woody fibre, silicious casing, or hard fruit or seed vessels. but when we first have a marked accumulation of specialized plant-life in the coal measures (upper carboniferous), it is still only of cryptogams--ferns and great club mosses. a beginning of true seed-bearing plants (gymnosperm exogens) had been made with the _conifers_ of the devonian strata; but true _grasses_, and the other orders of phanerogamic plants and arboreous vegetation, do not appear till the tertiary rocks were deposited, very long after the age of fish and great reptiles had culminated, and the inauguration of the bird age and the mammalian age had taken place. looking only to the abundant, prominent, and characteristic life-forms of the several strata, it could certainly be said that the period when the _water_ actually brought forth a vast mass of its life-forms--corals, sertularias, crustaceans, and fish of the lower orders--must have _preceded_ (not followed) the time when the earth produced vegetation of all kinds, and further that it must have come after the appearance of scorpions and some land insects.[ ] [footnote : a single wing found little more than a year ago is the sole evidence of insects older than the devonian; and scorpions (highly-organized crustaceans) have been found in the upper silurian in some abundance.] moreover, as the regular succession in periods of light and darkness on the earth, and the sequence of seasons was not organized (but only a generally diffused light, and, probably, an uniform and moist state of climate without seasons) till _after_ the commands for the formation of the whole of the large classes of plants, both cryptogams and phanerogams, it is obvious that as many of these would require the fuller development of seasonal influences, the whole process could not have been worked out before the fourth day's creative work was begun. this instance alone--and it would be easy to add others--shows that the narrative cannot be meant to indicate what actually happened on earth, i.e., to summarize the _entire realization_ of the divine command. such being the plain facts with regard to the _kind of accomplishment_ meant by the terms "it was so," "the earth brought forth," &c., it is quite plain that no violence is done to the text by explaining it as intended to describe what god did in heaven, with the addition, that as each command was formulated, the result on earth surely followed, the thing "was so," and the earth and water respectively no doubt _began_ to "bring forth." more than this cannot be made out on _any_ interpretation that accords with facts. it seems so clear to me that this is so, that i hardly need refer to the use of the terms the "_waters brought forth"_ and the "_earth brought forth"_ and the phrase in chapter ii. --the lord made every plant _before it grew_. if, as we have been long allowed to suppose, god spake and the water and earth were _at once_ fully and finally peopled with animals where before nothing but plants had existed, and so on, i should hardly have expected the use of words which imply a gradual process--a gestation and subsequent birth (so to speak) of life-forms. how the _order_ in which the events are recorded stands in relation to the subsequent history of life-development on earth, and what its significance may be, i will consider later on. first i will conclude the argument for the general interpretation of the narrative. . _the second genesis narrative._ i have only one more direct argument to offer; but i think it is a very important one. the first division of genesis ends with the divine commands creating man and the day of rest which followed. the narrative ending at chapter ii. verse (the division of chapters here, as elsewhere, is purely arbitrary), we have at verse of chapter ii, what has been loudly proclaimed as _another_ account of _the same_ creation, which, it is added (arbitrarily enough--but _any_ argument will do if only it is against religion!) is contrary to the first.[ ] [footnote : the contradiction is supposed to be in verse , as if then the creation of animals was for the first time effected--after the man and his helpmate. but it is quite clear that the text refers to the fact that god had created animals; the command was, "let the earth bring forth," and the immediate act spoken of was not the formation of animals, but the bringing of them to adam to see what he would call them.] now, even if there is a _second_ account of creation, it would surely be a circumstance somewhat difficult to explain. _contrary_ in any possible sense, the narrative (from chapter ii. , onward) certainly is not. but why should there be a second narrative at all? on the hitherto received supposition that chapter i. intends to tells us the _process_ of creation--what god caused to be done on earth, not merely what he did in heaven--there is apparently no room for a second narrative. nor have i seen any completely satisfactory explanation. but if we accept the view that the first chapter explains the divine design, and its being published (so to speak) and commanded in heaven, then it would be very natural that that narrative should be followed by a second, which should detail not the _whole_ process of all life existence on earth, but (as the bible is to be henceforth concerned with man, his fall and his redemption) with an account of _just so much of the_ process as relates to the actual birth on the earth's surface of the particular man adam, the most important (and possibly not the only) outcome of the _fiat_ recorded in chapter i. vers. , . in this view, not only _a_ second narrative, but just the particular kind of narrative we actually have, is not only natural, but even necessary. _before_, we had a general account of how god ordained the scheme of material-form and life-form on the earth; _now_ we have a detailed account of how he actually carried out one portion of it--that one portion we are most concerned to hear about, namely the man adam, the progenitor of our own race, of whom came jesus christ, "the son of adam.[ ]" the account is designed to introduce to us the scene of adam's birthplace--the garden of eden.[ ] the mention of a garden, and the subsequent important connection of the trees of that garden with the conduct of the man, naturally turn the writer's attention to the general subject of the vegetation on the earth's surface. he prefaces his new account accordingly with a brief summary--which i may paraphrase thus without, i trust, departing from the sense of the original: "such was the origin of the earth (and all in it) and of the heavenly host, at the time when god made them. he had made every plant _before_ it was in the earth--every herb of the field _before_ it grew" (mark the language as confirming what i have said--god "created" everything before it actually developed and grew into being on the earth). "rain did not then fall (in the same way as now) on the earth, but the mist that exhaled from the soil re-condensed, and fell and moistened the ground; but there was as yet no man to till and cultivate the soil." [footnote : st. luke iii. .] [footnote : which had a real historic existence. _vide_ appendix a.] then god actually formed or fashioned _a man_. it is not now that he created the ideal form to be produced in due time, but that he actually formed the individual adam, and placed him in a garden which he had prepared for the purpose. all the words used now imply actual production. the divine ideal was ready, and the earth-elements (of which we know man's body to consist) were ready at the divine word to assume the human shape. and that done, god "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (mark the direct _act_ on the man himself), and the man became a "living soul." there is nothing here of the "earth bringing forth" as in the former narrative. we have the direct act of god, not in the design only, but in the production of the thing itself. if this is not a complete explanation and justification of the second narrative, i do not know what, in common fairness, is entitled to be so called. the language may be rigorously examined, and it will fully bear out the position taken up. i conceive, then, that the cumulation of proof need go no further. the true explanation of genesis i. also supplies the place for genesis ii. , _et seq._, and overcomes all the difficulty that has hitherto existed on the subject. it will now, i trust, be clear that by such an interpretation of genesis we at once give ( ) a full and natural meaning to all the terms; we reconcile it with other scripture, and we enhance all the sublime attributes which we have been reverentially accustomed to connect with this ancient passage. ( ) we obviate the difficulty regarding the second narrative in chapter ii. . and ( ) we place the whole above any possible conflict with science, and above any need for "reconciliation." here, too, is a purpose and meaning assigned to the _whole_ narrative, without being driven into the difficult position of supposing the verses to be the literary outcome of an ignorant imagination which gave expression to its crude ideas only--though enshrining among utterly false details a sublime truth, regarding which one can only wonder why it could not have been stated without the encumbrance of the surroundings. the naturalist and the biologist may continue, unquestioned, to work out more and more of the wondrous story of life on the globe. they can never disprove, or on any of their own grounds deny, that god is the author of all things--matter, force, and mind alike; that he designed the form and relations of the earth; that he organized its light, its seasons, and its changes; that he has furnished the types and patterns of all life-forms which matter and force are conformably thereto, developing on the earth. in short, revelation tells us that god did all this "in the beginning," how his form-designs were thought out and declared in six days, and how he rested on the seventh day. science will tell us how, when, and where the creative fiats and the designs of heaven were realized and worked out on earth. here is the separate province of each, without fear of clashing, or room for controversy. chapter xvi. _the details of the creation narrative._ § . _the explanation of the verses._ it remains only now to go over the narrative, the _general_ bearing of which i have thus endeavoured to vindicate, so that minor matters of detail, in which it is supposed ( ) that some contradiction to known physical fact may still lurk, and ( ) something that negatives the explanation suggested, may be cleared up. let us take it seriatim:-- "in the beginning god created the heaven (plural in the original) and the earth." as i have before remarked, we have no real need to discuss whether "bara" means originated (created where nothing previously existed), or whether we should render it "fashioned," i.e., moulded material (thus assumed in terms to be) already in existence. either will yield perfectly good and consistent sense; but, as a matter of fact, there is a virtual consensus of the best scholars that the word is here used to denote original production of the material. it is also clear that the text is intended to embrace the whole system of planets, suns, stars, and whatever else is in space. so the psalmist understood it: "by the word of the lord were the heavens made, and _all_ the host of them by the breath of his mouth.[ ]" nor is there any reasonable doubt, exegetically, that the subsequent allusion to the sun, moon, and stars, refers (as the sense of the text itself obviously requires) to their _appointment_ or adjustment to certain relations with the earth, and assumes their original material production in space, to have been already stated or understood. "and the earth was (became) without form[ ] and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. and the spirit of god moved upon the face of the waters." i have, in another connection, already remarked on this verse, and so shall not repeat those remarks. [footnote : psa. xxxiii. , and so psa. cii. ; _cf_. peter iii. .] [footnote : waste (r.v.).] i will only say that the elemental strife and rushing together of chemical elements under the stress of various forces and the presence of enormous heat, would naturally envelop the globe in dense vapours, a large portion of which would be watery vapour, capable of condensation or of dispersion, under proper conditions, afterwards to be prescribed and realized. as it is beautifully expressed in job xxxviii., "when i made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it" (verse ). then commences the serial order of divine acts with reference to the _earth_:-- ( ) "and god said; let there be light: and there was light." this verse is commonly taken as indicating a creation of light for the first time in the entire cosmos or universe. and if it be so, there is no objection, on any scientific ground, to the assertion that there was once a time when as yet the vibrations and waves which we connect with the idea of light, had not yet begun. it is true that nebular matter, as now observed, is believed to be, partially at any rate, self-luminous. but this fact, supposing it to be such, is not inconsistent with a still earlier time when light had not yet begun. from the "wave-theory" of light, which is one of those working hypotheses which are indispensable, and which, in a sense, may be said to be demonstrated by their indispensability, it can clearly be seen that if light is caused by rapid vibrational movement, there must have been--or at any rate there is nothing against an authoritative declaration that there was--a moment of time when the first vibrational impulse was given, when, in fact, god said "let there be light, and there was light," _before_ which also there was "darkness upon the face of the deep.[ ]" [footnote : it also needs only to be remarked, in passing, that we are really in complete ignorance as to the light-medium, the "luminiferous-ether" outside the comparatively thin stratum of our own terrestrial atmosphere. we do not know whether there might not have been a condition of the medium in which, up to the moment of a creative _fiat_, it was incapable of transmitting light-waves.] there is no necessary connection between the creation of light _per se_, and the existence of any particular source (or sources) of light to our planet or to other planets. no justification is now needed for such a remark, and the almost forgotten cavils of one of the "essays and reviews" may still survive as a "scientific" curiosity, to warn us against too hastily concluding that (in subjects where so little is really _known_) the bible must be wrong, and the favourite hypothesis of the day right. but as a matter of fact, the text, especially when read in connection with job xxxviii., need not be taken to refer to any original creation of light in the universe generally, but merely to the letting in of light on the hitherto dark and "waste" earth. the command "let there be light" was followed on the next day by the formation of a firmament or expanse. so that all the verse _necessarily_ implies is, that the thick clouds and vapours which surrounded the earth were so dealt with, that light could reach the earth: the light was thus divided from the darkness, and the rotating globe would experience the alternation of day and night. the "day" having thus been created formally (so to speak), the divine author proceeds to mark, by his own procedure, the use of the "days" which he had provided for the earth. on this view, of course, the origin of light as a "force"--the first beginning of its pulsations--is not detailed, any more than the origin of electric force, or heat, or gravitation. here, too, i may remark that the idea of _creation_, which it has been one of my chief objects to develop, is illustrated. this remark holds good, whether an original creation of light is intended, or only an arrangement whereby light was for the first time introduced to the earth's surface. the idea of creating light not only involves the divine conception of the thing, and the marvellous method of its production,[ ] but doubtless, also, all those wonderful laws of reflection, refraction, polarization, and a thousand others, which the science of physical optics investigates. [footnote : and this is still a mystery to us. _what_ light is we do not know--we can only speak of our own sensation of it. nor do we know _what_ vibrates to produce light. hypothetical terms, such as "ether," "luminiferous-medium," and so forth, only conceal our ignorance.] naturally enough, in this case, the double idea involved in creation--the divine concept and its realization--will, in the nature of things, fall into one. no process of evolution is required; none is indicated by science. directly the divine hand gave the impulse concurrently with the divine thought--light would be. in the nature of things there is no place for a line between the divine fiat and its realization, as there is in the production of life-forms on the earth. or, on the other view, directly the divine command went forth, the vapours would clear and allow the transmission of light. ( ) "and god said, let there be a firmament (expanse) in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters....and god called the firmament heaven." there has been gathered round this verse what i may call rather an ill-natured controversy, because there is no real ground for it; and the objections taken seem rather of a desire to find out something against the narrative at any price, than to make the best of it. the verse, when duly translated, implies that an "expanse"--the setting of a clear space of atmosphere around the globe--formed one of the special design-thoughts of the creator, followed by its immediate (or gradual) accomplishment. i think we should have hardly had so much cavilling over this word "expanse" if it had not been for the term subsequently used by the seventy in their greek version ([greek: stereôma]). the ancients, it is said, believed the space above the earth to be "solid." now i would contend that even if the hebrew writer had any mistaken or confused notions in his own mind, that would not afford any just ground against revelation itself. but i would point out that many of the expressions which may be quoted to show the idea of solidity, are clearly poetical. and if we go to the poetic or semi-poetic aspect of things, may i not ask whether there is not a certain sense in which the earth-envelope may be said to be solid? the air has a considerable density, its uniform and inexorable pressure on every square inch of the earth's surface is very great. such a word as [greek: stereôma] (_firmamentum_) does not imply solidity in the sense in which gold is solid--as if the heavens were a mass of metal, and the stars set in it like jewels; it implies, rather, something fixed and offering resistance. it is obvious that a creative act was necessary for this "expanse." we know of spheres that have no atmosphere; and we are so ignorant of the true nature of what is beyond the utmost reach of our air-stratum, that there is room for almost any consistent conjecture regarding it. moreover, observe that the atmosphere is not a _chemical_ combination of gases, and one, therefore, that would take place like any other of the metallic, saline, or gaseous combinations, of which no detailed account is given--all being covered by the general phrase, "god created the heaven and the earth." the air is a mechanical mixture, pointing to a special design and a special act of origin. the necessary proportions of each gas and its combined properties could not have originated without guidance. but the main purpose of the expanse, as stated in the text, was to regulate the water supply. that vast masses of watery vapour must at one time have enveloped the globe, seems probable--apart from revelation; and that part of this should condense into seas and fresh-water, and part remain suspended to produce all the phenomena of invisible air-moisture and visible cloud, while an "expanse" was set, so that the earth surface should be free, and that light might freely penetrate, and sound also, and that all the other regular functions of nature dependent on the existing relation of earth and air should proceed--all this was very necessary. and when we recollect what a balanced and complex scheme it is--how very far from being a simple thing; we recognize in the adjustment of earth's atmospheric envelope, a special result worthy of the day's work. whether the separation between the condensed but ever re-evaporating and re-condensing water on the earth's surface, and the water vapour in the atmosphere, is _all_ that is meant by the division of the "waters that are above the firmament" from those below, it would not be wise to assert. we know so little of the condition of space beyond our own air, and so little of the great stores of hydrogen which have been suggested to exist in space (and might combine to form vast quantities of liquid), that we may well leave the phrase as it stands, content with a partial explanation. ( ) "and god said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. and god said, let the earth put forth grass (vegetation), herb yielding seed, and fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, wherein is the seed thereof." the only remarks that the first part of this verse calls for, are, _first_, that it explains how far from mere chance-work the emergence of land from the water was; _second_ how well it illustrates the use of terms relating to creation. the whole scheme of the distribution of the surface of earth into land and water is one which demanded divine foresight and a complete ideal[ ] which was to be attained by the action and reaction of natural forces, just as much as the production of the most specialized form of plant-or animal-life. [footnote : compare job xxxviii. , , and psa. civ. .] this is not the place to go into detail as to how much of the world's life-history and its climatic conditions depend on the distribution of land and water. it is sufficient to recognize the immense importance of that distribution. but, in the second place, it will be observed that while it is natural to suppose (though not logically necessary) that the working out of the divine plan _commenced_ immediately on the issue of the divine command and the declared formulation of the divine scheme, yet we know--few things are better known--that the whole scheme was not completely realized in one day, or one age--certainly not _before_ there was any appearance of plant-life, aquatic, or dry land, or any appearance of animal-life. i believe (though i have lost my reference) it is held by some authorities that the position of the great _oceans_ as they are now (and omitting, of course, all minor coast variations) has been fixed from very early geologic times. but, apart from that, we have ample evidence of whole continents arising and being again submerged; and of continual changes between land and water of the most wide-reaching character again and again happening during the progress of the world's history. so that here we may see clearly an instance where the revelation of the creative act must be held to refer to the great primal design--teaching us that it is a fact that at first all _was_ laid down, foreseen, and designed by the creator; but not referring to anything like an account of the _results_ upon earth, which, for aught we know to the contrary, may not yet be complete. as to the second part of the text, we are here introduced to the commencement of life-forms on earth. no separation is recorded. directly the chemical elements of matter have so combined that a solid earth and liquid water (salt and fresh) are formed, and the cooling process has gone on sufficiently long to enable the dense vapours partly to settle down and condense, partly to remain as vapour (dividing the waters above from the waters below)--directly this process is aided by the admission of diffused light and by the adjustment of the atmosphere, and the superficial adjustment of the distribution of water and land surface is provided for, then plant-life is organized. it will be observed that even aquatic plants and algae though growing in or under water, are nevertheless connected with the _earth_; so that the phrase, "let the _earth_ bring forth," is by no means inappropriate. the earliest rock deposits are able to tell us little about the first beginning of plant-life. moreover, as animal-life began only with the interval of one day (the fourth), we should expect to find--on the supposition that the heavenly _fiat_ at once received the _commencement_ of its fulfilment on each day--that the first lowly specimens of vegetable and animal life are almost coeval. and this is (apparently) the fact. it is to be remarked that plant and animal always appear in nature as two separate and _parallel_ kingdoms. it is not that the plant is lower than the animal, so that the highest plant takes on it some of the first characters which mark the lowest animal: but both start separately from minute and little specialized forms so similar that it is extremely difficult to say which is plant and which is animal.[ ] [footnote : see this well summarized in nicholson's "manual of zoology" (sixth edition, ), p. , _et seq._] all the beginnings of life in _either_ kingdom would therefore be ill-adapted (most of them, at any rate) for preservation in rock-strata.[ ] [footnote : i think this is quite sufficient, without relying on the evidence of the great quantities of _carbon_ in the earliest (laurentian, huronian, &c.) strata in the form of graphite. it is possible, or even probable, that this may be due to carbon supplied by masses of little specialized _thallophyte_ and _anophyte_ vegetation.] all we know for certain is that vegetable-life was closely coeval with the lowest animal-life, and that it was very long before specialized forms, even of _cryptogams_, made a great show in the world. probability is entirely in favour of the actual priority being in vegetable forms; and more than that is not required. for the mosaic narrative, while it places the origin of the vegetable kingdom actually first, lets the _fiat_ for the animal kingdom follow almost immediately. as to the _order_ of appearance of the plants, i will reserve my remarks for the moment. ( ) "and god said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years: and let them be for lights in the firmament to give light on the earth." the sun and the stars, and all the host of heaven, are clearly understood to have been created "in the beginning," under the general statement of fact which forms the first verse of the narrative. the th verse has always been understood to refer to the establishment of the _relations_ between the earth and the sun, moon, and stars, which have, as a matter of fact, been recognized by all ages and all people ever since. the writer of the th psalm certainly so understood the passage-- "he appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knoweth his going down.[ ]" the writer was instructed to use popularly intelligible language, and so the text speaks of the lights as they _appear_ in the sky or firmament. even if we suppose that before this act, the sun was already incandescent, and the moon capable of reflecting the light, the whole arrangement of the earth's rotation may have been such that the alternations of light and darkness may have been very different from what they are now, and the seasons also. a moment's reflection regarding the obliquity of the earth's axis, nutation, the precession of the equinoxes, the eccentricity of the orbit and the changes in the position of the orbit, will show us what ample room there was for a special adjustment and adaptation between the earth and its satellite and between both to the solar centre.[ ] so that faith which accepts this as a divine arrangement made among the special and formal acts of creation, cannot be said to be unreasonable, or to be flying in the face of any known facts. [footnote : ver. , &c. the same word is also used of "making" priests (l kings xii. ), and appointing (r.v.)("advancing" a.v.), ("making," as we familiarly say) moses and aaron ( sam. xii. ).] [footnote : and the psalmist justly speaks of god as _preparing_ the light of the sun (psa. lxxiv. ).] it is very remarkable, as showing how little we can attribute this narrative, on any basis of probability, to mere fancy or guess-work, that this matter should have been assigned to the fourth day--_after_ the fiat for plant-life had gone forth. but the fact is that the unregulated light, and the vaporous uniform climate that must have continued if the fourth day's command had never issued, though it might have served for a time for the lowest beginnings of life, especially marine or aquatic, would ultimately have rendered any advance in the series of design impossible. such a fact would never have occurred to an ignorant and uninspired writer. it is here impossible to say whether the whole arrangements indicated were made at once in obedience to the divine design, or were produced gradually. it has been suggested that uniformity of climate and temperature continued up till the carboniferous ages, at any rate; and it is only in the later ages that such differences of _fauna_ in different parts of the world appear, as to show differences of climate more like what we have at present. whether this is so or not, i am not concerned to argue. the narrative tells us that god did, at a certain point in his creative work, design and ordain the necessary arrangements; and physical science may find out, when it is able, how and when the adjustments spoken of came about. ( ) and god said-- (i.) let the waters bring forth the moving creature that hath life, (ii.) let fowl fly above the earth on the face of the expanse. as to (i.) the "creation" consisted of--great sea-monsters (or water monsters), and every living thing that moveth. then the animal life received a _blessing_. animals, even the lowliest, are capable of a new feature in life--happiness in their being, which cannot be predicated of plants. ( ) and god said-- (i.) let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind ... the beast of the earth _after its kind (carnivora)_, cattle _after its kind_ (_ungulata_), and everything that creepeth on the ground _after its kind_.[ ] and also-- (ii.) let us make man.... so god created man in his own image--in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them. ( ) then followed the day of rest. [footnote : see page .] [transcriber's note: chapter xiv.] § . _the order of events considered._ it was convenient first to bring these later creative acts together before beginning any remarks about any one of them. it will now be desirable to notice what occurred, because here the question of _order_ is concerned. i could not avoid a partial statement on this subject at an earlier page, nor would it be quite sufficient simply to refer the reader back to those pages. at the risk of some repetition, i will therefore consider the subject here. it will be observed that on the older interpretation, which passed over the special act of god in _designing_ and _publishing the design,_ and descended at once to the earth to the process of producing the designed forms, this order was matter of great importance. granting the supporters of this view that the six days are unequal periods often of vast duration, with or without important subdivisions, they are bound to make out that each creation began, and was at any rate well advanced, _before_ the next began. we ought, in fact, to see a period more or less prolonged when the whole of what is indicated in the _plant_ verse was well advanced, _before_ any marine or fresh-water life appeared at all.[ ] [footnote : there was "evening and morning" of the third day, i.e., beginning and _completion_, and also the whole interval of the fourth day, _before_ the command of the fifth.] all attempts to make out that this _was_ so, have proved failures. it is assumed, for instance (and justly so), that life on the globe began with low vegetable forms; these represented the "grass" of the text, and it is suggested that the "fruit tree" is represented by the devonian and carboniferous _conifers_. this in itself is a very strained view. it is recollected that the terms used are not scientific, but for the world at large; but without confining "fruit tree" to mean only trees having _edible_ fruit, still the appearance of a few first species of _conifers_ in the devonian, can hardly be called an adequate fulfilment of the requirements of the passage. but even so, myriads of fish and other animals existed _before_ the devonian and carboniferous plant age. the animal forms that so existed, have therefore to be _ignored_, or are assumed to have been created without special notice: and it is said that the mosaic period of "moving creatures of the deep," fishes and monsters, only began when the rocks begin to show _great abundance_ of shells, of fish, and subsequently of huge reptilians which prepared the way for birds--which gradually make their appearance towards the trias. but the devonian "age of fishes" (devonian including old red sandstone) was far too important a period to be thus got rid of; and it is difficult to understand _why_ the narrative should exclude all the extensive and beautiful (though often little specialized) orders of marine life--all the corals, the mollusca and articulata, which had long abounded--especially some of the crustaceans, not an unimportant group of which (_trilobite_[ ]) had also culminated and almost passed away before the devonian; to say nothing of the fact that _land_ "creeping things" (scorpions among _crustacea_, and apparently winged insects) had occurred. [footnote : it is remarkable that the trilobites rapidly culminated, so that we have the largest and most perfect forms, such as _paradoxus_, with the lowest (_agnostus_) in the same beds in wales (etheridge's "phillips' manual," part ii. p. ).] it is a special difficulty also, that if _insects_ are included among the "creeping things" of the _earth_ then various families of the "land-creation" (sixth day) became represented _before_ the great reptiles of the "water-creation" (fifth day). the fact is that a glance at the subjoined tables (which are only generally and approximately correct) will suffice to show how the main features of the progress of life-forms differ from what is required by the older methods of reading genesis. to reduce the table within limits, i have grouped together all the lower forms of life in the animal table, viz., the sponges, corals, encrinites, and molluscs. it is sufficient to say that these appear in all the rocks except the very oldest--the caelenterata beginning, and the molluscoids exhibiting an early order in _brachiopoda_, which seems to be dying out. crustaceans and insects appeared as early as silurian times. the idea of successive "kingdoms" or "periods," each of which was _complete_ in its actual fauna upon earth before the next was fully ushered in, can no longer be defended. it is in the _completion_ of one class of life before the other, that the fallacy of the period theory lies--for completion is essential to that theory which supposes "the mosaic author" to have intended to describe the _process of production on earth_. but it is quite impossible to deny that there _is_ a certain observable movement and gradual procession in the history of life which is exactly consistent with what is most likely to have happened, supposing the divine designs of life-forms were first declared in successive order at short intervals of time, and then that the processes of nature worked out the designs in the fulness of time and gradually in order, each one _beginning_ before the next, but only beginning. i do not deny that it is perfectly _conceivable_ that the creator might have designed the forms in one order, and that the actual production or evolution of the corresponding living creatures might not have been (for reasons not understood) exactly, or even at all, coincident with the order. but it is impossible to deny the strong feeling of probability that the commands would _begin_ to be worked out, in the order in which they were uttered. and here it is that the correspondence which undoubtedly exists, gives rise to controversy. from one point of view it is just enough to encourage the "period" holders to try and arrange a scheme; but it is just hot enough to prevent their opponents (justly) taxing them with straining or "torturing" the text and failing fairly to make out their case after all. from another point of view the correspondence is so far established, and so undeniably unprecedented (in human cosmogonies) and noteworthy, as to demand imperatively our careful consideration and compel us to account for it. it will be observed, first of all, that the whole "creation" (omitting all incidental and preparatory works) is stated in _groups_ each having an order within itself. _group_ . god created (both land and water) "vegetation"--plants yielding seed, fruit-trees. _group_ . in water, not necessarily excluding _amphibia_:--great aquatic monsters; fish and all other creatures that move. in air:--winged fowl. _group_ . on land generally--for some forms are amphibious:--beasts (_carnivora_), cattle (_ungulata_, &c.), and other things that creep on the ground (the smaller and lower forms of life collectively). the order _within_ the groups is evidently of no consequence, because the writer does not adhere to it in two consecutive verses dealing with the same subject; while the "versions" seem to point to some variations in the text itself as to arrangement, though not as to substance. but as regards the order _of_ the groups themselves, it is, as i said, very natural (but yet not logically inevitable) to expect that when the results came to be existent on earth, those results should exhibit a sequence corresponding to the order in which the groups were created. and it is never denied (in _any_ of the most recent publications[ ]) that to this extent nature confirms the belief. [footnote : i have done my best to verify this from the well-known latest manuals of etheridge, seeley, and alleyne-nicholson.] i am aware that professor huxley's recent articles may at first sight seem to go against this; but that is not so on any grounds of actual fact, but of a particular _interpretation_--which i submit is wholly unwarranted. for instance, it is insisted that the "sea-monsters" of the second group included _sirenia_ and _cetacea_ (dugongs, manatees, and whales, dolphins, &c.), which are mammals. in that case a portion of the command would not have been obeyed--a number of the designed forms would have been kept in abeyance--for a long time. and the same is still more true if bats--a highly placed group of mammals--were included in "winged fowl." but both these interpretations are distinctly arbitrary, incapable of holding good, and also entirely ignore the conditions of a revelation. the narrative is not discussed or defended as an ordinary secular narrative, which is true according to the _writer's uninspired intention or the state of his personal knowledge_. it is defended as a revelation. the distinction is as obvious as it is important, directly a moment's consideration is accorded. if we assume, for a moment, that god _did_ (on any theory whatever of inspiration) instruct, direct, or enable the writer in making the record, then it is obvious that the writer either put down what he saw in a vision, or what was in some other manner borne on his mind. in any case, he could have had no critical knowledge, and no historical knowledge as an eye-witness, of the actual facts; and he may very well therefore have used language the full meaning of which he did not apprehend.[ ] what alone is essential is, that the narrative as it stands, on an ordinary critical, linguistic, and grammatical interpretation, should not contain anything which is untrue. suppose, for example, the word "tannînîm" to be _incapable_ of bearing any other meaning linguistically than "cetacean," then the narrative might be objected to; but if it will bear a meaning which is consistent with fact, then it is no matter that the writer at the time had an erroneous, or (what is more likely) no defined, idea in his own mind of the meaning. and so with "winged fowl"--the objection fails entirely, unless it can be shown, not only that the writer might have thought "bats" to be included, _but_ that linguistically the word _cannot have_ any other meaning than one which would include bats.[ ] [footnote : as is constantly the case in prophetic writings. revelation tells of the remote past sometimes as well as the future, and in neither case could the inspired writer fully understand the meaning that was wrapped up in his sentences.] [footnote : as a matter of fact, in the one case, if the writer's knowledge were of any importance, it is almost certain that he did _not_ mean _cetacean_ or _sirenian_. in the other case it is impossible to say whether he thought "bats" were included or not. it is not in the nature of things that the writer could ever have seen or even heard of a manatee or a dugong; nor is it likely that he had been a sea-farer, or could have seen any mediterranean cetacean. as far as his own knowledge went, he probably had but a very confused idea. and if we refer to the poetic description in psalm civ. , , we find "leviathan," though distinctly a sea creature, still one of which the writer had only a vague traditional idea, certainly not a _known_ mediterranean dolphin, for in job xli. the same term is applied to the crocodile.] we have every right, then, to say that the "tannînîm" of the text may be taken to refer to that great and remarkable age of saurians which is not only of very great importance in itself, but becomes doubly so when we see its connection backward with the fishes, and forward through the pterodactyles to odontoformae (_apatornis_ and _icthyornis_) and modern winged birds (_hesperonis_ for the penguins); and through the dinosaurs[ ] with the saurornithes, with the _dinornis_ and the struthious birds; and through the theriodonts with the mammalian _carnivora_. [footnote : and perhaps the pachydermatous mammals (nicholson, "zoology," p. ).] in that case the sequence of the two groups, plants and aquatic animal-forms, is explained. they come almost together--plants being probably actually the first, and mollusca, fishes, and saurians. there is, further, no real dispute that the saurians led up to the aves, and that the third group (of mammals) follows all the members of the second group. the earliest known mammal (_microlestes_) is an isolated forerunner of not very certain location, the real bulk of the mammalian orders beginning in the eocene. seeing, too, how very closely one creative command is recorded to have followed on the other, it is not in any way against the narrative that some land forms of crustaceans and insects (and possibly others) began to appear at an early stage, when the vegetable and water-animal forms had only progressed as far as the silurian and devonian ages. nor should we wonder if mammalian forms had occurred earlier. i mention this because of the evident gap in the geologic record between the cretaceous and the eocene, and because in the article of december, (and elsewhere), professor huxley has used language which suggests that mammals may have existed of which the rocks give no sign. e.g. (p. ): "the organization of the bat, bird, or pterodactyle, presupposes that of a terrestrial quadruped ... and is intelligible only as an extreme modification of the organization of a terrestrial _mammal or_ reptile." the italics are of course mine. and again (p. ), "i am not aware that any competent judge would hesitate to admit that the organization of these animals (whales, dugongs, &c.) shows the most obvious signs of their descent from terrestrial quadrupeds." i do not quote these words of so great a master as presuming to question them (even if, as a scientific verdict, i had any motive for so doing), but merely to point out as a matter of plain and fair reasoning, that if a divine creator had designed certain forms to be gradually attained by the processes of evolution, it would not be necessary that any actually realized form or tangible creature should have existed as ancestors. logically, the necessity is _either_ that certain animals should have actually existed whose descendants gradually lost or gained certain features and functions till the forms we are speaking of resulted, _or_ that certain patterns or designs should have been created according to which development proceeded by regular laws till the forms in question resulted. a few words as to the terms used in describing the contents of each group, may be added. it is obvious that the terms are intended to be exhaustive of certain main groups which are described sufficiently, without being cast in a form which would have been incompatible with the use (at the time) of a human agent as the medium of the recorded revelation. ( ) "vegetation" (of an indefinite character, but not bearing seed), plants bearing seed, trees bearing fruit with the seed in it--certainly exhaust the entire range of plant-life. ( ) moving creatures that live (and fish are afterwards expressly mentioned) and great monsters (tann[i=]n[i=]m), cover the entire field of life up to reptilia as far as these are aquatic forms. ( ) the terms used for the third group are also obviously exhaustive--the separate mention of the _cattle_ and the _beast_ (carnivora and ungulates) is a form which is invariably noticed throughout the old and new testaments. the "creeping things" would include all minor forms, all land reptiles not described above as the "tann[i=]n[i=]m," and insects. and it is remarkable that the tortoises, the snakes, and, the more modern forms of crocodile and lizard, and the amphibia and higher insects, are all cainozoic--some of them were preceded by more or less transitory representatives, e.g., the carboniferous _eosaurus_ and permian _protosaurus_ the ancient labyrinthodons and urodelas, chelonians and the amphicaelian crocodiles. snakes have no palaeozoic representative. land insects, as might naturally be expected, go back to the times when land vegetation was sufficiently established, and appear gradually all along the line from the silurian onwards. the modern types, however, are tertiary. the succession, we observe, may be illustrated by the resemblance of a number of arrows shot rapidly one after the other in so many parallel courses: all would soon be moving nearly together. plant-life, the subject of the first divine designing, has, as far as we can reasonably say, the start. according to known laws it appears in elementary and undeveloped forms, and gradually progresses. one group (cryptogams) reaches a magnificent development and begins to die away in point of grandeur, though still abundantly exemplified. phanerogamic plants in their lowest groups of gymnosperm exogens then begin to appear in the devonian conifers, gradually followed by _cycads_. and it is not till cainozoic times that we have the endogenous grasses and palms and angiospermous exogens. but the command regarding animal life had followed the other after a short interval, so that we soon see this developing _pari passu_ with the other groups--first the lower marine forms and gradually advancing to the pisces, amphibia, reptilia, and then to aves, as a special division in the second great design group. lastly the mammals appear and man.[ ] but throughout all, we see the rise, culmination, and decay of many transitory and apparently preparatory groups--such as, for example, the labyrinthodons and urodelas--preceding the modern types of amphibia; ancient fish-forms preceding modern ones, and either dying out or leaving but a few and distant representatives; or again, the whole tribes of ancient saurians, of which something has already been said. all these wonderful under-currents and cross-currents, rises and falls, appearances and disappearances, nevertheless all work together till the whole earth is peopled with the forms, designed in the beginning by the heavenly creator. [footnote : nor should we be surprised to find (should it be so discovered) that some animals appeared after man. (_cf_. "nineteenth century" for dec. , p. .)] no account of creation can be other than wonderful and mysterious; nor can the mystery of the divine act be explained in language other than that of analogy. we can speak without mystery of a human architect conceiving a design in his mind; and when he utters it, it is by putting the plans and details upon paper, and handing them over to the builders, who set to work (under the architect's supervision, and in obedience to all the rules he has prescribed as to the methods of work and materials to be used). all this we can transfer by analogy only, to a divine design. the design is in the divine mind, and he utters it in no material plans or drawings: the forces of nature and the chemical elements, his obedient builders, have no hands to receive the plans or eyes to scan them; but we can perceive the analogy directly, and that is all that is necessary for faith. the origin of all we see in the world and in the entire cosmos is, then, in god; and as regards the adjustments of our globe and its relations, and the actual life-forms in plant and animal, they came into existence pursuant to groups of types or designs, made by the divine mind, and declared by him from his throne in heaven, in six several days--periods of the rotation of our earth. that is the message of revelation. it requires no straining of the sacred text: it takes everything as it stands, and the seemingly lengthy explanation it requires is not to manipulate the text, but to clear away the heap of mistaken conceptions that have gathered round it:--to establish the idea, that the terms "god said, let there be," and so forth, mean heaven work, in the design and type--not earth work in its realization and building up. establishing this by illustration and argument, nothing more is required in the way of textual exegesis except to argue for the rejection of perverse and unsustainable meanings long given to "days," to "expanse" or "firmament," and to "great whales" in the narrative. it will be admitted readily that if this account of creation is the true one, if the meaning assigned to the genesis narrative is correct, it affords no hindrance to _any_ conclusions that may progressively be demanded by the investigation of life-history on earth. it requires us to believe that the forms which life assumes are not chance forms, nor the _unpremeditated_ results of environment and circumstance. but we are not told positively which forms are transitory, which are final. it is only a matter of probable opinion, which it is quite open to any one to dispute, that there is any indication of finality. i should personally be inclined to think that we have indications that carnivora, ungulates, and birds are final forms; that no evolution will ever modify a bird further into anything that is not a bird; that no transition between the ungulates and the carnivora is possible; that the _proboscideae_ are not a final but a transitory type, dying out gradually--our elephants and similar forms will disappear as the mastodon did. but i admit this is all mere speculation, in which i ask no one to follow me. on one important point only is there a difference; and if the text is ever proved wrong on that, it must be given up. but it is here that all scientific knowledge fails, in _any way whatever,_ to touch the sacred text. there _is_ an unique and exceptional account of one "special creation." a man "adam" is described as having been actually created, not born as an ultimately modified descendant of ancestors originally far removed from himself. that is not to be denied; not only was his bodily form specially created (conformably to the _type_ created in genesis i. ), but a special spiritual and higher life was imparted--for i believe that no one disputes this as the meaning of the expression, "breathed into his nostrils the _breath of lives,_ and man became a living soul." it must be noted again--although i have before alluded to this in some detail--that it is not impossible that, pursuant to the general command "let us make man," there _may_ have been other human creations, perhaps not endowed with the higher life of adam. if it is found difficult to realize this because the _image of god_ is connected (from the very first) with the design of man's life-form, still it is to be remembered as an undeniable fact, that the form, though one assumed by god himself in the incarnation, _is connected_ in structure and function with the general animal (mammalian) type, and that even the adamic or spiritually endowed man _may_, by neglecting the higher and giving way to the lower nature, develop much of the purely bestial in himself. so that the bare possibility of a pre-adamite and imperfect man cannot be _à priori_ denied. more than that it is not necessary to say. nor is it necessary that any origin of man should be limited to six or eight thousand years back. if the state of the text is such that a perfect chronology is possible,[ ] then all that the bible goes back to chronologically is the particular man adam. and it is quite impossible that any scientific or historical contradiction can arise therefrom. [footnote : it should be borne in mind that just as revelation is often absolutely silent on many points that mere curiosity would like to see explained, so also, the divine author may have allowed parts of the original text of revelation to be so far lost or obscured as to leave further points that _might_ have been once recorded, now doubtful. all that we may be quite sure of is that the text has been preserved for all that is essential to "life and godliness."] appendix. _professor delitzsch on the garden of eden._ the information here put together is a compilation from papers in "the nineteenth century," and other sources. it has no pretentions to originality, but only to give a brief and connected account of the subject, more condensed and freed from surrounding details than that which the original sources afford. before entering on the subject, i would again call attention to the surpassing importance of these early chapters of genesis. and, i add, that unbelievers are especially glad to be able to allege anything they can against them, because they are aware that hardly any chapters in the bible are more constantly alluded to, and made the foundation of practical arguments by our lord and his apostles, than these early chapters in the divine volume. if these chapters can be shown to be mythical, then the divine knowledge of our lord, as the son of god, and the inspiration of his apostles, are put in question. all through the old testament, allusions to adam and to the early history in genesis occur; and among other passages, i will only here invite attention to the st chapter of ezekiel, where there is, in a most beautiful description of the cedar-tree, an allusion to "eden, the garden of god" (see also chapter xxviii. ver. ), which some have thought to indicate that the site was still known, and existing in the time of the prophet. this at least may be remarked, that in verse , where the prophet speaks of the "trees that _were_ in the garden of god," the word _were_ is not in the original, and the sense of the context would rather denote the present tense--"the trees that _are_ in the garden of god." but it is in the new testament that the most repeated and striking allusions to adam, the temptation of the woman by the serpent, and the entrance of sin and death into the life-history of mankind, occur.[ ] [footnote : see on this subject page _ante_.] [transcriber's note: chapter x.] as regards the narrative of eden itself, there has been, from the very earliest times, some disposition to regard it as mystical or "allegorical," i.e., to regard it as representing spiritual facts of temptation and disobedience, under the guise or story of an actual audible address by a serpent, and the eating of an actual fruit. the earliest translators seem to have glossed the "gan-'eden," everywhere in the old testament (_except_ in gen. ii. ), by the phrase "the paradise of pleasure," or some other similar term. and the vulgate _always_ uses some phrase, such as "place of delight," "voluptas," "deliciae," &c. it must be admitted that there is some temptation to this course, because of the inveterate tendency of the human mind to reduce things to its own level--to suppose everything to have happened _in ways which are within its present powers to comprehend._ we figure to ourselves the fear and dislike _we_ should ourselves experience, of a large snake; we imagine the amazement with which an intelligible voice would be heard to proceed from such a creature; so far from being _tempted, we_ should at once be moved to hostility or to flight; and thus we are inclined to throw doubt on the narrative as it stands. but this is to do what we justly complain of modern materialists and positivists for doing--reducing everything to terms of present experience and knowledge. it has to be borne in mind, that _under the conditions of the case_, the serpent was neither ugly, dangerous, nor loathsome, but beautiful and attractive; that the residents of the garden were familiar with the "voice of god"--i.e., they had habitual intelligible communication with heaven: probably, also, free intercourse with angelic messengers (inconceivable as it may now seem to us) was matter of daily experience to them. the woman would then recognize in the voice an angel communication; and unaware at first that it was an evil angel, it would excite no surprise in her at all. sensations of terror, surprise, dislike, and so forth, were _ex hypothesi_ unknown. why then should not the narrative be exact, unless, indeed, we have some _à priori_ ground for supposing that human nature _never could_ have been in a state where the voice of god and angels sounded in its ears, and where innocence and the absence of all evil emotion was the daily condition of life? the unbeliever may sneer at such a state, but _reason_ why it should _not_ have been, he can give none. so, again, with the idea of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and the "tree of life." we are no doubt tempted to think that these terms may be symbolic; but a more careful reflection, and a deliberate rejection of the _influence of present experiences_, may lead us to accept the narrative more literally. even now, we are not unfamiliar with the ideas of medicinal virtues in plants and fruits. i see nothing impossible in the idea that god may have been pleased to impart such virtue to the fruit of a tree standing in the midst of the garden, that physical health, immunity from all decay, and constant restoration, should have been the result of eating the fruit; and the eating of this fruit, we know, was freely permitted. the late archbishop whately suggested, and i think with great probability, that the longevity of the earliest generations of the adamic race may have been due to the beneficial effects of the eating of this fruit, which only gradually died out. just as we know at the present time, that peculiarities introduced into human families, often survive from father to son, till they gradually die out after many generations. again, as regards the "forbidden tree," it will not seem impossible, that as a simple _test of obedience_ in a very primitive state, the rule of abstinence from a particular fruit may have been literally enjoined, and that the consequence of the moral act of _disobedience_ (rather than the physical effect of the fruit eaten) should have been the knowledge of evil, the first sensation of shame, terror, angry dissension, and, worst of all, the alienation from god the source of all good, which followed. all such considerations of the reality of the history must gain greatly in strength, if we can demonstrate that the garden of eden, the scene of the temptation, the place where the trees that were the vehicles of such consequences to the occupants of the garden, stood, had a real existence and geographical site. now i need hardly remark that the mosaic narrative unquestionably _professes_ a geographical exactness and a literal existence of the garden, as no fabled locality--no utopia or garden of the hesperides. i need only refer to the _data_ afforded to us by gen. ii. - . the lord, it is said, planted a garden in eden: it was "eastward;" but that does not directly indicate its site. from gen. iv. , we also learn that the land of nod where cain dwelt (after the murder of abel) was on the east of eden. a river went out and watered the garden. after passing the limits of eden, the river is said to have divided itself, or parted, into four heads, i.e., arms or branches. the first branch was called pison. this branch "compasseth," i.e., forms the boundary along the whole length of, "_the_ havilah." this country is spoken of as being a tract wherein was produced good gold, "b'dolach" (translated "bdellium") and "shoham" (translated "onyx.") the second branch was gihon, which is described as similarly compassing the district of k[=u]sh. here our a.v., by substituting "ethiopia" for the original "c[=u]sh," has made a gloss rather than a translation; and this gloss has given rise to several errors of commentators in identifying the site of eden. the revised version has corrected the error. the third branch was hiddekel, the _diklatu_ of the arabs, the tigra of the old persians, and the _tigris_ of later writers. this is said to run eastward towards assyria.[ ] the fourth river was the frat or euphrates. observe, in passing, that the author gives no detail about the great river euphrates, as being well known; while he adds particulars about the tigris, and describes the gihon and the pison in some detail. [footnote : so the margin of the a. and r. versions more correctly.] now it will at once strike the reader that two of these rivers are well known to the present day. the others are not. it is in the identification of these two, and of the districts which they "compassed," which form the difficulties of the problem. up till recent times, it is remarkable what a variety of speculations have been attempted as to the situation of eden. dr. aldis wright, the learned author of the article "eden" in smith's "biblical dictionary," remarks: "it would be difficult, in the whole history of opinion, to find any subject which has so invited, and at the same time completely baffled, conjecture, as the garden of eden." and in another place he thinks that "the site of eden will ever rank with the quadrature of the circle, and the interpretation of unfulfilled prophecy among those unsolved, and perhaps insoluble, problems which possess so strange a fascination." it is, however, to be remarked, ( )that all that was written before professor delitzsch's researches were made known; and ( )that really a great mass of the conjecture and speculation has been purely in the air--undertaken without any reference to the plain terms of the text to be interpreted. it is the extravagance of commentators, and their insisting on going beyond the narrative itself, that has raised such difficulties, and made the problem look more hopeless than it really is. to what purpose are "the three continents of the old world" "subjected to the most rigorous search," as dr. wright puts it--when it is quite plain from the text itself, that the solution is to be sought in the neighbourhood of the euphrates, or not at all? the whole inquiry seems to have been one in which a vast cloud of learned dust has been raised by speculators, who began their inquiry without clearly determining, to start with, what was the point at issue. either the description in gen. ii. - is meant for allegory, or geographical fact: this question must first be settled; and if the latter is agreed to, then it is quite inconceivable that the words should imply any very extensive region, or any fancied realm extending over a large proportion of one or other quarter of the globe. the problem is then at once narrowed; and it is simply unreasonable to look for havila in india, or for pison in the province of burma, as one learned author does! yet commentators have forgotten this; and gone--the earlier ones into interpretation of allegory--the later into impossible geographical speculation; while only the most recent have confined themselves to the obvious terms of the problem as laid down in the narrative itself--a narrative which (whether true or false) is clearly meant to be definite and exact, as we have seen. our a.v. translators are to be held, to some extent, responsible for the freedom which speculation has exercised, by themselves taking the c[=u]sh of the narrative to "ethiopia," i.e., to the african continent--for which there is no authority whatever. as regards the _allegorical_ interpretations, they are too extravagant for serious notice. souls, angels, human passions and motives, are supposed to be represented by towns, rivers, and countries. to all this it is enough to reply--what reason can we have for supposing an allegory suddenly to be interpolated at gen. ii. ? there is no allegory before it, there is none after. then as to the early geographical expounders. josephus and others supposed the allusion was made to the great rivers known to ancient geography, all of which ran into that greatest river of all, which encircled the globe. in this view, the gihon might be the nile, and the pison the ganges! here, again, it may be remarked it is impossible to read the narrative and believe that the author meant any such widespread region. even if the author had the ancient ideas about cosmography generally, that would not prevent his being accurate about a limited region lying to the east of a well-known river in a populous country. in later times luther avoided the difficult speculation by supposing that the deluge had swept away all traces of the site! but unfortunately for this convenient theory, it is a plain fact that the deluge did not sweep any two out of the four rivers named. the reader who is curious on the subject, will find in dr. a. wright's article a brief account of the various identifications proposed by all these commentators. it would not be interesting to go into any detail. i shall pass over all those extravagant views which go to places remote from the euphrates, and come at once to the later attempts to solve the question in connection with the two known rivers, euphrates and hiddekel (tigris); as this is the only kind of solution that any reasonable modern biblical student will admit. the different explanations adopted maybe grouped into two main attempts: ( ) to find the place among the group of rivers that surrounds mount ararat in northern armenia, _vis._, in the extreme upper course of the euphrates near its two sources; ( ) to find the place below the _present_ junction of the euphrates and the tigris, along some part of the united course, which is now more than two hundred miles long, and is called "shatt-el-'aráb." but neither of these attempts has been successful: the first must, indeed, be absolutely dismissed; because the hebrew phrases used in describing the four _branches_ of the river that "went out," and watered the garden, and then parted, cannot be applied to four independent sources or streams--_upstream_ of the euphrates. it will not, then, satisfy the problem, to find four rivers somewhere in the vicinity of the euphrates, and which, in a general way, enclose a district in which eden might be placed. it may, indeed, be doubted whether this first attempt (which i may call the "north armenian solution") would ever have been seriously entertained, but from the fact that the name gihon--or something very like it--did attach itself to the araxes or phasis, a considerable river of armenia. finding a gihon ready, the commentators next made the pison, the acampsis; and then as pison was near the "havila land," this country was laid on the extreme north of armenia; all this without a particle of evidence of any kind.[ ] i may here take the opportunity of remarking that a chance _similarity of names_[ ] has been, throughout the controversy, a fruitful source of enlarged speculative wandering. thus this name gihon (gaihun, jíkhún, g[=e][=o]n, &c.) that appears in north armenia, again appears in connection with the _nile_; while again the name "nile" has wandered back to the confines of persia, and one of the _euphrates_ branches is still called "shatt-en-nîl." the ancients, indeed, had very curious ideas about the nile. its real sources being so long undiscovered--no speke or grant having appeared--imagination ran wild on the subject. not only so, but it is remarkable that the name _cush_ should have acquired both a persian gulf and an egyptian employment: and the writer of the able article in "the nineteenth century" (october, ) points out several other singular instances in which names are common both to the african-egyptian region, and to this. [footnote : and it is astonishing to find the error generally perpetuated in maps attached to modern bibles.] [footnote : as distinct from a real philological connection of a modern name with a more ancient one, and so forth.] turning now to the second of the two theories, the identification of the site on the lower part of the euphrates after its now existing junction with the tigris (and which the supporters of the theory have justified by making the gihon and pison two rivers coming from eden) must also be set aside. for the important fact has been overlooked that it is quite certain, that anciently, the joint stream, (shatt-el-'aráb), as it now is, did not exist. though the genesis narrative tells us of a junction _immediately outside_ the southern boundary of the garden, the euphrates channels and the tigris branch (with part of the euphrates water in it) flowed separately to the persian gulf. it is quite certain that, in the time of alexander the great, the mouths of the euphrates and tigris were a good day's journey apart. for this separate outflow there is the incontestable evidence of pliny and other authors quoted by professor delitzsch. i may here also remark, that anciently the persian gulf extended much farther inland than it does now. in the time of sennacherib, an inland arm of the sea extended so far, that a _naval_ expedition against elam was possible; more than one hundred miles inland from the present sea-line. the extension was called n[=a]r marratum. in alexander's time, the city of charax (now mohamra) was founded close to the sea (that was in the fourth century b.c.). it is known from later histories, that shortly before the birth of our saviour, the city was from fifty to one hundred and twenty roman miles inland. the change is due to the "delta," or alluvial formation at the mouth of the rivers. turning, then, to the recent inquiries (published in [ ]) by professor fried. delitzsch, it must be confessed that the results obtained are such as to completely avoid all the difficulties that beset the other explanations: yet we ought not to be too confident that it is a final or absolute explanation. a certain caution and reserve will still be wisely maintained on the subject. at any rate, they show that _an_ explanation, one that answers _all_ the conditions of the problem, _can_ be given; and that is a great thing. [footnote : "wo lag das paradies" (leipzig, ) is the title of the book.] [footnote: professor friedrich delitzsch is professor of assyriology in the university of leipzig.] in placing the site _on_ the euphrates, and far from the mountain sources, there is no violence done to the hebrew language used to describe the first river, as one that "went out," and watered the garden. the words do not require that the river should actually _take_ its _rise_ within the garden limits; but it is necessary that the river should be so situated, that its waters could be distributed by means of creeks or canals across the garden, that it could be said the river "went out and watered the garden." now it is a remarkable fact, that in the district just above babylon, the bed of the euphrates is in level much higher than the bed of the tigris (hiddekel) to the east, and that hence there always have been a number of very variable channels leading from the euphrates eastward to the tigris. these, it is well known, were often enlarged by the ancients and converted into useful "inundation canals" for irrigation and the passage of boats. imagine, then, the high level river bed of the euphrates, and various streams flowing off it down to the valley of the tigris, and we have a most efficiently irrigated "garden," and one accurately described by the text--the great river "went out" and watered it. the euphrates, moreover, is liable to great flushes of water from the melting of the snows in wide tracts of mountain or highlands from which its waters are collected, and these volumes of water found vent from the overcharged mother-channel by escape, not only through the side channels, just spoken of, but also by other important branches on the other side. every one who has seen one of the great rivers of northern india will at once realize the changes that take place where a river liable to floods has its bed at a high level. it is almost a matter of certainty that, in the course of years, the branches and channels of rivers so constituted will change, and old ones be left dry and deserted. these essential topographical conditions have always to be remembered in interpreting the narrative of genesis ii. in fact, they furnish us with points which help us in the problem at the outset. ( ) there is a part of the euphrates, just above babylon, where the river naturally furnished abundant irrigation for a garden planted eastward of it, by means of natural irrigation channels flowing from the high level down to the lower valley of the tigris; and ( ) there is also a point from which the euphrates did branch out, and several important arms anciently existed. nor is the locality, in point of verdure and fertility, unsuitable. not only do the ancient histories make frequent mention of the canals and streams flowing from the euphrates which i have alluded to, but they speak of the palm groves, the vines and the verdure of the babylonian or chaldean region. herodotus, in his first book, has the most glowing description of the scene; and the kings of babylon had numerous enclosed gardens or parks: these were imitated in persia, and gave rise to the persian name "firdaus," which xenophon imported into greek in the form of [greek: paradeisos] or "paradise"--the term which was adopted by the seventy translators. the actual locality which professor delitzsch proposes as the most probable site of the garden of eden is between the present euphrates and tigris, just to the north of babylon. the boundaries would be--roughly and generally speaking--the two rivers for east and west; while for the north and south boundaries we should draw parallel lines through accad on the north and babylon on the south. but granted that the general locality and the relations of the river euphrates and tigris satisfy the requirements of the text by such a location as this: how about the other two _and_ the countries which they compass? the troubles of the earlier commentators will warn us, that we need not be too ready to force names, and to identify one river, and then, _because_ we have fixed that, make the country which the text requires follow it! it is, however, in this matter that professor delitzsch's work is so satisfactory. he has pointed out, that there is historical evidence (and also that the local traces are not wanting in the present day) to prove that, just below babylon, we _can_ find two prominently important channels or branches of the euphrates, which will at least supply the place of pison and gihon. as to the first, it is known that in historic times a great channel called by the greeks pallakopas (navigable for ships) used to carry off the surplus water of the euphrates when swollen in the summer season by the melting snows of the armenian mountains. it branched off from the main river at a point somewhat north of babylon, and flowed into the persian gulf. there is, indeed, no _direct_ evidence to show that this branch bore a name resembling pison. _palgu_ is the assyrian whence the greek pallakopas was derived. it is remarkable, however, that the word pison closely resembles the cuneiform term "pisána," or "pisánú," which is used for a water-reservoir, a canal or a channel; and as this "pallakopas" was _the_ channel _par excellence_, it may very possibly have been called "pisána" or pison, the (great) channel. the identification of the channel called "pallakopas" will be found mentioned in colonel chesney's work, "an expedition to the tigris." the name, however, of this channel is not the only means we have of identifying it. the scripture says that the pison compasses the land of _havilah_. now let us remember, that the scripture tells of two havilahs: ( ) the second son of cush[ ] and brother of nimrod, and ( ) one of the great great grandsons of shem (gen. x. ). one we may call the cushite havilah, the other the joktanite havilah. the dwelling-place of the brother of nimrod is not mentioned, but it is stated that the joktanite havilah dwelt in "mesha." the tenth of genesis is an important chapter, as showing how the descendants of noah branched out and spread over the countries all round the euphrates; some going north to assyria (nineveh), others to the east and west, and others south, to arabia and egypt. now it so happens that the whole country west of the great pallakopas channel, was called by the assyrians "mashu." professor delitzsch identifies this mashu of the cuneiform inscriptions, with the "mesha" mentioned in scriptures, as the home of havilah. we have also in gen. xxv. ,[ ] mention of a land of havila that is "before"--i.e., eastward of--"egypt as thou goest toward assyria," which would answer very well to this locality, west of the euphrates. it is also known (from sources which it would take too long to detail) that this country did yield gold-dust. pliny also mentions "bdellium," if that was the substance known as "b'dolach." it is indeed uncertain what this was, but gesenius long ago rejected the idea that it was a stone, because there is no prefix to it, as there is to "shoham," which follows, and certainly is a precious stone. the manna in the wilderness is described as being of the "colour of bdellium," and was also like hoar-frost;[ ] hence the idea that b'dolach was a crystal. but a fragrant and precious gum-resin seems more likely. the magi who came to worship the infant saviour from near this locality, brought offerings of _gold_, and also fragrant gums and myrrh. was "bdellium" (as probably being a fragrant gum) one of these offerings? [footnote : see gen. x. .] [footnote : see also sam. xv. .] [footnote : exod. xvi. ; numbers xi. : "the appearance (lit. "eye") of it was as the appearance of bdellium" (r.v.).] the "onyx," or "shoham," was most probably a pure red cornelian, and this also was found in the babylonian provinces, and was specially worn by the babylonian kings. so the country west of the euphrates answers very well to havila without any forcing, and without any placing it there _because_ of the river rendering such a plan necessary. as to the fourth river (gihon), delitzsch identifies it, still more clearly, with a channel known as the "shatt-en-níl," which branches off from the euphrates at babylon itself, and passing the scriptural city of erech, rejoins the main river lower down. a clay tablet has actually been discovered, having the euphrates, tigris, and this shatt-en-níl channel _together_: the name of the latter is given as "k[=a]hán de," or "gughánde," a name which closely resembles gihon. the channel is, however, identified independently of the name. for the gihon is particularized in the narrative, by the fact that it "compasses" the land of cush. this (as already pointed out) is not the ethiopian cush. delitzsch states, that the whole country bounded by this branch was anciently called kash-shu, which he identifies with the cush of genesis ii. the syllable "kash" appears throughout this locality. in fact kash-du or kal-du is the origin of the familiar name chaldea. in the hebrew, kush (cush) is the name given to the father of nimrod, who "began" his kingdom about this very site--erech, and calneh, and accad (gen. x. , ). hence it is not surprising that relics of the name should be found all round this neighbourhood. nor does the evidence end here. the district immediately around babylon was called "kár-dunish-i," i.e., the "garden of the god dunish." now kar is the turanian form of the semitic g[=a]n, or gin[=a] (garden); and what is more likely than that, as the true story was lost in the heathen traditions and mythology that grew up, the "garden" was attributed to the god dunish--whereas the real original had been not "gàndunish," but "gan'eden?" this, though only a conjecture, is the more probable, as one of the inscription-names of babylon itself was "tintira," which, though a little obscure, certainly means _either_ the "_grove_," or the _"fountain," of life._ we thus find, not only that four great branches of the river that "went out," and watered the garden can be traced, but that the two really do "compass" tracts, that can, with the highest degree of probability, be identified as c[=u]sh or kash, and havilah. the importance of professor delitzsch's work may now be briefly glanced at. it may be objected, that such a process of reasoning as that put forward, is not convincing to a general reader who has not the means of criticizing or testing professor delitzsch's conclusions: he therefore cannot be sure that, in selecting two channels to represent the pison and the gihon, and in identifying "mashu" with mesha of havilah, and one of the babylonian districts with kush, the professor has at last hit off a solution of the problem which will not in its turn be disproved, as all earlier solutions have been. there is, however, this important conclusion to be safely drawn, viz., that a complete explanation in exact accord with the hebrew text is _possible_, and that hence nothing can be urged against the _narrative_, on the ground (hitherto sneeringly taken) that the geography _was impossible_ and so forth. next let me very briefly sum up what it is that dr. delitzsch has done--marshalling the evidence, beginning from the broad end and narrowing down till we arrive at the point. ( ) first, then, we are fixed by the narrative to some place between the euphrates and the tigris. ( ) we find in the ancient inscriptions of the chief city of this locality, constant allusions to a garden, a primitive pair and a temptation: one of these almost exactly reproduces the bible story; it is not of the earliest date and is a copy. but discovery is far from being exhausted; all that we know is _consistent_ with the idea of an original story, gradually corrupted by the addition of legends, and introduction of mythological persons and heathen divinities. the true belief in one god, who made himself known by voice or vision to his true worshippers, seems early to have been confined to a few of the shemitic families, while the others "invented" gods of their own. ( ) we find that the region about babylon itself was called kár-dunishi--which easily recalls kar or gán-eden. we also find the name (tintira) applied, indicating a "grove" or "fountain" of life; in the locality where the direct legends most abound. ( ) we find from ancient authors that the district was one of rich verdure--a land of gardens and irrigation. ( ) we find that some way above babylon about accad, the level of the river bed euphrates is so much higher than the valley of the tigris eastward, that numerous streams flow off from it, which would serve admirably to irrigate a garden situated between the two, eastward of the euphrates. ( ) we find that the persian gulf once extended more than one hundred miles farther inland than it does now. that there was no joint outflow of tigris and euphrates, but, though they did join their streams above, they parted again and had still separate mouths--of the tigris branch one, of the euphrates several. ( ) lastly, professor delitzsch finds two channels which answer to pison and gihon. ( ) he proves these two to be the right ones by considering the countries which they "compass:" and actually finds the one that he supposes to be the "gaihûn," called, in the cuneiform clay tablets, "kahán or gaghân-dé." it is really only in ( ) and ( ) that there is any room for doubt and for further inquiry. at any rate, the credibility of the narrative, and a belief in its purpose, as a topographically exact statement of fact, not an allegory or legend, is established. the evolution of theology: an anthropological study essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley i conceive that the origin, the growth, the decline, and the fall of those speculations respecting the existence, the powers, and the dispositions of beings analogous to men, but more or less devoid of corporeal qualities, which may be broadly included under the head of theology, are phenomena the study of which legitimately falls within the province of the anthropologist. and it is purely as a question of anthropology (a department of biology to which, at various times, i have given a good deal of attention) that i propose to treat of the evolution of theology in the following pages. with theology as a code of dogmas which are to be believed, or at any rate repeated, under penalty of present or future punishment, or as a storehouse of anaesthetics for those who find the pains of life too hard to bear, i have nothing to do; and, so far as it may be possible, i shall avoid the expression of any opinion as to the objective truth or falsehood of the systems of theological speculation of which i may find occasion to speak. from my present point of view, theology is regarded as a natural product of the operations of the human mind, under the conditions of its existence, just as any other branch of science, or the arts of architecture, or music, or painting are such products. like them, theology has a history. like them also, it is to be met with in certain simple and rudimentary forms; and these can be connected by a multitude of gradations, which exist or have existed, among people of various ages and races, with the most highly developed theologies of past and present times. it is not my object to interfere, even in the slightest degree, with beliefs which anybody holds sacred; or to alter the conviction of any one who is of opinion that, in dealing with theology, we ought to be guided by considerations different from those which would be thought appropriate if the problem lay in the province of chemistry or of mineralogy. and if people of these ways of thinking choose to read beyond the present paragraph, the responsibility for meeting with anything they may dislike rests with them and not with me. we are all likely to be more familiar with the theological history of the israelites than with that of any other nation. we may therefore fitly make it the first object of our studies; and it will be convenient to commence with that period which lies between the invasion of canaan and the early days of the monarchy, and answers to the eleventh and twelfth centuries b.c. or thereabouts. the evidence on which any conclusion as to the nature of israelitic theology in those days must be based is wholly contained in the hebrew scriptures--an agglomeration of documents which certainly belong to very different ages, but of the exact dates and authorship of any one of which (except perhaps a few of the prophetical writings) there is no evidence, either internal or external, so far as i can discover, of such a nature as to justify more than a confession of ignorance, or, at most, an approximate conclusion. in this venerable record of ancient life, miscalled a book, when it is really a library comparable to a selection of works from english literature between the times of beda and those of milton, we have the stratified deposits (often confused and even with their natural order inverted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral life of israel during many centuries. and, embedded in these strata, there are numerous remains of forms of thought which once lived, and which, though often unfortunately mere fragments, are of priceless value to the anthropologist. our task is to rescue these from their relatively unimportant surroundings, and by careful comparison with existing forms of theology to make the dead world which they record live again. in other words, our problem is palaeontological, and the method pursued must be the same as that employed in dealing with other fossil remains. among the richest of the fossiliferous strata to which i have alluded are the books of judges and samuel. [ ] it has often been observed that these writings stand out, in marked relief from those which precede and follow them, in virtue of a certain archaic freshness and of a greater freedom from traces of late interpolation and editorial trimming. jephthah, gideon and samson are men of old heroic stamp, who would look as much in place in a norse saga as where they are; and if the varnish-brush of later respectability has passed over these memoirs of the mighty men of a wild age, here and there, it has not succeeded in effacing, or even in seriously obscuring, the essential characteristics of the theology traditionally ascribed to their epoch. there is nothing that i have met with in the results of biblical criticism inconsistent with the conviction that these books give us a fairly trustworthy account of israelitic life and thought in the times which they cover; and, as such, apart from the great literary merit of many of their episodes, they possess the interest of being, perhaps, the oldest genuine history, as apart from mere chronicles on the one hand and mere legends on the other, at present accessible to us. but it is often said with exultation by writers of one party, and often admitted, more or less unwillingly, by their opponents, that these books are untrustworthy, by reason of being full of obviously unhistoric tales. and, as a notable example, the narrative of saul's visit to the so-called "witch of endor" is often cited. as i have already intimated, i have nothing to do with theological partisanship, either heterodox or orthodox, nor, for my present purpose, does it matter very much whether the story is historically true, or whether it merely shows what the writer believed; but, looking at the matter solely from the point of view of an anthropologist, i beg leave to express the opinion that the account of saul's necromantic expedition is quite consistent with probability. that is to say, i see no reason whatever to doubt, firstly, that saul made such a visit; and, secondly, that he and all who were present, including the wise woman of endor herself, would have given, with entire sincerity, very much the same account of the business as that which we now read in the twenty-eighth chapter of the first book of samuel; and i am further of opinion that this story is one of the most important of those fossils, to which i have referred, in the material which it offers for the reconstruction of the theology of the time. let us therefore study it attentively--not merely as a narrative which, in the dramatic force of its gruesome simplicity, is not surpassed, if it is equalled, by the witch scenes in macbeth--but as a piece of evidence bearing on an important anthropological problem. we are told ( sam. xxviii.) that saul, encamped at gilboa, became alarmed by the strength of the philistine army gathered at shunem. he therefore "inquired of jahveh," but "jahveh answered him not, neither by dreams, nor by urim, nor by prophets." [ ] thus deserted by jahveh, saul, in his extremity, bethought him of "those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards," whom he is said, at some previous time, to have "put out of the land"; but who seem, nevertheless, to have been very imperfectly banished, since saul's servants, in answer to his command to seek him a woman "that hath a familiar spirit," reply without a sign of hesitation or of fear, "behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at endor"; just as, in some parts of england, a countryman might tell any one who did not look like a magistrate or a policeman, where a "wise woman" was to be met with. saul goes to this woman, who, after being assured of immunity, asks, "whom shall i bring up to thee?" whereupon saul says, "bring me up samuel." the woman immediately sees an apparition. but to saul nothing is visible, for he asks, "what seest thou?" and the woman replies, "i see elohim coming up out of the earth." still the spectre remains invisible to saul, for he asks, "what form is he of?" and she replies, "an old man cometh up, and he is covered with a robe." so far, therefore, the wise woman unquestionably plays the part of a "medium," and saul is dependent upon her version of what happens. the account continues:-- and saul perceived that it was samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did obeisance. and samuel said to saul, why hast thou disquieted me to bring me up? and saul answered, i am sore distressed: for the philistines make war against me, and elohim is departed from me and answereth me no more, neither by prophets nor by dreams; therefore i have called thee that thou mayest make known unto me what i shall do. and samuel said, wherefore then dost thou ask of me, seeing that jahveh is departed from thee and is become thine adversary? and jahveh hath wrought for himself, as he spake by me, and jahveh hath rent the kingdom out of thine hand and given it to thy neighbour, even to david. because thou obeyedst not the voice of jahveh and didst not execute his fierce wrath upon amalek, therefore hath jahveh done this thing unto thee this day. moreover, jahveh will deliver israel also with thee into the hands of the philistines; and to-morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: jahveh shall deliver the host of israel also into the hand of the philistines. then saul fell straightway his full length upon the earth and was sore afraid because of the words of samuel... (v. - ). the statement that saul "perceived" that it was samuel is not to be taken to imply that, even now, saul actually saw the shade of the prophet, but only that the woman's allusion to the prophetic mantle and to the aged appearance of the spectre convinced him that it was samuel. reuss [ ] in fact translates the passage "alors saul reconnut que c'etait samuel." nor does the dialogue between saul and samuel necessarily, or probably, signify that samuel spoke otherwise than by the voice of the wise woman. the septuagint does not hesitate to call her [greek], that is to say, a ventriloquist, implying that it was she who spoke--and this view of the matter is in harmony with the fact that the exact sense of the hebrew words which are translated as "a woman that hath a familiar spirit" is "a woman mistress of _ob._" _ob_ means primitively a leather bottle, such as a wine skin, and is applied alike to the necromancer and to the spirit evoked. its use, in these senses, appears to have been suggested by the likeness of the hollow sound emitted by a half-empty skin when struck, to the sepulchral tones in which the oracles of the evoked spirits were uttered by the medium. it is most probable that, in accordance with the general theory of spiritual influences which obtained among the old israelites, the spirit of samuel was conceived to pass into the body of the wise woman, and to use her vocal organs to speak in his own name--for i cannot discover that they drew any clear distinction between possession and inspiration. [ ] if the story of saul's consultation of the occult powers is to be regarded as an authentic narrative, or, at any rate, as a statement which is perfectly veracious so far as the intention of the narrator goes--and, as i have said, i see no reason for refusing it this character--it will be found, on further consideration, to throw a flood of light, both directly and indirectly, on the theology of saul's countrymen--that is to say, upon their beliefs respecting the nature and ways of spiritual beings. even without the confirmation of other abundant evidences to the same effect, it leaves no doubt as to the existence, among them, of the fundamental doctrine that man consists of a body and of a spirit, which last, after the death of the body, continues to exist as a ghost. at the time of saul's visit to endor, samuel was dead and buried; but that his spirit would be believed to continue to exist in sheol may be concluded from the well-known passage in the song attributed to hannah, his mother:-- jahveh killeth and maketh alive; he bringeth down to sheol and bringeth up. ( sam. ii. .) and it is obvious that this sheol was thought to be a place underground in which samuel's spirit had been disturbed by the necromancer's summons, and in which, after his return thither, he would be joined by the spirits of saul and his sons when they had met with their bodily death on the hill of gilboa. it is further to be observed that the spirit, or ghost, of the dead man presents itself as the image of the man himself--it is the man, not merely in his ordinary corporeal presentment (even down to the prophet's mantle) but in his moral and intellectual characteristics. samuel, who had begun as saul's friend and ended as his bitter enemy, gives it to be understood that he is annoyed at saul's presumption in disturbing him; and that, in sheol, he is as much the devoted servant of jahveh and as much empowered to speak in jahveh's name as he was during his sojourn in the upper air. it appears now to be universally admitted that, before the exile, the israelites had no belief in rewards and punishments after death, nor in anything similar to the christian heaven and hell; but our story proves that it would be an error to suppose that they did not believe in the continuance of individual existence after death by a ghostly simulacrum of life. nay, i think it would be very hard to produce conclusive evidence that they disbelieved in immortality; for i am not aware that there is anything to show that they thought the existence of the souls of the dead in sheol ever came to an end. but they do not seem to have conceived that the condition of the souls in sheol was in any way affected by their conduct in life. if there was immortality, there was no state of retribution in their theology. samuel expects saul and his sons to come to him in sheol. the next circumstance to be remarked is that the name of _elohim_ is applied to the spirit which the woman sees "coming up out of the earth," that is to say, from sheol. the authorised version translates this in its literal sense "gods." the revised version gives "god" with "gods" in the margin. reuss renders the word by "spectre," remarking in a note that it is not quite exact; but that the word elohim expresses "something divine, that is to say, superhuman, commanding respect and terror" ("histoire des israelites," p. ). tuch, in his commentary on genesis, and thenius, in his commentary on samuel, express substantially the same opinion. dr. alexander (in kitto's "cyclopaedia" s. v. "god") has the following instructive remarks:-- [_elohim_ is] sometimes used vaguely to describe unseen powers or superhuman beings that are not properly thought of as divine. thus the witch of endor saw "elohim ascending out of the earth" ( sam. xxviii. ), meaning thereby some beings of an unearthly, superhuman character. so also in zechariah xii. , it is said "the house of david shall be as elohim, as the angel of the lord," where, as the transition from elohim to the angel of the lord is a minori ad majus, we must regard the former as a vague designation of supernatural powers. dr. alexander speaks here of "beings"; but there is no reason to suppose that the wise woman of endor referred to anything but a solitary spectre; and it is quite clear that saul understood her in this sense, for he asks "what form is he of?" this fact, that the name of elohim is applied to a ghost, or disembodied soul, conceived as the image of the body in which it once dwelt, is of no little importance. for it is well known that the same term was employed to denote the gods of the heathen, who were thought to have definite quasi-corporeal forms and to be as much real entities as any other elohim. [ ] the difference which was supposed to exist between the different elohim was one of degree, not one of kind. elohim was, in logical terminology, the genus of which ghosts, chemosh, dagon, baal, and jahveh were species. the israelite believed jahveh to be immeasurably superior to all other kinds of elohim. the inscription on the moabite stone shows that king mesa held chemosh to be, as unquestionably, the superior of jahveh. but if jahveh was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations," why is it to be assumed that he also was not thought of as having a human shape? it is possible for those who forget that the time of the great prophetic writers is at least as remote from that of saul as our day is from that of queen elizabeth, to insist upon interpreting the gross notions current in the earlier age and among the mass of the people by the refined conceptions promulgated by a few select spirits centuries later. but if we take the language constantly used concerning the deity in the books of genesis, exodus, joshua, judges, samuel, or kings, in its natural sense (and i am aware of no valid reason which can be given for taking it in any other sense), there cannot, to my mind, be a doubt that jahveh was conceived by those from whom the substance of these books is mainly derived, to possess the appearance and the intellectual and moral attributes of a man; and, indeed, of a man of just that type with which the israelites were familiar in their stronger and intellectually abler rulers and leaders. in a well-known passage in genesis (i. ) elohim is said to have "created man in his own image, in the image of elohim created he him." it is "man" who is here said to be the image of elohim--not man's soul alone, still less his "reason," but the whole man. it is obvious that for those who call a manlike ghost elohim, there could be no difficulty in conceiving any other elohim under the same aspect. and if there could be any doubt on this subject, surely it cannot stand in the face of what we find in the fifth chapter, where, immediately after a repetition of the statement that "elohim created man, in the likeness of elohim made he him," it is said that adam begat seth "in his own likeness, after his image." does this mean that seth resembled adam only in a spiritual and figurative sense? and if that interpretation of the third verse of the fifth chapter of genesis is absurd, why does it become reasonable in the first verse of the same chapter? but let us go further. is not the jahveh who "walks in the garden in the cool of the day"; from whom one may hope to "hide oneself among the trees"; of whom it is expressly said that "moses and aaron, nadab and abihu, and seventy of the elders of israel," saw the elohim of israel (exod. xxiv. - ); and that, although the seeing jahveh was understood to be a high crime and misdemeanour, worthy of death, under ordinary circumstances, yet, for this once, he "laid not his hand on the nobles of israel"; "that they beheld elohim and did eat and drink"; and that afterwards moses saw his back (exod. xxxiii. )--is not this deity conceived as manlike in form? again, is not the jahveh who eats with abraham under the oaks at mamre, who is pleased with the "sweet savour" of noah's sacrifice, to whom sacrifices are said to be "food" [ ]--is not this deity depicted as possessed of human appetites? if this were not the current israelitish idea of jahveh even in the eighth century b.c., where is the point of isaiah's scathing admonitions to his countrymen: "to what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith jahveh: i am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; and i delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats" (isa. i. ). or of micah's inquiry, "will jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?" (vi. .) and in the innumerable passages in which jahveh is said to be jealous of other gods, to be angry, to be appeased, and to repent; in which he is represented as casting off saul because the king does not quite literally execute a command of the most ruthless severity; or as smiting uzzah to death because the unfortunate man thoughtlessly, but naturally enough, put out his hand to stay the ark from falling--can any one deny that the old israelites conceived jahveh not only in the image of a man, but in that of a changeable, irritable, and, occasionally, violent man? there appears to me, then, to be no reason to doubt that the notion of likeness to man, which was indubitably held of the ghost elohim, was carried out consistently throughout the whole series of elohim, and that jahveh-elohim was thought of as a being of the same substantially human nature as the rest, only immeasurably more powerful for good and for evil. the absence of any real distinction between the elohim of different ranks is further clearly illustrated by the corresponding absence of any sharp delimitation between the various kinds of people who serve as the media of communication between them and men. the agents through whom the lower elohim are consulted are called necromancers, wizards, and diviners, and are looked down upon by the prophets and priests of the higher elohim; but the "seer" [ ] connects the two, and they are all alike in their essential characters of media. the wise woman of endor was believed by others, and, i have little doubt, believed herself, to be able to "bring up" whom she would from sheol, and to be inspired, whether in virtue of actual possession by the evoked elohim, or otherwise, with a knowledge of hidden things, i am unable to see that saul's servant took any really different view of samuel's powers, though he may have believed that he obtained them by the grace of the higher elohim. for when saul fails to find his father's asses, his servant says to him-- behold, there is in this city a man of elohim, and he is a man that is held in honour; all that he saith cometh surely to pass; now let us go thither; peradventure, he can tell us concerning our journey whereon we go. then said saul to his servant, but behold if we go, what shall we bring the man? for the bread is spent in our vessels and there is not a present to bring to the man of elohim. what have we? and the servant answered saul again and said, behold i have in my hand the fourth part of a shekel of silver: that will i give to the man of elohim to tell us our way. (beforetime in israel when a man went to inquire of elohim, then he said, come and let us go to the seer: for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer [ ]) ( sam. ix. - ). in fact, when, shortly afterwards, saul accidentally meets samuel, he says, "tell me, i pray thee, where the seer's house is." samuel answers, "i am the seer." immediately afterwards samuel informs saul that the asses are found, though how he obtained his knowledge of the fact is not stated. it will be observed that samuel is not spoken of here as, in any special sense, a seer or prophet of jahveh, but as a "man of elohim"--that is to say, a seer having access to the "spiritual powers," just as the wise woman of endor might have been said to be a "woman of elohim"--and the narrator's or editor's explanatory note seems to indicate that "prophet" is merely a name, introduced later than the time of samuel, for a superior kind of "seer," or "man of elohim." [ ] another very instructive passage shows that samuel was not only considered to be diviner, seer, and prophet in one, but that he was also, to all intents and purposes, priest of jahveh--though, according to his biographer, he was not a member of the tribe of levi. at the outset of their acquaintance, samuel says to saul, "go up before me into the high place," where, as the young maidens of the city had just before told saul, the seer was going, "for the people will not eat till he come, because he doth bless the sacrifice" ( sam. x. ). the use of the word "bless" here--as if samuel were not going to sacrifice, but only to offer a blessing or thanksgiving--is curious. but that samuel really acted as priest seems plain from what follows. for he not only asks saul to share in the customary sacrificial feast, but he disposes in saul's favour of that portion of the victim which the levitical legislation, doubtless embodying old customs, recognises as the priest's special property. [ ] although particular persons adopted the profession of media between men and elohim, there was no limitation of the power, in the view of ancient israel, to any special class of the population. saul inquires of jahveh and builds him altars on his own account; and in the very remarkable story told in the fourteenth chapter of the first book of samuel (v. - ), saul appears to conduct the whole process of divination, although he has a priest at his elbow. david seems to do the same. moreover, elohim constantly appear in dreams--which in old israel did not mean that, as we should say, the subject of the appearance "dreamed he saw the spirit"; but that he veritably saw the elohim which, as a soul, visited his soul while his body was asleep. and, in the course of the history of israel jahveh himself thus appears to all sorts of persons, non-israelites as well as israelites. again, the elohim possess, or inspire, people against their will, as in the case of saul and saul's messengers, and then these people prophesy--that is to say, "rave"--and exhibit the ungoverned gestures attributed by a later age to possession by malignant spirits. apart from other evidence to be adduced by and by, the history of ancient demonology and of modern revivalism does not permit me to doubt that the accounts of these phenomena given in the history of saul may be perfectly historical. in the ritual practices, of which evidence is to be found in the books of judges and samuel, the chief part is played by sacrifices, usually burnt offerings. whenever the aid of the elohim of israel is sought, or thanks are considered due to him, an altar is built, and oxen, sheep, and goats are slaughtered and offered up. sometimes the entire victim is burnt as a holocaust; more frequently only certain parts, notably the fat about the kidneys, are burnt on the altar. the rest is properly cooked; and, after the reservation of a part for the priest, is made the foundation of a joyous banquet, in which the sacrificer, his family, and such guests as he thinks fit to invite, participate. [ ] elohim was supposed to share in the feast, and it has been already shown that that which was set apart on the altar, or consumed by fire, was spoken of as the food of elohim, who was thought to be influenced by the costliness, or by the pleasant smell, of the sacrifice in favour of the sacrificer. all this bears out the view that, in the mind of the old israelite, there was no difference, save one of degree, between one elohim and another. it is true that there is but little direct evidence to show that the old israelites shared the widespread belief of their own, and indeed of all times, that the spirits of the dead not only continue to exist, but are capable of a ghostly kind of feeding and are grateful for such aliment as can be assimilated by their attenuated substance, and even for clothes, ornaments, and weapons. [ ] that they were familiar with this doctrine in the time of the captivity is suggested by the well-known reference of ezekiel (xxxii. ) to the "mighty that are fallen of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to [sheol] hell with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads." perhaps there is a still earlier allusion in the "giving of food for the dead" spoken of in deuteronomy (xxvi. ). [ ] it must be remembered that the literature of the old israelites, as it lies before us, has been subjected to the revisal of strictly monotheistic editors, violently opposed to all kinds of idolatry, who are not likely to have selected from the materials at their disposal any obvious evidence, either of the practice under discussion, or of that ancestor-worship which is so closely related to it, for preservation in the permanent records of their people. the mysterious objects known as _teraphim,_ which are occasionally mentioned in judges, samuel, and elsewhere, however, can hardly be interpreted otherwise than as indications of the existence both of ancestor-worship and of image-worship in old israel. the teraphim were certainly images of family gods, and, as such, in all probability represented deceased ancestors. laban indignantly demands of his son-in-law, "wherefore hast thou stolen my elohim?" which rachel, who must be assumed to have worshipped jacob's god, jahveh, had carried off, obviously because she, like her father, believed in their divinity. it is not suggested that jacob was in any way scandalised by the idolatrous practices of his favourite wife, whatever he may have thought of her honesty when the truth came to light; for the teraphim seem to have remained in his camp, at least until he "hid" his strange gods "under the oak that was by shechem" (gen. xxxv. ). and indeed it is open to question if he got rid of them then, for the subsequent history of israel renders it more than doubtful whether the teraphim were regarded as "strange gods" even as late as the eighth century b.c. the writer of the books of samuel takes it quite as a matter of course that michal, daughter of one royal jahveh worshipper and wife of the servant of jahveh _par excellence,_ the pious david, should have her teraphim handy, in her and david's chamber, when she dresses them up in their bed into a simulation of her husband, for the purpose of deceiving her father's messengers. even one of the early prophets, hosea, when he threatens that the children of israel shall abide many days without "ephod or teraphim" (iii. ), appears to regard both as equally proper appurtenances of the suspended worship of jahveh, and equally certain to be restored when that is resumed. when we further take into consideration that only in the reign of hezekiah was the brazen serpent, preserved in the temple and believed to be the work of moses, destroyed, and the practice of offering incense to it, that is, worshipping it, abolished--that jeroboam could set up "calves of gold" for israel to worship, with apparently none but a political object, and certainly with no notion of creating a schism among the worshippers of jahveh, or of repelling the men of judah from his standard--it seems obvious, either that the israelites of the tenth and eleventh centuries b.c. knew not the second commandment, or that they construed it merely as part of the prohibition to worship any supreme god other than jahveh, which precedes it. in seeking for information about the teraphim, i lighted upon the following passage in the valuable article on that subject by archdeacon farrar, in ritto's "cyclopaedia of biblical literature," which is so much to the purpose of my argument, that i venture to quote it in full:-- the main and certain results of this review are that the teraphim were rude human images; that the use of them was an antique aramaic custom; that there is reason to suppose them to have been images of deceased ancestors; that they were consulted oracularly; that they were not confined to jews; that their use continued down to the latest period of jewish history; and lastly, that although the enlightened prophets and strictest later kings regarded them as idolatrous, the priests were much less averse to such images, and their cult was not considered in any way repugnant to the pious worship of elohim, nay, even to the worship of him "under the awful title of jehovah." in fact, they involved _a monotheistic idolatry very different indeed from polytheism;_ and the tolerance of them by priests, as compared with the denunciation of them by the prophets, offers a close analogy to the views of the roman catholics respecting pictures and images as compared with the views of protestants. it was against this use of idolatrous symbols and emblems in a monotheistic worship that the _second_ commandment was directed, whereas the first is aimed against the graver sin of direct polytheism. but the whole history of israel shows how utterly and how early the law must have fallen into desuetude. the worship of the golden calf and of the calves at dan and bethel, against which, so far as we know, neither elijah nor elisha said a single word; the tolerance of high places, teraphim and betylia; the offering of incense for centuries to the brazen serpent destroyed by hezekiah; the occasional glimpses of the most startling irregularities sanctioned apparently even in the temple worship itself, prove most decisively that a pure monotheism and an independence of symbols was the result of a slow and painful course of god's disciplinal dealings among the noblest thinkers of a single nation, and not, as is so constantly and erroneously urged, the instinct of the whole semitic race; in other words, one single branch of the semites was under god's providence _educated_ into pure monotheism only by centuries of misfortune and series of inspired men (vol. iii. p. ). it appears to me that the researches of the anthropologist lead him to conclusions identical in substance, if not in terms, with those here enunciated as the result of a careful study of the same subject from a totally different point of view. there is abundant evidence in the books of samuel and elsewhere that an article of dress termed an _ephod_ was supposed to have a peculiar efficacy in enabling the wearer to exercise divination by means of jahveh-elohim. great and long continued have been the disputes as to the exact nature of the ephod--whether it always means something to wear, or whether it sometimes means an image. but the probabilities are that it usually signifies a kind of waistcoat or broad zone, with shoulder-straps, which the person who "inquired of jahveh" put on. in samuel xxiii. david appears to have inquired without an ephod, for abiathar the priest is said to have "come down with an ephod in his hand" only subsequently. and then david asks for it before inquiring of jahveh whether the men of keilah would betray him or not. david's action is obviously divination pure and simple; and it is curious that he seems to have worn the ephod himself and not to have employed abiathar as a medium. how the answer was given is not clear though the probability is that it was obtained by casting lots. the _urim_ and _thummim_ seem to have been two such lots of a peculiarly sacred character, which were carried in the pocket of the high priest's "breastplate." this last was worn along with the ephod. with the exception of one passage ( sam. xiv. ) the ark is ignored in the history of saul. but in this place the septuagint reads "ephod" for ark, while in chronicles xiii. david says that "we sought not unto it [the ark] in the days of saul." nor does samuel seem to have paid any regard to the ark after its return from philistia; though, in his childhood, he is said to have slept in "the temple of jahveh, where the ark of elohim was" ( sam. iii. ), at shiloh and there to have been the seer of the earliest apparitions vouchsafed to him by jahveh. the space between the cherubim or winged images on the canopy or cover (_kapporeth_) of this holy chest was held to be the special seat of jahveh--the place selected for a temporary residence of the supreme elohim who had, after aaron and phineas, eli and his sons for priests and seers. and, when the ark was carried to the camp at eben-ezer, there can be no doubt that the israelites, no less than the philistines, held that "elohim is come into the camp" (iv. ), and that the one, as much as the other, conceived that the israelites had summoned to their aid a powerful ally in "these (or this) mighty elohim"--elsewhere called jahve-sabaoth, the jahveh of hosts. if the "temple" at shiloh was the pentateuchal tabernacle, as is suggested by the name of "tent of meeting" given to it in samuel ii. , it was essentially a large tent, though constituted of very expensive and ornate materials; if, on the other hand, it was a different edifice, there can be little doubt that this "house of jahveh" was built on the model of an ordinary house of the time. but there is not the slightest evidence that, during the reign of saul, any greater importance attached to this seat of the cult of jahveh than to others. sanctuaries, and "high places" for sacrifice, were scattered all over the country from dan to beersheba. and, as samuel is said to have gone up to one of these high places to bless the sacrifice, it may be taken for tolerably certain that he knew nothing of the levitical laws which severely condemn the high places and those who sacrifice away from the sanctuary hallowed by the presence of the ark. there is no evidence that, during the time of the judges and of samuel, any one occupied the position of the high priest of later days. and persons who were neither priests nor levites sacrificed and divined or "inquired of jahveh," when they pleased and where they pleased, without the least indication that they, or any one else in israel at that time, knew they were doing wrong. there is no allusion to any special observance of the sabbath; and the references to circumcision are indirect. such are the chief articles of the theological creed of the old israelites, which are made known to us by the direct evidence of the ancient record to which we have had recourse, and they are as remarkable for that which they contain as for that which is absent from them. they reveal a firm conviction that, when death takes place, a something termed a soul or spirit leaves the body and continues to exist in sheol for a period of indefinite duration, even though there is no proof of any belief in absolute immortality; that such spirits can return to earth to possess and inspire the living; that they are, in appearance and in disposition, likenesses of the men to whom they belonged, but that, as spirits, they have larger powers and are freer from physical limitations; that they thus form a group among a number of kinds of spiritual existences known as elohim, of whom jahveh, the national god of israel, is one; that, consistently with this view, jahveh was conceived as a sort of spirit, human in aspect and in senses, and with many human passions, but with immensely greater intelligence and power than any other elohim, whether human or divine. further, the evidence proves that this belief was the basis of the jahveh-worship to which samuel and his followers were devoted; that there is strong reason for believing, and none for doubting, that idolatry, in the shape of the worship of the family gods or teraphim, was practised by sincere and devout jahveh-worshippers; that the ark, with its protective tent or tabernacle, was regarded as a specially, but by no means exclusively, favoured sanctuary of jahveh; that the ephod appears to have had a particular value for those who desired to divine by the help of jahveh; and that divination by lots was practised before jahveh. on the other hand, there is not the slightest evidence of any belief in retribution after death, but the contrary; ritual obligations have at least as strong sanction as moral; there are clear indications that some of the most stringent of the levitical laws were unknown even to samuel; priests often appear to be superseded by laymen, even in the performance of sacrifices and divination; and no line of demarcation can be drawn between necromancer, wizard, seer, prophet, and priest, each of whom is regarded, like all the rest, as a medium of communication between the world of elohim and that of living men. the theological system thus defined offers to the anthropologist no feature which is devoid of a parallel in the known theologies of other races of mankind, even of those who inhabit parts of the world most remote from palestine. and the foundation of the whole, the ghost theory, is exactly that theological speculation which is the most widely spread of all, and the most deeply rooted among uncivilised men. i am able to base this statement, to some extent, on facts within my own knowledge. in december , h.m.s. _rattlesnake,_ the ship to which i then belonged, was anchored off mount ernest, an island in torres straits. the people were few and well disposed; and, when a friend of mine (whom i will call b.) and i went ashore, we made acquaintance with an old native, paouda by name. in course of time we became quite intimate with the old gentleman, partly by the rendering of mutual good offices, but chiefly because paouda believed he had discovered that b. was his father-in-law. and his grounds for this singular conviction were very remarkable. we had made a long stay at cape york hard by; and, in accordance with a theory which is widely spread among the australians, that white men are the reincarnated spirits of black men, b. was held to be the ghost, or _narki,_ of a certain mount ernest native, one antarki, who had lately died, on the ground of some real or fancied resemblance to the latter. now paouda had taken to wife a daughter of antarki's, named domani, and as soon as b. informed him that he was the ghost of antarki, paouda at once admitted the relationship and acted upon it. for, as all the women on the island had hidden away in fear of the ship, and we were anxious to see what they were like, b. pleaded pathetically with paouda that it would be very unkind not to let him see his daughter and grandchildren. after a good deal of hesitation and the exaction of pledges of deep secrecy, paouda consented to take b., and myself as b.'s friend, to see domani and the three daughters, by whom b. was received quite as one of the family, while i was courteously welcomed on his account. this scene made an impression upon me which is not yet effaced. it left no question on my mind of the sincerity of the strange ghost theory of these savages, and of the influence which their belief has on their practical life. i had it in my mind, as well as many a like result of subsequent anthropological studies, when, in , [ ] i wrote as follows:-- there are savages without god in any proper sense of the word, but none without ghosts. and the fetishism, ancestor-worship, hero-worship, and demonology of primitive savages are all, i believe, different manners of expression of their belief in ghosts, and of the anthropomorphic interpretation of out-of-the- way events which is its concomitant. witchcraft and sorcery are the practical expressions of these beliefs; and they stand in the same relation to religious worship as the simple anthropomorphism of children or savages does to theology. i do not quote myself with any intention of making a claim to originality in putting forth this view; for i have since discovered that the same conception is virtually contained in the great "discours sur l'histoire universelle" of bossuet, now more than two centuries old: [ ]-- le culte des hommes morta faisoit presque tout le fond de l'idolatrie; presque tous les hommes sacrificient aux manes, c'est-a-dire aux ames des morts. de si anciennes erreurs nous font voir a la verite combien etoit ancienne la croyance de l'immortalite de l'ame, et nous montrent qu'elle doit etre rangee parmi les premieres traditions du genre humain. mais l'homme, qui gatoit tout, en avoit etrangement abuse, puisqu'elle le portoit a sacrificer aux morts. on alloit meme jusqu'a cet exces, de leur sacrifier des hommes vivans; ou tuoit leurs esclaves, et meme leurs femmes, pour les aller servir dans l'autre monde. among more modern writers j. g. muller, in his excellent "geschichte der amerikanischen urreligionen" ( ), clearly recognises "gespensterhafter geisterglaube" as the foundation of all savage and semi-civilised theology, and i need do no more than mention the important developments of the same view which are to be found in mr. tylor's "primitive culture," and in the writings of mr. herbert spencer, especially his recently-published "ecclesiastical institutions." [ ] it is a matter of fact that, whether we direct our attention to the older conditions of civilised societies, in japan, in china, in hindostan, in greece, or in rome, [ ] we find, underlying all other theological notions, the belief in ghosts, with its inevitable concomitant sorcery; and a primitive cult, in the shape of a worship of ancestors, which is essentially an attempt to please, or appease their ghosts. the same thing is true of old mexico and peru, and of all the semi-civilised or savage peoples who have developed a definite cult; and in those who, like the natives of australia, have not even a cult, the belief in, and fear of, ghosts is as strong as anywhere else. the most clearly demonstrable article of the theology of the israelites in the eleventh and twelfth centuries b.c. is therefore simply the article which is to be found in all primitive theologies, namely, the belief that a man has a soul which continues to exist after death for a longer or shorter time, and may return, as a ghost, with a divine, or at least demonic, character, to influence for good or evil (and usually for evil) the affairs of the living. but the correspondence between the old israelitic and other archaic forms of theology extends to details. if, in order to avoid all chance of direct communication, we direct our attention to the theology of semi-civilised people, such as the polynesian islanders, separated by the greatest possible distance, and by every conceivable physical barrier, from the inhabitants of palestine, we shall find not merely that all the features of old israelitic theology, which are revealed in the records cited, are found among them; but that extant information as to the inner mind of these people tends to remove many of the difficulties which those who have not studied anthropology find in the hebrew narrative. one of the best sources, if not the best source, of information on these topics is mariner's _tonga islands,_ which tells us of the condition of cook's "friendly islanders" eighty years ago, before european influence was sensibly felt among them. mariner, a youth of fair education and of no inconsiderable natural ability (as the work which was drawn up from the materials he furnished shows), was about fifteen years of age when his ship was attacked and plundered by the tongans: he remained four years in the islands, familiarised himself with the language, lived the life of the people, became intimate with many of them, and had every opportunity of acquainting himself with their opinions, as well as with their habits and customs. he seems to have been devoid of prejudices, theological or other, and the impression of strict accuracy which his statements convey has been justified by all the knowledge of polynesian life which has been subsequently acquired. it is desirable, therefore, to pay close attention to that which mariner tells us about the theological views of these people: [ ]-- the human soul, after its separation from the body, is termed a _hotooa_ (a god or spirit), and is believed to exist in the shape of the body; to have the same propensities as during life, but to be corrected by a more enlightened understanding, by which it readily distinguishes good from evil, truth from falsehood, right from wrong; having the same attributes as the original gods, but in a minor degree, and having its dwelling for ever in the happy regions of bolotoo, holding the same rank in regard to other souls as during this life; it has, however, the power of returning to tonga to inspire priests, relations, or others, or to appear in dreams to those it wishes to admonish; and sometimes to the external eye in the form of a ghost or apparition; but this power of reappearance at tonga particularly belongs to the souls of chiefs rather than of matabooles. (vol. ii. p. ). the word "hotooa" is the same as that which is usually spelt "atua" by polynesian philologues, and it will be convenient to adopt this spelling. now under this head of "_atuas_ or supernatural intelligent beings" the tongans include:-- " . the original gods. . the souls of nobles that have all attributes in common with the first but inferior in degree. . the souls of matabooles [ ] that are still inferior, and have not the power as the two first have of coming back to tonga to inspire the priest, though they are supposed to have the power of appearing to their relatives. . the original attendants or servants, as it were, of the gods, who, although they had their origin and have ever since existed in bolotoo, are still inferior to the third class. . the _atua pow_ or mischievous gods. . _mooi,_ or the god that supports the earth and does not belong to bolotoo (vol. ii. pp. , )." from this it appears that the "atuas" of the polynesian are exactly equivalent to the "elohim" of the old israelite. [ ] they comprise everything spiritual, from a ghost to a god, and from "the merely tutelar gods to particular private families" (vol, ii. p. ), to ta-li-y-tooboo, who was the national god of tonga. the tongans had no doubt that these atuas daily and hourly influenced their destinies and could, conversely, be influenced by them. hence their "piety," the incessant acts of sacrificial worship which occupied their lives, and their belief in omens and charms. moreover, the atuas were believed to visit particular persons,--their own priests in the case of the higher gods, but apparently anybody in that of the lower,--and to inspire them by a process which was conceived to involve the actual residence of the god, for the time being, in the person inspired, who was thus rendered capable of prophesying (vol. ii. p. ). for the tongan, therefore, inspiration indubitably was possession. when one of the higher gods was invoked, through his priest, by a chief who wished to consult the oracle, or, in old israelitic phraseology, to "inquire of," the god, a hog was killed and cooked over night, and, together with plantains, yams, and the materials for making the peculiar drink _kava_ (of which the tongans were very fond), was carried next day to the priest. a circle, as for an ordinary kava-drinking entertainment, was then formed; but the priest, as the representative of the god, took the highest place, while the chiefs sat outside the circle, as an expression of humility calculated to please the god. as soon as they are all seated the priest is considered as inspired, the god being supposed to exist within him from that moment. he remains for a considerable time in silence with his hands clasped before him, his eyes are cast down and he rests perfectly still. during the time the victuals are being shared out and the kava preparing, the matabooles sometimes begin to consult him; sometimes he answers, and at other times not; in either case he remains with his eyes cast down. frequently he will not utter a word till the repast is finished and the kava too. when he speaks he generally begins in a low and very altered tone of voice, which gradually rises to nearly its natural pitch, though sometimes a little above it. all that he says is supposed to be the declaration of the god, and he accordingly speaks in the first person, as if he were the god. all this is done generally without any apparent inward emotion or outward agitation; but, on some occasions, his countenance becomes fierce, and as it were inflamed, and his whole frame agitated with inward feeling; he is seized with an universal trembling, the perspiration breaks out on his forehead, and his lips turning black are convulsed; at length tears start in floods from his eyes, his breast heaves with great emotion, and his utterance is choked. these symptoms gradually subside. before this paroxysm comes on, and after it is over, he often eats as much as four hungry men under other circumstances could devour. the fit being now gone off, he remains for some time calm and then takes up a club that is placed by him for the purpose, turns it over and regards it attentively; he then looks up earnestly, now to the right, now to the left, and now again at the club; afterwards he looks up again and about him in like manner, and then again fixes his eyes on the club, and so on for several times. at length he suddenly raises the club, and, after a moment's pause, strikes the ground or the adjacent part of the house with considerable force, immediately the god leaves him, and he rises up and retires to the back of the ring among the people (vol. i. pp. , ). the phenomena thus described, in language which, to any one who is familiar with the manifestations of abnormal mental states among ourselves, bears the stamp of fidelity, furnish a most instructive commentary upon the story of the wise woman of endor. as in the latter, we have the possession by the spirit or soul (atua, elohim), the strange voice, the speaking in the first person. unfortunately nothing (beyond the loud cry) is mentioned as to the state of the wise woman of endor. but what we learn from other sources (_e.g._ sam. x. - ) respecting the physical concomitants of inspiration among the old israelites has its exact equivalent in this and other accounts of polynesian prophetism. an excellent authority, moerenhout, who lived among the people of the society islands many years and knew them well, says that, in tahiti, the _role_ of the prophet had very generally passed out of the hands of the priests into that of private persons who professed to represent the god, often assumed his name, and in this capacity prophesied. i will not run the risk of weakening the force of moerenhout's description of the prophetic state by translating it:-- "un individu, dans cet etat, avait le bras gauche enveloppe d'un morceau d'etoffe, signe de la presence de la divinite. il ne parlait que d'un ton imperieux et vehement. ses attaques, quand il allait prophetiser, etaient aussi effroyables qu'imposantes. il tremblait d'abord de tous ses membres, la figure enflee, les yeux hagards, rouges et etincelants d'une expression sauvage. il gesticulait, articulait des mots vides de sens, poussait des cris horribles qui faisaient tressaillir tous les assistants, et s'exaltait parfois au point qu'on n'osait par l'approcher. autour de lui, le silence de la terreur et du respect.... c'est alors qu'il repondait aux questions, annoncait l'avenir, le destin des batailles, la volonte des dieux; et, chose etonnante! au sein de ce delire, de cet enthousiasme religieux, son langage etait grave, imposant, son eloquence noble et persuasive." [ ] just so saul strips off his clothes, "prophesies" before samuel, and lies down "naked all that day and night." both mariner and moerenhout refuse to have recourse to the hypothesis of imposture in order to account for the inspired state of the polynesian prophets. on the contrary, they fully believe in their sincerity. mariner tells the story of a young chief, an acquaintance of his, who thought himself possessed by the atua of a dead woman who had fallen in love with him, and who wished him to die that he might be near her in bolotoo. and he died accordingly. but the most valuable evidence on this head is contained in what the same authority says about king finow's son. the previous king, toogoo ahoo, had been assassinated by finow, and his soul, become an atua of divine rank in bolotoo, had been pleased to visit and inspire finow's son--with what particular object does not appear. when this young chief returned to hapai, mr. mariner, who was upon a footing of great friendship with him, one day asked him how he felt himself when the spirit of toogoo ahoo visited him; he replied that he could not well describe his feelings, but the best he could say of it was, that he felt himself all over in a glow of heat and quite restless and uncomfortable, and did not feel his own personal identity, as it were, but seemed to have a mind different from his own natural mind, his thoughts wandering upon strange and unusual subjects, though perfectly sensible of surrounding objects. he next asked him how he knew it was the spirit of toogoo ahoo? his answer was, 'there's a fool! how can i tell you _how_ i knew it! i felt and knew it was so by a kind of consciousness; my _mind_ told me that it was toogoo ahoo (vol. i. pp. , ). finow's son was evidently made for a theological disputant, and fell back at once on the inexpugnable stronghold of faith when other evidence was lacking. "there's a fool! i know it is true, because i know it," is the exemplar and epitome of the sceptic-crushing process in other places than the tonga islands. the island of bolotoo, to which all the souls (of the upper classes at any rate) repair after the death of the body, and from which they return at will to interfere, for good or evil, with the lives of those whom they have left behind, obviously answers to sheol. in tongan tradition, this place of souls is a sort of elysium above ground and pleasant enough to live in. but, in other parts of polynesia, the corresponding locality, which is called po, has to be reached by descending into the earth, and is represented dark and gloomy like sheol. but it was not looked upon as a place of rewards and punishments in any sense. whether in bolotoo or in po, the soul took the rank it had in the flesh; and, a shadow, lived among the shadows of the friends and houses and food of its previous life. the tongan theologians recognised several hundred gods; but there was one, already mentioned as their national god, whom they regarded as far greater than any of the others, "as a great chief from the top of the sky down to the bottom of the earth" (mariner, vol. ii. p. ). he was also god of war, and the tutelar deity of the royal family, whoever happened to be the incumbent of the royal office for the time being. he had no priest except the king himself, and his visits, even to royalty, were few and far between. the name of this supreme deity was ta-li-y-tooboo, the literal meaning of which is said to be "wait there, tooboo," from which it would appear that the peculiar characteristic of ta-li-y-tooboo, in the eyes of his worshippers, was persistence of duration. and it is curious to notice, in relation to this circumstance, that many hebrew philologers have thought the meaning of jahveh to be best expressed by the word "eternal." it would probably be difficult to express the notion of an eternal being, in a dialect so little fitted to convey abstract conceptions as tongan, better than by that of one who always "waits there." the characteristics of the gods in tongan theology are exactly those of men whose shape they are supposed to possess, only they have more intelligence and greater power. the tongan belief that, after death, the human atua more readily distinguishes good from evil, runs parallel with the old israelitic conception of elohim expressed in genesis, "ye shall be as elohim, knowing good from evil." they further agreed with the old israelites, that "all rewards for virtue and punishments for vice happen to men in this world only, and come immediately from the gods" (vol. ii. p. ). moreover, they were of opinion that though the gods approve of some kinds of virtue, are displeased with some kinds of vice, and, to a certain extent, protect or forsake their worshippers according to their moral conduct, yet neglect to pay due respect to the deities, and forgetfulness to keep them in good humour, might be visited with even worse consequences than moral delinquency. and those who will carefully study the so-called "mosaic code" contained in the books of exodus, leviticus, and numbers, will see that, though jahveh's prohibitions of certain forms of immorality are strict and sweeping, his wrath is quite as strongly kindled against infractions of ritual ordinances. accidental homicide may go unpunished, and reparation may be made for wilful theft. on the other hand, nadab and abihu, who "offered strange fire before jahveh, which he had not commanded them," were swiftly devoured by jahveh's fire; he who sacrificed anywhere except at the allotted place was to be "cut off from his people"; so was he who ate blood; and the details of the upholstery of the tabernacle, of the millinery of the priests' vestments, and of the cabinet work of the ark, can plead direct authority from jahveh, no less than moral commands. amongst the tongans, the sacrifices were regarded as gifts of food and drink offered to the divine atuas, just as the articles deposited by the graves of the recently dead were meant as food for atuas of lower rank. a kava root was a constant form of offering all over polynesia. in the excellent work of the rev. george turner, entitled _nineteen years in polynesia_ (p. ), i find it said of the samoans (near neighbours of the tongans):-- _the offerings_ were principally cooked food. as in ancient greece so in samoa, the first cup was in honour of the god. it was either poured out on the ground or _waved_ towards the heavens, reminding us again of the mosaic ceremonies. the chiefs all drank a portion out of the same cup, according to rank; and after that, the food brought as an offering was divided and eaten '_there before the lord._' in tonga, when they consulted a god who had a priest, the latter, as representative of the god, had the first cup; but if the god, like ta-li-y-tooboo, had no priest, then the chief place was left vacant, and was supposed to be occupied by the god himself. when the first cup of kava was filled, the mataboole who acted as master of the ceremonies said, "give it to your god," and it was offered, though only as a matter of form. in tonga and samoa there were many sacred places or _morais,_ with houses of the ordinary construction, but which served as temples in consequence of being dedicated to various gods; and there were altars on which the sacrifices were offered; nevertheless there were few or no images. mariner mentions none in tonga, and the samoans seem to have been regarded as no better than atheists by other polynesians because they had none. it does not appear that either of these peoples had images even of their family or ancestral gods. in tahiti and the adjacent islands, moerenhout (t. i. p. ) makes the very interesting observation, not only that idols were often absent, but that, where they existed, the images of the gods served merely as depositories for the proper representatives of the divinity. each of these was called a _maro aurou,_ and was a kind of girdle artistically adorned with red, yellow, blue, and black feathers--the red feathers being especially important--which were consecrated and kept as sacred objects within the idols. they were worn by great personages on solemn occasions, and conferred upon their wearers a sacred and almost divine character. there is no distinct evidence that the _maro aurou_ was supposed to have any special efficacy in divination, but one cannot fail to see a certain parallelism between this holy girdle, which endowed its wearer with a particular sanctity, and the ephod. according to the rev. r. taylor, the new zealanders formerly used the word _karakia_ (now employed for "prayer") to signify a "spell, charm, or incantation," and the utterance of these karakias constituted the chief part of their cult. in the south, the officiating priest had a small image, "about eighteen inches long, resembling a peg with a carved head," which reminds one of the form commonly attributed to the teraphim. "the priest first bandaged a fillet of red parrot feathers under the god's chin, which was called his pahau or beard; this bandage was made of a certain kind of sennet, which was tied on in a peculiar way. when this was done it was taken possession of by the atua, whose spirit entered it. the priest then either held it in the hand and vibrated it in the air whilst the powerful karakia was repeated, or he tied a piece of string (formed of the centre of a flax leaf) round the neck of the image and stuck it in the ground. he sat at a little distance from it, leaning against a tuahu, a short stone pillar stuck in the ground in a slanting position and, holding the string in his hand, he gave the god a jerk to arrest his attention, lest he should be otherwise engaged, like baal of old, either hunting, fishing, or sleeping, and therefore must be awaked.... the god is supposed to make use of the priest's tongue in giving a reply. image-worship appears to have been confined to one part of the island. the atua was supposed only to enter the image for the occasion. the natives declare they did not worship the image itself, but only the atua it represented, and that the image was merely used as a way of approaching him." [ ] this is the excuse for image-worship which the more intelligent idolaters make all the world over; but it is more interesting to observe that, in the present case, we seem to have the equivalents of divination by teraphim, with the aid of something like an ephod (which, however, is used to sanctify the image and not the priest) mixed up together. many hebrew archaeologists have supposed that the term "ephod" is sometimes used for an image (particularly in the case of gideon's ephod), and the story of micah, in the book of judges, shows that images were, at any rate, employed in close association with the ephod. if the pulling of the string to call the attention of the god seems as absurd to us as it appears to have done to the worthy missionary, who tells us of the practice, it should be recollected that the high priest of jahveh was ordered to wear a garment fringed with golden bells. and it shall be upon aaron to minister; and the sound thereof shall be heard when he goeth in unto the holy place before jahveh, and when he cometh out, that he die not (exod. xxviii. ). an escape from the obvious conclusion suggested by this passage has been sought in the supposition that these bells rang for the sake of the worshippers, as at the elevation of the host in the roman catholic ritual; but then why should the priest be threatened with the well-known penalty for inadvisedly beholding the divinity? in truth, the intermediate step between the maori practice and that of the old israelites is furnished by the kami temples in japan. these are provided with bells which the worshippers who present themselves ring, in order to call the attention of the ancestor-god to their presence. grant the fundamental assumption of the essentially human character of the spirit, whether atua, kami, or elohim, and all these practices are equally rational. the sacrifices to the gods in tonga, and elsewhere in polynesia, were ordinarily social gatherings, in which the god, either in his own person or in that of his priestly representative, was supposed to take part. these sacrifices were offered on every occasion of importance, and even the daily meals were prefaced by oblations and libations of food and drink, exactly answering to those offered by the old romans to their manes, penates, and lares. the sacrifices had no moral significance, but were the necessary result of the theory that the god was either a deified ghost of an ancestor or chief, or, at any rate, a being of like nature to these. if one wanted to get anything out of him, therefore, the first step was to put him in good humour by gifts; and if one desired to escape his wrath, which might be excited by the most trifling neglect or unintentional disrespect, the great thing was to pacify him by costly presents. king finow appears to have been somewhat of a freethinker (to the great horror of his subjects), and it was only his untimely death which prevented him from dealing with the priest of a god, who had not returned a favourable answer to his supplications, as saul dealt with the priests of the sanctuary of jahveh at nob. nevertheless, finow showed his practical belief in the gods during the sickness of a daughter, to whom he was fondly attached, in a fashion which has a close parallel in the history of israel. if the gods have any resentment against us, let the whole weight of vengeance fall on my head. i fear not their vengeance --but spare my child; and i earnestly entreat you, toobo totai [the god whom he had evoked], to exert all your influence with the other gods that i alone may suffer all the punishment they desire to inflict (vol. i. p. ). so when the king of israel has sinned by "numbering the people," and they are punished for his fault by a pestilence which slays seventy thousand innocent men, david cries to jahveh:-- lo, i have sinned, and i have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, i pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. ( sam. xxiv. ). human sacrifices were extremely common in polynesia; and, in tonga, the "devotion" of a child by strangling was a favourite method of averting the wrath of the gods. the well-known instances of jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter and of david's giving up the seven sons of saul to be sacrificed by the gibeonites "before jahveh," appear to me to leave no doubt that the old israelites, even when devout worshippers of jahveh, considered human sacrifices, under certain circumstances, to be not only permissible but laudable. samuel's hewing to pieces of the miserable captive, sole survivor of his nation, agag, "before jahveh," can hardly be viewed in any other light. the life of moses is redeemed from jahveh, who "sought to slay him," by zipporah's symbolical sacrifice of her child, by the bloody operation of circumcision. jahveh expressly affirms that the first-born males of men and beasts are devoted to him; in accordance with that claim, the first-born males of the beasts are duly sacrificed; and it is only by special permission that the claim to the first-born of men is waived, and it is enacted that they may be redeemed (exod. xiii. - ). is it possible to avoid the conclusion that immolation of their first-born sons would have been incumbent on the worshippers of jahveh, had they not been thus specially excused? can any other conclusion be drawn from the history of abraham and isaac? does abraham exhibit any indication of surprise when he receives the astounding order to sacrifice his son? is there the slightest evidence that there was anything in his intimate and personal acquaintance with the character of the deity, who had eaten the meat and drunk the milk which abraham set before him under the oaks of mamre, to lead him to hesitate--even to wait twelve or fourteen hours for a repetition of the command? not a whit. we are told that "abraham rose early in the morning" and led his only child to the slaughter, as if it were the most ordinary business imaginable. whether the story has any historical foundation or not, it is valuable as showing that the writer of it conceived jahveh as a deity whose requirement of such a sacrifice need excite neither astonishment nor suspicion of mistake on the part of his devotee. hence, when the incessant human sacrifices in israel, during the age of the kings, are put down to the influence of foreign idolatries, we may fairly inquire whether editorial bowdlerising has not prevailed over historical truth. an attempt to compare the ethical standards of two nations, one of which has a written code, while the other has not, is beset with difficulties. with all that is strange and, in many cases, repulsive to us in the social arrangements and opinions respecting moral obligation among the tongans, as they are placed before us, with perfect candour, in mariner's account, there is much that indicates a strong ethical sense. they showed great kindliness to one another, and faithfulness in standing by their comrades in war. no people could have better observed either the third or the fifth commandment; for they had a particular horror of blasphemy, and their respectful tenderness towards their parents and, indeed, towards old people in general, was remarkable. it cannot be said that the eighth commandment was generally observed, especially where europeans were concerned; nevertheless a well-bred tongan looked upon theft as a meanness to which he would not condescend. as to the seventh commandment, any breach of it was considered scandalous in women and as something to be avoided in self-respecting men; but, among unmarried and widowed people, chastity was held very cheap. nevertheless the women were extremely well treated, and often showed themselves capable of great devotion and entire faithfulness. in the matter of cruelty, treachery, and bloodthirstiness, these islanders were neither better nor worse than most peoples of antiquity. it is to the credit of the tongans that they particularly objected to slander; nor can covetousness be regarded as their characteristic; for mariner says:-- when any one is about to eat, he always shares out what he has to those about him, without any hesitation, and a contrary conduct would be considered exceedingly vile and selfish (vol. ii p. ). in fact, they thought very badly of the english when mariner told them that his countrymen did not act exactly on that principle. it further appears that they decidedly belonged to the school of intuitive moral philosophers, and believed that virtue is its own reward; for many of the chiefs, on being asked by mr. mariner what motives they had for conducting themselves with propriety, besides the fear of misfortunes in this life, replied, the agreeable and happy feeling which a man experiences within himself when he does any good action or conducts himself nobly and generously as a man ought to do; and this question they answered as if they wondered such a question should be asked. (vol. ii. p. ). one may read from the beginning of the book of judges to the end of the books of samuel without discovering that the old israelites had a moral standard which differs, in any essential respect (except perhaps in regard to the chastity of unmarried women), from that of the tongans. gideon, jephthah, samson, and david are strong-handed men, some of whom are not outdone by any polynesian chieftain in the matter of murder and treachery; while deborah's jubilation over jael's violation of the primary duty of hospitality, proffered and accepted under circumstances which give a peculiarly atrocious character to the murder of the guest; and her witch-like gloating over the picture of the disappointment of the mother of the victim-- the mother of sisera cried through the lattice, why is his chariot so long in coming? (jud. v. .) --would not have been out of place in the choral service of the most sanguinary god in the polynesian pantheon. with respect to the cannibalism which the tongans occasionally practised, mariner says:-- although a few young ferocious warriors chose to imitate what they considered a mark of courageous fierceness in a neighbouring nation, it was held in disgust by everybody else (vol. ii. p. ). that the moral standard of tongan life was less elevated than that indicated in the "book of the covenant" (exod. xxi.-xxiii.) may be freely admitted. but then the evidence that this book of the covenant, and even the ten commandments as given in exodus, were known to the israelites of the time of samuel and saul, is (to say the least) by no means conclusive. the deuteronomic version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly discrepant from that which stands in exodus. would any later writer have ventured to alter the commandments as given from sinai, if he had had before him that which professed to be an accurate statement of the "ten words" in exodus? and if the writer of deuteronomy had not exodus before him, what is the value of the claim of the version of the ten commandments therein contained to authenticity? from one end to the other of the books of judges and samuel, the only "commandments of jahveh" which are specially adduced refer to the prohibition of the worship of other gods, or are orders given _ad hoc,_ and have nothing to do with questions of morality. in polynesia, the belief in witchcraft, in the appearance of spiritual beings in dreams, in possession as the cause of diseases, and in omens, prevailed universally. mariner tells a story of a woman of rank who was greatly attached to king finow, and who, for the space of six months after his death, scarcely ever slept elsewhere than on his grave, which she kept carefully decorated with flowers:-- "one day she went, with the deepest affliction, to the house of mo-oonga toobo, the widow of the deceased chief, to communicate what had happened to her at the _fytoca_ [grave] during several nights, and which caused her the greatest anxiety. she related that she had dreamed that the late how [king] appeared to her and, with a countenance full of disappointment, asked why there yet remained at vavaoo so many evil-designing persons; for he declared that, since he had been at bolotoo, his spirit had been disturbed [ ] by the evil machinations of wicked men conspiring against his son; but he declared that 'the youth' should not be molested nor his power shaken by the spirit of rebellion; that he therefore came to her with a warning voice to prevent such disastrous consequences (vol. i. p. )." on inquiry it turned out that the charm of _tattao_ had been performed on finow's grave, with the view of injuring his son, the reigning king, and it is to be presumed that it was this sorcerer's work which had "disturbed" finow's spirit. the rev. richard taylor says in the work already cited: "the account given of the witch of endor agrees most remarkably with the witches of new zealand" (p. ). the tongans also believed in a mode of divination (essentially similar to the casting of lots) the twirling of a cocoanut. the object of inquiry... is chiefly whether a sick person will recover; for this purpose the nut being placed on the ground, a relation of the sick person determines that, if the nut, when again at rest, points to such a quarter, the east for example, that the sick man will recover; he then prays aloud to the patron god of the family that he will be pleased to direct the nut so that it may indicate the truth; the nut being next spun, the result is attended to with confidence, at least with a full conviction that it will truly declare the intentions of the gods at the time (vol. ii. p. ). does not the action of saul, on a famous occasion, involve exactly the same theological presuppositions? therefore saul said unto jahveh, the elohim of israel, shew the right. and jonathan and saul were taken by lot: but the people escaped. and saul said, cast _lots_ between me and jonathan my son. and jonathan was taken. and saul said to jonathan, tell me what thou hast done.... and the people rescued jonathan so that he died not ( sam. xiv. - ). as the israelites had great yearly feasts, so had the polynesians; as the israelites practised circumcision, so did many polynesian people; as the israelites had a complex and often arbitrary-seeming multitude of distinctions between clean and unclean things, and clean and unclean states of men, to which they attached great importance, so had the polynesians their notions of ceremonial purity and their _tabu,_ an equally extensive and strange system of prohibitions, violation of which was visited by death. these doctrines of cleanness and uncleanness no doubt may have taken their rise in the real or fancied utility of the prescriptions, but it is probable that the origin of many is indicated in the curious habit of the samoans to make fetishes of living animals. it will be recollected that these people had no "gods made with hands," but they substituted animals for them. at his birth "every samoan was supposed to be taken under the care of some tutelary god or _aitu_ [= atua] as it was called. the help of perhaps half a dozen different gods was invoked in succession on the occasion, but the one who happened to be addressed just as the child was born was marked and declared to be the child's god for life. "these gods were supposed to appear in some _visible incarnation,_ and the particular thing in which his god was in the habit of appearing was, to the samoan, an object of veneration. it was in fact his idol, and he was careful never to injure it or treat it with contempt. one, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so on, throughout all the fish of the sea and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. in some of the shell-fish even, gods were supposed to be present. a man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular god he would consider it death to injure or eat." [ ] we have here that which appears to be the origin, or one of the origins, of food prohibitions, on the one hand, and of totemism on the other. when it is remembered that the old israelites sprang from ancestors who are said to have resided near, or in, one of the great seats of ancient babylonian civilisation, the city of ur; that they had been, it is said for centuries, in close contact with the egyptians; and that, in the theology of both the babylonians and the egyptians, there is abundant evidence, notwithstanding their advanced social organisation, of the belief in spirits, with sorcery, ancestor-worship, the deification of animals, and the converse animalisation of gods--it obviously needs very strong evidence to justify the belief that the rude tribes of israel did not share the notions from which their far more civilised neighbours had not emancipated themselves. but it is surely needless to carry the comparison further. out of the abundant evidence at command, i think that sufficient has been produced to furnish ample grounds for the belief, that the old israelites of the time of samuel entertained theological conceptions which were on a level with those current among the more civilised of the polynesian islanders, though their ethical code may possibly, in some respects, have been more advanced. [ ] a theological system of essentially similar character, exhibiting the same fundamental conceptions respecting the continued existence and incessant interference in human affairs of disembodied spirits, prevails, or formerly prevailed, among the whole of the inhabitants of the polynesian and melanesian islands, and among the people of australia, notwithstanding the wide differences in physical character and in grade of civilisation which obtain among them. and the same proposition is true of the people who inhabit the riverain shores of the pacific ocean whether dyaks, malays, indo-chinese, chinese, japanese, the wild tribes of america, or the highly civilised old mexicans and peruvians. it is no less true of the mongolic nomads of northern asia, of the asiatic aryans and of the ancient greeks and romans, and it holds good among the dravidians of the dekhan and the negro tribes of africa. no tribe of savages which has yet been discovered, has been conclusively proved to have so poor a theological equipment as to be devoid of a belief in ghosts, and in the utility of some form of witchcraft, in influencing those ghosts. and there is no nation, modern or ancient, which, even at this moment, has wholly given up the belief; and in which it has not, at one time or other, played a great part in practical life. this _sciotheism,_ [ ] as it might be called, is found, in several degrees of complexity, in rough correspondence with the stages of social organisation, and, like these, separated by no sudden breaks. in its simplest condition, such as may be met with among the australian savages, theology is a mere belief in the existence, powers, and disposition (usually malignant) of ghostlike entities who may be propitiated or scared away; but no cult can properly be said to exist. and, in this stage, theology is wholly independent of ethics. the moral code, such as is implied by public opinion, derives no sanction from the theological dogmas, and the influence of the spirits is supposed to be exerted out of mere caprice or malice. as a next stage, the fundamental fear of ghosts and the consequent desire to propitiate them acquire an organised ritual in simple forms of ancestor-worship, such as the rev. mr. turner describes among the people of tanna (_l.c._ p. ); and this line of development may be followed out until it attains its acme in the state-theology of china and the kami-theology [ ] of japan. each of these is essentially ancestor-worship, the ancestors being reckoned back through family groups, of higher and higher order, sometimes with strict reference to the principle of agnation, as in old rome; and, as in the latter, it is intimately bound up with the whole organisation of the state. there are no idols; inscribed tablets in china, and strips of paper lodged in a peculiar portable shrine in japan, represent the souls of the deceased, or the special seats which they occupy when sacrifices are offered by their descendants. in japan it is interesting to observe that a national kami--ten-zio-dai-zin--is worshipped as a sort of jahveh by the nation in general, and (as lippert has observed) it is singular that his special seat is a portable litter-like shrine, termed the mikosi, in some sort analogous to the israelitic ark. in china, the emperor is the representative of the primitive ancestors, and stands, as it were, between them and the supreme cosmic deities--heaven and earth--who are superadded to them, and who answer to the tangaloa and the maui of the polynesians. sciotheism, under the form of the deification of ancestral ghosts, in its most pronounced form, is therefore the chief element in the theology of a great moiety, possibly of more than half, of the human race. i think this must be taken to be a matter of fact--though various opinions may be held as to how this ancestor-worship came about. but on the other hand, it is no less a matter of fact that there are very few people without additional gods, who cannot, with certainty, be accounted for as deified ancestors. with all respect for the distinguished authorities on the other side, i cannot find good reasons for accepting the theory that the cosmic deities--who are superadded to deified ancestors even in china; who are found all over polynesia, in tangaloa and maui, and in old peru, in the sun--are the product either of the "search after the infinite," or of mistakes arising out of the confusion of a great chief's name with the thing signified by the name. but, however this may be, i think it is again merely matter of fact that, among a large portion of mankind, ancestor-worship is more or less thrown into the background either by such cosmic deities, or by tribal gods of uncertain origin, who have been raised to eminence by the superiority in warfare, or otherwise, of their worshippers. among certain nations, the polytheistic theology, thus constituted, has become modified by the selection of some one cosmic or tribal god, as the only god to whom worship is due on the part of that nation (though it is by no means denied that other nations have a right to worship other gods), and thus results a worship of one god--_monolatry,_ as wellhausen calls it--which is very different from genuine monotheism. [ ] in ancestral sciotheism, and in this _monolatry,_ the ethical code, often of a very high order, comes into closer relation with the theological creed. morality is taken under the patronage of the god or gods, who reward all morally good conduct and punish all morally evil conduct in this world or the next. at the same time, however, they are conceived to be thoroughly human, and they visit any shadow of disrespect to themselves, shown by disobedience to their commands, or by delay, or carelessness, in carrying them out, as severely as any breach of the moral laws. piety means minute attention to the due performance of all sacred rites, and covers any number of lapses in morality, just as cruelty, treachery, murder, and adultery did not bar david's claim to the title of the man after god's own heart among the israelites; crimes against men may be expiated, but blasphemy against the gods is an unpardonable sin. men forgive all injuries but those which touch their self-esteem; and they make their gods after their own likeness, in their own image make they them. it is in the category of monolatry that i conceive the theology of the old israelites must be ranged. they were polytheists, in so far as they admitted the existence of other elohim of divine rank beside jahveh; they differed from ordinary polytheists, in so far as they believed that jahveh was the supreme god and the one proper object of their own national worship. but it will doubtless be objected that i have been building up a fictitious israelitic theology on the foundation of the recorded habits and customs of the people, when they had lapsed from the ordinances of their great lawgiver and prophet moses, and that my conclusions may be good for the perverts to canaanitish theology, but not for the true observers of the sinaitic legislation. the answer to the objection is that--so far as i can form a judgment of that which is well ascertained in the history of israel--there is very little ground for believing that we know much, either about the theological and social value of the influence of moses, or about what happened during the wanderings in the desert. the account of the exodus and of the occurrences in the sinaitic peninsula; in fact, all the history of israel before the invasion of canaan, is full of wonderful stories, which may be true, in so far as they are conceivable occurrences, but which are certainly not probable, and which i, for one, decline to accept until evidence, which deserves that name, is offered of their historical truth. up to this time i know of none. [ ] furthermore, i see no answer to the argument that one has no right to pick out of an obviously unhistorical statement the assertions which happen to be probable and to discard the rest. but it is also certain that a primitively veracious tradition may be smothered under subsequent mythical additions, and that one has no right to cast away the former along with the latter. thus, perhaps the fairest way of stating the case may be as follows. there can be no _a priori_ objection to the supposition that the israelites were delivered from their egyptian bondage by a leader called moses, and that he exerted a great influence over their subsequent organisation in the desert. there is no reason to doubt that, during their residence in the land of goshen, the israelites knew nothing of jahveh; but, as their own prophets declare (see ezek. xx.), were polytheistic idolaters, sharing in the worst practices of their neighbours. as to their conduct in other respects, nothing is known. but it may fairly be suspected that their ethics were not of a higher order than those of jacob, their progenitor, in which case they might derive great profit from contact with egyptian society, which held honesty and truthfulness in the highest esteem. thanks to the egyptologers, we now know, with all requisite certainty, the moral standard of that society in the time, and long before the time, of moses. it can be determined from the scrolls buried with the mummified dead and from the inscriptions on the tombs and memorial statues of that age. for, though the lying of epitaphs is proverbial, so far as their subject is concerned, they gave an unmistakable insight into that which the writers and the readers of them think praiseworthy. in the famous tombs at beni hassan there is a record of the life of prince nakht, who served osertasen ii., a pharaoh of the twelfth dynasty as governor of a province. the inscription speaks in his name: "i was a benevolent and kindly governor who loved his country.... never was a little child distressed nor a widow ill-treated by me. i have never repelled a workman nor hindered a shepherd. i gave alike to the widow and to the married woman, and have not preferred the great to the small in my gifts." and we have the high authority of the late dr. samuel birch for the statement that the inscriptions of the twelfth dynasty abound in injunctions of a high ethical character. "to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, bury the dead, loyally serve the king, formed the first duty of a pious man and faithful subject." [ ] the people for whom these inscriptions embodied their ideal of praiseworthiness assuredly had no imperfect conception of either justice or mercy. but there is a document which gives still better evidence of the moral standard of the egyptians. it is the "book of the dead," a sort of "guide to spiritland," the whole, or a part, of which was buried with the mummy of every well-to-do egyptian, while extracts from it are found in innumerable inscriptions. portions of this work are of extreme antiquity, evidence of their existence occurring as far back as the fifth and sixth dynasties; while the th chapter, which constitutes a sort of book by itself, and is known as the "book of redemption in the hall of the two truths," is frequently inscribed upon coffins and other monuments of the nineteenth dynasty (that under which, there is some reason to believe, the israelites were oppressed and the exodus took place), and it occurs, more than once, in the famous tombs of the kings of this and the preceding dynasty at thebes. [ ] this "book of redemption" is chiefly occupied by the so-called "negative confession" made to the forty-two divine judges, in which the soul of the dead denies that he has committed faults of various kinds. it is, therefore, obvious that the egyptians conceived that their gods commanded them not to do the deeds which are here denied. the "book of redemption," in fact, implies the existence in the mind of the egyptians, if not in a formal writing, of a series of ordinances, couched, like the majority of the ten commandments, in negative terms. and it is easy to prove the implied existence of a series which nearly answers to the "ten words." of course a polytheistic and image-worshipping people, who observed a great many holy days, but no sabbaths, could have nothing analogous to the first or the second and the fourth commandments of the decalogue; but answering to the third, is "i have not blasphemed;" to the fifth, "i have not reviled the face of the king or my father;" to the sixth, "i have not murdered;" to the seventh, "i have not committed adultery;" to the eighth, "i have not stolen," "i have not done fraud to man;" to the ninth, "i have not told falsehoods in the tribunal of truth," and, further, "i have not calumniated the slave to his master." i find nothing exactly similar to the tenth commandment; but that the inward disposition of mind was held to be of no less importance than the outward act is to be gathered from the praises of kindliness already cited and the cry of "i am pure," which is repeated by the soul on trial. moreover, there is a minuteness of detail in the confession which shows no little delicacy of moral appreciation--"i have not privily done evil against mankind," "i have not afflicted men," "i have not withheld milk from the mouths of sucklings," "i have not been idle," "i have not played the hypocrite," "i have not told falsehoods," "i have not corrupted woman or man," "i have not caused fear," "i have not multiplied words in speaking." would that the moral sense of the nineteenth century a.d. were as far advanced as that of the egyptians in the nineteenth century b.c. in this last particular! what incalculable benefit to mankind would flow from strict observance of the commandment, "thou shalt not multiply words in speaking!" nothing is more remarkable than the stress which the old egyptians, here and elsewhere, lay upon this and other kinds of truthfulness, as compared with the absence of any such requirement in the israelitic decalogue, in which only a specific kind of untruthfulnes is forbidden. if, as the story runs, moses was adopted by a princess of the royal house, and was instructed in all the wisdom of the egyptians, it is surely incredible that he should not have been familiar from his youth up, with the high moral code implied in the "book of redemption." it is surely impossible that he should have been less familiar with the complete legal system, and with the method of administration of justice, which, even in his time, had enabled the egyptian people to hold together, as a complex social organisation, for a period far longer than the duration of old roman society, from the building of the city to the death of the last caesar. nor need we look to moses alone for the influence of egypt upon israel. it is true that the hebrew nomads who came into contact with the egyptians of osertasen, or of ramses, stood in much the same relation to them, in point of culture, as a germanic tribe did to the romans of tiberius, or of marcus antoninus; or as captain cook's omai did to the english of george the third. but, at the same time, any difficulty of communication which might have arisen out of this circumstance was removed by the long pre-existing intercourse of other semites, of every grade of civilisation, with the egyptians. in mesopotamia and elsewhere, as in phenicia, semitic people had attained to a social organisation as advanced as that of the egyptians; semites had conquered and occupied lower egypt for centuries. so extensively had semitic influences penetrated egypt that the egyptian language, during the period of the nineteenth dynasty, is said by brugsch to be as full of semitisms as german is of gallicisms; while semitic deities had supplanted the egyptian gods at heliopolis and elsewhere. on the other hand, the semites, as far as phenicia, were extensively influenced by egypt. it is generally admitted [ ] that moses, phinehas (and perhaps aaron), are names of egyptian origin, and there is excellent authority for the statement that the name _abir,_ which the israelites gave to their golden calf, and which is also used to signify the strong, the heavenly, and even god, [ ] is simply the egyptian apis. brugsch points out that the god, tum or tom, who was the special object of worship in the city of pi-tom, with which the israelites were only too familiar, was called ankh and the "great god," and had no image. ankh means "he who lives," "the living one," a name the resemblance of which to the "i am that i am" of exodus is unmistakable, whatever may be the value of the fact. every discussion of israelitic ritual seeks and finds the explanation of its details in the portable sacred chests, the altars, the priestly dress, the breastplate, the incense, and the sacrifices depicted on the monuments of egypt. but it must be remembered that these signs of the influence of egypt upon israel are not necessarily evidence that such influence was exerted before the exodus. it may have come much later, through the close connection of the israel of david and solomon, first with phenicia and then with egypt. if we suppose moses to have been a man of the stamp of calvin, there is no difficulty in conceiving that he may have constructed the substance of the ten words, and even of the book of the covenant, which curiously resembles parts of the book of the dead, from the foundation of egyptian ethics and theology which had filtered through to the israelites in general, or had been furnished specially to himself by his early education; just as the great genevese reformer built up a puritanic social organisation on so much as remained of the ethics and theology of the roman church, after he had trimmed them to his liking. thus, i repeat, i see no _a priori_ objection to the assumption that moses may have endeavoured to give his people a theologico-political organisation based on the ten commandments (though certainly not quite in their present form) and the book of the covenant, contained in our present book of exodus. but whether there is such evidence as amounts to proof, or, i had better say, to probability, that even this much of the pentateuch owes its origin to moses is another matter. the mythical character of the accessories of the sinaitic history is patent, and it would take a good deal more evidence than is afforded by the bare assertion of an unknown writer to justify the belief that the people who "saw the thunderings and the lightnings and the voice of the trumpet and the mountain smoking" (exod. xx. ); to whom jahveh orders moses to say, "ye yourselves have seen that i have talked with you from heaven. ye shall not make other gods with me; gods of silver and gods of gold ye shall not make unto you" (_ibid._ , ), should, less than six weeks afterwards, have done the exact thing they were thus awfully forbidden to do. nor is the credibility of the story increased by the statement that aaron, the brother of moses, the witness and fellow-worker of the miracles before pharaoh, was their leader and the artificer of the idol. and yet, at the same time, aaron was apparently so ignorant of wrongdoing that he made proclamation, "tomorrow shall be a feast to jahveh," and the people proceeded to offer their burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, as if everything in their proceedings must be satisfactory to the deity with whom they had just made a solemn covenant to abolish image-worship. it seems to me that, on a survey of all the facts of the case, only a very cautious and hypothetical judgment is justifiable. it may be that moses profited by the opportunities afforded him of access to what was best in egyptian society to become acquainted, not only with its advanced ethical and legal code, but with the more or less pantheistic unification of the divine to which the speculations of the egyptian thinkers, like those of all polytheistic philosophers, from polynesia to greece, tend; if indeed the theology of the period of the nineteenth dynasty was not, as some egyptologists think, a modification of an earlier, more distinctly monotheistic doctrine of a long antecedent age. it took only half a dozen centuries for the theology of paul to become the theology of gregory the great; and it is possible that twenty centuries lay between the theology of the first worshippers in the sanctuary of the sphinx and that of the priests of ramses maimun. it may be that the ten commandments and the book of the covenant are based upon faithful traditions of the efforts of a great leader to raise his followers to his own level. for myself, as a matter of pious opinion, i like to think so; as i like to imagine that, between moses and samuel, there may have been many a seer, many a herdsman such as him of tekoah, lonely amidst the hills of ephraim and judah, who cherished and kept alive these traditions. in the present results of biblical criticism, however, i can discover no justification for the common assumption that, between the time of joshua and that of rehoboam, the israelites were familiar with either the deuteronomic or the levitical legislation; or that the theology of the israelites, from the king who sat on the throne to the lowest of his subjects, was in any important respect different from that which might naturally be expected from their previous history and the conditions of their existence. but there is excellent evidence to the contrary effect. and, for my part, i see no reason to doubt that, like the rest of the world, the israelites had passed through a period of mere ghost-worship, and had advanced through ancestor-worship and fetishism and totemism to the theological level at which we find them in the books of judges and samuel. all the more remarkable, therefore, is the extraordinary change which is to be noted in the eighth century b.c. the student who is familiar with the theology implied, or expressed, in the books of judges, samuel, and the first book of kings, finds himself in a new world of thought, in the full tide of a great reformation, when he reads joel, amos, hosea, isaiah, micah, and jeremiah. the essence of this change is the reversal of the position which, in primitive society, ethics holds in relation to theology. originally, that which men worship is a theological hypothesis, not a moral ideal. the prophets, in substance, if not always in form preach the opposite doctrine. they are constantly striving to free the moral ideal from the stifling embrace of the current theology and its concomitant ritual. theirs was not an intellectual criticism, argued on strictly scientific grounds; the image-worshippers and the believers in the efficacy of sacrifices and ceremonies might logically have held their own against anything the prophets have to say; it was an ethical criticism. from the height of his moral intuition--that the whole duty of man is to do justice and to love mercy and to bear himself as humbly as befits his insignificance in face of the infinite--the prophet simply laughs at the idolaters of stocks and stones and the idolaters of ritual. idols of the first kind, in his experience, were inseparably united with the practice of immorality, and they were to be ruthlessly destroyed. as for sacrifices and ceremonies, whatever their intrinsic value might be, they might be tolerated on condition of ceasing to be idols; they might even be praiseworthy on condition of being made to subserve the worship of the true jahveh--the moral ideal. if the realm of david had remained undivided, if the assyrian and the chaldean and the egyptian had left israel to the ordinary course of development of an oriental kingdom, it is possible that the effects of the reforming zeal of the prophets of the eighth and seventh centuries might have been effaced by the growth, according to its inevitable tendencies, of the theology which they combated. but the captivity made the fortune of the ideas which it was the privilege of these men to launch upon an endless career. with the abolition of the temple-services for more than half a century, the priest must have lost and the scribe gained influence. the puritanism of a vigorous minority among the babylonian jews rooted out polytheism from all its hiding-places in the theology which they had inherited; they created the first consistent, remorseless, naked monotheism, which, so far as history records, appeared in the world (for zoroastrism is practically ditheism, and buddhism any-theism or no-theism); and they inseparably united therewith an ethical code, which, for its purity and for its efficiency as a bond of social life, was and is, unsurpassed. so i think we must not judge ezra and nehemiah and their followers too hardly, if they exemplified the usual doom of poor humanity to escape from one error only to fall into another; if they failed to free themselves as completely from the idolatry of ritual as they had from that of images and dogmas; if they cherished the new fetters of the levitical legislation which they had fitted upon themselves and their nation, as though such bonds had the sanctity of the obligations of morality; and if they led succeeding generations to spend their best energies in building that "hedge round the torah" which was meant to preserve both ethics and theology, but which too often had the effect of pampering the latter and starving the former. the world being what it was, it is to be doubted whether israel would have preserved intact the pure ore of religion, which the prophets had extracted for the use of mankind as well as for their nation, had not the leaders of the nation been zealous, even to death, for the dross of the law in which it was embedded. the struggle of the jews, under the maccabean house, against the seleucidae was as important for mankind as that of the greeks against the persians. and, of all the strange ironies of history, perhaps the strangest is that "pharisee" is current, as a term of reproach, among the theological descendants of that sect of nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those primitive puritans, would never have come into existence. they, like their historical successors, our own puritans, have shared the general fate of the poor wise men who save cities. a criticism of theology from the side of science is not thought of by the prophets, and is at most indicated in the books of job and ecclesiastes, in both of which the problem of vindicating the ways of god to man is given up, though on different grounds, as a hopeless one. but with the extensive introduction of greek thought among the jews, which took place, not only during the domination of the seleucidae in palestine, but in the great judaic colony which flourished in egypt under the ptolemies, criticism, on both ethical and scientific grounds, took a new departure. in the hands of the alexandrian jews, as represented by philo, the fundamental axiom of later jewish, as of christian monotheism, that the deity is infinitely perfect and infinitely good, worked itself out into its logical consequence--agnostic theism. philo will allow of no point of contact between god and a world in which evil exists. for him god has no relation to space or to time, and, as infinite, suffers no predicate beyond that of existence. it is therefore absurd to ascribe to him mental faculties and affections comparable in the remotest degree to those of men; he is in no way an object of cognition; he is [greek] and [greek] [ ]--without quality and incomprehensible. that is to say the alexandrian jew of the first century had anticipated the reasonings of hamilton and mansell in the nineteenth, and, for him, god is the unknowable in the sense in which that term is used by mr. herbert spencer. moreover, philo's definition of the supreme being would not be inconsistent with that "substantia constans infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque aeternam et infinitam essentiam exprimit," given by another great israelite, were it not that spinoza's doctrine of the immanence of the deity in the world puts him, at any rate formally, at the antipodes of theological speculation. but the conception of the essential incognoscibility of the deity is the same in each case. however, philo was too thorough an israelite and too much the child of his time to be content with this agnostic position. with the help of the platonic and stoic philosophy, he constructed an apprehensible, if not comprehensible, quasi-deity out of the logos; while other more or less personified divine powers, or attributes, bridged over the interval between god and man; between the sacred existence, too pure to be called by any name which implied a conceivable quality, and the gross and evil world of matter. in order to get over the ethical difficulties presented by the naive naturalism of many parts of those scriptures, in the divine authority of which he firmly believed, philo borrowed from the stoics (who had been in like straits in respect of greek mythology), that great excalibur which they had forged with infinite pains and skill--the method of allegorical interpretation. this mighty "two-handed engine at the door" of the theologian is warranted to make a speedy end of any and every moral or intellectual difficulty, by showing that, taken allegorically or, as it is otherwise said, "poetically" or, "in a spiritual sense," the plainest words mean whatever a pious interpreter desires they should mean. in biblical phrase, zeno (who probably had a strain of semitic blood in him) was the "father of all such as reconcile." no doubt philo and his followers were eminently religious men; but they did endless injury to the cause of religion by laying the foundations of a new theology, while equipping the defenders of it with the subtlest of all weapons of offence and defence, and with an inexhaustible store of sophistical arguments of the most plausible aspect. the question of the real bearing upon theology of the influence exerted by the teaching of philo's contemporary, jesus of nazareth, is one upon which it is not germane to my present purpose to enter. i take it simply as an unquestionable fact that his immediate disciples, known to their countrymen as "nazarenes," were regarded as, and considered themselves to be, perfectly orthodox jews, belonging to the puritanic or pharisaic section of their people, and differing from the rest only in their belief that the messiah had already come. christianity, it is said, first became clearly differentiated at antioch, and it separated itself from orthodox judaism by denying the obligation of the rite of circumcision and of the food prohibitions, prescribed by the law. henceforward theology became relatively stationary among the jews, [ ] and the history of its rapid progress in a new course of evolution is the history of the christian churches, orthodox and heterodox. the steps in this evolution are obvious. the first is the birth of a new theological scheme arising out of the union of elements derived from greek philosophy with elements derived from israelitic theology. in the fourth gospel, the logos, raised to a somewhat higher degree of personification than in the alexandrian theosophy, is identified with jesus of nazareth. in the epistles, especially the later of those attributed to paul, the israelitic ideas of the messiah and of sacrificial atonement coalesce with one another and with the embodiment of the logos in jesus, until the apotheosis of the son of man is almost, or quite, effected. the history of christian dogma, from justin to athanasius, is a record of continual progress in the same direction, until the fair body of religion, revealed in almost naked purity by the prophets, is once more hidden under a new accumulation of dogmas and of ritual practices of which the primitive nazarene knew nothing; and which he would probably have regarded as blasphemous if he could have been made to understand them. as, century after century, the ages roll on, polytheism comes back under the disguise of mariolatry and the adoration of saints; image-worship becomes as rampant as in old egypt; adoration of relics takes the place of the old fetish-worship; the virtues of the ephod pale before those of holy coats and handkerchiefs; shrines and calvaries make up for the loss of the ark and of the high places; and even the lustral fluid of paganism is replaced by holy water at the porches of the temples. a touching ceremony--the common meal originally eaten in pious memory of a loved teacher--becomes metamorphosed into a flesh-and-blood sacrifice, supposed to possess exactly that redeeming virtue which the prophets denied to the flesh-and-blood sacrifices of their day; while the minute observance of ritual is raised to a degree of punctilious refinement which levitical legislators might envy. and with the growth of this theology, grew its inevitable concomitant, the belief in evil spirits, in possession, in sorcery, in charms and omens, until the christians of the twelfth century after our era were sunk in more debased and brutal superstitions than are recorded of the israelites in the twelfth century before it. the greatest men of the middle ages are unable to escape the infection. dante's "inferno" would be revolting if it were not so often sublime, so often exquisitely tender. the hideous pictures which cover a vast space on the south wall of the campo santo of pisa convey information, as terrible as it is indisputable, of the theological conceptions of dante's countrymen in the fourteenth century, whose eyes were addressed by the painters of those disgusting scenes, and whose approbation they knew how to win. a candid mexican of the time of cortez, could he have seen this christian burial-place, would have taken it for an appropriately adorned teocalli. the professed disciple of the god of justice and of mercy might there gloat over the sufferings of his fellowmen depicted as undergoing every extremity of atrocious and sanguinary torture to all eternity, for theological errors no less than for moral delinquencies; while, in the central figure of satan, [ ] occupied in champing up souls in his capacious and well-toothed jaws, to void them again for the purpose of undergoing fresh suffering, we have the counterpart of the strange polynesian and egyptian dogma that there were certain gods who employed themselves in devouring the ghostly flesh of the spirits of the dead. but in justice to the polynesians, it must be recollected that, after three such operations, they thought the soul was purified and happy. in the view of the christian theologian the operation was only a preparation for new tortures continued for ever and aye. with the growth of civilisation in europe, and with the revival of letters and of science in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the ethical and intellectual criticism of theology once more recommenced, and arrived at a temporary resting-place in the confessions of the various reformed protestant sects in the sixteenth century; almost all of which, as soon as they were strong enough, began to persecute those who carried criticism beyond their own limit. but the movement was not arrested by these ecclesiastical barriers, as their constructors fondly imagined it would be; it was continued, tacitly or openly, by galileo, by hobbes, by descartes, and especially by spinoza, in the seventeenth century; by the english freethinkers, by rousseau, by the french encyclopaedists, and by the german rationalists, among whom lessing stands out a head and shoulders taller than the rest, throughout the eighteenth century; by the historians, the philologers, the biblical critics, the geologists, and the biologists in the nineteenth century, until it is obvious to all who can see that the moral sense and the really scientific method of seeking for truth are once more predominating over false science. once more ethics and theology are parting company. it is my conviction that, with the spread of true scientific culture, whatever may be the medium, historical, philological, philosophical, or physical, through which that culture is conveyed, and with its necessary concomitant, a constant elevation of the standard of veracity, the end of the evolution of theology will be like its beginning--it will cease to have any relation to ethics. i suppose that, so long as the human mind exists, it will not escape its deep-seated instinct to personify its intellectual conceptions. the science of the present day is as full of this particular form of intellectual shadow-worship as is the nescience of ignorant ages. the difference is that the philosopher who is worthy of the name knows that his personified hypotheses, such as law, and force, and ether, and the like, are merely useful symbols, while the ignorant and the careless take them for adequate expressions of reality. so, it may be, that the majority of mankind may find the practice of morality made easier by the use of theological symbols. and unless these are converted from symbols into idols, i do not see that science has anything to say to the practice, except to give an occasional warning of its dangers. but, when such symbols are dealt with as real existences, i think the highest duty which is laid upon men of science is to show that these dogmatic idols have no greater value than the fabrications of men's hands, the stocks and the stones, which they have replaced. footnotes: [footnote : even the most sturdy believers in the popular theory that the proper or titular names attached to the books of the bible are those of their authors will hardly be prepared to maintain that jephthah, gideon, and their colleagues wrote the book of judges. nor is it easily admissible that samuel wrote the two books which pass under his name, one of which deals entirely with events which took place after his death. in fact, no one knows who wrote either judges or samuel, nor when, within the range of years, their present form was given to these books.] [footnote : my citations are taken from the revised version, but for lord and god i have substituted jahveh and elohim.] [footnote : i need hardly say that i depend upon authoritative biblical critics, whenever a question of interpretation of the text arises. as reuss appears to me to be one of the most learned, acute, and fair-minded of those whose works i have studied, i have made most use of the commentary and dissertations in his splendid french edition of the bible. but i have also had recourse to the works of dillman, kalisch, kuenen, thenius, tuch, and others, in cases in which another opinion seemed desirable.] [footnote : see "divination," by hazoral, _journal of anthropology,_ bombay, vol. i. no. .] [footnote : see, for example, the message of jephthah to the king of the ammonites: "so now jahveh, the elohim of israel, hath dispossessed the amorites from before his people israel, and shouldest thou possess them? wilt not thou possess that which chemosh, thy elohim, giveth thee to possess?" (jud. xi. , ). for jephthah, chemosh is obviously as real a personage as jahveh.] [footnote : for example: "my oblation, my food for my offerings made by fire, of a sweet savour to me, shall ye observe to offer unto me in their due season" (num. xxviii. ).] [footnote : in samuel xv. david says to zadok the priest, "art thou not a seer?" and gad is called david's seer.] [footnote : this would at first appear to be inconsistent with the use of the word "prophetess" for deborah. but it does not follow because the writer of judges applies the name to deborah that it was used in her day.] [footnote : samuel tells the cook, "bring the potion which i gave thee, of which i said to thee, set it by thee." it was therefore samuel's to give. "and the cook took up the thigh (or shoulder) and that which was upon it and set it before saul." but, in the levitical regulations, it is the thigh (or shoulder) which becomes the priest's own property. "and the right thigh (or shoulder) shall ye give unto the priest for an heave-offering," which is given along with the wave breast "unto aaron the priest and unto his sons as a due for ever from the children of israel" (lev. vii. - ). reuss writes on this passage: "la cuisse n'est point agitee, mais simplement _prelevee_ sur ce que les convives mangeront."] [footnote : see, for example, elkanah's sacrifice, sam. i. - .] [footnote : the ghost was not supposed to be capable of devouring the gross material substance of the offering; but his vaporous body appropriated the smoke of the burnt sacrifice, the visible and odorous exhalations of other offerings. the blood of the victim was particularly useful because it was thought to be the special seat of its soul or life. a west african negro replied to an european sceptic: "of course, the spirit cannot eat corporeal food, but he extracts its spiritual part, and, as we see, leaves the material part behind" (lippert, _seelencult,_ p. ).] [footnote : it is further well worth consideration whether indications of former ancestor-worship are not to be found in the singular weight attached to the veneration of parents in the fourth commandment. it is the only positive commandment, in addition to those respecting the deity and that concerning the sabbath, and the penalties for infringing it were of the same character. in china, a corresponding reverence for parents is part and parcel of ancestor-worship; so in ancient rome and in greece (where parents were even called [secondary and earthly]). the fifth commandment, as it stands, would be an excellent compromise between ancestor-worship and monotheism. the larger hereditary share allotted by israelitic law to the eldest son reminds one of the privileges attached to primogeniture in ancient rome, which were closely connected with ancestor-worship. there is a good deal to be said in favour of the speculation that the ark of the covenant may have been a relic of ancestor-worship; but that topic is too large to be dealt with incidentally in this place] [footnote : "the scientific aspects of positivism," _fortnightly review,_ , republished in _lay sermons._] [footnote : oeuvres de bossuet, ed. , t. xxxv. p. .] [footnote : i should like further to add the expression of my indebtedness to two works by herr julius lippert, _der seelencult in seinen beziehungen zur alt-hebraischen religion_ and _die religionen der europaischen culturvolker,_ both pubished in . i have found them full of valuable suggestions.] [footnote : see among others the remarkable work of fustel de coulanges, _la cite antique,_ in which the social importance of the old roman ancestor-worship is brought out with great clearness.] [footnote : supposed to be "the finer or more aeriform part of the body," standing in "the same relation to the body as the perfume and the more essential qualities of a flower do to the more solid substances" (mariner, vol. ii. p. ).] [footnote : a kind of "clients" in the roman sense.] [footnote : it is worthy of remark that [greek] among the greeks, and _deus_ among the romans, had the same wide signification. the _dii manes_ were ghosts of ancestors=atuas of the family.] [footnote : _voyages aux iles du grand ocean,_ t. i. p. .] [footnote : _te ika a maui: new zealand and its inhabitants,_ p. .] [footnote : compare: "and samuel said unto saul, why hast thou disquieted me?" (i sam. xxviii. l )] [footnote : turner, _nineteen years in polynesia,_ p. .] [footnote : see lippert's excellent remarks on this subject, _der seelencult,_ p. .] [footnote : _sciography_ has the authority of cudworth, _intellectual system,_ vol. ii. p. . sciomancy [greek], which, in the sense of divination by ghosts, may be found in bailey's _dictionary_ ( : also furnishes a precedent for my coinage.] [footnote : "kami" is used in the sense of elohim; and is also, like our word "lord," employed as a title of respect among men, as indeed elohim was.] [footnote : [the assyrians thus raised assur to a position of pre-eminence.]] [footnote : i refer those who wish to know the reasons which lead me to take up this position to the works of reuss and wellhausen, [and especially to stade's _geschichte des volkes israel._]] [footnote : bunsen. _egypt's place,_ vol. v. p. , note.] [footnote : see birch, in _egypt's place,_ vol. v; and brugsch, _history of egypt._] [footnote : even by graetz, who, though a fair enough historian, cannot be accused of any desire to over-estimate the importance of egyptian influence upon his people.] [footnote : graetz, _geschichte der juden,_ bd. i. p. .] [footnote : see the careful analsyis of the work of the alexandrian philosopher and theologian (who, it should be remembered, was a most devout jew, held in the highest esteem by his countrymen) in siegfried's _philo von alexandrien,_ . (also dr. j. drummond's _philo judaeus,_ .)] [footnote : i am not unaware of the existence of many and widely divergent sects and schools among the jews at all periods of their history, since the dispersion. but i imagine that orthodox judaism is now pretty much what it was in philo's time; while peter and paul, if they could return to life, would certainly have to learn the catechism of either the roman, greek, or anglican churches, if they desired to be considered orthodox christians.] [footnote : dante's description of lucifer engaged in the eternal mastication of brutus, cassius, and judas iscariot-- "da ogni bocca dirompea co' denti un peccatore, a guisa di maciulla, si che tre ne facea così dolenti. a quel dinanzi il mordere era nulla, verso 'l graffiar, che tal volta la schiena rimanea della pelle tutta brulla"-- is quite in harmony with the pisan picture and perfectly polynesian in conception.] file was produced from scans of public domain works at the university of michigan's making of america collection.) [transcriber's note: all footnotes are renumbered and moved to the end of the text before the index.] the origin of the world, according to revelation and science. by j. w. dawson, ll.d., f.r.s., f.g.s., principal and vice-chancellor of m'gill university, montreal; author of "acadian geology," "the story of the earth and man," "life's dawn on earth," etc. "speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee." --_job._ [illustration] new york: harper & brothers, publishers, franklin square. . to his excellency the right hon. the earl of dufferin, k.p., k.c.b., etc., governor-general of canada, _this work is respectfully dedicated_, as a slight tribute of esteem to one who graces the highest position in the dominion of canada by his eminent personal qualities, his reputation as a statesman and an author, and his kind and enlightened patronage of education, literature, and science. preface. the scope of this work is in the main identical with that of "archaia," published in ; but in attempting to prepare a new edition brought up to the present condition of the subject, it was found that so much required to be rewritten as to make it essentially a new book, and it was therefore decided to give it a new name, more clearly indicating its character and purpose. the intention of this new publication is to throw as much light as possible on the present condition of the much-agitated questions respecting the origin of the world and its inhabitants. to students of the bible it will afford the means of determining the precise import of the biblical references to creation, and of their relation to what is known from other sources. to geologists and biologists it is intended to give some intelligible explanation of the connection of the doctrines of revealed religion with the results of their respective sciences. a still higher end to which the author would gladly contribute is that of aiding thoughtful men perplexed with the apparent antagonisms of science and religion, and of indicating how they may best harmonize our great and growing knowledge of nature with our old and cherished beliefs as to the origin and destiny of man. in aiming at these results, it has not been thought necessary to assume a controversial attitude or to stand on the defensive, either with regard to religion or science, but rather to attempt to arrive at broad and comprehensive views which may exhibit those higher harmonies of the spiritual and the natural which they derive from their common author, and which reach beyond the petty difficulties arising from narrow or imperfect views of either or both. such an aim is too high to be fully attained, but in so far as it can be reached we may hope to rescue science from a dry and barren infidelity, and religion from mere fruitless sentiment or enfeebling superstition. since the publication of "archaia," the subject of which it treats has passed through several phases, but the author has seen no reason to abandon in the least degree the principles of interpretation on which he then insisted, and he takes a hopeful view as to their ultimate prevalence. it is true that the wide acceptance of hypotheses of "evolution" has led to a more decided antagonism than heretofore between some of the utterances of scientific men and the religious ideas of mankind, and to a contemptuous disregard of revealed religion in the more shallow literature of the time; but, on the other hand, a barrier of scientific fact and induction has been slowly rising to stem this current of crude and rash hypothesis. of this nature are the great discoveries as to the physical constitution and probable origin of the universe, the doctrine of the correlation and conservation of forces, the new estimates of the age of the earth, the overthrow of the doctrine of spontaneous generation, the high bodily and mental type of the earliest known men, the light which philology has thrown on the unity of language, our growing knowledge of the uniformity of the constructive and other habits of primitive men, and of the condition of man in the earlier historic time, the greater completeness of our conceptions as to the phenomena of life and their relation to organizable matters--all these and many other aspects of the later progress of science must tend to bring it back into greater harmony with revealed religion. on the other side, there has been a growing disposition on the part of theologians to inquire as to the actual views of nature presented in the bible, and to separate these from those accretions of obsolete philosophy which have been too often confounded with them. with respect to the first chapter of genesis more especially, there has been a decided growth in the acceptance of those principles for which i contended in . in illustration of this i may refer to the fact that in it was precisely on these principles that dr. mccaul conducted his able defence of the mosaic record of creation in the "aids to faith," which may almost be regarded as an authoritative expression of the views of orthodox christians in opposition to those of the once notorious "essays and reviews." equally significant is the adoption of this method of interpretation by dr. tayler lewis in his masterly "special introduction" to the first chapter of genesis, in the american edition of lange's commentary, edited by dr. philip schaff; and the manifest approval with which the lucid statement of the relations of geology and the bible by dr. arnold guyot, was received by the great gathering of divines at the convention of the evangelical alliance in new york, in , bears testimony to the same fact. the author has also had the honor of being invited to illustrate this mode of reconciliation to the students of two of the most important theological colleges in america, in lectures afterwards published and widely circulated. the time is perhaps nearer than we anticipate when natural science and theology will unite in the conviction that the first chapter of genesis "stands alone among the traditions of mankind in the wonderful simplicity and grandeur of its words," and that "the meaning of these words is always a meaning ahead of science--not because it anticipates the results of science, but because it is independent of them, and runs as it were round the outer margin of all possible discovery."[ ] in the appendix the reader will find several short essays on special points collateral to the general subject, and important in the solution of some of its difficulties, but which could not be conveniently included in the text. more especially i would refer to the summaries given in the appendix of the present state of our knowledge as to the origin of life, of species, and of man--topics not discussed in much detail in the body of the work, both because of the wide fields of controversy to which they lead, and because i have treated of them somewhat fully in a previous work, "the story of the earth and man," in which the detailed history of life as disclosed by science was the main subject in hand. j. w. d. _may, ._ contents. chapter i. the mystery of origins and its solutions. reality of the unseen.--personality of god.--possibility of a revelation of origins.--turanian, aryan, and semitic solutions of the mystery.--the abrahamic genesis.--the mosaic genesis page chapter ii. objects and nature of a revelation of origins. objects to be attained by a revelation of origins.--its method and structure.--vision of creation.--translation of the first chapter of genesis chapter iii. objects and nature of a revelation of origins (_continued_). character of the revelation and its views of nature.--natural law.-- progress and development.--purpose and use.--type or pattern chapter iv. the beginning. the universe not eternal.--its creation.--the heavens.--the earth.-- the creator, elohim.--the beginning very remote in time chapter v. the desolate void. characteristics of biblical chaos.--the primitive deep.--the divine spirit.--the breath of god.--chaos in other cosmogonies.--chemical and physical conditions of the primitive chaos chapter vi. light and creative days. what is implied in cosmic light.--its gradual condensation.--day and night.--days of creation.--their nature and length.--they are olams, Æons or time-worlds.--objections to this view answered.--confirmations from extraneous sources. chapter vii. the atmosphere. its present constitution.--waters above and below.--the "expanse" of genesis not a solid arch.--mythology of the atmosphere.-- superstitions connected with it opposed by the bible. chapter viii. the dry land and the first plants. the earth of the bible is the dry land.--its elevation and support above the waters.--structure of the continents arranged from the first.--the first vegetation.--its nature.--introduction of life.-- organization and reproduction.--objections considered.--geological indications. chapter ix. luminaries. how introduced.--what implied in this.--dominion of existing causes. --astronomy of the hebrews.--not connected with astrology chapter x. the lower animals. the sheretzim, or swarmers.--their origin from the waters.--the great reptiles.--their creation.--coincidences with geology. --hypotheses of evolution chapter xi. the higher animals and man. the placental mammals.--the principal groups of these.--man, how introduced.--his early condition.--his relations to nature chapter xii. the rest of the creator. the sabbath of creation.--the modern period.--its early history. --the fall and antediluvian man.--postdiluvian extension of men chapter xiii. unity and antiquity of man. biblical account of his introduction and early history.--historical testimony with respect to his unity and antiquity.--testimony of language chapter xiv. unity and antiquity of man (_continued_). geological evidence of antiquity of man.--general conditions of post-glacial and modern periods.--remains of man in caverns, in river-gravels, etc.--palæocosmic and neocosmic men chapter xv. comparisons and conclusions. geological chronology.--table of succession of life.--points of agreement of the two records.--parallelism of genesis and physical science with reference to the origin and early history of the world. --conclusion appendices. a.--true and false evolution. b.--evolution and creation by law. c.--modes of creation. d.--theories of life. e.--recent facts as to the antiquity of man. f.--glacial periods in connection with genesis. g.--chemistry of the primeval earth. h.--tannin and bhemah. i.--ancient mythologies. k.--assyrian and egyptian texts. l.--species and varieties in connection with evolution and the unity of man. the origin of the world. chapter i. the mystery of origins and its solutions. "the things that are seen are temporal."--paul. have we or can we have any certain solution of those two great questions--whence are all things? and whither do all things tend? no thinking man is content to live merely in a transitory present, ever emerging out of darkness and ever returning thither again, without knowing any thing of the origin and issue of the world and its inhabitants. yet it would seem that to-day men are as much in uncertainty on these subjects as at any previous time. it even appears as if all our added knowledge would only, for a time at least, deprive us of the solutions to which we trusted, and give no others in their room. christians have been accustomed to rest on the cosmogony and prophecy of the bible; but we are now frankly told on all hands that these are valueless, and that even ministers of religion more or less "sacrifice their sincerity" in making them the basis of their teachings. on the other hand, we are informed that nothing can be discerned in the universe beyond matter and force, and that it is by a purely material and spontaneous evolution that all things exist. but when we ask as to the origin of matter and force, and the laws which regulate them--as to the end to which their movement is tending, as to the manner in which they have evolved the myriad forms of life and the human intelligence itself--the only answer is that these are "insoluble mysteries." are we, then, to fall back on the real or imagined revelations and traditions of the past, and to endeavor to find in them some foothold of assurance; or are we to wait till further progress in science may have cleared up some of the present mysteries? whatever may be said of the former alternative, all honest students of science will unite with me in the admission that the latter is hopeless. we need not seek to belittle the magnificent triumphs of modern science. they have been real and stupendous. but it is of their very nature to conduct us to ultimate facts and laws of which science can give no explanation; and the further we push our inquiries the more insuperably does the wall of mystery rise before us. it is true we can furnish the materials for philosophical speculations which may be built on scientific facts and principles; but these are in their nature uncertain, and must constantly change as knowledge advances. they can not solve for us the great practical problems of our origin and destiny. in these circumstances no apology is needed for a thorough and careful inquiry into those foundations of religious belief which rest on the idea of a revelation of origins and destinies made to man from without, and on which we may build the superstructure of a rational religion, giving guidance for the present and hope for the future. in the following pages i propose to enter upon so much of this subject as relates to the origin and earliest history of the world, in so far as these are treated of in the bible and in the traditions of the more ancient nations; and this with reference to the present standpoint of science in relation to these questions. to discuss such questions at all, certain preliminary admissions are necessary. these are: ( ) the reality of an unseen universe, spiritual rather than material in its nature. ( ) the existence of a personal god, or of a great universal will. ( ) the possibility of communication taking place between god and man. i do not propose to attempt any proof of these positions, but it may be well to explain what they mean. ( ) that the great machine for the dissipation of energy, in which we exist, and which we call the universe, must have a correlative and complement in the unseen, is a conclusion now forced upon physicists by the necessities of the doctrine of the conservation of force. in short, it seems that, unless we admit this conclusion, we can not believe in the possible existence of the material universe itself, and must sink into absolute nihilism. this doctrine is expressed by the apostle paul in the statement, "the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal," and it has been ably discussed by the authors of the remarkable work, "the unseen universe." that this unseen world is spiritual--that is, not subject to the same material laws with the visible universe--is also a fair deduction from physical science, as well as a doctrine of scripture. i prefer the term spiritual to supernatural, because the first is the term used in the bible, and because the latter has had associated with it ideas of the miraculous and abnormal, not implied at all in the idea of the spiritual, which in some important senses may be more natural than the material. ( ) the idea of a personal god implies not merely the existence of an unknown absolute power, as herbert spencer seems to hold, or of "an eternal, not ourselves, that makes for righteousness," as matthew arnold puts it, but of a being of whom we can affirm will, intelligence, feeling, self-consciousness, not certainly precisely as they occur in us, but in a higher and more perfect form, of which our own consciousness furnishes the type, or "image and shadow," as moses long ago phrased it. on the one hand, it is true that we can not fully comprehend such a personal god, because not limited by the conditions which limit us. on the other hand, it is clear that our intellect, as constituted, can furnish us with no ultimate explanation of the universe except in the action of such a primary personal will. in the bible the absolute personality of god is expressed by the title "i am." his intimate relation to us is indicated by the expression, "in him we live, and move, and have our being." his all-pervading essence is stated as "the fullness of him that filleth all in all." his relative personality is shadowed forth by the attribution to him of love, anger, and other human feelings and sentiments, and by presenting him in the endearing relation of the universal father. ( ) with reference to the possibility of communication between god and man, it may truly be said that such communication is not only possible, but infinitely probable. god is not only near to us, but we are in him, and, independently of the testimony of revelation, it has been felt by all classes of men, from the rudest and most primitive savages up to our great english philosopher, john stuart mill, that if there is a god, he can not be excluded from communion with his intelligent creatures, either directly or through the medium of ministering spirits.[ ] farther, placed as man is in the midst of complex and to him inexplicable phenomena, involved in a conflict of good and evil, happiness and misery, to which the wisest and the greatest minds have found no issue, subject to be degraded by low passions and tempted to great extremes of evil, and himself weak, impulsive, and vacillating, there seems the most urgent need for divine communication. it may be said that these are conflicts and problems which god has left man to decide and solve for himself by his own reason. but when we consider how slow this process is, and how imperfect even now, after the experience of ages, we seem to need some intervention that shall stimulate the human mind, and impel it forward with greater rapidity. farther, it would appear only right that an intelligent and accountable being, placed in a world like this, should have some explanation of his origin and destiny given him at first, and that, if he should perchance go astray, a helping hand should be extended to him. practically it is an historical fact that all the great impulses given to humanity have been by men claiming divine guidance or inspiration, and professing to bring light and truth from the unseen world. it would be too much to say that all these prophets and reformers have been inspired of heaven; but scarcely too much to say that they have either received a message of god, or have been permitted to transmit to our world messages for weal or woe from powers without in subordination to him. farther, we shall have reason in the sequel to see that in far back prehistoric times there must have been impulses given to mankind, and revelations made to them, as potent as those which have acted in later historic periods. in holy scripture the word of god is represented as "enlightening every man;[ ]" and with reference to our present subject we are told that "by faith we understand that the ages of the world were constituted by the word of god, so that the visible things were not made of those which appear."[ ] in other words, that the will of god has been active and operative as the sole cause throughout all ages of the world's creation and history, and that the visible universe is not a mere product of its own phenomena. we may call this faith, if we please, an intuition or instinct, a god-given gift, or a product of our own thought acting on evidence afforded by the outer world; but in any case it seems to be the sole possible solution of the mystery of origins. these points being premised, we are in a position to inquire as to the teaching of our own holy scriptures, and in this inquiry we can easily take along with them all other revelations, pretended or true, that deal with our subject. max müller, in his lectures on the science of religion, rejects the ordinary division into natural and revealed, and adopts a threefold grouping, corresponding to the great division of languages into turanian, aryan, and semitic. with some modification and explanation, this classification will serve well our present purpose. as to natural and revealed religions, if we regard our own as revealed, we must admit an element of revelation in all others as well. according to the hebrew scriptures revelation began in eden, and was continued more or less in all successive ages up to the apostolic times. consequently the earlier revelations of the antediluvian and postdiluvian times must have been the common property of all races, and must have been associated with whatever elements of natural religion they had. when, therefore, we call our religion distinctively a revealed one, we must admit that traces of the same revelation may be found in all others. on the other hand, when we characterize our religion as hebrew or semitic, we must bear in mind that in its earlier stages it was not so limited; but that, if as old as it professes to be, it must include a substratum common to it with the old religions of the turanians and aryans. neglect of these very simple considerations often leads to great confusion in the minds both of christians and unbelievers, as to the relation of christianity to heathenism, and especially to the older and more primitive forms of heathenism. the turanian stock, of which the mongolian peoples of northern asia may be taken as the type, includes also the american races, and the oldest historical populations of western asia and of europe; and they are the peoples who, in their physical features and their art tendencies, most nearly resemble the prehistoric men of the caves and gravels. they largely consist of the populations which the bible affiliates with ham. they are remarkable for their permanent and stationary forms of civilization or barbarism, and for the languages least developed in grammatical structure. these people had and still have traditions of the creation and early history of man similar to those in the earlier biblical books; but the connection of their religions with that of the bible breaks off from the time of abraham; and the earlier portions of revelation which they possessed became disintegrated into a polytheism which takes very largely the form of animism, or of attributing some special spiritual indwelling to all natural objects, and also that of worship of ancestors and heroes. the portion of primitive theological belief to which they have clung most persistently is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which in all their religious beliefs occupies a prominent place, and has always been connected with special attention to rites of sepulture and monuments to the dead. their version of the revelation of creation appears most distinctly in the sacred book of the quichés of central america, and in the creation myths of the mexicans, iroquois, algonquins, and other north american tribes; and it has been handed down to us through the semitic assyrians from the ancient chaldæo-turanian population of the valley of the euphrates. the aryan races have been remarkable for their changeable and versatile character. their religious ideas in the most primitive times appear to have been not dissimilar from those of the turanians; and the indians, persians, greeks, scandinavians, and celts have all gone some length in developing and modifying these, apparently by purely human imaginative and intellectual materials. but all these developments were defective in a moral point of view, and had lost the stability and rational basis which proceed from monotheism. hence they have given way before other and higher faiths; and at this day the more advanced nations of the aryan, or in scriptural language the japhetic stock, have adopted the semitic faith; and, as noah long ago predicted, "dwell in the tents of shem." no indigenous account of the genesis of things remains among the aryan races, with the exception of that in the avesta, and in some ancient hindoo hymns, and these are merely variations of the turanian or semitic cosmogony. god has given to the aryans no special revelations of his will, and they would have been left to grope for themselves along the paths of science and philosophy, but for the advent among them of the prophets of "jehovah the god of shem." it is to the semitic race that god has been most liberal in his gift of inspiration. gathering up and treasuring the old common inheritance of religion, and eliminating from it the accretions of superstition, the children of abraham at one time stood alone, or almost alone, as adherents of a belief in one god the creator. their theology was added to from age to age by a succession of prophets, all working in one line of development, till it culminated in the appearance of jesus christ, and then proceeded to expand itself over the other races. among them it has undergone two remarkable phases of retrograde development--the one in mohammedanism, which carries it back to a resemblance to its own earlier patriarchal stage, the other in roman and greek ecclesiasticism, which have taken it back to the levitical system, along with a strong color of paganism. still its original documents survive, and retain their hold on large portions of the more enlightened aryan nations, while through their means these documents have entered on a new career of conquest among the semites and turanians. they are, however, it must be admitted, among the aryan races of europe, growing in a somewhat uncongenial soil; partly because of the materialistic organization of these races, and partly because of the abundant remains of heathenism which still linger among them; and it is possible that they may not realize their full triumphs over humanity till the semitic races return to the position of abraham, and erect again in the world the standard of monotheistic faith, under the auspices of a purified christianity. it follows from this hasty survey that it is the semitic solution of the question of origins, as contained in the hebrew scriptures, that mainly concerns us; and in the first place we must consider the foundation and historical development of this solution, as many misconceptions prevail on these points. we may discuss these subjects under the heads of the abrahamic genesis and the mosaic genesis, and may in a subsequent chapter consider the results of these in the genesis of the later scripture writers. the abrahamic genesis. it has been a favorite theory with some learned men that the earlier parts of the book of genesis existed as ancient documents even in the time of moses, and were incorporated by him in his work, and attempts have been made to separate, on various grounds, the older from the newer portions. until lately, however, these attempts have been altogether conjectural and destitute of any positive basis of archæological fact. a new and interesting aspect has been given to them by the recent readings of the inscriptions on clay tablets found at nineveh, and to which especial attention has been given by the late mr. g. smith, of the archæological department of the british museum. assurbanipal, king of assyria, one of the kings known to the greeks by the name of sardanapalus, reigned at nineveh about b.c. . he was a grandson of the biblical sennacherib, and son of esarhaddon, and it seems that he had inherited from his fathers a library of chaldean and assyrian literature, written not on perishable paper or parchment, but on tablets of clay, and containing much ancient lore of the nations inhabiting the valleys of the tigris and euphrates. assurbanipal, living when the assyrian empire had attained to the acme of its greatness, had leisure to become a greater patron of learning than any preceding king. his scribes ransacked the record chambers of the oldest temples in the world; and babel, erech, accad, and ur had to yield up their treasures of history and theology to diligent copyists, who transcribed them in beautiful arrow-head characters on new clay tablets, and deposited them in the library of the great king. it would appear that, at the same time, these documents were edited, archaic forms of expression translated, and lacunæ caused by decay or fracture repaired. they were also inscribed with legends stating the sources whence they had been derived. the empire of assyria went down in blood, and its palaces were destroyed with fire, but the imperishable clay tablets which had formed the treasure of their libraries remained, more or less broken it is true, among the ruins. exhumed by layard and smith, they are now among the collections of the british museum, and their decipherment is throwing a new and strange light on the cosmogony and religions of the early east. though the date of the writing of these tablets is comparatively modern, being about the time of the later kings of judah, the original records from which they were transcribed profess to have been very ancient--some of them about years before the time of assurbanipal, so that they go back to a time anterior to that of the early hebrew patriarchs. their genuineness has been endorsed, in one case, by the discovery by mr. loftus, in the city of senkereh, of an apparent original, bearing date about years before christ, and other inscriptions of equal or greater antiquity have been found in the ruins of ur, on the euphrates. nor does there seem any reason to doubt that the scribes of assurbanipal faithfully transcribed the oldest records extant in their time. their care and diligence are also shown by the fact that where different versions of these records existed in different cities, they have made copies of these variant manuscripts, instead of attempting to reduce them to one text. the subjects treated of in the nineveh tablets are very various, but those that concern our present purpose are the documents relating to the creation, the fall of man, and the deluge, of which considerable portions have been recovered, and have been translated by mr. smith. these documents carry us back to a time when the turanian religions had not yet been separated from the semitic. the early chaldeans, termed cushites in the bible, and who under nimrod seem to have established the first empire in that region, are now known to have been turanian; and among them apparently arose at a very early period a literature and a mythology. the chaldeans were politically subjugated by the semitic assyrians, but they retained their religious predominance; and until a comparatively late period existed as a learned and priestly caste. to these primitive _chasdim_ were undoubtedly due the creation legends collected by the scribes of assurbanipal. they were obtained in the old chaldean cities, in the temples under the guardianship of chaldean priests; and their date carries them back to a time anterior to the assyrian conquest, and in which chaldean kings still reigned. here, then, we have an important connecting link between the cosmogonies of the turanian and semitic races; and leaving out of sight for the present the legends of the deluge and other matters allied to it, we may inquire as to the nature and contents of the assyrian and chaldean record of creation. the assyrian genesis is similar in order and arrangement to that in our own bible, and gives the same general order of the creative work. its days, however, of creation, as indeed there is good internal evidence to prove those of moses also are, seem to be periods or ages. it treats of the creation of gods, as well as of the universe, and thus introduces a polytheistic system; and it seems to recognize, like the avesta, a primitive principle of evil, presiding over chaos, and subsequently introducing evil among men. these points may be illustrated by an extract from mr. smith's translation. it relates to the earlier part of the work: "when above were not raised the heavens, and below on the earth a plant had not grown up the deep also had not broken up its boundaries chaos (or water) tiamat (the sea or abyss) was the producing mother of them all these waters at the beginning were ordained but a tree had not grown a flower had not unfolded when the gods had not sprung up any one of them a plant had not grown and order did not exist were made also the great gods the gods lahma and lahamu they caused to come * * * and they grew * * * the gods sar and kisar were made a course of days and a long time passed the god anu * * * the gods sar and * * *" here the first existences are chaos (mummu, or confusion) and tiamat, which is the thalatth of berosus, representing the sea or primitive abyss, but also recognized as a female deity or first mother. then we have lahma and lahamu, which represent power or motion in nature, and are the equivalents of the divine spirit moving on the face of the waters in our genesis. next we have the production of sar or iloar and kisar, representing the expanse or firmament. sar is supposed to be the god assur of the assyrians, a great weather god, and after whom their nation and its founder were named. the next process is the creation of the heaven and the earth, represented by anu and anatu. anu was always one of the greater gods, and was identified with the higher or starry heavens. in succeeding tablets to this we find bel or belus introduced, as the agent in the creation of animals and of men; and he is the true demiurgus or mediator of the assyrian system. next we have the introduction of hea or saturn, who is the equivalent of the biblical adam, and of ishtar, mother of men, who is the isba or eve of genesis. the rest of this legend evidently relates to deified men, among whom are merodach, nebo, and other heroes. the first remark that we may make on this assyrian genesis is that, while it resembles generally the mosaic account of creation, it also strongly resembles the old cosmogonies of the egyptians and persians, and those of the widely scattered turanians of northern asia and of america. as an extreme illustration of this, and to obviate the necessity of digression at this point of our inquiry, i introduce here some extracts from the popul vuh, or sacred book of the quiché indians of central america, an undoubted product of prehistoric religion in the western continent.[ ] "and the heaven was formed, and all the signs thereof set in their angle and alignment, and its boundaries fixed toward the four winds by the creator and former, and mother and father of life and existence--he by whom all move and breathe, the father and cherisher of the peace of nations and of the civilization of his people--he whose wisdom has projected the excellence of all that is on the earth or in the lakes or in the sea." "behold the first word and the first discourse. there was yet no man nor any animal, * * * nothing was but the firmament. the face of the earth had not yet appeared over the peaceful sea, and all the space of heaven * * * nothing but immobility and silence in the night." "alone also the creator, the former, the dominator, the feathered serpent--those that engender, those that give being--they are upon the water like a growing light. they are enveloped in green and blue, and therefore their name is gucumatz."[ ] "lo now how the heavens exist, how exists also the heart of heaven; such is the name of god. it is thus that he is called. and they spake, they consulted together and meditated; they mingled their words and their opinions." "and the creation [of the earth] was verily after this wise. earth, they said, and on the instant it was formed; like a cloud or a fog was its beginning. then the mountains rose over the water like great fishes; in an instant the mountains and the plains were visible, and the cypress and the pine appeared. then was the gucumatz filled with joy, crying out: blessed be thy coming, o heart of heaven, hurakan, thunderbolt. our work and our labor has accomplished its end." this corresponds to the work of the first four creative days; and next details are given as to the introduction of animals, with which, however, the creator is represented as dissatisfied, because they could not know or invoke the creator. they are therefore condemned to be subject to be devoured one of another. again there is a council in heaven, and the gods determine to make man. but he also is imperfect, for he has speech without intelligence: so he is condemned to be destroyed by water. a new council is held, and a second race of men produced; but this fails in the capacity for religious worship--"they forgot the heart of heaven." these were partly destroyed by fire and partly converted into apes. lastly another council is held, and perfect men created. then follows a remarkable series of stories relating to the early history and migrations of men. it is known that similar creation myths existed among the mexicans and other early civilized nations of america, and in ruder and more grotesque forms even among the semi-barbarous and hunter tribes. their connection with the ancient semitic and turanian revelations of asia is unquestionable. we have thus in the assyrian genesis a relic of early religious belief belonging to a period when such widely separated stocks as the assyrian and american were still one: to a period, therefore, presumably long anterior to that of moses. yet at this very early period the central portions at least of the turanian race had already devised some means of recording their traditions in writing--probably the arrow-head writing, afterwards used by the assyrians, had already been invented. again, at this early period a complex polytheism had already sprung up, and this was connected with cosmological ideas, inasmuch as the primitive abyss, the firmament, the starry heavens, the principle of life, were all subordinate gods; and so were also some of the earliest of the patriarchs of the human race. it is possible, however, that this was among the early chaldeans an exoteric representation for the vulgar, and that the priestly caste may have understood it in a monotheistic sense. in any case, the idea of a supreme creator remains behind the whole. farther, in the early chaldean record we have a more detailed and expanded document than that of the hebrew genesis, probably intended for the popular ear, and to include as much as possible of the current mythology. as an example, i quote the following in relation to the creation of the moon, being apparently a part of the narrative of that creative period corresponding with the fourth day of genesis: "in its mass [that is, of the lower chaos] he made a boiling, the god uru [the moon] he caused to rise out, the night he overshadowed. to fix it also for the light of the night until the shining of the day, that the month might not be broken and in its amount be regular. at the beginning of the month at the rising of the night, his horns are breaking through to shine in the heavens. on the seventh day to a circle he begins to swell, and stretches toward the dawn farther." we now come to the historical connection of all this with abraham and with the hebrew scriptures. the early life of the "father of the faithful" belongs to the time when turanian and semitic elements were mingled in the euphratean valley. himself of the stock of shem, he dwelt in ur of the chaldees, a city in whose ruins, now known by the name of mugheir, chaldean inscriptions have been found of a date anterior to that of the patriarch. in the time of abraham a polytheistic religion already existed in ur, for we are told that his father "served other gods." further, the legends of the creation and the deluge, and the antediluvian age, with the history of nimrod and other postdiluvian heroes, existed in a written form; and, strange though this may seem, there can be little doubt that abraham, before he left ur of the chaldees, had read the same creation legends that have so recently been translated and published by mr. smith. but abraham's relation to these was of a peculiar kind. with a spiritual enlightenment beyond that of his age, he dissented from the turanian animism and polytheism, and maintained that pure and spiritual monotheism which, according to the bible, had been the original faith of the sons of noah. but he was overborne by the tendencies of his time, and probably by the royal and priestly influence then dominant in chaldea, and he went forth from his native land in search of a country where he might have freedom to worship god. it is thus that abraham appears as the earliest reformer, the first of those martyrs of conscience who fear not to differ from the majority, the father and prototype of the faithful of every age, and the earliest apostle of the monotheistic faith which still reigns among all the higher races of men. did abraham take with him in his pilgrimage the records of his people? it is scarcely possible to doubt that he did, and this probably in a written form, but purified from the polytheism and inane imaginations accreted upon them; or perhaps he had access to still older and more primitive records anterior to the rise of the turanian superstitions. in any case we may safely infer that abraham and his tribe carried with them the substance of all that part of genesis which contains the history of the world up to his time, and that this would be a precious heir-loom of his family, until it was edited and incorporated in the pentateuch by his great descendant moses. it seems plain, therefore, that the original prophet or seer to whom the narrative of creation was revealed lived before abraham, but we need not doubt that the latter had the benefit of divine guidance in his noble stand against the idolatry of his age, and in his selection of the documents on which his own theology was based. these considerations help us to understand the persistence of hebrew monotheism in the presence of the idolatries of canaan and egypt, since these were closely allied to the chaldean system against which abraham had protested. they also explain the recognition by abraham, as co-religionists, of such monotheistic personages as melchisedec, king of salem. they further illustrate the nature of the religious basis in his people's beliefs on which moses had to work, and on which he founded his theocratic system. before leaving this part of the subject, i would observe that the view above given; while it explains the agreement between the hebrew genesis and other ancient religious beliefs, is in strict accordance with the teachings of genesis itself. the history given there implies monotheism and knowledge of god as the creator and redeemer, in antediluvian and early postdiluvian times, a decadence from this into a systematic polytheism at a very early date, the protest and dissent of abraham, his call of god to be the upholder of a purer faith, and the maintenance of that faith by his descendants. besides this, any careful reader of genesis and of the book of job, which, whatever its origin, must be more ancient than the mosaic law, will readily discover indications that abraham and the patriarchs were in the possession of documents and traditions of the same purport with those in the early chapters of genesis, and that these were to them their only sacred literature. the reader of the pentateuch must carry this idea with him, if he would have any clear conception of the unity and symmetry of these remarkable books. the mosaic genesis. in the period of years intervening between abraham's departure from ur and the exodus of israel from egypt, no great prophetic mind, like that of the father of the faithful, appeared among the hebrews. but then arose moses, the greatest figure in all antiquity before the advent of christ, and who was destined to give permanence and world-wide prevalence to the faith for which abraham had sacrificed so much. under the leadership of moses, the abrahamidæ, now reduced to the condition of a serf population, emancipated themselves from egyptian bondage, and, after forty years of wandering desert life, settled themselves permanently on the hills and in the valleys of palestine. the voice of the ruling race, indistinctly conveyed to us from that distant antiquity, maintains that the fugitive slaves were an abject and contemptible herd; but the leader of the exodus informs us that, though cruelly trodden down by a haughty despot, they were of noble parentage, the heirs of high hopes and promises. their migration is certainly the most remarkable national movement in the world's history--remarkable, not merely in its events and immediate circumstances, but in its remote political, literary, and moral results. the rulers of egypt, polished, enlightened, and practical men, were yet the devotees of a complicated system of hero and animal worship, like that from which abraham dissented, and derived in great part from the "animism" which caused some of the oldest nations of the world to associate a spiritual indwelling with the natural objects surrounding them; or, if they had ceased to believe in this, they had sunk into a materialistic devotion to the good things of the present world, combined with a superstitious belief in the efficacy of priestly absolution. the slaves, leaving all this behind them, rose in their religious opinions to the pure and spiritual monotheism of the great father of their race; and their leader presented to them a law unequalled up to our time in its union of justice, patriotism, and benevolence, and established among them, for the first time in the world's history, a free constitutional republic. nor is this all; unexampled though such results are elsewhere in the case of serfs suddenly emancipated. the hebrew lawgiver has interwoven his institutions in a great historical composition, including the grand and simple cosmogony of the patriarchs, a detailed account of the affiliation and ethnological relations of the races of men, and a narrative of the fortunes of his own people; intimating not only that they were a favored and chosen race, but that of them was to arise a great deliverer, who would bless all nations with pardon and with peace,[ ] and would solve once for all those great problems of the relations of man to god and the unseen world, which in the time of moses as in our own were the most momentous of all, and gave to questions of origins all their practical value. the lawgiver passed to his rest. his laws and literature, surviving through many vicissitudes, have produced in each succeeding age a new harvest of poetry and history, leavened with their own spirit. in the mean time the learning and the superstition of egypt faded from the eyes of men. the splendid political and military organizations of assyria, babylon, persia, and macedon arose and crumbled into dust. the wonderful literature of greece blazed forth and expired. that of rome, a reflex and copy of the former, had reached its culminating point; and no prophet had arisen among any of these gentile nations to teach them the truth of god. the world, with all its national liberties crushed out, its religion and its philosophy corrupted and enfeebled to the last degree by an endless succession of borrowings and intermixtures, lay prostrate under the iron heel of rome. then appeared among the now obscure remnant of israel, one who announced himself as the prophet like unto moses, promised of old; but a prophet whose mission it was to redeem not israel only, but the whole world, and to make all who will believe, children of faithful abraham. adopting the whole of the sacred literature of the hebrews, and proving his mission by its words, he sent forth a few plain men to write its closing books, and to plant it on the ruins of all the time-honored beliefs of the nations--beliefs supported by a splendid and highly organized priestly system and by despotic power, and gilded by all the highest efforts of poetry and art. the story is a very familiar one; but it is marvellous beyond all others. nor is the modern history of the bible less wonderful. exhumed from the rubbish of the middle ages, it has entered on a new career of victory. it has stimulated the mind of modern europe to all its highest efforts, and has been the charter of its civil and religious liberties. its wondrous revelation of all that man most desires to know, in the past, in the present, and in his future destinies, has gone home to the hearts of men in all ranks of society and in all countries. in many great nations it is the only rule of religious faith. in every civilized country it is the basis of all that is most valuable in religion. where it has been withheld from the people, civilization in its highest aspects has languished, and superstition, priestcraft, and tyranny have held their ground or have perished under the assaults of a heartless and inhuman infidelity. where it has been a household book, education has necessarily flourished, liberty has taken root, and the higher nature of man has been developed to the full. driven from many other countries by tyrannical interference with liberty of thought and discussion, or by a short-sighted ecclesiasticism, it has taken up its special abode with the greatest commercial nations of our time; and, scattered by their agency broadcast over the world, it is read by every nation under heaven in its own tongue, and is slowly but surely preparing the way for wider and greater changes than any that have heretofore resulted from its influence. explain it as we may, the bible is a great literary miracle; and no amount of inspiration or authority that can be claimed for it is more strange or incredible than the actual history of the book. yet no book has ever thrown itself into so decided antagonism with all the great forces of evil in the world. tyranny hates it, because the bible so strongly maintains the individual value and rights of man as man. the spirit of caste dislikes it for the same reason. anarchical license, on the other hand, finds nothing but discouragement in it. priestcraft gnashes its teeth at it, as the very embodiment of private judgment in religion, and because it so scornfully ignores human authority in matters of conscience, and human intervention between man and his maker. skepticism sneers at it, because it requires faith and humility, and threatens ruin to the unbeliever. it launches its thunders against every form of violence or fraud or allurement that seeks to profit by wrong or to pander to the vices of mankind; all these consequently are its foes. on the other hand, by its uncompromising stand with reference to certain scientific and historical facts, it has appeared to oppose the progress of thought and speculation; though, as we shall see, it has been unfairly accused in this last respect. with its antagonism to the evil that is in the world we have at present nothing to do, except to caution the student of this venerable literature against the prejudices which interested and unscrupulous foes seek to cultivate. its doctrine of the origin of man and of the world, and the relation of this to modern scientific and historical results, is that which now claims our attention; and this more especially in the relation which the mosaic cosmogony, considered as an early revelation from god, may be found to bear to the facts which modern scientific research has elicited from the universe itself. the aspects in which apparent conflicts present themselves are threefold. at one time it was not unusual to impugn the historical accuracy of the pentateuch on the evidence of the greek historians; and on many points scarcely any corroborative evidence could be cited in favor of the hebrew writers. in our own time much of this difficulty has been removed, and an immense amount of learned research has been reduced to waste paper, by the circumstance that the monuments of egypt and assyria have risen up to bear testimony in favor of the bible; and scarcely any sane man now doubts the value of the hebrew history. the battle-ground has in consequence been shifted farther back, to points concerning the affiliation of the races of men, the absolute antiquity of man's residence on the earth, and the condition of prehistoric men; questions on which we can scarcely expect to find, at least for a long time, any decisive monumental or scientific evidence. secondly, the bible commits itself to certain cosmological doctrines and statements respecting the system of nature, and details of that system, more or less approaching to the domain which geology occupies in its investigations of the past history of the earth; and at every stage in the progress of modern science, independently of the mischief done by smatterers and skeptics, earnest bigotry on the one hand, and earnest scientific enthusiasm on the other, have come into collision. one stumbling-block after another has, it is true, been removed by mutual concession and farther enlightenment, and by the removal of false traditional interpretations of the sacred records, as well as by farther discoveries in relation to nature. but the field of conflict has thereby apparently only changed; and we still have some christians in consequence regarding the revelations of natural science with suspicion, and some scientific men cherishing a sullen resentment against what they regard as an intolerant intermeddling of theology with the domain of legitimate investigation. lastly, the great growth of physical science, and the tendency to take partial views of the universe as if it were comprehended in mere matter and force, with similarly partial views of the doctrines of continuity and the conservation of forces, along with the growth of a belief in spontaneous evolution as a philosophical dogma, have placed many scientific minds in a position which makes them treat the whole question of the origin and destiny of man and of the world with absolute indifference. there can nevertheless be no question that the whole subject is at the present moment in a more satisfactory state than ever previously; that much has been done for the solution of difficulties; that many theologians admit the great service which in many cases science has rendered to the interpretation of the bible, and that most naturalists feel themselves free from undue trammels. above all, there is a very general disposition to admit the distinctness and independence of the fields of revelation and natural science, the possibility of their arriving at some of the same truths, though in very different ways, and the folly of expecting them fully and manifestly to agree in the present state of our information. the literature of this kind of natural history has also become very extensive, and there are few persons who do not at least know that there are methods of reconciling the cosmogony of moses with that obtained from the study of nature. for this very reason the time is favorable for an unprejudiced discussion of the questions involved; and for presenting on the one hand to naturalists a summary of what the bible does actually teach respecting the early history of the earth and man, and on the other to those whose studies lie in the book which they regard as the word of god, rather than in the material universe which they regard as his work, a view of the points in which the teaching of the bible comes into contact with natural science at its present stage of progress. these are the ends which i propose to myself in the following pages, and which i shall endeavor to pursue in a spirit of fair and truthful investigation; having regard on the one hand to the claims and influence of the venerable book of god, and on the other to the rights and legitimate results of modern scientific inquiry. the plan which i have proposed to myself in this part of my subject is to take the statements of genesis in their order, and consider what they import, and how they appear to harmonize with what we know from other sources. this will occupy some space, but it will save time in dealing with the remaining parts of the subject. before entering upon it, i propose to devote one chapter to the answers to three questions which concern the whole doctrine of revealed religion, whether semitic, turanian, or aryan. these are: ( ) _why_ the origin of things should be revealed; ( ) _how_ it could be revealed; and ( ) _what_ would require to be revealed in order to form the basis of a rational theism. chapter ii. objects and nature of a revelation of origins. "there are two books from which i collect my divinity; besides that written one of god, another of his servant nature--that universal and public manuscript that lies expansed unto the eyes of all."--sir t. browne. there are some questions, simple enough in themselves, respecting the general character and object of the references to nature and creation in the scriptures, which yet are so variously and vaguely answered that they deserve some consideration before entering on the detailed study of the subject. these are: ( ) the object of the introduction of such subjects into the hebrew sacred books--the _why_ of the revelation of origins. ( ) the origin, character, and structure of the narrative of creation and other cosmological statements in those books--the _how_ of the revelation. ( ) the character of the biblical cosmogony, and general views of nature to which it leads--the _what_ of the revelation. ( ) _the object of the introduction of a cosmogony in the bible._--man, even in his rudest and most uncivilized state, does not limit his mental vision to his daily wants. he desires to live not merely in the present, but in the future also and the past. this is a psychological peculiarity which, as much as any other, marks his separation from the lower animals, and which in his utmost degradation he never wholly loses. whatever may be fancied as to imagined prehistoric nations, it is certain that no people now existing, or historically known to us, is so rude as to be destitute of some hopes or fears in reference to the future, some traditions as to the distant past. every religious system that has had any influence over the human mind has included such ideas. nor are we to regard this as an accident. it depends on fixed principles in our constitution, which crave as their proper aliment such information; and if it can not be obtained, the mind, rather than want it, invents for itself. we might infer from this very circumstance that a true religion, emanating from the creator, would supply this craving; and might content ourselves with affirming that, on this ground alone, it behooved revelation to have a cosmogony. but the religion of the hebrews especially required to be explicit as to the origin of the earth and all things therein. its peculiar dogma is that of one only god, the creator, requiring the sole homage of his creatures. the heathen for the most part acknowledged in some form a supreme god, but they also gave divine honors to subordinate gods, to deceased ancestors and heroes, and to natural phenomena, in such a manner as practically to obscure their ideas of the creator, or altogether to set aside his worship. the influence of such idolatry was the chief antagonism which the hebrew monotheism had to encounter; and we learn from the history of the nation how often the worshippers of jehovah were led astray by its allurements. to guard against this danger, it was absolutely necessary that no place should be left for the introduction of polytheism, by placing the whole work of creation and providence under the sole jurisdiction of the one god. moses consequently takes strong ground on these points. he first insists on the creation of all things by the fiat of the supreme. next he specifies the elaboration and arrangement of all the powers of inanimate nature, and the introduction of every form of organic existence, as the work of the same first cause. lastly, he insists on the creation of a primal human pair, and on the descent from them of all the branches of the human race, including of course those ancestors and magnates who up to his time had been honored with apotheosis; and on the same principle he explains the golden age of eden, the fall, the cherubic emblems, the deluge, and other facts in human history interwoven by the heathen with their idolatries. he thus grasps the whole material of ancient idolatry, reduces it within the compass of monotheism, and shows its relation to the one true primitive religion, which was that not only of the hebrews, but of right that of the whole world, whose prevailing polytheism consisted in perversions of its truth or unity. for such reasons the early chapters of genesis are so far from being of the character of digressions from the scope and intention of the book, that they form a substratum of doctrine absolutely essential to the hebrew faith, and equally so to its development in christianity. the references to nature in the bible, however, and especially in its poetical books, far exceed the absolute requirements of the reasons above stated; and this leads to another and very interesting view, namely, the tendency of monotheism to the development of truthful and exalted ideas of nature. the hebrew theology allowed no attempt at visible representations of the creator or of his works for purposes of worship. it thus to a great extent prevented that connection of imitative art with religion which flourished in heathen antiquity, and has been introduced into certain forms of christianity. but it cultivated the higher arts of poetry and song, and taught them to draw their inspiration from nature as the only visible revelation of deity. hence the growth of a healthy "physico-theology," excluding all idolatry of natural phenomena, and all superstitious dread of them as independent powers, but inviting to their examination as manifestations of god, and leading to conceptions of the unity of plan in the cosmos, of which polytheism, even in its highest literary efforts, was quite incapable. in the same manner the bible has always proved itself an active stimulant of natural science, connecting such studies, as it does, with our higher religious sentiments; while polytheism and materialism have acted as repressive influences, the one because it obscures the unity of nature, the other because, in robbing it of its presiding divinity, it gives a cold and repulsive, corpse-like aspect, chilling to the imagination, and incapable of attracting the general mind. naturalists should not forget their obligations to the bible in this respect, and should on this very ground prefer its teachings to those of modern pantheism and positivism, and still more to those of mere priestly authority. very few minds are content with simple materialism, and those who must have a god, if they do not recognize the jehovah of the hebrew scriptures as the creator and supreme ruler of the universe, are too likely to seek for him in the dimness of human authority and tradition, or of pantheistic philosophy; both of them more akin to ancient heathenism than to modern civilization, and in their ultimate tendencies, if not in their immediate consequences, quite as hostile to progress in science as to evangelical christianity. every student of human nature is aware of the influence in favor of the appreciation of natural beauty and sublimity which the bible impresses on those who are deeply imbued with its teaching; even where that same teaching has induced what may be regarded as a puritanical dislike of imitative art, at least in its religious aspects. on the other hand, naturalists can not refuse to acknowledge the surpassing majesty of the views of nature presented in the bible. no one has expressed this better than humboldt: "it is characteristic of the poetry of the hebrews that, as a reflex of monotheism, it always embraces the universe in its unity, comprising both terrestrial life and the luminous realms of space; it dwells but rarely on the individuality of phenomena, preferring the contemplation of great masses. the hebrew poet does not depict nature as a self-dependent object, glorious in its individual beauty, but always as in relation or subjection to a higher spiritual power. nature is to him a work of creation and order--the living expression of the omnipresence of the divinity in the visible world." in reference to the th psalm, which may be viewed as a poetical version of the narrative of creation in genesis, the same great writer remarks: "we are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass, the whole universe--the heavens and the earth--sketched with a few bold touches. the calm and toilsome life of man, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, when his daily work is done, is here contrasted with the moving life of the elements of nature. this contrast and generalization in the conception of the mutual action of natural phenomena, and the retrospection of an omnipresent invisible power, which can renew the earth or crumble it to dust, constitute a solemn and exalted rather than a gentle form of poetic creation."[ ] if we admit the source of inspiration claimed by the hebrew poets, we shall not be surprised that they should thus write of nature. we shall only lament that so many pious and learned interpreters of scripture have been too little acquainted with nature to appreciate the natural history of the book of god, or adequately to illustrate it to those who depend on their teaching; and that so many naturalists have contented themselves with wondering at the large general views of the hebrew poets, without considering that they are based on a revelation of the nature and order of the creative work which supplied to the hebrew mind the place of those geological wonders which have astonished and enlarged the minds of modern nations. a modern divine, himself well read in nature, truly says: "if men of piety were also men of science, and if men of science were to read the scriptures, there would be more faith on the earth and also more philosophy."[ ] in a similar strain the patient botanist of the marine algæ thus pleads for the joint claims of the bible and nature: "unfortunately it happens that in the educational course prescribed to our divines natural history has no place, for which reason many are ignorant of the important bearings which the book of nature has on the book of revelation. they do not consider, apparently, that both are from god--both are his faithful witnesses to mankind. and if this be so, is it reasonable to suppose that either, without the other, can be fully understood? it is only necessary to glance at the absurd commentaries in reference to natural objects which are to be found in too many annotations of the holy scriptures to be convinced of the benefit which the clergy would themselves derive from a more extended study of the works of creation. and to missionaries especially, a minute familiarity with natural objects must be a powerful assistance in awakening the attention of the savage, who, after his manner, is a close observer, and likely to detect a fallacy in his teacher, should the latter attempt a practical illustration of his discourse without sufficient knowledge. these are not days in which persons who ought to be our guides in matters of doctrine can afford to be behind the rest of the world in knowledge; nor can they safely sneer at the knowledge which puffeth up, until, like the apostle, they have sounded its depths and proved its shallowness."[ ] it is truly much to be desired that divines and commentators, instead of trying to distort the representations of nature in the bible into the supposed requirements of a barbarous age, or of setting aside modern discoveries as if they could have no connection with scripture truth, would study natural objects and laws sufficiently to bring themselves in this respect to the level of the hebrew writers. such knowledge would be cheaply purchased even by the sacrifice of a part of their verbal and literary training. it is well that this point is now attracting the attention of the christian world, and it is but just to admit that some of our more eminent religious writers have produced noble examples of accurate illustrations of scripture derived from nature. in any case, the bible itself can not be charged with any neglect of the claims of nature or with any narrow tendency to place material and spiritual things in antagonism to one another. another reason why a revelation from god must deal with the origins of things, is that such revelation is, like creation, in its own nature progressive. it is given little by little to successive generations of men, and must proceed from the first rudiments of religious truth onward to its higher developments with the growth of humanity from age to age. hence the teachings in the early chapters of genesis are of the simplest and most child-like character, and the first of these early teachings is necessarily that of god the creator, just as our elementary catechisms for children have been wont to begin with the question, "who made you?" in this way man is led in the most direct and simple way to the feet of the universal father, and a foundation is laid whereon further religious teaching adapted to the growth of the individual mind and to the growing complications of human society can be built. but again, alike in the earliest and simplest as in the more advanced states of the human mind, if spiritual things are to be taught, it must be through the medium of material things. we have no language to express in any direct way spiritual truths; they must be given to us in terms of the natural. we have not yet learned the tongue of the immortals, and probably can not learn it in this world. the word "spirit" itself, which we borrow from the latin, the greek _pneuma_, the hebrew _ruah_, primarily all agree in signifying breath or wind. we have to speak of our own breath when we mean our spiritual nature, of god's breath when we mean his spiritual nature, and so of all other things not obvious to our senses. there is constant danger in this that the material shall be taken for the spiritual of which it is the symbol, the figure for the reality, the creature for the creator, and this danger is best counteracted by a decided testimony in relation to the origin of all material things in the will of the spiritual and eternal god. thus the bible writers are enabled to use a free and bold manner of speech respecting divine things. their expressions at one time appear pantheistic and at another anthropomorphic; they see god in every thing, and use with the utmost freedom natural emblems to indicate his perfections and procedure, and our relations to him. in this way there is life and action in their teaching, and it is removed as far as possible from a dry, abstract theology, while equally remote from any tinge of idolatry or superstition. it may, however, be objected that by the introduction of a cosmogony the bible exposes itself to a conflict with science, and that thereby injury results both to science and to religion. this is a grave charge, and one that has evidently had much weight with many minds, since it has been the subject of entire treatises designed to illustrate the history of the conflict or to explain its nature. the revelation of god's will to man for his moral guidance, if necessary at all, was necessary before the rise of natural science. men could not do without the knowledge of the unity of nature and of the unity of god, until these great truths could be worked out by scientific induction. perhaps they might never have been so worked out. therefore a revealed book of origins has a right to precedence in this matter. nor need it in any way come into conflict with the science subsequently to grow up. science does not deal so much with the origin of nature as with its method and laws, and all that is necessary on the part of a revelation, to avoid conflict with it, is to confine itself to statements of phenomena and to avoid hypotheses. this is eminently the course of the bible. in its cosmogony it shuns all embellishments and details, and contents itself with the fact of creation and a slight sketch of its order; and in their subsequent references to nature the sacred writers are strictly phenomenal in their statements, and refer every thing directly to the will of god, without any theory as to secondary causes and relations. they are thus decided and positive on the points with reference to which it behooves revelation to testify, and absolutely non-committal on the points which belong to the exclusive domain of science. what, then, are we to say of the imaginary "conflict of science with religion," of which so much has been made? simply that it results largely from misapprehension and from misuse of terms. true religion, which consists in practical love to god and to our fellow-men, can have no conflict with science. true science is its fast ally. the bible, considered as a revelation of spiritual truth to man for his salvation and enlightenment, can have no conflict with science. it promotes the study of nature, rendering it honorable by giving it the dignity of an inquiry into the ways of god, and rendering it safe by separating it from all ideas of magic and necromancy. it gives a theological basis to the ideas of the unity of nature and of natural law. the conflict of science, when historically analyzed, is found to have been fourfold--with the church, with theology, with superstition, and with false or imperfect science and philosophy. religious men may have identified themselves from time to time with these opponents, but that is all; and much more frequently the opposition has been by bad men more or less professing religious objects. organizations calling themselves "the church," and whose warrant from the bible is often of the slenderest, have denounced and opposed and persecuted new scientific truths; but they have just as often denounced the bible itself, and religious doctrines founded on it. theology claims to be itself one of the sciences, and as such it is necessarily imperfect and progressive, and may at any time be more or less in conflict with other sciences; but theology is not religion, and may often have very little in common either with true religion or the bible. when discussions arise between theology and other sciences, it is only a pity that either side should indulge in what has been called the _odium theologicum_, but which is unfortunately not confined to divines. superstition, considered as the unreasonable fear of natural agencies, is a passive rather than an active opponent of science. but revelation, which affirms unity, law, and a father's hand in nature, is the deadly foe of superstition, and no people who have been readers of the bible and imbued with its spirit have ever been found ready to molest or persecute science. work of this sort has been done only by the ignorant, superstitious, and priest-ridden votaries of systems which withhold the bible from the people, and detest it as much as they dislike science. perhaps the most troublesome opposition to science, or rather to the progress of science, has sprung from the tenacity with which men hold to old ideas. these, which may have been at one time the best science attainable, root themselves in popular literature, and even in learned bodies and in educational books and institutions. they become identified with men's conceptions both of nature and religion, and modify their interpretations of the bible itself. it thus becomes a most difficult matter to wrench them from men's minds, and their advocates are too apt to invoke in their defense political, social, and ecclesiastical powers, and to seek to support them by the authority of revelation, when this may perhaps be quite as favorable to the newer views opposed to them. all these conflicts are, however, necessary incidents in human progress, which comes only by conflict; and there is reason to believe that they would be as severe in the absence of revealed religion as in its presence, were it not that the absence of revelation seems often to produce a fixity and stagnation of thought unfavorable to any new views, and consequently to some extent to any intellectual conflict. it has been, indeed, to the disinterment of the bible in the reformation of the fifteenth century that the world owes, more than to any other cause, the immense growth of modern science, and the freedom of discussion which now prevails. the protestant idea of individual judgment in matters of religion is thoroughly biblical, for the bible everywhere appeals to men in this way; and this idea is the strongest guarantee that the world possesses for intellectual liberty in other matters. we conclude, therefore, on all these grounds, that it was necessary that a revelation from god should take strong and positive ground on the question of the origin of the universe. * * * * * ( ) _the origin, method, and structure of the scriptural cosmogony._--a respectable physicist, but somewhat shallow naturalist and theologian, whose works at one time attracted much attention, has said of the first chapter of genesis: "it can not be history--it may be poetry." its claims to be history we shall investigate under another head, but it is pertinent to our present inquiry to ask whether it can be poetry. that its substance or matter is poetical no one who has read it once can believe; but it can not be denied that in its form it approaches somewhat to that kind of thought-rhythm or parallelism which gives so peculiar a character to hebrew poetry. we learn from many scripture passages, especially in the proverbs, that this poetical parallelism need not necessarily be connected with poetical thought; that in truth it might be used, as rhyme is sometimes with us, to aid the memory. the oldest acknowledged verse in scripture is a case in point. lamech, who lived before the flood, appears to have slain a man in self-defense, or at least in an encounter in which he himself was wounded; and he attempts to define the nature of the crime in the following words: "adah and zillah, hear my voice; ye wives of lamech, hearken to my speech:-- i have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt; if cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly lamech seventy and seven fold." all this is prosaic enough in matter, but the form into which it is thrown gives it a certain dignity, and impresses it on the memory; which last object was probably what the author of this sole fragment of antediluvian literature had in view. he succeeded too--for the sentiment was handed down, probably orally; and moses incorporates it in his narration, perhaps on account of its interest as the first record of the distinction between willful murder like that of cain, and justifiable homicide. it is interesting also to observe the same parallelism of style, no doubt with the same objects, in many old egyptian monumental inscriptions, which, however grandiloquent, are scarcely poetical.[ ] it also appears in that ancient record of creation and the deluge recently rescued from the clay tablets of nineveh. now in the first chapter of genesis, and the first three verses of chapter second, being the formal general narrative of creation, on which, as we shall see, every other statement on the subject in the bible is based, we have this peculiar parallelism of style. if we ask why, the answer must, i think, be--to give dignity and symmetry to what would otherwise be a dry abstract, and still more to aid memory. this last consideration, perhaps indicating that this chapter, like the apology of lamech, had been handed down orally for a long period, connects itself with the theory of the pre-abrahamic origin of these documents to which reference has already been made. the form of the narrative, however, in no way impairs its precision or accuracy of statement. on this eichhorn well says: "there lies at the foundation of the first chapter a carefully designed plan, all whose parts are carried out with much art, whereby its appropriate place is assigned to every idea;" and we may add, whereby every idea is expressed in the simplest and fewest words, yet with marvellous accuracy, amounting to an almost scientific precision of diction, for which both the form into which it is thrown and the homogeneous and simple character of the hebrew language are very well adapted. much of this indeed remains in the english version, though our language is less perfectly suited than the hebrew for the concise announcement of general truths of this description. our translators have, however, deviated greatly from the true sense of many important words, especially where they have taken the septuagint translation for their guide, as in the words "firmament," "whales," "creeping things," etc. these errors will be noticed in subsequent pages. in the mean time i may merely add that the labors of the ablest biblical critics give us every reason to conclude that the received text of genesis preserves, almost without an iota of change, the beautiful simplicity of its first chapter; and that we now have it in a more perfect state than that in which it was presented to the translators of most of the early versions. it must also be admitted that the object in view was best served by that direct reference to the creative fiat, and ignoring of all secondary causes, which are conspicuous in this narrative. this is indeed the general tone of the bible in speaking of natural phenomena; and this mode of proceeding is in perfect harmony with its claims to divine authority. had not this course been chosen, no other could have been adopted, in strict consistency with truth, short of a full revelation of the whole system of nature, in the details of all its laws and processes. this we now know would have been impossible, and, if possible, useless or even mischievous. regarded from this point of view--the plenary inspiration of the book--the scriptural references to creation profess to furnish a very general outline, for theological purposes, of the principal features of a vast region unexplored when they were written, and into which human research has yet penetrated along only a few lines. natural science, in following out these lines of observation, has reached some of the objects delineated in the scriptural sketch; of others it has obtained distant glimpses; many are probably unknown, and we can appreciate the true value and dimensions relatively to the whole of very few. so vast indeed are the subjects of the bold sketch of the hebrew prophet, that natural science can not pretend as yet so to fill in the outline as quite to measure the accuracy of its proportions. yet the lines, though few, are so boldly drawn, and with so much apparent unity and symmetry, that we almost involuntarily admit that they are accurate and complete. this may appear to be underrating the actual progress of science relatively to this great foreshadowing outline; but i know that those most deeply versed in the knowledge of nature will be the least disposed to quarrel with it, whatever skepticism they may entertain as to the greater general completeness of the inspired record. another point which deserves a passing notice here is the theory of dr. kurtz and others, that the mosaic narrative represents a vision of creation, analogous to those prophetic visions which appear in the later books of scripture. this is beyond all question the most simple and probable solution of the origin of the document, when viewed as inspired, but we shall have to recur to it on a future page. but with respect to the precise origin of this cosmogony, the question now arises, is it really in substance a revelation from god to man? we must not disguise from ourselves that this deliberate statement of an order of creation in so far challenges comparison with the results of science, and this in a very different way from that which applies to the incidental references to nature in the bible. further, inasmuch as it relates to events which transpired before the creation of man, it is of the nature of prophecy rather than of history. it is, in short, either an inspired revelation of the divine procedure in creation, or it is a product of human imagination or research, or a deliberate fraud. to no part of the bible do these alternatives more strictly apply than to its first chapter. this "can not be history" in the strict acceptation of the term. it relates to events which no human eye witnessed, respecting which no human testimony could give any information. it represents the creation of man as the last of a long series of events, of which it professes to inform us. the knowledge of these events can not have been a matter of human experience. if at all entitled to confidence, the narrative must, therefore, be received as an inspired document, not handed down by any doubtful tradition, but existing as originally transfused into human language from the mind of the author of nature himself. this view is in no way affected by the hypothesis, already mentioned, that the first chapters of genesis were compiled by moses from more ancient documents. this merely throws back the revelation to a higher antiquity, and requires us to suppose the agency of two inspired men instead of one. it would be out of place here to enter into any argument for the inspiration of scripture, or to attempt to define the nature of that inspiration. i merely wish to impress on the mind of the reader that without the admission of its reality, or at least its possibility, our present inquiry becomes merely a matter of curious antiquarian research. we must also on this ground distinguish between the claims of the scriptures and those of tradition or secular history, when they refer to the same facts. the traditions and cosmogonies of some ancient nations have many features in common with the bible narrative; and, on the supposition that moses compiled from older documents, they may be portions of this more ancient sacred truth, but clothed in the varied garments of the fanciful mythological creeds which have sprung up in later and more degenerate times. such fragments may safely be received as secondary aids to the understanding of the authentic record, but it would be folly to seek in them for the whole truth. they are but the scattered masses of ore, by tracing which we may sometimes open up new and rich portions of the vein of primitive lore from which they have been derived. it is, however, quite necessary here formally to inquire if there are any hypotheses short of that of plenary inspiration which may allow us to attach any value whatever to this most ancient document. i know but two views of this kind that are worthy of any attention. . the mosaic account of creation may be a result of ancient scientific inquiries, analogous to those of modern geology. . it may be an allegorical or poetical mythus, not intended to be historical, but either devised for some extraneous purpose, or consisting of the conjectures of some gifted intellect. these alternatives we may shortly consider, though the materials for their full discussion can be furnished only by facts to be subsequently stated. i am not aware that the first of these views has been maintained by any modern writer. some eminent scientific men are, however, disposed to adopt such an explanation of the ancient hindoo hymns, as well as of the cosmogony of pythagoras, which bears evidence of this origin; and it may be an easy step to infer that the hebrew cosmogony was derived from some similar source. not many years ago such a supposition would have been regarded as almost insane. then the science of antiquity was only another name for the philosophy of greece and rome. but in recent times we have seen egypt disclose the ruins of a mighty civilization, more grand and massive though less elegant than that of greece, and which had reached its acme ere greece had received its alphabet--a civilization which, according to the scripture history, is derived from that of the primeval cushite empire, which extended from the plains of shinar over all southeastern asia, but was crushed at its centre before the dawn of secular history. we have now little reason to doubt that moses, when he studied the learning of egypt, held converse with men who saw more clearly and deeply into nature's mysteries than did thales or pythagoras, or even aristotle.[ ] still later the remnants of old nineveh have been exhumed from their long sepulture, and antiquaries have been astonished by the discovery that knowledge and arts, supposed to belong exclusively to far more recent times, were in the days of the early hebrew kings, and probably very long previously, firmly established on the banks of the tigris. such discoveries, when compared with hints furnished by the scriptures, tend greatly to exalt our ideas of the state of civilization at the time when they were written; and we shall perceive, in the course of our inquiry, many additional reasons for believing that the ancient israelites were much farther advanced in natural science than is commonly supposed. we have, however, no positive proof of such a theory, and it is subject to many grave objections. the narrative itself makes no pretension to a scientific origin, it quotes no authority, and it is connected with no philosophical speculations or deductions. it bears no internal evidence of having been the result of inductive inquiry, but appeals at once to faith in the truth of the great ultimate doctrine of absolute creation, and then proceeds to detail the steps of the process, in the manner of history as recorded by a witness, and not in the manner of science tracing back effects to their causes. farther, it refers to conditions of our planet respecting which science has even now attained to no conclusions supported by evidence, and is not in a position to make dogmatic assertions. the tone of all the ancient cosmogonies has in these respects a resemblance to that of the scriptures, and bears testimony to a general impression pervading the mind of antiquity that there was a divine and authoritative testimony to the facts of creation, distinct from history, philosophical speculation, or induction. one of the boldest and simplest methods of this kind is that followed by the authors of the "types of mankind," in the attempt to assign a purely human origin to genesis st. these writers admit the greater antiquity of the first chapter, though assigning the whole of the book to a comparatively modern date. they say: "the 'document jehovah'[ ] does not especially concern our present subject; and it is incomparable with the grander conception of the more ancient and unknown writer of genesis st. with extreme felicity of diction and conciseness of plan, the latter has defined the most philosophical views of antiquity upon _cosmogony_; in fact so well that it has required the palæontological discoveries of the nineteenth century--at least years after his death--to overthrow his _septenary_ arrangement of 'creation;' which, after all, would still be correct enough in great principles, were it not for one individual oversight and one unlucky blunder; not exposed, however, until long after his era, by post-copernican astronomy. the oversight is where he wrote (gen. i. - ), 'let there be _raquiê_,' _i. e._, a _firmament_; which proves that his notions of 'sky' (solid like the concavity of a copper basin, with _stars_ set as brilliants in the metal) were the same as those of adjacent people of his time--indeed, of all men before the publication of newton's 'principia' and of laplace's 'mécanique céleste.' the blunder is where he conceives that _aur_, 'light,' and _iom_, 'day' (gen. i. - ), could have been physically possible _three whole days_ before the 'two great luminaries,' _sun_ and _moon_, were created. these venial errors deducted, his majestic song beautifully illustrates the simple process of ratiocination through which--often without the slightest historical proof of intercourse--different 'types of mankind,' at distinct epochas, and in countries widely apart, had arrived, naturally, at cosmogonic conclusions similar to the doctrines of that hebraical school of which his harmonic and melodious numbers remain a magnificent memento. "that process seems to have been the following: the ancients knew, as we do, that man _is_ upon the earth; and they were persuaded, as we are, that his appearance was preceded by unfathomable depths of time. unable (as we are still) to measure periods antecedent to man by any _chronological_ standard, the ancients rationally reached the tabulation of some events anterior to man through _induction_--a method not original with lord bacon, because known to st. paul; 'for his unseen things from the creation of the world, his power and godhead, are clearly seen, _being understood by the things that are made_' (rom. i., ). man, they felt, could not have lived upon earth without _animal_ food; ergo, 'cattle' preceded him, together with birds, reptiles, fishes, etc. nothing living, they knew, could have existed without light and heat; ergo, the _solar system_ antedated animal life, no less than the _vegetation_ indispensable for animal support. but terrestrial plants can not grow without _earth_; ergo, that dry land had to be separated from pre-existent 'waters.' their geological speculations inclining rather to the _neptunian_ than to the _plutonian_ theory--for werner ever preceded hutton--the ancients found it difficult to 'divide the waters from the waters' without interposing a metallic substance that 'divided the waters which were _under_ the firmament from the waters that were _above_ the firmament;' so they inferred, logically, that a _firmament_ must have been actually created for this object. [_e.g._, 'the _windows_ of the skies' (gen. vii., ); 'the waters _above_ the skies' (psa. cxlviii., ).] before the 'waters' (and here is the peculiar error of the genesiacal bard) some of the ancients claimed the pre-existence of _light_ (a view adopted by the writer of genesis st); while others asserted that 'chaos' prevailed. both schools united, however, in the conviction that darkness--_erebus_--anteceded all other _created things_. what, said these ancients, can have existed before the 'darkness?' _ens entium_, the creator, was the humbled reply. _elohim_ is the hebrew vocal expression of that climax; to define whose attributes, save through the phenomena of creation, is an attempt we leave to others more presumptuous than ourselves." the problem here set to the "unknown" author of genesis is a hard one--given the one fact that "man is" to find in detail how the world was formed in a series of preceding ages of vast duration. is it possible that such a problem could have been so worked out as to have endured the test of three thousand years, and the scrutiny of modern science? but there is an "oversight" in one detail, and a "blunder" in another. by reference farther on, the reader will find under the chapters on "light" and the "atmosphere" that the oversight and blunder are those not of the writer of genesis, but of the learned american ethnologists in the nineteenth century; a circumstance which cuts in two ways in defense of the ancient author so unhappily unknown to his modern critics. the second of the alternatives above referred to, the mythical hypothesis, has been advanced and ably supported, especially on the continent of europe, and by such english writers as are disposed to apply the methods of modern rationalistic criticism to the bible. in one of its least objectionable forms it is thus stated by professor powell: "the narrative, then, of six periods of creation, followed by a seventh similar period of rest and blessing, was clearly designed by adaptation to their conceptions to enforce upon the israelites the institution of the sabbath; and in whatever way its details may be interpreted, it can not be regarded as an _historical_ statement of the _primeval_ institution of a sabbath; a supposition which is indeed on other grounds sufficiently improbable, though often adopted. * * * if, then, we would avoid the alternative of being compelled to admit what must amount to impugning the truth of those portions at least of the old testament, we surely are bound to give fair consideration to the only suggestion which can set us entirely free from all the difficulties arising from the geological contradiction which does and must exist against any conceivable interpretation which retains the assertion of the historical character of the details of the narrative, as referring to the distinct transactions of each of the seven periods. * * * the one great fact couched in the general assertion that all things were created by the sole power of one supreme being is the whole of the representation to which an historical character can be assigned. as to the particular form in which the descriptive narrative is conveyed, we merely affirm that it can not be history--it may be poetry."[ ] the general ground on which this view is entertained is the supposed irreconcilable contradiction between the literal interpretation of the mosaic record and the facts of geology. the real amount of this difficulty we are not, in the present stage of our inquiry, prepared to estimate. we can, however, readily understand that the hypothesis depends on the supposition that the narrative of creation is posterior in date to the mosaic ritual, and that this plain and circumstantial series of statements is a fable designed to support the sabbatical institution, instead of the rite being, as represented in the bible itself, a commemoration of the previously recorded fact. this is, fortunately, a gratuitous assumption, contrary to the probable date of the documents, as deduced from internal evidence and from comparison with the assyrian and other cosmogonies; and it also completely ignores the other manifest uses mentioned under our first head. if proved, it would give to the whole the character of a pious fraud, and would obviously render any comparison with the geological history of the earth altogether unnecessary. while, therefore, it must be freely admitted that the mosaic narrative can not be history, in so far at least as history is a product of human experience, we can not admit that it is a poetical mythus, or, in other words, that it is destitute of substantial truth, unless proved by good evidence to be so; and, when this is proved, we must also admit that it is quite undeserving of the credit which it claims as a revelation from god. since, therefore, the events recorded in the first chapter of genesis were not witnessed by man; since there is no reason to believe that they were discovered by scientific inquiry; and since, if true, they can not be a poetical myth, we must, in the mean time, return to our former supposition that the mosaic cosmogony is a direct revelation from the creator. in this respect, the position of this part of the earth's biblical history resembles that of prophecy. writers _may_ accurately relate contemporary events, or those which belong to the human period, without inspiration; but the moment that they profess accurately to foretell the history of the future, or to inform us of events which preceded the human period, we must either believe them to be inspired, or reject them as impostors or fanatics. many attempts have been made to find intermediate standing-ground, but it is so precarious that the nicest of our modern critical balancers have been unable to maintain themselves upon it. having thus determined that the mosaic cosmogony, in its grand general features, must either be inspired or worthless, we have further to inquire to what extent it is necessary to suppose that the particular details and mode of expression of the narrative, and the subsequent allusions to nature in the bible, must be regarded as entitled to this position. we may conceive them to have been left to the discretion of the writers; and, in that case, they will merely represent the knowledge of nature actually existing at the time. on the other hand, their accuracy may have been secured by the divine afflatus. few modern writers have been disposed to insist on the latter alternative, and have rather assumed that these references and details are accommodated to the state of knowledge at the time. i must observe here, however, that a careful consideration of the facts gives to a naturalist a much higher estimate of the real value of the observations of nature embodied in the scriptures than that which divines have ordinarily entertained; and, consequently, that if we suppose them of human origin, we must be prepared to modify the views generally entertained of early oriental simplicity and ignorance. the truth is, that a large proportion of the difficulties in scriptural natural history appear to have arisen from want of such accommodation to the low state of the knowledge of nature among translators and expositors; and this is precisely what we should expect in a veritable revelation. its moral and religious doctrines were slowly developed, each new light illuminating previous obscurities. its human history comes out as evidence of its truth, when compared with monumental inscriptions; and why should not the all-wise have constructed as skilfully its teachings respecting his own works? there can be no doubt whatever that the scripture writers intended to address themselves to the common mind, which now as then requires simple and popular teaching, but they were under obligation to give truthful statements; and we need not hesitate to say, with dr. chalmers, in reference to a book making such claims as those of the bible: "there is no argument, saving that grounded on the usages of popular language, which would tempt us to meddle with the literalities of that ancient and, as appears to us, authoritative document, any farther than may be required by those conventionalities of speech which spring from 'optical' impressions of nature."[ ] attempt as we may to disguise it, any other view is totally unworthy of the great ruler of the universe, especially in a document characterized as emphatically _the truth_, and in a moral revelation, in which statements respecting natural objects need not be inserted, unless they could be rendered at once truthful and illustrative of the higher objects of the revelation. the statement often so flippantly made that the bible was not intended to teach natural history has no application here. _spiritual_ truths are no doubt shadowed forth in the bible by material emblems, often but rudely resembling them, because the nature of human thought and language render this necessary, not only to the unlearned, but in some degree to all; but this principle of adaptation can not be applied to plain material facts. yet a confusion of these two very distinct cases appears to prevail almost unaccountably in the minds of many expositors. they tell us that the scriptures ascribe bodily members to the immaterial god, and typify his spiritual procedure by outward emblems; and this they think analogous to such doctrines as a solid firmament, a plane earth, and others of a like nature, which they ascribe to the sacred writers. we shall find that the writers of the scriptures had themselves much clearer views, and that, even in poetical language, they take no such liberties with truth. as an illustration of the extent to which this doctrine of "accommodation" carries us beyond the limits of fair interpretation, i cite the following passage from one of the ablest and most judicious writers on the subject:[ ] "it was the opinion of the ancients that the earth, at a certain height, was surrounded by a transparent hollow sphere of solid matter, which they called the firmament. when rain descended, they supposed that it was through windows or holes made in the crystalline curtain suspended in mid-heavens. to these notions the language of the bible is frequently conformed. * * * but the most decisive example i have to give on this subject is derived from astronomy. until the time of copernicus no opinion respecting natural phenomena was thought better established than that the earth is fixed immovably in the centre of the universe, and that the heavenly bodies move diurnally round it. to sustain this view the most decisive language of scripture might be quoted. god is there said to have '_established the foundations of the earth, so that they could not be removed forever_;' and the sacred writers expressly declare that the heavenly bodies _arise and set_, and nowhere allude to any proper motion of the earth." will it be believed that, with the exception of the poetical expression, "windows of heaven," and the common forms of speech relating to sunrise and sunset, the above "decisive" instances of accommodation have no foundation whatever in the language of scripture. the doctrine of the rotation of solid celestial spheres around the earth belongs to a greek philosophy which arose after the hebrew cosmogony was complete; and though it occurs in the septuagint and other ancient versions, it is not based on the hebrew original. in truth, we know that those grecian philosophers--of the ionic and pythagorean schools--who lived nearest the times of the hebrew writers, and who derived the elements of their science from egypt and western asia, taught very different doctrines. how absurd, then, is it thus to fasten upon the sacred writers, contrary to their own words, the views of a school of astronomy which probably arose long after their time, when we know that more accurate ideas prevailed nearer their epoch. secondly, though there is some reason for stating that the "ancients," though certainly not those of israel, believed in celestial spheres supporting the heavenly bodies, i suspect that the doctrine of a solid vault _supporting the clouds_, except as a mere poetical or mythological fancy, is a product of the imagination of the theologians and closet philosophers of a more modern time. the testimony of men's senses appears to be in favor of the whole universe revolving around a plane earth, though the oldest astronomical school with which we are acquainted suspected that this is an illusion; but the every-day observation of the most unlettered man who treads the fields and is wet with the mists and rains must convince him that there is no _sub-nubilar_ solid sphere. if, therefore, the bible had taught such a doctrine, it would have shocked the common-sense even of the plain husbandmen to whom it was addressed, and could have found no fit audience except among a portion of the literati of comparatively modern times. thirdly, with respect to the foundations of the earth, i may remark that in the tenth verse of genesis there occurs a definition as precise as that of any lexicon--"and god called the _dry land_ earth;" consequently it is but fair to assume that the earth afterwards spoken of as supported above the waters is the dry land or continental masses of the earth, and no geologist can object to the statement that the dry land is supported above the waters by foundations or pillars. we shall find in our examination of the document itself that all the instances of such accommodation which have been cited by writers on this subject are as baseless as those above referred to. it is much to be regretted that so many otherwise useful expositors have either wanted that familiarity with the aspects of external nature by which all the hebrew writers are characterized, or have taken too little pains to ascertain the actual meaning of the references to creation which they find in the bible. i may further remark that if such instances of accommodation could be found in the later poetical books, it would be extremely unfair to apply them as aids in the interpretation of the plain, precise, and unadorned statements of the first chapters of genesis. there is, however, throughout even the higher poetry of the bible, a truthful representation and high appreciation of nature for which we seek in vain in any other poetry, and we may fairly trace this in part to the influence of the cosmogony which appears in its first chapter. the hebrew was thus taught to recognize the unity of nature as the work of an almighty intelligence, to regard all its operations as regulated by his unchanging law or "decree," and to venerate it as a revelation of his supreme wisdom and goodness. on this account he was likely to regard careful observation and representation with as scrupulous attention as the modern naturalist. nor must we forget that the old testament literature has descended to us through two dark ages--that of greek and roman polytheism and of middle age barbarism--and that we must not confound its tenets with those of either. the religious ideas of both these ages were favorable to certain forms of literature and art, but eminently unfavorable to the successful prosecution of the study of nature. hence we have a right to expect in the literature of the golden age of primeval monotheism more affinity with the ideas of modern science than in any intermediate time; and the truthful delineation which the claims of the bible to inspiration require might have been, as already hinted, to a certain extent secured merely by the reflex influence of its earlier statements, without the necessity of our supposing that illustrations of this kind in the later books came directly from the spirit of god. our discussion of this part of the subject has necessarily been rather desultory, and the arguments adduced must depend for their full confirmation on the results of our future inquiries. the conclusions arrived at may be summed up as follows: . that the mosaic cosmogony must be considered, like the prophecies of the bible, to claim the rank of inspired teaching, and must depend for its authority on the maintenance of that claim. . that the incidental references to nature in other parts of scripture indicate, at least, the influence of these earlier teachings, and of a pure monotheistic faith, in creating a high and just appreciation of nature among the hebrew people. it is now necessary to inquire in what precise form this remarkable revelation of the origin of the world has been given. i have already referred to the hypothesis that it represents a vision of creation presented to the mind of a seer, as if in a series of pictures which he represents to us in words. this is perhaps the most intelligible conception of the manner of communication of a revelation from god; and inasmuch as it is that referred to in other parts of the bible as the mode of presentation of the future to inspired prophets, there can be no impropriety in supposing it to have been the means of communicating the knowledge of the unknown past. we may imagine the seer--perhaps some aboriginal patriarch, long before the time of moses--perhaps the first man himself--wrapt in ecstatic vision, having his senses closed to all the impressions of the present time, and looking as at a moving procession of the events of the earth's past history, presented to him in a series of apparent days and nights. in the first chapter of genesis he rehearses this divine vision to us, not in poetry, but in a series of regularly arranged parts or strophes, thrown into a sort of rhythmical order fitted to impress them on the memory, and to allow them to be handed down from mouth to mouth, perhaps through successive generations of men, before they could be fixed in a written form of words. though the style can scarcely be called poetical, since its expressions are obviously literal and unadorned by figures of speech, the production may not unfairly be called the song or ballad of creation, and it presents an archaic simplicity reminding us of the compositions of the oldest and rudest times, while it has also an artificial and orderly arrangement, much obscured by its division into verses and chapters in our bibles. it is undoubtedly also characterized by a clearness and grandeur of expression very striking and majestic, and which shows that it was written by and intended for men of no mean and contracted minds, but who could grasp the great problems of the origin of things, and comprehend and express them in a bold and vigorous manner. it may be well, before proceeding farther, to present to the reader this ancient document in a form more literal and intelligible, and probably nearer to its original dress, than that in which we are most familiar with it in our english bibles: the aboriginal song of creation. _beginning._ in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was formless and empty, and darkness on the surface of the deep, and the breath of god moved on the surface of the waters. _day one._ _and god said_--"let light be," and light was. and god saw the light that it was good. and god called the light day, and the darkness he called night. and evening was and morning was--day one. _day second._ _and god said_--"let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." and god made the expanse, and divided the waters below the expanse from the waters above the expanse. and it was so. and god called the expanse heavens. and evening was and morning was, a second day. _day third._ _and god said_--"let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear." and it was so, and god called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters called he seas. and god saw that it was good. _and god said_--"let the earth shoot forth herbage, the herb yielding seed and the fruit-tree yielding fruit containing seed after its kind, on the earth." and it was so. and the earth brought forth herbage, the herb yielding seed and the tree yielding fruit whose seed is in it after its kind, and god saw that it was good. and evening was and morning was, a third day. _day fourth._ _and god said_--"let there be luminaries in the expanse of heaven, to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. and let them be luminaries in the expanse of heaven to give light on the earth." and it was so. and god made two great luminaries, the greater luminary to rule the day, the lesser luminary to rule the night, the stars also. and god placed them in the expanse of heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. and god saw that it was good. and evening was and morning was, a fourth day. _day fifth._ _and god said_--"let the waters swarm with swarmers, having life, and let winged animals fly over the earth on the surface of the expanse of heaven." and god created great reptiles, and every living thing that moveth, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind. and god saw that it was good. and god blessed them, saying-- "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the sea; and let birds multiply in the land." and evening was and morning was, a fifth day. _day sixth._ _and god said_--"let the land bring forth living things after their kind, herbivores and smaller mammals and carnivores after their kind." and it was so. and god made all carnivores after their kind, and all herbivores after their kind, and all minor mammals after their kind. and god saw that it was good. _and god said_--"let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish in the sea and over the birds of the heavens, and over the herbivora, and over the earth, and over all the minor animals that creep upon the earth." and god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him, male and female created he them. and god blessed them. and god said unto them-- "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fishes of the sea and over the birds of the air, and over all the animals that move upon the earth." _and god said_--"behold, i have given you all herbs yielding seed, which are on the surface of the whole earth, and every tree with fruit having seed, they shall be unto you for food. and to all the animals of the land and to all the birds of the heavens, and to all things moving on the land having the breath of life, i have given every green herb for food." and it was so. and god saw every thing that he had made, and behold it was very good. and evening was and morning was, a sixth day. _day seventh._ thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the hosts of them. and on the seventh day god ended the work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and god blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because that in it he rested from all his work that he had created and made. chapter iii. objects and nature of a revelation of origins--_continued._ "what if earth be but a shadow of heaven, and things therein each to the other like; more than on earth is thought." milton. ( ) _character of the biblical cosmogony, and general views of nature which it contains or to which it leads._--much of what appertains to the character of the revelation of origins has been anticipated under previous heads. we have only to read the song of creation, as given in the last chapter, to understand its power and influence as a beginning of religious doctrine. the revelation was written for plain men in the infancy of the world. imagine chaldean or hebrew shepherd listening to these majestic lines from the lips of some ancient patriarch, and receiving them as truly the words of god. what a grand opening to him of both the seen and unseen worlds! henceforth he has no superstitious dread of the stars above, or of the lightning and thunder, or of the dark woods and flowing waters beneath. they are all the works of the one creator, the same creator who is his own maker, in whose image and shadow he is made. he can look up now to the heavens or around upon the earth, and see in all the handiwork of god, and can worship god through all. he can see that the power that cares for the birds and the flowers of the field cares for him. he is no longer the slave and sport of unknown and dreadful powers; they are god's workmanship and under his control--nay, god has given him a mission to subdue and rule over them. so these noble words raise him to a new manhood, and emancipate him from the torture of endless fears, and open to him vast new fields of thought and inquiry, which may enrich him with boundless treasures of new religious and intellectual wealth. imagine still farther that he wanders into those great cities which are the seats of the idolatries of his time. he enters magnificent temples, sees elaborately decorated altars, huge images, gorgeous ceremonials, priests gay in vestments and imposing in numbers. he is invited to bow down before the bull apis, to worship the statue of belus or of ishtar, of osiris or of isis. but this is not in his book of origins. all these things are contrivances of man, not works of god, and their aim is to invite him to adore that which is merely his fellow-creature, that which he has the divine commission to subdue and rule. so our primitive puritan turns away. he will rather raise an altar of rough stones in the desert, and worship the unseen yet real creator, the god that has no local habitation in temples made with hands, yet is everywhere present. such is the moral elevation to which this revelation of origins raises humanity; and when there was added to it the farther history of primeval innocence, of the fall, and of the promise of a redeemer, and of the fate of the godless antediluvians, there was a whole system of religion, pure and elevating, and placing the abrahamidæ, who for ages seem alone to have held to it, on a plane of spiritual vantage immeasurably above that of other nations. farther, every succeeding prophet whose works are included in the sacred canon, following up these doctrines in the same spirit, and added new treasures of divine knowledge from age to age. but admitting all this, it may be asked, are these ancient records of any value to us? may we not now dispense with them, and trust to the light of science? the infinitely varied and discordant notions of our modern literature on these great questions of origin, the incapacity of any philosophical system to reach the common mind for practical purposes, and the baseless character of any religious system which does not build on these great primitive truths, give a sufficient answer. farther, we may affirm that the greatest and widest generalizations of our modern science have, in so far as they are of practical importance, been anticipated in the revelations of the bible, and that in the cosmogony of genesis and its continuation in the other sacred books we have general views of the universe as broad as those of any philosophies, ancient or modern. this is a hard test for our revelation, but it can be endured, and we may shortly inquire what we find in the bible of such great general truths. many may be disposed to admit the accurate delineation of natural facts open to human observation in the sacred scriptures, who may not be prepared to find in these ancient books any general views akin to those of the ancient philosophers, or to those obtained by inductive processes in modern times. yet views of this kind are scattered through the hebrew and christian scriptures, and are a natural outgrowth and development of the great facts and principles asserted in the first chapter of genesis. they resolve themselves, almost as a matter of course, into the two leading ideas of order and adaptation. i have already quoted the eloquent admission by baron humboldt of the presence of these ideas of the cosmos in psalm civ. they are both conspicuous in the narrative of creation, and equally so in a great number of other passages. "order is heaven's first law; and the second is like unto it--that every thing serves an end. this is the sum of all science. these are the two mites, even all that she hath, which she throws into the treasury of the lord; and, as she does so in faith, eternal wisdom looks on and approves the deed."[ ] these two mites, lawfully acquired by science, by her independent exertions, she may, however, recognize as of the same coinage with the treasure already laid up in the rich storehouse of the hebrew literature; but in a peculiar and complex form, which may be illustrated under the following general statements: . the scriptures assert invariable natural law, and constantly recurring cycles in nature. natural law is expressed as the ordinance or decree of jehovah. from the oldest of the hebrew books i select the following examples:[ ] "when he made a decree for the rain, and a way for the thunder-flash." --job xxviii., . "knowest thou the ordinances of the heavens? canst thou establish a dominion even over the earth?" --job xxxviii., . the later books give us such views as the following: "he hath established them [the heavens] for ever and ever; he hath made a decree which shall not pass." --psa. cxlviii., . "thou art forever, o jehovah, thy word is established in the heavens; thou hast established the earth, and it abideth; they continue this day according to thine ordinances, for all are thy servants." --psa. cxix., . "when he established the clouds above; when he strengthened the fountains of the deep; when he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the earth." --prov. viii., . many similar instances will be found in succeeding pages; and in the mean time we may turn to the idea of recurring cycles, which forms the starting-point of the reasonings of solomon on the current of human affairs, in the book of ecclesiastes: "one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for the ages. the sun ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to its place whence it arose. the wind goeth toward the south, and turneth unto the north. it whirleth about continually, and returneth again according to its circuits. all the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea doth not overflow; unto the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again." i might fill pages with quotations more or less illustrative of the statement in proof of which the above texts are cited; but enough has been given to show that the doctrine of the bible is not that of fortuitous occurrence, or of materialism, or of pantheism, or of arbitrary supernaturalism, but of invariable natural law representing the decree of a wise and unchanging creator. it is a common but groundless and shallow charge against the bible that it teaches an "arbitrary supernaturalism." what it does teach is that all nature is regulated by the laws of god, which like himself are unchanging, but which are so complex in their relations and adjustments that they allow of infinite variety, and do not exclude even miraculous intervention, or what appears to our limited intelligence as such. in opposition to this, it is true, some physicists have held that natural law is a fatal necessity.[ ] if they mean by this a merely hypothetical necessity that certain effects must follow if certain laws act, this is in accordance with the biblical view, for nothing can resist the will of god. but if they mean an absolute necessity that these laws can not be suspended or counteracted by higher laws, or by the will of the creator, they assert what is not only contrary to scripture, but absurd, for "blind metaphysical necessity, which is the same always and everywhere, could produce no variety of things."[ ] it could lead merely to a dead and inert equilibrium. on the hypothesis of mere physical necessity, the universe either never could have existed, or must have come to an end infinite ages ago, which is the same thing. only on the hypothesis of law proceeding from an intelligent will can we logically account for nature. . the bible recognizes progress and development in nature. at the very outset we have this idea embodied in the gradual elaboration of all things in the six creative periods, rising from the formless void of the beginning, through successive stages of inorganic and organic being, up to eden and to man. beyond this point the work of creation stops; but there is to be an occupation and improvement of the whole earth by man spreading from eden. this process is arrested or impeded by sin and the fall. here commences the special province of the bible, in explaining the means of recovery from the fall, and of the establishment of a new spiritual and moral kingdom, and finally of the restoration of eden in a new heaven and earth. all this is moral, and relates to man, in so far as the present state of things is concerned; but we have the commentary of jesus: "my father worketh hitherto, and i work;" the remarkable statement of paul, that the whole creation is involved in the results of man's moral fall and restoration, and the equally remarkable one that the redeemer is also the maker of the "worlds" or ages of the earth's physical progress, as well as of the future "new heaven and new earth." peter also rebukes indignantly those scoffers who maintained that all things had remained as they are since the beginning; and refers to the creation week and to the deluge as earnests of the great changes yet in store for the earth.[ ] it is indeed curious to observe how in our version of the bible this idea of progress in the universe, or of "time-worlds," as it has been called, has been variously replaced by the words "world" and "eternity," owing to the defective ideas prevalent at the time when the translation was made. in the hebrew scriptures the term _olam_, "age," and in the new testament the equivalent term _ai[=o]n_ have been thus treated, and their real significance much obscured. thus when it is said, "by faith we understand that the _worlds_ were framed," or "by him god made the _worlds_,"[ ] or that certain of god's plans have been hid "from the beginning of the _world_,"[ ] the reference is not to worlds in space, but to worlds in time, or ages of god's working in the universe. so also these ages of god's working are given to us as our only intelligible type of eternity, of which absolutely we can have no conception. thus god's "eternal purpose" is his purpose of the ages. so when he is the "king eternal,"[ ] and in that capacity gives to his people "life everlasting," he is the king of the ages, and gives life of the ages. so in the noble hymn attributed to moses (psalm xc.), where our version has, "from everlasting to everlasting thou art god,"[ ] the original is, "from age to age thou art, o god." it has perhaps been a defect of our modern science that it has familiarized us merely with the existence of worlds in space, and not with their existence in time. it is only in comparatively modern times that the developments of chronological geology and of physical astronomy have brought before us, not only the long ages in which the earth was passing through its formative stages, but also the fact that still longer æons are embraced in the history of the other bodies of our solar system, and of the starry orbs and nebulæ. these grand conceptions were already embodied in the hebrew revelation, and were used there as the means of giving some faint approach to a conception of the unlimited existence of god himself, of the ages in which his creative work has been going on, and of the future life he has prepared for his redeemed people. such views of development and progress are not unknown to many ancient cosmogonies and philosophical systems, but they had no stable foundation in observed fact until the rise of modern geology and physical astronomy; which enable us to affirm that, in addition to those changeless physical laws which cause the bodies of the universe to wheel in unvarying cycles, and all natural powers to reproduce themselves, and, in addition to those organic laws which produce unceasing successions of living individuals, there is a higher law of progress. we can now trace back man, the animals and plants his contemporaries, and others which preceded them, our continents and mountain ranges, and the solid rocks of which they are composed--nay, the very fabric of the solar system itself--to their several origins at distinct points of time; and can maintain that since the earth began to wheel around the sun, no succeeding year has seen it precisely as it was in the year before. the old hebrew record affirms, and i presume scarcely any sane man really doubts, that this law of progress emanates from the mind and power of one creative being. when men see in natural law only recurring cycles, they may be pardoned for falling even into the absurdity of believing in eternal succession; but when they see change and progress, and this in a uniform direction, overmastering recurring cycles, and introducing new objects and powers not accounted for by previous objects or powers, they are brought very near to the presence of the spiritual creator. and hence, although no science can reach back to the act of creation, this doctrine is much more strongly held in our day by geologists than by physicists. it is quite true that the idea of creative acts has been superseded to a great extent by that of "creation by law," or by that of "evolution." still behind all there lies a primary creative power; and the validity of these ideas and their bearing on theism and creation we shall have to discuss in the sequel. in one thing only does the bible here part company with natural science. the bible goes on into the future, and predicts a final condition of our planet, of which science can from its investigations learn nothing. . the bible recognizes purpose, use, and special adaptation in nature. it is, in short, full of natural theology, akin in some respects to that which has been so elaborately worked out by so many modern writers. numerous passages in support of this will occur to every one who has read the scriptures. it is necessary here, however, to direct attention to a distinction very obvious in scripture, but not always attended to by writers on this subject. the bible maintains the true "final cause" of all nature to be, not its material and special adaptations or its value to man, but the pleasure or satisfaction of the creator himself. in the earlier periods of creation, before man was upon the earth, god contemplates his work and pronounces it good. the heavenly hosts praise him, saying, "thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." further, the bible represents intelligences higher than man as sharing in the delight which may be derived from the contemplation of god's works. when the earth first rose from the waters to greet the light, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy." there are many things in nature that strongly impress the naturalist with this same view, that the creator takes pleasure in his works; and, like human genius in its highest efforts, rejoices in production, even if no sentient being should be ready to sympathize. the elaborate structures of fossils, of which we have only fragmentary remains, the profusion of natural objects of surpassing beauty that grow and perish unseen by us, the delicate microscopic mechanism of nearly all organic structures, point to other reasons for beauty and order than those that concern man, or the mere utilities of human beings; and though there are now naturalists who deny absolutely that beauty is an object in nature, and assign even the colors of flowers and insects to utility alone, and this of a very low order, this doctrine is so repulsive to our higher sentiments that there is little danger of its general acceptance; while the slightest consideration shows that the utilities referred to could have been secured without any of this consummate beauty associated with them, and our perception of and delight in which mark in a way beyond the ability of skepticism to cavil at our own spiritual kinship with the author of all this profusion of beauty. yet man is represented as the chief created being for whom this earth has been prepared and designed. he obtains dominion over it. a chosen spot is prepared for him, in which not only his wants but his tastes are consulted; and, being made in the image of his maker, his æsthetic sentiments correspond with the beauties of the maker's work, and he finds there also food for his reason and imagination. this view of the subject, as well as others already referred to, is finely represented in the address of the almighty to job.[ ] the bible also very often refers to the special adaptations of natural objects and laws to each other, and to the promotion of the happiness of sentient creatures lower than man. the th psalm is replete with notices of such adaptations, and so is the address to job; and indeed this view seems hardly ever absent from the minds of the hebrew writers, but has its highest applications in the lilies of the field, that toil not neither do they spin, and the sparrows that are sold for a farthing, yet the heavenly father has clothed the one with surpassing beauty, and provides food for the other, nor allows it to fail without his knowledge. i may, by way of farther illustration, merely name a few of the adaptations referred to in job xxxviii. and the following chapters. the winds and the clouds are so arranged as to afford the required supplies of moisture to the wilderness where no man is, to "cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth." for similar objects the tempest is ordered, and the clouds arranged "by wisdom." the adaptations of the wild ass, the wild goat, the ostrich, the migratory birds, the horse, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, to their several habitats, modes of life, and uses in nature, are most vividly sketched and applied as illustrations of the consummate wisdom of the creator, which descends to the minutest details of organization and habit. it is to be observed here that in holding this doctrine of use and adaptation in nature, the bible is only consistent with its own theory of rational theism. the monotheist can not refer nature to a conflict of antagonistic powers and forces. he must recognize in it a unity of plan; and even those things which appear aberrant, irregular, or noxious must have their place in this plan. hence in the bible god is maker not only of the day but of the night, not only of the peaceful cattle but of the voracious crocodile, not only of the sunshine and shower but of the tornado and the earthquake. further, in all these things god is manifested, so that we may learn "his eternal power and divinity[ ] from the things which he has made," and in all these also there are emblems of his relations to us. this argument from design is in truth the only proof the bible condescends to urge for the existence of god; and it is the only one in which in his later days our great english philosopher mill could see any validity.[ ] if the reader happens to be familiar with the objections to the doctrine of final causes, or teleology, in nature, urged in our day by spencer, haeckel, and others, he will have seen from the foregoing statements that these objections are in themselves baseless, or inapplicable to this doctrine as maintained in the bible. there is no consistency in the position of men who, when they dig a rudely chipped flint out of a bed of gravel, immediately infer an intelligent workman, and who refuse to see any indication of a higher intelligence in the creation of the workman himself. it is a blind philosophy which professes to see in primal atoms the "promise and potency of mind," and which fails to perceive that such potency is more inconceivable than the evidence of primary and supreme mind. the men who maintain that wings were not planned for flight, but that flight has produced wings, and thousands of like propositions, are simply amusing themselves with paradoxes to which may very properly be applied the strange word devised by haeckel to express his theory of nature--_dysteleology_, or purposelessness. it is to be borne in mind, however, that the teleology of the bible is not of that narrow kind which would make man the sole object of nature, and the supreme judge of its adaptations. inasmuch as god's plan goes over all the ages past and future, and relates to the welfare of all sentient beings known or unknown to us, and also to his own sovereign pleasure as the supreme object, we may not be in a position either to understand or profit by all its parts, and hence may expect to find many mysteries, and many things that we can not at present reconcile with god's wisdom and goodness. we know but "parts of his ways," the "fullness of his power who can understand." "his judgments are unsearchable," "his ways are past finding out." . the law of type or pattern in nature is distinctly indicated in the bible. this is a principle only recently understood by naturalists, but it has more or less dimly dawned on the minds of many great thinkers in all ages. nor is this wonderful, for the idea of type is scarcely ever absent from our own conceptions of any work that we may undertake. in any such work we anticipate recurring daily toil, like the returning cycles of nature. we look for progress, like that of the growth of the universe. we study adaptation both of the several parts to subordinate uses, and of the whole to some general design. but we also keep in view some pattern, style, or order, according to which the whole is arranged, and the mutual relations of the parts are adjusted. the architect must adhere to some order of architecture, and to some style within that order. the potter, the calico-printer, and the silversmith must equally study uniformity of pattern in their several manufactures. the almighty worker has exhibited the same idea in his works. in the animal kingdom, for instance, we have four or more leading types of structure. taking any one of these--the vertebrate, for example--we have a uniform general plan, embracing the vertebral column constructed of the same elements; the members, whether the arm of man, the limb of the quadruped, or the wing of the bat or the bird, or the swimming-paddle of the whale, built of the same bones. in like manner all the parts of the vertebral column itself in the same animal, whether in the skull, the neck, or the trunk, are composed of the same elementary structures. these types are farther found to be sketched out--first in their more general, and then in their special features--in proceeding from the lower species of the same type to the higher, in proceeding from the earlier to the later stages of embryonic development, and in proceeding from the more ancient to the more recent creatures that have succeeded each other in geological time. man, the highest of the vertebrates, is thus the archetype, representing and including all the lower and earlier members of the vertebrate type. the above are but trite and familiar examples of a doctrine which may furbish and has furnished the material of volumes. there can be no question that the hebrew bible is the oldest book in which this principle is stated. in the first chapter of genesis we have specific type in the creation of plants and animals after their kinds or species, and in the formation of man in the image and likeness of the creator; and, as we shall find in the sequel, there are some curious ideas of higher and more general types in the grouping of the creatures referred to. the same idea is indicated in the closing chapters of job, where the three higher classes of the vertebrates are represented by a number of examples, and the typical likeness of one of these--the hippopotamus--to man, seems to be recognized. dr. mccosh has quoted, as an illustration of the doctrine of types, a very remarkable passage from psalm cxxxix.: "i will praise thee, for i am fearfully and wonderfully made. marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. my substance was not hid from thee, when i was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth: thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there was none of them." it would too much tax the faith of many to ask them to believe that the writer of the above passage, or the spirit that inspired him, actually meant to teach--what we now know so well from geology--that the prototypes of all the parts of the archetypal human structure may be found in those fossil remains of extinct animals which may, in nearly every country, be dug up from the rocks of the earth. no objection need, however, be taken to our reading in it the doctrine of embryonic development according to a systematic type. science, it is true, or rather i should perhaps say philosophical speculation, has sometimes pushed this idea of plan into that of a spontaneous genetic evolution of things in time, without any creative superintendence or definite purpose. this way of viewing the matter is, however, as we shall have occasion to see, both bald and irrational, and wants the symmetry and completeness of that style of thought which grasps at once progress and plan and adaptation, as emanating from a supreme will. the question of how the plan has been worked out will come up for detailed consideration farther on. in the mean time we have before us the fact that the bible represents the cosmos as not the product of a blind conflict of self-existent forces, but as the result of the production and guidance of these forces by infinite wisdom. it is more than curious that this idea of type, so long existing in an isolated and often depised form, as a theological thought in the imagery of scripture, should now be a leading idea of natural science; and that while comparative anatomy teaches us that the structures of all past and present lower animals point to man, who, as professor owen expresses it, has had all his parts and organs "sketched out in anticipation in the inferior animals," the bible points still farther forward to an exaltation of the human type itself into what even the comparative anatomist might perhaps regard as among the "possible modifications of it beyond those realized in this little orb of ours," could he but learn its real nature. under the foregoing heads, of the object, the structure, the authority, and the general cosmical views of the scripture, i have endeavored to group certain leading thoughts important as preliminary to the study of the subject; and, in now entering on the details of the old testament cosmogony, i trust the reader will pardon me for assuming, as a working hypothesis, that we are studying an inspired book, revealing the origin of nature, and presenting accurate pictures of natural facts and broad general views of the cosmos, at least until in the progress of our inquiry we find reason to adopt lower views; and that he will, in the mean time, be content to follow me in that careful and systematic analysis which a work claiming such a character surely demands. chapter iv. the beginning. "in the beginning elohim created the heavens and the earth."--genesis i., . it is a remarkable and instructive fact that the first verse of the hebrew sacred writings speaks of the material universe--speaks of it as a whole, and as originating in a power outside of itself. the universe, then, in the conception of this ancient writer, is not eternal. it had a beginning, but that beginning in the indefinite and by us unmeasured past. it did not originate fortuitously, or by any merely accidental conflict of self-existent material atoms, but by an act--an act of will on the part of a being designated by that name which among all the semitic peoples represented the ultimate, eternal, inscrutable source of power and object of awe and veneration. with the simplicity and child-like faith of an archaic age, the writer makes no attempt to combat any objections or difficulties with which this great fundamental truth may be assailed. he feels its axiomatic force as the basis of all true religion and sound philosophy, and the ultimate fact which must ever bar our further progress in the investigation of the origin of things--the production from non-existence of the material universe by the eternal self-existent god. it did not concern him to know what might be the nature of that unconditioned self-existence; for though, like our ideas of space and time, incomprehensible, it must be assumed. it did not concern him to know how matter and force subsist, or what may be the difference between a material universe cognizable by our senses and the absolute want of all the phenomena of such a universe or of whatever may be their basis and essence. such questions can never be answered, yet the succession of these phenomena must have had a commencement somewhere in time. how simple and how grand is his statement! how plain and yet how profound its teachings! it is evident that the writer grasps firmly the essence of the question as to the beginning of things, and covers the whole ground which advanced scientific or philosophical speculation can yet traverse. that the universe must have had a beginning no one now needs to be told. if any philosophical speculator ever truly held that there has been an endless succession of phenomena, science has now completely negatived the idea by showing us the beginning of all things that we know in the present universe, and by establishing the strongest probabilities that even its ultimate atoms could not have been eternal. but the question remains--if there was a beginning, what existed in that beginning? to this question many partial and imperfect answers have been given, but our ancient record includes them all. if any one should say, "in the beginning was nothing." yes, says genesis, there was, it is true, nothing of the present matter and arrangements of nature. yet all was present potentially in the will of the creator. "in the beginning were atoms," says another. yes, says genesis, but they were created; and so says modern science, and must say of ultimate particles determined by weight and measure, and incapable of modification in their essential properties--"they have the properties of a manufactured article."[ ] "in the beginning were forces," says yet another. true, says genesis; but all forces are one in origin--they represent merely the fiat of the eternal and self-existent. so says science, that force must in the ultimate resort be an "expression of will."[ ] "in the beginning was elohim," adds our old semitic authority, and in him are the absolute and eternal thought and will, the creator from whom and by whom and in whom are all things. thus the simple familiar words, "in the beginning god created the heaven and the earth," answer all possible questions as to the origin of things, and include all under the conception of theism. let us now look at these pregnant words more particularly as to their precise import and significance. the divine personality expressed by the hebrew elohim may be fairly said to include all that can be claimed for the pantheistic conception of "dynamis," or universal material power. lange gives this as included in the term elohim, in his discussion of this term in his book on genesis. it has been aptly said that if, physically speaking, the fall of a sparrow produces a gravitative effect that extends throughout the universe, there can be no reason why it should be unknown to god. god is thus everywhere, and always. yet he is everywhere and always present as a personality knowing and willing. from his thought and will in the beginning proceeded the universe. by him it was created. what, then, is creation in the sense of the hebrew writer. the act is expressed by the verb _bara_, a word of comparatively rare occurrence in the scriptures, and employed to denote absolute creation, though its primary sense is to cut or carve, and it is indeed a near relative of our own english word "pare." if, says professor stuart, of andover, this word "does not mean to create in the highest sense, then the hebrews had no word by which they could designate this idea." yet, like our english "create," the word is used in secondary and figurative senses, which in no degree detract from its force when strictly and literally used. since, however, these secondary senses may often appear to obscure the primitive meaning, we must examine them in detail. in the first chapter of genesis, after the general statement in verse , other verbs signifying to _form_ or _make_ are used to denote the elaboration of the separate parts of the universe, and the word "create" is found in only two places, when it refers to the introduction of "great whales" (reptiles) and of man. these uses of the word have been cited to disprove its sense of absolute creation. it must be observed, however, that in the first of these cases we have the earliest appearance of animal life, and in the second the introduction of a rational and spiritual nature. nothing but pure materialism can suppose that the elements of vital and spiritual being were included in the matter of the heavens and the earth as produced in the beginning; and as the scripture writers were not materialists, we may infer that they recognized, in the introduction of life and reason, acts of absolute creation, just as in the origin of matter itself. in genesis ii. and iii. we have a form of expression which well marks the distinction between creation and making. god is there said to have rested from all his works which he "created and made"--literally, created "for or in reference to making," the word for making being one of those already referred to.[ ] the force of this expression consists in its intimating that god had not only finished the work of _creation_, properly so called, but also the elaboration of the various details of the universe, as formed or fashioned out of the original materials. of a similar character is the expression in isaiah xlii., , "jehovah, he that _created_ the heavens and spread them out;" and that in psalm cxlviii., , "he commanded and they were _created_, he hath also established them for ever and ever." in as far as i am aware, the word _bara_ in all the remaining instances of its occurrence in the pentateuch refers to the creation of man, with the following exceptions: exodus xxxiv., , "i will do (create) marvels, such as have not been seen in all the earth;" numbers xvi., , "if the lord make a new thing (create a creation), and the earth open her mouth and swallow them up." these verses are types of a class of expressions in which the proper term for creation is applied to the production of something new, strange, and marvellous; for instance, "create in me a clean heart, o lord;" "behold, i create new heavens and a new earth." it is, however, evidently an inversion of sound exposition to say that these secondary or figurative meanings should determine the primary and literal sense in genesis i. on the contrary, we should rather infer that the sacred writers in these cases selected the proper word for creation, to express in the most forcible manner the novel and thorough character of the changes to which they refer, and their direct dependence on the divine will. by such expressions we are in effect referred back to the original use of the word, as denoting the actual creation of matter by the command of god, in contradistinction from those arrangements which have been effected by the gradual operation of secondary agents, or of laws attached to matter at its creation. it has been farther observed[ ] that in the hebrew scriptures this word _bara_ is applied to god only as an agent, not to any human artificer; a fact which is very important with reference to its true significance. viewing creation in this light, we need not perplex ourselves with the question whether we should consider genesis i., , to refer to the essence of matter as distinguished from its qualities. we may content ourselves with the explanation given by paul in the eleventh of hebrews: "by faith we are certain that the worlds[ ] were created by the decree of god, so that that which _is seen_ was made of that which _appears not_." or, with reference to the other uses of the word, if the first introduction of animal life was a creation, and if the introduction of the rational nature of man was a creation, we may suppose that the original creation was in like manner the introduction or first production of those entities which we call matter and force, and which to science now are as much ultimate facts as they were to moses. the _nature_ of the act of creation being thus settled, its _extent_ may be ascertained by an examination of the terms heaven and earth. the word "heavens" (_shamayim_) has in hebrew as in english a variety of significations. of material heavens there are, in the quaint language of poole, "_tres regiones, ubi aves, ubi nubes, ubi sidera_;" or ( ) the atmosphere or firmament;[ ] ( ) the region of clouds in the upper part of the atmosphere;[ ] ( ) the depths of space comprehending the starry orbs.[ ] besides these we have the "heaven of heavens," the abode of god and spiritual beings.[ ] the application of the term "heaven" to the atmosphere will be considered when we reach the th and th verses. in the mean time we may accept the word in this place as including the material heavens in the widest sense: ( .) because it is not here, as in verse th, restricted to the atmosphere by the terms of the narrative; this restriction in verse th in fact implying the wider sense of the word in preceding verses. ( .) because the atmospheric firmament, elsewhere called heaven, divides the waters above from those below, whereas it is evident that all these waters, and of consequence the materials of the atmosphere itself, are included in the earth of the following verse. ( .) because in verse th the sidereal heavens are spoken of as arranged from pre-existing materials, which refers their actual creation back to this passage. in the words now under consideration we therefore regard the heavens as including the whole material universe beyond the limits of our earth. that this sense of the word is not unknown to the writers of scripture, and that they had enlarged and rational views of the star-spangled abysses of space, will appear from the terms employed by moses in his solemn warning against the sabæan idolatry, in deuteronomy iv.: "and lest thou lift up thine eyes to the heavens, and when thou seest the sun and the moon and the stars, even all the host of the heavens, shouldest be incited to worship them and serve them which jehovah thy god hath appointed to all nations under the whole heavens." to the same effect is the expression of the awe and wonder of the poet king of israel in psalm viii.: "when i consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him?" i may observe, however, that throughout the scriptures the word in question is much more frequently applied to the atmospheric than to the sidereal heavens. the reason of this appears in the terms of verse th. if we have correctly referred the term "heavens" to the whole of extramundane space, then the word "earth" must denote our globe as a distinct world, with all the liquid and aeriform substances on its surface. the arrangement of the whole universe under the heads "heaven" and "earth" has been derided as a division into "infinity and an atom;" but when we consider the relative importance of the earth to us, and that it constitutes the principal object of the whole revelation to which this is introductory, the absurdity disappears, and we recognize the classification as in the circumstances natural and rational. the word "earth" (_aretz_) is, however, generally used to denote the dry land, or even a region or district of country. it is indeed expressly restricted to the dry land in verse th; but as in the case of the parallel limitation of the word "heaven," we may consider this as a hint that its previous meaning is more extended. that it is really so, appears from the following considerations: ( .) it includes the deep, or the material from which the sea and atmosphere were afterwards formed. ( .) the subsequent verses show that at the period in question no dry land existed. if instances of a similar meaning from other parts of scripture are required, i give the following: genesis ii., to , "thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them;" "these are the generations of the heavens and the earth." in this general summary of the creative work, the earth evidently includes the seas and all that is in them, as well as the dry land; and the whole expression denotes the universe. the well-known and striking remark of job, "who hangeth the earth upon nothing," is also a case in point, and must refer to the whole world, since in other parts of the same book the dry land or continental masses of the earth are said, and with great truth and propriety, to be supported above the waters on pillars or foundations. the following passages may also be cited as instances of the occurrence of the idea of the whole world expressed by the word "earth:" exodus x., , "and moses said unto him, as soon as i am gone out of the city, i will spread abroad my hands unto the lord, and the thunder shall cease, neither shall there be any more hail; that thou mayest know the earth is the lord's;" deuteronomy x., , "behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the lord's, the earth also, and all that therein is." the material universe was brought into existence in the "beginning"--a term evidently indefinite as far as regards any known epoch, and implying merely priority to all other recorded events. it can not be the first day, for there is no expressed connection, and the work of the first day is distinct from that of the beginning. it can not be a general term for the whole six days, since these are separated from it by that chaotic or formless state to which we are next introduced. the beginning, therefore, is the threshold of creation--the line that separates the old tenantless condition of space from the world-crowded galaxies of the existing universe. the only other information respecting it that we have in scripture is in that fine descriptive poem in proverbs viii., in which the wisdom of god personified--who may be held to represent the almighty word, or logos, introduced in the formula "god said," and afterward referred to in scripture as the manifested or conditioned deity, the mediator between man and the otherwise inaccessible divinity, the agent in the work of creation as well as in that of redemption--narrates the origin of all created things: "jehovah possessed[ ] me, the beginning of his way, before his work of old. i was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was; when there were no deeps i was brought forth, when there were no fountains abounding in water." the beginning here precedes the creation of the earth, as well as of the deep which encompassed its surface in its earliest condition. the beginning, in this point of view, stretches back from the origin of the world into the depths of eternity. it is to us emphatically _the_ beginning, because it witnessed the birth of our material system; but to the eternal jehovah it was but the beginning of a great series of his operations, and we have no information of its absolute duration. from the time when god began to create the celestial orbs, until that time when it could be said that he had created the heavens and the earth, countless ages may have rolled along, and myriads of worlds may have passed through various stages of existence, and the creation of our planetary system may have been one of the last acts of that long beginning. the author of creation is elohim, or god in his general aspect to nature and man, and not in that special aspect in reference to the hebrew commonwealth and to the work of redemption indicated by the name jehovah (_iaveh_). we need not enter into the doubtful etymology of the word; but may content ourselves with that supported by many, perhaps the majority of authorities, which gives it the meaning of "object of dread or adoration," or with that preferred by gesenius, which makes it mean the "strong or mighty one." its plural form has also greatly tried the ingenuity of the commentators. after carefully considering the various hypotheses, such as that of the plural of majesty of the rabbins, and the primitive polytheism supposed by certain rationalists, i can see no better reason than an attempt to give a grammatical expression to that plurality in unity indicated by the appearance of the spirit or breath of god and his word, or manifested will and power, as distinct agents in the succeeding verses. this was probably always held by the hebrews in a general form; and was by our saviour and his apostles specialized in that trinitarian doctrine which enables both john and paul explicitly to assert the agency of the second person of the trinity in the creative work. this elementary trinitarian idea of the first chapter of genesis may be further stated thus: the name elohim expresses the absolute unconditioned will and reason--the godhead. the manifestation of god in creative power, and in the framing and ordering of the cosmos, is represented by the formula "god said"--the equivalent of the divine word. the further manifestation of god in love of and sympathy with his work is represented by the breath of god, and by the expression, "god saw that it was good"--operations these of the divine spirit. the aboriginal root of the word elohim probably lies far back of the semitic literature, and comes from the natural exclamations "al," "lo," "la," which arise from the spontaneous action of the human vocal organs in the presence of any object of awe or wonder. the plural form may in like manner be simply equivalent to our terms godhead or divinity, implying all that is essentially god without specification or distinction of personalities. as dr. tayler lewis well remarks in his "introduction to genesis," we should not dismiss such plurals as mere _usus loquendi_. the plural form of the name of god, of the heavens (literally, the "heights"), of the _olamim_, or time-worlds, of the word for life in genesis (lives), indicates an idea of vastness and diversity not measurable by speech, which must have been impressed on the minds of early men, otherwise these forms would not have arisen. god, heaven, time, life, were to them existences stretching outward to infinity, and not to be denoted by the bare singular form suitable to ordinary objects. fairly regarding, then, this ancient form of words, we may hold it as a clear, concise, and accurate enunciation of an ultimate doctrine of the origin of things, which with all our increased knowledge of the history of the earth we are not in a position to replace with any thing better or more probable. on the other hand, this sublime dogma of creation leaves us perfectly free to interrogate nature for ourselves, as to all that it can reveal of the duration and progress of the creative work. but the positive gain which comes from this ancient formula goes far beyond these negative qualities. if received, this one word of the old testament is sufficient to deliver us forever from the superstitious dread of nature, and to present it to us as neither self-existent nor omnipotent, but as the mere handiwork of a spiritual creator to whom we are kin; as not a product of chance or caprice, but as the result of a definite plan of the all-wise; as not a congeries of unconnected facts and processes, but as a cosmos, a well-ordered though complex machine, designed by him who is the almighty and the supreme object of reverence. had this verse alone constituted the whole bible, this one utterance would, wherever known and received, have been an inestimable boon to mankind; proclaiming deliverance to the captives of every form of nature-worship and idolatry, and fixing that idea of unity of plan in the universe which is the fruitful and stable root of all true progress in science. we owe profound thanks to the old hebrew prophet for these words--words which have broken from the necks of once superstitious aryan races chains more galling than those of egyptian bondage. chapter v. the desolate void. "and the earth was desolate and empty, and darkness was upon the surface of the deep; and the spirit of god moved on the surface of the waters."--genesis i., . we have here a few bold outlines of a dark and mysterious scene--a condition of the earth of which we have no certain intimation from any other source, except the speculations based on modern discoveries in physical science. it was "unshaped and empty," formless and uninhabited. the words thus translated are sufficiently plain in their meaning. the first is used by isaiah to denote the desolation of a ruined city, and in job and the psalms as characteristic of the wilderness or desert. both in connection are employed by isaiah to express the destruction of idumea, and by jeremiah in a powerful description of the ruin of nations by god's judgments. when thus united, they form the strongest expression which the hebrew could supply for solitary, uninhabited desolation, like that of a city reduced to heaps of rubbish, and to the silence and loneliness of utter decay. in the present connection these words inform us that the earth was in a chaotic state, and unfit for the residence of organized beings. the words themselves suggest the important question: are they intended to represent this as the original condition of the earth? was it a scene of desolation and confusion when it sprang from the hand of its creator? or was this state of ruin consequent on convulsions which may have been preceded by a very different condition, not mentioned by the inspired historian? that it may have been so is rendered possible by the circumstance that the words employed are generally used to denote the ruin of places formerly inhabited, and by the want of any necessary connection in time between the first and second verses. it has even been proposed, though this does violence to the construction, to read "and the earth became" desolate and empty. farther, it seems, _à priori_, improbable that the first act of creative power should have resulted in the production of a mere chaos. the crust of the earth also shows, in its alternations of strata and organic remains, evidence of a great series of changes extending over vast periods, and which might, in a revelation intended for moral purposes, with great propriety be omitted. for such reasons some eminent expositors of these words are disposed to consider the first verse as a title or introduction, and to refer to this period the whole series of geological changes; and this view has formed one of the most popular solutions of the apparent discrepancies between the geological and scriptural histories of the world. it is evident, however, that if we continue to view the term "earth" as including the whole globe, this hypothesis becomes altogether untenable. the subsequent verses inform us that at the period in question the earth was covered by a universal ocean, possessed no atmosphere and received no light, and had not entered into its present relations with the other bodies of our system. no conceivable convulsions could have effected such changes on an earth previously possessing these arrangements; and geology assures us that the existing laws and dispositions in these respects have prevailed from the earliest periods to which it can lead us back, and that the modern state of things was not separated from those which preceded it by any such general chaos. to avoid this difficulty, which has been much more strongly felt as these facts have been more and more clearly developed by modern science, it has been held that the word earth may denote only a particular region, temporarily obscured and reduced to ruin, and about to be fitted up, by the operations of the six days, for the residence of man; and that consequently the narrative of the six days refers not to the original arrangement of the surface, relations, and inhabitants of our planet, but to the retrieval from ruin and repeopling of a limited territory, supposed to have been in central asia, and which had been submerged and its atmosphere obscured by aqueous or volcanic vapors. the chief support of this view is the fact, previously noticed, that the word earth is very frequently used in the signification of region, district, country; to which may be added the supposed necessity for harmonizing the scriptures with geological discovery, and at the same time viewing the days of creation as literal solar days. can we, however, after finding that in verse st the term earth must mean the whole world, suddenly restrict it in verse d to a limited region. is it possible that the writer who in verse th for the first time intimates a limitation of the meaning of this word, by the solemn announcement, "and god called the _dry land_ earth," should in a previous place use it in a much more limited sense without any hint of such restriction. the case stands thus: a writer uses the word earth in the most general sense; in the next sentence he is supposed, without any intimation of his intention, to use the same word to denote a region or country, and by so doing entirely to change the meaning of his whole discourse from that which would otherwise have attached to it. yet the same writer when, a few sentences farther on, it becomes necessary for him to use the word earth to denote the dry land as distinguished from the seas, formally and with an assertion of divine authority, intimates the change of meaning. is not this supposition contrary not only to sound principles of interpretation, but also to common-sense; and would it not tend to render worthless the testimony of a writer to whose diction such inaccuracy must be ascribed. it is in truth to me surprising beyond measure that such a view could ever have obtained currency; and i fear it is to be attributed to a determination, at all hazards and with any amount of violence to the written record, to make geology and religion coincide. must we then throw aside this simple and convenient method of reconciliation, sanctioned by chalmers, smith, harris, king, hitchcock, and many other great or respectable names, and on which so many good men complacently rest. truth obliges us to do so, and to confess that both geology and scripture refuse to be reconciled on this basis. we may still admit that the lapse of time between the beginning and the first day may have been great; but we must emphatically deny that this interval corresponds with the time indicated by the series of fossiliferous rocks. before leaving this part of the subject, i may remark that the desolate and empty condition of the earth was not necessarily a chaotic mass of confusion--_rudis indigestaque moles_; but in reality, when physically considered, may have been a more symmetrical and homogeneous condition than any that it subsequently assumed. if the earth were first a vast globe of vapor, then a liquid spheroid, and then acquired a crust not yet seamed by fissures or broken by corrugations, and eventually covered with a universal ocean, then in each of these early conditions it would, in regard to its form, be a more perfect globe than at any succeeding time. that something of this kind is the intention of our historian is implied in his subsequent statements as to the absence of land and the prevalence of a universal ocean in the immediately succeeding period, which imply that the crust had not yet been ruptured or disturbed, but presented an even and uniform surface, no part of which could project above the comparatively thin fluid envelope. the second clause introduces a new object--"_the deep_." whatever its precise nature, this is evidently something included in the earth of verse st, and created with it. the word occurs in other parts of the hebrew scriptures in various senses. it often denotes the sea, especially when in an agitated state (psa. xlii., ; job xxxviii., ). in psalm cxxxv., however, it is distinguished from the sea: "whatsoever the lord pleased, that did he in heaven, in the earth, in the seas, and _in all deeps_." in other cases it has been supposed to refer to interior recesses of the earth, as when at the deluge "the fountains of the great deep" are said to have been broken up. it is probable, however, that this refers to the ocean. in some places it would appear to mean the atmosphere or its waters; as prov. viii., - , "when he prepared the heavens, i was there; when he described a circle on the face of the deep, when he established the clouds above, when he strengthened the fountains of the deep." the septuagint in this passage reads "throne on the winds" and "fountains under the heaven."[ ] though we can not attach much value to these readings, there seems little reason to doubt that the author of this passage understands by the deep the atmospheric waters, and not the sea, which he mentions separately. the same meaning must be attached to the word in another passage of the book of proverbs: "the lord in wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath he established the heavens; by his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the small rain." in the passage now under consideration, it would seem that we have both the deep and the waters mentioned, and this not in a way which would lead us to infer their identity. the darkness on the surface of the deep and the spirit of god on the face of the waters seem to refer to the condition of two distinct objects at the same time. neither can the word here refer to subterranean cavities, for the ascription of a surface to these, and the statement that they were enveloped in darkness, would in this case have neither meaning nor use. for these reasons i am induced to believe that the locality of the deep or abyss is to be sought, not in the universal ocean or the interior of the earth, but in the vaporous or aeriform mass mantling the surface of our nascent planet, and containing the materials out of which the atmosphere was afterward elaborated. this is a view leading to important consequences: one of which is that the darkness on the surface of the deep can not have been, as believed by the advocates of a local chaos, a mere atmospheric obscuration; since even at the _surface_ of what then represented the atmosphere darkness prevailed. "god covered the earth with the deep as with a garment, and the waters stood above the hills," and without this outer garment was the darkness of space destitute of luminaries, at least of those greater ones which are of primary importance to us. we learn from the following verses that there was no layer of clear atmosphere in this misty deep, separating the clouds from the ocean waters. the last clause of the verse has always been obscure, and perhaps it is still impossible to form a clear idea of the operation intended to be described. we are not even certain whether it is intended to represent any thing within the compass of ordinary natural laws, or to denote a direct intervention of the creator, miraculous in its nature and confined to one period. it is possible that the general intention of the statement may be to the effect that the agency of the divine power in separating the waters from the incumbent vapors had already commenced--that the spirit which would afterward evoke so many wonders out of the chaotic mass was already acting upon it in an unseen and mysterious way, preparing it for its future destiny. some commentators, both jewish and christian, are, however, disposed to view the _ruach elohim_, spirit, or breath of god, as meaning a wind of god, or mighty wind, according to a well-known hebrew idiom. the word in its primary sense means wind or breath, and there are undoubted instances of the expression "wind of god" for a great or strong wind. for example, isaiah xl., : "the grass withereth because the wind of the lord bloweth upon it;" see also kings ii., . such examples, however, are very rare, and by no means sufficient of themselves to establish this interpretation. those who hold this view do so mainly in consideration of the advantage which it affords in attaching a definite meaning to the expression. many of them are not, however, aware of its precise import in a cosmical point of view. a violent wind, before the formation of the atmosphere, and the establishment of the laws which regulate the suspension and motions of aqueous vapors and clouds, must have been merely an agitation of the confused misty and vaporous mass of the deep; since, as ainsworth--more careful than modern interpreters--long ago observed, "winde (which is the moving of the aier) was not created till the second day, that the firmament was spred, and the aier made." such an agitation is by no means improbable. it would be a very likely accompaniment of a boiling ocean, resting on a heated surface, and of excessive condensation of moisture in the upper regions of the atmosphere; and might act as an influential means of preparing the earth for the operations of the second day. it is curious also that the phoenician cosmogony is said to have contained the idea of a mighty wind in connection with this part of creation, and the idea of seething or commotion in the primitive chaos also occurs in the assyrian tablets of creation, while the quiché legend represents hurakon, the storm-god, as specially concerned in the creative work.[ ] on the other hand, the verb used in the text rather expresses hovering or brooding than violent motion, and this better corresponds with the old fable of the mundane egg, which seems to have been derived from the event recorded in this verse. the more evangelical view, which supposes the holy spirit to be intended, is also more in accordance with the general scope of the scripture teachings on this subject; and the opposite idea is, as calvin well says, "too frigid" to meet with much favor from evangelical theologians. chaos, the equivalent of the hebrew "desolation and emptiness," figures largely in all ancient cosmogonies. that of the egyptians is interesting, not only from its resemblance to the hebrew doctrine, but also from its probable connection with the cosmogony of the greeks. taking the version of diodorus siculus, which though comparatively modern, yet corresponds with the hints derived from older sources, we find the original chaos to have been an intermingled condition of elements constituting heaven and earth. this is the hebrew "deep." the first step of progress is the separation of these; the fiery particles ascending above, and not only producing light, but the revolution of the heavenly bodies--a curious foreshadowing of the nebular hypothesis of modern astronomy. after these, in the terms of the lines quoted by diodorus from euripides, plants, birds, mammals, and finally man are produced, not however by a direct creative fiat, but by the spontaneous fecundity of the teeming earth. the phoenician cosmogony attributed to sancuniathon has the void, the deep, and the brooding spirit; and one of the terms employed, "baau," is the same with the hebrew "bohu," void, if read without the points. the babylonians, according to berosus, believed in a chaos--which, however, like the literal-day theory of some moderns, produced many monsters before belus intervened to separate heaven and earth. but the assyrian legend found in the nineveh tablets is very precise in its intimation of the chaos or _tiamat_, the mother of all things; and, farther, it recognizes this personified chaos as the principle of evil, whose "dragon" becomes the tempter of the progenitors of mankind, exactly like the biblical serpent. this "dragon of the abyss" is thus identical in name and function with the evil principle even of the last book of the new testament, and we have in this also probably the origin of the ahriman of the avesta. thus in these eastern theologies the primeval chaos becomes the type of evil as opposed to the order, beauty, and goodness of the creation of god--a very natural association; but one kept in the background by the hebrew scriptures, as tending to a dualistic belief subversive of monotheism. the greek myth of chaos, and its children erebus and night, who give birth to aether and day, is the same tradition, personified after the fanciful manner of a people who, in the primitive period of their civilization, had no profound appreciation of nature, but were full of human sympathies.[ ] lastly, in a hymn translated by dr. max müller from the rig-veda, a work probably far older than the institutes of menu, we have such utterances as the following: "nor aught nor nought existed: yon bright sky was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above. what covered all? what sheltered? what concealed? was it the water's fathomless abyss? * * * darkness there was, and all at first was veiled in gloom profound--an ocean without light; the germ that still lay covered in the husk burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat." it is evident that the state of our planet which we have just been considering is one of which we can scarcely form any adequate conception, and science can in no way aid us, except by suggesting hypotheses or conjectures. it is remarkable, however, that nearly all the cosmological theories which have been devised contain some of the elements of the inspired narrative. the words of moses appear to suggest a heated and cooling globe, its crust as yet unbroken by internal forces, covered by a universal ocean, on which rested a mass of confused vaporous substances; and it is of such materials, thus combined by the sacred historian, that cosmologists have built up their several theories, aqueous or igneous, of the early state of the earth. geology, as a science of observation and induction, does not carry us back to this period. it must still and always say, with hutton, that it can find "no trace of a beginning, no prospect of an end"--not because there has been no beginning or will be no end, but because the facts which it collects extend neither to the one nor the other. geology, like every other department of natural history, can but investigate the facts which are open to observation, and reason on these in accordance with the known laws and arrangements of existing nature. it finds these laws to hold for the oldest period to which the rocky archives of the earth extend. respecting the origin of these general laws and arrangements, or the condition of the earth before they originated, it knows nothing. in like manner a botanist may determine the age of a forest by counting the growth rings of the oldest trees, but he can tell nothing of the forests that may have preceded it, or of the condition of the surface before it supported a forest. so the archæologist may on egyptian monuments read the names and history of successive dynasties of kings, but he can tell nothing of the state of the country and its native tribes before those dynasties began or their monuments were built. yet geology at least establishes a probability that a time was when organized beings did not exist, and when many of the arrangements of the surface of our earth had not been perfected; and the few facts which have given birth to the theories promulgated on this subject tend to show that this pre-geological condition of the earth may have been such as that described in the words now under consideration. i may remark, in addition, that if the words of moses imply the cooling of the globe from a molten or intensely heated state down to a temperature at which water could exist on its surface, the known rate of cooling of bodies of the dimensions and materials of the earth shows that the time included in these two verses of genesis must have been enormous, amounting it may be to many millions of years. there are two other sciences besides geology which have in modern times attempted to penetrate into the mysteries of the primitive abyss, at least by hypothetical explanations--astronomy and chemistry. the magnificent nebular hypothesis of la place, which explains the formation of the whole solar system by the condensation of a revolving mass of gaseous matter, would manifestly bring our earth to the condition of a fluid body, with or without a solid crust, and surrounded by a huge atmosphere of its more volatile materials, gradually condensing itself around the central nucleus. chemistry informs us that this vaporous mass would contain not only the atmospheric air and water, but all the carbon, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, and other elements, volatile in themselves, or forming volatile compounds with oxygen or hydrogen, that are now imprisoned in various states of combination in the solid crust of the earth. such an atmosphere--vast, dark, pestilential, and capable in its condensation of producing the most intense chemical action--is a necessity of an earth condensing from a vaporous and incandescent state. thus, in so far as scientific speculation ventures to penetrate into the genesis of the earth, its conclusions are at one with the mosaic cosmogony and with the traditions of most ancient nations as to the primitive existence of a chaos--formless and void, in which "nor aught nor nought existed." some of the details of the mosaic vision of the primeval chaos may be supplied by the probabilities established by physics and chemistry. our first idea of the earth would be a vast vaporous ball, recently spun out from the general mass of vapors forming the nebula which once represented the solar system. this huge cloud, whirling its annual round about the still vaporous centre of the system, would consist of all the materials now constituting the solid rocks as well as those of the seas and atmosphere, their atoms kept asunder by the force of heat, preventing not only their mechanical union, but even their chemical combination. but heat is being radiated on all sides into space, and the opposing force of gravitation is little by little gathering the particles toward the centre. at length a liquid nucleus is formed, while upon this are being precipitated showers of condensing matter from the still vast atmosphere to add to its volume. as this process advances, a new brilliancy is given to the feebly shining vapors by the incandescence of solid particles in the upper layers of the atmosphere, and in this stage our earth would be a little sun, a miniature of that which now forms the centre of our system, and which still, by virtue of its greater mass, continues in this state. but at length, by further cooling, this brilliancy is lost, and the still fluid globe is surrounded by a vast cloudy pall, in which condensing vapors gather in huge dark masses, and amid terrible electrical explosions, pour, in constantly increasing, acid, corrosive rains, upon the heated nucleus, combining with its materials, or again flashing into vapors. thus darkness dense and gross would settle upon the vaporous deep, and would continue for long ages, until the atmosphere could be finally cleared of its superfluous vapors. in the mean time a crust of slag or cinder has been forming upon the molten nucleus. broken again and again by the heaving of the seething mass, it at length sets permanently, and finally allows some portion of the liquid rain condensed upon it to remain as a boiling ocean. then began the reign of the waters, under which the first stratified rocks were laid down by the deposit of earthy and saline matter suspended or dissolved in the heated sea. such is the picture which science presents to us of the genesis of the earth, and so far as we can judge from his words, such must have been the picture presented to the mental vision of the ancient seer of creation; but he could discern also that mysterious influence, the "breath of elohim," which moved on the face of the waters, and prepared for the evolution of land and of life from their bosom. he saw-- "an earth--formless and void; a vaporous abyss--dark at its very surface; a universal ocean--the breath of god hovering over it." how could such a scene be represented in words? since it presented none of the familiar features of the actual world. had he attempted to dilate upon it, he would, in the absence of the facts furnished by modern science, have been obliged, like the writers of some of the less simple and primitive cosmogonies already quoted,[ ] to adopt the feeble expedient of enumerating the things not present. he wisely contents himself with a few well-chosen words, which boldly sketch the crude materials of a world hopeless and chaotic but for the animating breath of the almighty, who has created even that old chaos out of which is to be worked in the course of the six creative days all the variety and beauty of a finished world. in conclusion, the reader will perceive how this reticence of the author of genesis strengthens the argument for the primitive age of the document, and for the vision-theory as to its origin; and will also observe that, in the conception of this ancient writer, the "promise and potency" of order and life reside not alone in the atoms of a vaporous world, but also in the will of its creator. chapter vi. light and creative days. "and god said, let light be, and light was; and god saw the light that it was good, and separated the light from the darkness; and god called the light day; and the darkness he called night. and evening was and morning was--day one."--genesis i., - . light is the first element of order and perfection introduced upon our planet--the first innovation on the old régime of darkness and desolation. there is a beautiful propriety in this, for the hebrew _aur_ (light) should be viewed as including heat and electricity as well as light; and these three forces--if they are really distinct, and not merely various movements of one and the same ether--are in themselves, or the proximate causes of their manifestation, the prime movers of the machinery of nature, the vivifying forces without which the primeval desolation would have been eternal. the statement presented here is, however, a bold one. light without luminaries, which were afterward formed--independent light, so to speak, shining all around the earth--is an idea not likely to have occurred in the days of moses to the framer of a fictitious cosmogony, and yet it corresponds in a remarkable manner with some of the theories which have grown out of modern induction. i have said that the hebrew word translated "light" includes the vibratory movements which we call heat and electricity as well. i make this statement, not intending to assert that the hebrews experimented on these forces in the manner of modern science, and would therefore be prepared to understand their laws or correlations as fully as we can. i give the word this general sense simply because throughout the bible it is used to denote the solar light and heat, and also the electric light of the thunder-cloud: "the light of his cloud," "the bright light which is in the clouds." the absence of "_aur_," therefore, in the primeval earth, is the absence of solar radiation, of the lightning's flash, and of volcanic fires. we shall in the succeeding verses find additional reasons for excluding all these phenomena from the darkness of the primeval night. the light of the first day can not reasonably be supposed to have been in any other than a visible and active state. whether light be, as supposed by the older physicists, luminous matter radiated with immense velocity, or, as now appears more probable, merely the undulations of a universally diffused ether, its motion had already commenced. the idea of the matter of light as distinct from its power of affecting the senses does not appear in the scriptures any farther than that the hebrew name is probably radically identical with the word ether now used to express the undulating medium by which light is propagated; and if it did, the general creation of matter being stated in verse , and the notice of the separation of light and darkness being distinctly given in the present verse, there is no place left for such a view here. for this reason, that explanation of these words which supposes that on the first day the _matter_ of light, or the ether whose motions produce light, was created, and that on the fourth day, when luminaries were appointed, it became visible by beginning to undulate, must be abandoned; and the connection between these two statements must be sought in some other group of facts than that connected with the existence of the matter of light as distinct from its undulations. what, then, was the nature of the light which on the first day shone without the presence of any local luminary? it must have proceeded from luminous matter diffused through the whole space of the solar system, or surrounding our globe as with a mantle. it was "clothed with light as with a garment," "sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun was not." we have already rejected the hypothesis that the primeval night proceeded from a temporary obscuration of the atmosphere; and the expression, "god said, let light be," affords an additional reason, since, in accordance with the strict precision of language which everywhere prevails in this ancient document, a mere restoration of light would not be stated in such terms. if we wish to find a natural explanation of the mode of illumination referred to, we must recur to one or other of the suppositions mentioned above, that the luminous matter formed a nebulous atmosphere, slowly concentrating itself toward the centre of the solar system, or that it formed a special envelope of our earth, which subsequently disappeared. we may suppose this light-giving matter to be the same with that which now surrounds the sun, and constitutes the stratum of luminous substance which, by its wondrous and unceasing power of emitting light, gives him all his glory. to explain the division of the light from the darkness, we need only suppose that the luminous matter, in the progress of its concentration, was at length all gathered within the earth's orbit, and then, as one hemisphere only would be illuminated at a time, the separation of light from darkness, or of day from night, would be established. this hypothesis, suggested by the words themselves, affords a simple and natural explanation of a statement otherwise obscure. it is an instructive circumstance that the probabilities respecting the early state of our planet, thus deduced from the scriptural narrative, correspond very closely with the most ingenious and truly philosophical speculation ever hazarded respecting the origin of our solar system. i refer to the cosmical hypothesis of la place, which was certainly formed without any reference to the bible; and by persons whose views of the mosaic narrative are of that shallow character which is too prevalent, has been suspected as of infidel tendency. la place's theory is based on the following properties of the solar system, which will be found referred to in this connection in many popular works on astronomy: . the orbits of the planets are nearly circular. . they revolve nearly in the plane of the sun's equator.[ ] . they all revolve round the sun in one direction, which is also the direction of the sun's rotation. . they rotate on their axes also, as far as is known, in the same direction. . their satellites, with the exception of those of uranus and neptune, revolve in the same direction. now all these coincidences can scarcely have been fortuitous, and yet they might have been otherwise without affecting the working of the system; and, farther, if not fortuitous, they correspond precisely with the results which would flow from the condensation of a revolving mass of nebulous matter. la place, therefore, conceived that in the beginning the matter of our system existed in the condition of a mass of vaporous material, having a central nucleus more or less dense, and the whole rotating in a uniform direction. such a mass must, "in condensing by cold, leave in the plane of its equator zones of vapor composed of substances which required an intense degree of cold to return to a liquid or solid state. these zones must have begun by circulating round the sun in the form of concentric rings, the most volatile molecules of which must have formed the superior part, and the most condensed the inferior part. if all the nebulous molecules of which these rings are composed had continued to cool without disuniting, they would have ended by forming a liquid or solid ring. but the regular constitution which all parts of the ring would require for this, and which they would have needed to preserve when cooling, would make this phenomenon extremely rare. accordingly the solar system presents only one instance of it--that of the rings of saturn. generally the ring must have broken into several parts which have continued to circulate round the sun, and with almost equal velocity, while at the same time, in consequence of their separation, they would acquire a rotatory motion round their respective centres of gravity; and as the molecules of the superior part of the ring--that is to say, those farthest from the centre of the sun--had necessarily an absolute velocity greater than the molecules of the inferior part which is nearest it, the rotatory motion common to all the fragments must always have been in the same direction with the orbitual motion. however, if after their division one of these fragments has been sufficiently superior to the others to unite them to it by its attraction, they will have formed only a mass of vapor, which, by the continual friction of all its parts, must have assumed the form of a spheroid, flattened at the poles and expanded in the direction of its equator."[ ] here, then, are rings of vapor left by the successive retreats of the atmosphere of the sun, changed into so many planets in the condition of vapor, circulating round the central orb, and possessing a rotatory motion in the direction of their revolution, while the solar mass was gradually contracting itself round its centre and assuming its present organized form. such is a general view of the hypothesis of la place, which may also be followed out into all the known details of the solar system, and will be found to account for them all. into these details, however, we can not now enter. let us now compare this ingenious speculation with the scripture narrative. in both we have the raw material of the heavens and the earth created before it assumed its distinct forms. in both we have that state of the planets characterized as without form and void, the condensing nebulous mass of la place's theory being in perfect correspondence with the scriptural "deep." in both it is implied that the permanent mutual relations of the several bodies of the system must have been perfected long after their origin. lastly, supposing the luminous atmosphere of our sun to have been of such a character as to concentrate itself wholly around the centre of the system, and that as it became concentrated it acquired its intense luminosity, we have in both the production of light from the same cause; and in both it would follow that the concentration of this matter within the orbit of the earth would effect the separation of day from night, by illuminating alternately the opposite sides of the earth. it is true that the theory of la place does not provide for any such special condensation of luminous matter, nor for any precise stage of the process as that in which the arrangements of light and darkness should be completed; but under his hypothesis it seems necessary to account in some such way for the sole luminosity of the sun; and the point of separation of day and night must have been a marked epoch in the history of the process for each planet. the theory of accretion of matter which has in modern times been associated with that of la place would equally well accord with the indications in our mosaic record.[ ] it is further to be observed that so long as the material of the earth constituted a part of the great vaporous mass, it would be encompassed with its diffused light, and that after it had been left outside the contracting solar envelope, it might still retain some independent luminosity in its atmosphere, a trace of which may still exist in the auroral displays of the upper strata of the air. the earth might thus at first be in total darkness. it might then be dimly lighted by the surrounding nebulosity, or by a luminous envelope in its own atmosphere. then it might, as before explained, relapse into the darkness of its misty mantle, and as this cleared away and the light of the sun increased and became condensed, the latter would gradually be installed into his office as the sole orb of day. it is quite evident that we thus have a sufficient hypothetical explanation of the light of the first of the creative æons; and this is all that in the present state of science we can expect. "where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof, that thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and know the way to the house thereof?" for the reasons above given, we must regard the hypothesis of the great french astronomer as a wonderful approximation to the grand and simple plan of the construction of our system as revealed in scripture. nor must we omit to notice that the telescope and the spectroscope reveal to us in the heavens gaseous nebular bodies which may well be new systems in progress of formation, and in which the creator is even now dividing the light from the darkness. still another thought in connection with this subject is that the theory of a condensing system affords a measure of the aggregate time occupied in the work of creation. sir william thomson's well-known calculations give us one hundred millions of years as the possible age of the earth as a planetary globe; but calculations of the sun's heat as produced by gravitation alone would give a much less time. we have, however, a right to assume an original heated condition of the vaporous mass from which the sun was formed. still the date above given would seem to be a maximum rather than a minimum age for the solar system. "god saw the light that it was good," though it illuminated but a waste of lifeless waters. it was good because beautiful in itself, and because god saw it in its relations to long trains of processes and wonderful organic structures on which it was to act as a vivifying agency. throughout the scriptures light is not only good, but an emblem of higher good. in psalm civ. god is represented as "clothing himself with light as with a garment;" and in many other parts of these exquisite lyrics we have similar figures. "the lord is my light and salvation;" "lift up the light of thy countenance upon me;" "the entrance of thy law giveth light;" "the path of the just is as a shining light." and the great spiritual light of the world, the "only begotten of the father," the mediator alike in creation and redemption, is himself the "sun of righteousness." perhaps the noblest scripture passage relating to the blessing of light is one in the address of jehovah to job, which is unfortunately so imperfectly translated in the english version as to be almost unintelligible: "hast thou in thy lifetime given law to the morning, or caused the dawn to know its place, that it may enclose the horizon in its grasp, and chase the robbers before it: it rolls along as the seal over the clay, causing all things to stand forth in gorgeous apparel."[ ] job xxxviii., . the concluding words, "day one," bring us to the consideration of one of the most difficult problems in this history, and one on which its significance in a great measure depends--the meaning of the word _day_, and the length of the days of creation. in pursuing this investigation, i shall refrain from noticing in detail the views of the many able modern writers who, from cuvier, de luc, and jameson, down to hugh miller, donald mcdonald, and tayler lewis, have maintained the period theory, or those equally numerous and able writers who have supported the opposite view. i acknowledge obligations to them all, but prefer to direct my attention immediately to the record itself. the first important fact that strikes us is one which has not received the attention it deserves, viz., that the word _day_ is evidently used in three senses in the record itself. we are told (verse th) that god called the _light_, that is, the diurnal continuance of light, day. we are also informed that the _evening_ and the _morning_ were the first day. day, therefore, in one of these clauses is the light as separated from the darkness, which we may call the _natural day_; in the other it is the whole time occupied in the creation of light and its separation from the darkness, whether that was a _civil or astronomical day_ of twenty-four hours or some longer period. in other words, the daylight, to which god is represented as restricting the use of the term day, is only a part of a day of creation, which included both light and darkness, and which might be either a civil day or a longer period, but could not be the natural day intervening between sunrise and sunset, which is the _ordinary_ day of scripture phraseology. again, in the th verse of chapter ii., which begins the second part of the history, the whole creative week is called one day--"in the day that jehovah elohim made the earth and the heavens." such an expression must surely in such a place imply more than a mere inadvertence on the part of the writer or writers. to pave the way for a right understanding of the day of creation, it may be well to consider, in the first place, the manner in which the _shorter day_ is introduced. in the expression, "god _called_ the light day," we find for the first time the creator naming his works, and we may infer that some important purpose was to be served by this. the nature of this purpose we ascertain by comparison with other instances of the same kind occurring in the chapter. god called the darkness night, the firmament heaven, the dry land earth, the gathered waters seas. in all these cases the purpose seems to have been one of verbal definition, perhaps along with an assertion of sovereignty. it was necessary to distinguish the diurnal darkness from that unvaried darkness which had been of old, and to discriminate between the limited waters of an earth having dry land on its surface and those of the ancient universal ocean. this is effected by introducing two new terms, night and seas. in like manner it was necessary to mark the new application of the term earth to the dry land, and that of heaven to the atmosphere, more especially as these were the senses in which the words were to be popularly used. the intention, therefore, in all these cases was to affix to certain things names different from those which they had previously borne in the narrative, and to certain terms new senses differing from those in which they had been previously used. applying this explanation here, it results that the probable reason for calling the light day is to point out that the word occurs in two senses, and that while it was to be the popular and proper term for the natural day, this sense must be distinguished from its other meaning as a day of creation. in short, we may take this as a plain and authoritative declaration _that the day of creation is not the day of popular speech_. we see in this a striking instance of the general truth that in the simplicity of the structure of this record we find not carelessness, but studied and severe precision, and are warned against the neglect of the smallest peculiarities in its diction. what, then, is the day of creation, as distinguished by moses himself from the natural day. the general opinion, and that which at first sight appears most probable, is that it is merely the ordinary civil day of twenty-four hours. those who adopt this view insist on the impropriety of diverting the word from its usual sense. unfortunately, however, for this argument, the word is not very frequently used in the scriptures for the whole twenty-four hours of the earth's revolution. its etymology gives it the sense of the time of glowing or warmth, and in accordance with this the divine authority here limits its meaning to the daylight. accordingly throughout the hebrew scriptures _yom_ is generally the natural and not the civil day; and where the latter is intended, the compound terms "day and night" and "evening and morning" are frequently used. any one who glances over the word "day" in a good english concordance can satisfy himself of this fact. but the sense of natural day from sunrise to sunset is expressly excluded here by the context, as already shown; and all that we can say in favor of the interpretation that limits the day of creation to twenty-four hours, is that next to the use of the word for the natural day, which is its true popular meaning, its use for the civil day is perhaps the most frequent. it is therefore by no means a statement of the whole truth to affirm, as many writers have done, that the civil day is _the ordinary_ meaning of the term. at the same time we may admit that this is _one_ of its ordinary meanings, and therefore may be its meaning here. another argument frequently urged is that the day of creation is said to have had an evening and morning. we shall consider this more fully in the sequel, and in the mean time may observe that it appears rather hazardous to attribute an ordinary evening and morning to a day which, on the face of the record, preceded the formation and arrangement of the luminaries which are "for days and for years."[ ] but it may be affirmed that in the bible long and undefined periods are indicated by the word "day." in many of these cases the word is in the plural: as genesis iv., , "and after days it came to pass," rendered in our version "in process of time;" genesis xl., , "days in ward," rendered "a season." such instances as these are not applicable to the present question, since the plural may have the sense of indefinite time, merely by denoting an undetermined number of natural days. passages in which the singular occurs in this sense are those which strictly apply to the case in hand, and such are by no means rare. a very remarkable example is that in genesis ii., , already mentioned, where we find, "in the day when jehovah elohim made the earth and the heavens." this day must either mean the beginning, or must include the whole six days; most probably the latter, since the word "made" refers not to the act of creation, properly so called, but to the elaborating processes of the creative week; and occurring as this does immediately after the narrative of creation, it seems almost like an intentional intimation of the wide import of the creative days. it has been objected, however, that the expression "in the day" is properly a compound adverb, having the force of "when" or "at the time." but the learned and ingenious authors who urge this objection have omitted to consider the relative probabilities as to whether the adverbial use had arisen while the word _yom_ meant simply a day, or whether the use of the noun for long periods was the reason of the introduction of such an adverbial expression. the probabilities are in favor of the latter, for it is not likely that men would construct an adverb referring to indefinite time from a word denoting one of the most precisely limited portions of time, unless that word had also a second and more unlimited sense. admitting, therefore, that the phrase is an adverb of time, its use so early as the date of the composition of genesis, to denote a period longer than a literal day, seems to imply that this indefinite use of the word was of high antiquity, and probably preceded the invention of any term by which long periods could be denoted. this use of the word "day" is, however, not limited to cases of the occurrence of the formula "in the day." the following are a few out of many instances that might be quoted: job xviii., , "they that come after him shall be astonished at his day;" job xv., , "it shall be accomplished before his _time_;" judges xviii., , "until the day of the captivity of the land;" deut. i., , "and your children which in that day had no knowledge of good and evil;" gen. xxxix., , "and it came to pass about that time" (on that day). we find also abundance of such expressions as "day of calamity," "day of distress," "day of wrath," "day of god's power," "day of prosperity." in such passages the word is evidently used in the sense of era or period of time, and this in prose as well as poetry. there is a remarkable passage in the psalms, which conveys the idea of a day of god as distinct from human or terrestrial days: "before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art god. thou turnest man to destruction, and sayest, return, ye children of men; for a thousand years are in thy sight as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night."[ ] it is a singular coincidence that the authorship of this psalm is attributed to moses, and that its style and language correspond with the songs credited to him in deuteronomy. it is farther to be observed that the reference is to the long periods employed in creation as contrasted with the limited space of years allotted to man. its meaning, too, is somewhat obscured by the inaccurate translation of the third line. in the original it is, "from _olam_ to _olam_ thou art, o el"--that is, "from age to age." these long ages of creation, constituting a duration to us relatively eternal, were so protracted that even a thousand years are but as a watch in the night. if this psalm is rightly attributed to the author of the first chapter of genesis, it seems absolutely certain that he understood his own creative days as being _olamim_ or æons. the same thought occurs in the second epistle of peter: "one day is with the lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." that the other writers of the old testament understood the creative days in this sense, might be inferred from the entire absence of any reference to the work of creation as short, since it occupied only six days. such reference we may find in modern writers, but never in the scriptures. on the contrary, we receive the impression of the creative work as long continued. thus the divine wisdom says in prov. viii., the lord possessed me "from the beginning of his way before his works of old, from everlasting, before the antiquities of the earth." so in psalm cxlv., god's kingdom relatively to nature and providence is a kingdom "of all ages." in psalm civ., which is a poetical version of the creative work, and the oldest extant commentary on genesis i., it is evident that there was no idea in the mind of the writer of a short time, but rather of long consecutive processes; and i may remark here that the course of the narrative itself in genesis i., implies time for the replenishing of the earth with various forms of being in preparation for others, exactly as in psalm civ. perhaps one of the most conclusive arguments in favor of the length of the creative days is that furnished by the seventh day and the institution of the sabbath. in genesis the seventh day is not said to have had any evening or morning, nor is god said to have resumed his work on any eighth day. consequently the seventh day of creation must be still current. now in the fourth commandment the israelites are enjoined to "remember the sabbath-day," because "in six days god created the heavens and the earth." observe here that the sabbath is to be remembered as an institution already known. observe farther that the commandment is placed in the middle of the decalogue, a solitary piece of apparently arbitrary ritual amid the plainest and most obvious moral duties. observe also that the reason given--namely, god's six days' work and seventh day's rest--seems at first sight both far-fetched and trivial, as an argument for abstaining from work in a seventh part of our time. how is all this to be explained? simply, i think, on the supposition that the lawgiver, and those for whom he legislated, knew beforehand the history of creation and the fall, as we have them recorded in genesis, and knew that god's days are æons. the argument is not, "god worked on six natural days, and rested on the seventh; do you therefore the same." such an argument could have no moral or religious force, more especially as it could not be affirmed that god habitually works and rests in this way. the argument reaches far deeper and higher. it is this. god created the world in six of his days, and on the seventh rested, and invited man in eden to enter on his rest as a perpetual sabbath of happiness. but man fell, and lost god's sabbath. therefore a weekly sabbath was prescribed to him as a memorial of what he had lost, and a pledge of what god has promised in the renewal of life and happiness through our saviour. thus the sabbath is the central point of the moral law--the gospel in the decalogue--the connection between god and man through the promise of redemption. it is this and this alone that gives it its true religious significance, but is lost on the natural-day theory. it would farther seem that this view of the law was that of our lord himself, and was known to the jews of his time, for, when blamed for healing a man on the sabbath, he says, "my father worketh hitherto, and i work"--an argument whose force depended on the fact that god continues to work in his providence throughout his long sabbath, which has never been broken except by man. farther, the writer of the epistle to the hebrews takes this view in arguing as to the rest or sabbatism that remains to the people of god. his argument (chap. iv., ) may be stated thus: god finished his work and entered into his rest. man, in consequence of the fall, failed to do so. he has made several attempts since, but unsuccessfully. now christ has finished his work, and has entered into his sabbath, and through him we may enter into that rest of god which otherwise we can not attain to. this does not, it is true, refer to the keeping of a sabbath-day; but it implies an understanding of the reference to god's olamic sabbath, and also implies that christ, having entered into his sabbatism in heaven, gives us a warrant for the christian sabbath or lord's day, which has the same relation to christ's present sabbatism in heaven that the old sabbath had to god's rest from his work of creation.[ ] we may add to these considerations the use of the greek term _ai[=o]n_ in the new testament, for what may be called time-worlds as distinguished from space-worlds. for example, take the expression in heb. i., : "his son, by whom he made the worlds," or, literally, "constituted the æons"--the long time-worlds of the creation. for god's worlds must exist in time as well as in space, and both may to our minds alike appear as infinities. if, then, we find that moses himself seems to have understood his creative days as æons, that the succeeding old testament writers favor the same view, that this view is essential to the true significance of the sabbath and the lord's day, and that it is sustained by christ and his apostles, there is surely no need for our clinging to a mediæval notion which has no theological value, and is in opposition to the facts of nature. on the contrary, should not even children be taught these grand truths, and led to contemplate the great work of him who is from æon to æon, and to think of that sabbatism which he prepared for us, and which he still offers to us in the future, in connection with the succession of worlds in time revealed by geology, and which rivals in grandeur and perhaps exceeds in interest the extension of worlds in space revealed by astronomy. in truth, we should bear in mind that the great revelations of astronomy have too much habituated us to think of space-worlds rather than time-worlds, while the latter idea was evidently dominant with the biblical writers as it is also with modern geologists. viewed as æons--divine days, or time-worlds--the days of creation are thus a reality for all ages; and connect themselves with the highest moral teachings of the bible in relation to the fall of man and god's plan for his restoration, begun in this seventh æon of the world's long history, and to be completed in that second divine sabbatism, secured by the work of redemption, the final "rest" of the "new heavens and new earth," which remains for the people of god. but supposing that the inspired writer intended to say that the world was formed in six long periods of time, could not he have used some other word than _yom_ that would have been liable to fewer doubts. there are words which might have been used, as, for instance, _eth_, time, season, or _olam_, age, ancient time, eternity. the former, however, has about it a want of precision as to its beginning and end which unfits it for this use; the latter we have already seen is used as equivalent to the creative _yom_. on the whole, i am unable to find any instance which would justify me in affirming that, on the supposition that moses intended long periods, he could have better expressed the idea than by the use of the word _yom_, more especially if he and those to whom he wrote were familiar with the thought, preserved to us in the mythology of the hindoos and persians, and probably widely diffused in ancient asia, that a working day of the creator immeasurably transcends a working day of man.[ ] many objections to the view which i have thus endeavored to support from internal evidence will at once occur to every intelligent reader familiar with the literature of this subject. i shall now attempt to give the principal of these objections a candid consideration. ( .) it is objected that the time occupied in the work of creation is given as a reason for the observance of the seventh day as a sabbath; and that this requires us to view the days of creation as literal days. "for in six days jehovah made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day; therefore jehovah blessed the sabbath-day and sanctified it." the argument used here is, however, as we have already seen, one of analogy. because god rested on his seventh day, he blessed and sanctified it, and required men in like manner to sanctify their seventh day.[ ] now, if it should appear that the working day of god is not the same with the working day of man, and that the sabbath of god is of proportionate length to his working day, the analogy is not weakened; more especially as we find the same analogy extended to the seventh year. if it should be said, god worked in the creation of the world in six long ages, and rested on the seventh, therefore man, in commemoration of this fact, and of his own loss of an interest in god's rest by the fall, shall sanctify the seventh of his working days, the argument is stronger, the example more intelligible, than on the common supposition. this objection is, in fact, a piece of pedantic hyperorthodoxy which has too long been handed about without investigation. i may add to what has been already said in reference to it, the following vigorous thrust by hugh miller:[ ] "i can not avoid thinking that many of our theologians attach a too narrow meaning to the remarkable reason attached to the fourth commandment by the divine lawgiver. "god rested on the seventh day," says the text, "from all his work which he had created and made; and god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." and such is the reason given in the decalogue why man should rest on the sabbath-day. god rested on the sabbath-day and sanctified it; and therefore man ought also to rest on the sabbath and keep it holy. but i know not where we shall find grounds for the belief that the sabbath-day during which god rested was merely commensurate with one of the sabbaths of short-lived man--a brief period measured by a single revolution of the earth on its axis. we have not, as has been shown, a shadow of evidence that he resumed his work of creation on the morrow; the geologist finds no trace of post-adamic creation; the theologian can tell us of none. god's sabbath of rest may still exist; the work of redemption may be the work of his sabbath-day. that elevatory process through successive acts of creation, which engaged him during myriads of ages, was of an ordinary week-day character; but when the term of his moral government began, the elevatory process peculiar to it assumed the divine character of the sabbath. this special view appears to lend peculiar emphasis to the reason embodied in the commandment. the collation of the passage with the geologic record seems, as if by a species of retranslation, to make it enunciate as its injunction, "keep this day, not merely as a day of memorial related to a past fact, but also as a day of co-operation with god in the work of elevation, in relation both to a present fact and a future purpose." "god keeps his sabbath," it says, "in order that he may save; keep yours also that ye may be saved." it serves besides to throw light on the prominence of the sabbatical command, in a digest of law of which no jot or tittle can pass away until the fulfillment of all things. during the present dynasty of probation and trial, that special work of both god and man on which the character of the future dynasty depends is the sabbath-day work of saving and being saved. "the common objection to that special view which regards the days of creation as immensely protracted periods of time, furnishes a specimen, if not of reasoning in a circle, at least of reasoning from a mere assumption. it first takes for granted that the sabbath-day during which god rested was a day of but twenty-four hours, and then argues from the supposition that, in order to keep up the proportion between the six previous working days and the seventh day of rest, which the reason annexed to the fourth commandment demands, these previous days must also have been twenty-four hours each. it would, i have begun to suspect, square better with the ascertained facts, and be at least equally in accordance with scripture, to reverse the process, and argue that because god's working days were immensely protracted periods, his sabbath also must be an immensely protracted period. the reason attached to the law of the sabbath seems to be simply a reason of proportion: the objection to which i refer is an objection palpably founded on considerations of proportion, and certainly were the reason to be divested of proportion, it would be divested also of its distinctive character as a reason. were it as follows, it could not be at all understood: "six days shalt thou labor, etc.; but on the seventh day shalt thou do no labor, etc.; for in six immensely protracted periods of several thousand years each did the lord make the heavens and the earth, etc.; and then rested during a brief day of twenty-four hours; therefore the lord blessed the brief day of twenty-four hours and hallowed it." this, i repeat, would not be reason. all, however, that seems necessary to the integrity of the reason, in its character as such, is that the proportion of six parts to seven should be maintained. god's periods may be periods expressed algebraically by letters symbolical of unknown quantities, and man's periods by letters symbolical of quantities well known; but if god's sabbath be equal to one of his six working days, and man's sabbath equal to one of his six working days, the integrity of proportion is maintained." not only does this view of the case entirely remove the objection, but, as we have already seen, it throws a new light on the nature and reason of the sabbath. no good reason, except that of setting an example, can be assigned for god's resting for a literal day. but if god's sabbath of rest from natural creation is still in progress, and if our short sabbaths are symbolical of the work of that great sabbath in its present gray morning and in its coming glorious noon, then may the christian thank this question, incidentally raised by geology and its long periods, for a ray of light which shines along the whole course of scripture history, from the first sabbath up to that final "rest which remaineth for the people of god."[ ] ( .) it is objected that evening and morning are ascribed to the first day. this has been already noticed; it may here be considered more fully. the word evening in the original is literally the darkening, the sunset, the dusk. morning is the _opening_ or _breaking forth_ of light--the daybreak. it must not be denied that the explanation of these terms is attended with some difficulty, but this is not at all lessened by narrowing the day to twenty-four hours. the first operation of the first day was the creation of light; next we have the creator contemplating his work and pronouncing it to be good; then we have the separation of the light and darkness, previously, it is to be presumed, intermixed; and all this without the presence of a sun or other luminary. which of these operations occupied the evening, and which the morning, if the day consisted of but twenty-four hours, beginning, according to hebrew custom, in the evening? was the old primeval darkness the evening or night, and the first breaking forth of light morning? this is almost the only view compatible with the hebrew civil day beginning at evening, but it would at once lengthen the day beyond twenty-four hours, and contradict the terms of the record. again, were the separated light and darkness the morning and evening? if so, why is the evening mentioned first, contrary to the supposed facts of the case? why, indeed, are the evening and morning mentioned at all, since on that supposition this is merely a repetition? lastly, shall we adopt the ingenious expedient of dividing the evening and morning between two days, and maintaining that the evening belongs to the first and the morning to the second day, which would deprive the first day of a morning, and render the creative days, whatever their length, altogether different from hebrew natural or civil days? it is unnecessary to pursue such inquiries farther, since it is evident that the terms of the record will not agree with the supposition of natural evening and morning. this is of itself a strong presumption against the hypothesis of civil days, since the writer was under no necessity so to word these verses that they would not give any rational or connected sense on the supposition of natural evening and morning, unless he wished to be otherwise understood. but what is the meaning of evening and morning, if these days were long periods? here fewer difficulties meet us. first: it is readily conceivable that the beginning and end of a period named a day should be called evening and morning. but what made the use of these divisions necessary or appropriate? i answer that nature and revelation both give grounds at least to suspect that the evening, or earlier part of each period, was a time of comparative inaction, sometimes even of retrogression, and that the latter part of each period was that of its greatest activity and perfection. thus, on the views stated in a former chapter, in the first day there was a time when luminous matter, either gradually concentrating itself toward the sun, or surrounding the earth itself, shed a dim but slowly increasing light; then there were day and night, the light increasing in intensity as, toward the end of the period, the luminous matter became more and more concentrated around the sun. so in our own seventh day, the earlier part was a time of deplorable retrogression, and though the sun of righteousness has arisen, we have seen as yet only a dim and cloudy morning. on the theory of days of vision, as expounded by hugh miller, in the "testimony of the rocks," in one of his noblest passages, the evening and night fall on each picture presented to the seer like the curtain of a stage. secondly: though the explanation stated above is the most probable, the hypothesis of long periods admits of another, namely, that the writer means to inform us that evening and morning, once established by the separation of light from darkness, continued without cessation throughout the remainder of the period--rolling from this time uninterruptedly around our planet, like the seal cylinder over the clay.[ ] this explanation is, however, less applicable to the following days than to the first. nor does this accord with the curious fact that the seventh day, which, on the hypothesis of long periods, is still in progress, is not said to have had an evening or morning. ( .) it is objected that the first chapter of genesis "is not a poem nor a piece of oratorical diction," but a simple prosaic narrative, and consequently that its terms must be taken in a literal sense. in answer to this, i urge that the most truly literal sense of the word, namely, the _natural_ day, is excluded by the terms of the narrative; and that the word may be received as a literal day of the creator, in the sense of one of his working periods, without involving the use of poetical diction, and in harmony with the wording of plain prosaic passages in other parts of the bible. examples of this have already been given. it is, however, true that, though the first chapter of genesis is not strictly poetical, it is thrown into a metrical form which admits of some approach to a figurative expression in the case of a term of this kind. ( .) it has been urged that in cases where day is used to denote period, as in the expressions "day of calamity," etc., the adjuncts plainly show that it can not mean an ordinary day. in answer to this, i merely refer to the internal evidence already adduced, and to the deliberate character of the statements, in the manner rather of the description of processes than of acts. the difficulties attending the explanation of the evening and the morning, and the successive creation of herbivorous and carnivorous animals, are also strong indications which should serve here to mark the sense, just as the context does in the cases above referred to. ( .) in professor hitchcock's valuable and popular "religion of geology," i find some additional objections, which deserve notice as specimens of the learned trifles which pass current among writers on this subject, much to the detriment of sound scriptural literature. i give them in the words of the author. . "from genesis ii., compared with genesis i., and , it seems that it had not rained on the earth till the third day; a fact altogether probable if the days were of twenty-four hours, but absurd if they were long periods." it strikes us that the absurdity here is all on the side of the short days. why should any prominence be given to a fact so common as the lapse of two ordinary days without rain, more especially if a region of the earth and not the whole is referred to, and in a document prepared for a people residing in climates such as those of egypt and palestine. but what could be more instructive and confirmatory of the truth of the narrative than the fact that in the two long periods which preceded the formation and clearing up of the atmosphere or firmament, on which rain depends, and the elevation of the dry land, which so greatly modifies its distribution, there had been no rain such as now occurs. this is a most important fact, and one of the marked coincidences of the record with scientific truth. the objection, therefore, merely shows that the ordinary day hypothesis tends to convert one of the finest internal harmonies of this wonderful history into an empty and, in some respects, absurd commonplace. . "this hypothesis (that days are long periods) assumes that moses describes the creation of all the animals and plants that have ever lived on our globe. but geology decides that the species now living, since they are not found in the rocks any lower than man is,[ ] could not have been contemporaneous with those in the rocks, but must have been created when man was--that is, in the sixth day. of such a creation no mention is made in genesis; the inference is that moses does not describe the creation of the existing races, but only of those that lived thousands of years earlier, and whose existence was scarcely suspected till modern times. who will admit such an absurdity?" in answer to this objection, i remark that it is based on a false assumption. the hypothesis of long periods does not require us to assume that moses notices all the animals and plants that have ever lived, but on the contrary that he informs us only of the _first appearance_ of each great natural type in the animal and vegetable kingdoms; just as he informs us of the first appearance of dry land on the third day, but says nothing of the changes which it underwent on subsequent days. thus plants were created on the third day, and though they may have been several times destroyed and renewed as to genera and species, we infer that they continued to exist in all the succeeding days, though the inspired historian does not inform us of the fact. so also many tribes of animals were created in the early part of the fifth day, and it is quite unnecessary for us to be informed that these tribes continued to exist through the sixth day. if the days were long periods, the inspired writer could not have adopted any other course, unless he had been instructed to write a treatise on palæontology, and to describe the fauna and flora of each successive period with their characteristic differences. . "though there is a general resemblance between the order of creation as described in genesis and by geology, yet when we look at the details of the creation of the organic world, as required by this hypothesis, we find manifest discrepancy. thus the bible represents plants only to have been created on the third day, and animals not till the fifth; and hence at least the lower half of the fossiliferous rocks ought to contain nothing but vegetables. whereas in fact the lower half of these rocks, all below the carboniferous, although abounding in animals, contain scarcely any plants, and these in the lowest strata fucoids or sea-weeds. but the mosaic account evidently describes flowering and seed-bearing plants, not flowerless and seedless algæ. again, reptiles are described in genesis as created on the fifth day; but reptilia and batrachians existed as early as the time when the lower carboniferous and even old red sandstone were in course of deposition, as their tracks on those rocks in nova scotia and pennsylvania evince.[ ] in short, if we maintain that moses describes fossils as well as living species, we find discrepancy instead of correspondence between his order of creation and that of geology." in this objection it is assumed that the geological history of the earth goes back to the third day of creation, or, in other words, to the dawn of organic life. none of the greater authorities in geology would, however, now venture to make such an assertion, and the progress of geology is rapidly making the contrary more and more probable. the fact is that, on the supposition that the days of creation are long periods, the whole series of the fossiliferous rocks belongs to the fifth and sixth days; and that for the early plant creation of the third day, and the great physical changes of the fourth, geology has nothing as yet to show, except a mass of metamorphosed eozoic rocks which have hitherto yielded no fossils except a few protozoa; but which contain vast quantities of carbon in the form of graphite, which may be the remains of plants. i have much pleasure in quoting, as a further answer to these objections, the following from professor dana:[ ] "accepting the account in genesis as true, the seeming discrepancy between it and geology rests mainly here: geology holds, and has held from the first, that the progress of creation was mainly through secondary causes; for the existence of the science presupposes this. moses, on the contrary, was thought to sustain the idea of a simple fiat for each step. grant this first point to science, and what farther conflict is there? _the question of the length of time_, it is replied. but not so; for if we may take the record as allowing more than six days of twenty-four hours, the bible then places no limit to time. _the question of the days and periods_, it is replied again. but this is of little moment in comparison with the first principle granted. those who admit the length of time and stand upon days of twenty-four hours have to place geological time _before_ the six days, and then assume a chaos and reordering of creation, on the six-day and fiat principle, after a previous creation that had operated for a long period through secondary causes. others take days as periods, and thus allow the required time, admitting that creation was one in progress, a grand whole, instead of a _first_ creation excepting man by one method, and a _second_ with man by the other. this is now the remaining question between the theologians and geologists; for all the minor points, as to the exact interpretation of each day, do not affect the general concordance or discordance of the bible and science. "on this point geology is now explicit in its decision, and indeed has long been so. it proves that there was no return to chaos, no great revolution, that creation was beyond doubt one in its progress. we know that some geologists have taken the other view. but it is only in the capacity of theologians, and not as geologists. the rev. dr. buckland, in placing the great events of geology between the first and second verses of the mosaic account, did not pretend that there was a geological basis for such an hypothesis; and no writer since has ever brought forward the first fact in geology to support the idea of a rearrangement just before man; not one solitary fact has ever been appealed to. the conclusion was on biblical grounds, and not in any sense on geological. the best that buckland could say, when he wrote twenty-five years since, was that geology did not absolutely disprove such an hypothesis; and that can not be said now. "it is often asserted, in order to unsettle confidence in these particular teachings of geology, that geology is a changing science. in this connection the remark conveys an erroneous impression. geology is a progressive science; and all its progress tends to establish more firmly these two principles: ( ) the slow progress of creation through secondary causes, as explained; and ( ) the progress by periods analogous to the days of genesis." i have, i trust, shown that the principal objections to the lengthening of the mosaic days into great cosmical periods are of a character too light and superficial to deserve any regard. i shall now endeavor to add to the internal evidence previously given some considerations of an external character which support this view. . the fact that the creation was progressive, that it proceeded from the formation of the raw material of the universe, through successive stages, to the perfection of living organisms, if we regard the analogy of god's operations as disclosed in the geological history of the earth and in the present course of nature, must impress us with a suspicion that long periods were employed in the work. god might have prepared the earth for man in an instant. he did not choose to do so, but on the contrary proceeded step by step; and the record he has given us does not receive its full significance nor attain its full harmony with the course of geological history, unless we can understand each day of the creative week as including a long succession of ages. . we have, as already explained, reason to believe that the seventh day at least has been of long duration. at the close of the sixth, god rested from all his work of material creation, and we have as yet no evidence that he has resumed it. neither theologians nor evolutionists will, i presume, desire to maintain that any strictly creative acts have occurred in the modern period of geology. we know that the present day, if it is the seventh, has lasted already for at least six thousand years, and, if we may judge from the testimony of prophecy, has yet a long space to run, before it merges in that "new heaven and new earth" for which all believers look, and which will constitute the first day of an endless sabbatism. . the philosophical and religious systems of many ancient nations afford intimations of the somewhat extensive prevalence in ancient times of the notion of long creative periods, corresponding to the mosaic days. these notions, in so far as they are based on truth, are probably derived from the mosaic narrative itself, or from the primitive patriarchal documents which may have formed the basis of that narrative. they are, no doubt, all more or less garbled versions, and can not be regarded as of any authority, but they serve to show what was the interpretation of the document in a very remote antiquity. i have collected from a variety of sources the following examples: the ancient mythology of persia appears to have had six creative periods, each apparently of a thousand years, and corresponding very nearly with the mosaic days.[ ] the chaldeans had a similar system, to which in a previous chapter we have already referred. the etruscans possessed a history of the creation, somewhat resembling that of the bible, and representing the creation as occupying six periods of a thousand years each.[ ] the egyptians believed that the world had been subject to a series of destructions and renewals, the intervals between which amounted to , years, or, according to other authorities, to , or , years. this system of destruction and renewal the egyptian priests appear to have wrought out into considerable detail, but though important truths may be concealed under their mysterious dogmas, it will not repay us to dwell on the fragments that remain of them. there can be no doubt, however, that at least the basis of the egyptian cosmogony must have been the common property of all the hamite nations, of which egypt was the greatest and most permanent; and therefore in all probability derived from the ideas of creation which were current not long after the deluge. the egyptians appear also, as already stated, to have had a physical cosmogony, beginning with a chaos in which heaven and earth were mingled, and from which were evolved fiery matters which ascended into the heavens, and moist earthy matters which formed the earth and the sea; and from these were produced, by the agency of solar heat, the various animals. the terms of this cosmogony, as it is given by diodorus siculus, indicate the belief of long formative periods.[ ] the hindoos have a somewhat extended, though, according to the translations, a not very intelligible cosmogony. it plainly, however, asserts long periods of creative work, and is interesting as an ancient cosmogony preserved entire and without transmission through secondary channels. the following is a summary, in so far as i have been able to gather it, from the translation of the institutes of menu by sir w. jones.[ ] the introduction to the institutes represents menu as questioned by the "divine sages" respecting the laws that should regulate all classes or castes. he proceeds to detail the course of creation, stating that the "self-existing power,[ ] undiscovered, but making this world discernible, he whom the mind alone can perceive, whose essence eludes the external senses, who has no visible parts, who exists from eternity, even the soul of all being, whom no being can comprehend, shone forth in person." after giving this exalted view of the creator, the writer proceeds to state that the self-existent created the waters, and then an egg, from which he himself comes forth as brahma the forefather of spirits. "the waters are called nara because they are the production of _nara_, the spirit of god, and since they were his first _ayana_, or place of motion, he thence is named _narayana_, or moving on the waters. in the egg brahma remained a year, and caused the egg to divide, forming the heaven above and the earth beneath, and the subtile ether, the eight regions, and the receptacle of waters between. he then drew forth from the supreme soul mind with all its powers and properties." the rest of the account appears to be very confused, and i confess to a great extent unintelligible to me. there follows, however, a continuation of the narrative, stating that there is a succession of seven menus, each of whom produces and supports the earth during his reign. it is in the account of these successive menus that the following statement respecting the days and years of brahma occurs: "a day of the gods is equal to a year. four thousand years of the gods are called a critya or satya age. four ages are an age of the gods. _one thousand divine ages (equal to more than four millions of human years) are a day of brahma the creator._ seventy-two divine ages are one manwantara. * * * the aggregate of four ages they call a divine age, and believe that in every thousand such ages, or in every day of brahma, fourteen menus are successively invested with the sovereignty of the earth. each menu they suppose transmits his authority to his sons and grandsons during a period of seventy-two divine ages, and such a period they call a manwantara. thirty such days (of the creator), or calpas, constitute a month of brahma; twelve such months one of his years, and such years his age, of which they assert that fifty years have elapsed. we are thus, according to the hindoos, in the first day or calpa of the fifty-first year of brahma's life, and in the twenty-eighth divine age of the _seventh manwantara_ of that day. in the present day of brahma the first menu was named the son of the self-existent, and by him the institutes of religion and civil duties are said to have been delivered. in his time occurred a new creation called the _lotos_ creation." of five menus who succeeded him, sir william could find little but the names, but the accounts of the seventh are very full, and it appears that in his reign the earth was destroyed by a flood. sir william suggests that the first menu may represent the creation, and that the seventh may be noah. the name menu or manu is equivalent to "man," and signifies "the intelligent."[ ] in this hindoo cosmogony we have many points of correspondence with the scripture narrative: for instance, the self-existent creator; the agency of the son of god and the holy spirit; the absolute creation of matter; the hovering of the spirit over the primeval waters; the sevenfold division of the creative process; and the idea of days of the creator of immense duration. if we suppose the day of brahma in the hindoo cosmogony to represent the mosaic day, then it amounts to no less than , , years; or if, with sir w. jones, we suppose the manwantara to represent the mosaic day, its duration will be , years; and the total antiquity of the earth, without counting the undefined "beginning," will be either more than twenty-five or than two millions of years. it would be folly, however, to suppose that these hindoo numbers, which are probably purely conjectural, or based on astronomical cycles, make any near approximation to the facts of the case. the institutes of menu are probably in their present form not of great antiquity, but there are other hindoo documents of greater age which maintain similar views, and it is probable that the account of the creation in the institutes is at least an imperfect version of the original narrative as it existed among the earliest colonists of india.[ ] it corresponds in many points with the oldest notions on these subjects that remain to us in the wrecks of the mythology of egypt and other ancient nations, and it aids in proving that the fabulous ages of gods and demigods in the ancient mythologies _are really pre-adamite_; and belong not to human history, but to the work of creation. it also shows that the idea of long creative periods as equivalents of the mosaic days must, in the infancy of the postdiluvian world, have been very widely diffused. such evidence is, no doubt, of small authority in the interpretation of scripture; but it must be admitted that serious consideration is due to a method of interpretation which thus tends to bring the mosaic account into harmony with the facts of modern science, and with the belief of almost universal antiquity, and at the same time gives it its fullest significance and most perfect internal symmetry of parts. it is also very interesting to note the wide diffusion among the most ancient nations of cosmological views identical in their main features with those of the bible, proving, almost beyond doubt, that these views had some common and very ancient source, and commanded universal belief among the primitive tribes of men. i have hitherto in this part of the discussion avoided detailed reference to what may be regarded as the "prophetic day" view of the narrative of creation. this may be shortly stated as follows: in the prophetical parts of scripture the prophet sees in vision, as in a picture or acted scene, the events that are to come to pass, and in consequence represents years or longer periods by days of vision. now the revelation of the pre-adamite past is in its nature akin to that of the unknown future; and moses may have seen these wondrous events in vision--in visions of successive days--under the guise of which he presents geological time. some things in the form of the narrative favor this view, and it certainly affords the most clearly intelligible theory as to the mode in which such a revelation may have been made to man. it is advocated by kurtz, by the author of an excellent little work, the "harmony of the mosaic and geological records," by hugh miller, and more recently by tayler lewis. to these writers i must refer for its more full illustration, and for the grand pictorial view which it gives of the vision of the creative week. in reviewing the somewhat lengthy train of reasoning into which the term "day" has led us, it appears that from internal evidence alone it can be rendered probable that the day of creation is neither the natural nor the civil day. it also appears that the objections urged against the doctrine of day-periods are of no weight when properly scrutinized, and that it harmonizes with the progressive nature of the work, the evidence of geology, and the cosmological notions of ancient nations. i do not suppose that this position has been incontrovertibly established; but i believe that every serious difficulty has been removed from its acceptance; and with this, for the present, i remain satisfied. every step of our subsequent progress will afford new criteria of its truth or fallacy. one further question of some interest is--what, according to the theory of long creative days and the testimony of geology, would be the length and precise cosmical nature of these days? with regard to the first part of the question, we do not know the actual value of our geological ages in time; but it is probable that each great creative æon may have extended through millions of years. as to the nature of the days, this may have been determined by direct volitions of the creator, or indirectly by some of those great astronomical cycles which arise from the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, or the diminution of the velocity of its rotation, or by its gradual cooling. with reference to these points, science has as yet little information to give. sir william thomson has, indeed, indicated for the time since the earth's crust first began to form a period of between one and two hundred millions of years; but professor guthrie tait, on the other hand, argues that ten or fifteen millions of years are probably sufficient,[ ] and lockyer has suggested an hypothesis of successive rekindlings of the solar heat which might give a more protracted time than that of thomson. some of the hypotheses of derivation current, but which are based rather on philosophical speculation than on scientific fact, would also require a longer time than that allowed by thomson; and it is to be regretted that some geologists, by giving credence to such hypotheses of derivation, and by loose reasoning on the time required for the denudation and deposition of rocks, have been induced to commit themselves to very extravagant estimates as to geological time. on the whole, it is evident that only the most vague guesses can at present be based on the facts in our possession, though the whole time required has unquestionably been very great, the deposition of the series of stratified rocks probably requiring at least the greater part of the minimum time allowed by thomson.[ ] as to the cosmical nature of the periods, while some geologists appear to regard the whole of geological time as a continuous evolution without any breaks, it is evidently more in accordance with facts to hold that there have been cycles of repose and activity succeeding each other, and that these have been of different grades. in the succession of deposits it is plain that periods of depression and upheaval common to all the continental masses have succeeded each other at somewhat regular intervals, and that within these periods there have been alternations of colder and warmer climates. these, however, are not equal to the creative days of our record, for they are greatly more numerous. they are but the vastly protracted hours of these almost endless days. beyond and above these there is another grade of geological period, marked not by mere gradual elevation and depression of the continental areas, but by vast crumplings of the earth's crust and enormous changes of level. such a great movement unquestionably closed the eozoic period of geology. another of less magnitude occurred in what is termed the permian age at the end of the palæozoic. a third terminated the mesozoic age, and introduced the tertiary or kainozoic. perhaps we should reckon the glacial age, though characterized by far less physical change than the others, as a fourth. the possible physical causes which have been suggested for such greater disturbances are the collapses of the crust in equatorial regions, which may be supposed to have resulted at long intervals of time, from the gradual retardation of the earth's rotation caused by the tides, or the similar collapses and other changes due to the shrinkages of the earth's interior caused by its gradual cooling, and to the unequal deposition of material by water on different parts of its surface.[ ] the more full discussion of these points belongs, however, to a future chapter. these greater movements of the crust, would, as already stated, coincide to some extent with the later creative days in the manner indicated below: ================================================================== collapse of crust at close of | close of fourth Æon, eozoic time, | and beginning of fifth. ------------------------------------------------------------------ collapse in permian period and | middle of fifth Æon. end of palæozoic time, | ------------------------------------------------------------------ great subsidence and collapse | close of fifth Æon, and beginning at close of mesozoic age, | of sixth. ------------------------------------------------------------------ great subsidence of the | end of sixth Æon. pleistocene or glacial age, | ================================================================== the question recurs--why are god's days so long? he is not like us, a being of yesterday. he is "from olam to olam," and even in human history one day is with him as a thousand years; and we who live in these later days of the world know full well how slow the march of his plan has been even in human history. we shall know in the endless ages of a future eternity that even to us these long creative days may at last become but as watches in the night. chapter vii. the atmosphere. "and god said, let there be an expanse between the waters; and let it separate the waters from the waters. and god made the expanse, and separated the waters which are under the expanse from the waters which are over the expanse: and it was so. and god called the expanse heaven. and the evening and the morning were the second day."--genesis i. - . at the opening of the period to which we are now introduced the earth was covered by the waters, and these were in such a condition that there was no distinction between the seas and the clouds. no atmosphere separated them, or, in other words, dense fogs and mists everywhere rested on the surface of the primeval ocean. to understand as far as possible the precise condition of the earth's surface at this period, it will be necessary to notice the present constitution of the atmosphere, especially in its relations to aqueous vapor. the regular and constant constituents of the atmosphere are the elements oxygen and nitrogen, which, at the temperature and pressure existing on the surface of our globe, are permanently aeriform or gaseous. beside these gases, the air always contains a quantity of the vapor of water in a perfectly aeriform and transparent condition. this vapor is not, however, permanently gaseous. at all temperatures below degrees it tends to the liquid state; and its elastic force, which preserves its particles in the separated state of vapor, increases or diminishes at a more rapid rate than the increase or diminution of temperature. hence the quantity of vapor that can be suspended in clear air depends on the temperature of the air itself. as the temperature of the air rises, its power of sustaining vapor increases more rapidly than its temperature; and as the temperature of the air falls, the elastic force of its contained vapor diminishes in a greater ratio, until it can exist as an invisible vapor no longer, but becomes condensed into minute bubbles or globules, forming cloud, mist, or rain. two other circumstances operate along with these properties of air and vapor. the heat radiated from the earth's surface causes the lower strata of air to be, in ordinary circumstances, warmer than the higher; and, on the other hand, warm air, being lighter than that which is colder, the warm layer of air at the surface continually tends to rise through and above the colder currents immediately over it. let us consider the operation of the causes thus roughly sketched in a column of calm air. the lower portion becomes warmed, and if in contact with water takes up a quantity of its vapor proportioned to the temperature, or in ordinary circumstances somewhat less than this proportion. it then tends to ascend, and as it rises and becomes mixed with colder air it gradually loses its power of sustaining moisture, and at a height proportioned to the diminution of temperature and the quantity of vapor originally contained in the air, it begins to part with water, which becomes condensed in the form of mist or cloud; and the surface at which this precipitation takes place is often still more distinctly marked when two masses or layers of air at different temperatures become intermixed; in which case, on the principle already stated, the mean temperature produced is unable to sustain the vapor proper to the two extremes, and moisture is precipitated. it thus happens that layers of cloud accumulate in the atmosphere, while between them and the surface there is a stratum of clear air. fogs and mists are in the present state of nature exceptional appearances, depending generally on local causes, and showing what the world might be but for that balancing of temperature and the elastic force of vapor which constitutes the atmospheric firmament.[ ] the quantity of water thus suspended over the earth is enormous. "when we see a cloud resolve itself into rain, and pour out thousands of gallons of water, we can not comprehend how it can float in the atmosphere."[ ] the explanation is-- st, the extreme levity of the minute globules, which causes them to fall very slowly; d, they are supported by currents of air, especially by the ascending currents developed both in still air and in storms; dly, clouds are often dissolving on one side and forming on another. a cloud gradually descending may be dissolving away by evaporation at the base as fast as new matter is being added above. on the other hand, an ascending warm current of air may be constantly depositing moisture at the base of the cloud, and this may be evaporating under the solar rays above. in this case a cloud is "merely the visible form of an aerial space, in which certain processes are at the moment in equilibrium, and all the particles in a state of upward movement."[ ] but so soon as condensation markedly exceeds evaporation, rain falls, and the atmosphere discharges its vast load of water--how vast we may gather from the fact that the waters of all the rivers are but a part of the overflowings of the great atmospheric reservoir. "god binds up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." it is thus that the terrestrial waters are divided into those above and those below that expanse of clear air in which we live and move, exempt from the dense, dark mists of the earth's earlier state, yet enjoying the benefits of the cloudy curtain that veils the burning sun, and of the cloudy reservoirs that drop down rain to nourish every green thing. we have no reason to suppose that the laws which regulate mixtures of gases and vapors did not prevail in the period in question. it is probable that these laws are as old as the creation of matter; but the condition of our earth up to the second day must have been such as prevented them from operating as at present. such a condition might possibly be the result of an excessive evaporation occasioned by internal heat. the interior of the earth still remains in a heated state, and includes large subterranean reservoirs of melted rock, as is proved by the increase of temperature in deep mines and borings, and by the widely extended phenomena of hot springs and volcanic action. at the period in question the internal temperature of the earth was probably vastly greater than at present, and perhaps the whole interior of the globe may have been in a state of igneous fluidity. at the same time the external solid crust may have been thin, and it was not fractured and thickened in places by the upheaval of mountain chains or the deposition of great and unequal sheets of sediment; for, as i may again remind the reader, the primitive chaos did not consist of a confused accumulation of rocky masses, but the earth's crust must then have been more smooth and unbroken than at any subsequent period. this being the internal condition of the earth, it is quite conceivable, without any violation of the existing laws of nature, that the waters of the ocean, warmed by internal heat, may have sent up a sufficient quantity of vapor to keep the lower strata of air in a constant state of saturation, and to occasion an equally constant precipitation of moisture from the colder strata above. this would merely be the universal operation of a cause similar to that which now produces fogs at the northern limit of the atlantic gulf stream, and in other localities where currents of warm water flow under or near to cooler air. such a state of things is more conceivable in a globe covered with water, and consequently destitute of the dry and powerfully radiating surfaces which land presents, and receiving from without the rays, not of a solar orb, but of a comparatively feeble and diffused luminous ether. the continued action of these causes would gradually cool the earth's crust and its incumbent waters, until the heat from without preponderated over that from within, when the result stated in the text would be effected. the statements of our primitive authority for this condition of the earth might also be accounted for on the supposition that the permanently gaseous part of the atmosphere did not at the period in question exist in its present state, but that it was on the second day actually elaborated and caused to take its place in separating the atmospheric from the oceanic waters. the first is by far the more probable view; but we may still apply to such speculations the words of elihu, the friend of job: "stand still and consider the wonderful works of god. dost thou know when god disposes them, and the lightning of his cloud shines forth? dost thou know the poising of the dark clouds, the wonderful works of the perfect in knowledge?" we may now consider the words in which this great improvement in the condition of the earth is recorded. the hebrew term for the atmosphere is _rakiah_, literally, something expanded or beaten out--an expanse. it is rendered in our version "firmament," a word conveying the notion of support and fixity, and in the septuagint "_stereoma_," a word having a similar meaning. the idea conveyed by the hebrew word is not, however, that of _strength_, but of _extent_; or as milton--the most accurate of expositors of these words--has it: "the firmament, expanse of liquid, pure, transparent, elemental air, diffused in circuit to the uttermost convex of this great round." that this was really the way in which this word was understood by the hebrews appears from several passages of the bible. job says of god, "who alone _spreadeth_ out the heavens."[ ] david, in the th psalm, which is a poetical paraphrase of the history of creation, speaks of the creator as "_stretching_ out the heavens as a curtain." in later writers, as isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel, similar expressions occur. the notion of a solid or arched firmament was probably altogether remote from the minds of these writers. such beliefs may have prevailed at the time when the septuagint translation was made, but i have no hesitation in affirming that no trace of them can be found in the old testament. in proof of this, i may refer to some of the passages which have been cited as affording the strongest instances of this kind of "accommodation." in exodus xxiv., , we are told, "and they saw the god of israel, and under his feet as it were a paved work of sapphire, and as it were the heaven itself in its clearness." this is evidently a comparison of the pavement seen under the feet of jehovah to a sapphire in its color, and to the heavens in its transparency. the intention of the writer is not to give information respecting the heavens, or to liken them either to a pavement or a sapphire; all that we can infer is that he believed the heavens to be clear or transparent. job mentions the "pillars of heaven," but the connection shows that this is merely a poetical expression for lofty mountains. the earthquake causes these pillars of heaven to "tremble." we are informed in the book of job that god "ties up his waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent under them." we are also told of the "treasures of snow and the treasures of hail," and rain is called the "bottles of heaven," and is said to be poured out of the "lattices of heaven." i recognize in all these mere poetical figures, not intended to be literally understood. some learned writers wish us to believe that the intention of the bible in these places is actually to teach that the clouds are contained in skin bottles, or something similar, and that they are emptied through hatches in a solid firmament. to found such a belief, however, on a few figurative statements, seems ridiculous, especially when we consider that the writers of the scriptures show themselves to be well acquainted with nature, and would not be likely on any account to deviate so far from the ordinary testimony of the senses; more especially as by doing so they would enable every unlettered man who has seen a cloud gather on a mountain's brow or dissolve away before increasing heat to oppose the evidence of his senses to their statements, and perhaps to reject them with scorn as a barefaced imposture. but, lastly, we are triumphantly directed to the question of elihu in his address to job: "hast thou with him stretched out the sky, which is firm and like a molten mirror?" but the word translated sky here is not "_rakiah_," or "_shamayim_," but another signifying the _clouds_, so that we should regard elihu as speaking of the apparent firmness or stability, and the beautiful reflected tints of the clouds. his words may be paraphrased thus: "hast thou aided him in spreading out those clouds, which appear so stable and self-sustaining, and so beautifully reflect the sunlight?"[ ] the above passages form the only authority which i can find in the scriptures for the doctrine of a solid firmament, which may therefore be characterized as a modern figment of men more learned in books but less acquainted with nature than the scripture writers. as a contrast to all such doctrines i may quote the sublime opening of the poetical account of creation in psalm civ., which we may also take here as elsewhere as the oldest and most authoritative commentary on the first chapter of genesis: "bless the lord, o my soul! o lord, my god, thou art very great: thou art clothed with honor and majesty, who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain (of a tent), _who layest the beams of thy chambers in the waters, who makest the clouds thy chariots, who walkest upon the wings of the wind_." the waters here are those above the firmament, the whole of this part of the psalm being occupied with the heavens; and there is no place left for the solid firmament, of which the writer evidently knew nothing. he represents god as laying his chambers on the waters, instead of on the supposed firmament, and as careering in cloudy chariots on the wings of the wind, instead of over a solid arch. for all the above reasons, we conclude that the "expanse" of the verses under consideration was understood by the writers of the book of god to be _aerial_, not _solid_; and the "establishment of the clouds above," as it is finely called in proverbs, is the effect of those meteorological laws to which i have already referred, and which were now for the first time brought into operation by the divine legislator. the hebrew theology was not of a kind to require such expedients as that of solid heavenly arches; it recurred at once to the will--the decree--of jehovah; and was content to believe that through this efficient cause the "rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full," for "to the place whence the rivers came, thither they return again," through the agency of those floating clouds, "the waters above the heavens," which "pour down rain according to the vapor thereof." god called the expanse "heaven." in former chapters we have noticed that heaven in the popular speech of the hebrews, as in our own, had different meanings, applying alike to the cloudy, the astral, and the spiritual heavens. the creator here sanctions its application to the aerial expanse; and accordingly throughout the scriptures it is used in this way; _rakiah_ occurs very rarely, as if it had become nearly obsolete, or was perhaps regarded as a merely technical or descriptive term. the divine sanction for the use of the term heaven for the atmosphere is, as already explained, to indicate that this popular use is not to interfere with its application to the whole universe beyond our earth in verse st. the poetical parts of the bible, and especially the book of job, which is probably the most ancient of the whole, abound in references to the atmosphere and its phenomena. i may quote a few of these passages, to enable us to understand the views of these subjects given in the bible, and the meaning attached to the creation of the atmosphere, in very ancient periods. in job, th chapter, we have the following: "in what way is the lightning distributed, and how is the east wind spread abroad over the earth? who hath opened a channel for the pouring rain, or a way for the thunder-flash? to cause it to rain on the land where no man is, in the desert where no one dwells; to saturate the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth." here we have the unequal and unforeseen distribution of thunder-storms, beyond the knowledge and power of man, but under the absolute control of god, and designed by him for beneficent purposes. equally fine are some of the following lines: "dost thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee? dost thou send forth the lightnings, and they go, and say unto thee, here are we? who can number the clouds by wisdom, or cause the bottles of heaven to empty themselves? when the dust groweth into mire, and the clods cleave fast together?" in the th and th chapters of the same book we have a grand description of atmospheric changes in their relation to man and his works. the speaker is elihu, who in this ancient book most favorably represents the knowledge of nature that existed at a time probably anterior to the age of moses--a knowledge far superior to that which we find in the works of many modern poets and expositors, and accompanied by an intense appreciation of the grandeur and beauty of natural objects: "for he draweth up the drops of water, rain is condensed[ ] from his vapor, which the clouds do drop, and distill upon man abundantly. yea, can any understand the distribution of the clouds or the thundering of his tabernacle.[ ] behold he spreadeth his lightning upon it, he covereth it as with the depths of the sea.[ ] by these he executes judgment on the people, by these also he giveth food in abundance; his hands he covers with the lightning, and commands it (against the enemy) in its striking; he uttereth to it his decree,[ ] concerning the herd as well as proud man. at this also my heart trembles, and bounds out of its place; hear attentively the thunder of his voice, and the loud sound that goes from his mouth. he directs it under the whole heavens, and his lightning to the ends of the earth. after it his voice roareth, he thundereth with the voice of his majesty; and delays not (the tempest) when his voice is heard. god thundereth marvellously with his voice, he doeth wonders which we can not comprehend; for he saith to the snow, be thou on the earth. also to the pouring rain, even the great rain of his might. he sealeth up the hand of every man, that all men may know his work. then the beasts go to their dens, and remain in their caverns. out of the south cometh the whirlwind and cold out of the north, by the breath of god the frost is produced and the breadth of waters becomes bound; with moisture he loads the thick cloud, he spreads the cloud of his lightning, and it is turned about by his direction, to execute his pleasure on the face of the world; whether for correction, for his land, or for mercy, he causeth it to come. hearken unto this, o job, stand still and consider the wonderful works of god. dost thou know when god disposes these things, and the lightning of his cloud flashes forth? dost thou know the poising of the clouds, the wonderful work of the perfect in knowledge? when thy garments become warm when he quieteth the earth by the south wind; hast thou with him spread out the clouds firm and like a molten mirror?"[ ] it would not be easy to find, in the poetry of any nation or time, a description of so many natural phenomena, so fine in feeling or truthful in delineation. it should go far to dispel the too prevalent ideas of early oriental ignorance, and should lead to a more full appreciation of these noble pictures of nature, unsurpassed in the literature of any people or time. i trust that the previous illustrations are sufficient to show, not only that the _stereoma_, or solid firmament of the septuagint, is not to be found in scripture, but that the positive doctrine of the bible on the subject is of a very different character. for instance, in the above extract from the book of job, elihu speaks of the poising or suspension of the clouds as inscrutable, and tells us that god draws up water into the clouds, and pours down rain according to the vapor thereof; he also speaks of the clouds as being scattered before the brightness of the sun; and notices, in truthful as well as exalted language, the nature and succession of the lightning's flash, the thunder, and the precipitation of rain that follows. solomon also informs us that the "establishment of the clouds above" is due to the law or will of jehovah. finally, in this connection, the divine sanction given to the use of the term heaven for the atmosphere may in itself be regarded as an intimation that no definite barrier separates our film of atmosphere from the boundless abyss of heaven without. of this period natural science gives us no intimation. in the earliest geological epochs organic life, dry land, and an atmosphere already existed. at the period now under consideration the two former had not been called into existence, and the latter was in process of elaboration from the materials of the primeval deep. if the formation of the atmosphere in its existing conditions was, as already hinted, a result of the gradual cooling of the earth, then this period must have been of great length, and the action of the heated waters on the crust of the globe may have produced thick layers of detrital matter destined to form the first soils of the succeeding æon. we know nothing, however, of these primitive strata, and most of them must have been removed by denuding agencies in succeeding periods, or restored by subterranean heat to the crystalline state. the events and results of this day may be summed up as follows: "at the commencement of the period the earth was enveloped by a misty or vaporous mantle. in its progress those relations of air and vapor which cause the separation of the clouds from the earth by a layer of clear air, and the varied alternations of sunshine and rain, were established. at the close of the period the newly formed atmosphere covered a universal ocean; and there was probably a very regular and uniform condition of the atmospheric currents, and of the processes of evaporation and condensation." but while we must affirm that no idea of a solid atmospheric vault can be detected in the bible, and while we may also affirm that such an idea would have been altogether foreign to its tone, which invariably refers all things not to secondary machinery, but to the will and fiat of the supreme, we must not forget that a most important moral purpose was to be served by the assertion of the establishment of the atmospheric expanse. among all nations the phenomena of the atmosphere have had important theological and mythological relations. the ever-changing and apparently capricious aspects of the atmosphere and its clouds, the terrible effects of storms, and the balmy influence of sunshine and calm, deeply impress the minds of simple and superstitious men, and this all the more that in their daily life and expeditions they are constantly subjected to the effects of atmospheric vicissitudes. hence the greatest gods of all the ancient nations are weather-gods--rulers of the atmospheric heavens--displaying their anger in the thunder-storm and tornado. it is likely that in most cases, as in many barbarous tribes of modern times, these weather-gods were malevolent beings contending against the genial influences of the heavenly sun-god; but in nearly every case their supposed practical importance has elevated them, as in the case of the olympian zeus, the scandinavian thor, and the american hurakon, to the place of supreme divinity. this was one of the superstitions which the hebrew monotheism had to overcome. hence the atmosphere is affirmed to be under jehovah's law, and all its phenomena are attributed to his power. the value of this as cutting at the root of the most widespread superstitions it is easy to understand, and it has a farther value in teaching that even the apparently unstable and capricious air is a thing established from the first and amenable to the ordinance of god. how difficult it has been to eradicate superstitious views of the atmosphere may be learned from the fact that st. paul, in writing to the enlightened citizens of ephesus, could speak of the power which the heathen worshipped as the "prince of the powers of the air," and it is also evidenced by the abundant notions of this kind which have survived from the middle ages among the more ignorant part of the people even in lands called christian. while, however, the bible affirms the atmosphere to be subject to law, it does not carry this into the domain of physical necessity, and affirm with some modern materialistic philosophers that it is useless to pray for rain. it is god who gives rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, and what he gives he can withhold. perhaps no part of our subject can better than this illustrate the rational distinction between a mere physical fatalism, or a mere superstitious fear of capricious nature, and that belief in a divine lawgiver which lies between these extremes. modern science may smile at the poor indian, who in his fear invokes hurakon or tlaloc or the terrible thunder-bird, and may even despise that nobler worship of the great phoenician sun-god, the source and fountain of all light and life; against which, though it was the grandest of all the old idolatries, elijah waged war to the death. but may it not equally deride the faith of elijah himself, when, after three years of drought, he prayed in the sight of assembled israel for rain? it may do so if physical law amounts to an invariable necessity, and if there is no supreme will behind it. but if natural laws are the expression of the divine will, if these laws are multiform and complicated in their relations, and regulate vastly varied causes interacting with each other, and if the action and welfare of man come within the scope of these laws, then there is nothing irrational in the supposition that god, without any capricious or miraculous intervention, may have so correlated the myriad adjustments of his creation as that, while it is his usual rule that rain falls alike on the evil and on the good, he may make its descent at particular times and places to depend on the needs and requests of his own children. in truth the belief in law is essential to the philosophical conception of prayer. if the universe were a mere chaos of chances, or if it were a result of absolute necessity, there would be no place for intelligent prayer; but if it is under the control of a lawgiver, wise and merciful, not a mere manager of material machinery, but a true father of all, then we can go to such a being with our requests, not in the belief that we can change his great plans, or that any advantage could result from this if it were possible, but that these plans may be made in his boundless wisdom and love to meet our necessities. there is also in the bible the farther promise that, if we are truly the children of god, regulating our conduct by his will and enlightened by his spirit, we shall know how to pray for what is in accordance with his divine purpose, and how to receive with gladness whatever he sees fit to give. while, therefore, the biblical doctrine as to natural law emancipates us from fears of angry storm-demons, it draws us near to a heavenly father, whose power is above all the tempests of earth, and who, while ruling by law, has regulated all things in conformity with the higher law of love. when god had made the atmosphere, he saw that it was good, and the highest significance is given to this by the consideration that god is love. the position of the bible is thus the true mean between superstitions at once unhappy and debasing, and a materialistic infidelity that would reduce the universe to a dead, remorseless machine, in which we must struggle for a precarious existence till we are crushed between its wheels. chapter viii. the dry land and the first plants. "and god said, let the waters under the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. and god called the dry land earth, and the gathering of waters called he seas; and god saw that it was good. "and god said, let the earth bring forth the springing herb, the herb bearing seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, after its kind, whose seed is in it on the earth: and it was so. and the earth brought forth the tender herb, the herb yielding seed, and the tree bearing fruit whose seed is in it, after its kind; and god saw that it was good."--genesis i., , . these are events sufficiently simple and intelligible in their general character. geology shows us that the emergence of the dry land must have resulted from the elevation of parts of the bed of the ancient universal ocean, and that the agent employed in such changes is the bending and crumpling of the outer crust of the earth, caused by lateral pressure, and operating either in a slow and regular manner or by sudden paroxysms. it farther informs us that the existing continents consist of stratified or bedded masses, more or less inclined, fissured and irregularly elevated, and usually supported by crystalline rocks which have been produced among them, or forced up beneath or through them by internal agencies, and which truly constitute the pillars and foundations of the earth. these elevations, it is true, were successive, and belong to different periods; but the appearance of the first dry land is that intended here. the elevation of the dry land is more frequently referred to in scripture than any other cosmological fact; and while all have been misapprehended, the statements on this subject have been even more unjustly dealt with than others. in the text, the word "earth" (_aretz_[ ]) is, by divine sanction, narrowed in meaning to the dry land; but while some expositors are quite willing to restrict it to this, or even a more limited sense, in the first and second verses of this chapter, almost the only verses in the bible where the terms of the narrative make such a restriction inadmissible, they are equally ready to understand it as meaning the whole globe in places where the explanatory clause in the verse now under consideration teaches us that we should understand the land only, as distinguished from the sea. i may quote some of these passages, and note the views they give; always bearing in mind that, after the intimation here given, we must understand the term "earth" as applying _only to the continents_ or _dry land_, unless where the context otherwise fixes the meaning. we may first turn to psalm civ.: "thou laidst the foundations of the earth, that it should never be removed; thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains; at thy rebuke they fled; at the sound of thy thunder they hasted away; mountains ascended, valleys descended to the place thou hast appointed for them: thou hast appointed them bounds that they may not pass, that they return not again to cover the earth." the position of these verses in this "the hymn of creation" leaves no doubt that they refer to the events we are now considering. i have given above the literal reading of the line that refers to the elevation of mountains and subsidence of valleys; admitting, however, that the grammatical construction gives an air of probability to the rendering in our version, "they go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys," which, on the other hand, is rendered very improbable by the sense. in whichever sense we understand this line, the picture presented to us by the psalmist includes the elevation of the mountains and continents, the subsidence of the waters into their depressed basins, and the firm establishment of the dry land on its rocky foundations, the whole accompanied by a feature not noticed in genesis--the voice of god's thunder--or, in other words, electrical and volcanic explosions. the following quotations refer to the same subject: "before the mountains were settled, before the hills was i (the wisdom of god) brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the plains, nor the higher parts of the habitable world. when he gave the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his limits, when he determined the foundations of the earth." --proverbs viii., . "thou hast established the earth, and it endureth, according to thy decrees they continue this day, for all are thy servants." --psalm cxix., . "who shaketh the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble." --job ix., . "where wast thou when i founded the earth? declare, if thou hast knowledge. who hath fixed the proportion thereof, if thou knowest? who stretched the line upon it? upon what are its foundations settled? or who laid its corner-stone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy? who shut up the sea with doors in its bursting forth as from the womb? when i made the cloud its garment, and swathed it in thick darkness, i measured out for it my limit, and fixed its bars and doors; and said, thus far shalt thou come, but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." --job xxxviii., . in these passages the foundation of the earth at first, as well as the shaking of its pillars by the earthquake, are connected with what we usually call natural law--the decree of the almighty--the unchanging arrangements of an unchangeable creator, whose "hands formed the dry land."[ ] this is the ultimate cause not only of the elevation of the land, but of all other natural things and processes. the naturalist does not require to be informed that the details, in so far as they are referred to in the above passages, are perfectly in accordance with what we know of the nature and support of continental masses. geological observation and mathematical calculation have in our day combined their powers to give clear views of the manner in which the fractured strata of the earth are wedged and arched together, and supported by internal igneous masses upheaved from beneath, and subsequently cooled and hardened. a general view of these facts which we have learned from scientific inquiry, the hebrews gleaned with nearly as much precision from the short account of the elevation of the land in genesis, and from the later comments of their inspired poets. from the same source our own great poet, milton, learned these cosmical facts, before the rise of geology, and expressed them in unexceptionable terms: "the mountains huge appear emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave into the clouds, their tops ascend the sky. so high as heaved the tumid hills, so low down sunk a hollow bottom, broad and deep, capacious bed of waters." in further illustration of the opinions of the scripture writers respecting the nature of the earth, and the disturbances to which it is liable, i quote the following passages. the first is from the magnificent description of jehovah descending to succor his people amid the terrors of the earthquake, the volcano, and the thunder-storm, in psalm xviii.: "then shook and trembled the earth, the foundations of the hills moved and were shaken, because he was angry. smoke went up from his nostrils, fire from his mouth devoured, coals were kindled by it. then were seen the channels of the waters, and the foundations of the world were discovered, at thy rebuke--o jehovah-- at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils." in another place in the psalms we find volcanic action thus tersely sketched: "he looketh on the earth and it trembleth, he toucheth the hills and they smoke." --psalm civ., . perhaps the most remarkable discourse on this subject in the whole bible is that in job xxviii., in which mining operations are introduced as an illustration of the difficulty of obtaining true wisdom. this passage is interesting both from its extreme antiquity, and the advancement in knowledge and practical skill which it indicates. it presents, however, many difficulties; and its details have almost entirely lost their true significance in our common english version: "surely there is a vein for silver, and a place for the gold which men refine; iron is taken from the earth, and copper is molten from the ore. to the end of darkness and to all extremes man searcheth, for the stones of darkness and the shadow of death. he opens a passage [shaft] from where men dwell, unsupported by the foot, they hang down and swing to and fro.[ ] the earth--out of it cometh bread; and beneath, it is overturned as by fire.[ ] its stones are the place of sapphires, and it hath lumps[ ] of gold. the path (thereto) the bird of prey hath not known, the vulture's eye hath not seen it.[ ] the wild beasts' whelps have not trodden it, the lion hath not passed over it. man layeth his hand on the hard rock, he turneth up the mountains from their roots, he cutteth channels [_adits_] in the rocks, his eye seeth every precious thing. he restraineth the streams from trickling, and bringeth the hidden thing to light. but where shall wisdom be found, and where is the place of understanding?" this passage, incidentally introduced, gives us a glimpse of the knowledge of the interior of the earth and its products, as it existed in an age probably anterior to that of moses. it brings before us the repositories of the valuable metals and gems--the mining operations, apparently of some magnitude and difficulty, undertaken in extracting them--and the wonderful structure of the earth itself, green and productive at the surface, rich in precious metals beneath, and deeper still the abode of intense subterranean fires. the only thing wanting to give completeness to the picture is some mention of the fossil remains buried in the earth; and, as the main thought is the eager and successful search for useful minerals, this can hardly be regarded as a defect. the application of all this is finer than almost any thing else in didactic poetry. man can explore depths of the earth inaccessible to all other creatures, and extract thence treasures of inestimable value; yet, after thus exhausting all the natural riches of the earth, he too often lacks that highest wisdom which alone can fit him for the true ends of his spiritual being. how true is all this, even in our own wonder-working days! a poet of to-day could scarcely say more of subterranean wonders, or say it more truthfully and beautifully; nor could he arrive at a conclusion more pregnant with the highest philosophy than the closing words: "the fear of the lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding." the emergence of the dry land is followed by a repetition of the approval of the creator. "god saw that it was good." to our view that primeval dry land would scarcely have seemed good. it was a world of bare, rocky peaks, and verdureless valleys--here active volcanoes, with their heaps of scoriæ and scarcely cooled lava currents--there vast mudflats, recently upheaved from the bottom of the waters--nowhere even a blade of grass or a clinging lichen. yet it was good in the view of its maker, who could see it in relation to the uses for which he had made it, and as a fit preparatory step to the new wonders he was soon to introduce. then too, as we are informed in job xxxviii., "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of god shouted for joy." we also, when we think of the beautiful variety of the terrestrial surface, the character and composition of its soils, the variety of climate and exposure resulting from its degrees of elevation, the arrangements for the continuance of springs and streams, and many other beneficial provisions connected with the merely mechanical arrangements of the dry land, may well join in the tribute of praise to the all-wise creator. there is, however, a farther thought suggested by the approval of the great artificer. in this wondrous progress of creation, it seems as if every thing at first was in its best estate. no succeeding state could parallel the unbroken symmetry of the earth in the fluid and vaporous condition of the "deep." before the elevation of the land, the atmospheric currents and the deposition of moisture must have been surpassingly regular. the first dry land may have presented crags and peaks and ravines and volcanic cones in a more marvellous and perfect manner than any succeeding continents--even as the dry and barren moon now, in this respect, far surpasses the earths. in the progress of organic life, geology gives similar indications, in the variety and magnitude of many animal types on their first introduction; so that this may very possibly be a law of creation. during the emergence of the first dry land, large quantities of detrital matter must have been deposited in the waters, and in part elevated into land. all of these beds would, probably, be destitute of organic remains; but if such beds were formed and still remain, they are probably unknown to us, for the oldest formations that we know--those of the eozoic age--contain traces of such remains. it has, indeed, been suggested that these most ancient organisms are, as it were, overlooked in the history of creation, or regarded as equivalent to those shapeless monsters and animals of the darkness that are referred to in the older turanian versions of this story of creation. i doubt very much, however, if this is a fair interpretation of our ancient record; but we shall be in a better position to discuss it when we come to the actual introduction of animals. modern analogy would induce us to believe that the land was not elevated suddenly; but either by a series of small paroxysms, as in the case of chili, or by a gradual and imperceptible movement, as in the case of sweden--two of the most remarkable modern instances of elevation of land--accompanied, however, in the case of the last by local subsidence.[ ] in either of these ways the seas and rivers would have time to smooth the more rugged inequalities, to widen the ravines into valleys, and to spread out sediment in the lower grounds; thus fitting the surface for the habitation of plants and animals. we must not suppose, however, that the dry land had any close resemblance to that now existing in its form or distribution. geology amply proves that since the first appearance of dry land, its contour has frequently been changed, and probably also its position. hence nearly all our present land consists of rocks which have been formed under the waters, long after the period now under consideration, and have been subsequently hardened and elevated; and since all the existing high mountain ranges are of a comparatively late age, it is probable that this primeval dry land was low, as well as, in the earlier part of the period at least, of comparatively small extent. it is, however, by no means certain that there may not have been a greater expanse of land toward the close of this period than that which afterwards existed in those older periods of animal life to which the earliest fossiliferous rocks of the geologist carry us back; since, as already hinted, it seems to be a rule in creation that each new object shall be highly developed of its kind at its first appearance, and since there have been in geological time many great subsidences as well as elevations. neither must we forget that the oldest land has been subjected throughout geological time to wearing and degrading agencies, and that from its waste the later formations have been mainly derived. it would be wrong, however, to omit to state that, though we may know at present no remains of the first dry land, we are not ignorant of its general distribution; for the present continents show, in the arrangement of their formations and mountain chains, evidence that they are parts of a plan sketched out from the beginning. it has often been remarked by physical geographers that the great lines of coast and mountain ranges are generally in directions approaching to northeast and southwest, or northwest and southeast, and that where they run in other directions, as in the case of the south of europe and asia, they are much broken by salient and re-entering angles, formed by lines having these directions. professor r. owen, of tennessee, and professor pierce, of harvard college, were, i believe, the first to point out that these lines are in reality parts of great circles tangent to the polar circles, and the latter to suggest a theory of their origin, based on the action of solar heat and the seasons on a cooling earth. this has been more fully stated by mr. w. lowthian green in his curious book, "vestiges of the molten globe."[ ] it would appear that the great circles in question are in reality at right angles to the line of direction of the attraction of the sun and moon at the period of either solstice, and when they happen to be in conjunction or opposition at these periods; and that such circles would be the lines on which the thin crust of a cooling globe would be most likely to be ruptured by its internal tidal-wave. whatever the cause of the phenomenon, it is evident that in the formation of its surface inequalities the earth has cracked--so to speak--along two series of great circles tangent to the polar circles; and that these, with certain subordinate lines of fracture running north and south and east and west, have determined the forms of the continents from their origin. m. elie de beaumont, and after him most other geologists, have attributed the elevation of the continents and the upheaval and plication of mountain chains to the secular refrigeration of the earth, causing its outer shell to become too capacious for its contracting interior mass, and thus to break or bend, and to settle toward the centre. this view would well accord with the terms in which the elevation of the land is mentioned throughout the bible, and especially with the general progress of the work as we have gleaned it from the mosaic narrative; since from the period of the desolate void and aeriform deep to that now before us secular refrigeration must have been steadily in progress. let us also observe here that the earliest fractures of the crust would determine the first coast lines, and the first slopes along which sedimentary matter would descend from the land and be deposited in the sea. they would also modify the direction of the ocean currents. thus the deposition of new formations would be directed by these old lines, as would also to some extent the course of all subsequent fractures and plications. thus it happens that the lines of outcrop of the oldest rocks first raised out of the waters already marked out the forms of the continents, and that the later formations appear rather as fillings-up and extensions of the skeleton established by the first dry land. farther, the lines of plication first established along the borders of the continents formed resisting walls along which, in the continued contraction of the earth, pressure was exerted from the ocean bed, widening and elevating these lines of upheaval, and still farther fixing the general forms of the continents, and giving variety to their surfaces. in the progress of geological time there have also been successive depressions and re-elevations of the continental plateaus, subjecting them alternately to the wearing and disintegrating action of the atmosphere and its waters, and to the influence of waves and ocean currents, and especially to that of the deep-seated polar currents which have throughout geological ages been loading the submerged areas of the earth's surface with the products of the waste caused by frost and ice in the polar regions. these causes again have been progressively increasing the oblateness of the earth's figure, and, along with the slackening of its rotation, preparing the way for those periodical collapses in the equatorial and temperate regions which form the boundaries of some of our most important geological periods.[ ] throughout all these changes the great general plan of the continents, first sketched out when the "foundations of the earth" were laid, before eozoic time, was being elaborated. the same creative period that witnessed the first appearance of dry land saw it also clothed with vegetation; and it is quite likely that this is intended to teach that no time was lost in clothing the earth with plants--that the first emerging portions received their vegetable tenants as they became fitted for them--and that each additional region, as it rose above the surface of the waters, in like manner received the species of plants for which it was adapted. what was the nature of this earliest vegetation? the sacred writer specifies three descriptions of plants as included in it; and, by considering the terms which he uses, some information on this subject may be gained. _deshé_, translated "grass" in our version, is derived from a verb signifying to spring up or bud forth; the same verb, indeed, used in this verse to denote "bringing forth," literally causing to spring up. its radical meaning is, therefore, vegetation in the act of sprouting or springing forth; or, as connected with this, young and delicate herbage. thus, in job xxxviii., "to satisfy the desolate and waste ground, and to cause the bud of the _young herbage_ to spring forth." here the reference is, no doubt, to the bulbous and tuberous rooted plants of the desert plains, which, fading away in the summer drought, burst forth with magical rapidity on the setting-in of rain. the following passages are similar: psalm xxiii., "he maketh me to lie down in green pastures" (literally, young or _tender herbage_); deuteronomy xxiii., "small rain upon the _tender herb_;" isaiah xxxvii., "_grass_ on the house-tops." the word is also used for herbage such as can be eaten by cattle or cut down for fodder, though even in these cases the idea of young and tender herbage is evidently included; "fat as a heifer at _grass_" (jer. xiv.)--that is, feeding on young succulent grass, not that which is dry and parched. "cut down as the grass, or wither as the green herb," like the soft, tender grass, soon cut down and quickly withering. with respect to the use of the word in this place, i may remark: . it is not here correctly translated by the word "grass;" for grass bears seed, and is, consequently, a member of the second class of plants mentioned. even if we set aside all idea of inspiration, it is obviously impossible that any one living among a pastoral or agricultural people could have been ignorant of this fact. . it can scarcely be a general term, including all plants when in a young or tender state. the idea of their springing up is included in the verb, and this was but a very temporary condition. besides, this word does not appear to be employed for the young state of shrubs or trees. . we thus appear to be shut up to the conclusion that _deshé_ here means those plants, mostly small and herbaceous, which bear no proper seeds;[ ] in other words, the cryptogamia--as fungi, mosses, lichens, ferns, etc. the remaining words are translated with sufficient accuracy in our version. they denote seed-bearing or phoenogamous herbs and trees. the special mention of the fructification of plants is probably intended not only for distinction, but also to indicate the new power of organic reproduction now first introduced on the surface of our planet, and to mark its difference from the creative act itself. that this new and wondrous phenomenon should be so stated is thus in strict scientific propriety, and it is precisely the point that would be seized by an intelligent spectator of the visions of creation, who had previously witnessed only the accretion and disintegration of mineral substances, and to whom this marvellous power of organic reproduction would be in every respect a new creation. the arrangement of plants in the three great classes of cryptogams, seed-bearing herbs, and fruit-bearing trees differs in one important point--viz., the separation of herbaceous plants from trees--from modern botanical classification. it is, however, sufficiently natural for the purposes of a general description like this, and perhaps gives more precise ideas of the meaning intended than any other arrangement equally concise and popular. it is also probable that the object of the writer was not so much a natural-history classification as an account of the _order_ of creation, and that he wishes to affirm that the introduction of these three classes of plants on the earth corresponded with the order here stated. this view renders it unnecessary to vindicate the accuracy of the arrangement on botanical grounds, since the historical order was evidently better suited to the purpose in view, and in so far as the earlier appearance of cryptogamous plants is concerned, it is in strict accordance with geological fact. a very important truth is contained in the expression "after its kind"--that is, after its _species_; for the hebrew "_min_," used here, has strictly this sense, and, like the greek _idea_ and the latin _species_, conveys the notion of form as well as that of kind. it is used to denote species of animals, in leviticus i., , and in deuteronomy xiv., . we are taught by this statement that plants were created each kind by itself; and that creation was not a sort of slump-work to be perfected by the operation of a law of development, as fancied by some modern speculators. in this assertion of the distinctness of species, and the production of each as a distinct part of the creative plan, revelation tallies perfectly with the conclusions of natural science, which lead us to believe that each species, as observed by us, is permanently reproductive, variable within narrow limits, and incapable of permanent intermixture with other species; and though hypotheses of modification by descent, and of the production of new species by such modification, may be formed, they are not in accordance with experience, and are still among the unproved speculations which haunt the outskirts of true science. we shall be better prepared, however, to weigh the relations of such hypotheses to our revelation of origins when we shall have reached the period of the introduction of animal life. some additional facts contained in the recapitulation of the creative work in chapter ii. may very properly be considered here, as they seem to refer to the climatal conditions of the earth during the growth of the most ancient vegetation, and before the final adjustment of the astronomical relations of the earth on the fourth day. "and every shrub of the land before it was on the earth, and every herb of the land before it sprung up. for the lord god had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground; but a mist ascended from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground." this has been supposed to be a description of the state of the earth during the whole period anterior to the fall of man. there is, however, no scripture evidence of this; and geology informs us that rain fell as at present far back in the palæozoic period, countless ages before the creation of man or the existing animals. although, however, such a condition of the earth as that stated in these verses has not been known in any geological period, yet it is not inconceivable, but in reality corresponds with the other conditions of nature likely to have prevailed on the third day, as described in genesis. the land of this period, we may suppose, was not very extensive nor very elevated. hence the temperature would be uniform and the air moist. the luminous and calorific matter connected with the sun still occupied a large space, and therefore diffused heat and light more uniformly than at present. the internal heat of the earth may still have produced an effect in warming the oceanic waters. the combined operation of these causes, of which we, perhaps, have some traces as late as the carboniferous period, might well produce a state of things in which the earth was watered, not by showers of rain, but by the gentle and continued precipitation of finely divided moisture, in the manner now observed in those climates in which vegetation is nourished for a considerable part of the year by nocturnal mists and copious dews. the atmosphere, in short, as yet partook in some slight degree of the same moist and misty character which prevailed before the "establishment of the clouds above"--the airy firmament of the second day. the introduction of these explanatory particulars by the sacred historian furnishes an additional argument for the theory of long periods. that vegetation should exist for two or three natural days without rain or the irrigation which is given in culture, was, as already stated, a circumstance altogether unworthy of notice; but the growth during a long period of a varied and highly organized flora, without this advantage, and by the aid of a special natural provision afterward discontinued, was in all respects so remarkable and so highly illustrative of the expedients of the divine wisdom that it deserved a prominent place. it is evident that the words of the inspired writer include plants belonging to all the great subdivisions of the vegetable kingdom. this earliest vegetation was not rude or incomplete, or restricted to the lower forms of life. it was not even, like that of the coal period, solely or mainly cryptogamous or gymnospermous. it included trees bearing fruit, as well as lichens and mosses, and it received the same stamp of approbation bestowed on other portions of the work--"it was good." we have a good right to assume that its excellence had reference not only to its own period, but to subsequent conditions of the earth. vegetation is the great assimilating power, the converter of inorganic into organic matter suitable for the sustenance of animals. in like manner the lower tribes of plants prepare the way for the higher. we should therefore have expected _à priori_ that vegetation would have clothed the earth before the creation of animals, and a sufficient time before it to allow soils to be accumulated, and surplus stores of organic matter to be prepared in advance: this consideration alone would also induce us to assign a considerable duration to the third day. after the elevation of land, and the draining off from it of the saline matter with which it would be saturated, a process often very tedious, especially in low tracts of ground, the soil would still consist only of mineral matter, and must have been for a long period occupied by plants suited to this condition of things, in order that sufficient organic matter might be accumulated for the growth of a more varied vegetation; a consideration which perhaps illustrates the order of the plants in the narrative. it may be objected to the above views that, however accordant with chemical and physiological probabilities, they do not harmonize with the facts of geology; since the earliest fossiliferous formations contain almost exclusively the remains of animals, which must therefore have preceded, or at least been coeval with, the earliest forms of terrestrial vegetation. this objection is founded on well-ascertained facts, but facts which may have no connection with the third day of creation when regarded as a long period. the oldest geological formations are of marine origin, and contain remains of marine animals, with those of plants supposed to be allied to the existing algæ or sea-weeds. geology can not, however, assure us either that no land plants existed contemporaneously with these earliest animals, or that no land flora preceded them. these oldest fossiliferous rocks may mark the commencement of animal life, but they testify nothing as to the existence or non-existence of a previous period of vegetation alone. farther, the rocks which contain the oldest remains of life exist as far as yet known in a condition so highly metamorphic as almost to preclude the possibility of their containing any distinguishable vegetable fossils; yet they contain vast deposits of carbon in the form of graphite, and if this, like more modern coaly matter, was accumulated by vegetable growth, it must indicate an exuberance of plants in these earliest geological periods, but of plants as yet altogether unknown to us. it is possible, therefore, that in these eozoic rocks we may have remnants of the formations of the third mosaic day; and if we should ever be so fortunate as to find any portion of them containing vegetable fossils, and these of species differing from any hitherto known, either in a fossil state or recent, and rising higher, in elevation and complexity of type, than the flora of the succeeding silurian and carboniferous eras, we may then suppose that we have penetrated to the monuments of this third creative æon. the only other alternative by which these verses can be reconciled with geology is that adopted by the late hugh miller, who supposes that the plants of the third day are those of the carboniferous period; but, besides the apparent anachronism involved in this, we now know that the coal flora consisted mainly of cryptogams allied to ferns and club-mosses, and of gymnosperms allied to the pines and cycads, the higher orders of plants being almost entirely wanting. for these reasons we are shut up to the conclusion that this flora of the third day must have its place before the palæozoic period of geology. to those who are familiar with the vast lapse of time required by the geological history of the earth, it may be startling to ascribe the whole of it to three or four of the creative days. if, however, it be admitted that these days were periods of unknown duration, no reason remains for limiting their length any farther than the facts of the case require. if in the strata of the earth which are accessible to us we can detect the evidence of its existence for myriads of years, why may not its creator be able to carry our view back for myriads more. it may be humbling to our pride of knowledge, but it is not on any scientific ground improbable, that the oldest animal remains known to geology belong to the middle period of the earth's history, and were preceded by an enormous lapse of ages in which the earth was being prepared for animal existence, but of which no records remain, except those contained in the inspired history. it would be quite unphilosophical for geology to affirm either that animal life must always have existed, or that its earliest animals are necessarily the earliest organic beings. to use, with a slight modification, the words of an able thinker on these subjects,[ ] "for ages the prejudice prevailed that the historical period, or that which is coeval with the life of man, exhausted the whole history of the globe. geologists removed that prejudice," but must not substitute "another in its place, viz., that geological time is coeval with the globe itself, or that organic life always existed on its surface." a second doubt as to the existence of this primitive flora may be based on the statement that it included the highest forms of plants. had it consisted only of low and imperfect vegetables, there might have been much less difficulty in admitting its probability. farther, we find that even in the carboniferous period scarcely any plants of the higher orders flourished, and there was a preponderance of the lower forms of the vegetable kingdom. we have, however, in geological chronology, many illustrations of the fact that the progress of improvement has not been continuous or uninterrupted, and that the preservation of the flora and fauna of many geological periods has been very imperfect. hence the occurrence in one particular stratum or group of strata of few or low representatives of animal and vegetable life affords no proof that a better state of things may not have existed previously. we also find, in the case of animals, that each tribe attained to its highest development at the time when, in the progress of creation, it occupied the summit of the scale of life. analogy would thus lead us to believe that when plants alone existed, they may have assumed nobler forms than any now existing, or that tribes now represented by few and humble species may at that time have been so great in numbers and development as to fill all the offices of our present complicated flora, as well as, perhaps, some of those now occupied by animals. we have this principle exemplified in the carboniferous flora, by the magnitude of its arborescent club-mosses, and the vast variety of its gymnosperms. for this reason we may anticipate that if any remains of this early plant-creation should be disinterred, they will prove to be among the most wonderful and interesting geological relics ever discovered, and will enlarge our views of the compass and capabilities of the vegetable kingdom, and especially of its lower forms. a farther objection is the uselessness of the existence of plants for a long period, without any animals to subsist on or enjoy them, and even without forming any accumulation of fossil fuel or other products useful to man. the only direct answer to this has already been given. the previous existence of plants may have been, and probably was, essential to the comfort and subsistence of the animals afterwards introduced. independently of this, however, we have an analogous case in the geological history of animals, which prevents this fact from standing alone. why was the earth tenanted so long by the inferior races of animals, and why were so much skill and contrivance expended on their structures, and even on their external ornament, when there was no intelligent mind on earth to appreciate their beauties. even in the present world we may as well ask why the uninhabited islands of the ocean are found to be replete with luxuriant vegetable life, why god causes it to rain in the desert where human foot never treads, or why he clothes with a marvellous exuberance of beautiful animal and plant forms the depths of the sea. we can but say that these things seemed and seem good to the creator, and may serve uses unknown to us; and this is precisely what we must be content to say respecting the plant-creation of the eozoic period. some writers[ ] on this subject have suggested that the cosmical use of this plant-creation was the abstraction from the atmosphere of an excess of carbonic acid unfavorable to the animal life subsequently to be introduced. this use it may have served, and when its effects had been gradually lost through metamorphism and decay, that second great withdrawal of carbon which took place in the carboniferous period may have been rendered necessary. the reasons afforded by natural history for supposing that plants preceded animals are thus stated by professor dana: "the proof from science of the existence of plants before animals is inferential, and still may be deemed satisfactory. distinct fossils have not been found, all that ever existed in the azoic[ ] rocks having been obliterated. the arguments in the affirmative are as follows: " . the existence of limestone rocks among the other beds, similar limestones in later ages having been of organic origin; also the occurrence of carbon in the shape of graphite, graphite being, in known cases in rocks, a result of the alteration of the carbon of plants. " . the fact that the cooling earth would have been fitted for vegetable life for a long age before animals could have existed; the principle being exemplified everywhere that the earth was occupied at each period with the highest kinds of life the conditions allowed. " . the fact that vegetation subserved an important purpose in the coal-period in ridding the atmosphere of carbonic acid for the subsequent introduction of land animals, suggests a valid reason for believing that the same great purpose, the true purpose of vegetation, was effected through the ocean before the _waters_ were fitted for animal life. " . vegetation being directly or mediately the food of animals, it must have had a previous existence. the latter part of the azoic age in geology we therefore regard as the age when the plant kingdom was instituted, the latter half of the third day in genesis. however short or long the epoch, it was one of the great steps of progress." in concluding the examination of the work of the third day, i must again remind the reader that, on the theory of long creative periods, the words under consideration must refer to the first introduction of vegetation, in forms that have long since ceased to exist. geology informs us that in the period of which it is cognizant the vegetation of the earth has been several times renewed, and that no plants of the older and middle geological periods now exist. we may therefore rest assured that the vegetable species, and probably also many of the generic and family forms of the vegetation of the third day, have long since perished, and been replaced by others suited to the changed condition of the earth. it is indeed probable that during the third and fourth days themselves there might be many removals and renewals of the terrestrial flora, so that perhaps every species created at the commencement of the introduction of plants may have been extinct before the close of the period. nevertheless it was marked by the introduction of vegetation, which in one or another set of forms has ever since clothed the earth. at the commencement of the third day the earth was still covered by the waters. as time advanced islands and mountain-peaks arose from the ocean, vomiting forth the molten and igneous materials of the interior of the earth's crust. plains and valleys were then spread around, rivers traced out their beds, and the ocean was limited by coasts and divided by far-stretching continents. at the command of the creator plants sprung from the soil--the earliest of organized structures--at first probably few and small, and fitted to contend against the disadvantages of soils impregnated with saline particles and destitute of organic matter; but as the day advanced increasing in number, magnitude, and elevation, until at length the earth was clothed with a luxuriant and varied vegetation, worthy the approval of the creator, and the admiring song of the angelic "sons of god." chapter ix. luminaries. "and god said, let there be luminaries in the expanse of heaven, to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and for years. and let them be for luminaries in the expanse of heaven, to give light on the earth: and it was so. "and god made two great luminaries, the greater luminary to preside over the day, the lesser luminary to preside over the night. he made the stars also. and god placed them in the expanse of heaven to give light on the earth, and to preside over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness: and god saw that it was good. and the evening and the morning were the fourth day."--genesis i., - . after so long a sojourn on the earth, we are in these verses again carried to the heavens. every scientific reader is struck with the position of this remarkable statement, interrupting as it does the progress of the organic creation, and constituting a break in the midst of the terrestrial history which is the immediate subject of the narrative; thus, in effect, as has often been remarked, dividing the creative week into two portions. why was the completion of the heavenly bodies so long delayed? why were light and vegetation introduced previously? if we can not fully answer these questions, we may at least suppose that the position of these verses is not accidental, though certainly not that which would have been chosen for its own sake by any fabricator of systems ancient or modern. let us inquire, however, what are the precise terms of the record. . the word here used to denote the objects produced clearly distinguishes them from the product of the first day's creation. then god said, "let _light_ be;" he now says, "let _luminaries_ or light-bearers be." we have already seen that the light of the first day may have emanated from an extended luminous mass, at first occupying the whole extent of the solar system, and more or less attached to the several planetary bodies, and afterwards concentrated within the earth's orbit. the verses now under consideration inform us that the process of concentration was now complete, that our great central luminary had attained to its perfect state. this process of concentration may have been proceeding during the whole of the intervening time, or it may have been completed at once by some more rapid process of the nature of a direct interposition of creative power. . the division of light from darkness is expressed by the same terms, and is of the same nature with that on the first day. this separation was now produced in its full extent by the perfect condensation of the luminiferous matters around the sun. . the heavenly bodies are said to be intended for _signs_--that is, for marks or indications--either of the seasons, days, and years afterwards mentioned, or of the majesty and power of the true god, as the creator of objects so grand and elevated as to become to the ignorant heathen objects of idolatrous worship; or perhaps of the earthly events they are supposed to influence. the arrangements now perfected for the first time enabled natural days, seasons, and years to have their limits accurately marked. previously to this period there had been no distinctly marked seasons, and consequently no natural separation of years, nor were the limits of days at all accurately defined. . the terms _expanse_ and _heaven_, previously applied to the atmosphere, are here combined to denote the more distant starry and planetary heavens. there is no ambiguity involved in this, since the writer must have well known that no one could so far mistake as to suppose that the heavenly bodies are placed in that atmospheric expanse which supports the clouds. . the luminaries were _made_ or appointed to their office on the fourth day. they are not said to have been created, being included in the creation of the beginning. they were now completed, and fully fitted for their work. an important part of this fitting seems to have been the setting or placing them in the heavens, conveying to us the impression that the mutual relations and regular motions of the heavenly bodies were now for the first time perfected. . the stars are introduced in a parenthetical manner, which leaves it doubtful whether we are merely informed in general terms that they are works of god, as well as those heavenly bodies which are of more importance to us, or that they were arranged as heavenly luminaries useful to our earth on the fourth day. the term includes the fixed stars, and it is by no means probable that these were in any way affected by the work referred to the fourth day, any farther than their appearance from our earth is concerned. this view is confirmed by the language of the th psalm, which in this part of the work mentions the sun and moon alone, without the fixed stars or planets. it is evident that the changes referred to this period related to the whole solar system, and resulted in the completion of that system in the form which it now bears, or at least in the final adjustment of the motions and relations of the earth; and we have reason to believe that the condensation of the luminous envelope around the sun was one of the most important of these changes. on the hypothesis of la place, already referred to as most in accordance with the earlier stages of the work, there seems to be no especial reason why the completion of the process of elaboration of the sun and planets should be accelerated at this particular stage. we can easily understand, however, that those closing steps which brought the solar system into a state of permanent and final equilibrium would form a marked epoch in the work; and we can also understand that now, on the eve of the introduction of animal life, there is a certain propriety in the representation of the creator interfering to close up the merely inorganic part of his great work, and bring this department at least to its final perfection. the fourth day, then, in geological language, marks _the complete introduction of "existing causes" in inorganic nature_, and we henceforth find no more creative interference, except in the domain of organization. this accords admirably with the deductions of modern geology, and especially with that great principle so well expounded by sir charles lyell, and which forms the true basis of modern geological reasonings--that we should seek in existing causes of change for the explanation of the appearances of the rocks of the earth's crust. geology probably carries us back to the introduction of animal life; and shows us that since that time land, sea, and atmosphere, summer and winter, day and night--all the great inorganic conditions affecting animal life--have existed as at present, and have been subject to modifications the same in kind with those which they now experience, though perhaps different in degree. in this ancient record we find in like manner that the period immediately preceding the creation of animals witnessed the completion of all the great general arrangements on which these phenomena depend. the bible, therefore, and science agree in the truth that existing causes have been in full force since the creation of animals; and that since that period the exercise of creative power has been limited to the organic world. this has a curious bearing, not often thought of, on modern theories of evolution as compared with the teaching of the bible. in one important sense, absolute creation, in so far as the inorganic universe is concerned, is in our mosaic narrative limited to the production of matter and force at first. all else is called making, forming, or appointing. thus the production of all the arrangements of the waters, the atmosphere, the earth, and the heavens, in the work of the first four days, and even the introduction of plants, may be correctly termed an evolution or development from preformed materials, with the single exception that the reproductive power and specific diversities of plants are recognized as entirely new facts. creation is properly resumed when animal life is introduced. hence, in so far as a comparison with the terms of genesis is concerned, hypotheses as to the evolution of animal life from inorganic matter are in a different position from hypotheses as to the previous evolution of the parts of inorganic nature; and still more so from statements as to the progress of inorganic nature subsequent to the introduction of animals; since within that period, which really includes the whole of geological time, absolutely no creation whatever in the domain of inanimate nature is affirmed in the biblical record to have taken place. on the contrary, all the arrangements of inorganic nature are represented as finally completed before the creation of animals. the obliquity of the earth's axis, which gives us the changes of the seasons, is apparently included in the arrangements of the fourth creative day. the cause of this obliquity, and the time when it may have attained to its present amount, have been fertile themes of discussion. it is clear, however, that if this obliquity was established, as appears to be stated here, before the introduction of animal life, it can have no bearing on the changes of climate of which we have evidence in geological time since the dawn of animal life, unless, indeed, it is capable of greater variation than astronomers admit; and the same remark applies to supposed changes in the position of the poles themselves. there is, however, nothing in this record to oppose the idea of any secular changes in these arrangements under the laws appointed in the fourth creative period. the record relating to the fourth day is silent respecting the mundane history of the period; and geology gives no very certain information concerning it. if, however, we assume that any of the eozoic or pre-eozoic rocks are deposits of this or the preceding period, we may infer from the disturbances and alteration which these have suffered, prior to the deposition of the cambrian and silurian, that during or toward the close of this day the crust of the earth was affected by great movements. there is another consideration also leading to important conclusions in relation to this period. in the earliest fossiliferous rocks there seems to be good evidence that the dry land contemporary with the seas in which they were formed was of very small extent. now, since on the third day a very plentiful and highly developed vegetation was produced, we may infer that during that period the extent of dry land was considerable, and was probably gradually increasing. if, then, the cambrian and silurian systems, so rich in marine organic remains, belong to the commencement of the fifth day, we must conclude that during the fourth much of the land previously existing had been again submerged. in other words, during the third day the extent of terrestrial surface was increasing, on the fourth day it diminished, and on the fifth it again increased, and probably has on the whole continued to increase up to the present time. one most important geological consequence of this is that the marine animals of the fifth day probably commenced their existence on sea bottoms which were the old soil surfaces of submerged continents previously clothed with vegetation, and which consequently contained much organic matter fitted to form a basis of support for the newly created animals. i shall close my remarks on the fourth day by a few quotations from those passages of scripture which refer to the objects of this day's work. i have already referred to that beautiful passage in deuteronomy where the israelites are warned against the crime of worshipping those heavenly bodies which the lord god hath "divided to every nation under the whole heaven." in the book of job also we find that the heavenly bodies were in his day regarded as signal manifestations of the power of god, and that several of the principal constellations had received names: "he commandeth the sun, and it shineth not; he sealeth up the stars;[ ] he alone spreadeth out the heavens, and walketh on the high waves of the sea;[ ] he maketh arcturus, orion, the pleiades, and the hidden chambers of the south; who doeth great things past finding out; yea, marvellous things beyond number." --job ix., . "canst thou tighten the bonds of the pleiades,[ ] or loose the bands of orion? canst thou bring forth the mazzaroth in their season, or lead forth arcturus and its sons? knowest thou the laws of the heavens, or hast thou appointed their dominion over the earth?" --job xxxviii., . i may merely remark on these passages that the chambers of the south are supposed to be those parts of the southern heavens invisible in the latitude in which job resided. the bonds of pleiades and of orion probably refer to the apparently close union of the stars of the former group, and the wide separation of those of the latter; a difference which, to the thoughtful observer of the heavens, is more striking than most instances of that irregular grouping of the stars which still forms a question in astronomy, from the uncertainty whether it is real, or only an optical deception arising from stars at different distances coming nearly into a line with each other. i have seen in some recent astronomical work this very instance of the pleiades and orion taken as a marked illustration of this problematical fact in astronomy. _mazzaroth_ are supposed by modern expositors to be the signs of the zodiac. on the whole, the hebrew books give us little information as to the astronomical theories of the time when they were written. they are entirely non-committal as to the nature of the connections and revolutions of the heavenly bodies; and indeed regard these as matters in their time beyond the grasp of the human mind, though well known to the creator and regulated by his laws. from other sources we have facts leading to the belief that even in the time of moses, and certainly in that of the later biblical writers, there was not a little practical astronomy in the east, and some good theory. the hindoo astronomy professes to have observations from b.c., and the arguments of baily and others, founded on internal evidence, give some color of truth to the claim. the chaldeans at a very early period had ascertained the principal circles of the sphere, the position of the poles, and the nature of the apparent motions of the heavens as the results of revolution on an inclined axis. the egyptian astronomy we know mainly from what the greeks borrowed from it. thales, b.c., taught that the moon is lighted by the sun, and that the earth is spherical, and the position of its five zones. pythagoras, b.c., knew, in addition to the sphericity of the earth, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the identity of the evening and morning star, and that the earth revolves round the sun. this greek astronomy appears immediately after the opening of egypt to the greeks; and both these philosophers studied in that country. such knowledge, and more of the same character, may therefore have existed in egypt at a much earlier period. the psalms abound in beautiful references to the creation of the fourth day: "when i consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?" --psalm viii. "who telleth the number of the stars, who calleth them all by their names. great is our lord, and of great praise; his understanding is infinite. the lord lifteth up the meek; he casteth the wicked to the ground." --psalm cxlvii. "the heavens declare the glory of god, the firmament showeth his handiwork; day unto day uttereth speech, night unto night showeth knowledge. they have no speech nor language, their voice is not heard; yet their line is gone out to all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. in them hath he set a pavilion for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. its going forth is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit unto the end of them. and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." --psalm xix. these are excellent illustrations of the truth of the scripture mode of treating natural objects, in connection with their maker. it is but a barren and fruitless philosophy which sees the work and not its author--a narrow piety which loves god but despises his works. the bible holds forth the golden mean between these extremes, in a strain of lofty poetry and acute perception of the great and beautiful, whether seen in the creator or reflected from his works. the work of this day opens up a wide field for astronomical illustration, more especially in relation to the wisdom and benevolence of the creator as displayed in the heavens; but it would be foreign to our present purpose to enter into these. it may be well, however, to think for a moment of the importance of the facts suggested by the writer of genesis in mentioning the use of the heavenly bodies as signs of time. to what extent civilization or even the continued existence of man as an intelligent being would have been possible without the marks of subdivision of time given by the great astronomical clock of the universe, it is almost impossible for us to imagine. without such marks of time, in any case, the whole fabric of human culture must have been different from what it is. farther, in connection with this, it is a grand thought of our early revelation that all these heavenly bodies, however magnificent, and however they might seem to the heathen to be objects of worship, are but marks on god's clock, parts of a mere machine which keeps time for us, and is therefore our servant, as the children of the great artificer, and not our ruler. the idea has been termed an astrological one; but astrology as a means of divination has no place in the record. the heavenly bodies are under the law of the creator, and their function relatively to us is to give light and to give time. astrological divination is an outgrowth of the sabæan idolatry, and held in abomination by the monotheistic author of genesis. his object may be summed up in the following general statements: . the heavenly hosts and their arrangements are the work of jehovah, and are regulated wholly by his laws or ordinances; a striking illustration of the recognition by the hebrew writer both of creative interference, and that stable, natural law which too often withdraws the mind of the philosopher from the ideas of creation and of providence. . the heavenly bodies have a relation to the earth--are parts of the same plan, and, whatever other uses they were made to serve, were made for the benefit of man. . the general physical arrangements of the solar system were perfected before the introduction of animals on our planet. chapter x. the lower animals. "and god said, let the waters swarm with swarming living creatures, and let birds fly on the surface of the expanse of heaven. and god created great reptiles, and every living moving thing, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every bird after its kind; and god saw that it was good. "and god blessed them, saying, be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters of the seas, and let the flying creatures multiply in the earth. and the evening and the morning were the fifth day."--genesis i., - . in these words, so full of busy, active, thronging life, we now enter on that part of the earth's history which has been most fully elucidated by geology, and we have thus an additional reason for carefully weighing the terms of the narrative, which here, as in other places, contain large and important truths couched in language of the simplest character. . in accordance with the views now entertained by the best lexicographers, the word translated in our version "creeping things" has been rendered "prolific or swarming creatures." the hebrew is _sheretz_, a noun derived from the verb used in this verse to denote bringing forth abundantly. it is loosely translated in the septuagint _erpeta_, reptiles; and this view our english translators appear to have adopted, without, perhaps, any very clear notions of the creatures intended. the manner in which it is used in other passages places its true meaning beyond doubt. i select as illustrations of the most apposite character those verses in leviticus in which clean and unclean animals are specified, and in which we have a right to expect the most precise zoological nomenclature that the hebrew can afford. in leviticus xi., - , _insects_ are defined to be _flying sheretzim_, and in verse , etc., under the designation "_sheretzim of the land_," we have animals named in our version the weasel, mouse, tortoise, ferret, chameleon, lizard, snail, and mole. the first of these animals is believed to have been a burrowing creature, perhaps a mole; the second, from the meaning of its name, "ravager of fields," is thought to have been a mouse. some doubt, however, attends both of these identifications, but it appears certain that the remaining six species are small reptiles, principally lizards. we learn, therefore, that the smaller reptiles, and _perhaps_ also a few small mammals, are _sheretzim_. in verses and we are introduced to other tribes. "and every _sheretz_ that swarmeth on the earth shall be an abomination unto you; it shall not be eaten; whatsoever goeth upon the belly (serpents, worms, snails, etc.), and whatsoever hath more feet (than four) (insects, arachnidans, myriapods)." in verses and of the same chapter we have an enumeration of the _sheretzim_ of the waters: "whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. and all that have not fins and scales in the seas and the rivers, of all that swarm in the waters (all the _sheretzim_ of the waters), they shall be an abomination unto you." here the general term _sheretz_ includes all the fishes and the invertebrate animals of the waters. from the whole of the above passages we learn that this is a general term for all the invertebrate animals and the two lower classes of vertebrates, or, in other words, for the whole animal kingdom except the mammalia and birds. to all these creatures the name is particularly appropriate, all of them being oviparous or ovoviviparous, and consequently producing great numbers of young and multiplying very rapidly. the only other creatures which can be included under the term are the two doubtful species of small mammals already mentioned. nothing can be more fair and obvious than this explanation of the term, based both on etymology and on the precise nomenclature of the ceremonial law. we conclude, therefore, that the prolific animals of the fifth day's creation belonged to the three cuvierian sub-kingdoms of the radiata, articulata, and mollusca, and to the classes of fish and reptiles among the vertebrata. . one peculiar group of _sheretzim_ is especially distinguished by name--the _tanninim_, or "great whales" of our version. it would be amusing, had we time, to notice the variety of conjectures to which this word has given rise, and the perplexities of commentators in reference to it. in our version and the septuagint it is usually rendered dragon; but in this place the seventy have thought proper to put _ketos_ (whale), and our translators have followed them. subsequent translators and commentators have laid under contribution all sorts of marine monsters, including the sea-serpent, in their endeavors to attach a precise meaning to the word; while others have been content to admit that it may signify any kind or all kinds of large aquatic animals. the greater part of the difficulty appears to have arisen from confounding two distinct words, _tannin_ and _tan_, both names of animals; and the confusion has been increased by the circumstance that in two places the words have been interchanged, probably by errors of transcribers. _tan_ occurs in twelve places, and from these we can gather that it inhabits ruined cities, deserts, and places to which ostriches resort, that it suckles its young, is of predaceous and shy habits, utters a wailing cry, and is not of large size, nor formidable to man. the most probable conjecture as to the animal intended is that of gesenius, who supposes it to be the jackal. the other word (_tannin_), which is that used in the text, is applied as an emblem of egypt and its kings, and also of the conquering kings of babylon. it is spoken of as furious when enraged, and formidable to man, and is said to be an inhabitant of rivers and of the sea, but more especially of the nile. in short, it is the crocodile of the nile. we can easily understand the perplexity of those writers who suppose these two words to be identical, and endeavor to combine all the characters above mentioned in one animal or tribe of animals. as a farther illustration of the marked difference in the meanings of the two words, we may compare the th and th verses of the fifty-first chapter of jeremiah. in the first of these verses the king of babylon is represented as a "dragon" (_tannin_), which had swallowed up israel. in the second it is predicted that babylon itself shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for "dragons" (_tanim_). there can be no doubt that the animals intended here are quite different. the devouring _tannin_ is a huge predaceous river reptile, a fit emblem of the babylonian monarch; the _tan_ is the jackal that will soon howl in his ruined palaces. it is interesting to know that philologists trace a connection between _tannin_ and the greek _teino_, latin _tendo_, and similar words, signifying to stretch or extend, in the sanscrit, gothic, and other languages, leading to the inference that the hebrew word primarily denotes a lengthened or extended creature, which corresponds well with its application to the crocodile. taking all the above facts in connection, we are quite safe in concluding that the creatures referred to by the word under consideration are literally large reptilian animals; and, from the special mention made of them, we may infer that, in their day, they were the lords of creation.[ ] . in verse the remainder of the _sheretzim_, besides the larger reptiles, are included in the general expression, "living creature that moveth." the term "living creature" is, literally, "creature having the breath of life;" the power of respiration being apparently in hebrew the distinctive character of the animal. the word moveth (_ramash_), in its more general sense, expresses the power of voluntary motion, as exhibited in animals in general. in a few places, however, it has a more precise meaning, as in kings iv., , where the vertebrated animals are included in the four classes of "beasts, fowl, _creeping things_ (or reptiles, _remes_), and fishes." in the present connection it probably has its most general sense; unless, indeed, the apparent repetition in this verse relates to the amphibious or semi-terrestrial creatures associated with the great reptiles; and, in that case, the humbler reptilian animals alone may be meant. . we may again note that the introduction of animal life is marked by the use of the word "create," for the first time since the general creation of the heavens and the earth. we may also note that the animal, as well as the plant, was created "after its kind," or "species by species." the animals are grouped under three great classes--the remes, the tanninim, and the birds; but, lest any misconception should arise as to the relations of species to these groups, we are expressly informed that the species is here the true unit of the creative work. it is worth while, therefore, to note that this most ancient authority on this much controverted topic connects species on the one hand with the creative fiat, and on the other with the power of continuous reproduction. . in addition to the great mass of _sheretzim_, so accurately characterized by milton as "----reptile with spawn abundant," the creation of the fifth day included a higher tribe of oviparous animals--the birds, the fowl or winged creature of the text. birds alone, we think, must be meant here, as we have already seen that insects are included under the general term _sheretzim_. . it is farther to be observed that _the waters_ give origin to the first animals--an interesting point when we consider the contrast here with the creation of plants and of the higher animals, both of which proceed from the earth. . it can not fail to be observed that we have in these verses two different arrangements of the animals created, neither corresponding exactly with what modern science teaches us to regard as the true grouping of the animal kingdom, according to its affinities. the order in the first enumeration should, from the analogy of the chapter, indicate that of successive creation. the order of the second list may, perhaps, be that of the relative importance of the animals, as it appeared to the writer. or there may have been a twofold division of the period--the earlier commencing with the creation of the humbler invertebrates, the later characterized by the great reptiles--which is the actual state of the case as disclosed by geology. . the creator recognizes the introduction of sentient existence and volition by _blessing_ this new work of his hands, and inviting the swarms of the newly peopled world to enjoy that happiness for which they were fitted, and to increase and fill the earth, inaugurating thus a new power destined to still higher developments. when we inquire what information geology affords respecting the period under consideration, the answer may be full and explicit. geological discovery has carried us back to an epoch corresponding with the beginning of this day, and has disclosed a long and varied series of living beings, extending from this early period up to the introduction of the higher races of animals. to enter on the geological details of these changes, and on descriptions of the creatures which succeeded each other on the earth, would swell this volume into a treatise on palæontology, and would be quite unnecessary, as so many excellent popular works on this subject already exist. i shall, therefore, confine myself to a few general statements, and to marking the points in which scripture and geology coincide in their respective histories of this long period, which appears to include the whole of the palæozoic and mesozoic epochs of geology, with their grand and varied succession of rock formations and living beings. in the primordial or oldest fossiliferous rocks next in succession to those great eozoic formations in which protozoa alone have been discovered, we find the remains of crustaceans, mollusks, and radiates--such as shrimps, shell-fish, and starfishes--which appear to have inhabited the bottom of a shallow ocean. among these were some genera belonging to the higher forms of invertebrate life, but apparently as yet no vertebrated animals. fishes were then introduced, and have left their remains in the upper silurian rocks, and very abundantly in the devonian and carboniferous, in the latter of which also the first reptiles occur, but are principally members of that lower group to which the frogs and newts and their allies belong. the animal kingdom appears to have reached no higher than the reptiles in the palæozoic or primary period of geology, and its reptiles are comparatively small and few; though fishes had attained to a point of perfection which they have not since exceeded. there was also, especially in the carboniferous age, an abundant and luxuriant vegetation. the mesozoic period is, however, emphatically the age of reptiles. this class then reached its climax, in the number, perfection, and magnitude of its species, which filled all those stations in the economy of nature now assigned to the mammalia. birds also belong to this era, though apparently much less numerous and important than at present. only a few species of small mammals, of the lowest or marsupial type, appear as a presage of the mammalian creation of the succeeding tertiary era. in these two geological periods, then--the palæozoic and mesozoic--we find, first, the lower _sheretzim_ represented by the invertebrata and the fishes, then the great reptiles and the birds; and it can not be denied that, if we admit that the mosaic day under consideration corresponds with these geological periods, it would be impossible better to characterize their creations in so few words adapted to popular comprehension. i may add that all the species whose remains are found in the palæozoic and mesozoic rocks are extinct, and known to us only as fossils; and their connection with the present system of nature consists only in their forming with it a more perfect series than our present fauna alone could afford, unless, indeed, we should find reason to believe that any modern animals are their modified descendants. they belong to the same system of types, but are parts of it which have served their purpose and have been laid aside. the coincidences above noted between geology and scripture may be summed up as follows: . according to both records, the causes which at present regulate the distribution of light, heat, and moisture, and of land and water, were, during the whole of this period, much the same as at present. the eyes of the trilobite of the old silurian rocks are fitted for the same conditions with respect to light with those of existing animals of the same class. the coniferous trees of the coal measures show annual rings of growth. impressions of rain-marks have been found in the shales of the coal measures and devonian system. hills and valleys, swamps and lagoons, rivers, bays, seas, coral reefs and shell beds, have all left indubitable evidence of their existence in the geological record. on the other hand, the bible affirms that all the earth's physical features were perfected on the fourth day, and immediately before the creation of animals. the land and the water have undergone during this long lapse of ages many minor changes. whole tribes of animals and plants have been swept away and replaced by others, but the general aspect of inorganic nature has remained the same. . both records show the existence of vegetation during this period; though the geologic record, if taken alone, would, from its want of information respecting the third day, lead us to infer that plants are no older than animals, while the bible does not speak of the nature of the vegetation that may have existed on the fifth day. . both records inform us that reptiles and birds were the higher and leading forms of animals, and that all the lower forms of animals co-existed with them. in both we have especial notice of the gigantic saurian reptiles of the latter part of the period; and if we have the remains of a few small species of mammals in the mesozoic rocks, these, like a few similar creatures apparently included under the word _sheretz_ in leviticus, are not sufficiently important to negative the general fact of the reign of reptiles.[ ] . it accords with both records that the work of creation in this period was gradually progressive. species after species was locally introduced, extended itself, and, after having served its purpose, gradually became extinct. and thus each successive rock formation presents new groups of species, each rising in numbers and perfection above the last, and marking a gradual assimilation of the general conditions of our planet to their present state, yet without any convulsions or general catastrophes affecting the whole earth at once. . in both records the time between the creation of the first animals and the introduction of the mammalia as a dominant class forms a well-marked period. i would not too positively assert that the close of the fifth day accords precisely with that of the mesozoic or secondary period. the well-marked line of separation, however, in many parts of the world, between this and the earlier tertiary rocks succeeding to it, points to this as extremely probable. it thus appears that scripture and geology so far concur respecting the events of this period as to establish, even without any other evidence, a probability that the fifth day corresponds with the geological ages with which i have endeavored to identify it. geology, however, gives us no means of measuring precisely the length of this day; but it gives us the impression that it occupied an enormous length of time, compared with which the whole human period is quite insignificant; and rivalling those mythical "days of the creator" which we have noticed as forming a part of the hindoo mythology. why was the earth thus occupied for countless ages by an animal population whose highest members were reptiles and birds? the fact can not be doubted, since geology and scripture, the research of man and the word of god, concur in affirming it. we know that the lowest of these creatures was, in its own place, no less worthy of the creator than those which we regard as the highest in the scale of organization, and that the animals of the ancient, equally with those of the modern world, abounded in proofs of the wisdom, power, and goodness of their maker. comparative anatomy has shown that these extinct animals, though often varying much from their modern representatives, are in no respect rude or imperfect; that they have the same appearance of careful planning and elaborate execution, the same combination of ornament and utility, the same nice adaptation to the conditions of their existence, which we observe in modern creatures. in addition to this, the many new and wonderful contrivances and combinations which they present, and their relations to existing objects, have greatly enlarged our views of the variety and harmony of the whole system of nature. they are, therefore, in these respects, not without their use as manifestations of the creator, in this our later age. there is another reason, hinted at by buckland, miller, and other writers on this subject, which weighs much with my mind. all animals and plants are constructed on a few leading types or patterns, which are again divided into subordinate types, just as in architecture we have certain leading styles, and these again may admit of several orders, and these of farther modifications. types are farther modified to suit a great variety of minor adaptations. now we know that the earth is, at any one time, inadequate to display all the modifications of all the types. hence our existing system of organic nature, though probably more complete than any that preceded it, is still only fragmentary. it is like what architecture would be, if all memorials of all buildings more than a century old were swept away. but, from the beginning to the end of the creative work, there has been, or will be, room for the whole plan. hence fossils are little by little completing our system of nature; and, if all were known, would perhaps wholly do so. the great plan must be progressive, and all its parts must be perishable, except its last culminating-point and archetype, man. tennyson expresses this truth in the following lines: "the wish that of the living whole no life may fail beyond the grave; derives it not from what we have the likest god within the soul? are god and nature then at strife, that nature lends such evil dreams? so careful of the type she seems, so careless of the single life. 'so careful of the type?' but no. from scarped cliff and quarried stone she cries, 'a thousand types are gone; i care for nothing, all shall go. 'thou makest thine appeal to me: i bring to life, i bring to death: the spirit does but mean the breath: i know no more.' and he, shall he, man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, such splendid purpose in his eyes, who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies, who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, who trusted god was love indeed, and love creation's final law-- tho' nature, red in tooth and claw, with ravine, shriek'd against his creed-- who loved, who suffer'd countless ills, who battled for the true, the just, be blown about the desert dust, or seal'd within the iron hills? no more? a monster, then, a dream, a discord. dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime, were mellow music match'd with him. o life as futile, then, as frail! o for thy voice to soothe and bless! what hope of answer, or redress? behind the veil, behind the veil." the farther explanation given by evolutionists that those ancient forms of life may be the actual ancestors of the present animals, and that through all the ages the creator was gradually perfecting his work by a series of descents with modification, was probably not before the mind of our ancient hebrew authority, nor need we attach much value to it till some proof of the process has been obtained from nature. a farther reason, however, which was intelligible to the author of genesis, and which is fondly dwelt on in succeeding books of the bible, depends on the idea that the creator himself is not indifferent to the marvellous structures, instincts, and powers which he has bestowed upon the lower races of animals. witness the answer of the almighty to job, when he spake out of the whirlwind to vindicate his own plans in creation and providence; and brought before the patriarch a long train of animals, explaining and dwelling on the structure and powers of each, in contrast with the puny efforts and rude artificial contrivances of man. witness also the preservation, in the rocks, of the fossil remains of extinct creatures, as if he who made them was unwilling that the evidence of their existence should perish, and purposely treasured them through all the revolutions of the earth, that through them men might magnify his name. the psalmist would almost appear to have had all these thoughts before his mind when he poured out his wonder in the th psalm: "o lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all. the earth is full of thy riches; so is this wide and great sea, wherein are moving things innumerable, creatures both small and great. there go the ships [or "floating animals"]; there is leviathan, which thou hast formed to sport therein: that thou givest them they gather. thou openest thy hand, they are filled with good; thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they return to their dust. thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, and thou renewest the face of the earth." there are, however, good reasons to believe that, in the plans of divine wisdom, the long periods in which the earth was occupied by the inferior races were necessary to its subsequent adaptation to the residence of man. to these periods our present continents gradually grew up in all their variety and beauty. the materials of old rocks were comminuted and mixed to form fertile soils,[ ] and stores of mineral products were accumulated to enable man to earn his subsistence and the blessings of civilization by the sweat of his brow. if it pleased the almighty during these preparatory stages to replenish the land and sea with living things full of life and beauty and happiness, who shall venture to criticise his procedure, or to say to him, "what doest thou?" it would be decidedly wrong, in the present state of that which is popularly called science, to omit to inquire here what relation to the work of the fifth creative day those theories of development and evolution which have obtained so great currency may bear. the long time employed in the introduction of the lower animals, the use of the terms "make" and "form," instead of "create," and the expression "let the waters bring forth," may well be understood as countenancing some form of mediate creation, or of "creation by law," or "theistic evolution," as it has been termed; but they give no countenance to the idea either of the spontaneous evolution of living beings under the influence of merely physical causes and without creative intervention, or of the transmutation of one kind of animal into another. still, with reference to this last idea, it is plain that revelation gives us no definition of species as distinguished from varieties or races, so that there is nothing to prevent the supposition that, within certain limits indicated by the expression "after its kind," animals or plants may have been so constituted as to vary greatly in the progress of geological time. if we ask whether any thing is known to science which can give even a decided probability to the notion that living beings are parts of an undirected evolution proceeding under merely dead insentient forces, and without intention, the answer must be emphatically no. i have elsewhere fully discussed these questions, and may here make some general statements as to certain scientific facts which at present bar the way against the hypothesis of evolution as applied to life, and especially against that form of it to which darwin and his disciples have given so great prominence. . the albuminous or protoplasmic material, which seems to be necessary to the existence of every living being, is known to us as a product only of the action of previously living protoplasm. though it is often stated that the production of albumen from its elements is a process not differing from the formation of water or any other inorganic material from its elements, this statement is false in fact, since, though many so-called organic substances have been produced by chemical processes, no particle of either living or non-living organizable matter of the nature of protoplasm has ever been so produced. the origin, therefore, of this albuminous matter is as much a mystery to us at present as that of any of the chemical elements. . though some animals and plants are very simple in their visible structure, they all present vital properties not to be found in dead albuminous matter, and no mode is known whereby the properties of life can be communicated to dead matter. all the experiments hitherto made, and very eminently those recently performed by pasteur, tyndall, and dallinger, lead to the conclusion that even the simplest living beings can be produced only from germs originating in previously living organisms of similar structure. the simplest living organisms are thus to science ultimate facts, for which it can not account except conjecturally. . no case is certainly known in human experience where any species of animal or plant has been so changed as to assume all the characters of a new species. species are thus practically to science unchangeable units, the origin of which we have as yet no means of tracing. . though the general history of animal life in time bears a certain resemblance to the development of the individual animal from the embryo, there is no reason whatever to believe that this is more than a mere relation of analogy, arising from the fact that in both cases the law of procedure is to pass from the simpler forms to the more complex, and from the more generalized to the more specialized. the external conditions and details of the two kinds of series are altogether different, and become more so the more they are investigated. this shows that the causes can not have been similar. . in tracing back animals and groups of animals in geological time, we find that they always end without any link of connection with previous beings, and in circumstances which render any such connections improbable. in the work of our next creative day, the series of animals preceding the modern horse has been cited as a good instance of probable evolution; but not only are the members of the series so widely separated in space and time that no connection can be traced, but the earliest of them, the _orohippus_, would require, on the theory, to have been preceded by a previous series extending so far back that it is impossible, under any supposition of the imperfection of our present knowledge, to consider such extension probable. the same difficulty applies to every case of tracing back any specific form either of animal or plant. this general result proves, as i have elsewhere attempted to show,[ ] that the introduction of the various animal types must have been abrupt, and under some influence quite different from that of evolution. these are what i would term the five fatal objections to evolution as at present held, as a means of accounting for the introduction and succession of animals. to what extent they may be weakened or strengthened by the future progress of science it is impossible to say, but so long as they exist it is mere folly and presumption to affirm that modern science supports the doctrine of evolution. there can be no doubt, however, that the bible leaves us perfectly free to inquire as to the plan and method of the creator, and that, whatever discoveries we may make, we shall find that his plans are orderly, methodical, and continuous, and not of the nature of an arbitrary patchwork. though science as yet gives us no certain laws for the introduction of new specific types, it indicates certain possible modes of the origination of varieties, races, and sub-species of previously existing types. one of these is that struggle for existence against adverse external conditions, which, however, has been harped upon too exclusively by the darwinian school, and which will give chiefly depauperated and degraded forms. another is that expansion under exceptionally favorable conditions which arises where species are admitted to wider new areas of geographical range and more abundant and varied means of sustenance. land animals and plants must have experienced this in times of continental elevation; marine animals and plants in times of continental depression. another is the tendency to what has been called reproductive retardation and acceleration which species undergo under conditions exceptionally unfavorable or favorable, and which in some modern aquatic animals produces differences so great that members of the same species have sometimes been placed in different genera. lastly, it is conceivable that species may have been so constructed that after a certain number of generations they may spontaneously undergo either abrupt or gradual changes, similar to those which the individual undergoes at certain stages of growth. this last furnishes the only true analogy possible between embryology and geological succession. while, however, science is silent as to the production of new specific types, and only gives us indications as to the origin of varieties and races, it is curious that the bible suggests three methods in which new organisms may be, and according to it have been introduced by the creator. the first is that of immediate and direct creation, as when god created the great tanninim. the second is that of mediate creation, through the materials previously existing, as when he said, "let the land bring forth plants," or "let the waters bring forth animals." the third is that of production from a previous organism by power other than that of ordinary reproduction, as in the origination of eve from adam, and the miraculous conception of jesus. these are the only points in which its teachings approach the limits of speculations as to evolution, and they certainly leave scope enough for the legitimate inquiries of science.[ ] chapter xi. the higher animals and man. "and god said, let the land bring forth animals after their kinds; the herbivora, the reptiles, and the carnivora, after their kinds; and it was so. and god made carnivorous mammals after their kinds, and herbivorous mammals after their kinds, and every reptile of the land after its kind; and god saw that it was good. "and god said, let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over the herbivora and over all the land. so god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them. and god blessed them; and god said, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. "and god said, behold, i have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food, and to every beast of the earth and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth wherein there is life, i have given every green herb for meat; and it was so. and god saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. and evening and morning were the sixth day."--genesis i., - . the creation of animals, unlike that of plants, occupies two days. here our attention is restricted to the inhabitants of the _land_, and chiefly to their higher forms. several new names are introduced to our notice, which i have endeavored to translate as literally as possible by introducing zoological terms where those in common use were deficient. . the first tribe of animals noticed here is named _bhemah_, "cattle" in our version; and in the septuagint "quadrupeds" in one of the verses, and "cattle" in the other. both of these senses are of common occurrence in the scriptures, cattle or domesticated animals being usually designated by this word; while in other passages, as in kings iv., , where solomon is said to have written a treatise on "_beasts_, fowls, creeping things, and fishes," it appears to include all the mammalia. notwithstanding this wide range of meaning, however, there are passages, and these of the greatest authority in reference to our present subject, in which it strictly means the herbivorous mammals, and which show that when it was necessary to distinguish these from the predaceous or carnivorous tribes this term was specially employed. in leviticus xi., - , we have a specification of all the bhemoth that might and might not be used for food. it includes all the true ruminants, with the coney, the hare, and the hog, animals of the rodent and pachydermatous orders. the carnivorous quadrupeds are designated by a different generic term. in this chapter of leviticus, therefore, which contains the only approach to a system in natural history to be found in the bible, _bhemah_ is strictly a synonym of _herbivora_, including especially ungulates and rodents. that this is its proper meaning here is confirmed by the considerations that in this place it can denote but a part of the land quadrupeds, and that the idea of cattle or domesticated animals would be an anachronism. at the same time there need be no objection to the view that the especial capacity of ruminants and other herbivora for domestication is connected with the use of the word in this place. . the word _remes_, "creeping things" in our version, as we have already shown, is a very general term, referring to the power of motion possessed by animals, especially on the surface of the ground. it here in all probability refers to the additional types of terrestrial reptiles, and other creatures lower than the mammals, introduced in this period. . the compound term (_hay'th-eretz_) which i have ventured to render "carnivora," is literally animal of the land; but though thus general in its meaning, it is here evidently intended to denote a particular tribe of animals inhabiting the land, and not included in the scope of the two words already noticed. in other parts of scripture this term is used in the sense of a "wild beast." in a few places, like the other terms already noticed, it is used of all kinds of animals, but that above stated is its general meaning, and perfectly accords with the requirements of the passage. the creation of the sixth day therefore includes-- st, the herbivorous mammalia; d, a variety of terrestrial reptilia, and other lower forms not included in the work of the previous day; d, the carnivorous mammalia. it will be observed that the order in the two verses is different. in verse th it is herbivora, "creeping things," and carnivora. in verse th it is carnivora, herbivora, and "creeping things." one of these may, as in the account of the fifth day, indicate the order of _time_ in the creation, and the other the order of _rank_ in the animals made, or there may have been two divisions of the work, in the earlier of which herbivorous animals took the lead, and in the later those that are carnivorous. in either case we may infer that the herbivora predominated in the earlier creations of the period. it is almost unnecessary to say this period corresponds with the tertiary or cainozoic era of geologists. the coincidences are very marked and striking. as already stated, though in the later secondary period there were great facilities for the preservation of mammals in the strata then being deposited, only a few small species of the humblest order have been found; and the occurrence of the higher orders of this class is to some extent precluded by the fact that the place in nature now occupied by the mammals was then provided for by the vast development of the reptile tribes. at the very beginning of the tertiary period all this was changed; most of the gigantic reptiles had disappeared, and terrestrial mammals of large size and high organization had taken their place. perhaps no geological change is more striking and remarkable than the sudden disappearance of the reptilian fauna at the close of the mesozoic, and the equally abrupt appearance of numerous species of large mammals, and this not in one region only, but over both the great continents, and not only where a sudden break occurs in the series of formations, but also where, as in western america, they pass gradually into each other. during the whole tertiary period this predominance of the mammalia continued; and as the mesozoic was the period of giant reptiles, so the tertiary was that of great mammals. it is a singular and perhaps not accidental coincidence that so many of the early tertiary mammals known to us are large herbivora, such as would be included in the hebrew word _bhemah_; and that in the book of job the hippopotamus is called _behemoth_, the plural form being apparently used to denote that this animal is the chief of the creatures known under the general term _bhemah_, while geology informs us that the prevailing order of mammals in the older tertiary period was that of the ungulates, and that many of the extinct creatures of this group are very closely allied to the hippopotamus. behemoth thus figures in the book of job, not only as at the time a marked illustration of creative power, but to our farther knowledge also as a singular remnant of an extinct gigantic race. it is at least curious that while in the fifth day great reptiles like those of the secondary rocks form the burden of the work, in the sixth we have a term which so directly reminds us of those gigantic pachyderms which figure so largely in the tertiary period. large carnivora also occur in the tertiary formations, and there are some forms of reptile life, as, for example, the serpents, which first appear in the tertiary. i may refer to any popular text-book of geology in evidence of the exact conformity of this to the progress of mammalian life, as we now know it in detail from the study of the successive tertiary deposits. the following short summary from dana, though written several years ago, still expresses the main features of the case: "the quadrupeds did not all come forth together. large and powerful herbivorous species first take possession of the earth, with only a few small carnivora. these pass away. other herbivora with a larger proportion of carnivora next appear. these also are exterminated; and so with others. then the carnivora appear in vast numbers and power, and the herbivora also abound. moreover these races attain a magnitude and number far surpassing all that now exist, as much so indeed, on all the continents, north and south america, europe, asia, africa, and australia, as the old mastodon, twenty feet long and nine feet high, exceeds the modern buffalo. such, according to geology, was the age of mammals, when the brute species existed in their greatest magnificence, and brutal ferocity had free play; when the dens of bears and hyenas, prowling tigers and lions far larger than any now existing, covered britain and europe. mammoths and mastodons wandered over the plains of north america, huge sloth-like megatheria passed their sluggish lives on the pampas of south america, and elephantine marsupials strolled about australia. "as the mammalian age draws to a close, the ancient carnivora and herbivora of that era all pass away, excepting, it is believed, a few that are useful to man. new creations of smaller size peopled the groves; the vegetation received accessions to its foliage, fruit-trees and flowers, and the seas brighter forms of water life. this we know from comparisons with the fossils of the preceding mammalian age. there was at this time no chaotic upturning, but only the opening of creation to its fullest expansion; and so in genesis no new day is begun, it is still the _sixth day_." the creation of man is prefaced by expressions implying deliberation and care. it is not said, "let the earth bring forth" man, but let us form or fashion man. this marks the relative importance of the human species, and the heavenly origin of its nobler immaterial part. man is also said to have been "created," implying that in his constitution there was something new and not included in previous parts of the work, even in its material. man was created, as the hebrew literally reads, the shadow and similitude of god--the greatest of the visible manifestations of deity in the lower world--the reflected image of his maker, and, under the supreme lawgiver, the delegated ruler of the earth. now for the first time was the earth tenanted by a being capable of comprehending the purposes and plans of jehovah, of regarding his works with intelligent admiration, and of shadowing forth the excellences of his moral nature. for countless ages the earth had been inhabited by creatures wonderful in their structures and instincts, and mutely testifying, as their buried remains still do, to the creator's glory; but limited within a narrow range of animal propensities, and having no power of raising a thought or aspiration toward the being who made them. now, however, man enters on the scene, and the sons of god, who had shouted for joy when the first land emerged from the bosom of the deep, saw the wondrous spectacle of a spiritual nature analogous to their own, united to a corporeal frame constructed on the same general type with the higher of those irrational creatures whose presence on earth they had so long witnessed. man was to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the _bhemah_ or herbivorous animals. the carnivorous creatures are not mentioned, and possibly were not included in man's dominion. we shall find an explanation of this farther on. the nature of man's dominion we are left to infer. in his state of innocence it must have been a mild and gentle sway, interfering in no respect wilts the free exercise of the powers of enjoyment bestowed on animals by the creator, a rule akin to that which a merciful man exercises over a domesticated animal, and which some animals are capable of repaying with a warm and devoted affection. now, however, man's rule has become a tyranny. "the whole creation groans" because of it. he desolates the face of nature wherever he appears, unsettling the nice balance of natural agencies, and introducing remediless confusion and suffering among the lower creatures, even when in the might of his boasted civilization he professes to renovate and improve the face of nature. he retains enough of the image of his maker to enable him to a great extent to assert his dominion, and to aspire after a restoration of his original paradise, but he has lost so much that the power which he retains is necessarily abused to selfish ends. man, like the other creatures, was destined to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. we are also informed in chapter second that he was placed in a "garden," a chosen spot in the alluvial plains of western asia, belonging to the later geological formations, and thus prepared by the whole series of prior geological changes, replenished with all things useful to him, and containing nothing hurtful, at least in so far as the animal creation was concerned. these facts, taken in connection, lead to grave questions. how is the happy and innocent state of man consistent with the contemporaneous existence of carnivorous and predaceous animals, which, as both scripture and geology state, were created in abundance in the sixth day? how, when confined to a limited region, could he increase and multiply and replenish the earth? these questions, which have caused no little perplexity, are easily solved when brought into the light of our modern knowledge of nature. . every large region of the earth is inhabited by a group of animals differing in the proportions of identical species, and in the presence of distinct species, from the groups inhabiting other districts. there is also sufficient reason to conclude that all animals and plants have spread from certain local centres of creation, in which certain groups of species have been produced and allowed to extend themselves, until they met and became intermingled with species extending from other centres. now the district of asia, in the vicinity of the euphrates and tigris, to which the scripture assigns the origin of the human race, is the centre to which we can with the greatest probability trace several of the species of animals and plants most useful to man, and it lies near the confines of warmer and colder regions of distribution in the old world, and also near the boundary of the asiatic and european regions. at the period under consideration it may have been peopled with a group of animals specially suited to association with the progenitors of mankind. . to remove all zoological difficulties from the position of primeval man in his state of innocence, we have but to suppose, in accordance with all the probabilities of the case, that man was created along with a group of creatures adapted to contribute to his happiness, and having no tendency to injure or annoy; and that it is the formation of these creatures--the group of his own centre of creation--that is especially noticed in genesis ii., , _et seq._, where god is represented as forming them out of the ground and exhibiting them to adam; a passage otherwise superfluous, and indeed tending to confuse the meaning of the document. . the difficulty attending the early extension of the human race is at once obviated by the geological doctrine of the extinction of species. we know that in past geological periods large and important groups of species have become extinct, and have been replaced by new groups extending from new centres; and we know that this process has removed, in early geological periods, many creatures that would have been highly injurious to human interests had they remained. now the group of species created with man being the latest introduced, we may infer, on geological grounds, that it would have extended itself within the spheres of older zoological and botanical districts, and would have replaced their species, which, in the ordinary operation of natural laws, may have been verging toward extinction. thus not only man, but the eden in which he dwelt, with all its animals and plants, would have gradually encroached on the surrounding wilderness, until man's happy and peaceful reign had replaced that of the ferocious beasts that preceded him in dominion, and had extended at least over all the temperate region of the earth. . the cursing of the ground for man's sake, on his fall from innocence, would thus consist in the permission given to the predaceous animals and the thorns and the briers of other centres of creation to invade his eden; or, in his own expulsion, to contend with the animals and plants which were intended to have given way and become extinct before him. thus the fall of man would produce an arrestment in the progress of the earth in that last great revolution which would have converted it into an eden; and the anomalies of its present state consist, according to scripture, in a mixture of the conditions of the tertiary with those of the human period. . though there is good ground for believing that man was to have been exempted from the general law of mortality, we can not infer that any such exemption would have been enjoyed by his companion animals; we only know that he himself would have been free from all annoyance and injury and decay from external causes. we may also conclude that, while eden was sufficient for his habitation, the remainder of the earth would continue, just as in the earlier tertiary periods, under the dominion of the predaceous mammals, reptiles, and birds. . the above views enable us on the one hand to avoid the difficulties that attend the admission of predaceous animals into eden, and on the other the still more formidable difficulties that attend the attempt to exclude them altogether from the adamic world. they also illustrate the geological fact that many animals, contemporaneous with man, extend far back into the tertiary period. these are creatures not belonging to the edenic centre of creation, but introduced in an earlier part of the sixth day, and now permitted to exist along with man in his fallen state. i have stated these supposed conditions of the adamic creation briefly, and with as little illustration as possible, that they may connectedly strike the mind of the reader. each of these statements is in harmony with the scriptural narrative on the one hand, and with geology on the other; and, taken together, they afford an intelligible history of the introduction of man. if a geologist were to state, _à priori_, the conditions proper to the creation of any important species, he could only say--the preparation or selection of some region of the earth for it, and its production along with a group of plants and animals suited to it. these are precisely the conditions implied in the scriptural account of the creation of adam.[ ] the difficulties of the subject have arisen from supposing, contrary to the narrative itself, that the conditions necessary for eden must in the first instance have extended over the whole earth, and that the creatures with which man is in his present dispersion brought into contact must necessarily have been his companions there. one would think that many persons derive their idea of the first man in eden from nursery picture-books; for the bible gives no countenance to the idea that all the animals in the world were in eden. on the contrary, it asserts that a selection was made both in the case of animals and plants, and that this edenic assemblage of creatures constituted man's associates in his state of primeval innocence. the food of animals is specified at the close of the work of this day. the grant to man is every herb bearing seed, and every fruit-tree. that to the lower animals is more extensive--every green herb. this can not mean that every animal in the earth was herbivorous. it may refer to the group of animals associated with man in eden, and this is most likely the intention of the writer; but if it includes the animals of the whole earth, we may be certain, from the express mention of carnivorous creatures in the work of the fifth and sixth days, that it indicates merely the general fact that the support of the whole animal kingdom is based on vegetation. a most important circumstance in connection with the work of the sixth day is that it witnessed the creation both of man and the mammalia. a fictitious writer would probably have exalted man by assigning to him a separate day, and by placing the whole animal kingdom together in respect to time. he would be all the more likely to do this, if unacquainted, as most ignorant persons as well as literary men are, with the importance and teeming multitudes of the lower tribes of animals, and with the typical identity of the human frame with that of the higher animals. moses has not done so, we are at liberty to suppose, because the vision of creation had it otherwise; and modern geology has amply vindicated him in this by its disclosure of the intimate connection of the human with the tertiary period; and has shown in this as in other instances that truth and not "accommodation" was the object of the sacred writer. while, as already stated, many existing species extend far back into the tertiary period, showing that the earth has been visited by no universal catastrophe since the first creation of mammals; on the other hand, we can not with certainty trace any existing species back beyond the commencement of the tertiary era. geology and revelation, therefore, coincide in referring the creation of man to the close of the period in which mammals were introduced and became predominant, and in establishing a marked separation between that period and the preceding one in which the lower animals held undisputed sway. this coincidence, while it strengthens the probability that the creative days were long periods, opposes an almost insurmountable obstacle to every other hypothesis of reconciliation with geological science. at the close of this day the creator again reviews his work, and pronounces it good. step by step the world had been evolved from a primeval chaos, through many successive physical changes and long series of organized beings. it had now reached its acme of perfection, and had received its most illustrious tenant, possessing an organism excelling all others in majesty and beauty, and an immaterial soul the shadow of the glorious creator himself. well might the angels sing, when the long-protracted work was thus grandly completed: "thrice happy man, and sons of men, whom god hath thus advanced, created in his image, there to dwell and worship him, and in reward to rule over his works in earth, or sea, or air, and multiply a race of worshippers holy and just; thrice happy, if they know their happiness and persevere upright." the hebrew idea of the golden age of eden is pure and exalted. it consists in the enjoyment of the favor of god, and of all that is beautiful and excellent in his works. god and nature are the whole. nor is it merely a rude, unintelligent, sensuous enjoyment. man primeval is not a lazy savage gathering acorns. he is made in the image of the creator; he is to keep and dress his garden, and it is furnished with every plant good for food and pleasant to the sight. in the midst of our material civilization we need to disabuse ourselves of some prejudices before we can realize the fact that man, without the arts of life or any need of them, is not necessarily a barbarian or a savage. yet even adam must have been an agriculturist with strong and willing hands, and must have had some need of agricultural implements such as those with which the least civilized of his descendants have been wont to till the soil. still, without art or with very little of it, he could enjoy all that is beautiful and grand in nature, and could rise from the observation of nature to communion with god. we need the more to realize this, inasmuch as there seems so strong a tendency to confound material civilization with higher culture, and to hold that man primeval must have been low and debased simply because he may have had no temples and no machinery. we must remember that he had nature, which is higher than fine art, and that when in harmony with his surroundings he may have had no need either of exhausting labor or of mechanical contrivances. farther, in the contemplation of nature and in seeking after god, he had higher teachers than our boasted civilization can claim. alas for fallen man, with his poor civilization gathered little by little from the dust of earth, and his paltry art that halts immeasurably behind nature. how little is he able even to appreciate the high estate of his great ancestor. the world of fallen men has worshipped art too much, reverenced and studied god and nature too little. the savage displays the lowest taste when he admires the rude figures which he paints on his face or his garments more than the glorious painting that adorns nature; yet even he acknowledges the pre-eminent excellence of nature by imitating her forms and colors, and by adapting her painted plumes and flowers to his own use. there is a wide interval, including many gradations, between this low position and that of the cultivated amateur or artist. the art of the latter makes a nearer approach to the truly beautiful, inasmuch as it more accurately represents the geometric and organic forms and the coloring of nature; and inasmuch as it devises ideal combinations not found in the actual world; which ideal combinations, however, are beautiful or monstrous just as they realize or violate the harmonies of nature. it is only the highest culture that brings man back to his primitive refinement. art takes her true place when she sits at the feet of nature, and brings her students to drink in its beauties, that they may endeavor, however imperfectly, to reproduce them. on the other hand, the student of nature must not content himself with "writing latin names on white paper," wherewith to label nature's productions, but must rise to the contemplation of the order and beauty of the cosmos as a revelation of divinity. both will thus rise to that highest taste which will enable them to appreciate not only the elegance of individual forms, but their structure, their harmonies, their grouping and their relations, their special adaptation, and their places as parts of a great system. thus art will attain that highest point in which it displays original genius, without violating natural truth and unity, and nature will be regarded as the highest art. much is said and done in our time with reference to the cultivation of popular taste for fine art as a means of civilization; and this, so far as it goes, is well; but the only sure path to the highest taste-education is the cultivation of the study of nature. this is also an easier branch of education, provided the instructors have sufficient knowledge. good works of art are rare and costly; but good works of nature are everywhere around us, waiting to be examined. such education, popularly diffused, would react on the efforts of art. it would enable a widely extended public to appreciate real excellence, and would cause works of art to be valued just in proportion to the extent to which they realize or deviate from natural truth and unity. i do not profess to speak authoritatively on such subjects, but i confess that the strong impression on my mind is that neither the revered antique models, nor the practice and principles of the generality of modern art reformers, would endure such criticism; and that if we could combine popular enthusiasm for art with scientific appreciation of nature, a new and better art might arise from the union. i may appear to dwell too long upon this topic; but my excuse must be that it leads to a true estimate both of natural history and of the sacred scriptures. the study of nature guides to those large views of the unity and order of creation which alone are worthy of a being of the rank of man, and which lead him to adequate conceptions of the creator; but the truly wise recognize three grades of beauty. first, that of art, which, in its higher efforts, can raise ordinary minds far above themselves. secondly, that of nature, which, in its most common objects, must transcend the former, since its artist is that god of whose infinite mind the genius of the artist is only a faint reflection. thirdly, that pre-eminent beauty of moral goodness revealed only in the spiritual nature of the supreme. the first is one of the natural resources of fallen man in his search for happiness. the second was man's joy in his primeval innocence. the third is the inheritance of man redeemed. it is folly to place these on the same level. it is greater folly to worship either or both of the first without regard to the last. it is true wisdom to aspire to the last, and to regard nature as the handmaid of piety, art as but the handmaid of nature. nature to the unobservant is merely a mass of things more or less beautiful or interesting, but without any definite order or significance. an observer soon arrives at the conclusion that it is a series of circling changes, ever returning to the same points, ever renewing their courses, under the action of invariable laws. but if he rests here, he falls infinitely short of the idea of the cosmos, and stands on the brink of the profound error of eternal succession. a little further progress conducts him to the inviting field of special adaptation and mutual relation of things. he finds that nothing is without its use; that every structure is most nicely adjusted to special ends; that the supposed ceaseless circling of nature is merely the continuous action of great powers, by which an infinity of utilities are worked out--the great fly-wheel which, in its unceasing and at first sight apparently aimless round, is giving motion to thousands of reels and spindles and shuttles, that are spinning and weaving, in all its varied patterns, the great web of life. but the observer, as he looks on this web, is surprised to find that it has in its whole extent a wondrous pattern. he rises to the contemplation of type in nature, a great truth to which science has only lately opened its eyes. he begins dimly to perceive that the creator has from the beginning had a plan before his mind, that this plan embraced various types or patterns of existence; that on these patterns he has been working out the whole system of nature, adapting each to all the variety of uses by an infinity of minor modifications. that, in short, whether he study the eye of a gnat or the structure of a mountain chain, he sees not only objects of beauty and utility, but parts of far-reaching plans of infinite wisdom, by which all objects, however separated in time or space, are linked together. how much of positive pleasure does that man lose who passes through life absorbed with its wants and its artificialities, and regarding with a "brute, unconscious gaze" the grand revelation of a higher intelligence in the outer world. it is only in an approximation through our divine redeemer to the moral likeness of god that we can be truly happy; but of the subsidiary pleasures which we are here permitted to enjoy, the contemplation of nature is one of the best and purest. it was the pleasure, the show, the spectacle prepared for man in eden, and how much true philosophy and taste shine in the simple words that in paradise god planted trees "pleasant to the sight," as well as "good for food." other things being equal, the nearer we can return to this primitive taste, the greater will be our sensuous enjoyment, the better the influence of our pleasures on our moral nature, because they will then depend on the cultivation of tastes at once natural and harmless, and will not lead us to communion with and reverence for merely human genius, but will conduct us into the presence of the infinite perfection of the creator. the bible knows but one species of man. it is not said that men were created after their species, as we read of the groups of animals. man was made, "male and female;" and in the fuller details afterwards given in the second chapter--where the writer, having finished his general narrative, commences his special history of man--but one primitive pair is introduced to our notice. we scarcely need the detailed tables of affiliation afterward given, or the declaration of the apostle who preached to the supposed autochthones of athens, that "god has made of one blood all nations," to assure us of the scriptural unity of man. if, therefore, there were any good reason to believe that man is not of one but several origins, we must admit moses to have been very imperfectly informed. nor, on the other hand, does the bible any more than geology allow us to assign a very high antiquity to the origin of man relatively to that of the earth on which he dwells. the genealogical tables of the bible may admit of some limits of difference of opinion as to the age of the human world or æon, and also of that of the deluge, from which man took his second point of departure; but they do not allow us to put the origin of man farther back than that of the present or modern condition of our continents and the present races of animals. they therefore limit us to the modern or quaternary period of geology. the question of man's antiquity, so much agitated now, demands, however, a separate and careful consideration; but we must first devote a few pages to the simple statements of the bible respecting the sabbath of creation and its relation to human history. chapter xii. the rest of the creator. "and the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. and god blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it god rested from all his work which he had created to make."--genesis ii., - . the end of the sixth day closed the work of creation properly so called, as well as that of forming and arranging the things created. the beginning of the seventh introduced a period which, according to the views already stated, was to be occupied by the continued increase and diffusion of man and the creatures under his dominion, and by the gradual disappearance of tribes of creatures unconnected with his well-being. science in this well accords with scripture. no proof exists of the production of a new species since the creation of man; and all geological and archæological evidence points to him and a few of the higher mammals as the newest of the creatures. there is, on the other hand, good evidence that several species have become extinct since his creation. those who believe in the continuous evolution of animals and men, it is true, can see no actual termination of the process with the introduction of man; but even they see that the appearance of a rational and moral being at least changes the nature and order of the development. nor can they doubt that man is the last born of nature, and that the whole animal creation is crowned by him as its capital or topmost pinnacle. the later speculators on this subject have never reached any truth beyond that long ago stated by the lamented edward forbes--a most careful observer and accurate reasoner on the more recent changes of the earth's surface. he infers, from the distribution of species from their centres of creation, that man is the latest product of creative power; or, in other words, that none of those species or groups of species which he had been able to trace to their centres, or the spots at which they probably originated, appear to be of later or as late origin as man. "this consideration," he says, "induces me to believe that the last province in time was completed by the coming of man, and to maintain an hypothesis that man stands unique in space and time, himself equal to the sum of any pre-existing centre of creation or of all--an hypothesis consistent with man's moral and social position in the world." the seventh day, then, was to have been that in which all the happiness, beauty, and perfection of the others were to have been concentrated. but an element of instability was present in the being who occupied the summit of the animal scale. not regulated by blind and unerring instincts, but a free agent, with a high intellectual and moral nature, and liable to be acted on by temptation from without; under such influence he lost his moral balance in stretching out his hand to grasp the peculiar powers of deity, and fell beyond the hope of self-redemption--perpetuating, by one of those laws which regulate the transmission of mixed corporeal and spiritual natures, his degradation to every generation of his species. and so god's great work was marred, and all his plans seemed to be foiled, when they had just reached their completion. thus far science might carry us unaided; for there is not a true naturalist, however skeptical as to revealed religion, who does not feel in his inmost heart the disjointed state of the present relations of man to nature; the natural wreck that results from his artificial modes of life, the long trains of violations of the symmetry of nature that follow in the wake of his most boasted achievements. but here natural science stops; and just as we have found that, in tracing back the world's history, the bible carries us much farther than geology, so science, having led us to suspect the fallen state of man, leaves us henceforth to the teaching of revelation. and how glorious that teaching! god did not find himself baffled--his resources are infinite--he had foreseen and prepared for all this apparent evil; and out of the moral wreck he proceeds to work out the grand process of _redemption_, which is the especial object of the seventh day, and which will result in the production of a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. in the seventh, as in the former days, the evening precedes the morning. for four thousand years the world groped in its darkness--a darkness tenanted by moral monsters as powerful and destructive as the old pre-adamite reptiles. the sun of righteousness at length arose, and the darkness began to pass away; but eighteen centuries have elapsed, and we still see but the gray dawn of morning, which we yet firmly believe will brighten into a glorious day that shall know no succeeding night.[ ] the seventh day is the modern or human era in geology; and, though it can not yet boast of any physical changes so great as those of past periods, it is still of much interest, as affording the facts on which we must depend for explanations of past changes; and as immediately connected in time with those later tertiary periods which afford so many curious problems to the geological student. the actual connection of the human with preceding periods is still involved in some obscurity; and, as we shall see, there has recently been a strong tendency to throw back the origin of man into prehistoric ages of enormous length, on grounds which are, however, much less certain than is commonly imagined. this question we have to examine; but before entering upon it may shortly sketch the actual import of the statements of the hebrew scriptures respecting what may be called the prehistoric duration of the human species. this is the more necessary, as the most crude notions seem very widely to prevail on the subject. i shall, therefore, in this place notice some general facts deducible from the bible, and which may be useful in appreciating the true relation of the human era to those which preceded it. it will be understood that i shall endeavor merely to present a picture of what the bible actually teaches, and which any one can verify by reading the book of genesis. . the local centre of creation of the human species, and probably of a group of creatures coeval with it, was eden; a country of which the scriptures give a somewhat minute geographical description. it was evidently a district of western asia; and, from its possession of several important rivers, rather a region or large territory than a limited spot, such as many, who have discussed the question of the site of eden, seem to suppose. in this view it is a matter of no moment to fix its site more nearly than the indication of the bible that it included the sources and probably large portions of the valleys of the tigris, the euphrates, and perhaps the oxus and jaxartes. into the minor difficulties respecting the site of eden it would be unprofitable to enter, and it will matter little if we accept that view, which, however, i think less probable, that it was placed in the lower part of the valley of the euphrates. i may merely mention one particular of the biblical description, because it throws light on the great antiquity of this geographical delineation, and has been strangely misconceived by expositors--the relation of those rivers to cush or ethiopia and havilah, a tribal name derived from that of a grandson of cush. on consulting the tenth chapter of genesis, it will be found that the cushites under nimrod, very soon after the deluge, are stated to have pushed their migrations and conquests along the tigris to the northward, and established there the first empire. it is probably this primitive cushite empire, called ethiopia in our translation, which in the epoch of the description of eden occupied the euphratean valley, and being bounded on one side by the river called gihon, was thus believed to extend over the old site of eden. thus the cush or ethiopia of the description has no direct connection with the african ethiopia, and speculations based on such a supposed connection are groundless. on the other hand this feature furnishes an interesting coincidence with other parts of genesis, and throws light on many obscure points in the early history of man; and since this cushite empire had perished even before the time of moses, it indicates a still more ancient tradition respecting the primeval abode of our species. . before the deluge this region must have been the seat of a dense population, which, according to the biblical account, must have made considerable advances in the arts, and at the same time sunk very low in moral debasement.[ ] whether any remains of the central portions of this ancient population or its works exist will probably not be determined with absolute certainty till we have accurate geological investigations of the whole country in the neighborhood of the caspian sea and along the great rivers of western asia, though there is nothing unreasonable in the belief that some of the old prehistoric men whose remains are discovered in caves and river gravels in europe may belong to the antediluvian race. should such remains be found, we might infer, from the extreme longevity and other characteristics assigned to the antediluvians, that their skeletons would present peculiarities entitling them to be considered a well-marked variety of the human species, and this not of a low type of physical organization. we may also infer that the family of man very early divided into two races--one retaining in greater purity the moral endowments of the species, the other excelling in the mechanical and fine arts; and that there were rude and savage outlying communities of men then as at present. if the so-called palæolithic men of europe are antediluvian, they were probably of such outlying tribes, and possibly of the mixed race which sprung up in the later antediluvian age, and who are described as mighty men physically, and men of violence. it would be quite natural that this intermixture of the sethite and cainite races should produce a race excelling both in energy and physical endowments--the "giants" that were in those days.[ ] if any remains of the two central nations of the antediluvian period are ever discovered, we may confidently anticipate that the distinctive characteristics of these races may be detected in their osseous structures as well as in their works of art. farther, it is to be inferred from notices in the fourth chapter of genesis, that before the deluge there was both a nomadic and a settled population, and that the principal seat of the cainite, or more debased yet energetic branch of the human family, was to the eastward of the site of eden. no intimations are given by which the works of art of antediluvian times could be distinguished from those of later periods; but that curious summary of the treasures of antediluvian man contained in the notice that the land of havilah produced gold and agate and pearl (gen. ii., ) would lead us to believe that the early antediluvian age was on the whole an age of stone, in which flint for weapons, and gold and shell wampum for ornaments, were the leading kinds of wealth. on the other hand, the notices of antediluvian metallurgy, and the building and construction of the ark, would lead us to infer that the later antediluvians had attained to much perfection in some constructive arts--a conclusion which harmonizes with the otherwise inexplicable perfection of such art soon after the deluge, as evidenced not only by the story of babel, but also by the early works of the assyrians and egyptians. . when the antediluvian population had fully proved itself unfit to enter into the divine scheme of moral renovation, it was swept away by a fearful physical catastrophe. the deluge might, in all its relations, furnish material for an entire treatise. i may remark here, as its most important geological peculiarity, that it was evidently a _local_ convulsion. the object, that of destroying the human race and the animal population of its peculiar centre of creation, the preservation of specimens of these creatures in the ark, and the physical requirements of the case, necessitate this conclusion, which is now accepted by the best biblical expositors,[ ] and which inflicts no violence on the terms of the record. viewed in this light, the phenomena recorded in the bible, in connection with geological probabilities, lead us to infer that the physical agencies evoked by the divine power to destroy this ungodly race were a subsidence of the region they inhabited, so as to admit the oceanic waters, and extensive atmospherical disturbances connected with that subsidence, and perhaps with the elevation of neighboring regions. in this case it is possible that the caspian sea, which is now more than eighty feet below the level of the ocean,[ ] and which was probably much more extensive then than at present, received much of the drainage of the flood, and that the mud and sand deposits of this sea and the adjoining desert plains, once manifestly a part of its bottom, conceal any remains that exist of the antediluvian population. in connection with this, it may be remarked that, in the book of job, eliphaz speaks as if the locality of those wicked nations which existed before the deluge was known and accessible in his time: "hast thou marked the ancient way which wicked men have trodden, who were seized [by the waters] in a moment, and whose foundations a flood swept away?" --job xxii., . on comparing this statement with the answer of job in the th chapter, verse th, it would seem that the ungodly antediluvians were supposed to be still under the waters; a belief quite intelligible if the caspian, which, on the latest and most probable views of the locality of the events of this book, was not very remote from the residence of job,[ ] was supposed to mark the position of the pre-noachic population, as the dead sea afterward did that of the cities of the plain. some of the dates assigned to the book of job would, however, render it possible that this last catastrophe is that to which _he_ refers: "the _rephaim_ tremble from beneath the waters and their inhabitants. sheol is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering." the word _rephaim_ here has been variously rendered "shades of the dead" and "giants." it is properly the family or national name of certain tribes of gigantic hamite men (the anakim, emim, etc.) inhabiting western asia at a very remote period; and it must here refer either to them or to the still earlier antediluvian giants.[ ] it is also an important point to be noticed here that the narrative of the deluge in genesis is given as the testimony or record of an eye-witness, and is to be so understood; and that the terms of the record imply, not as usually held that all sorts of animals were taken into noah's ark, but only a selection, the character of which is clearly indicated by a comparison of the five lists of animals given in the narrative. bearing this in mind, and noticing that the writer tells of his own experience as to the rise of the water, the drifting of the ark, the disappearance of all visible shore, and the sounding fifteen cubits where a hill had before been, all the difficulties of the narrative of the deluge will at once disappear. these difficulties have in fact arisen from regarding the story as the composition of a historian, not as what it manifestly is, the log or journal of a contemporary, introduced with probably little change by the compiler of the book. after the deluge, we find the human race settled in the plains of the euphrates and tigris, attracted thither by the fertility of their alluvial soils. there we find them engaging in a great political scheme, no doubt founded on recollections of the old antediluvian nationalities, and on a dread of the evils which able and aspiring men would anticipate from that wide dispersion of the human race that appears to have been intended by the creator in the new circumstances of the earth. they commenced accordingly the erection of a city or tower at babel, in the plain of shinar, to form a common bond of union, a great public work that should be a rallying-point for the race, and around which its patriotism might concentrate itself. the attempt was counteracted by an interposition of divine providence; and thenceforth the diffusion of the human race proceeded unchecked, carrying with it everywhere the memory of the celebrated tower, which perpetuated itself not only in the mounds of assyria and babylon and the pyramids of egypt, but in the teocallis and temple mounds of the new world. the babel enterprise is in fact the first recorded development of that mound-building instinct which the earlier races everywhere evince, and which has been a distinguishing characteristic more especially of the cushite or turanian race, and has apparently made them the teachers of constructive arts to all other peoples. perhaps a dread of the total decay and loss of the surviving antediluvian arts in construction and other matters may have been one impelling motive to the building of babel. perhaps it was connected with the communistic ideas of the turanian race, and their conflict with the patriarchal habits of the semites. out of the enterprise at babel, however, arose a new type of evil, which, in the forms of military despotism, the spirit of conquest, hero-worship, and the alliance of these influences with literature and the arts, has been handed down through every succeeding age to our own time. the name of nimrod, the son of cush, has been preserved to us in the bible, and also apparently in the tablets and inscriptions of assyria, as the founder of the first despotism. this bold and ambitious man, subsequently deified under different names, established a hamite or turanian empire, which appears to have extended its sway over the tribes occupying southwestern asia and northeastern africa, everywhere supporting its power by force of arms, and introducing a debasing polytheistic hero-worship, and certain forms of art probably derived from antediluvian times. the centre of this cushite empire, however, gave way to the rising power of assyria or the ashurite branch of the sons of shem, at a period antecedent to the dawn of profane history, except in its mythical form; and when the light of secular history first breaks upon us, we find egypt standing forth as the only stable representative of the arts, the systems, and the superstitions of the old cushite empire, of which it had been the southern branch; while other remnants of the hamite races, included in the empire of nimrod, were scattered over western asia, and, migrating into europe, with or after the ruder but less demoralized sons of japheth, carried with them their characteristic civilization and mythology, to take root in new forms in greece and italy.[ ] meanwhile the assyrian and persian (elamite) races were growing in middle asia, and probably driving the more eastern remnants of the nimrodic empire into india, borrowing at the same time their superstitions and their claims to universal dominion. these views, which i believe to correspond with the few notices in the bible and in ancient history, and to be daily receiving new confirmations from the investigations of the ancient assyrian monuments, enable us to understand many mysterious problems in the early history of man. they give us reason to suspect that the _principle_ of the first empire was an imitation of the antediluvian world, and that its arts and customs were mainly derived from that source. they show how it happens that egypt, a country so far removed from the starting-point of man after the deluge, should appear to be the cradle of the arts, and they account for the hamite and perhaps antediluvian elements, mixed with primeval biblical ideas, as the cherubim, etc., in the old heathenism of india, assyria, and southern europe, and which they share with egypt, having derived them from the same source. they also show how it is that in the most remote antiquity we find two well-developed and opposite religious systems; the pure theism of noah, and those who retained his faith, and the idolatry of those tribes which regarded with adoring veneration the objects and stages of the creative work, the grander powers and objects of nature, the mighty cainites of the world before the flood, and the postdiluvian leaders who followed them in their violence, their cultivation of the arts, and their rebellion against god. these heroes were identified with imaginative conceptions of the heavenly bodies, animals, and other natural objects, associated with the fortunes of cities and nations, with particular territories, and with war and the useful arts, transmitted under different names to one country after another, and localized in each; and it is only in comparatively modern times that we have been able to recognize the full certainty of the view held long since by many ingenious writers, that among the greater gods of egypt and assyria, and of consequence among those also of greece and rome, were nimrod, ham, ashur, noah, mizraim, and other worthies and tyrants of the old world; and to suspect that tubalcain and naamah, and other antediluvian names, were similarly honored, though subsequently overshadowed by more recent divinities. the later assyrian readings of rawlinson, hincks, and the lamented george smith, and the more recent works on egyptian antiquities, are full of pregnant hints on these subjects. it would, however, lead us too far from our immediate subject to enter more fully into these questions. i have referred to them merely to point out connecting-links between the secular and sacred history of the earlier part of the human period, as a useful sequel to our comparison of the latter with the conclusions of science, and as furnishing hints which may guide the geologist in connecting the human with the tertiary period, and in distinguishing between the antediluvian and postdiluvian portions of the former. it may be said, however, that all this biblical history, however it may accord with the little that remains to us of the written annals of early oriental nations, is entirely at variance with those modern archæological discussions which point to an immense antiquity of the human race, and to a primitive barbarism out of which all human culture was little by little evolved; and which results of archæological investigation, while contradictory to the hebrew scriptures, are entirely in accord with the evolutionist philosophy. the prominence now given to such views as these renders it necessary that we should denote a special chapter to their discussion. chapter xiii. unity and antiquity of man. "these are the families of the sons of noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood."--genesis x., . the theologians and evangelical christians of our time, and with them the credibility of the holy scriptures, are supposed by many to have been impaled on a zoological and archæological dilemma, in a manner which renders nugatory all attempts to reconcile the mosaic cosmogony with science. the bible, as we have seen, knows but one adam, and that adam not a myth or an ethnic name, but a veritable man; but some naturalists and ethnologists think that they have found decisive evidence that man is not of one but of several origins. the religious tendency of this doctrine no christian can fail to perceive. in whatever way put, or under whatever disguise, it renders the bible history worthless, reduces us to that isolation of race from race cultivated in ancient times by the various local idolatries, and destroys the brotherhood of man and the universality of that christian atonement which proclaims that "as in adam all die, so in christ shall all be made alive." fortunately, however, the greater weight of biological and archæological evidence is here on the side of the bible, and philology comes in with strong corroborative proof. but just as the orthodox theologian is beginning to congratulate himself on the aid he has thus received, some of his new friends gravely tell him that, in order to maintain their view, it is necessary to believe that man has resided on earth for countless ages, and that it is quite a mistake to suppose that his starting-point is so recent as the mosaic deluge. nay, some very rampant theorists of some ethnological schools try to pierce moses and his abettors with both horns of the dilemma at once, maintaining that men may be of different species, and yet may have existed for an enormous length of time as well. the recent prevalence of theories of evolution has, however, thrown quite into the background the discussions formerly active respecting the unity of man, but has, along with geological and archæological discovery, given increased prominence to those relating to the date of the origin of our species and the manner of its introduction. the bible gives us a definite epoch, that of the deluge, about to b.c., for all existing races of men; but this, according to it, was only the second starting-point of humanity, and though no family but that of noah survived the terrible catastrophe, it would be a great error to suppose that nothing antediluvian appears in the subsequent history of man. before the deluge there were arts and an old civilization, extending over at least two thousand years, and after the deluge men carried with them these heirlooms of the old world to commence with them new nations. this has been tacitly ignored by many of the writers who underrate the value of the hebrew history. it may be as well for this reason to place, in a series of propositions, the principal points in genesis which relate to the questions now before us. . adam and isha, the woman, afterward called eve (life-giver), in consequence of the promise of a redeemer, commenced a life of husbandry on their expulsion from eden, which, on the ordinary views of the bible chronology, may be supposed to have occurred from to years before the christian era; and during the lifetime of the primal pair, the sheep, at least, was domesticated. the bible, of course, knows nothing of the imaginary continent of lemuria, in which, according to some hypotheses, men are supposed to have had their birth from apes. a few generations after, in the time of lamech, cattle were domesticated; and the metals copper and iron were applied to use--the latter probably meteoric iron; and hence, it may be, the hindoo and hellenic myths of twachtrei and hephæstos in connection with the thunderbolt. we learn, however, incidentally, as already mentioned, in the description of eden in genesis, chapter d, that there was a previous stone age, in which "flint, pearls or shell beads, and stream-gold" were the chief treasures of man, for this is implied in the "gold, bedolach, and onyx" of the land of havilah. it is certain also, from the discoveries made in assyria, on the site of troy, and elsewhere, that the use of stone implements continued in western asia long after the deluge. in the time of noah the distinction of clean and unclean beasts, and the taking of seven pairs of certain beasts and birds into the ark, imply that certain mammals and birds were domesticated.[ ] . before the flood, as already remarked, there was a division of man into two nationalities or races; and there was a citizen, an agricultural, a pastoral, and a nomadic population. farther, the remarkable progress in the arts implied in the building of such structures as the tower of babel, and other temple and palace mounds in assyria, and of the pyramids of egypt, within a few generations after the deluge, proves that a very advanced material civilization and great skill in constructive arts had been reached in antediluvian times.[ ] . after the deluge, the arts of the antediluvians and their citizen life were almost immediately revived in the plain of shinar; but the plans of the babel leaders, like those of many others who have attempted to force distinct tribes into one nationality, failed. the guilt attributed to them probably relates to the attempt to break up the patriarchal and tribal organization, which in these early times was the outward form of true religion, in favor of some sort of national organization, not compatible with the extension of man immediately over the world, and tending to consolidation into dense communities. it may be a question here whether the tribal communism which has prevailed among the american indians and other rude races was the primitive form of society which the babel-builders essayed to change, or whether the semitic patriarchal system had at first prevailed, and the babel difficulties were connected with a conflict between this and communism or despotism, both new turanian or aryan introductions. in any case, babel, and babylon its successor, remain in the subsequent biblical literature as types of the god-defying and antichristian systems that have succeeded each other from the time of nimrod to this day. . the human race was scattered over the earth in family groups or tribes, each headed by a leading patriarch, who gave it its name. first, the three sons of noah formed three main stems, and from these diverged several family branches. the ethnological chart in the th chapter of genesis gives the principal branches under patriarchal and ethnic names; but these, of course, continued to subdivide beyond the space and time referred to by the sacred writer. it is simply absurd to object, as some writers have done, to the universality of the statements in genesis, that they do not mention in detail the whole earth. they refer to a few generations only, and beyond this restrict themselves to the one branch of the human family to which the bible principally relates. we should be thankful for so much of the leading lines of ethnological divergence, without complaining that it is not followed out into its minute ramifications and into all history. . the tripartite division in genesis x. indicates a somewhat strict geographical separation of the three main trunks. the regions marked out for japheth include europe and northwestern asia. the name japheth, as well as the statements in the table, indicate a versatile, nomadic, and colonizing disposition as characteristic of these tribes.[ ] the median population, the same with a portion of that now often called aryan,[ ] was the only branch remaining near the original seats of the species, and in a settled condition. the outlying portions of the posterity of japheth, on account of their wide dispersion, must at a very early period have fallen into comparative barbarism, such as we find in historic periods all over western and northern europe and northern asia. owing to their habitat, the japhetites of the bible include none of the black races, unless certain indian and australian nations are outlying portions of this family. the shemite nations showed little tendency to migrate, being grouped about the euphrates and tigris valleys and neighboring regions. for this reason, with the exception of certain arab tribes, they present no instances of barbarism, and generally retained a high cerebral organization, and respectable though stationary civilization, and they possess the oldest alphabet and literature. the posterity of ham differs remarkably from the others. it spread itself over southern, central, and eastern asia, southern europe, and northern africa, and constitutes the stock alike of the turanian and african races, as well as probably of the american tribes. it has all along displayed a great capacity for certain forms of art and semi-civilization, but has rarely risen to the level of the shemite and japhetite races. it established the earliest military and monarchical institutions, and presents at the dawn of history--in assyria, in egypt, and india--settled and arbitrary forms in politics and religion, of a character so much resembling that of an old and corrupt civilization that we can scarcely avoid supposing that ham and his family had preserved more than any of the other noachian races the arts and institutions of the old world before the flood. it certainly presents itself in early postdiluvian times as the first representative and teacher of art and material civilization. the hamite race is remarkable for the early development of pantheism and hero-worship, and for the artificial character of its culture. it presents us with the darkest colors, and in the vast solitudes of africa and central asia its outlying tribes must have fallen into comparative barbarism a few centuries after the deluge. it is farther to be observed that, according to the bible, the canaanites and other hamite nations spoke languages not essentially different from those of the shemites, while the japhetite nations were to them barbarians--"a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand." there was, too, at the date of the dispersion of babel, already a distinction of tongues within each of the great races of men. . all the divisions of the family of noah had from the first the domesticated animals and the principal arts of life, and enjoyed these in a national capacity so soon as sufficiently numerous. the more scattered tribes, wandering into fresh regions, and adopting the life of hunters, lost the characteristics of civilization, and diverged widely from the primitive languages. we should thus have, according to the hebrew ethnology, a central area presenting the principal stems of all the three races in a permanently civilized state. all around this area should lie aberrant and often barbarous tribes, differing most widely from the original type in the more distant regions, and in those least favorable to human health and subsistence. in these outlying regions, secondary centres of civilization might grow up, differing from that of the primitive centre, except in so far as the common principles of human nature and intercommunication might prevent this. all these conclusions, fairly deducible at once from the mosaic ethnology and the theory of dispersion from a centre, are perfectly in accordance with observed facts, though in absolute contradiction to prevalent ethnological conclusions, based on these facts in connection with theories of development. a multitude of bible notices might easily be quoted illustrative of these points, and also of the consistency of the mosaic narrative with itself. one of them may suffice here. abraham, who is said by the jews to have been contemporary with shem, as menes by the egyptians with ham, at least lived sufficiently near to the time of the rise of the earliest nations to be taken as an illustration of this primitive condition of society. he was not a patriarch of the first or second rank, like ham or mizraim or canaan, but a subordinate family leader several removes from the survivors of the deluge. yet his tribe increases in comparatively few years to a considerable number. he is treated as an equal by the monarchs of egypt and philistia. he defeats, with a band of three or four hundred retainers, a confederacy of four euphratean kings representing the embryo state of the persian and assyrian empires, and already relatively so strong that they have overrun much of western asia. all this bespeaks in a most consistent manner the rapid rise of many small nationalities, scattered over the better parts of wide regions, and still in a feeble condition, though inheriting from their ancestors an old civilization, and laying the foundations of powerful states. if we attach any historical value whatever to the narrative, it obviously implies that at a date of about two thousand years before christ the regions afterward occupied by the oldest historic empires were still thinly peopled, and their dominant races little more than feeble tribes. this farther corresponds with the authentic history of all the ancient nations, however these may have been extended by previous mythical periods. about or shortly before the time of abraham, menes was draining for the first time the swamps of egypt, ninus or nimrod was founding the assyrian empire, the phoenicians were founding sidon, agriculture was being introduced into china, the vedas were being written in india, the persian monarchy was being founded; and, in short, all the historical nations of the east were originating, and this apparently by springing into being with an already formed civilization. such being the hebrew account of the date and early history of man, it may be proper here to compare it with such deductions from archæological and geological investigation as may seem to conflict with it, and at the same time to make some comparisons with the turanian and aryan traditions and speculations as to human origins. the special lines of investigation important here are: . early historical records other than the bible; . the diversity of human languages; . the geological evidence afforded by remains of prehistoric men found in caverns and other repositories. the last of these is at present that which has attained the greatest development. . _early human history._--had the human race everywhere preserved historical records, we should have had some certain evidence as to the places and times of origination of its tribes and peoples. unfortunately this has not been the case. all savage and barbarous races, and many of those now civilized, have lost all records of their early history. most of the so-called ancient nations are comparatively modern, and their history after a very short course loses itself in uncertain tradition and mythical fancies. the only really ancient nations that have given us in detail their own written history are the hebrews, the assyrians, the egyptians, the hindoos, and the chinese. the last people, though professedly very ancient, trace their history from a period of barbarism--a view confirmed by their physical characters and the nature of their civilization; and on this account, if no other, their history can not be considered as of much archæological value. according to their own records, their earliest authentic history goes back to about b.c., and was preceded by a prehistoric period of uncertain duration. the astronomical deductions of schlegel, which would extend their history to , years, are evidently altogether unreliable.[ ] the early hindoo history is palpably fabulous or distorted, and has been variously modified and changed in comparatively modern times. there is one great and very ancient people--the egyptian--evidently civilized from the beginning of all history, that have succeeded in transmitting to us, though only in fragments, their primeval history; and of late years constant additions have been made from inscribed tablets and monuments to our knowledge of the ancient history of the assyrians and chaldeans. the egyptian history has been gathered first from sketches by greek travellers, and from fragments of the chronicles of manetho, one of the later egyptian priests; and, secondly, from the inscriptions deciphered on egyptian monuments and papyri. it is still in a very fragmentary and uncertain state, but has been used with considerable effect to prove both the diversity of races of men and the pre-noachic antiquity of the species. the egyptian, in features and physical conformation, tended to the european form, just as the modern fellahs and berbers do; but he had a dark complexion, a somewhat elongated head and flattened lips, and certain negroid peculiarities in his limbs. his language combined many of the peculiarities of the semitic, aryan, and african tongues, indicating thereby great antiquity or else great intermixture, but not, as some ethnographers demand, both; most probably the former--the egyptians being really the oldest civilized people that we certainly know, and therefore, if languages have one origin, likely to be near its root-stock. the actual history of egypt begins from menes, the first human king, a monarch, or rather tribal chief, who took up his abode in the flats and fens of lower egypt, certainly not very long after the deluge. his name has been translated "one who walks with khem," or ham; one, therefore, who was contemporary with this great patriarch and god of the egyptians, which will place his time within a few centuries of the biblical flood. the date of menes has been variously placed. in correction of the ordinary hebrew chronology, we have the following attempts: josephus places his reign b.c. dr. hales' calculation manetho and the monuments, as corrected by syncellus { and calculated by various archæologists {to { herodotus, astronomical reduction by rennell estimate by gliddon in "ancient egypt" bunsen, "egypt's place," etc. the truth may be somewhere near the mean of the shorter chronologies given in the list.[ ] that of bunsen is liable to very grave objections; more especially as he adds to it other views, altogether unsupported by historical evidence, which would carry back the deluge to , years b.c. it rests wholly on the chronology of manetho, who lived years b.c.; and who, even if the egyptians then possessed authentic documents extending years before his time, may have erred in his rendering of them; and is farther liable to grave suspicions of having merely grouped the names on the monuments of his country arbitrarily in sothic cycles. farther, they rest on an interpretation of manetho, which supposes his early dynasties to have been successive, while good reasons have been found to prove that many of them consist of contemporaneous petty sovereigns of parts of egypt. the early parts of manetho's lists are purely mythical, and it is impossible to fix the point where his authentic history commences. he copied from monuments which have no consecutive dates, the precise age of which could only be vaguely known even in his time, and which are different in their statements in different localities. it is only by making due allowance for these uncertainties that any historical value can be attached to these earlier dynasties of manetho. yet bunsen has built on an uncertain interpretation of this writer, as handed down in a very fragmentary and evidently garbled condition, and on the equally or more uncertain chronology of eratosthenes, a system differing from all previous belief on the subject, from the hebrew history, and from all former interpretations of the monuments and manetho.[ ] discarding, therefore, in the mean time, this date, and the still older one claimed by mariette,[ ] we may roughly estimate the date of menes as to years b.c.,[ ] and proceed to state some of the facts developed by egyptologists. one of the most striking of these is the proof that egypt was a new country in the days of menes and several generations of his successors. the monuments of this period show little of the complicated idolatry, ritual, and caste system of later times, and are deficient in evidence of the refinement and variety of art afterward attained. they also show that these early monarchs were principally engaged in dyking, and otherwise reclaiming the alluvial flats; an evidence precisely of the same character with that which every traveller sees in the more recently settled districts of canada, where the forest is giving way to the exertions of the farmer. farther, in this primitive period, known as the "old monarchy," few domestic animals appear, and experiments seem to have been in progress to tame others, natives of the country, as the hyena, the antelope, the stork. even the dog in the older dynasties is represented by one or at most two varieties, and the prevalent one is a wolfish-looking animal akin to the present wild or half-tamed dogs of the east.[ ] the egyptians, too, of the earlier dynasties, are more homogeneous in their appearance than those of the later, after conquest and migration had introduced new races; and the earliest monumental notice referring to negro tribes does not appear until the th dynasty, about half-way between the epoch of menes and the christian era, nor does any representation of the negro features occur until, at the earliest, the th dynasty. this allows ample time--one thousand years at the least--for the development, under abnormal circumstances and isolation, of all the most strongly marked varieties of man. still egypt, even under the old monarchy, presents evidence of the continuation of antediluvian culture.[ ] it is obvious, in short, that the whole aspect of early egyptian history presents to us a people already civilized taking possession of that country at a period corresponding with that of the subsidence of the noachian deluge, and not finding there any remains of older populations. nor have any remains of such populations been found by modern investigation.[ ] in assyria the results of the recent discoveries, so well known through many learned and popular works, strikingly confirm the hebrew chronology. they indicate no slow emergence from barbarism, but show that in assyria as in egypt implements of stone and metal were used together by a primitive people, already far advanced in civilization; and the oldest historical names only carry us back to cities and sovereigns of the abrahamic age, while the story of the primitive empire of nimrod and the traditions of the deluge seem to have survived in more or less mythical legends. the earliest assyrian monuments would seem to belong to a turanian race, of which comparatively little is known, but which may correspond with the primitive cushites of biblical story. to these, it is true, berosus attaches a fabulous antiquity; but this is not confirmed by the monuments. these, according to the latest facts disclosed by smith, rawlinson, and others, appear to fix a date of about b.c. for the foundation of the assyrian monarchy proper, and the oldest previous date given by assurbampal, who reigned about b.c. to , gives years before his time, or say b.c., as the date of an elamite king kudarnankundi, who seems to be the leader of a primitive tribe, one of the oldest in the region, and who has been conjectured to have been the chedorlaomer of genesis, but was probably one of his predecessors. we gather from the assyrian annals that the early turanian kings, while mound-builders like their kindred elsewhere, and acquainted with metals and with the cuneiform writing, yet constituted comparatively small nations, and were much occupied with hunting and other rude sports, and with predatory expeditions, so as to answer very nearly to the biblical conception of the early cushite kingdom of the valley of the euphrates, which was probably in the same stage of culture with the nations that in a later period inhabited the valley of the mississippi, and are known as the alleghans. in connection with the early history of man, much importance has been attached to the division of the early historic and prehistoric ages into the periods of stone, bronze, and iron, and of the former into a palæolithic or ancient stone age, and a more modern or neolithic stone age. it is plain, however, that too great importance has been attached to these distinctions, and that they express rather differences of circumstances and of culture than of age, so that they have really no bearing on the biblical chronology. if palæolithic or rudely chipped implements are the oldest known, as they not improbably were the first tools used by man, yet their use has extended in the case of rude nations all the way up to the present time; and in america and northern asia we know that their antiquity is but of yesterday, and that they were used with highly finished implements of bone, and of those softer stones that admit of being polished. no certain line can therefore be drawn even locally between a neolithic and a palæolithic period, especially since in localities where flint implements were extensively quarried and made, as on the banks of rivers in northern france and southern england, and in such places as "grimes' graves" and cissbury in the latter country, where mines were sunk in the chalk for the extraction of flints, it necessarily happened that vast multitudes of unfinished or spoiled implements and weapons were left on the ground, while the better-formed specimens were for the most part taken away. this conclusion is amply supported by similar localities in america, where people well acquainted with many of the arts of life have left quantities of strictly palæolithic material. wilson, southall, and other writers have accumulated so many examples of this that i think the distinction of palæolithic and neolithic ages must now be given up by all investigators who possess ordinary judgment. a remarkable instauce is the celebrated "flint ridge" of ohio, which was a great quarry of flint for implements used by the ancient mound-builders, a highly civilized race, as well as by the modern indians. here are found countless multitudes of palæolithic flint implements of all the ordinary types, but which are merely the unfinished material of workers capable of producing the most exquisite implements. there can be scarcely a doubt that the palæolithic implements of the european gravels, in so far as they are the workmanship of man, are in like manner merely the relics of old flint quarries.[ ] possibly a more accurate measurement of time for particular regions of the world might be deduced from the introduction of bronze and iron. if the former was, as many antiquarians suppose, a local discovery in europe, and not introduced from abroad, it can give no measurement of time whatever. in america, as the facts detailed by dr. wilson show, while a bronze age existed in peru, it was the copper age in the mississippi valley, and the stone age elsewhere; and these conditions might have co-existed for any length of time, and could give no indication of relative dates. on the other hand, the iron introduced by european commerce spread at once over the continent, and came into use in the most remote tribes, and its introduction into america clearly marks an historical epoch. with regard to bronze in europe, we must bear in mind that tin was to be procured only in england and spain, and in the latter in very small quantity; the mines of saxony do not seem to have been known till the middle ages. we must further consider that tin ore is a substance not metallic in appearance, and little likely to attract the attention of savages; and that, as we gather from a hint of pliny, it was probably first observed, in the west at least, as stream tin, in the spanish gold washings. lastly, when we place in connection with these considerations the fact that in the earliest times of which we have certain knowledge, the tin trade of spain and england was monopolized by the phoenicians, there seems to be a strong probability that the extension of the trade of this nation to the western mediterranean really inaugurated the bronze period. the only valid argument against this is the fact that moulds and other indications of native bronze casting have been found in switzerland, denmark, and elsewhere; but these show nothing more than that the natives could recast bronze articles, just as the american indians can forge fish-hooks and knives out of nails and iron hoops. other considerations might be adduced in proof of this view, but our limits will not permit us to refer to them. the important questions still remain: when was this trade commenced, and how rapidly did it extend itself from the sea-coast across europe? the british tin trade must have been in existence in the time of herodotus, though his notion of the locality was not more definite than that it was in the extremity of the earth. the phoenician settlements in the western mediterranean must have existed as early as the time of solomon, when "ships of tarshish" was the general designation of seagoing ships for long voyages. how long previously these colonies existed we do not know; but considering the great scarcity and value of tin in those very ancient times, we may infer that perhaps only the spanish, and not the british deposits were known thus early; or that the phoenicians had only indirect access to the latter. perhaps we may fix the time when these traders were able to supply the nations of europe with abundance of bronze in exchange for their products, at, say to b.c., as the earliest probable period; and possibly from one to two centuries would be a sufficient allowance for the complete penetration of the trade throughout europe. but of course wars or migrations might retard or accelerate the process; and there may have been isolated spots in which a partial stone period extended up to those comparatively recent times in which first the greek trade, and afterward the entire overthrow of the carthaginian power by the romans, terminated forever the age of bronze and substituted the age of iron. this would leave, according to our ordinary chronologies, at least ten or fifteen centuries for the postdiluvian stone period in europe and western asia, a time quite sufficient in our view for all that part of it represented by such monuments as the danish shell-heaps or the platform habitations of the swiss lakes; leaving the remains of the prehistoric caverns and river gravels for the antediluvian period. a few facts in illustration of these points, and also of the biblical history, may be mentioned here. we know perfectly that the early chaldeans of the euphratean valley were acquainted with the use of metals--bronze certainly, and at a very early date iron; yet flint knives and other implements of stone are found under circumstances which show that they were used in the palmy days of the assyrian empire. the inhabitants of egypt were acquainted with bronze and iron long before the date of the exodus, yet the egyptians used stone knives for some purposes up to a comparatively modern time. joshua used stone knives for the purpose of circumcision; and according to herodotus there were ethiopians in the army of xerxes who used stone-tipped arrows. if any antiquarian were to stumble on the "hill of the foreskins"--a mound under which were buried in all probability the multitudinous flint flakes used in the circumcision of the thousands of israel--or the grave in which some of the ethiopian auxiliaries of xerxes were buried with their flint arrow-heads and javelins of antelopes' horn, how absurd would be the inference that these repositories were of the palæolithic age. nay, so late as a traveller was informed that the bagos, a people of abyssinia, still made and used stone hatchets and flint knives.[ ] in europe we find reason to believe that the ligurians of northwestern italy were flint-folk of very rude type until they were conquered by the gauls about b.c.[ ] though the gauls, britons, and germans of the age of julius cæsar had iron weapons, yet it is evident that the metal was very scarce, and that bronze was more common; and in confirmation of this it is found that in the trenches before alize, the alesia of cæsar, where the final struggle of the roman general with vercingetorix took place, weapons of stone, bronze, and iron are intermixed. all over the more northern parts of europe there is the best reason to believe that the use of stone and bronze continued to a much later period, and locally until long after the christian era. it is clear that such facts as these must greatly modify our ideas of the probable age of the swiss lake villages, and should induce the greatest caution in claiming any special antiquity for particular classes of implements. one of the most remarkable discoveries of modern times is that of the site of ancient troy by dr. schliemann, and it affords clear and decisive evidence as to the historic value of the ages to which we have referred. troy was destroyed by the greeks perhaps about b.c., and we know from homer that this was in what for the greeks and trojans may properly be termed the copper age, weapons and armor of that metal being in common use, and also the mode of burial by cremation. we may well suppose that at that early date the stone age was still in full force in northern europe and asia, and in the mountains of switzerland; and as the tin mines of england had not yet been reached, bronze was scarce and dear even in eastern europe and asia. now schliemann has disinterred the undoubted trojan ilium on the hill of hissarlik; but he finds it to be only one of several buried cities, and the succession of strata will be most clearly seen in the section on the following page, compiled from his clear and circumstantial descriptions. it is needless to say that this presents a succession of the stone age to one of comparatively high civilization. it also forms an epitome of that of the whole east, and of primitive man in general, in some very important respects. we have first, at a date probably coeval with that of the earliest monarchies of assyria and egypt, a primitive people whose arts and mode of life remind us strongly of the american toltecans and peruvians.[ ] schliemann supposes them to have been aryan, but they were more probably of turanian race. they must have occupied the site for a very long time. they were succeeded by a more cultivated people of fine physical organization, yet possibly still turanians or primitive aryans, who by trade or plunder had accumulated large stores of metallic wealth, and had made advances in the arts of life placing them on a level with the early phoenicians and egyptians, with whom they probably had intercourse. these ===================================================================== |surface. | | | |fifth stratum to - / feet. |the greek ilium, with buildings | |and objects of art characteristic | |of the hellenic civilization of | |historic periods. --------------------------------------------------------------------- |fourth stratum to feet. |a second barbarous people, but | |probably allied to the first. | |very coarse pottery. implements | |and weapons of copper or bronze-- | |stone knives and saws. --------------------------------------------------------------------- |third stratum to feet. |barbarous people occupying the | |site of troy. rude stone | |implements and rude pottery. | |buildings of small stones and clay. | |some objects of pottery found here | |would on american sites be regarded | |as probably tobacco-pipes. --------------------------------------------------------------------- |second stratum to feet. |homeric troy. implements and | |weapons of copper, bronze, and | |stone. pottery, some of it of | |peruvian and ancient cypriot types. | |fine gold jewelry, and gold and | |silver vessels. armor similar to | |that described by homer. stone | |buildings and walls. this city had | |been sacked and burned. --------------------------------------------------------------------- | first stratum to or feet.|primitive or prehistoric troy. | |stone implements, polished and | |chipped. millstones, copper nails, | |pottery--some with patterns | |curiously resembling those of | |america--bone implements, | rock. |terra-cotta disks. stone buildings. ===================================================================== were the trojans of the homeric poems, and the destruction of their city was probably in the first instance celebrated in their own native songs, which homer at a date but little later[ ] wove into his magnificent poem, and idealized and exaggerated. the trojans worshipped an owl-headed goddess--the athena of the homeric poems; and from symbols found are believed also to have had the worship of a sacred tree, and of fire or of the sun. all of these are widespread superstitions over both the old and new world. but while troy flourished there were barbarous nations not far off still in the stone age; and when the city had fallen, these, possibly in successive hordes, took possession of the fertile plain and used the old city as their stronghold, perhaps till the foundation of the greek city about b.c. i have sketched in some detail these interesting discoveries, as they so clearly illustrate an actual succession of ages, and so conclusively show the uncertainty of the classification into ages of stone and metal, except when taken in connection with the precise circumstances of each locality. i have referred above only to the question of historic or postdiluvian man. we have still to consider what remains exist of antediluvian man. these may be studied in connection with our third head of geological evidences of man's antiquity; for if the mosaic narrative be true, the diluvial catastrophe must have constituted a physical separation between historic man and prehistoric; since, in so far as antediluvian ages are concerned, all are prehistoric or mythical everywhere except in the sacred history itself. antediluvian men may thus in geology be pleistocene as distinguished from modern, or palæocosmic as distinguished from neocosmic.[ ] . _language in relation to the antiquity of man._--in many animals the voice has a distinctive character; but in man it has an importance altogether peculiar. the gift of speech is one of his sole prerogatives, and identity in its mode of exercise is not only the strongest proof of similarity of psychical constitution, but more than any other character marks identity of origin. the tongues of men are many and various; and at first sight this diversity may, as indeed it often does, convey the impression of radical diversity of race. but modern philological investigations have shown many and unexpected links of connection in vocabulary or grammatical structure, or both, between languages apparently the most dissimilar. i do not here refer to the vague and fanciful parallels with which our ancestors were often amused, but to the results of sober and scientific inquiry. "nothing," says professor max müller, "necessitates the admission of different independent beginnings for the material elements of the turanian, semitic, and aryan branches of speech; nay, it is possible even now to point out radicals which, under various changes and disguises, have been current in these three branches ever since their first separation." of the truth of this i have convinced myself by some original investigation, and also of the farther truth that of this radical unity of all human tongues there is more full evidence than many philologists are disposed to admit, and that the results of future study must be to connect more and more with each other the several main stems of language. whether this results merely from the psychical unity of the human race, or from the historical derivation of languages from one root, is not so material as the fact of unity; but that the latter is implied it would not be difficult to show.[ ] let us examine for a little these results as they are presented to us by latham, müller, bunsen, and other modern philologists. a convenient starting-point is afforded by the great group of languages known as the indo-european, japhetic, or aryan. from the ganges to the west coast of ireland, through indian, persian, greek, italian, german, celt, runs one great language--the sanscrit and the dark hindoo at one extreme, the erse and the xanthous celt at the other. no one now doubts the affinity of this great belt of languages. no one can pretend that any one of these nations learned its language from another. they are all decided branches of a common stock. lying in and near this area are other nations--as the arabs, the syrians, the jews--speaking languages differing in words and structure--the semitic tongues. do these mark a different origin? the philologists answer in the negative, pointing to the features of resemblance which still remain, and above all to certain intermediate tongues of so high antiquity that they are rather to be regarded as root-stocks from which other languages diverged than as mixtures. the principal of these is the ancient egyptian, represented by the inscriptions on the monuments of that wonderful people, and by the more modern coptic, which, according to bunsen and latham, presents decided affinities to both the great classes previously mentioned, and may be regarded as strictly intermediate in its character. it has accordingly been designated by the term sub-semitic.[ ] but it shares this character with all or nearly all the other african languages, which bear strong marks of affinity to the egyptian and semitic tongues. on this subject dr. latham says, "that the uniformity of languages throughout africa is greater than it is either in asia or in europe, is a statement to which i have not the least hesitation in committing myself."[ ] to the north the indo-european area is bounded by a great group of semi-barbarous populations, mostly with mongolian features, and speaking languages which have been grouped as turanian. these turanian languages, on the one hand, graduate without any break into those of the esquimaux and american indians; on the other, according to müller and latham, they are united, though less distinctly, with the semitic and japhetic tongues. they not improbably represent in more or less altered forms the most primitive stock of language from which both the semitic and japhetic groups have branched. another great area on the coasts and in the islands of the pacific is overspread by the malay, which, through the populations of transgangetic india, connects itself with the great indo-european line. mr. edkins, in his remarkable book on "china's place in philology," has collected a large amount of fact tending to show that the early chinese in its monosyllabic radicals presents root-forms traceable into all the stocks of human speech in the old world; and the american languages would have furnished him with similar lines of affinity. if we regard physical characters, manners, and customs, and mythologies, as well as mere language, it is much easier thus to link together nearly all the populations of the globe. in investigations of this kind, it is true, the links of connection are often delicate and evanescent; yet they have conveyed to the ablest investigators the strong impression that the phenomena are rather those of division of a radical language than of union of several radically distinct. this impression is farther strengthened when we regard several results incidental to these researches. latham has shown that the languages of men may be regarded as arranged in lines of divergence, the extreme points of which are fuego, tasmania, easter island; and that from all these points they converge to a common centre in western asia, where we find a cluster of the most ancient and perfect languages; and even haeckel is obliged to adopt in his map of the affiliation of races of men a similar scheme, though he, without any good historical or scientific evidence, extends it back into the imaginary lost continent of lemuria. farther, the languages of the various populations differ in proceeding from these centres in a manner pointing to degeneracy such as is likely to occur in small and rude tribes separating from a parent stock. these lines of radiation follow the most easy and probable lines of migration of the human race spreading from one centre. it must also be observed that in the primary migration of men, there must of necessity have been at its extreme limits outlying and isolated tribes, placed in circumstances in which language would very rapidly change; especially as these tribes, migrating or driven forward, would be continually arriving at new regions presenting new circumstances and objects. when at length the utmost limit in any direction was reached, the inroads of new races of population would press into close contact these various tribes with their different dialects. where the distance was greatest before reaching this limit, we might expect, as in america, to find the greatest mutual variety and amount of difference from the original stock. after the primary migration had terminated, the displacements arising from secondary migrations and conquests, would necessarily complicate the matter by breaking up the original gradations of difference, and thereby rendering lines of migration difficult to trace. taking all these points into the account, along with the known tendencies of languages in all circumstances to vary, it is really wonderful that philology is still able to give so decided indications of unity. there is, in the usual manner of speaking of these subjects, a source of misapprehension, which deserves special mention in this place. the hebrew scriptures derive all the nations of the ancient world from three patriarchs, and the names of these have often been attached to particular races of men and their languages; but it should never be supposed that these classifications are likely to agree with the bible affiliation. they may to a certain extent do so, but not necessarily or even probably. in the nature of the case, those portions of these families which remained near the original centre, and in a civilized state, would retain the original language and features comparatively unchanged. those which wandered far, fell into barbarism, or became subjected to extreme climatic influences, would vary more in all respects. hence any general classification, whether on physical or philological characters, will be likely to unite, as in the caucasian group of cuvier, men of all the three primitive families, while it will separate the outlying and aberrant portions from their main stems of affiliation. want of attention to this point has led to much misconception; and perhaps it would be well to abandon altogether terms founded on the names of the sons of noah, except where historical affiliation is the point in question. it would be well if it were understood that when the terms semitic, japhetic,[ ] and hametic are used, direct reference is made to the hebrew ethnology; and that, where other arrangements are adopted, other terms should be used. it is obviously unfair to apply the terms of moses in a different way from that in which he uses them. a very prevalent error of this kind has been to apply the term japhetic to a number of nations not of such origin according to the bible; and another of more modern date is to extend the term semitic to all the races descended from ham, because of resemblance of language. it should be borne in mind that, assuming the truth of the scriptural affiliation, there should be a "central" group of races and languages where the whole of the three families meet, and "sporadic"[ ] groups representing the changes of the outlying and barbarous tribes. while, however, all the more eminent philologists adhere to the original unity of language, they are by no means agreed as to the antiquity of man; and some, as for instance latham and dr. max müller, are disposed to claim an antiquity for our species far beyond that usually admitted. in so far as this affects the bible history, it is important, inasmuch as this would appear to limit the possible antiquity of all languages to the time of the deluge. the date of this event has been variously estimated, on biblical grounds, at from b.c. (usher) to b.c. (josephus and hales); but the longest of these dates does not appear to satisfy the demands of philology. the reason of this demand is the supposed length of time required to effect the necessary changes. the subject is one on which definite data can scarcely be obtained. languages change now, even when reduced to a comparatively stable form by writing. they change more rapidly when men migrate into new climates, and are placed in contact with new objects. the english, the dutch, and the german were perhaps all at the dawn of the mediæval era mæso-gothic. at the same rate of change, allowing for greater barbarism and greater migrations, they may very well have been something not far from egyptian or sanscrit years before christ. the truth is that present rates of variation afford no criterion for the changes that must occur in the languages of small and isolated tribes lapsing into or rising from barbarism, possessing few words, and constantly requiring to name new objects and until some ratio shall have been established between these conditions and those of modern languages, fixed by literature and by a comparatively stationary state of society, it is useless to make any demands for longer time on this ground.[ ] even in the present day, moffat informs us that in south africa the separation of parts of a tribe, for even a few months, may produce a notable difference of dialect. if we take the existing languages of civilized men whose history is known, we shall find that it is impossible to trace many of them back as far as the christian era, and when we have passed over even half that interval, they become so different as to be unintelligible to those who now speak them. where there are exceptions to this, they arise entirely from the effects of literature and artificial culture. while, therefore, there is good ground in philology for the belief in one primitive language, there seems no absolute necessity to have recourse even to the confusion of tongues at babel to explain the diversities of language.[ ] farther, the bible carries back the semitic group of languages at least to the time of the deluge, but it does not seem necessary on the mere ground of antediluvian names, to carry it any farther back, and the assyrian inscriptions show the coexistence of turanian and semitic tongues at the dawn of history in the region of the euphrates and tigris. one or other of these--or a monosyllabic language underlying it--was probably an antediluvian tongue, and the other a very early derivative; and both history and philology would assign the precedence to the turanian language, which was probably most akin to that which had descended from antediluvian times, and which at that early period of dispersion indicated in the bible story of babel, had begun to throw off its two great branches of the aryan and semitic languages. these, proceeding in two dissimilar lines of development, continue to exist to this day along with the surviving portions of the uncultivated turanian speech. to this point, however, we may return under another head. chapter xiv. unity and antiquity of man--(_continued._) "by the word of god the heavens were from of old, and the earth, formed out of water, and by means of water, by which waters the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished."-- peter iii., , . . _geological evidence as to the antiquity of man._--no geological fact can now be more firmly established than the ascending progression of animal life, whereby from the early invertebrates of the eozoic and primordial series we pass upward through the dynasties of fishes and reptiles and brute mammals to the reign of man. in this great series man is obviously the last term; and when we inquire at what point he was introduced, the answer must be in the later part of the great cainozoic or tertiary period, which is the latest of the whole. not only have we the negative fact of the absence of his remains from all the earlier tertiary formations, but the positive fact that all the mammalia of these earlier ages are now extinct, and that man could not have survived the changes of condition which destroyed them and introduced the species now our contemporaries. this fact is altogether independent of any question as to the introduction of species by derivation or by creation. the oldest geological period in which any animals nearly related in structure to man occur is that named the miocene, and no traces of man have as yet been found in any deposits of this age. all human remains known belong either to the pleistocene or modern. now the pleistocene was characterized by one of those periods of glacial cold which have swept over the earth--by one of those great winters which have so chilled the continents that few forms of life could survive them--and man comes in at the close of this cold period, in what is called the post-glacial age. some geologists, it is true, hold to an interglacial warm period, in which man is supposed to have existed, but the evidence of this is extremely slender and doubtful, and it carries back in any case human antiquity but a very little way. i have, in my "story of the earth and man," shown reason for the belief, in which i find professor hughes, of cambridge, coincides with me,[ ] that the interglacial periods are merely an ingenious expedient to get rid of the difficulties attending the hypothesis of the universal glaciation of the northern hemisphere. but, though man is thus geologically modern, it is held that historically his existence on earth may have been very ancient, extending perhaps ten or twenty, or even a hundred times longer than the period of six or seven thousand years supposed to be proved by sacred history. let us first, as plainly and simply as possible, present the facts supposed thus to extend the antiquity of man, and then inquire as to their validity and force as arguments in this direction. the arguments from geology in favor of a great antiquity for man may be summarized thus: ( ) human remains are found in caverns under very thick stalagmitic crusts, and in deposits of earth which must have accumulated before these stalagmites began to form, and when the caverns were differently situated with reference to the local drainages. ( ) remains of man are found under peat-bogs which have grown so little in modern times that their antiquity on the whole must be very great. ( ) implements, presumably made by men, are found in river-gravels so high above existing riverbeds that great physical changes must have occurred since they were accumulated. ( ) one case is on record where a human bone is believed to have been found under a deposit of glacial age. ( ) human remains have been found under circumstances which indicate that very important changes of level have taken place since their accumulation. ( ) human remains have been found under circumstances which indicate great changes of climate as intervening between their date and that of the modern period. ( ) man is known to have existed, in europe at least, at the same time with some quadrupeds formerly supposed to have been extinct before his introduction. ( ) the implements, weapons, etc., found in the oldest of these repositories are different from those known to have been used in historic times. these several heads include, i think, all the really material evidence of a geological character. it is evidence of a kind not easily reducible into definite dates, but there can be no doubt that its nature, and the rapid accumulation of facts within a small number of years, have created a deep and widespread conviction among geologists and archæologists that we must relegate the origin of man to a much more remote antiquity than that sanctioned by history or by the biblical chronology. i shall first review the character of this evidence, and then state a number of geological facts which bear in the other direction, and have been somewhat lost sight of in recent discussions. of the facts above referred to, the most important are those which relate to caverns, peat-bogs, and river-gravels. we may, therefore, first consider the nature and amount of this evidence. that the reader may more distinctly understand the geological history of these more recent periods of the earth's history which are supposed to have witnessed the advent of man, in western europe at least, i quote the following summary from sir charles lyell of the more modern changes in that portion of the world. these are: "first, a continental period, toward the close of which the forest of cromer flourished; when the land was at least feet above its present level, perhaps much higher. * * * the remains of _hippopotamus major_ and _rhinoceros etruscus_, found in beds of this period, seem to indicate a climate somewhat milder than that now prevailing in great britain. [this was a _preglacial_ era, and may be regarded as belonging to the close of the pliocene tertiary.] "secondly, a period of submergence, by which the land north of the thames and bristol channel, and that of ireland, was generally reduced to * * * an archipelago. * * * this was the period of great submergence and of floating ice, when the scandinavian flora, which occupied the lower grounds during the first continental period, may have obtained exclusive possession of the only lands not covered with perpetual snow. [this represents the glacial period; but according to the more extreme glacialists only a portion of that period.] "thirdly, a second continental period, when the bed of the glacial sea, with its marine shells and erratic blocks, was laid dry, and when the quantity of land equalled that of the first period. * * * during this period there were glaciers in the higher mountains of scotland and wales, and the welsh glaciers * * * pushed before them and cleared out the marine drift with which some valleys had been filled during the period of submergence. * * * during this last period the passage of the germanic flora into the british area took place, and the scandinavian plants, together with northern insects, birds, and quadrupeds, retreated into the higher grounds. * * * "fourthly, the next and last change comprised the breaking up of the land of the british area once more into numerous islands, ending in the present geographical condition of things. there were probably many oscillations of level during this last conversion of continuous land into islands, and such movements in opposite directions would account for the occurrence of marine shells at moderate heights above the level of the sea, notwithstanding a general lowering of the land. * * * during this period a gradual amelioration of temperature took place, from the cold of the glacial period to the climate of historical times."[ ] the second continental period above referred to is that which appears on the best evidence to have been the time of the introduction of man; but such facts as that of the settle cave, and the implements of the breccia in kent's cave, if rightly interpreted, would make man preglacial or "interglacial." the deposits found in caverns in france, switzerland, germany, belgium, and england have afforded a large proportion of the remains from which we derive our notions of the most ancient prehistoric men of europe. from the belgian caves, as explored by m. dupont, we learn that there were two successive prehistoric races, both rude or comparatively uncivilized. the first were men of turanian type, but of great bodily stature and high cerebral organization, and showing remarkable skill in the manufacture of implements and ornaments of bone and ivory. these men are believed to have been contemporary with the earlier postglacial mammals, as the mammoth and hairy rhinoceros, and to have lived at a time when the european land was more extensive than at present, stretching far to the west of ireland, and connecting great britain with the continent. the skeletons found at cro-magnon, mentone, and elsewhere in france fully confirm the deductions of dupont as to this earliest race of palæocosmic, palæolithic, or antediluvian man. this grand race seems to have perished or been driven from europe by the great depression of the level of the land which inaugurated the modern era, and which was probably accompanied by many oscillations of level as well as by considerable changes of climate. they were succeeded by a second race, equally turanian in type, but of small stature, and resembling the modern lapps. these were the "allophylian" peoples displaced by the historical celts, and up to their time the reindeer seems to have existed abundantly in france and germany. these two successive prehistoric populations have been termed respectively men of the "mammoth" age and men of the "reindeer" age. the bible record would lead us to regard the earlier and gigantic men as antediluvian, and the smaller or lappish race as postdiluvian. we may therefore, having already at some length considered the postdiluvian age, take up the mode of occurrence of the remains of the earlier of the two races--that of the mammoth age. the caverns themselves may be divided into those of residence, of sepulture, and of driftage, though one cavern has often successively assumed two at least of these characters. in the caverns of residence large accumulations have been formed of ashes, charcoal, bones, and other débris of cookery, among which are found flint and bone implements, the general character of which, as well as that of the needles, stone hammers, mortars for paint, and other domestic appliances, are not more dissimilar from those of the red indian and esquimau races in north america than these are from one another, and in many things, as in the bone harpoons, the resemblance is very striking indeed. in tendency to imitative art, and in the skill of their delineations of animals, the prehistoric men seem to have surpassed all the american races except the semi-civilized mound-builders and the more cultivated mexican and peruvian nations. with regard to the residence of these men of the mammoth age in caverns, several things are indicated by american analogies to which some attention should be paid. it is not likely that caverns were the usual places of residence of the whole population. they may have been winter houses for small tribes and detached families of fugitives or outlaws, or they may have been places of resort for hunting parties at certain seasons of the year. the large quantities of broken and uncooked bones of particular species, as of the horse and reindeer, in some of the caverns, would farther indicate a habit of making great battues, like those of the american hunting tribes, at certain seasons, and of preparing quantities of pemmican or dried meat preserved with marrow and fat for future use. the number of bone needles found in some of the caves would seem to hint that, like the americans, they sewed up their pemmican in skin bags. the multitude of flint flakes and of rude stone implements applicable to breaking bones certainly indicates a wholesale cutting of flesh and preparation of marrow. in the "story of the earth," i have suggested in connection with this that there may have been towns or villages of these people unknown to us, and which would afford higher conceptions of their progress in the arts. this anticipation appears recently to have been realized in the discovery of such a town or fortified village of the mammoth age at soloutre, in france, and which seems to afford evidence that these ancient people had already domesticated the horse, using it as food as well as a beast of burden, in the manner of the khirgis and certain other tartar tribes of central asia.[ ] this, with the undoubtedly high cerebral organization indicated by the skulls of the mammoth age, notably raises our estimate of the position of man at this early date. with regard to caves of sepulture, the same remark may be made as with regard to the caves of residence. they do not seem to have been the burial-places of large populations, but only occasional places of interment, few bodies being found in them, and these often interred in the midst of culinary débris, evidencing previous or contemporary residence. with regard to the latter, it seems to have been no uncommon practice with some north american tribes to bury the dead either in the floors of their huts or in their immediate proximity. it is probable, however, that the few examples known of caves of sepulture of this period indicate not tribal or national places of burial, but occasional and accidental cases, happening to hunting or war parties, perhaps remote from their ordinary places of residence. in so far as method of burial is concerned, the men of the palæocosmic or mammoth age seem to have buried the dead extended at full length, and not in the crouching posture usual with some later races. like the americans, they painted the dead man, and buried him with his robes and ornaments, and probably with his weapons, thus intimating their belief in happy hunting-grounds beyond the grave.[ ] i may remark here that all the known interments of the mammoth age indicate a race of men of great cerebral capacity, with long heads and coarsely marked features, of large stature and muscular vigor, surpassing indeed much in all these respects the average man of modern europe. these characteristics befit men who had to contend with the mammoth and his contemporaries, and to subdue the then vast wildernesses of the eastern continent, and they correspond with the biblical characteristics of antediluvian man. among caves of driftage may be classed some of those near liège, in belgium, and, partially at least, those of kent's hole and brixham, in england. in these only disarticulated remnants of human skeletons, or more frequently only flint implements, some of them of doubtful character, have been found. in my "story of the earth," i have taken the carefully explored kent's cavern of torquay as a typical example, and have condensed its phenomena as described by mr. pengelly. i now repeat this description, with some important emendations suggested by that gentleman in more recent reports and in private correspondence. the somewhat extensive and ramifying cavern of kent's hole is an irregular excavation, evidently due partly to fissures or joints in limestone rock, and partly to the erosive action of water enlarging such fissures into chambers and galleries. at what time it was originally cut we do not know, but it must have existed as a cavern at the close of the pliocene or beginning of the post-pliocene period, since which time it has been receiving a series of deposits which have quite filled up some of its smaller branches. first and lowest, according to mr. pengelly, of the deposits as yet known, is a "breccia," or mass of broken and rounded stones, with hardened red clay filling the interstices. some of the stones are of the rock which forms the roof and walls of the cave, but the greater number, especially the rounded ones, are from more distant parts of the surrounding country. many are fragments of grit from the devonian beds of adjacent hills. there are also fragments of stalagmite from an old crust broken up when the breccia was deposited, and possibly belonging to pliocene times. in this mass, the depth of which is unknown, are numerous bones, nearly all of one kind of animal, the cave bear or bears, for there may be more than one species--creatures which seem to have lived in western europe from the close of the pliocene down to the modern period. they must have been among the earliest and most permanent tenants of kent's hole at a time when its lower chambers were still filled with water. teeth of a lion and of the common fox also occur in this deposit, but rarely. next above the breccia is a floor of "stalagmite," or stony carbonate of lime, deposited from the drippings of the roof, and in some places more than twelve feet thick. this also contains bones of the cave bear, deposited when there was less access of water to the cavern. mr. pengelly infers the existence of man at this time from the occurrence of chipped flints supposed to be artificial; but which, in so far as i can judge from the specimens described and figured, must still be regarded as of doubtful origin. after the old stalagmite floor above mentioned was formed, the cave again received deposits of muddy water and stones; but now a change occurs in the remains embedded. this stony clay, or "cave earth," has yielded an immense quantity of teeth and bones, including those of the elephant, rhinoceros, horse, hyena, cave bear, reindeer, and irish elk. with these were found weapons of chipped flint, and harpoons, needles, and bodkins of bone, precisely similar to those of the north american indians and other rude races. the "cave earth" is four feet or more in thickness. it is not stratified, and contains many fallen fragments of rock, rounded stones, and broken pieces of stalagmite. it also has patches of the excrement of hyenas, which the explorers suppose to indicate the temporary residence of these animals; and besides fragments of charcoal scattered in the mass, there is in one spot, near the top, a limited layer of burned wood, with remains which indicate the cooking and eating of repasts of animal food by man. it is clear that when this bed was formed the cavern was liable to be inundated with muddy water, carrying stones and perhaps some of the bones and implements, and breaking up in places the old stalagmite floor.[ ] one of the most puzzling features, especially to those who take an exclusively uniformitarian view, is that the entrance of water-borne mud and stones implies a level of the bottom of the water in the neighboring valleys of nearly one hundred feet above its present height. the cave earth is covered by a second crust of stalagmite, less dense and thick than that below, and containing only a few bones, which are of the same general character with those beneath, but include a fragment of a human jaw with teeth. evidently when this stalagmite was formed the influx of water-borne materials had ceased, or nearly so; and mr. pengelly appears to affirm, though without assigning any reason, that none of these bones could, like the masses of stalagmite, have been lifted from lower beds, or washed into the cave from without. the next bed marks a new change. it is a layer of black mould from three to ten inches thick. its microscopic structure does not seem to have been examined; but it is probably a forest soil, introduced by growth, by water, by wind, and by ingress of animals, all of them modern, and contains works of art from the old british times before the roman invasion up to the porter bottles and dropped half-pence of modern visitors. lastly, in and upon the black mould are many fallen blocks from the roof of the cave. there can be no doubt that this cave and the neighboring one of brixham have done very much to impress the minds of british geologists with ideas of the great antiquity of man; and they have, more than any other postglacial monuments, shown the existence of some animals now extinct up to the human age. of precise data for determining time, they have, however, given nothing. the only measures which seem to have been applied, namely, the rate of growth of stalagmite and the rate of erosion of neighboring valleys, are, from the very sequence of the deposits, obviously worthless; and the only apparently constant measure, namely, the fall of blocks from the roof, seems not to have been applied, and mr. pengelly declares that it can not be practically used. we are therefore quite uncertain as to the number of centuries involved in the filling of this cave, and must remain so until some surer system of calculation can be devised. we may, however, attempt to sketch the series of events which it indicates. the animals found in kent's hole are all "postglacial," some of them of course survivors from "preglacial" times, and some of them still surviving. they therefore inhabited the country after it rose from the great glacial submergence. perhaps the first colonists of the coast of devonshire in this period were the cave bears, migrating on floating ice, and subsisting like the arctic bear and the black bear of anti-costi, on fish, and on the garbage cast up by the sea. they may have found kent's hole a sea-side cavern, with perhaps some of its galleries still full of water and filling with breccia, with which the bones of dead bears became mixed. in the case of such a deposit as this breccia, however, the precise time when its materials were finally laid down in their present form, or the length of time necessary for its accumulation, can not be definitely settled. it may be a result of continued torrential action or of some sudden cataclysm. as the land rose, these creatures for the most part betook themselves to lower levels, and in process of time the cavern stood upon a hill-side, perhaps several hundreds of feet above the sea; and the mountain streams, their beds not yet emptied of glacial detritus, washed into it stones and mud, and probably bones also, while it appears that hyenas occupied the cave at intervals, and dragged in remains of mammals of many species which had now swarmed across the plains elevated out of the sea, and multiplied in the land. this was the time of the cave earth; and before its deposit was completed, though how long before an unstratified and therefore probably often-disturbed bed of this kind can not tell, man himself seems to have been added to the inhabitants of the british land. in pursuit of game he sometimes ascended the valleys beyond the cavern, or even penetrated into its outer chambers; or perhaps there were even in those days rude and savage hill-men, inhabiting the forests and warring with the more cultivated denizens of plains below, which are now deep under the waters. their weapons, and other implements dropped in the cavern or lost in hunting, or buried in the flesh of wounded animals which crept to the streams to assuage their thirst, are those found in the cave earth. the absence of the human bones may merely show that the mighty hunters of those days were too hardy, athletic, and intelligent often to perish from accidental causes, and that they did not use this cavern for a place of burial. the fragments of charcoal show that they were acquainted with fire, and possibly that they sometimes took shelter in the cave. but the land again subsided. the valley of that now nameless river, of which the rhine and the thames may have alike been tributaries, disappeared under the sea; and perhaps some tribe, driven from the lower lands, took up its abode in this cave, now again near the encroaching waves, and left there the remains of their last repasts ere they were driven farther inland or engulfed in the waters. for a time the cavern may have been wholly submerged, and the charcoal of the extinguished fires became covered with its thin coating of clay. but ere long it re-emerged to form part of an island, long barren and desolate; and the valleys having been cut deeper by the receding waters, it no longer received muddy deposits, and the crust formed by drippings from its roof contained only bones and pebbles washed by rains and occasional land floods from its own clay deposits. finally, the modern forests overspread the land, and were tenanted by the modern animals. man returned to use the cavern again as a place of refuge or habitation, and to leave there the relics contained in the black earth. this seems at present the only intelligible history of this curious cave and others resembling it; though, when we consider the imperfection of the results obtained even by a large amount of labor, and the difficult and confused character of the deposits in this and similar caves, too much value should not be attached to such histories, which may at any time be contradicted or modified by new facts or different explanations of those already known. the time involved depends very much on the answer to the question whether we should regard the postglacial subsidence and re-elevation as somewhat sudden, or as occupying long ages at the slow rate at which some parts of our continents are now rising or sinking. mr. pengelly thinks it possible, but not proved, that the lower breccia of kent's cavern may be interglacial or preglacial in age. one case only is known where a human bone has been found in a cavern under deposits supposed to be of the nature of the glacial drift. it is that of the victoria cave, at settle, in yorkshire. at this place a human fibula was found under a layer of boulder clay. but there are too many chances of this bone having come into this position by some purely local accident to allow us to attach much importance to it until future discoveries shall have supplied other instances of the kind.[ ] i may close this survey of the cave deposits with a summary of the results of m. dupont, as obtained from two of the caves explored by him, that of margite and that of frontal. in the first of these caverns, resting on rolled pebbles which covered the floor, were four distinct layers of river mud deposited by inundations, and amounting to two yards and a half in thickness. in all of these layers were bones. the lowest contained rude flint implements, and bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, bear, horse, chamois, reindeer, stag, and hyena. in the overlying deposits are some flint implements of more artistic form and a greater prevalence of the bones of the reindeer. in the second cave, that of frontal, over a similar deposit of alluvial mud of the mammoth age, was found a sepulchre containing the remains of sixteen individuals, of the second or diminutive lappish race before referred to. the door of the cave had been closed by these people with a slab of stone, and in front was a hearth for funeral feasts, built on the deposits of the mammoth age, and containing bones of animals all recent or now living in belgium, and without any traces of the bones of the extinct quadrupeds. this burial-place belonged to the neocosmic yet prehistoric race which replaced the palæocosmic men of the mammoth age. what is the absolute antiquity of the palæocosmic age in europe? we have no monumental or historical chronology to answer this question, but only the measures of time furnished by the accumulation of deposits, by the deposition of stalagmite, by the gradual extinction of animals, and by the erosion of valleys and other physical changes. these somewhat loose measures have been applied in various ways, but the tendency of geologists, from the prevalence of uniformitarian views, and the prejudice created by familiarity with the long times of previous geologic periods, has been to assign to them too great rather than too little value, both as measures of time and as indicating a remote antiquity. with reference to the accumulation of deposits, whether derived from disintegration of the roof and walls of the cave, introduced by land floods or river inundations or by the residence of man, their rate is of very difficult estimation. loose stones fallen from the roof, as in the case of kent's cave, would give a fair measure of time if we could be sure that the climate had continued uniform, and that there had been no violent earthquakes. mr. pengelly has, however, hopelessly given up this kind of evidence. where, as in the case of many of these caves, land floods and river inundations have entered, these may have been frequent or separated by long intervals of time, and they may have been of great or small amount. where, for instance, as in one of the belgian caves, there are six beds of ossiferous mud, but for the fact that five layers of stalagmite separate them we might not have known whether they represent six annual inundations, or floods separated by many centuries from each other. in the case of the victoria cave at settle, dawkins, reasoning from the accumulation of two feet of detritus over british remains that may be supposed to be years old, gives a basis which would at the same rate of deposit allow about years for the date of palæolithic men; but prestwich and others, on the basis of stalagmite deposits, claim a vastly higher antiquity for the men who made the implements found in kent's hole and brixham. if we now turn to these stalagmite floors, when we consider that they have been formed by the slow solution of limestone by rain-water charged with carbonic acid, and the dropping of this water on the floor, and when we are told that in kent's cavern a marked date shows that the stalagmite has grown at the rate of only one twentieth of an inch since , and that there are two beds of stalagmite, one of which is in some places twelve feet thick, we are impressed with the conviction of a vast antiquity. but when we are told by dawkins that the rate of deposit in ingleborough cave may be estimated at a quarter of an inch per annum, and when we consider that the present rate of deposit in kent's hole is probably very different from what it was in the former condition of the country, stalagmite becomes a very unsafe measure of time. with respect again to the accumulation of kitchen-midden stuff in the course of the occupancy of caverns, this proceeds with great rapidity, when caves are steadily occupied and it is not the practice to cleanse out the débris of fires, food, and bedding. even when the occupation is temporary, a tribe of savages engaged with the preparation of dried meat and pemmican in a very short time produce a considerable heap of bones and other rejectamenta. looking next to the extinction of animals, we find that the species found in the oldest deposits containing human remains are in part still extant. others which are locally extinct we know existed in europe until historical times, that is, within the last two thousand years. how long previously to this the others became extinct we have no certain means of knowing, though it seems probable that they disappeared gradually and successively. we have, however, farther to bear in mind the possibility of cataclysms or climatal changes which may have proved speedily fatal to many species over large areas. in any case we have this certain fact that, though the time elapsed has been sufficient for the extinction of many species, it does not seem to have sufficed to effect any noteworthy change on those that survived. farther, we may consider that time is only one factor in this matter, and not the one which is the efficient cause of change, since we know no reason why one species of animal should not continue to be reproduced as long as another, but for the occurrence of physical changes of a prejudicial character. we have still remaining the changes which have taken place in the erosion of valleys since the caverns were occupied. dupont informs us that the openings of some of the caverns once flooded by rivers are now in limestone cliffs two hundred feet above the water, while no appreciable lowering of the bottoms of the ravines is taking place now. this would in some contingencies put back the period of filling of the caves to an indefinite antiquity. but then the questions occur--was there once more water in the rivers or more obstruction at their outlets, or was the erosive power greater at one time than now, or were the river valleys excavated in still more ancient time, and partly filled with mud when the water entered the caves, and may this mud have been since swept away? so, in like manner, the waters flowing in the channels near brixham cave and kent's hole were apparently about seventy feet higher in times of flood than at present, but the time involved is subject to the same doubts as in the case of the belgian caves. hughes has well remarked that elevations of the land, by causing rivers to form waterfalls and cascades, which they cut back, may greatly accelerate the rate of erosion. farther, there is the best reason to believe that in the glacial period many old valleys were filled with clay, and that the modern cutting consisted merely in the removal of this clay. belt has shown in a recent paper[ ] good reason to believe that this is the case with the falls of niagara, and that the cutting actually effected through rock within the later pleistocene and modern period has been that only of the new gorge from the whirlpool to queenstown, the main part of the ravine being of older date and merely re-excavated. this would greatly reduce the ordinary estimate of time based on the cutting of the niagara gorge. this leads us next to consider the occurrence of human remains and objects of art in the river-gravels themselves, and the amount of excavation and deposit involved in the deposition of these gravels. in the river-gravels of the somme, and of many other rivers in france and southern england, chipped flints and rude flint implements are found in so great quantity as to imply that the beds and banks of these streams were resorted to for flint material, and that the unfinished and rejected implements left in the holes and trenches, or on the heaps where the work was carried on, were afterward sorted by running water, perhaps in abnormal floods and debacles, such as occur in all river valleys occasionally, perhaps in that great diluvial catastrophe which seems to have terminated the residence of palæocosmic man in europe. wilson has well shown how the heaps left by american tribes in and near their flint quarries would furnish the material for such accumulations. the time required for the erosion of the valleys and the deposit of the gravels has been very variously estimated. in the case of the somme, which river is not appreciably deepening its bed, if we suppose it to have cut its wide valley to the depth of one hundred and fifty feet out of solid chalk since the so-called "high level" gravels of france and the south of england were deposited, the time required shades off into infinity. so evans, in his work on "the ancient stone implements of great britain," looking upon the amount of excavation of wide and deep valleys since the stone implements of bournemouth are supposed to have been deposited in gravel, says, "who can fully comprehend how immensely remote was the epoch when that vast bay was high and dry land?" and he becomes poetical in delineating the view that must have met the eyes of "palæolithic" man. and undoubtedly, if one is to be limited to the precise nature and amount of causes now at work in the district, the time must not only be "immensely remote," but illimitably so. the difficulty lies with the exaggerated uniformitarianism of the supposition that such causes could have produced the results. but, for reasons to be immediately stated, the time required is liable to numerous deductions; and recently tylor, pattison, collard, and others have insisted ably on these deductions, as has also professor hughes, of cambridge. i have myself urged them strongly in the work already referred to. in the first place, when we see a deep river valley in which the present stream is doing an almost infinitesimal amount of deepening, we are not to infer that this represents all its work past and present. in times of unusual flood it may do in one week more than in many previous years. farther, if there have been elevations or depressions of the land, when the land has been raised the cutting power has at once been enormously increased, and when depressed it has been diminished, or filling has taken the place of cutting. again, if the climate in time past has been more extreme, or the amount of rainfall greater, the cutting action has then been proportionally rapid. perhaps no influence is greater in this respect than that which is known to the colonists in northeastern america as "ice-freshets," when in spring, before the ice has had time to disappear from the rivers, sudden thaws and rains produce great floods, which rushing down over the icy crust, or breaking and hurling its masses before them, work terrible havoc on the banks and alluvial flats, depositing great beds of gravel, and sweeping away immense masses that had lain undisturbed for centuries. now we know that in europe the human period was preceded by what has been termed the glacial age, and as it was passing away there must have been unexampled floods and ice-freshets, and a temporary "pluvial period," as it has been called, in which the volume of the rivers was immensely increased. farther, it is an established fact that the period of the appearance of man was a time when the continents in the northern hemisphere were more elevated than at present, and when consequently the cutting action of rivers was at a maximum. this was again followed by a period of depression, accompanied probably by many local cataclysms, if not by a general deluge; and there are strong geological reasons to believe that this convulsion was connected with the disappearance from europe of palæocosmic man, and many of the animals his contemporaries. this view i advocated some time ago in my "story of the earth;" and more recently mr. pattison, in an able paper read before the victoria institute, has developed it in greater detail, and supported it by a great mass of geological authority. if the palæocosmic period was one of continental elevation, when the greater seats of population were in the valleys of great rivers now covered by the german ocean and the english channel, and when the valleys of the thames and the somme were those of upland streams frequented by straggling parties and small tribes, and the seats of extensive flint factories for the supply of the plains below, and if this state of things was terminated by a diluvial debacle, we can account for all the phenomena of the drift implements without any extravagant estimate of time. i quote with much pleasure on this subject the following from the report of a lecture on "geological measures of time," by professor hughes, before the royal institution of london. hughes was, like myself, a companion of sir charles lyell in some of his journeys, though belonging to a younger generation of geologists, and is an accurate observer and reasoner. "another method of estimating the lapse of time is founded upon the supposed rate at which rivers scoop out their channels. although no very exact estimates have been attempted, still the immense quantity of work that has been done, as compared with the slow rate at which a river is now excavating that same part of the valley, is often appealed to as a proof of a great lapse of time. "the fact of such an enormous lapse of time is not questioned, but this part of the evidence is challenged. "the previous considerations of the rate of accumulation of silt on the low lands prepares us to inquire whether there is any waste at all along the alluvial plains. several examples were given to show that the lowering of valleys was brought about by receding rapids and waterfalls; for instance, following up the rhine, its terraces could often be traced back to where the waterfall was seen to produce at once almost all the difference of level between the river reaches above and below it. at schaffhausen the river terrace below the hotel could be traced back and found to be continuous with the river margin above the fall. the wide plains occurring here and there, such as the mayence basin, were due to the river being arrested by the hard rocks of the gorges below bingen so long that it had time to wind from side to side through the soft rocks above the gorges. when waterfalls cut back to such basins or to lakes they would recede rapidly, tapping the waters of the lake, eating back the soft beds of the alluvial plains, and probably in both cases leaving terraces as evidence, not of upheavals or of convulsions, but of the arrival of a waterfall which had been gradually travelling up the valley. so when the rhone cuts back from the falls at belgarde we shall have terraces where now is the shore of geneva; so also when the falls of schaffhausen, and ages afterward when the falls of laufenburg have tapped the lake of constance, there will be terraces marking its previous levels. and so we may explain the former greater extent of the lake of zurich, which stood higher and spread wider by utznach and wetzikon before it was tapped by the arrival of waterfalls, which cut back into it and let its waters run off until they fell to their present level. "a small upheaval near the mouth of a river would have a similar effect. the thames below london and the somme below st. acheul can now only just hand on the mud brought down from higher ground; but suppose an elevation of a hundred feet over those parts of england and france (quite imperceptible if extended over , , , or even years), and the rivers would tumble over soft mud and clay and chalk, and soon eat their way back from sheppey to london, and from st. valery to amiens. "so when we want to estimate the age of the gravels on the top of the cliff at the reculvers, or on the edge of the plateau of st. acheul, we have to ask, not how long would it take the rivers to cut down to their present level from the height of those gravels at the rate at which that part of their channel is being lowered now, but how long would it take the somme or thames, which once ran at the level of those gravels, to cut back from where its mouth or next waterfall was then to where it runs over rapids now. we ought to know what movements of upheaval and depression there have been; what long alluvial flats or lakes which may have checked floods, but also arrested the rock-protecting gravel; how much the wash of the estuarine waves has helped. in fact, it is clear that observations made on the action of the rivers at those points now have nothing to do with the calculation of the age of the terraces above, and that the circumstances upon which the rate of recession of the waterfalls and rapids depends are so numerous and changeable that it is at present unsafe to attempt any estimate of the time required to produce the results observed." i may close this discussion by quoting from the paper of my friend mr. pattison, already referred to, the following summing up of his conclusions, in which i fully concur: "we may assume it as established that there was a time when england was connected with the continent, when big animals roamed in summer up the watercourses and across the uplands, and man, armed only with rude stones, followed them into the marshes and woods, hunted them for sustenance, and consumed them in shelter of caves, then accessible from the river levels. this state of things was continued until disturbed by oscillations of surface, accompanied by excessive rainfalls and rushes of water from the water-sheds of the rivers, until the great animals were driven out or destroyed, and man ceased to visit these parts. the disturbances continued, the strait of dover was formed, the configuration of the soft parts of the islands and continents was fixed, action subsided, and the present state of things obtained. man resumed his residence, but with loss of the mammoth and its companions. the reindeer now constituted the type of a state of things which lasted down to the historic period, without any other from that time to this. * * * "chronologists are agreed that about years b.c. abraham migrated from mesopotamia to canaan, and that at this time egypt at least was old in civilization. beyond this we have no positive scale of time in scripture; for it is evident, from the narrative itself, that the latter does not cover the whole time. * * * "ussher estimates from scripture the creation of man as about years before this. during the latter portion of this time civilization was proceeding under settled governments in the east, interrupted, says the record and tradition, by a flood. * * * "so lucretius: 'thus, too, the insurgent waters once o'erpowered, as fables tell, and deluged many a state; till, in its turn, the congregated waves by cause more potent conquered, heaven restrain'd its ceaseless torrents, and the flood decreased.' barbarism covered the whole western world; neither in the years before abraham, nor in the years afterward, have we any light reflected from these regions to the east. in this years, or in the somewhat longer period which probably will be ultimately settled as warranted by the record, we place hypothetically all the phenomena of the later mammalian age, including the introduction of man as a hunter, the first occupation of the caves by him also, the diluvial phenomena of the wide valleys, the oscillations and disturbances of the earth's crust, alterations in the coast-line, and physical settlement of the country; after this comes the second occupation of the caves. in short, if we say that, hypothetically, the whole first known human age occurred within years of the christian era, no one can say that it is geologically impossible. who can say that years is insufficient to comprise all the phenomena that occurred during a period confessedly characterized by more rapid and extensive action than at present--a period during which ruptures in the earth's crust, oscillations, and permanent uprising took place, and the intermittent action of violent floods caused the deposit and disturbance and resettlement of the gravels and brick-earth? there is nothing to interfere with the prevalent opinion that man was introduced here while the glacial period was dying out, and while it was still furnishing flood-waters sufficient to scour and re-sort the gravels of the valleys down which they flowed. this supposition may be extended to both the great continents." to conclude: our mode of reconciling the mosaic history of antediluvian man with the disclosures of the gravels and caves would be to identify palæocosmic man, or man of the mammoth age, with antediluvian man; to suppose that the changes which closed his existence in europe as well as western asia were those recorded in the noachian deluge; and that the second colonization of the diminished and shrunken europe of the modern period was effected by the descendants of noah. it may be asked--must we suppose that the adam of the bible was of the type of the coarsely featured and gigantic men of the european caverns? i would answer--not precisely so; but it is quite possible that adam may have been turanian in feature. we should certainly suppose him to have been a man well developed in brain and muscle. such men as those found in the caves would rather represent the ruder "nephelim," the "giants that were in those days," than adam in eden. farther, the new colonists of europe after the deluge would no doubt be a very rude and somewhat degenerate branch of noachidæ, probably driven before more powerful tribes in the course of the dispersion. the higher races of both periods are probably to be looked for in western asia; but even there we must expect to find cave men like those whose remains were found by tristram in the caves near tyre, and like the horim of moses; and we must also expect to find the antediluvian age in the main an age of stone everywhere, and its arts, except in certain great centres of population, perhaps not more advanced than those of the polynesians, or those of the agricultural american tribes before the discovery of america by columbus. as a geologist, and as one who has been in the main of the school of lyell, and after having observed with much care the deposits of the more modern periods on both sides of the atlantic, i have from the first dissented from those of my scientific brethren who have unhesitatingly given their adhesion to the long periods claimed for human history, and have maintained that their hasty conclusions on this subject must bring geological reasoning into disrepute, and react injuriously on our noble science. we require to make great demands on time for the prehuman periods of the earth's history, but not more than sacred history is willing to allow for the modern or human age. chapter xv. comparisons and conclusions. "lo, these are but the outlines of his ways, and how faint the whisper which we hear of him--the thunder of his power who could understand?"--job xxvi., . in the preceding pages i have, as far as possible, avoided that mode of treating my subject which was wont to be expressed as the "reconciliation" of scripture and natural science, and have followed the direct guidance of the mosaic record, only turning aside where some apt illustration or coincidence could be perceived. in the present chapter i propose to inquire what the science of the earth teaches on these same subjects, and to point out certain manifest and remarkable correspondences between these teachings and those of revelation. here i know that i enter on dangerous ground, and that if i have been so fortunate as to carry the intelligent reader with me thus far, i may chance to lose him now. the hebrew scriptures are common property; no one can fairly deny me the right to study them, even though i do so in no clerical or theological capacity; and even if i should appear extreme in some of my views, or venture to be almost as enthusiastic as the commentators of homer, shakespeare, or dante, i can not be very severely blamed. but the direct comparison of these ancient records with results of modern science is obnoxious to many minds on different grounds; and all the more so that so few men are at once students both of nature and revelation. there are, as yet, but few even of educated men whose range of study has included any thing that is practical or useful either in hebrew literature or geological science. that slipshod christianity which contents itself with supposing that conclusions which are false in nature may be true in theology is mere superstition or professional priestcraft, and has nothing in common with the bible; but there are still multitudes of good men, trained in the verbal and abstract learning which at one time constituted nearly the whole of education, who regard geology as a mass of crude hypotheses destitute of coherence, a perpetual battle-ground of conflicting opinions, all destined in time to be swept away. it must be admitted, too, that from the nature of geological evidence, and from the liability to error in details, the solidity of its conclusions is not likely soon to be appreciated as fully as is desirable by the common mind; while it is unfortunately true that the outskirts of science are infested with hosts of half-informed and superficial writers, who state these conclusions incorrectly, or apply them in an unreasonable manner to matters on which they have no bearing. on the other hand, the geologist, fully aware of the substantial nature of the foundations of the science of the earth, regards it as little less than absurd to find parallels to its principles in an ancient theological work. still there are possible meeting-points of things so dissimilar as bible lore and geological exploration. if man is a being connected on the one hand with material nature, and on the other with the spiritual essence of the creator; if that creator has given to man powers of exploring and comprehending his plans in the universe, and at the same time has condescended to reveal to him directly his will on certain points, there is nothing unphilosophical or improbable in the supposition that the same truths may be struck out on the one hand by the action of the human mind on nature, and on the other by the action of the divine mind on that of man. the highest and most nobly constituted minds have ever been striving to scale heaven above and dive into the earth below, that they may extort from them the secret of their origin, and may find what are the privileges and destinies of man himself. they have learned much; and if through other gifted minds, and through his heaven-descended word and spirit, god has condescended to reveal himself, there must surely be much in common in that which god's works teach to earnest inquirers and that which he directly makes known. but few of our greatest thinkers, whether on nature or theology, have reached the firm ground of this higher probability; or if they have reached it, have dreaded the scorn of the half-learned too much to utter their convictions. still this is a position which the enlightened christian and student of nature must be prepared to occupy, humbly and with admission of much ignorance and incapacity, but with bold assertion of the truth that there are meeting-points of nature and revelation which afford legitimate subjects of study. in entering on these subjects, we may receive certain great truths in reference to the history of the earth as established by geological evidence. in the present rapidly progressive state of the science, however, it is by no means easy to separate its assured and settled results from those that have been founded on too hasty generalization, or are yet immature; and at the same time to avoid overlooking new and important truths, sufficiently established, yet not known in all their dimensions. in the following summary i shall endeavor to present to the reader only well-ascertained general truths, without indulging in those deviations from accuracy for effect too often met with in popular books. on the other hand, we have already found that the scriptures enunciate distinct doctrines on many points relating to the earth's early history, to which it will here be necessary merely to refer in general terms. let us in the first place shortly consider the conclusions of geology as to the origin and progress of creation. . the widest and most important generalization of modern geology is that all the materials of the earth's crust, to the greatest depth that man can reach, either by actual excavation or inference from superficial arrangements, are of such a nature as to prove that they are not, in their present state, original portions of the earth's structure; but that they are the results of the operation, during long periods, of the causes of change--whether mechanical, chemical, or vital--now in operation, on the land, in the seas, and in the interior of the earth. for example, the most common rocks of our continents are conglomerates, sandstones, shales, and slates; all of which are made up of the débris of older rocks broken down into gravel, sand, or mud, and then re-cemented. to these we may add limestones, which have been made up by the accumulation of corals and shells, or by deposits from calcareous springs; coal, composed of vegetable matter; and granite, syenite, greenstone, and trap, which are molten rocks formed in the manner of modern lavas. so general has been this sorting, altering, and disturbance of the substance of the earth's crust, that, though we know its structure over large portions of our continents to the depth of several miles, the geologist can point to no instance of a truly primitive rock which can be affirmed to have remained unchanged and _in situ_ since the beginning. "all are aware that the solid parts of the earth consist of distinct substances, such as clay, chalk, sand, limestone, coal, slate, granite, and the like; but, previously to observation, it is commonly imagined that all had remained from the first in the state in which we now see them--that they were created in their present forms and in their present position. the geologist now comes to a different conclusion; discovering proofs that the external parts of the earth were not all produced in the beginning of things in the state in which we now behold them, nor in an instant of time. on the contrary, he can show that they have acquired their actual condition and configuration gradually and at successive periods, during each of which distinct races of living beings have flourished on the land and in the waters; the remains of these creatures lying buried in the crust of the earth."[ ] . having ascertained that the rocks of the earth have thus been produced by secondary causes, we next affirm, on the evidence of geology, that a distinct order of succession of these deposits can be ascertained; and though there are innumerable local variations in the nature of the rocks formed at the same period, yet there is, on the great scale, a regular sequence of formations over the whole earth. this succession is of the greatest importance in the case of aqueous rocks, or those formed in water; and it is evident that in the case of beds of sand, clay, etc., deposited in this way, the upper must be the more recent of any two layers. this simple principle, complicated in various ways by the fractures and disturbances to which the beds have been subjected, forms the basis of the succession of "formations" in geology as deduced from stratigraphical evidence. . this regular series of formations would be of little value as a history of the earth were it not that nearly all the aqueous rocks contain remains of the contemporary animals and plants. ever since the earth began to be tenanted by organized beings, the various accumulations formed in the bottoms of seas and at the mouths of rivers have entombed remains of marine animals, more especially their harder parts, as shells, corals, and bones, and also fragments or entire specimens of land animals and plants. hence, in any rock of aqueous formation, we may find fossil remains of the living creatures that existed in the waters in which that rock was accumulated or on the neighboring land. if in the process of building up the continents, the same locality constituted in succession a part of the bottom of the ocean, of an inland sea, of an estuary, and a lake, we should find in the fossil remains entombed in the deposits of that place evidences of these various conditions; and thus a somewhat curious history of local changes might be obtained. geology affords more extensive disclosures of this nature. it shows that as we descend into the older formations we gradually lose sight of the existing animals and plants, and find the remains of others not now existing; and these, in turn, themselves disappear, and were preceded by others; so that the whole living population of the earth appears to have been several times renewed prior to the beginning of the present order of things. this seems farther to have occurred in a slow and gradual manner, not by successive great cataclysms or clearances of the surface of the earth, followed by wholesale renewal. this doctrine of geological uniformity is, however, to be understood as limited by the equally certain fact that there has been progress and advance, both in the inorganic arrangements of the earth's surface and in its organized inhabitants, and that there have, in geological as in historical times, been local cataclysms and convulsions, as those of earthquakes and volcanoes, often on a very extensive scale. farther, there are good reasons to believe that there have been alternations of cold or glacial periods and of warm periods, of periods of subsidence and re-elevation, and of periods of greater and less activity of certain of the leading agents of geological change. but as to the extent of these differences and their bearing on the geological history, there is still much uncertainty and difference of opinion.[ ] in the sediment _now_ accumulating in the bottom of the waters are being buried remains of the existing animals and plants. a geological formation is being produced, and it contains the skeletons and other solid parts of a vast variety of creatures belonging to all climates, and which have lived on land as well as in fresh and salt water. let us now suppose that by a series of changes, sudden or gradual, all the present organized beings were swept away, and that, when the earth was renewed by the power of the creator, a new race of intelligent beings could explore those parts of the former sea basins that had been elevated into land. they would find the remains of multitudes of creatures not existing in their time; and by the presence of these they could distinguish the deposits of the former period from those that belonged to their own. they could also compare these remains with the corresponding parts of creatures which were their own contemporaries, and could thus infer the circumstances in which they had lived, the modes of subsistence for which they had been adapted, and the changes in the distribution of land and water and other physical conditions which had occurred. this, then, is precisely the place which fossil organic remains occupy in modern geology, except that our present system of nature rests on the ruins, not of one previous system, but of several. . by the aid of the superposition of deposits and their organic remains, geology can divide the history of the earth into distinct periods. these periods are not separated by merely arbitrary boundaries, but to some extent mark important eras in the progress of our earth; though they usually pass into each other at their confines, and the nature of the evidence prevents us from ascertaining the precise length of the periods themselves, or the intervals in time which may separate the several monuments by which they are distinguished. the following table will serve to give an idea of the arrangement at present generally received, with some of the more important facts in the succession of animal and vegetable life, as connected with our present subject. it commences with the oldest periods known to geology, and gives in the animal and vegetable kingdoms the _first appearance_ of each class, with a few notes of the subsequent history of the principal forms. it must, however, be borne in mind that farther discoveries may extend some classes farther back than we at present know them, and that a more detailed table, descending to orders and families, would give a more precise view of the succession of life. farther, the several geological formations would admit of much subdivision, and are represented locally by various kinds and different thicknesses of sediment.[ ] tabular view of the succession of geological formations and organic remains. ==================================================================== periods. | systems of | classes of animals. | plants. | formations. | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- i. |ancient metamorphic |eozoon and probably other|graphite and eozoic |rocks of | protozoa. |iron ores period. |scandinavia, | |representing |canada, etc. | |vegetable | | |matter. -------------------------------------------------------------------- ii. |cambrian. |_radiata_--hydrozoa, |algæ. primary | | echinodermata | or | | (cystideans). | palÆozoic| |_mollusca_--brachiopoda, | period. | | lamellibranchiata, | | | gasteropoda, cephalopoda| | | (bivalve and univalve | | | shell-fishes). | | |_articulata_--annelida, | | | crustacea (worms and | | | soft shell-fishes of the| | | lower grades). | | | | |lower silurian. |_radiata_--anthozoa |algæ. | | (coral animals), | | | echinodermata | | | (sea stars, etc.). | | |_mollusca_--polyzoa, | | | tunicata. | | |other mollusks and | | | articulates as before. | | | | |upper silurian. |radiates, mollusks, and |acrogenous | | articulates as before. |land plants. | |_vertebrata_--first | | | ganoid and placoid | | | fishes. | | | | |erian or devonian. |_articulata_--insects |acrogens | | and higher crustaceans. |and | |_vertebrata_--fishes, |gymnosperms. | | ganoid and placoid. | | | | |carboniferous. |_mollusca_--pulmonata |acrogens, | | (land snails). |gymnosperms, | |_articulata_--myriapods, |endogens? | | arachnidans (gallyworms,| | | spiders and scorpions). | | |_vertebrata_--batrachians| | | or amphibians prevalent.| | | | |permian. |_vertebrata_--lacertian | | | or lizard-like | | | reptiles. | -------------------------------------------------------------------- iii. |triassic. |_vertebrata_--higher | secondary| | reptiles prevalent; | or | | marsupial mammals. | mesozoic | | | period. |jurassic. |_vertebrata_--great |endogenous | | prevalence of higher |trees. | | reptiles; fishes, | | | homocerque; earliest | | | birds. | | | | |cretaceous. |_vertebrata_--decadence |angiospermous | | of reign of reptiles; |exogens. | | ordinary bony fishes. | -------------------------------------------------------------------- iv. |eocene. |_vertebrata_--mammals |exogens tertiary | | prevalent, especially |prevalent. or | | pachyderms; cycloid | cainozoic| | and ctenoid fishes | period. | | prevalent. | | |first _living_ |some modern | | invertebrates. |species | | |appear. |miocene. |living invertebrates more| | | numerous. | | | | |pliocene. |living invertebrates | | | still more numerous. | -------------------------------------------------------------------- v. |post-pliocene. |first living mammals. |existing post- | |living invertebrates |vegetation. tertiary | | prevalent. | or | | | modern |post-glacial |man and living mammals. | period. |and recent. | | ==================================================================== the oldest fossil remains known are the protozoa of the laurentian rocks. in the succeeding cambrian or primordial rocks we find many extinct species of zoophytes, shell-fish, and crustaceans, and the algæ or sea-weeds. in the palæozoic period as a whole, though numerous batrachian or amphibian reptiles existed toward its close, the higher orders of fishes seem to have been the dominant tribe of animals; and vegetation was nearly limited to cryptogams and gymnosperms. in the mesozoic period, though small mammalia had been created, large terrestrial and marine reptiles were the ruling race, and fishes occupied a subordinate position; while, at the close, the higher orders of plants took a prominent place. in the tertiary and modern eras, the mammalia, with man, have assumed the highest or dominant position in nature. on this series of groups, and the succession of living beings, sir. c. lyell remarks "it is not pretended that the principal sections called primary, secondary, and tertiary are of equivalent importance, or that the subordinate groups comprise monuments relating to equal portions of time or of the earth's history. but we can assert that they each relate to successive periods, during which certain animals and plants, for the most part peculiar to their respective eras, flourished, and during which different kinds of sediment were deposited." we have already, in previous chapters, noticed the parallelism of the succession of life in the earth as revealed in genesis with that disclosed by geology; but this subject must be farther referred to in the sequel, and in the mean time the reader may compare for himself the succession of life in the table with that in the later creative days. . the lapse of time embraced in the geological history of the earth is enormous. fully to appreciate this it is necessary to study the science in detail, and to explore its phenomena as disclosed in actual nature. a few facts, however, out of hundreds which might have been selected, will suffice to indicate the state of the case. the delta and alluvial plain of the mississippi have an area of more than , square miles, and must have an average depth of about feet. at the present rate of conveyance of sediment by the river, it has been calculated that a period of about , years is implied in the deposition of this comparatively modern formation.[ ] to be quite safe, let us take , years, and add , more for the remainder of the post-pliocene or quaternary. we may then safely multiply this number by forty, for the length of the tertiary period. we may add three times as much for the mesozoic period, and this will be far under the truth. it will then be quite safe to assume that the palæozoic period was three times as long as the mesozoic and tertiary together. this would give altogether, say, , , years for the whole of geological time from the beginning of the palæozoic, leaving the duration of the eozoic and previous periods undetermined, but requiring perhaps nearly as much time. great though these demands may seem, they would be probably far below the rigid requirements of the case were it not for the probability that the present rate of transference of material by the great river is less than it was in post-pliocene and early modern times. this might enable us to reduce our estimate considerably within the scope of a hundred millions of years.[ ] take another illustration from an older formation. an excellent coast section at the joggins, in nova scotia, exhibits in the coal formation proper a series of beds with erect trunks and roots of trees _in situ_, amounting to nearly . about forests have successively grown, partially decayed, and been entombed in muddy and sandy sediment. in the same section, including in all about , feet of beds, there are seams of coal, each of which can be proved to have taken more time for its accumulation than that required for the growth of a forest. supposing all these separate fossil soils and coals to have been formed with the greatest possible rapidity, forty thousand years would be a very moderate calculation for this portion of the carboniferous system; and for aught that we know thousands of years may be represented by a single fossil soil. but this is the age of only one member of the carboniferous system, itself only a member of the great palæozoic group, and we have made no allowance for the abrasion from previous rocks and deposition of the immense mass of sandy and muddy sediment in which the coals and forests are imbedded, and which is vastly greater than the deltas of the largest modern rivers. considerations of a physical rather than of a geological nature also give us long periods for the probable existence of the earth, though they serve to correct somewhat the extravagant estimates of some theorists. croll has based an interesting calculation on the amount of erosion of the land by rivers. that of the mississippi amounts to one foot in years. that of the ganges gives one foot in years, the average being, say, one foot in years. some smaller rivers give a much shorter time; but the average of two great rivers, one draining a very large area of the western and another of the eastern hemisphere, and in very different climates and geographical conditions, will probably be the most reliable datum. croll, however, prefers the mississippi rate.[ ] if we estimate the proportion of land to water as to , this will give for the entire area of the ocean a rate of deposition of one foot in , years. now the entire thickness of all the stratified rocks is estimated at , feet; and at this rate the enormous time of , , , years would be necessary. but we have no right to assume that deposition has been going on uniformly over the entire sea-bottom. on the contrary, the greater part of it takes place within a belt of about one hundred miles from the coasts, and the deposit of calcareous and other matters over the remainder will scarcely make up for the portions of this belt on which no deposit is taking place. this will give an area of deposit of about , , square miles, consequently only one twelfth of the above time, or about , , years, would be required. this can be but a very rough calculation; but it has the merit of squaring very nearly with the calculations derived from physical considerations, more especially by sir william thomson, which limit the possible existence of the earth's solid crust to one hundred millions of years. similar conclusions have also been deduced from what is known of the physical constitution of the sun. croll's own ingenious theory of glacial periods produced by the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, along with the precession of the equinoxes, would give, according to him, about , years ago for the date of the glacial period, and for the beginning of the tertiary period about , , years ago. it would thus appear that physical and geological science conspire in assigning a great antiquity to the earth, but not an unlimited antiquity. they agree in restricting the ages that have elapsed since the introduction of life within one hundred millions of years. i confess, however, that a consideration of the fact that all our geological measures of erosion and deposition seem to be based on cases which refer to what may be termed minimum action leads me to believe that the actual time will fall very far within this limit. for example, if we were to suppose an elevation of the land drained by the mississippi even to a small amount, its cutting power would be vastly increased for a long time. the same effect would result from a subsidence and re-elevation, or from any cause increasing the amount of rainfall or deposition of snows in winter. now we know that such things have occurred in the past, while we have no reason to believe that the amount of action was ever much less than at present. similar considerations apply to nearly all our geological measures of time; and there has been a tendency to exaggerate these, as if geologists were entitled to demand unlimited time, and to stretch the doctrine of uniformity to the utmost. . during the whole time referred to by geology, the great laws both of inorganic and organic nature have been the same as at present. the evidence of light and darkness, of sunshine and shower, of summer and winter, and of all the known igneous and aqueous causes of change, extends back almost, and in some of these cases altogether, to the beginning of the palæozoic period. in like manner the animals and plants of the oldest rocks are constructed on the same physiological and anatomical principles with existing tribes, and they can be arranged in the same genera, orders, or classes, though specifically distinct. the revolutions of the globe have involved no change of the general laws of matter; and though it is possible that geology has carried us back to the time when the laws that regulate life began to operate, it does not show that they were less perfect than now, and it indicates no trace of the beginning of the inorganic laws. geological changes have resulted not from the institution of new laws, but from new _dispositions_, under existing laws and general arrangements. there is every reason to believe that in the inorganic world these dispositions have required no new creative interpositions during the time to which geology refers, but merely the continued action of the properties bestowed on matter when first produced. in the organic world the case is different. . in the succession of animal and vegetable life we find a constant improvement and advance by the introduction of new types of being. we have already given a general outline of this advancement of organized nature. it has consisted in the introduction, from time to time, of new and more highly organized beings, so as at once to increase the variety of nature, and to provide for the elevation of the summit of the graduated scale of life to higher and higher points. at the same time, in each successive period, it has been the law of creation that the forms of life then dominant should attain their highest development, and should then be succeeded by more advanced types. for instance, in the earlier palæozoic period we have molluscous animals and fishes, then apparently the highest forms of life, appearing with a very advanced organization, not surpassed, if even equalled, in modern times. in the latter part of the same period, some lower forms of vegetable life, now restricted to a comparatively humble place, were employed to constitute magnificent forests. in the mesozoic period, again, reptiles attained to their highest point in organization and variety of form and employment, while mammalia had as yet scarcely appeared.[ ] . if now we ask in what manner the succession of life on the earth has been produced, two apparently opposite hypotheses rise before us. the one is that of introduction of new species by creative acts, the other that of development of new species by changes of those previously existing. in one respect the difference of these views is little more than one of expression, for the meaning of the statements depends on what we understand by a species and what by a mere varietal form, and also on what we understand by creation and what we mean by development. twenty years ago nearly all geologists were believers in creation, though it must be admitted without precisely understanding what they meant by the term. now, the great impression produced by darwin's speculations and the prevalence of the evolutionist philosophy have produced a leaning in the other direction. more recently, however, the absurdities into which the extreme evolutionists find themselves driven have produced a reaction; and we hope that views consistent with revelation, or at least with theism, will again be in the ascendant, and that present controversies will serve to give more precise and definite views than heretofore of the relation of nature to god. as illustrations of the opinions prevalent before the rise of the development theory, i may quote from pictet and bronn, two of the most eminent palæontologists. pictet says, in the introduction to his "traité de paléontologie:" "it seems to me impossible that we should admit, as an explanation of the phenomena of successive faunas, the passage of species into one another; the limits of such transitions of species, even supposing that the lapse of a vast period of time may have given them a character of reality much greater than that which the study of existing nature leads us to suppose, are still infinitely within those differences which distinguish two successive faunas. lastly, we can least of all account by this theory for the appearance of new _types_, to explain the introduction of which we must necessarily, in the present state of science, recur to the idea of distinct creations posterior to the first." the following are the general conclusions of bronn, in his elaborate and most valuable essay, presented to the french academy in , as summarized in a notice of the work in the journal of the geological society: " . the first productions of this power in the oldest neptunian strata of the earth consisted of plants, zoophytes, mollusks, crustaceans, and perhaps even fish; the simultaneous appearance of which, therefore, contradicts the assumption that the more perfect organic forms arose out of the gradual transformation in time of the more imperfect forms. " . the same power which produced the first organic forms has continued to operate in intensively as well as extensively increasing activity during the whole subsequent geological period, up to the final appearance of man; but here also can no traces be found of a gradual transformation of old species and genera into new; but the new have everywhere appeared as new without the co-operation of the former. " . in the succession of the different forms of plants and animals, a certain regular course and plan is perceptible, which is quite independent of chance. while all species possess only a limited duration, and must sooner or later disappear, they make way for subsequent new ones, which not only almost always offer an equivalent, in number, organization, and duties to be performed, for those which have disappeared, but which are also generally more varied, and therefore more perfect, and always maintain an equilibrium with each other in their stage of organization, their mode of life, and functions. there always exists, therefore, a certain fixed relation between the newly arising and the disappearing forms of organic life. " . a similar relation necessarily exists between the newly arising organic forms and the outward conditions of life which prevailed at their first appearance on the earth's surface, or at the place of their appearance. " . a fixed plan appears to be the basis of the whole series of development of organic forms, in so far as man makes his first appearance at its close, when he finds every thing prepared that is necessary to his own existence and to his progressive development and improvement--which would not have been possible had he appeared at a former period. " . such a regular progress in carrying out the same plan from the beginning to the end of a period of millions of years can only be accounted for in one of two ways. either this course of successive development during millions of years has been the regular immediate result of the systematic action of a conscious creator, who on every occasion settled and carried out not only the order of appearance, formation, organization, and terrestrial object of each of the countless numbers of species of plants and animals, but also the number of the first individuals, the place of their settlement in every instance, although it was in his power to create every thing at once--or there existed some natural power hitherto entirely unknown to us, which by means of its own laws formed the species of plants and animals, and arranged and regulated all those countless individual conditions; which power, however, must in this case have stood in the most immediate connection with, and in perfect subordination to, those powers which caused the gradually progressing perfection of the crust of the earth, and the gradual development of the outward conditions of life for the constantly increasing numbers and higher classes of organic forms in consequence of this perfection. only in this way can we explain how the development of the organic world could have regularly kept pace with that of the inorganic. such a power, although we know it not, would not only be in perfect accordance with all the other functions of nature, but the creator, who regulated the development of organic nature by means of such a force so implanted in it, as he guides that of the inorganic world by the mere co-operation of attraction and affinity, must appear to us more exalted and imposing than if we assumed that he must always be giving the same care to the introduction and change of the vegetable and animal world on the surface of the earth as a gardener daily bestows on each individual plant in the arrangement of his garden. " . we therefore believe that all species of plants and animals were originally produced by some natural power unknown to us, and not by transformation from a few original forms, and that that power was in the closest and most necessary connection with those powers and circumstances which effected the perfection of the earth's surface." barrande also, probably the greatest living palæontologist of europe, adheres substantially to these views; as agassiz did, and i believe hall and dana still do, in america. i have, for my own part, seen no reason to dissent from these views, though in the sequel i shall endeavor to present some considerations which may tend to reconcile with them some of the hypotheses of a contrary nature now held. it must be admitted, however, that the majority of geologists and biologists have abandoned these views of pictet and bronn, and have gone over to the evolutionist philosophy, with how little reason i have endeavored to show elsewhere,[ ] and shall farther illustrate in the appendix. let it be observed, however, that even evolution does not affect the grand idea of the unity of nature, or the fact that the plan of the creator in the organic world was so vast that it required the whole duration of our planet, in all its stages of physical existence, to embrace the whole. there is but one system of organic nature; but, to exhibit the whole of it, not only all the climates and conditions now existing are required, but those also of all past geological periods. further, the progress of nature being mainly in the direction of differentiation of functions once combined, it has a limit backward in the most general forms and conditions, and forward in the most specialized. this is the history of the individual and probably also of the type, of the world itself and of the universe; and for this reason material nature necessarily lacks the eternity of its author. it appears, from the above facts and reasonings, that geology informs us-- . that the materials of our existing continents are of secondary origin, as distinguished from primitive or coeval with the beginning. . that a chronological order of formation of these rocks can be made out. . that the fossil remains contained in the rocks constitute a chronology of animal and vegetable existence. . that the history of the earth may be divided in this way into distinct periods, all pre-adamite. . that the pre-adamite periods were of enormous duration. . that during these periods the existing general laws of nature were in force, though the dispositions of inorganic nature were different in different periods, and the animals and plants of successive periods were also different from each other. . the introduction of new species of animals and of plants, while indicating advance in the perfection of nature, does not prove spontaneous development, but rather a definite plan and law of creation. the parallelism of these conclusions of careful inductive inquiry into the structure of the earth's crust, with the results which we have already obtained from revelation, may be summed up under the following heads: . scripture and science both testify to the great fact that there was a beginning--a time when none of all the parts of the fabric of the universe existed; when the self-existent was the sole occupant of space. the scriptures announce in plain terms this great truth, and thereby rise at once high above atheism, pantheism, and materialism, and lay a broad and sure foundation for a pure and spiritual theology. had the pen of inspiration written but the words, "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth," and added no more, these words alone would have borne the impress of their heavenly birth, and would, if received in faith, have done much for the progress of the human mind. these words contain a negation of hero-worship, star-worship, animal-worship, and every other form of idolatry. they still more emphatically deny atheism and materialism, and point upward from nature to its spiritual creator--the one, the triune, the eternal, the self-existent, the all-pervading, the almighty. they call upon us, as with a voice of thunder, to bow down before that awful being of whom it can be said that he created the heavens and the earth. they thus embody the whole essence of natural theology, and most appropriately stand at the entrance of holy scripture, referring us to the works which men behold, as the visible manifestation of the attributes of the being whose spiritual nature is unveiled in revelation. scripture thus begins with the announcement of a great ultimate fact, to which science conducts us with but slow and timid steps. yet science, and especially geological science, can bear witness to this great truth. the materialist, reasoning on the fancied stability of natural things, and their inscription within invariable laws, concludes that matter must be eternal. no, replies the geologist, certainly not in its present form. this is but of recent origin, and was preceded by other arrangements. every existing species can be traced back to a time when it was not; so can the existing continents, mountains, and seas. under our processes of investigation the present melts away like a dream, and we are landed on the shores of past and unknown worlds. but i read, says the objector, that you can see "no evidence of a beginning, no prospect of an end." it is true, answers geology; but, in so saying, it is not intended that the present state of things had not an ascertained beginning, but that there has been a great and, so far as we know, unlimited series of changes carried on under the guidance of intelligence. these changes we have traced back very far, without being able to say that we have reached the first. we can trace back man and his contemporaries to their origin, and we can reach the points at which still older dynasties of life began to exist. knowing, then, that all these had a beginning, we infer that if others preceded them they also had a beginning. but, says another objector, is not the present the child of the past? are not all the creatures that inhabit the earth the lineal descendants of creatures of past periods, or may not the whole be parts of one continual succession, under the operation of an eternal law of development? no, answers geology, species are immutable, except within narrow limits, and do not pass into each other, in tracing them toward their origin. on the contrary, they appear at once in their most perfect state, and continue unchanged till they are forced off the stage of existence to give place to other creatures. the origin of species is a mystery, and belongs to no natural law that has yet been established. thus, then, stands the case at present. scripture asserts a beginning and a creation. science admits these, as far as the objects with which it is conversant extend, and the notions of eternal succession and spontaneous development, discountenanced both by theology and science, are obliged to take refuge in those misty regions where modern philosophical skepticism consorts with the shades of departed heathenism.[ ] . both records exhibit the progressive character of creation, and in much the same aspect. the almighty might have called into existence, by one single momentary act, a world complete in all its parts. from both scripture and geology we know that he has not done so--why we need not inquire, though we can see that the process employed was that best adapted to show forth the variety of his resources and the infinitely varied elements that enter into the perfect whole. the scripture history may be viewed as dividing the progress of the creation into two great periods, the later of which only is embraced in the geological record. the first commences with the original chaos, and reaches to the completion of inorganic nature on the fourth day. had we any geological records of the first of these periods, we should perceive the evidences of slow mutations, tending to the sorting and arrangement of the materials of the earth, and to produce distinct light and darkness, sea and land, atmosphere and cloud, out of what was originally a mixture of the whole. we should also, according to the scriptural record, find this period interlocking with the next, by the intervention of a great vegetable creation, before the final adjustment of the earth's relations to the other bodies of our system. the second period is that of the creative development of animal life. from both records we learn that various ranks or gradations existed from the first introduction of animals; but that on the earlier stages only certain of the lower forms of animals were present; that these soon attained their highest point, and then gradually, on each succeeding platform, the variety of nature in its higher--the vertebrate--form increased, and the upper margin of animal life attained a more and more elevated point, culminating at length in man; while certain of the older forms were dropped, as no longer required. in the oldest fossiliferous rocks next to the eozoic, which so far have afforded only protozoa--e. g., the cambrian and lower silurian--we find the mollusca represented mainly by their highest and lowest classes, by allies of the cuttle-fish and nautilus, and by the lowest bivalve shell-fishes. the articulata are represented by the highest marine class--the crustaceans--and by the lowest--the worms, which have left their marks on some of the lowest fossiliferous beds. the radiata, in like manner, are represented by species of their highest class--the starfishes, etc.--and by some of their simpler polyp forms. at the very beginning, then, of the fossiliferous series, the three lower sub-kingdoms exhibit species of their most elevated aquatic classes, though not of the very highest orders in those classes. the vertebrated sub-kingdom has, as far as yet known, no representative in these lowest beds. in the upper silurian series, however, we find remains of fishes; and in the succeeding devonian and carboniferous rocks the fishes rise to the highest structures of their class; and we find several species of reptiles, representing the next of the vertebrated classes in ascending order. here a very remarkable fact meets us. before the close of the palæozoic period the three lower sub-kingdoms and the fishes had already attained the highest perfection of which their types are capable. multitudes of new species and genera were added subsequently, but none of them rising higher in the scale of organization than those which occur in the palæozoic rocks. thenceforth the progressive improvement of the animal kingdom consisted in the addition, first of the reptile, which attained its highest perfection and importance in the mesozoic period, and then of the bird and mammal, which did not attain their highest forms till the modern period. this geological order of animal life, it is scarcely necessary to add, agrees perfectly with that sketched by moses, in which the lower types are completed at once, and the progress is wholly in the higher. in the inspired narrative we have already noticed some peculiarities, as, for instance, the early appearance of a highly developed flora, and the special mention of great reptiles in the work of the fifth day, which correspond with the significant fact that high types of structure appeared at the very introduction of each new group of organized beings--a fact which, more than any other in geology, shows that, in the organic department, elevation has always been a strictly _creative_ work, and that there is in the constitution of animal species no innate tendency to elevation, but that on the contrary we should rather suspect a tendency to degeneracy and ultimate disappearance, requiring that the fiat of the creator should after a time go out again to "renew the face of the earth." in the natural as in the moral world, the only law of progress is the will and the power of god. in one sense, however, progress in the organic world has been dependent on, though not caused by, progress in the inorganic. we see in geology many grounds for believing that each new tribe of animals or plants was introduced just as the earth became fitted for it; and even in the present world we see that regions composed of the more ancient rocks, and not modified by subsequent disturbances, present few of the means of support for man and the higher animals; while those districts in which various revolutions of the earth have accumulated fertile soils or deposited useful minerals are the chief seats of civilization and population. in like manner we know that those regions which the bible informs us were the cradle of the human race and the seats of the oldest nations are geologically among the most recent parts of the existing continents, and were no doubt selected by the creator partly on that account for the birthplace of man. we thus find that the bible and the geologists are agreed not only as to the fact and order of progress, but also as to its manner and use. . both records agree in affirming that since the beginning there has been but one great system of nature. we can imagine it to have been otherwise. our existing nature might have been preceded by a state of things having no connection with it. the arrangements of the earth's surface might have been altogether different; races of creatures might have existed having no affinity with or resemblance to those of the present world, and we might have been able to trace no present beneficial consequences as flowing from these past states of our planet. had geology made such revelations as these, the consequences in relation to natural theology and the credibility of scripture would have been momentous. the mosaic narrative could scarcely, in that case, have been interpreted in such a manner as to accord with geological conclusions. the questions would have arisen--are there more creative powers than one? if one, is he an imperfect or capricious being who changes his plans of operation? the divine authority of the scriptures, as well as the unity and perfections of god, might thus have been involved in serious doubts. happily for us, there is nothing of this kind in the geological history of the earth; as there is manifestly nothing of it in that which is revealed in scripture. in the scripture narrative each act of creation prepares for the others, and in its consequences extends to them all. the inspired writer announces the introduction of each new part of creation, and then leaves it without any reference to the various phases which it assumed as the work advanced. in the grand general view which he takes, the land and seas first made represent those of all the following periods. so do the first plants, the first invertebrate animals, the first fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. he thus assures us that, however long the periods represented by days of creation, the system of nature was one from the beginning. in like manner in the geological record each of the successive conditions of the earth is related to those which precede and those which follow, as part of a series. so also a uniform plan of construction pervades organic nature, and uniform laws the inorganic world in all periods. we can thus include in one system of natural history all animals and plants, fossil as well as recent, and can resolve all inorganic changes into the operation of existing laws. the former of these facts is in its nature so remarkable as almost to warrant the belief of special design. naturalists had arranged the existing animals and plants, without any reference to fossil species, in kingdoms, sub-kingdoms, classes, orders, families, and genera. geological research has added a vast number of species not now existing in a living state; yet all these fossils can be inserted within the limits of recognized groups. we do not require to add a new kingdom, sub-kingdom, or class; but, on the contrary, all the fossil genera and species go into the existing divisions, in such a manner as to fill them up precisely where they are most deficient, thus occupying what would otherwise be gaps in the existing system of nature. the principal difficulty which they occasion to the zoologist and botanist is that, by filling the intervals between genera previously widely separated, they give to the whole a degree of continuity which renders it more difficult to decide where the boundaries separating the groups should be placed. we also find that the animals and plants of the earlier periods often combined in one form powers and properties afterward separated in distinct groups; thus in the earlier formations the sauroid fishes unite peculiarities afterward divided between the fish and reptiles, constituting what agassiz has called a synthetic type. again, the series of creatures in time accords with the ranks which a study of their types of structure induces the naturalist to assign them in his system; and also within each of the great sub-kingdoms presents many points of accordance with the progress of the embryonic development of the individual animal. nor is this contradictory to the statement that the earlier representatives of types are often of high and perfect organization, for the progress both in geological time and in the life of the individual is so much one of specialization that an immature animal often presents points of affinity to higher forms that disappear in the adult. in connection with this, earlier organic forms often appear to foreshadow and predict others that are to succeed them in time, as the winged and marine reptiles of the mesozoic foreshadow the birds and cetaceans. agassiz has admirably illustrated these links of connection between the past and the present in the essay on classification prefixed to his "contributions to the natural history of america." in reference to "prophetic" types, he says: "they appear now like a prophecy in those earlier times of an order of things not possible with the earlier combinations then prevailing in the animal kingdom, but exhibiting in a later period in a striking manner the antecedent consideration of every step in the gradation of animals." . the periods into which geology divides the history of the earth are different from those of scripture, yet when properly understood there is a marked correspondence. geology refers only to the fifth and sixth days of creation, or, at most, to these with parts of the fourth and seventh, and it divides this portion of the work into several eras, founded on alternations of rock formations and changes in organic remains. the nature of geological evidence renders it probable that many apparently well-marked breaks in the chain may result merely from deficiency in the preserved remains; and consequently that what appear to the geologist to be very distinct periods may in reality run together. the only natural divisions that scripture teaches us to look for are those between the fifth and sixth days, and those which within these days mark the introduction of new animal forms, as, for instance, the great reptiles of the fifth day. we have already seen that the beginning of the fifth day can be referred almost with certainty to the palæozoic period. the beginning of the sixth day may with nearly equal certainty be referred to that of the tertiary era. the introduction of great reptiles and birds in the fifth day synchronizes and corresponds with the beginning of the mesozoic period; and that of man at the close of the sixth day with the commencement of the modern era in geology. these four great coincidences are so much more than we could have expected, in records so very different in their nature and origin, that we need not pause to search for others of a more obscure character. it may be well to introduce here a tabular view of this correspondence between the geological and biblical periods, extending it as far as either record can carry us, and thus giving a complete general view of the origin and history of the world as deduced from revelation and science. in comparing this table with that on page , it will be observed that the latter refers to the last half of the creative week only, the earlier half being occupied with physical changes which, however probable inferentially, are not within the scope of geological observation. parallelism of the scriptural cosmogony with the astronomical and geological history of the earth. ==================================================================== | biblical Æons. | periods deduced from scientific | considerations. -------------------------------------------------------------------- the beginning. |creation of matter. | _first day._--earth mantled by |condensation of planetary bodies the vaporous deep--production | from a nebulous mass--hypothesis of light. | of original incandescence. | _second day._--earth covered by |primitive universal ocean, and the waters--formation of the | establishment of atmospheric atmosphere. | equilibrium. | _third day._--emergence of dry |elevation of the land which land--introduction of | furnished the materials of the vegetation. | oldest rocks--eozoic period of | geology? | _fourth day._--completion of the |metamorphism of eozoic rocks and arrangements of the solar system.| disturbances preceding the | cambrian epoch--present | arrangement of seasons--dominion | of "existing causes" begins. | _fifth day._--invertebrates and |palæozoic period--reign of fishes, and afterward great | invertebrates and fishes. reptiles and birds created. |mesozoic period--reign of | reptiles. | _sixth day._--introduction of |tertiary period--reign of mammals. mammals--creation of man and |post-tertiary--existing mammals edenic group of animals. | and man. | _seventh day._--cessation of work |period of human history. of creation--fall and redemption | of man. | | _eighth day._--new heavens and | earth to succeed the human epoch | --"the rest (sabbath) that | remains to the people of god." | [ ] | ====================================================================== _note._--the above table is identical with that published in "archaia" in , and which the author sees no reason now to change. . in both records the ocean gives birth to the first dry land, and it is the sea that is first inhabited, yet both lead at least to the suspicion that a state of igneous fluidity preceded the primitive universal ocean. in scripture the original prevalence of the ocean is distinctly stated, and all geologists are agreed that in the early fossiliferous periods the sea must have prevailed much more extensively than at present. scripture also expressly states that the waters were the birthplace of the earliest animals, and geology has as yet discovered in the whole silurian series no terrestrial animal, though marine creatures are extremely abundant; and though air-breathing creatures are found in the later palæozoic, they are, with the exception of insects, of that semi-amphibious character which is proper to alluvial flats and the deltas of rivers. it is true that the negative evidence collected by geology does not render it altogether impossible that terrestrial animals, even mammals, may have existed in the earliest periods; yet there are, as already pointed out, some positive indications opposed to this. the scripture, however, commits itself to the statement that the higher land animals did not exist so early, though it must be observed that there is nothing in the mosaic narrative adverse to the existence of birds, insects, and reptiles in the earlier palæozoic periods. i have said that the bible, which informs us of a universal ocean preceding the existence of land, also gives indications of a still earlier period of igneous fluidity or gaseous expansion. geology also and astronomy have their reasonings and speculations as to the prevalence of such conditions. here, however, both records become dim and obscure, though it is evident that both point in the same direction, and combine those aqueous and igneous origins which in the last century afforded so fertile ground of one-sided dispute. . both records concur in maintaining what is usually termed the doctrine of existing causes in geology. scripture and geology alike show that since the beginning of the fifth day, or palæozoic period, the inorganic world has continued under the dominion of the same causes that now regulate its changes and processes. the sacred narrative gives no hint of any creative interposition in this department after the fourth day; and geology assures us that all the rocks with which it is acquainted have been produced by the same causes that are now throwing down detritus in the bottom of the waters, or bringing up volcanic products from the interior of the earth. this grand generalization, therefore, first worked out in modern times by sir charles lyell, from a laborious collection of the changes occurring in the present state of the world, was, as a doctrine of divine revelation, announced more than three thousand years ago by the hebrew lawgiver; not for scientific purposes, but as a part of the theology of the hebrew monotheism. . both records agree in assuring us that death prevailed in the world ever since animals were introduced. the punishment threatened to adam, and considerations connected with man's state of innocence, have led to the belief that the bible teaches that the lower animals, as well as man, were exempt from death before the fall. when, however, we find the great _tanninim_, or crocodilian reptiles, created in the fifth day, and beasts of prey on the sixth, we need entertain no doubt on the subject, in so far as scripture is concerned. the geological record is equally explicit. carnivorous creatures, with the most formidable powers of destruction, have left their remains in all parts of the geological series; and indeed, up to the introduction of man, the carnivorous fishes, reptiles, and quadrupeds were the lords and tyrants of the earth. there can be little doubt, however, that the introduction of man was the beginning of a change in this respect. a creature destitute of offensive weapons, and subsisting on fruits, was to rule by the power of intellect. as already hinted, it is probable that in eden he was surrounded by a group of inoffensive animals, and that those creatures which he had cause to dread would have disappeared as he extended his dominion. in this way the law of violent death and destruction which prevailed under the dynasties of the fish, the reptile, and the carnivorous mammifer would ultimately have been abrogated; and under the milder sway of man life and peace would have reigned in a manner to which our knowledge of pre-adamite and present nature may afford no adequate key. be this as it may, on the important point of the original prevalence of death among the lower animals both records are at one. . in the department of "final causes," as they have been termed, scripture and geology unite in affording large and interesting views. they illustrate the procedure of the all-wise creator during a long succession of ages, and thus enable us to see the effects of any of his laws, not only at one time, but in far distant periods. to reject the consideration of this peculiarity of geological science would be the extremest folly, and would involve at once a misinterpretation of the geologic record and a denial of the agency of an intelligent designer as revealed in scripture, and indicated by the succession of beings. many of the past changes of the earth acquire their full significance only when taken in connection with the present wants of the earth's inhabitants; and along the whole course of the geological history the creatures that we meet with are equally rich in the evidences of nice adaptation to circumstances and wonderful contrivances for special ends, with their modern representatives. as an example of the former, how wonderful is the connection of the great vegetable accumulations of the ancient coal swamps, and the bands and nodules of iron-stone which were separated from the ferruginous sands or clays in their vicinity by the action of this very vegetable matter, with the whole fabric of modern civilization, and especially with the prosperity of that race which, in our time, stands in the front of the world's progress. in a very ancient period, wide swamps and deltas, teeming with vegetable life, and which, if they now existed, would be but pestilent breeders of miasmata, spread over large tracts of the northern hemisphere, on which marine animals had previously accumulated thick sheets of limestone. vast beds of vegetable matter were collected by growth in these swamps, and the waste particles that passed off in the form of organic acids were employed in concentrating the oxide of iron in underlying clays and sands. in the lapse of ages the whole of these accumulations were buried deep in the crust of the earth; and long periods succeeded, when the earth was tenanted by reptilian and other creatures, unconscious of the treasures beneath them. the modern period arrived. the equable climate of the coal era had passed away. continents were prepared for the residence of man, and the edges of the old carboniferous beds were exposed by subterranean movements, and laid bare by denudation. man was introduced, fell from his state of innocence, and was condemned to earn his subsistence by the sweat of his brow; and now for the first time appears the use of these buried coal swamps. they now afford at once the materials of improvement in the arts and of comfortable subsistence in extreme climates, and subjects of surpassing interest to the naturalist. similar instances may be gleaned by the natural theologian from nearly every part of the geological history. lastly. both records represent man as the last of god's works, and the culminating-point of the whole creation. we have already had occasion to refer to this as a result of zoology, geology, and scriptural exegesis, and may here confine ourselves to the moral consequences of this great truth. man is the capital of the column; and, if marred and defaced by moral evil, the symmetry of the whole is to be restored, not by rejecting him altogether, like the extinct species of the ancient world, and replacing him by another, but by re-casting him in the image of his divine redeemer. man, though recently introduced, is to exist eternally. he is, in one or another state of being, to be witness of all future changes of the earth. he has before him the option of being one with his maker, and sharing in a future glorious and finally renovated condition of our planet, or of sinking into endless degradation. such is the great spiritual drama of man's fate to be acted out on the theatre of the world. every human being must play his part in it, and the present must decide what that part shall be. the bible bases these great foreshadowings of the future on its own peculiar evidence; yet i may venture humbly to maintain that its harmony with natural science, as far as the latter can ascend, gives to the word of god a pre-eminent claim on the attention of the naturalist. the bible, unlike every other system of religious doctrine, fears no investigation or discussion. it courts these. "while science," says a modern divine,[ ] "is fatal to superstition, it is fortification to a scriptural faith. the bible is the bravest of books. coming from god, and conscious of nothing but god's truth, it awaits the progress of knowledge with calm security. it watches the antiquary ransacking among classic ruins, and rejoices in every medal he discovers and every inscription he deciphers; for from that rusty coin or corroded marble it expects nothing but confirmations of its own veracity. in the unlocking of an egyptian hieroglyphic or the unearthing of some implement it hails the resurrection of so many witnesses; and with sparkling elation it follows the botanist as he scales mount lebanon, or the zoologist as he makes acquaintance with the beasts of the syrian desert; or the traveller as he stumbles on a long-lost petra or nineveh or babylon. and from the march of time it fears no evil, but calmly abides the fulfilment of those prophecies and the forthcoming of those events with whose predicted story inspiration has already inscribed its page. it is not light but darkness which the bible deprecates; and if men of piety were also men of science, and if men of science were to search the scriptures, there would be more faith in the earth, and also more philosophy." the reader has, i trust, found in the preceding pages sufficient evidence that the bible has nothing to dread from the revelations of geology, but much to hope in the way of elucidation of its meaning and confirmation of its truth. if convinced of this, i trust that he will allow me now to ask for the warnings, promises, and predictions of the book of god his entire confidence; and, in conclusion, to direct his attention to the glorious prospects which it holds forth to the human race, and to every individual of it who, in humility and self-renunciation, casts himself in faith on that divine redeemer who is at once the creator of the heavens and the earth, and the brother and the friend of the penitent and the contrite. that same old book, which carries back our view to those ancient conditions of our planet which preceded not only the creation of man, but the earliest periods of which science has cognizance, likewise carries our minds forward into the farthest depths of futurity, and shows that all present things must pass away. it reveals to us a new heaven and a new earth, which are to replace those now existing; when the eternal son of god, the manifestation of the father equally in creation and redemption, shall come forth conquering and to conquer, and shall sweep away into utter extinction all the blood-stained tyrannies of the present earth, even as he has swept away the brute dynasties of the pre-adamite world, and shall establish a reign of peace, of love, and of holiness that shall never pass away: when the purified sons of adam, rejoicing in immortal youth and happiness, shall be able to look back with enlarged understandings and grateful hearts on the whole history of creation and redemption, and shall join their angelic brethren in the final and more ecstatic repetition of that hymn of praise with which the heavenly hosts greeted the birth of our planet. may god in his mercy grant that he who writes and they who read may "stand in their lot at the end of the days" and enjoy the full fruition of these glorious prospects. appendix. a.--true and false evolution. the term "evolution" need not in itself be a bugbear on theological grounds. the bible writers would, i presume, have no objection to it if understood to mean the development of the plans of the creator in nature. that kind of evolution to which they would object, and to which enlightened reason also objects, is the spontaneous evolution of nothing into atoms and force, and of these into all the wonderful and complicated plan of nature, without any guiding mind. farther, biological and palæontological science, as well as the bible, object to the derivation of living things from dead matter by merely natural means, because this can not be proved to be possible, and to the production of the series of organic forms found as fossils in the rocks of the earth by the process of struggle for existence and survival of the fittest, because this does not suffice to account for the complex phenomena presented by this succession. with reference to the testimony of palæontology, i have in other publications developed this very fully; and would here merely quote the summing up of the argument, as given in my address of before the american association for the advancement of science: "i have thus far said nothing of the bearing of the prevalent ideas of descent with modification on this wonderful procession of life. none of these of course can be expected to take us back to the origin of living beings; but they also fail to explain why so vast numbers of highly organized species struggle into existence simultaneously in one age and disappear in another; why no continuous chain of succession in time can be found gradually blending species into each other; and why in the natural succession of things degradation under the influence of external conditions and final extinction seem to be laws of organic existence. it is useless here to appeal to the imperfection of the record or to the movements or migrations of species. the record is now in many important parts too complete, and the simultaneousness of the entrance of the faunas and floras too certainly established, and moving species from place to place only evades the difficulty. the truth is that such hypotheses are at present premature, and that we require to have larger collections of facts. independently of this, however, it appears to me that from a philosophical point of view it is extremely probable that all theories of evolution as at present applied to life are fundamentally defective in being too partial in their character; and perhaps i can not better group the remainder of the facts to which i wish to refer than by using them to illustrate this feature of most of the later attempts at generalization on this subject. "first, then, these hypotheses are too partial in their tendency to refer numerous and complex phenomena to one cause, or to a few causes only, when all trustworthy analogy would indicate that they must result from many concurrent forces and determinations of force. we have all no doubt read those ingenious, not to say amusing, speculations in which some entomologists and botanists have indulged with reference to the mutual relations of flowers and haustellate insects. geologically the facts oblige us to begin with cryptogamous plants and mandibulate insects, and out of the desire of insects for non-existent honey, and the adaptations of plants to the requirements of non-existent suctorial apparatus, we have to evolve the marvellous complexity of floral form and coloring, and the exquisitely delicate apparatus of the mouths of haustellate insects. now when it is borne in mind that this theory implies a mental confusion on our part precisely similar to that which in the department of mechanics actuates the seekers for perpetual motion, that we have not the smallest tittle of evidence that the changes required have actually occurred in any one case, and that the thousands of other structures and relations of the plant and the insect have to be worked out by a series of concurrent evolutions so complex and absolutely incalculable in the aggregate that the cycles and epicycles of the ptolemaic astronomy were child's play in comparison, we need not wonder that the common-sense of mankind revolts against such fancies, and that we are accused of attempting to construct the universe by methods that would baffle omnipotence itself, because they are simply absurd. in this aspect of them indeed such speculations are necessarily futile, because no mind can grasp all the complexities of even any one case, and it is useless to follow out an imaginary line of development which unexplained facts must contradict at every step. this is also no doubt the reason why all recent attempts at constructing 'phylogenies' are so changeable, and why no two experts can agree about the details of any of them. "a second aspect in which such speculations are too partial is in the unwarranted use which they make of analogy. it is not unusual to find such analogies as that between the embryonic development of the individual animal and the succession of animals in geological time placed on a level with that reasoning from analogy by which geologists apply modern causes to explain geological formations. no claim could be more unfounded. when the geologist studies ancient limestones built up of the remains of corals, and then applies the phenomena of modern coral reefs to explain their origin, he brings the latter to bear on the former by an analogy which includes not merely the apparent results, but the causes at work, and the conditions of their action, and it is on this that the validity of his comparison depends, in so far as it relates to similarity of mode of formation. but when we compare the development of an animal from an embryo cell with the progress of animals in time, though we have a curious analogy as to the steps of the process, the conditions and causes at work are known to be altogether dissimilar, and therefore we have no evidence whatever as to identity of cause, and our reasoning becomes at once the most transparent of fallacies. farther, we have no right here to overlook the fact that the conditions of the embryo are determined by those of a previous adult, and that no sooner does this hereditary potentiality produce a new adult animal than the terrible external agencies of the physical world, in presence of which all life exists, begin to tell on the organism, and after a struggle of longer or shorter duration it succumbs to death, and its substance returns into inorganic nature--a law from which even the longer life of the species does not seem to exempt it. all this is so plain and manifest that it is extraordinary that evolutionists will continue to use such partial and imperfect arguments. another example may be taken from that application of the doctrine of natural selection to explain the introduction of species in geological time, which is so elaborately discussed by sir c. lyell in the last edition of his 'principles of geology.' the great geologist evidently leans strongly to the theory, and claims for it the 'highest degree of probability;' yet he perceives that there is a serious gap in it, since no modern fact has ever proved the origin of a new species by modification. such a gap, if it existed in those grand analogies by which we explain geological formations through modern causes, would be admitted to be fatal. "a third illustration of the partial character of these hypotheses may be taken from the use made of the theory deduced from modern physical discoveries, that life must be merely a product of the continuous operation of physical laws. the assumption, for it is nothing more, that the phenomena of life are produced merely by some arrangement of physical forces, even if it be admitted to be true, gives only a partial explanation of the possible origin of life. it does not account for the fact that life as a force or combination of forces is set in antagonism to all other forces. it does not account for the marvellous connection of life with organization. it does not account for the determination and arrangement of forces implied in life. a very simple illustration may make this plain. if the problem to be solved were the origin of the mariner's compass, one might assert that it is wholly a physical arrangement both as to matter and force. another might assert that it involves mind and intelligence in addition. in some sense both would be right. the properties of magnetic force and of iron or steel are purely physical, and it might even be within the bounds of possibility that somewhere in the universe a mass of natural loadstone may have been so balanced as to swing in harmony with the earth's magnetism. yet we would surely be regarded as very credulous if we could be induced to believe that the mariner's compass has originated in that way. this argument applies with a thousandfold greater force to the origin of life, which involves even in its simplest forms so many more adjustments of force and so much more complex machinery. "fourthly, these hypotheses are partial, inasmuch as they fail to account for the vastly varied and correlated interdependencies of natural things and forces, and for the unity of plan which pervades the whole. these can be explained only by taking into the account another element from without. even when it professes to admit the existence of a god, the evolutionist reasoning of our day contents itself altogether with the physical or visible universe, and leaves entirely out of sight the power of the unseen and spiritual, as if this were something with which science has nothing to do, but which belongs only to imagination or sentiment. so much has this been the case, that when recently a few physicists and naturalists have turned to this aspect of the case, they have seemed to be teaching new and startling truths, though only reviving some of the oldest and most permanent ideas of our race. from the dawn of human thought it has been the conclusion alike of philosophers, theologians, and the common-sense of mankind that the seen can be explained only by reference to the unseen, and that any merely physical theory of the world is necessarily partial. this, too, is the position of our sacred scriptures, and is broadly stated in their opening verse; and indeed it lies alike at the basis of all true religion and all sound philosophy, for it must necessarily be that 'the things that are seen are temporal, the things that are unseen eternal.' with reference to the primal aggregation of energy in the visible universe, with reference to the introduction of life, with reference to the soul of man, with reference to the heavenly gifts of genius and prophecy, with reference to the introduction of the saviour himself into the world, and with reference to the spiritual gifts and graces of god's people--all these spring not from sporadic acts of intervention, but from the continuous action of god and the unseen world, and this we must never forget is the true ideal of creation in scripture and in sound theology. only in such exceptional and little influential philosophies as that of democritus, and in the speculations of a few men carried off their balance by the brilliant physical discoveries of our age, has this necessarily partial and imperfect view been adopted. never, indeed, was its imperfection more clear than in the light of modern science. "geology, by tracing back all present things to their origin, was the first science to establish on a basis of observed facts the necessity of a beginning and end of the world. but even physical science now teaches us that the visible world is a vast machine for the dissipation of energy; that the processes going on in it must have had a beginning in time, and that all things tend to a final and helpless equilibrium. this necessity implies an unseen power, an invisible universe, in which the visible universe must have originated, and to which its energy is ever returning. the hiatus between the seen and the unseen may be bridged over by the conceptions of atomic vortices of force, and by the universal and continuous ether; but whether or not, it has become clear that the conception of the unseen as existing has become necessary to our belief in the possible existence of the physical universe itself, even without taking life into the account. "it is in the domain of life, however, that this necessity becomes most apparent; and it is in the plant that we first clearly perceive a visible testimony to that unseen which is the counterpart of the seen. life in the plant opposes the outward rush of force in our system, arrests a part of it on its way, fixes it as potential energy, and thus, forming a mere eddy, so to speak, in the process of dissipation of energy, it accumulates that on which animal life and man himself may subsist, and asserts for a time supremacy over the seen and temporal on behalf of the unseen and eternal. i say for a time, because life is, in the visible universe, as at present constituted, but a temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where it is no longer the exception, but the eternal rule. in a still higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify to a creator, organization and life, whether in the plant, the animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven that surrounds the visible universe. in them, too, almighty power is no doubt conditioned or limited by law, yet they bear more distinctly upon them the impress of their maker; and, while all explanations of the physical universe which refuse to recognize its spiritual and unseen origin must necessarily be partial and in the end incomprehensible, this destiny falls more quickly and surely on the attempt to account for life and its succession on merely materialistic principles. "here again, however, i must remind you that creation, as maintained against such materialistic evolution, whether by theology, philosophy, or holy scripture, is necessarily a continuous, nay, an eternal influence, not an intervention of disconnected acts. it is the true continuity, which includes and binds together all other continuity. "it is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest need; and i must here record my belief that neither men of science nor theologians have a right to separate what god in holy scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall between nature and religion, and write upon it 'no thoroughfare.' the science that does this must be impotent to explain nature, and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. the theology that does this must sink into mere superstition. "in conclusion, can we formulate a few of the general laws, or perhaps i had better call them general conclusions, respecting life, in which all palæontologists may agree? perhaps it is not possible to do this at present satisfactorily, but the attempt may do no harm. we may, then, i think, make the following affirmations: " . the existence of life and organization on the earth is not eternal, nor even coeval with the beginning of the physical universe, but may possibly date from laurentian or immediately pre-laurentian times. " . the introduction of new species of animals and plants has been a continuous process, not necessarily in the sense of derivation of one species from another, but in the higher sense of the continued operation of the cause or causes which introduced life at first. this, as already stated, i take to be the true theological or scriptural as well as scientific idea of what we ordinarily and somewhat loosely term creation. " . though thus continuous, the process has not been uniform; but periods of rapid production of species have alternated with others in which many disappeared and few were introduced. this may have been an effect of physical cycles reacting on the progress of life. " . species, like individuals, have greater energy and vitality in their younger stages, and rapidly assume all their varietal forms, and extend themselves as widely as external circumstances will permit. like individuals also, they have their periods of old age and decay, though the life of some species has been of enormous duration in comparison with that of others; the difference appearing to be connected with degrees of adaptation to different conditions of life. " . many allied species, constituting groups of animals and plants, have made their appearance at once in various parts of the earth, and these groups have obeyed the same laws with the individual and the species in culminating rapidly, and then slowly diminishing, though a large group once introduced has rarely disappeared altogether. " . groups of species, as genera and orders, do not usually begin with their highest or lowest forms, but with intermediate and generalized types, and they show a capacity for both elevation and degradation in their subsequent history. " . the history of life presents a progress from the lower to the higher, and from the simpler to the more complex, and from the more generalized to the more specialized. in this progress new types are introduced and take the place of the older ones, which sink to a relatively subordinate place and become thus degraded. but the physical and organic changes have been so correlated and adjusted that life has not only always maintained its existence, but has been enabled to assume more complex forms, and that older forms have been made to prepare the way for newer, so that there has been on the whole a steady elevation culminating in man himself. elevation and specialization have, however, been secured at the expense of vital energy and range of adaptation, until the new element of a rational and inventive nature was introduced in the case of man. " . in regard to the larger and more distinct types, we can not find evidence that they have, in their introduction, been preceded by similar forms connecting them with previous groups; but there is reason to believe that many supposed representative species in successive formations are really only races or varieties. " . in so far as we can trace their history, specific types are permanent in their characters from their introduction to their extinction, and their earlier varietal forms are similar to their later ones. " . palæontology furnishes no direct evidence, perhaps never can furnish any, as to the actual transformation of one species into another, or as to the actual circumstances of creation of a species, but the drift of its testimony is to show that species come in _per saltum_, rather than by any slow and gradual process. " . the origin and history of life can not, any more than the origin and determination of matter and force, be explained on purely material grounds, but involve the consideration of power referable to the unseen and spiritual world. "different minds may state these principles in different ways, but i believe that, in so far as palæontology is concerned, in substance they must hold good, at least as steps to higher truths." b.--evolution and creation by law. evolutionist writers have a great horror of what they term "intervention." but they should be informed that the idea of a planning creator does not involve intervention in an extraordinary or miraculous sense, any more than what we call the ordinary operations of nature. it is a common but childish prejudice that every discovery of a secondary cause diminishes so much of what is to be referred to the agency of god. on the contrary, such discoveries merely aid us in comprehending the manner of his action. but when evolutionists, in their zeal to get rid of creative intervention, trace all things to the interaction of insensate causes, they fall into the absurdity of believing in absolute unmitigated chance as the cause of perfect order. evidences of this may be found by the score in darwin's works on the origin of species. i quote, however, from another and usually clear thinker, wallace, in a review of the duke of argyll's "reign of law," which appeared some years ago, but represents very well this phase of thought: "'it is curious,' says the duke of argyll, 'to observe the language which this most advanced disciple of pure naturalism [mr. darwin] instinctively uses, when he has to describe the complicated structure of this curious order of plants [the orchids]. caution in ascribing intentions to nature does not seem to occur to him as possible. intention is the one thing which he does see, and which, when he does not see, he seeks for diligently until he finds it. he exhausts every form of words and of illustration by which intention or mental purpose can be described. 'contrivance'--'curious contrivance'--'beautiful contrivance'--these are expressions which occur over and over again. here is one sentence describing the parts of a particular species: 'the labellum is developed into a long nectary, _in order_ to attract lepidoptera, and we shall presently give reason for suspecting that the nectar is _purposely_ so lodged that it can be sucked only slowly, _in order_ to give time for the curious chemical quality of this viscid matter setting hard and dry.'" many other examples of similar expressions are quoted by the duke, who maintains that no explanation of these "contrivances" has been or can be given, except on the supposition of a personal contriver, specially arranging the details of each case, although causing them to be produced by the ordinary processes of growth and reproduction. "now there is a difficulty in this view of the origin of the structure of orchids which the duke does not allude to. the majority of flowering plants are fertilized, either without the agency of insects, or, when insects are required, without any very important modification of the structure of the flower. it is evident, therefore, that flowers might have been formed as varied, fantastic, and beautiful as the orchids, and yet have been fertilized by insects in the same manner as violets or clover or primroses, or a thousand other flowers. the strange springs and traps and pitfalls found in the flowers of orchids can not be necessary _per se_, since exactly the same end is gained in ten thousand other flowers which do not possess them. is it not, then, an extraordinary idea to imagine the creator of the universe _contriving_ the various complicated parts of these flowers as a mechanic might contrive an ingenious toy or a difficult puzzle? is it not a more worthy conception that they are some of the results of those general laws which were so co-ordinated at the first introduction of life upon the earth as to result necessarily in the utmost possible development of varied forms?" a moment's thought is sufficient to show that there is no essential difference between the creator contriving every detail of the structure of an orchid and his producing it through some intermediate cause, or his commanding it into existence by his almighty word. the same mental process, so to speak, of the contriver is implied in either case. but there is an immeasurable difference between any of those ideas and that of the orchid producing its parts spontaneously under the operation of insensate physical law, whatever that may be, alone. again, in the same review, wallace writes: "the uncertainty of opinion among naturalists as to which are species and which varieties is one of mr. darwin's very strong arguments that these two names can not belong to things quite distinct in nature and origin. the reviewer says that this argument is of no weight, because the works of man present exactly the same phenomena, and he instances patent inventions, and the excessive difficulty of determining whether they are new or old. i accept the analogy, and maintain that it is all in favor of mr. darwin's views; for are not all inventions of the same kind directly affiliated to a common ancestor. are not improved steam-engines or clocks the lineal descendants of some existing steam-engine or clock? is there ever a new creation in art or science any more than in nature? did ever patentee absolutely originate any complete and entire invention no portion of which was derived from any thing that had been made or described before? it is, therefore, clear that the difficulty of distinguishing the various classes of inventions which claim to be new is of the same nature as the difficulty of distinguishing varieties and species, because neither are absolute new creations, but both are alike descendants of pre-existing forms, from which and from each other they differ by varying and often imperceptible degrees. it appears, then, that however plausible this writer's objections may seem, whenever he descends from generalities to any specific statement his supposed difficulties turn out to be in reality strongly confirmatory of mr. darwin's view." now that improved steam-engines are lineal descendants of other steam-engines is absolute nonsense, in any other aspect than that the structure of one suggested the structure of another to a contriving mind. we need not affirm this of god; but we may affirm that the plans of the creative mind constitute the true link of connection between the different states and developments of inorganic and organic objects. this is the real meaning of creation by law, as distinguished from mere chance on the one hand, and arbitrary and capricious intervention on the other. both of these extremes are equally illogical; and it can not be too frequently repeated that divine revelation avoids both by maintaining with equal firmness the agency of the creator, and that agency not capricious, but according to plan and purpose; embracing not merely the action of the divine mind itself, but under it of all the forces and material things created. c.--modes of creation. a question often asked, but not easily answered, with reference to the creation of animals and plants, is--what was its precise method, and to what extent is such intervention conceivable. this is, it is true, not a properly scientific question, since science can not inform us of the act of creation. nor is it properly a theological one, since revelation appeals to our faith in the facts, without giving us much information as to the mode. it can, therefore, be answered only conjecturally, except in so far as the law or plan of creation can be inferred from what is known, either from science or revelation, as to the history of life. we may, in the first place, assume that law or plan must characterize creation. the scriptural idea of it is not reconcilable with the supposition of a series of arbitrary acts any more than the scientific idea. the nature of these laws, as disclosed by palæontology, has been already considered in a preceding part of this appendix. what we may conjecture as to the nature of the creative act itself, from a comparison of nature and revelation, may be summed up as follows: . if we reduce organized beings to their ultimate organisms--cells or plastids--and with spencer and haeckel suppose these to be farther divisible into still smaller particles or plastidules, each composed of several complex particles of albumen or protoplasm, we may suppose the primary act of creation to consist in the aggregation of molecules of albuminous matter into such plastidules bearing the same relations, as "manufactured articles," to the future cell that inorganic molecules bear to crystals, and possessing within themselves the potencies of organic forms. this is the nearest approach that we can make to the primary creative act, and its scientific basis is merely hypothetical, while revelation gives us no intimation as to any such constitution of organized matter. . the formulæ in genesis, "let the land produce," and "let the waters produce," imply some sort of mediate creation through the agency of the land and the waters, but of what sort we have no means of knowing. they include, however, the idea of the origin of the lower and humbler forms of life from material pre-existing in inorganic nature, and also the idea of the previous preparation of the land and the waters for the sustenance of the creatures produced. . the expression in the case of man--"out of the dust"--would seem to intimate that the human body was constituted of merely elementary matter, without any previous preparation in organic forms. it may, however, be intended merely to inform us that, while the spirit is in the image of god, the bodily frame is "of the earth earthy," and in no respect different in general nature from that of the inferior animals. . the bible indicates some ways in which creatures may be modified or changed into new species, or may give rise to new forms of life. the human body is, we are told, capable of transformation into a new or spiritual body, different in many important respects, and the future general prevalence of this change is an article of religious faith. the bible represents the woman as produced from the man by a species of fission, not known to us as a natural possibility, except in some of the lower forms of life. the birth of the saviour is represented as having been by parthenogenesis, and if it had pleased god that jesus was to remain on earth as the progenitor of a new and higher type of man to replace that now existing, this might be regarded as the introduction of a new species. to what extent the creator may have so acted on the constitution of organized beings as to produce changes of this kind we have no means of knowing; but if he have done so, we may be sure that it has been in accordance with some definite plan or law. . we have a right to infer from scripture that there must be some creative law which provides for the introduction of species, _de novo_, from unorganized matter, and which has been or is called into action by conditions as yet altogether unknown to us, and as yet inimitable, and therefore in some sense miraculous. whether we shall ever by scientific investigation discover the law of this kind of divine intervention it is impossible to say. that all the theories of spontaneous generation and derivation hitherto promulgated are but wild guesses at it is but too evident. . since in inorganic nature we meet with such ultimate facts as atoms of different kinds and with different properties; and ether of non-atomic constitution, all of which seem to be necessary to the existence of the world as it is, we may expect in like manner to find at the basis of organic structures and phenomena varied kinds of ultimate organisms and forces, probably much more complicated than those of inorganic nature. the broad simplicity of existing theories of derivation and evolution is thus in itself a presumption against their truth, except as very partial explanations. . we have no right to consider the species "after their kinds" of revelation as coincident with the species recognized by science. many of these may be merely races, the production of which in the course of time and in special circumstances may fall within the powers of created species, and which may merely be the phases of such species in time and place. only the accumulation of vast additional stores of facts can enable us to have any certain opinion on this point, and till it is settled the doctrine of derivation must remain purely hypothetical. . the inference of evolutionists that because certain forms of life succeed each other in geological time, they must have been derived from each other, has an aspect of truth and simplicity; but the idea of law or plan in creation suggests that the link of connection may be of a less direct nature than mere descent with modification. this has been referred to under a previous head. . in the scheme of revelation all the successions and changes of organized beings, just as much as their introduction at first, belong to the will and plan of god. revelation opposes no obstacle to any scientific investigation of the nature and method of this plan, nor does it contemplate the idea that any discoveries of this kind in any way isolate the creator from his works. farther, inasmuch as god is always present in all his works, one part of his procedure can scarcely be considered an "intervention" any more than another. . as an illustration of the hypothetical condition of this subject, and of the views which may be taken as to its details, i quote from a memoir of my own certain conclusions with reference to the origin of the species of land plants which are found in the older geological formations. the conclusions stated are at the end of a detailed consideration of these plants and the circumstances of their occurrence: "( .) some of the forms reckoned as specific in the devonian and carboniferous formations may be really derivative races. there are indications that such races may have originated in one or more of the following ways: (_a_) by a natural tendency in synthetic types to become specialized in the direction of one or other of their constituent elements. in this way such plants as _arthrostigma_ and _psilophyton_ may have assumed new varietal forms. (_b_) by embryonic retardation or acceleration,[ ] whereby certain species may have had their maturity advanced or postponed, thus giving them various grades of perfection in reproduction and complexity of structure. the fact that so many erian and carboniferous plants seem to be on the confines of the groups of acrogens and gymnosperms may be supposed favorable to such exchanges. (_c_) the contraction and breaking up of floras which occurred in the middle erian and lower carboniferous may have been eminently favorable to the production of such varietal forms as would result from what has been called the 'struggle for existence.' (_d_) the elevation of a great expanse of new land at the close of the middle erian and the beginning of the coal period would, by permitting the extension of series over wide areas and fertile soils, and by removing the pressure previously existing, be eminently favorable to the production of new, and especially of improved, varieties. "( .) whatever importance we may attach to the above supposed causes of change, we still require to account for the origin of our specific types. this may forever elude our observation, but we may at least hope to ascertain the external conditions favorable to their production. in order to attain even to this it will be necessary to inquire critically, with reference to every acknowledged species, what its claims to distinctness are, so that we may be enabled to distinguish specific types from mere varieties. having attained to some certainty in this, we may be prepared to inquire whether the conditions favorable to the appearance of new varieties were also those favorable to the creation of new types, or the reverse--whether these conditions were those of compression or expansion, or to what extent the appearance of new types may be independent of any external conditions, other than those absolutely necessary for their existence. i am not without hope that the further study of fossil plants may enable us thus to approach to a comprehension of the laws of the creation, as distinguished from those of the continued existence of species. "in the present state of our knowledge we have no good ground either to limit the number of specific types beyond what a fair study of our material may warrant, or to infer that such primitive types must necessarily have been of low grade, or that progress in varietal forms has always been upward. the occurrence of such an advanced and specialized type as that of _syringoxylon_ in the middle devonian should guard us against these errors. the creative process may have been applicable to the highest as well as to the lowest forms, and subsequent deviations must have included degradation as well as elevation. i can conceive nothing more unreasonable than the statement sometimes made that it is illogical or even absurd to suppose that highly organized beings could have been produced except by derivation from previously existing organisms. this is begging the whole question at issue, depriving science of a noble department of inquiry on which it has as yet barely entered, and anticipating by unwarranted assertions conclusions which may perhaps suddenly dawn upon us through the inspiration of some great intellect, or may for generations to come baffle the united exertions of all the earnest promoters of natural science. our present attitude should not be that of dogmatists, but that of patient workers content to labor for a harvest of grand generalizations which may not come till we have passed away, but which, if we are earnest and true to nature and its creator, may reward even some of us."[ ] d.--present condition of theories of life. one of the most learned and ingenious essays on this subject recently published[ ] states on its first page that all the varieties of opinion may be summed up under two heads: " . those which require the addition to ordinary matter of an immaterial or spiritual essence, substance, or power, general or local, whose presence is the efficient cause of life; and, " . those which attribute the phenomena of life solely to the mode of combination of the ordinary material elements of which the organism is composed, without the addition of any such immaterial essence, power, or force." it is quite true that physiologists have up to this time argued out these two alternatives, and that at present the second is probably the more prevalent. it is however also true that neither includes or can possibly include the whole truth, and that enlightened theism may enable us to hold both, or all that is true in either. undoubtedly we must hold that a higher spiritual power or creator is necessary to the existence of life; but then this is necessary also to the existence of dead matter and force. so that if physiologists think proper to trace the whole phenomena of life to material causes, they do not on that account in any way invalidate the evidence for a spiritual creator, nor for a spiritual element in the higher nature of man. yet so inconceivably shallow is much of the biological reasoning of the day, that it is quite common to find physiologists referring all life to spontaneous and uncaused material agencies, because they have concluded that the arrangements of matter and force are sufficient to explain it; and, on the other hand, to find theistic writers accusing physiology of materialism, if it finds the causes of vital phenomena in material forces, as if god could be present only in those processes which we can not understand. what we really know as to the material basis of life may be summed up in a few words. chemically, life is based on compounds of the albuminous group. these are highly complex in a molecular point of view, and seem to be formed in nature only where certain structures, those of the vegetable cell, exist under certain conditions. these albuminous substances do not necessarily possess vital properties. they may exist in a dead state just as other substances. under certain conditions, however, those of forming part of a so-called living organism, they present phenomena of mechanical movement and molecular change, and of transformation or transmission of force, which enable them to transform themselves into various kinds of tissues, to nourish these when formed, and to establish a consensus of action between different parts of the organism; and these properties are vastly varied in detail according to the kind of organism in which they take place, and the conditions under which the organism exists. the actually living matter presents no distinct structure recognizable by the microscope, and can not be distinguished chemically from ordinary albumen or protoplasm; but when living it must either exist in some peculiar and complex molecular arrangement unknown as yet to chemistry and physics, or must be actuated by some force or form of force called vital, and not as yet isolated or reduced to known laws or correlation. it does not concern theism or theology which of these may eventually prove to be the true view, or if it should be found, which is quite possible, that there is no real difference between them. in any case it is certain that in the lower animals, and in the merely physiological properties of man himself, living matter may act independently of any higher spiritual nature in the individual, though of course not independently of the higher power of god, which gave matter its properties and sustains them in their action. it is farther certain that in man the spiritual nature dominates and controls the vital, except when under abnormal conditions the latter unduly gains the mastery, and quenches altogether the spirit. in the language of the bible, the merely vital endowments of the man belong to the flesh ([greek: sarx]), and to the rational mind or soul ([greek: psychê]). the higher nature which man derives directly from god is the spirit ([greek: pneuma]). either of these parts of the complex humanity is capable of life ([greek: zôê]) and of immortality. either of them is capable of being in a state of death, though the import of this differs in its application to each. in genesis, the body is composed of the ordinary earth-materials--the "dust of the ground." the higher nature is seen in the "shadow and likeness of god," and in the inbreathing of the divine spirit whereby man became a "living soul" in a higher sense than that in which the animals possess the ordinary "breath of life." with these views agree the later doctrines of the bible as to the "trichotomy" of "body, soul, and spirit" in man, and of the added influence of the spirit of god as acting on humanity. e.--recent facts as to the origin and antiquity of man. several recent statements as to new facts supposed to prove a preglacial antiquity for our species have been promulgated in scientific journals; but so great doubt rests upon them that they do not invalidate the statement that the earliest human remains belong to the postglacial age. i may refer to the following: a very remarkable discovery was made in by professor rutimeyer, of basle. in a brown coal deposit of tertiary, or at least of "interglacial" age--whatever that may mean in switzerland--he found some fragments of wood so interlaced as to resemble wattle or basket-work. steenstrup has, however, re-examined the evidence, and adduces strong reasons for the conclusion that the alleged human workmanship is really that of beavers. the swedish geologists have shown that there is no properly palæolithic age in scandinavia, and that even the reindeer had probably disappeared from denmark and sweden before their occupation by man. some facts, however, seemed to indicate a residence of man in sweden before the great post-pliocene subsidence. one of the most important of these is the celebrated hut of sodertelge, referred to in this connection by lyell. recent observations have, however, shown that this hut was really covered by a landslip, and that its age may not be greater than eight centuries. torel has recently explained this in the proceedings of the archæological congress of stockholm. the human bone found in the victoria cave at settle, apparently under a patch of boulder-clay, has been regarded as a good evidence of the preglacial origin of man. it has, however, always appeared to readers of the description as a very doubtful case; and professor hughes, of cambridge, has recently expressed the opinion that the drift covering the bone may be merely a "pocket" of that material disengaged from a cavity in the limestone by the wearing of the cliff. the same geologist has also shown reason to believe that the supposed case of the occurrence of palæolithic implements under boulder-clay near brandon, discovered by mr. skertchley, and paraded by geikie as a demonstration of the "interglacial" antiquity of man, in accordance with his system of successive glacial periods, is really an error, and has no foundation in the facts of the case. mr. pengelly has endeavored to maintain the value of the deposit of stalagmite as a means of establishing dates, in his "notes of recent notices of the geology of devonshire," part i., ; but, i confess, with little success. he urges, in opposition to the ingleborough cave, that at cheddar, where, according to him, no appreciable deposit whatever is taking place on the existing stalagmite. but this, of course, is evidence not applicable to the case in hand, as in the cheddar case no stalagmite crust whatever would be produced. there are, no doubt, crevices and caves in which old stalagmite is even being removed or diminished in thickness. he farther asserts that in kent's cave teeth of the cave bear and other extinct animals are found covered by not more than an inch and a half of stalagmite, and consequently that if this were deposited at the rate of a quarter of an inch per annum--the supposed rate on the "jockey cap" at ingleborough--these animals must have lived in devonshire only six years ago, which is, of course, absurd. but he fails to perceive that this mode of occurrence is quite intelligible on the supposition of a rapid decrease in the amount of deposition in the later part of the stalagmite period. he farther refers to the fact that the thicker masses of stalagmite, which correspond to the places of more active drip of water, are in the same position in both crusts of stalagmite. this shows that the sources of water containing bicarbonate of lime have been the same from the first; but it proves nothing as to the rate of deposit. mr. pengelly's own estimate of the rate of deposit gives, however, a length of time which is sufficient to show that there must be error somewhere in his calculations. he states the aggregate thickness of the two crusts at twelve feet, and then, assuming a rate of deposit of . inch in years, or one inch in years, he arrives at the conclusion that the whole deposit required , years for its formation. he is "willing to suppose" the mechanical deposits to have accumulated more rapidly; but allowing one fourth of the time for them, we have nearly a million of years claimed for the residence of man in devonshire, which, independently of other considerations, would push back the palæozoic trilobites and corals of that county into the primitive reign of fire, and which in point of fact amounts to a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the whole argument. professor hughes[ ] refers, as a case of rapid deposition of matter akin to stalagmite, to the deposit of travertine in the old roman aqueduct of the pont du gard, near avignon, where a thickness of fourteen inches seems to have accumulated in about years. mr. j. carey has given in _nature_, december , , another instance where a deposit . inch thick was formed in fifteen years in a lead mine in durham. mr. w. b. clarke in the same journal gives a case where in a cave at brixton, known as poole's hole, a deposit one eighth of an inch in thickness was formed in six months. such examples show how unsafe it is to reason as to the rate of deposit in by-gone times, and when climatal and local conditions may have been very different from those at present subsisting. in an able address before the biological section of the british association in , wallace adduces the following considerations as bearing on these questions; and these are well worthy of attention as showing that it is the necessities of evolution rather than of geological facts that demand the assumption of a great antiquity for man, and induce so many writers to accept any evidence for this, however doubtful: ( ) the great cerebral development of the so-called palæolithic men, which shows no indications of graduating into inferior races. ( ) the great variety of the implements of these ancient men, and the excellence of their carvings on bone and ivory, point to a similar conclusion. ( ) man is not related to any existing species of ape, but in various ways to several different species. ( ) there is an accumulation of evidence to show that the earliest historical races excelled in many processes in the arts and in many kinds of culture. he instances the wonderful mechanical and engineering skill evidenced in the pyramids of egypt in proof of this. his conclusion is either that the origin of man by development from apes must be pushed much farther back than any geologists at present hold, and i may add far beyond any probable date, or that he must have originated by some "distinct and higher agency"--which last is no doubt the true conclusion. haeckel, in his recent work, the "history of creation," sketches the development of man from a monad, in twenty-two stages; but he has to admit that stage twenty-first, or that of the "ape-like man," nowhere exists, either recent or fossil. he has to assume that this missing link has perished in the submergence of an imaginary continent of lemuria, in the indian ocean; and it is instructive to observe that, after deducting this, his affiliation of the races of men, as indicated in a map of the distribution of the species, is in the main very similar to that with which we are familiar in ordinary collections of maps illustrative of the bible. the post-glacial, palæocosmic, or palæolithic men of europe are not improbably antediluvian; and as to their precise date we know little. as to postdiluvian man, canon rawlinson has recently pointed out[ ] the remarkable convergence of all historic dates toward a time between to years b.c., or about the date of the biblical deluge, which may reasonably be inferred to have occurred about b.c. he gives the following summary of historical origins as ascertained from the best data, and which accord with the representation of the bible that in the time of abraham the great monarchies of egypt and the east were scarcely more powerful than the nomad tribe led by that patriarch: oldest date of babylon b.c. " " assyria " " iran " " india " " china " " phoenicia " " troad " " egypt sept. date of deluge he rejects, of course, the fabulous chronologies of egypt, china, and india as mythical, or referring to prehuman and antediluvian periods. it is to be observed that while these dates place the origins of the oldest civilized nations at periods considerably subsequent to the deluge, they do not prevent us from supposing that these nations commenced their existence wills an advanced civilization borrowed from antediluvian times, which is indeed a fair conclusion from the biblical history, independently of the monumental evidence referred to by wallace in a previous paragraph. the duke of argyll, in his excellent little work "primeval man," in which he discusses the arguments in favor of primitive savagery advanced by sir j. lubbock in opposition to the views of archbishop whately in his lecture on the "origin of civilization," shows that there is no necessity to suppose a slow progress of mankind in the arts extending over indefinite ages; and his argument in this respect connects itself with the facts as to the high cerebral organization of palæocosmic men referred to above by wallace. in summing up one division of his argument, he truly remarks: "if we assume with the supporters of the savage-theory that man has himself invented all that he now knows, then the very earliest inventions of our race must have been the most wonderful of all, and the richest in the fruits they bore. the man who first discovered the use of fire, and the use of those grasses which we now know under the name of corn, were discoverers compared with whom, as regards the value of their ideas to the world, faraday and wheatstone are but the inventors of ingenious toys. it may possibly be true, as whately argues, that man never could have discovered these things without divine instruction. if so, it is fatal to the savage theory. but it is equally fatal to that theory if we assume the opposite position, and suppose that the noblest discoveries ever made by man were made by him in primeval times." i may add that this is true, however far into antiquity we may stretch back these primeval times. professor e. s. morse, in his address to the american association, in , as vice-president, takes as a theme the contributions of american zoologists to theories of evolution, and closes with those which refer to what he modestly terms "man's lowly origin." these contributions he sums up under three heads, as bearing on the following points: " . that in his earlier stages he reveals certain persistent characters of the ape; . that the more ancient men reveal more ape-like features than the present existing men; and, . that certain characteristics pertaining to early men still persist in the inferior races of men." under the first head he gives contributions to the well-known fact that embryonic stages of the human being, like those of other high types, approximate to forms permanent in lower types. this is a fact inseparable from the law of reproduction; and as has been already shown in the text, absolutely without logical significance as even an analogical argument in favor of evolution. under the second and third heads, he refers to cases of exceptional skulls and bones belonging to idiots and degraded races of men, as showing tendencies to lower forms, which as a matter of course they do, though with essential differences still marking them as human; and he assumes without any proof that these were relatively more common in primitive times, and that they are cases of reversion to a previous simian stage, instead of being results of abnormal conditions in the individual or variety. he sums up these arguments in the following paragraph: "if we take into account the rapidly accumulating data of european naturalists concerning primitive man, with the mass of evidence presented in these notes, we find an array of facts which irresistibly point to a common origin with animals directly below us, and these evidences are found in the massive skulls with coarse ridges for muscular attachments, the rounding of the base of the nostrils, the early ossification of the nasal bones, the small cranial capacity in certain forms, the prominence of the frontal crest, the posterior position of the _foramen magnum_, the approximation of the temporal ridges, the lateral flattening of the tibia, the perforation of the humerus, the tendency of the pelvis to depart from its usual proportions; and, associated with all these, a rudeness of culture and the evidence of the manifestation of the coarsest instincts. he must be blind, indeed, who can not recognize the bearing of such grave and suggestive modifications." yet professor morse knows that there is no true specific or even generic kinship between man and any species of ape; that the phenomena of idiocy and degeneracy have no real resemblance to those of distinct specific types; that the resemblances of man to apes, such as they are, point not in a direct manner to any stock of apes, but in a desultory way to several; and consequently that, if derived from any such animals, it must be from some stock altogether unknown to us as yet, either among recent or fossil animals. farther, as cope, himself an evolutionist, admits, while we can trace the skeletons of eocene mammals through several directions of specialization in succeeding tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon of an unspecialized skeleton which can not fairly be connected with any of these lines. lastly, his quotation from fiske, with reference to the supposed effect of a protracted infancy to develop the moral characteristics of man, though accompanied with the usual unfair and unreasonable sneer (which a naturalist like morse should have been ashamed to quote) against men "still capable of believing that the human race was created by miracle in a single day," is the feeblest possible attempt to bridge over the gap between the spiritual nature of man and the merely psychical nature of brutes. it is plain that if american naturalists have done nothing more in favor of the lowly origin of man than that which professor morse has been able, evidently with much industry and pains, to gather, we need not for the present abandon our claims to a higher origin. it is farther significant in connection with this that professor huxley, in his lectures in new york, while resting his case as to the lower animals mainly on the supposed genealogy of the horse, which has often been shown to amount to no certain evidence,[ ] avoided altogether the discussion of the origin of man from apes, now obviously complicated with so many difficulties that both wallace and mivart are staggered by them. professor thomas, in his recent lectures,[ ] admits that there is no lower man known than the australian, and that there is no known link of connection with the monkeys; and haeckel[ ] has to admit that the penultimate link in his phylogeny, the ape-like man, is absolutely unknown. in chapter xiii. i have not touched on the question of the absolute origin of language--this not being necessary to my argument. on this interesting subject, however, we have, in the naming of the animals by the first man, recorded in the second chapter of genesis, not only the primary truth of his superiority to them, but a farther indication that the roots of human speech, other than interjectional, lie in onomatopoeia, and especially in the voices of animals, and that the gift of speech was not the slow growth of ages, but an endowment of man from the first, just as much as any of his other powers or properties. an interesting discussion of this subject will be found in the concluding chapters of wilson's "prehistoric man," second edition. farther, the so-called "tallies" found with the bones of palæocosmic men in european caves, and illustrated in the admirable work of christy and lartet, show that the rudiments even of writing were already in possession of the oldest race of men known to archæology or geology. (see wilson, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. .) i have not noticed, except incidentally, the alleged discoveries of very ancient human remains in america, as they all appear very problematical. there is, however, some evidence of the coexistence of man with the mastodon and other postglacial animals in illinois and elsewhere. f.--bearing of glacial periods upon the interpretation of genesis. whatever views may be taken as to that period of cold which occurs at the close of the tertiary and beginning of the modern period, it can not be held to have constituted any such break as to be considered, as it was at one time, an equivalent for the biblical chaos. this is proved by the survival through this period of a very large proportion of the animals and plants still existing in the northern hemisphere. the chronological system of animals and plants has been continuous, as the bible represents it, since their first appearance on earth. it is further remarkable that while there is geological evidence of climates colder than the present in the temperate regions, there is equally good proof of warmer climates even within the arctic circle than those of the cold temperate regions at present. it is difficult to account for these vicissitudes of climate, and much controversy exists on the subject; but it seems certain that in the earlier tertiary and cretaceous periods, for example, the supplies of heat and light were so diffused over the earth as to permit the growth of a temperate vegetation in greenland, and even in spitzbergen. geologists, however unwillingly, have been obliged to admit this as one of those great possibilities, altogether unexpected beforehand, which have been developed in the history of our planet. various modes of explaining this succession of cold and warm periods have been adopted, all more or less hypothetical. lyell has argued that it may be explained by a different distribution of land and water and of the ocean currents. croll accounts for it by the varying eccentricity of the earth's orbit, in connection with the precession of the equinoxes. evans by a shifting of the axis of rotation of the earth. drayson, bell, warring, and others, by a change in the inclination of the earth's axis. others by the secular diminution of the internal heat of the earth, and of that of the sun. others by the supposed recurrence of periods in which the sun gives more or less heat, or in which the earth is passing through colder or warmer regions of space. as the subject is of interest with reference to possible correspondences of these great summers and winters of the earth with the stages of the creative work, it may be well to notice shortly the relative merits of these theories. ( .) the hypothesis of croll is one of the most ingenious and elaborate of the whole; but it has two great defects. one is that the causes alleged are so uncertain and so complicated that it is difficult to estimate their real value. another is that it proves too much, namely, a regular succession of cold and warm periods throughout geological time, of which we have no good evidence, and which is on many grounds improbable. ( .) that the earth's axis of rotation has continued unchanged throughout the whole of the geological ages seems proved by the fact that the principal lines of crumpling and upheaval from the laurentian period downward are arranged in great circles of the earth tangent to the polar circle; and that the lines of deposit of sediment in the palæozoic age are coincident with the present direction of the arctic currents. ( .) astronomers consider it improbable that the obliquity of the ecliptic has materially changed, and serious differences of opinion exist as to the effects which a greater or less obliquity would produce on climate. it seems certain, however, that a less obliquity would occasion a more uniform distribution of heat and light throughout the year; and this, co-operating with other causes leading to a warm climate, might enable a temperate vegetation to approach the pole more closely than at present. ( .) that the energy of the sun's radiation and the internal heat of the earth have been slowly decreasing seems certain; but it is now generally admitted that these changes are so gradual that little effect can have been produced by them, except in the older geological periods, and that they can have no connection with the great glacial period of the post-pliocene. ( .) it is otherwise with the hypothesis that the sun's heat may, like that of some variable stars, have increased and diminished. there is, of course, no direct evidence of this, except the small differences observed in cycles of eleven and fifty-five years from the greater or less development of sunspots, and the analogy of observed variable stars. still it is a possible cause of variations of climate. it might also aid in accounting for the extraordinary evidences of desert conditions and desiccation presented by the salt deposits of different geological periods in temperate latitudes. ( .) the theory of the passage of the earth through zones of space of variable temperature is now generally abandoned, as there seems no reason to believe that such differences exist. ( .) the theory of lyell that changes in the distribution of land and water may, with the possible co-operation of other causes, have produced the observed diversities of climate, is that which seems best to meet the conditions presented. it is based on the known properties of land and water as to the absorption, radiation, and convection of heat, and on the remarkable diversities of climate in similar latitudes arising from this cause at present. farther, it accords with the known fact that very great changes of level have occurred in connection with the glacial period. this theory undoubtedly embraces a true cause, admitted by all geologists, and it dispenses with the necessity of believing in the recurrence of glacial periods at regular intervals. it farther accords best with the evidence afforded by fossils, and especially by fossil plants. it has also the merit of directing due attention to the diversities of geographical conditions at different periods, and of dealing with causes of change operating within the earth itself. the only doubt with respect to it is its sufficiency to explain the changes which have occurred, and the view entertained of this will depend very much on the interpretation of the facts as to the intensity of the last glacial period. if moderate views can be taken of this, and if means can be found, by a less obliquity of the ecliptic or otherwise, to furnish a continuous supply of light in the arctic regions, the difficulties which have been alleged against it would disappear. ( .) in connection with former periods of cold and warmth, and with the existence of temperate and tropical vegetation in polar latitudes, we should not forget that view which takes into account the probable effects of different conditions of the atmosphere, and the greater quantity of carbonic acid present in it, in early geological periods. this would, of course, best apply to the palæozoic floras, in so far as our present knowledge extends; but there may have been similar conditions in later periods. dr. sterry hunt thus states this hypothesis: "the agency of plants in purifying the primitive atmosphere was long since pointed out by brongniart, and our great stores of fossil fuel have been derived from the decomposition, by the ancient vegetation, of the excess of carbonic acid of the early atmosphere, which through this agency was exchanged for oxygen gas. in this connection the vegetation of former periods presents the curious phenomenon of plants allied to those now growing beneath the tropics flourishing within the polar circles. many ingenious hypotheses have been proposed to account for the warmer climate of earlier times, but are at best unsatisfactory, and it appears to me that the true solution of the problem may be found in the constitution of the early atmosphere, when considered in the light of dr. tyndall's beautiful researches on radiant heat. he has found that the presence of a few hundredths of carbonic-acid gas in the atmosphere, while offering almost no obstacle to the passage of the solar rays, would suffice to prevent almost entirely the loss by radiation of obscure heat, so that the surface of the land beneath such an atmosphere would become like a vast orchard-house, in which the conditions of climate necessary to a luxuriant vegetation would be extended even to the polar regions." it is obvious that, in the production of complex effects of this kind, various causes, whether astronomical or connected with the mutations of the earth's crust, may have co-operated, and probably in all extreme cases did co-operate. in any case it is evident that the vicissitudes of climate and the great pulsations of the crust, which have raised and depressed portions of the surface and changed the position of its covering of waters, have been potent agents in the hands of the creator in effecting the changes and succession of living beings, which are thus, as genesis intimates, children of the waters and of the land, and of the influences of the heavens. it is also interesting in this connection to observe that the occurrence of such periods of general warm climate as that in the miocene shows that it would have been possible for man, under certain conditions, to have extended himself far more widely in his edenic state than we can conceive of in the present condition of the earth. the modern world is perhaps even in this way "cursed" for man's sake. g.--dr. sterry hunt on the chemistry of the primeval earth. on looking back to the reference to this subject in chapter v., i think it may be desirable to present to the reader in some more definite manner the conditions of a forming world; and i can not do this in any other way so well as by quoting the words of dr. sterry hunt, as given in the abstract of his lecture on this subject delivered before the royal institution of london in : "this hypothesis of the nature of the sun and of the luminous process going on at its surface is the one lately put forward by faye, and, although it has met with opposition, appears to be that which accords best with our present knowledge of the chemical and physical conditions of matter, such as we must suppose it to exist in the condensing gaseous mass which, according to the nebular hypothesis, should form the centre of our solar system. taking this, as we have already done, for granted, it matters little whether we imagine the different planets to have been successively detached as rings during the rotation of the primal mass, as is generally conceived, or whether we admit with chacornac a process of aggregation or concretion, operating within the primal nebular mass, resulting in the production of sun and planets. in either case we come to the conclusion that our earth must at one time have been in an intensely heated gaseous condition, such as the sun now presents, self-luminous, and with a process of condensation going on at first at the surface only, until by cooling it must have reached the point where the gaseous centre was exchanged for one of combined and liquefied matter. "here commences the chemistry of the earth, to the discussion of which the foregoing considerations have been only preliminary. so long as the gaseous condition of the earth lasted, we may suppose the whole mass to have been homogeneous; but when the temperature became so reduced that the existence of chemical compounds at the centre became possible, those which were most stable at the elevated temperature then prevailing would be first formed. thus, for example, while compounds of oxygen with mercury or even with hydrogen could not exist, oxides of silicon, aluminium, calcium, magnesium, and iron might be formed and condense in a liquid form at the centre of the globe. by progressive cooling, still other elements would be removed from the gaseous mass, which would form the atmosphere of the non-gaseous nucleus. we may suppose an arrangement of the condensed matters at the centre according to their respective specific gravities, and thus the fact that the density of the earth as a whole is about twice the mean density of the matters which form its solid surface may be explained. metallic or metalloidal compounds of elements, grouped differently from any compounds known to us, and far more dense, may exist in the centre of the earth. "the process of combination and cooling having gone on until those elements which are not volatile in the heat of our ordinary furnaces were condensed into a liquid form, we may here inquire what would be the result, upon the mass, of a further reduction of temperature. it is generally assumed that in the cooling of a liquid globe of mineral matter, congelation would commence at the surface, as in the case of water; but water offers an exception to most other liquids, inasmuch as it is denser in the liquid than in the solid form. hence ice floats on water, and freezing water becomes covered with a layer of ice, which protects the liquid below. with most other matters, however, and notably with the various mineral and earthy compounds analogous to those which may be supposed to have formed the fiery-fluid earth, numerous and careful experiments show that the products of solidification are much denser than the liquid mass; so that solidification would have commenced at the centre, whose temperature would thus be the congealing point of these liquid compounds. the important researches of hopkins and fairbairn on the influence of pressure in augmenting the melting-point of such compounds as contract in solidifying are to be considered in this connection. "it is with the superficial portions of the fused mineral mass of the globe that we have now to do; since there is no good reason for supposing that the deeply seated portions have intervened in any direct manner in the production of the rocks which form the superficial crust. this, at the time of its first solidification, presented probably an irregular, diversified surface from the result of contraction of the congealing mass, which at last formed a liquid bath of no great depth surrounding the solid nucleus. it is to the composition of this crust that we must direct our attention, since therein would be found all the elements (with the exception of such as were still in the gaseous form) now met with in the known rocks of the earth. this crust is now everywhere buried beneath its own ruins, and we can only from chemical considerations attempt to reconstruct it. if we consider the conditions through which it has passed, and the chemical affinities which must have come into play, we shall see that these are just what would now result if the solid land, sea, and air were made to react upon each other under the influence of intense heat. to the chemist it is at once evident that from this would result the conversion of all carbonates, chlorides, and sulphates into silicates, and the separation of the carbon, chlorine, and sulphur in the form of acid gases, which, with nitrogen, watery vapor, and a probable excess of oxygen, would form the dense primeval atmosphere. the resulting fused mass would contain all the bases as silicates, and must have much resembled in composition certain furnace-slags or volcanic glasses. the atmosphere, charged with acid gases, which surrounded this primitive rock must have been of immense density. under the pressure of such a high barometric column, condensation would take place at a temperature much above the present boiling-point of water, and the depressed portions of the half-cooled crust would be flooded with a highly heated solution of hydrochloric acid, whose action in decomposing the silicates is easily intelligible to the chemist. the formation of chlorides of the various bases, and the separation of silica, would go on until the affinities of the acid were satisfied, and there would be a separation of silica, taking the form of quartz, and the production of a sea-water holding in solution, besides the chlorides of sodium, calcium, and magnesium, salts of aluminium and other metallic bases. the atmosphere, being thus deprived of its volatile chlorine and sulphur compounds, would approximate to that of our own time, but differ in its greater amount of carbonic acid. "we next enter into the second phase in the action of the atmosphere upon the earth's crust. this, unlike the first, which was subaqueous, or operative only on the portion covered with the precipitated water, is sub-aerial, and consists in the decomposition of the exposed parts of the primitive crust under the influence of the carbonic acid and moisture of the air, which convert the complex silicates of the crust into a silicate of alumina, or clay, while the separated lime, magnesia, and alkalies, being converted into carbonates, are carried down into the sea in a state of solution. "the first effect of these dissolved carbonates would be to precipitate the dissolved alumina and the heavy metals, after which would result a decomposition of the chloride of calcium of the sea-water, resulting in the production of carbonate of lime or limestone, and chloride of sodium or common salt. this process is one still going on at the earth's surface, slowly breaking down and destroying the hardest rocks, and, aided by mechanical processes, transforming them into clays; although the action, from the comparative rarity of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, is less energetic than in earlier times, when the abundance of this gas, and a higher temperature, favored the chemical decomposition of the rocks. but now, as then, every clod of clay formed from the decay of a crystalline rock corresponded to an equivalent of carbonic acid abstracted from the atmosphere, and equivalents of carbonate of lime and common salt formed from the chloride of calcium of the sea-water."[ ] h.--tannin and bhemah. the following synopsis of the instances of the occurrence of the words _tannin_ and _tan_ will serve to show the propriety of the meaning, "great reptiles," assigned in the text to the former, as well as to illustrate the utility in such cases of "comparing scripture with scripture:" . tannin. exod. vii., .--take thy rod and probably a serpent, though perhaps cast it before pharaoh, and it a crocodile. shall become a _serpent_. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") deut. xxxii., .--their vine is probably a species of serpent. the poison of _dragons_. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") job vii., .--am i a sea, or a michaelis and others think, _whale_, that thou settest a probably correctly, that the nile watch over me. and the crocodile, both objects of vigilance to the egyptians, are intended. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") psa. lxxiv., .--thou didst evidently refers to the destruction divide the sea by thy strength. of the egyptians in the red thou breakest the heads of the sea, under emblem of the crocodile. _dragons_ in the waters. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") psa. xci., .--the young lion the association shows that a and the _dragon_ thou shalt powerful carnivorous animal is trample under foot. meant. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") psa. cxlviii., .--praise the evidently an aquatic creature. lord, ye _dragons_ and all deeps. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") isa. xxvii., .--he shall slay a large predaceous aquatic animal the _dragon_ in the midst of the (the crocodile), used here as sea [river]. an emblem of egypt. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") isa. li., .--hath cut rahab and same as above. wounded the _dragon_. jer. li., .--[nebuchadnezzar] a large predaceous animal. hath swallowed me up as a (septuagint, [greek: "drakôn."]) _dragon_. ezek. xxix., .--pharaoh, king in the hebrew _tanim_ appears by of egypt, the great _dragon_ mistake for _tannin_. this is that lieth in the rivers. clearly the crocodile of the nile. verses and show that it is a large aquatic animal with _scales_. (septuagint, [greek: "drakôn."]) . tan. psa. xliv., .--thou hast sore some understand this of shipwreck; broken us in the place of but, more probably, the _dragons_. place of dragons is the desert. (septuagint, [greek: "kakôsis."]) isa. xxxiv., .--[bozrah in an animal inhabiting ruins, and idumea] shall be a habitation of associated with the ostrich. _dragons_ and a court of owls [or (septuagint, [greek: "seirên."]) ostriches]. isa. xliii., .--the wild evidently an animal of the dry beasts shall honor me, deserts. the _dragons_ and the ostriches, (septuagint, [greek: "seirên."]) because i give water in the wilderness. isa. xiii., .--dragons in represented as inhabiting the their pleasant palaces. ruins of babylon, and associated with wild beasts of the desert. (septuagint, [greek: "xchinos."]) isa. xxxv., .--and the parched an animal making its lair or nest ground shall become a pool, and in dry, parched places. the thirsty land springs of (septuagint, [greek: "hornis."]) water; in the habitation of _dragons_, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. job xxx., .--i am a brother of the association indicates an animal _dragons_ and a companion of of the desert, and the context ostriches. that its cry is mournful. (septuagint, [greek: "seirên."]) jer. ix., ; x., .--i will same as above. see also jeremiah make jerusalem heaps, a den of xlix., ; li., ; and mal. i., , _dragons_. where the word is in the female form (_tanoth_). (septuagint, [greek: "drakôn"] and [greek: "strouthos."]) lam. iv., .--even the in the hebrew text the word is _sea-monsters_ draw out the _tannin_, evidently an error for breast, they give suck to their _tanim_. the suckling of young, and young ones. the daughter of my association of ostriches, agree with people is become cruel, like this. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") the ostriches in the wilderness. micah i., .--i will make a the wailing cry accords with the wailing like the _dragons_, and view of gesenius that the jackal is mourning like the owls meant. [ostriches]. (septuagint, "[greek: drakôn].") we learn from the above comparative view that the _tannin_ is an aquatic animal of large size, and predaceous, clothed with scales, and a fit emblem of the monarchies of egypt and assyria. in two places it is possible that some species of serpent is denoted by it. we must suppose, therefore, that in genesis i. it denotes large crocodilian and perhaps serpentiform reptiles. the _tan_ is evidently a small mammal of the desert. i omitted to notice in the text a criticism of my explanation of the word _bhemah_ in "archaia," made in archdeacon pratt's "scripture and science not at variance" (edition of ). he opposes to the meaning of "herbivorous animals" which i have sought to establish, two exceptional passages. in one of these, deut. xxviii., , the word is used in its most general sense for all beasts, which the context shows can not be its meaning in gen. i. in the other, prov. xxx., , he says it is applied to the lion. the actual expression used, however, merely implies that the lion is "mighty among _bhemah_," the comparison being probably between the strength of the lion and that of oxen, antelopes, and other strong and active creatures. it does not affirm that the lion is one of the _bhemah_. while i have every respect for the erudition of archdeacon pratt, and highly value his book, i must regard this objection as an example of a style of biblical exposition much to be deprecated, though too often employed. i.--ancient mythologies. the current views respecting the relations of ancient mythologies with each other and with the bible have been continually shifting and oscillating between extremes. the latest and at present most popular of these extreme views is that so well expounded by dr. max müller in his various essays on these subjects, and which traces at least the indo-european theogony to a mere personification of natural objects. the views given in the text are those which to the author appear alone compatible with the bible, and with the relations of semitic and aryan theology; but, as the subject is generally regarded from a quite different point of view, a little further explanation may be necessary. . according to the bible, spiritual monotheism is the primitive faith of man, and with this it ranks the doctrine of a malignant spirit or being opposed to god, and of a primitive state of perfection and happiness. it is scarcely necessary to say that these doctrines may be found as sub-strata in all the ancient theologies. . in the hebrew theology the fall introduces the new doctrine of a mediator or deliverer, human and divine, and an external symbolism, that of the cherubic forms, composite figures made up of parts of the man, the lion, the ox, and the eagle. these forms are referred back to eden, where they are manifestly the emblems of the perfections of the deity, lost to man by the fall, and now opposed to his entrance into eden and access to the tree of life, the symbol of his immortal happiness. subsequently the cherubim are the visible indications of the presence of god in the tabernacle and temple; and in the apocalypse they reappear as emblems of the divine perfections, as reflected in the character of man redeemed. the cherubim, as guardians of the sacred tree, and of sacred places in general, appear in the worship of the assyrians and egyptians, as the winged lions and bulls of the former, and the sphinx of the latter. they can also be recognized in the sepulchral monuments of greek asia and of etruria. farther, it was evidently an easy step to proceed from these cherubic figures to the adoration of sacred animals. but the cherubic emblems were connected with the idea of a coming redeemer, and this was with equal ease perverted into hero-worship. every great conqueror, inventor, or reformer was thus recognized as in some sense the "coming man," just as eve supposed she saw him in her first-born. in addition to this, the sacredness of the first mother as the mother of the promised seed of the woman, led to the introduction of female deities. . the earliest ecclesiastical system was the patriarchal, and this also admitted of corruption into idolatry. the great patriarch, venerable by age and wisdom, when he left this earth for the spirit world, was supposed there, in the presence of god, to be the special guardian of his children on earth. some of the gods of egypt and of greece were obviously of this character, and in china and polynesia we see at this day this kind of idolatry in a condition of active vitality. . as stated in the text, the mythology of egypt and greece bears evident marks of having personified certain cosmological facts akin to those of the hebrew narrative of creation. in this way ancient idolators disposed of the prehistoric and pre-adamite world, changing it into a period of gods and demigods. this is very apparent in the remarkable assyrian genesis recovered by the late george smith from the clay tablets found in the ruined palace of assurbanipal. . in all rude and imaginative nations, which have lost the distinct idea of the one god, the creator, nature becomes more or less a source of superstitions. its grand and more rare phenomena of volcanoes, earthquakes, thunder-storms, eclipses, become supernatural portents; and as the idea of power associates itself with them, they are personified as actual agents and become gods. in like manner, the more constant and useful objects and processes of nature become personified as beneficent deities. this may be, to a great extent, the character of the aryan theology; but, except where all ideas of primitive religion and traditions of early history have been lost, it can not be the whole of the religion of any people. the bible negatively recognizes this source of idolatry, in so constantly referring all natural phenomena to the divine decree. in connection with this, it is worthy of remark that rude man tends to venerate the new animal forms of strange lands. something of this kind has probably led some of the american indians to give a sort of divine honor to the bear. it was in egypt that man first became familiar with the strange and gigantic fauna of africa, whose effect on his mind in primitive times we may gather from the book of job. in egypt, consequently, there must have been a strong natural tendency to the adoration of animals. the above origins of idolatry and mythology, as stated or implied in the bible, of course assume that the semitic monotheistic religion is the primitive one. the first deviations from it probably originated in the family of ham. a city of the rephaim of bashan was in the days of abraham named after ashtoreth karnaim--the two-horned astarte, a female divinity and prototype of diana, and perhaps an historic personage, in whom both the moon and the domestic ox were rendered objects of worship. this is the earliest bible notice of idolatry.[ ] in egypt a mythology of complex diversity existed at least as far back. we must remember, however, that egypt is cush as well as mizraim, and its idolatry is probably to be traced, in the first instance, to the nimrodic empire, from which, as from a common centre, certain new and irreligious ideas seem to have been propagated among all the branches of the human family. it is quite probable that the correspondences between egyptian, greek, and hindoo myths go back as far as to the time when the first despotism was erected on the plain of shinar, and when able but ungodly men set themselves to erect new political and social institutions on the ruins of all that their fathers had held sacred. in addition to this, the mythology and language of the aryans alike bear the impress of the innovating and restless spirit of the sons of japhet. i have stated the above propositions to show that the bible affords a rational and connected theory of the origin of the false religions of antiquity; and to suggest as inquiries in relation to every form of mythology--how much of it is primitive monotheism, how much cherub-worship, how much hero-worship, how much ancestor-worship, how much distorted cosmogony, how much pure idealism and superstition, since all these are usually present. i may be allowed further to remind the reader how much evidence we have, even in modern times, of the strong tendency of the human mind to fall into one or another of these forms of idolatry; and to ask him to reflect that really the only effectual conservative element is that of revelation. how strong an argument is this for the necessity to man of an inspired rule of religious faith. [the above note was in substance contained in the appendix to "archaia" in , and its correctness has, i think, been confirmed by subsequent discoveries.] k.--assyrian and egyptian texts. progress is continually being made in the decipherment and publication of these, and new facts are coming to light in consequence as to the religions of the early postdiluvian period. according to the late george smith and to mr. sayce, in their contributions to bagster's "records of the past," the earliest monumental history of babylonia reveals two races, the akkadian or urdu, a turanian race, with an agglutinate language of the finnish or tartar type, and the sumir or keen-gi, believed to be shemitic. the race of akkad seems to have invented the cuneiform writing at a very early period, and it no doubt represents the primitive cushites of the bible, to whom is attributed the empire of nimrod, whose first cities were babel and erech and akkad and calneh. very ancient inscriptions of this early chaldean or cushite race exist, probably earlier than the time of abraham. that of king urukh, who is called "a very ancient king," on an inscription of nabonadius, b.c., represents himself as building temples to several gods and goddesses, so that in his time there was already a developed polytheism, unless, indeed, he was himself the inventor or introducer of much of it. yet one can gather from the probably contemporary creation and deluge tablets translated by mr. smith, that a supreme god was still recognized, and that the subordinate deities, though their worship was probably gaining in importance, were still only local and created beings. yet it was undoubtedly from this embryo idolatry that abraham dissented, and was thus led to leave his native land. in like manner, in the early egyptian hymn to amen ra, translated by mr. goodwin, though we have the gods mentioned, they are inferior beings, and not higher in position than the angels of the old testament, while ra himself is "lord of eternity, maker everlasting," and is praised as "chief creator of the whole earth, supporter of affairs above every god, in whose goodness the gods rejoice." thus, although there can be little doubt that ra was a sun-god, there can be as little that he is the il or el of the shemitic peoples, and that his worship represents that of the one god, the creator. it seems probable also that there was an esoteric doctrine of this kind among the priests and the educated, however gross the polytheism of the vulgar. in short, the state of things in assyria and egypt was not dissimilar from that prevailing at this day in india, where learned men may fall back upon the ancient vedas, and maintain that their religion is monotheistic, while the common people worship innumerable gods. all this points to a primitive monotheism, just as the peculiar forms of adoration given to saints and the virgin mary in the greek and roman churches historically imply a primitive christianity on which these newer beliefs and rites have been engrafted. l.--species and varietal forms with reference to the unity of man. in the concluding chapters of "archaia" the nature of species, as distinguished from varieties, was discussed, and specially applied to the varieties and races of man. this discussion has been omitted from the text of the present work; but, in an abridged form, is introduced here, with especial reference to those more recent views of this subject now prevalent in consequence of the growth of the philosophy of evolution; but which i feel convinced must, with the progress of science, return nearer to the opinions held by me in , and summarized below. we can determine species only by the comparison of individuals. if all these agree in all their characters except those appertaining to sex, age, and other conditions of the individual merely, we say that they belong to the same species. if all species were invariable to this extent, there could be no practical difficulty, except that of obtaining specimens for comparison. but in the case of very many species there are minor differences, not sufficient to establish specific diversity, but to suggest its possibility; and in such cases there is often great liability to error. in cases of this kind we have principally two criteria: first, the nature and amount of the differences; secondly, their shading gradually into each other, or the contrary. under the first of these we inquire--are they no greater in amount than those which may be observed in individuals of the same parentage? are they no greater than those which occur in other species of similar structure or habits? do they occur in points known in other species to be readily variable, or in points that usually remain unchanged? are none of them constant in the one supposed species, and constantly absent in the other? under the second we ask--are the individuals presenting these differences connected together by others showing a series of gradations uniting the extremes by minute degrees of difference? if we can answer these questions--or such of them as we have the means of answering--in the affirmative, we have no hesitation in referring all to the same species. if obliged to answer all or many in the negative, we must at least hesitate in the identification; and if the material is abundant, and the distinguishing characters clear and well defined, we conclude that there is a specific difference. species determined in this way must possess certain general properties in common: . their individuals must fall within a certain range of uniform characters, wider or narrower in the case of different species. . the intervals between species must be distinctly marked, and not slurred over by intermediate gradations. . the specific characters must be invariably transmitted from generation to generation, so that they remain equally distinct in their limits if traced backward or forward in time, in so far as our observation may extend. . within the limits of the species there is more or less liability to variation; and this, though perhaps developed by external circumstances, is really inherent in the species, and must necessarily form a part of its proper description. . there is also a physiological distinction between species, namely, that the individuals are sterile with one another, whereas this does not apply to varieties; and though darwin has labored to break down this distinction by insisting on rare exceptional cases, and suggesting many supposed ways by which varieties of the same species might possibly attain to this kind of distinctness, the difference still remains as a fact in nature; though one not readily available in practically distinguishing species. these general properties of species will, i think, be admitted by all naturalists as based on nature, and absolutely necessary to the existence of natural history as a science, independently of any hypotheses as to the possible changes of specific forms in the lapse of time. i now proceed to give a similar summary of the laws of the varieties which may exist--always be it observed, within the limits of the species. . the limits of variation are very different in different species. there are many in which no well-marked variations have been observed. there are others in which the variations are so marked that they have been divided, even by skilful naturalists, into distinct species or even genera. i do not here refer to differences of age and sex. these in many animals are so great that nothing but actual knowledge of the relation that subsists would prevent the individuals from being entirely separated from one another. i refer merely to the varieties that exist in adults of the same sex, including, however, those that depend on arrest of development, and thus make the adult of one variety resemble in some respects the young of another; as, for instance, in the hornless oxen, and beardless individuals among men. if we inquire as to the causes on which the greater or less disposition to vary depends, we must, in the first place, confess our ignorance, by saying that it appears to be in a great measure constitutional, or dependent on minute and as yet not distinctly appreciable structural, physiological, and psychical characters. darwin states that pallas long ago suggested, from the known facts that the seeds of hybrid plants and grafted trees are very variable, the theory that mixture of breeds tends to produce variability; but darwin does not seem to attach much importance to this, and admits our inability to explain the origin of these differences.[ ] we know, however, certain properties of species that are always or usually connected with great liability to variation. the principal of these are the following: . the liability to vary is, in many cases, not merely a specific peculiarity; it is often general in the members of a genus or family. thus the cats, as a family, are little prone to vary; the wolves and foxes very much so. . species that are very widely distributed over the earth's surface are usually very variable. in this case the capacity to vary probably adapts the creature to a great variety of circumstances, and so enables it to be widely distributed. it must be observed here that hardiness and variability of constitution are more important to extensive distribution than mere locomotive powers, for matters have evidently been so arranged in nature that, where the habitat is suitable, colonists will find their way to it, even in the face of difficulties almost insurmountable. . constitutional liability to vary is sometimes connected with or dependent on extreme simplicity of structure, in other cases on a high degree of intelligence and consequent adaptation to various modes of subsistence. those minute, simply organized, and very variable creatures, the foraminifera, exemplify the first of these apparent causes; the crafty wolves furnish examples of the second. . susceptibility to variation is farther modified by the greater or less adaptability of the digestive and locomotive organs to varied kinds of food and habitat. the monkeys, intelligent, imitative, and active, are nevertheless very limited in range and variability, because they can comfortably subsist only in forests, and in the warmer regions of the earth. the hog, more sluggish and less intelligent, has an omnivorous appetite, and no very special requirements of habitat, and so can vary greatly and extend over a large portion of the earth. farther, in connection with this subject it may be observed that the conditions favorable to variation are also in the case of the higher animals favorable to domestication, while it may also be affirmed that, other things being equal, animals in a domesticated state are much more liable to vary than those in a wild state, and this independent of intentional selection. darwin admits this, and gives many examples of it. . varieties may originate in two different ways. in the case of wild animals it is generally supposed that they are gradually induced by the slow operation of external influences; but it is certain that in domesticated animals they often appear suddenly and unexpectedly, and are not on that account at all less permanent. a large proportion of our breeds of domestic animals appear to originate in this way. a very remarkable instance is that of the "niata" cattle of the banda orientale, described by darwin in his "voyage of a naturalist." these cattle are believed to have originated about a century ago among the indians to the south of the la plata, and the breed propagates itself with great constancy. "they appear," says darwin, "externally to hold nearly the same relation to other cattle which bull-dogs hold to other dogs. their forehead is very short and broad, with the nasal end turned up, and the upper lip much drawn back; their lower jaws project outward; when walking they carry their heads low on a short neck, and their hinder legs are rather longer compared with the front legs than is usual." it is farther remarkable in respect to this breed that it is, from its conformation of head, less adapted to the severe droughts of those regions than the ordinary cattle, and can not, therefore, be regarded as an adaptation to circumstances. in his later work on animals under domestication, darwin gives many other instances of the origination of breeds of cattle and other animals in this abrupt and mysterious manner, and without any selection, though he strongly leans to the conclusion that slow and gradual changes are the most frequent causes of variation. it is to be observed, however, that very slow changes are in more danger of being accidentally diverted or obliterated by crossing, and that the first stages of an incipient change may be too unimportant to be permanent. many writers on the subject of the unity of man assume that any marked variety must require a long time for its production. our experience in the case of the domestic animals teaches the reverse of this view; a very important point too often overlooked. . the duration or permanence of varieties is very different. some return at once to the normal type when the causes of change are removed. others perpetuate themselves nearly as invariably as species, and are named races. it is these races only that we are likely to mistake for true species, since here we have that permanent reproduction which is one of the characteristics of the species. the race, however, wants the other characteristics of species as above stated; and it differs essentially in having branched from a primitive species, and in not having an independent origin. it is quite evident that in the absence of historical evidence we must be very likely to err by supposing races to have really originated in distinct "primordial forms." such error is especially likely to arise if we overlook the fact of the sudden origination of such races, and their great permanency if kept distinct. there are two facts which deserve especial notice, as removing some of the difficulty in such cases. one is that well-marked races usually originate only in domesticated animals, or in wild animals which, owing to accidental circumstances, are placed in abnormal circumstances. another is, that there always remains a tendency to return, in favorable circumstances, to the original type. this tendency to reversion is much underrated by darwin and his followers; yet they constantly recur to it as a means of proving possible derivation, and their writings abound in examples of it. perhaps the most remarkable of these reversions are those which occur when varieties destitute of all the markings of the original stock are crossed and reproduce those markings, which darwin shows to occur in pigeons and domestic fowls. the domesticated races usually require a certain amount of care to preserve them in a state of purity, both on this account and on account of the readiness with which they intermix with other varieties of the same species. many very interesting facts in illustration of these points might be adduced. the domesticated hog differs in many important characters from the wild boar. in south america and the west indies it has returned, in three centuries or less, to its original form.[ ] the horse is probably not known in a state originally wild, but it has run wild in america and in siberia. in the prairies of north america, according to catlin[ ] they still show great varieties of color. the same is the case in sable island, off the coast of nova scotia[ ] where herds of wild horses have existed since an early period in the settlement of america. in south america and siberia they have assumed a uniform chestnut or bay color. in the plains of western america they retain the dimensions and vigor of the better breeds of domesticated horses. in sable island they have already degenerated to the level of highland ponies; but in all countries where they have run wild, the elongated and arched head, high shoulders, straight back, and other structural characters probably of the original wild horse, have appeared. we also learn from such instances that, while races among domesticated animals may appear suddenly, they revert to the original type, when unmixed, comparatively slowly; and this especially when the variation is in the nature of degeneracy. . some characters are more subject to variation than others. in the higher animals variation takes place very readily in the color and texture of the skin and its appendages. this, from its direct relation to the external world, and ready sympathy with the condition of the digestive organs, might be expected to take the lead. in those domesticated animals which are little liable to vary in other respects, as the cat and duck, the color very readily changes. next may be placed the stature and external proportions, and the form of such appendages as the external ear and tail. all these characters are very variable in domestic animals. next we may place the form of the skull, which, though little variable in the wild state, is nearly always changed by domestication. psychological functions, as the so-called instincts of animals, are also very liable to change, and to have these changes perpetuated in races. very remarkable instances of this have been collected by sir c. lyell[ ] and dr. prichard. lastly, important physiological characters, as the period of gestation, etc., and the structure of the internal organs connected with the functions of nutrition, respiration, etc., are little liable to change, and remain unaffected by the most extreme variations in other points; and it is, no doubt, in these more essential and internal parts that the tendency survives to return under favorable circumstances to the original type. . varieties or races of the same species are fully reproductive with each other, which is not the case with true species. mutual sterility of varieties of the same species is an exceptional peculiarity, if it ever truly exist; and, on the other hand, the cross-fertilization of varieties of the same species, whether in animals or plants, tends to vigorous life, and also to return to the primitive or average type. on the other hand, intermixture of distinct species rarely, if ever, occurs freely in nature. it is generally a result of artificial contrivance. again, hybrids produced from species known to be distinct are either wholly barren, or barren _inter se_, reproducing only with one of the original stocks, and rapidly returning to it; or if ever fertile _inter se_, which is somewhat doubtful, rapidly run out. it has been maintained by pallas and others, and darwin leans to this idea, that there is still another possibility, namely, that of the perfect and continued fertility of such mixed races, especially after long domestication; but their proofs are derived principally from the intermixture of the races of dogs and of poultry, which are cases actually in dispute at present, as to the original unity or diversity of the so-called species. if we apply these considerations to man, our conclusion must be that, even in his bodily frame, he is not merely specifically but ordinally distinct from other animals, and that the differences between races of men are varietal rather than specific. this view is confirmed by the following facts: . the case of man is not that of a wild animal; and it presents many points of difference even from the case of the domesticated lower animals. according to the bible history, man was originally fitted to subsist on fruits, to inhabit a temperate climate, and to be exempt from the necessity of destroying or contending with other animals. this view unquestionably accords very well with his organization. he still subsists principally on vegetable food, is most numerous in the warmer regions of the earth; and, when so subsisting in these regions, is naturally peaceful and timid. on the whole, however, his habits of life are artificial--more so than those of any domesticated animal. he is, therefore, in the conditions most favorable to variation. again, man possesses more than merely animal instincts. his mental powers permit him to devise means of locomotion, of protection, of subsistence, far superior to those of any mere animal; and his dominant will, insatiable in its desires, bends the bodily frame to uses and exposes it to external influences more various than any inferior animal can dream of. man is also more educable and plastic in his constitution than other animals, owing both to his being less hemmed in by unchanging instincts, and to his physical frame being less restricted in its adaptations. if a single species, he is also more widely distributed than any other; and there are even single races which exceed in their extent of distribution nearly all the inferior animals. nor is there anything in his structure specially to limit him to plains, or hills, or forests, or coasts, or inland regions. all the causes which we can suppose likely to produce variation thus meet in man, who is himself the producer of most of the distinct races that we observe in the lower animals. if, therefore, we condescend to compare man with these creatures, it must be under protest that what we learn from them must be understood with reference to his greater capabilities. . the races of men are deficient in some of the essential characters of species. it is true that they are reproduced with considerable permanency; though a great many cases of spontaneous change, of atavism, or return to the character of progenitors, and of slow variation under changed conditions, have been recorded. but the most manifest deficiency in true specific characters is in the invariable shading-off of one race into another, and in the entire failure of those who maintain the distinction of species in the attempt accurately to define their number and limits. the characters run into each other in such a manner that no natural arrangement based on the whole can apparently be arrived at; and when one particular ground is taken, as color, or shape of skull, the so-called species have still no distinct limits; and all the arrangements formed differ from each other, and from the deductions of philology and history. thus, from the division of virey into two species, on the entirely arbitrary ground of facial angle, to that of bory de st. vincent into fifteen, we have a great number and variety of distinctions, all incapable of zoological definition; or, if capable of definition, eminently unnatural. there are, in short, no missing links between the varieties of men corresponding to that which obtains between man and lower animals. . the races of men differ in those points in which the higher animals usually vary with the greatest facility. the physical characters chiefly relied on have been color, character of hair, and form of skull, together with diversities in stature and general proportion. these are precisely the points in which our domestic races are most prone to vary. the manner in which these characters differ in the races of men may be aptly illustrated by a few examples of the arrangements to which they lead. dr. pickering, of the u. s. exploring expedition[ ]--who does not, however, commit himself to any specific distinctions--has arranged the various races of men on the very simple and obvious ground of color. he obtains in this way four races--the white, the brown, the blackish-brown, the black. the distinction is easy; but it divides races historically, philologically, and structurally alike; and unites those which, on other grounds, would be separated. the white race includes the hamite abyssinian, the semitic arabian, the japhetic greek. the ethiopian or berber is separated from the cognate abyssinian, and the dark hindoo from the paler races speaking like him tongues allied to the sanscrit. the papuan, on the other hand, takes his place with the hindoo; while the allied australian must be content to rank with the negro; and the hottentot is promoted to a place beside the malay. it is unnecessary to pursue any farther the arrangement of this painstaking and conscientious inquirer. it conclusively demonstrates that the color of the varieties of the human race must be arbitrary and accidental, and altogether independent of unity or diversity of origin. some use has been made, by the advocates of diversity of species, of the quality of the hair in the different races. that of the negro is said to be flat in its cross section--in this respect approaching to wool; that of the european is oval; and that of the mongolian and american round.[ ] the subject has as yet been very imperfectly investigated; but its indications point to no greater variety than that which occurs in many domesticated animals--as, for instance, the hog and sheep. nay, dr. carpenter states[ ]--and the writer has satisfied himself of the fact by his own observation--that it does not exceed the differences in the hair from different parts of the body of the same individual. the human hair, like that of mammals in general, consists of three tissues: an outer cortical layer, marked by transverse striæ, having in man the aspect of delicate lines, but in many other animals assuming the character of distinct joints or prominent serrations; a layer of elongated, fibrous cells, to which the hair owes most of its tenacity; and an inner cylinder of rounded cells. in the proportionate development of these several parts, in the quantity of coloring matter present, and in the transverse section, the human hair differs very considerably in different parts of the body. it also differs very markedly in individuals of different complexions. similar but not greater differences obtain in the hair of the scalp in different races; but the flatness of the negro's hair connects itself inseparably with the oval of the hair of the ordinary european, and this with the round observed in some other races. it generally holds that curled and frizzled hair is flatter than that which is lank and straight; but this is not constant, for i have found that the waved or frizzled hair of the new hebrideans, intermediate apparently between the polynesians and papuans, is nearly circular in outline, and differs from european hair mainly in the greater development of the fibrous structure and the intensity of the color. large series of comparisons are required; but those already made point to variation rather than specific difference. some facts also appear to indicate very marked differences as occurring in the same race from constant exposure or habitual covering; and also the occasional appearance of the most abnormal forms, without apparent cause, in individuals. the differences depending on greater or less abundance or vigor of growth of the hair are obviously altogether trivial, when compared with such examples as the hairless dogs of chili and hairless cattle of brazil, or even with the differences in this respect observed in individuals of the same race of men. confessedly the most important differences of the races of men are those of the skeleton, in all parts of which variations of proportion occur, and are of course more or less communicated to the muscular investments. of these, as they exist in the pelvis, limbs, etc., i need say nothing; for, manifest though they are, they all fall far within the limits of variation in familiar domestic animals, and also of hereditary malformation or defect of development occurring in the european nations, and only requiring isolation for its perpetuation as a race. the differences in the skull merit more attention, for it is in this and in its enclosed brain that man most markedly differs from the lower animals, as well as race from race. it is in the form rather than in the mere dimensions of the skull that we should look for specific differences; and here, adopting the vertical method of blumenbach as the most characteristic and valuable, we find a greater or less antero-posterior diameter--a greater or less development of the jaws and bones of the face. the skull of the normal european, or caucasian of cuvier, is round oval; and the jaws and cheek-bones project little beyond its anterior margin, when viewed from above. the skull of the mongolian of cuvier is nearly round, and the cheek-bones and jaws project much more strongly in front and at the sides. the negro skull is lengthened from back to front; the jaws project strongly, or are prognathous; but the cheek-bones are little prominent. for the extremes of these varieties, retzius proposed the names of brachy-kephalic or short-headed, and dolicho-kephalic or long-headed, which have come into general use. the differences indicated by these terms are of great interest, as distinctive marks of many of the unmixed races of men; but, when pushed to extremes, lead to very incorrect generalizations--as professor d. wilson has well shown in his paper on the supposed uniformity of type in the american races--a doctrine which he fully refutes by showing that within a very narrow geographical range this primitive and unmixed race presents very great differences of cranial form.[ ] exclusive of idiots, artificially compressed heads, and deformities, the differences between the brachy-kephalic and dolicho-kephalic heads range from equality in the parietal and longitudinal diameter to the proportion of about to . as stated by some ethnologists, these differences appear quite characteristic and distinct; but, so soon as we attempt any minute discrimination, all confidence in them as specific characters disappears. in our ordinary european races similar differences, and nearly as extensive, occur. the dolicho-kephalic head is really only an immature form perpetuated; and appears not only in the negro, but in the esquimau, and in certain ancient and modern celtic races. the brachy-kephalic head, in like manner, is characteristic of certain tribes and portions of tribes of americans, but not of all; of many northern asiatic nations; of certain celtic and scandinavian tribes; and often appears in the modern european races as an occasional character. farther, as retzius has well shown, the long heads and prominent jaws are not always associated with each other; and his classification is really the testimony of an able observer against the value of these characters. he shows that the celtic and germanic races (in part) have long heads and straight jaws; while the negroes, australians, oceanians, caribs, greenlanders, etc., have long heads and prominent jaws. the laplanders, finns, turks, sclaves, persians, etc., have short heads and straight jaws; while the tartars, mongolians, incas, malays, papuans, etc., have short heads and prominent jaws. another defect in the argument often based on the diverse forms of heads is its want of acknowledgment of the ascertained and popularly known fact that these forms in different tribes or individuals of the same race are markedly influenced by culture and habits of life. in all races ignorance and debasement tend to induce a prognathous form, while culture tends to the elevation of the nasal bones, to an orthognathous condition of the jaws, and to an elevation and expansion of the cranium.[ ] again, no adequate allowance has been made in the case of these forms of skull for the influence of modes of nurture in infancy. dr. morton, observing that the brachy-kephalic american skull was often unequal sided, and the occiput much flattened, suggests that this is "an exaggeration of the natural form produced by the pressure of the cradle-board in common use among the american natives." dr. wilson has noticed the same unsymmetrical character in brachy-kephalic skulls in british barrows, and has suspected some artificial agency in infancy; and says, in reference to the american instances, "i think it extremely probable that further investigation will tend to the conclusion that the vertical or flattened occiput, instead of being a typical characteristic, pertains entirely to the class of artificial modifications of the natural cranium familiar to the american ethnologist." while the points in which the races of men vary are those in which lower animals are most liable to undergo change, the several races display a remarkable constancy in those which are usually less variable. prichard and carpenter have well shown this in relation to physiological points, as, for instance, the age of arriving at maturity, the average and extreme duration of life, and the several periods connected with reproduction. the coincidence in these points alone is by many eminent physiologists justly regarded as sufficient evidence of the unity of the species. . it may also be affirmed, in relation to the varieties of man, that they do not exceed in amount or extent those observed in the lower animals. if with frederick cuvier, dr. carpenter, and many other naturalists, we regard the dog as a single species, descended in all probability from the wolf, we can have no hesitation in concluding that this animal far exceeds man in variability.[ ] but this is denied by many, not without some show of reason; and we may, therefore, select some animal respecting which little doubt can be entertained. perhaps the best example is the common hog (_sus scrofa_), an undoubted descendant of the wild boar, and a creature especially suitable for comparison with man, inasmuch as its possible range of food is very much the same with his, which is not the case with any other of our domesticated animals; and as its headquarters as a species are in the same regions which have supported the greatest and oldest known communities of men. we may exclude from our comparison the chinese hog, by some regarded as a distinct species (_sus indicus_), though no wild original is known, and it breeds freely with the common hog. the color of the domestic hog varies, like that of man, from white to black; and in the black hog the skin as well as the hair partakes of the dark color. the abundance and quality of the hair vary extremely; the stature and form are equally variable, much more so than in man. blumenbach long ago remarked that the difference between the skull of the ordinary domestic hog and that of the wild boar is quite equal to that observed between the negro and european skulls. darwin shows that it is much greater, and illustrates this by an amusing pair of portraits. the breeds of swine even differ in directions altogether unparalleled in man. for instance, both in america and europe solid-hoofed swine have originated and become a permanent variety; and there is said to be another variety with five toes.[ ] these are the more remarkable, because, in the american instances, there can be no doubt that it is the common hog which has assumed these abnormal forms. . all varieties or races of men intermix freely, in a manner which strongly indicates specific unity. we hold here, as already stated, that no good case of a permanent race arising from intermixture of distinct species of the lower animals has been adduced; but there is another fact in relation to this subject which the advocates of specific diversity would do well to study. even in varieties of those domestic animals which are certainly specifically identical, as the hog, the sheep, the ox--although crosses between the varieties may easily be produced--they are not readily maintained, and sometimes tend to die out. what are called good crosses lead to improved energy, and continual breeding in and in of the same variety leads to degeneracy and decay; but, on the other hand, crosses of certain varieties are proved by experience to be of weakly and unproductive quality; and every practical book on cattle contains remarks on the difficulty of keeping up crosses without intermixture with one of the pure breeds. it would thus appear that very unlike varieties of the same species display in this respect, in an imperfect manner, the peculiarities of distinct species. it is on this principle that i would in part account for some of the exceptional facts which occur in mixed races of men. what, then, are the facts in the case of man? in producing crosses of distinct species, as in the case of the horse and ass, breeders are obliged to resort to expedients to overcome the natural repugnance to such intermixture. in the case of even the most extreme varieties of man, if such repugnance exists, it is voluntarily overcome, as the slave population of america testifies abundantly. by far the greater part of the intermixtures of races of men tend to increase of vital energy and vigor, as in the case of judicious crosses of some domestic animals. where a different result occurs, we usually find sufficient secondary causes to account for it. i shall refer to but one such case--that of the half-breed american indian. in so far as i have had opportunities of observation or inquiry, these people are prolific, much more so than the unmixed indian. they are also energetic, and often highly intellectual; but they are of delicate constitution, especially liable to scrofulous diseases, and therefore not long-lived. now this is precisely the result which often occurs in domestic animals, where a highly cultivated race is bred with one that is of ruder character and training; and it very probably results from the circumstance that the progeny may inherit too much of the delicacy of the one parent to endure the hardships congenial to the other; or, on the other hand, too much of the wild nature of the ruder parent to subsist under the more delicate nurture of the more cultivated. this difficulty does not apply to the intermixture of the negro and the european, though between the pure races this is a cross too abrupt to be likely to be in the first instance successful. . the races of man may have originated in the same manner with the breeds of our domesticated animals. there are many facts which render it probable that they did originate in this way. take color, for instance. the fair varieties of man occur only in the northern temperate zone, and chiefly in the equable climates of that zone. in extreme climates, even when cold, dusky and yellow colors appear. the black and blackish-brown colors are confined to the inter-tropical regions, and appear in such portions of all the great races of mankind as have been long domiciled there. diet and degree of exposure have also evidently very much to do with form, stature, and color. the deer-eating chippewayan of certain districts of north america is a better developed man than his compatriots who subsist principally on rabbits and such meaner fare; and excess of carbonaceous food, and deficiency of perspiration or of combustion in the lungs, appear everywhere to darken the skin.[ ] the negro type in its extreme form is peculiar to low and humid river valleys of tropical africa. in australasia similar characters appear in men of a very different race in similar circumstances. the mongolian type reappears in south africa. the esquimau is like the fuegian. the american indian, both of south and north america, resembles the mongol; but in several of the middle regions of the american continent men appear who approximate to the malay. everywhere and in all races coarse features and deviations from the oval form of skull are observed in rude populations. where men have sunk into a child-like simplicity, the elongated forms prevail. where they have become carnivorous, aggressive, and actively barbarous, the brachy-kephalic forms abound. these and many other considerations tend to the conclusion that these varieties are inseparably connected with external conditions. it may still be asked--were not the races created as they are, with especial reference to these conditions? i answer no--because the differences are of a character in every respect like those that appear in other true species as the results of influences from without. farther, not only have we varieties of man resulting from the slow operation of climatal and other conditions, but we have the sudden development of races. one remarkable instance may illustrate my meaning. it is the hairy family of siam, described by mr. crawford and mr. yule.[ ] the peculiarities here consisted of a fine silky coat of hair covering the face and less thickly the whole body, with at the same time the entire absence of the canine and molar teeth. the person in whom these characters originated was sent to ava as a curiosity when five years old. he married at twenty-two, his wife being an ordinary burmese woman. one of two children who survived infancy had all the characters of the father. this was a girl; and on her marriage the same characters reappeared in one of two boys constituting her family when seen by mr. yule. here was a variety of a most extreme character, originating without apparent cause, and capable of propagation for three generations, even when crossed with the ordinary type. had it originated in circumstances favorable to the preservation of its purity, it might have produced a tribe or nation of hairy men, with no teeth except incisors. such a tribe would, with some ethnologists, have constituted a new and very distinct species; and any one who had suggested the possibility of its having originated within a few generations as a variety would have been laughed at for his credulity. it is unnecessary to cite any further instances. i merely wish to insist on the necessity of a rigid comparison of the variations which appear in man, either suddenly or in a slow or secular manner, with the characters of the so-called races or species. . if we turn from the merely physical constitution of man, and inquire as to his psychical and spiritual endowments, it would be easy to show, as dr. carpenter and others have done, in opposition to darwin, that on the one hand an impassable barrier separates man from the lower animals, and that on the other there is an essential unity among the races of men. but this subject i have discussed fully in the concluding chapters of my "story of the earth." if man is thus so very variable, and if many of his leading varieties have existed for a very long time, does not the fact that we have but one species afford very strong evidence that species change only within fixed limits, and do not pass over into new specific types. viewed in this way, variability within the specific limits becomes in itself one of the strongest arguments against the doctrine of descent with modification as a mode of origination of new species. let us now add to all this the farther consideration, so well illustrated in the "reliquiæ aquitanicæ" of christy and lartet, that the oldest-known men of the caves and gravels may be placed in one of the varieties, and this the most widely distributed, of modern man, and we have a further argument which tells most strongly against the assumption either of the extreme antiquity or of the unlimited variability of the human species. footnotes [footnote : argyll's "primeval man."] [footnote : essays on theism, .] [footnote : john i., .] [footnote : hebrews xi., .] [footnote : i avail myself of the condensed translation in bancroft's "native races," vol. iii. the original french translation of brasseur du bourbourg is more full.] [footnote : the feathered serpent is perhaps the representative of the dragon and serpent in the semitic version; but has not the same evil import, and his color gave sacredness to blue and green stones, as the turquois and emerald, both in north and south america, and perhaps also in asia and africa.] [footnote : i do not think it necessary to attach any value to the doubts of certain schools of criticism as to the mosaic authorship of the pentateuch. whatever quibbles may be raised on isolated texts, no rational student can doubt that we have in these books a collection of authentic documents of the exodus. they are absolutely inexplicable on any other supposition.] [footnote : "cosmos," otté's translation.] [footnote : hamilton, "royal preacher."] [footnote : harvey, "nereis boreali americana."] [footnote : osburn, "monumental history of egypt."] [footnote : on this subject i may refer naturalists to the intimate acquaintance with animals and their habits, indicated by manner of their use as sacred emblems, and as symbols in hieroglyphic writing. another illustration is afforded by the mosaic narrative of the miracles and plagues connected with the exodus. the egyptian king, on this occasion, consulted the _philosophers_ and _augurs_. these learned men evidently regarded the serpent-rod miracle as but a more skilful form of one of the tricks of serpent-charmers. they showed pharaoh the possibility of reddening the nile water by artificial means, or perhaps by the development of red algæ in it. they explained the inroad of frogs on natural principles, probably referring to the immense abundance ordinarily of the ova and tadpoles of these creatures compared with that of the adults. but when the dust of the land became gnats ("lice" in our version), this was a phenomenon beyond their experience. either the species was unknown to them, or its production out of the dry ground was an anomaly, or they knew that no larvæ adequate to explain it had previously existed. in the case of this plague, therefore, comparatively insignificant and easily simulated, they honestly confessed--"this is the finger of god." no better evidence could be desired that the savans here opposed to moses were men of high character and extensive observation. many other facts of similar tendency might be cited both from moses and the egyptian monuments.] [footnote : that in genesis, chap. ii.] [footnote : kitto's cyclopædia, art. "creation."] [footnote : much that is very silly has been written as to the extent of the supposed "optical view" taken by the hebrew writers; many worthy literary men appearing to suppose that _scientific_ views of nature must necessarily be different from those which we obtain by the evidence of our senses. the very contrary is the fact; and so long as any writers state correctly what they observe, without insisting on any fanciful hypotheses, science has no fault to find with them. what science most detests is the ignorant speculations of those who have not observed at all, or have observed imperfectly. it is a leading excellence of the hebrew scriptures that they state facts without giving any theories to account for them. it is, on the contrary, the circumstance that unscientific writers will not be content to be "optical," but must theorize, that spoils much of our modern literature, especially in its descriptions of nature.] [footnote : prof. hitchcock.] [footnote : mccosh, "typical forms and special ends."] [footnote : i adopt that view of the date of job which makes it precede the exodus, because the religious ideas of the book are patriarchal, and it contains no allusions to the hebrew history or institutions. were i to suggest an hypothesis as to its origin, it would be that it was written or found by moses when in exile, and published among his countrymen in egypt, to revive their monotheistic religion, and cheer them under the apparent desertion of their god and the evils of their bondage.] [footnote : tyndall seems to hold this.] [footnote : newton.] [footnote : john v., ; rom. viii., ; heb. i., ; peter iii.] [footnote : heb. i., .] [footnote : eph. iii., .] [footnote : tim. i., .] [footnote : eph. iv., .] [footnote : job xxxviii. and xxxix.] [footnote : romans i., .] [footnote : essays on theism.] [footnote : herschel, dissertation on the study of natural philosophy; maxwell, lecture before the british association.] [footnote : carpenter, "human physiology."] [footnote : asah.] [footnote : mcdonald, "creation and the fall."] [footnote : literally, "ages" or "time-worlds," as they have been called.] [footnote : genesis i., , - .] [footnote : job xxxviii., .] [footnote : gen. i., ; deut. xvii., .] [footnote : gen. xxviii., ; job xv., ; psa. ii., .] [footnote : not "created," as some read. the verb is _kana_, not _bara_.] [footnote : the usual septuagint rendering is _abyssus_.] [footnote : smith, "assyrian genesis." brasseur de bourbourg's translation of the "popol vuh" of the ancient central american indians.] [footnote : it is impossible to avoid recognizing in the greek theogony, as it appears in hesiod and the orphic poems, an inextricable intermingling of a cosmogony akin to that of moses with legendary stories of deceased ancestors; and this has, i must confess, always appeared to me to be a more rational way of accounting for it than its reference to mere nature-myths. chaos, or space, for the chaos of hesiod differs from that of ovid, came first, then gaea, the earth, and tartarus, or the lower world. chaos gave birth to erebos (identical with the hebrew ereb or erev, evening) and nyx, or night. these again give birth to aether, the equivalent of the hebrew expanse or firmament, and to hemera, the day, and then the heavenly bodies were perfected. so far the legend is apparently based on some primitive history of creation, not essentially different from that of the bible. but the greek theogony here skips suddenly to the human period; and under the fables of the marriage of gaea and uranos, and the titans, appears to present to us the antediluvian world, with its intermarriages of the sons of god and men, and its nephelim or giants, with their mechanic arts and their crimes. beyond this, in kronos and his three sons, and in the strange history of zeus, the chief of these, we have a coarse and fanciful version of the story of the family of noah, the insult offered by ham to his father, and the subsequent quarrels and dispersion of mankind. the zeus of homer appears to be the elder of the three, or japheth, the real father of the greeks, according to the bible; but in the time of hesiod zeus was the youngest, perhaps indicating that the worship of the egyptian zeus, ammon or ham, had already supplanted among the greeks that of their own ancestor. but it is curious that even in the bible, though japhet is said to be the greater, he is placed last in the lists. after the introduction of greek savans and literati to egypt, about b.c. , they began to regard their own mythology from this point of view, though obliged to be reserved on the subject. the cosmology of thales, the astronomy of anaxagoras, and the history of herodotus afford early evidence of this, and it abounds in later writers. i may refer the reader to grote (history of greece, vol. i.) for an able and agreeable summary of this subject; and may add that even the few coincidences above pointed out between greek mythology and the bible, independently of the multitudes of more doubtful character to be found in the older writers on this subject, appear very wonderful, when we consider that among the greeks these vestiges of primitive religion, whether brought with them from the east or received from abroad, must have been handed down for a long time by oral tradition among the people; but obscure though they may be, the circumstance that some old writers have ridden the resemblances to death affords no excuse for the prevailing neglect of them in more modern times.] [footnote : pages , , and , _supra_.] [footnote : the minor planets discovered in more recent times between mars and jupiter form an exception to this; but they are of little importance, and exceptional in other respects as well. to give their arrangement and the motions of the satellites of uranus, would require the further assumption of some unknown disturbing cause.] [footnote : nichol's "planetary system."] [footnote : proctor's lectures, etc.] [footnote : this translation is as literal as is consistent with the bold abruptness of the original. the last idea is that of a cylindrical seal rolling over clay, and leaving behind a beautiful impression where all before was a blank.] [footnote : professor dana thus sums up the various meanings of the word _day_ in genesis: "_first_, in verse , the _light_ in general is called day, the darkness night. _second_, in the same verse, _evening and morning_ make the first day, before the sun appears. _third_, in verse , day stands for _twelve hours_, or the period of daylight, as dependent on the sun. _fourth_, same verse, in the phrase "days and seasons," day stands for a period of _twenty-four hours_. _fifth_, at the close of the account, in verse of the second chapter, day means the _whole period of creation_. these uses are the same that we have in our own language." warring, in his book "the miracle of to-day," has suggested that the mosaic days are _epochal_ days, each considered as the close and culmination of a period. this is an ingenious suggestion, and very well coincides with the day-period theory as defended in the text.] [footnote : psalm xc.] [footnote : it may be desirable to give here, in a slightly paraphrased version, but strictly in accordance with the views of the best expositors, the essential part of the passage in hebrews, chap. iv.: "for god hath spoken in a certain place" (gen. ii., ) of the seventh day in this wise--'and god did rest on the seventh day from all his works;' and in this place again--'they shall not enter into my rest' (psa. xcv., ). seeing, therefore, it still remaineth that some enter therein, and they to whom it (god's sabbatism) was first proclaimed entered not in, because of disobedience (in the fall, and afterward in the sin of the israelites in the desert), again he fixes a certain day, saying in david's writings, long after the time of joshua--'to-day, if ye hear his voice, harden not your hearts.' for if joshua had given them rest in canaan, he would not afterward have spoken of another day. there is therefore yet reserved a keeping of a sabbath for the people of god. for he that is entered into his rest (that is, jesus christ, who has finished his work and entered into his rest in heaven), he himself also rested from his own works, as god did from his own. let us therefore earnestly strive to enter into that rest." it is evident that in this passage god's sabbatism, the rest intended for man in eden and for israel in canaan, christ's rest in heaven after finishing his work, and the final heavenly rest of christ's people, are all indefinite periods mutually related, and can not possibly be natural days.] [footnote : for the benefit of those who may value ancient authorities in such matters, and to show that such views may rationally be entertained independently of geology, i quote the following passage from origen: "cuinam quæso sensum habenti convenienter videbitur dictum, quod dies prima et secunda et tertia, in quibus et vespera nominatur, et mane, fuerint sine sole, et sine luna et sine stellis: prima autern dies sine coelo." so st. augustine expressly states his belief that the creative days could not be of the ordinary kind: "qui dies, cujusmodi sint, aut perdifficile nobis, aut etiam impossibile est cogitare, quanto magis discere." bede also remarks, "fortassis hic diei nomen, totius temporis nomen est, et omnia volumina seculorum hoc vocabulo includit." many similar opinions of old commentators might be quoted. it is also not unworthy of note that the cardinal number is used here, "one day" for first day; and though the hebrew grammarians have sought to found on this, and a few similar passages, a rule that the cardinal may be substituted for the ordinal, many learned hebraists insist that this use of the cardinal number implies singularity and peculiarity as well as mere priority.] [footnote : it is to be observed, however, that on the so-called literal day hypothesis the first sabbath was not man's seventh day, but rather his first, since he must have been created toward the close of the sixth day.] [footnote : "footprints of the creator."] [footnote : this idea occurs in lord bacon's "confession of faith," and de luc also maintains that the creator's sabbath must have been of long continuance.] [footnote : see the quotation from job, _supra_.] [footnote : this is not strictly correct, as many animals, especially of the lower tribes, extend back to the early tertiary periods, long before the creation of man; a fact which of itself is irreconcilable with the mosaic narrative on the theory of literal or ordinary days.] [footnote : since this was written, the bones of many batrachian reptiles have been found in the carboniferous, both in europe and america. no reptilian remains have yet been found in the devonian rocks.] [footnote : _biblical repository_, . see also an excellent paper by prof. c. h. hitchcock, _bibliotheca sacra_, .] [footnote : rhode, quoted by mcdonald, "creation and the fall," p. ; eusebius, chron. arm.] [footnote : suidas, lexicon--"tyrrenia."] [footnote : diodorus siculus, bk. i. prichard, egyptian mythology.] [footnote : "asiatic researches."] [footnote : this name is exactly identical in meaning with the hebrew jehovah elohim.] [footnote : müller, sanscrit literature.] [footnote : the theology of the institutes is clearly primitive semitic in its character; and therefore, if the bible is true, must be older than the aryan theogony of the rig-veda, as expounded by müller, whatever the relative age of the documents.] [footnote : "recent advances in physical science."] [footnote : croll's "climate and time" contains some interesting facts as to this.] [footnote : see the discussion of this in the author's "story of the earth," and in sir william thomson's british association address, .] [footnote : daniell's meteorological essays; prout's bridgewater treatise; art. "meteorology," encyc. brit.; "maury's physical geography of the sea."] [footnote : kaemtz, "course of meteorology."] [footnote : encyc. brit., art. "meteorology."] [footnote : it is not meant that the word _rakiah_ occurs in these passages, but to show how by other words the idea of stretching out or extension rather than solidity is implied. the verb in the first two passages is _nata_, to spread out.] [footnote : see also humboldt, "cosmos," vol. ii., pt. .] [footnote : heb., "they refine."] [footnote : "his pavilion round about him was dark waters and thick clouds of the skies," psa. xviii. this expression explains that in the text.] [footnote : or "he darkens the depths of the sea."] [footnote : translation of these lines much disputed and very difficult. gesenius and conant render it, "his thunder tells of him; to the herds even of him who is on high."] [footnote : i take advantage of this long quotation to state that in the case of this and other passages quoted from the old testament i have carefully consulted the original; but have availed myself freely of the renderings of such of the numerous versions and commentaries as i have been able to obtain, whenever they appeared accurate and expressive, and have not scrupled occasionally to give a free translation where this seemed necessary to perspicuity. in the book of job, i have consulted principally the translation appended to barnes's commentary, conant's translation, , and those of tayler lewis and evans in schaff's edition of lange, .] [footnote : the word is one of those that pervade both semitic and indo-european tongues: sanscrit, _ahara_; pehlevi, _arta_; latin, _terra_; german, _erde_; gothic, _airtha_; scottish, _yird_; english, _earth_.--gesenius.] [footnote : psalm xcv.] [footnote : gesenius.] [footnote : perhaps "changed," metamorphosed, as by fire. conant has "destroyed."] [footnote : "dust" in our version, literally lumps or "nuggets."] [footnote : the vulgar and incorrect idea that the vulture "scents the carrion from afar," so often reproduced by later poets, has no place in the bible poetry. it is the bird's keen eye that enables him to find his prey.] [footnote : lyell's "principles of geology."] [footnote : stanford, london, .] [footnote : in further explanation of these general geological changes, see "the story of the earth and man," by the author.] [footnote : "tenera herba, sine semine saltem conspicuo."--rosenmüller, "scholia."] [footnote : haughton, address to the geological society, dublin.] [footnote : see mcdonald, "creation and the fall." professor guyot, i believe, deserves the credit of having first mentioned, on the american side of the atlantic, the doctrine respecting the introduction of plants advocated in this chapter.] [footnote : "eozoic" of this work. professor dana in the latest edition of his manual uses the name "archaean."] [footnote : this may refer to an eclipse, but from the character of the preceding verses more probably to the obscurity of a tempest. it is remarkable that eclipses, which so much strike the minds of men and affect them with superstitious awe, are not distinctly mentioned in the old testament, though referred to in the prophetical parts of the new testament.] [footnote : perhaps rather the high places of the waters, referring to the atmospheric waters.] [footnote : the rendering "sweet influences" in our version may be correct, but the weight of argument appears to favor the view of gesenius that the close bond of union between the stars of this group is referred to. i think it is herder who well unites both views, the pleiades being bound together in a sisterly union, and also ushering in the spring by their appearance above the horizon. conant applies the whole to the seasons, the bands of orion being in this view those of winter.] [footnote : it would be unfair to suppress the farther probability that the writer intends specially to indicate that the sacred crocodile of the nile was itself a creature of jehovah, and among the humbler of those creatures.] [footnote : the interesting discovery, by mr. beale and others, of several species of mammalia in the purbeck, and that of professor emmons of a mammal in rocks of similar age in the southern states of america, do not invalidate this statement; for all these, like the _microlestes_ of the german trias and the _amphitherium_ of the stonesfeld slate, are small marsupials belonging to the least perfect type of mammals. the discovery of so many species of these humbler creatures, goes far to increase the improbability of the existence of the higher mammals.] [footnote : it is very interesting, in connection with this, to note that nearly all the earliest and greatest seats of population and civilization have been placed on the more modern geological deposits, or on those in which stores of fuel have been accumulated by the growth of extinct plants.] [footnote : see appendix.] [footnote : see appendix for farther discussion of this subject.] [footnote : see lyell, principles of geology, "introduction of species."] [footnote : for the exposition of the details of the fall, i beg to refer the reader to mcdonald's "creation and the fall," to kitto's "antediluvians and patriarchs," and to kurtz's "history of the old covenant."] [footnote : the bible specifies, perhaps only as the principal of these arts, music and musical instruments by jubal, metallurgy by tubalcain, the domestication of cattle and the nomade life by jabal. it is highly probable that these inventors are introduced into the mosaic record for a theological reason, to point out the folly of the worship rendered to phtha, hephæstos, vulcan, horus, phoebus, and other inventors, either traditionary representatives of the family of lamech, or other heroes wrongly identified with them. very possibly their sister naamah, "the beautiful," is introduced for the same reason, as the true original of some of the female deities of the heathen.] [footnote : i can not for a moment entertain the monstrous supposition of many expositors that the "sons of god" of these passages are angels, and the "nephelim" hybrids between angels and men.] [footnote : see lange's "commentary on genesis."] [footnote : the russian surveys of made it one hundred and eight english feet; but later authorities reduce it to eighty-three feet six inches below the black sea.] [footnote : kitto's "bible illustrations"--book of job.] [footnote : see article "rephaim" in kitto's "journal of sacred literature." but gesenius and others regard it, not as an ethnic name, but as a term for the "shades" or spirits of the dead. see conant on job.] [footnote : on the biblical view of this subject, the so-called aryan mythology, common to india and greece, is either a derivative from the cushite civilization, or a spontaneous growth of the japetic stock scattered by the cushite empire. the semitic and hamitic mythologies are derived from the primeval cherubic worship of eden, corrupted and mixed with deification of natural objects and stages of the creative work, and with adoration of deified ancestors and heroes.] [footnote : genesis th, th, th, and th chapters. see also our previous remarks on the deluge.] [footnote : genesis iv.] [footnote : japheth is "enlargement," his sons are scythians and inhabitants of the isles, varying in language and nationality; and noah predicts, "god shall enlarge japheth, he shall dwell in the tents of shem, ham shall be his servant." these are surely characteristic ethnological traits for a period so early. on the rationalist view, it may be supposed that this prediction was not written until the characters in question had developed themselves; but since the greatest enlargement of japheth has occurred since the discovery of america, there would be quite as good ground for maintaining that noah's prophecy was interpolated after the time of columbus.] [footnote : the language of this people, the stem of the indo-european languages, is, though in a later form, probably that of the aryan or persepolitan part of the trilingual inscriptions at behistun and elsewhere in persia.] [footnote : edkins, "china's place in philology."] [footnote : reginald s. poole has adduced very ingenious arguments, monumental, astronomical, and mythological, for the date b.c. .] [footnote : it is curious that almost simultaneously with the appearance of bunsen's scheme a similiar view was attempted to be maintained on geological grounds. in a series of borings in the delta of the nile, undertaken by mr. horner, there was found a piece of pottery at a depth which appeared to indicate an antiquity of , years. but the basis of the calculation is the rate of deposit ( - / inches per century) calculated for the ground around the statue of rameses ii. at memphis, dated at b.c.; and mr. sharpe has objected that no mud could have been deposited around that statue from its erection until the destruction of memphis, perhaps years b.c. farther, we have to take into account the natural or artificial changes of the river's bed, which in this very place is said to have been diverted from its course by menes, and which near cairo is now nearly a mile from its former site. the liability to error and fraud in boring operations is also very well known. it has farther been suggested that the deep cracks which form in the soil of egypt, and the sinking of wells in ancient times, are other probable causes of error; and it is stated that pieces of burnt brick, which was not in use in egypt until the roman times, have been found at even greater depths than the pottery referred to by mr. horner. this discovery, at first sight so startling, and vouched for by a geologist of unquestioned honor and ability, is thus open to the same doubts with the guadaloupe skeletons, the human bones in ossiferous caverns, and that found in the mud of the mississippi; all of which have, on examination, proved of no value as proofs of the geological antiquity of man.] [footnote : b.c.] [footnote : perhaps the earliest certain date in egyptian history is that of thothmes iii. of the eighteenth dynasty, ascertained by birch on astronomical evidence as about b.c. (about , manetho); and it seems nearly certain that before the eighteenth dynasty, of which this king was the fifth sovereign, there was no settled general government over all egypt.] [footnote : the egyptians seem, like our modern cattle-breeders, to have taken pride in the initiation and preservation of varieties. their sacred bull, apis, was required to represent one of the varieties of the ox; and one can scarcely avoid believing that some of their deified ancestors must have earned their celebrity as tamers or breeders of animals. at a later period, the experiments of jacob with laban's flock furnish a curious instance of attempts to induce variation.] [footnote : see for evidence of these views early notices in genesis, and lenormant and osburne on egyptian monuments and history.] [footnote : there is no good reason to believe the flint implements mentioned by delanoüe and others, as found on the banks of the nile, to be older than the historic period.] [footnote : wilson, "prehistoric man," d edition, p. .] [footnote : southall has accumulated a great number of these facts in his book on the antiquity of man.] [footnote : professor issel, quoted in _popular science monthly_.] [footnote : wilson has remarked the striking similarity of the pottery of these people to american fictile wares. this similarity applies also to the early cyprian art.] [footnote : i agree with gladstone's conclusions as to the date and country of homer.] [footnote : i suggested these terms in my lectures published under the title "nature and the bible," .] [footnote : since these words were written i have read the remarkable book of edkins on the chinese language, which supplies much additional information.] [footnote : donaldson has pointed out (british association proceedings, ) links of connection between the slavonian or sarmatian tongues and the semitic languages, which in like manner indicate the primitive union of the two great branches of languages.] [footnote : "man and his migrations." see also "descriptive ethnology," where the semitic affinities are very strongly brought out.] [footnote : i can scarcely except such terms as "japetic" and "japetidæ," for iapetus can hardly be any thing else than a traditional name borrowed from semitic ethnology, or handed down from the japhetic progenitors of the greeks.] [footnote : see art. "philology," encyc. brit.] [footnote : grammatical structure is no doubt more permanent than vocabulary, yet we find great changes in the latter, both in tracing cognate languages from one region to another, and from period to period. the indo-germanic languages in europe furnish enough of familiar instances.] [footnote : it is fair, however, to observe that the bible refers the first great divergence of language to a divine intervention at the tower of babel. the precise nature of this we do not know; but it would tend to diminish the time required.] [footnote : lecture in the royal institution, march , .] [footnote : "antiquity of man," th ed.] [footnote : southall, _op. cit._] [footnote : the mentone skeleton described by dr. rivière gives evidence of these facts.] [footnote : mr. pengelly declines to admit this; but assigns no cause for the breaking up of portions of the old floor, which he merely refers in general terms to "natural causes."] [footnote : this whole subject of supposed preglacial or interglacial men is still in great confusion and uncertainty, and is complicated with questions, still debated, as to the ages of the supposed glacial and postglacial deposits.] [footnote : _quarterly journal of science_, april, .] [footnote : lyell's "manual of elementary geology."] [footnote : for a full discussion of this subject, see the "story of the earth and man."] [footnote : such a table, with an admirable exposition of the entire succession, as at present known, is given in the appendix to lyell's "students' manual of geology."] [footnote : lyell, basing his calculations on the surveys of messrs. humphreys and abbott, but others give very different estimates.] [footnote : a perfectly parallel example is that of the growth of the peninsula of florida in the modern period, by the same processes now adding to its shores; and this has afforded to professor agassiz a still more extended measure of the post-tertiary period.] [footnote : reade, of liverpool, has recently given a much slower rate--one foot in , years--as a result of recent english surveys; but i have not seen his precise data, and the result certainly differs from those of all other observations.] [footnote : i am quite aware that it may be objected to all this that it is based on merely negative evidence; but this is not strictly the case. there are positive indications of these truths. for example, in the mesozoic epoch the lacertian reptiles presented huge elephantine carnivorous and herbivorous species--the megalosaurus, iguanodon, etc.; flying species, with hollow bones and ample wings--the pterodactyles; and aquatic whale-like species--pliosaurus, ichthyosaurus, etc. these creatures actually filled the offices now occupied by the mammals; and, though lacertian in their affinities, they must have had circulatory, respiratory, and nervous systems far in advance of any modern reptiles even of the order of loricates.] [footnote : "story of the earth"--concluding chapters.] [footnote : this was written in for the first edition of "archaia." i see no reason to change it now, and its vindication will be, found in the appendix.] [footnote : heb. iv., ; peter iii., .] [footnote : hamilton.] [footnote : in the manner illustrated by hyatt and cope.] [footnote : report on fossil plants of the upper silurian and devonian, .] [footnote : drysdale's "protoplasmic theories of life."] [footnote : lecture before the royal institution of london.] [footnote : _leisure hour_, .] [footnote : see critique in _international review_, january, .] [footnote : reported in _nature_, .] [footnote : "history of creation."] [footnote : see also hunt, "chemical and geological essays," p. .] [footnote : except, perhaps, job xxxi., .] [footnote : "animals and plants under domestication," p. .] [footnote : prichard. this is admitted by darwin, who gives other examples, though he insists much on the climatal variations which still remain in feral pigs.] [footnote : "north american indians."] [footnote : haliburton's "nova scotia;" gilpin's lecture on sable island.] [footnote : "principles of geology;" "natural history of man." see also a very able article on the "varieties of man," by dr. carpenter, in todd's cyclopædia.] [footnote : "the races of men," etc. boston, .] [footnote : browne, of philadelphia, quoted by kneeland and others.] [footnote : todd's cyclopædia, art. "varieties of man."] [footnote : "prehistoric man."] [footnote : carpenter in todd's cyclopædia.] [footnote : for an interesting inquiry into the origin of the dog, see the article in todd's cyclopædia already referred to; and the subject is fully discussed by darwin, who leans to the theory of the diversity of origin in dogs.] [footnote : prichard, bachman, cabell.] [footnote : a curious note, by dr. john rae, on the change of complexion in the sandwich islanders, consequent on the introduction of clothing, may be found in the "montreal medical chronicle," , and the "canadian journal" for the same year.] [footnote : latham's "descriptive ethnology."] index. abraham, , . abrahamic genesis, . abyss, . "accommodation," theory of, . adaptation in nature, . Æons of creation, . agassiz on prophetic types, . on species, . animals, higher, creation of the, . lower, creation of the, . antediluvians, . antiquity of man, , . of man, geological evidence of the, . of man, history in relation to the, . of man, language in relation to the, . of the earth, , . _aretz_ (earth), , . argyll, duke of, on creation by law, . duke of, on the origin of civilization, . aryan race, , . assyrian genesis, , . texts, . astronomy of the bible, . atmosphere, constitution of the, . creation of the, . augustine on creative days, . _aur_ (light), . babel, , . _bara_ (create), . beaumont, de, on continents, . bede on creative days, . beginning, the, , . _behemoth_, . _bhemah_ (herbivores), , . birds, creation of, , . bronn on the origin of species, . bronze, age of, . bunsen's chronology, . cainozoic period, . carnivora, creation of, . caverns, human remains in, . centres of creation, . chaos, , . chemistry of, . chinese language, . comparisons and conclusions, . "conflict of the bible with science," . continents, their origin, . cosmogony, assyrian, . egyptian, , . greek, . hebrew, its character, . hebrew, its objects, . hebrew, its origin, . indian, , . persian, . phoenician, . cranial characters of primitive men, . creation, . by law, . centres of, . days of, . modes of, , . of birds, , . of carnivora, . of great reptiles, . of herbivora, . of higher animals, . of lower animals, . of man, . of plants, . croll, calculations of erosion, . glacial theory of, . dana on creation of plants, . on creative days, . on tertiary fauna, . darwin on species, . day of creation, first, . of creation, second, . of creation, third, . of creation, fourth, . of creation, fifth, . of creation, sixth, . of creation, seventh, . days of creation, . of creation compared with geological periods, . prophetic, . death before the fall, . "deep," the, . deluge, the, . _deshé_ (herbage), . design in nature, . desolate void, . drysdale on theories of life, . dupont on belgian caves, . earth, the, , , . its foundations, . ecclesiastes, chap. i., . eden, conditions of, , . site of, - . edkins on the chinese language, , . egypt, early history of, . egyptian cosmogony, , . texts, . _elohim_, , . evans on the erosion of valleys, . evening of creative days, . evolution as applied to animals, , . excavation of valleys, . exodus xxiv., , . fall of man, . final causes, . firmament, the, . fluidity, original, of the earth, . forbes on creation of man, . foundations of the earth, . frontal, cave of, . genesis, chap. i., translated, . chap. i., , . chap. i., , . chap. i., to , . chap. i., to , . chap. i., to , . chap. i., to , . chap. i., to , . chap. i., to , . chap. ii., to , . chap. iv., , . chap. x., , . the abrahamic, . the assyrian, . the mosaic, . the quiché, . geology, principles of, . glacial periods, theories of, . god, personality of, . "grass" in genesis i., . greek myths, . green on the forms of continents, . haeckel on the affiliation of races, . on man and apes, . hamite races, . harmony of revelation and science, . havilah, productions of, . _hay'th-eretz_ (wild beast), . heavens, the, , . herbivora, creation of, . hindoos, cosmogony of the, . hitchcock on creative days, . horner on the alluvium of the nile, . hughes on the excavation of valleys, . on interglacial periods, . on stalagmite, . on the victoria cave, . humboldt on hebrew poetry, . hunt on the chemistry of the primeval earth, . hurakon, . hut of sodertelge, . ice-freshets in america, incandescence of the earth, , . india, cosmogony of, . japhetic races, , . jehovah, . job ix., , . ix., , . xxii., , . xxviii., . xxviii., , . xxxvi., . xxxvii., , . xxxviii., , , . jones, sir w., on indian cosmogony, . kent's cavern, . kurtz on days of vision, . lamech, his poem, . land, its creation, . geological history of, . languages, unity of, , . la place, nebular hypothesis of, . latham on african languages, . on the radiation of languages, . laws of nature, in the bible, . lemuria, . leviticus xi., . life, succession of, , . theories of, . light, , . logos, . luminaries, . lyell on the cause of the glacial period, . on the delta of the mississippi, . on the pleistocene period, . mammals, creation of, . mammoth age, . man, antiquity of, . creation of, . neocosmic, . palæocosmic, , . man, unity of, , . manetho, chronology of, . margite, cave of, . menes, his epoch, . mesozoic period, , . miller on creative days, . mining noticed in the bible, . mississippi, delta of the, . mist watering the ground, . modern period of geology, . modes of creation, . moffatt on african languages, . morse on the evolution of man, . mosaic genesis, . müller's classification of religions, . mythology, ancient, its origin, . of the atmosphere, . as related to the bible, , . nature, study of, . neocosmic man, . "neolithic" men, . niagara, excavation of, . nimrod, . noah, sons of, . palæocosmic men, , . "palæolithic" men, . palæozoic animals, . period, . parallelism of scripture and geology, . pattison on the antiquity of man, . pengelly on kent's cavern, . on stalagmite, . periods, creative, . geological, . persians, cosmogony of the, . philological evidence of the antiquity of man, . pictet on the origin of species, . pierce on the forms of continents, . pillars of the earth, . plants, creation of, . plastids and plastidules, . pratt, archdeacon, on _bhemah_, . prayer and law, . progress in nature, , . proverbs, viii., , , . psalm viii., . viii., , . xviii., . xix., . xc., . civ., , , , . cxix., , . cxix., , . cxxxix., . cxlvii., . cxlviii., , . purpose in nature, . quiché genesis, , . _rakiah_ (the expanse), . rawlinson on historical dates, . reconciliation of the bible and geology, . reindeer age, . religion, aryan, . turanian, . semitic, . _remes_ (creeping things), . _rephaim_, . reptiles, , . revelation, idea of, . river valleys, excavation of, . ruach elohim, . rutimeyer on interglacial men, . sabbath, the, as related to ages of creation, . of the creator, . schliemann on troy, . _shamayim_ (heavens), . shemite races, . _sheretz_ (swarming creature), . somme, gravels of the, . song of creation, . species, agassiz on, . bronn on, . distinct from varieties, . in genesis i., . origin of, , . spirit of god in creation, . stalagmite, deposition of, , . _stereoma_, . stone, ages of, . table of biblical periods, . of geological periods, . tait, prof., on the age of the earth, . _tannin_ (great reptile), , . tennyson on types in nature, . theories of the origin of genesis, . thomson, sir wm., on the age of the earth, . time, geological, , . torel on the sodertelge hut, . troy, as described by schliemann, . type in nature, , . unity of man, , . of nature, . universe, the unseen, . variation, laws of, . veda, its cosmogony, . vegetation, its creation, . of eozoic period, . victoria cave, . vision of creation, . void, the, . wallace on evolution, . on primitive man, . waters above the heavens, . "whales, great," . wilson on american skulls, . on ancient pottery, . the end. by principal dawson. earth and man. the story of the earth and man. by j. w. dawson, ll.d., f.r.s., f.g.s., principal and vice-chancellor of mcgill university, montreal. with twenty illustrations. mo, cloth, $ . an admirable book. it is a clear and interesting _résumé_ of the results of geological investigation, told in simple language, devoid of technicalities. the unscientific reader will obtain more knowledge of geology in one hour's reading of this book than he will in a week's study of more elaborate and professional books upon the same subject. it is vigorously written, and with a certain picturesqueness that is exceedingly attractive. the chapters upon primitive man are peculiarly interesting.--_saturday evening gazette_, boston. the pleasantly written volume before us tells the story of the paleontology and physical geography of the earth in prehuman ages, and closes with a discussion of the theories of the appearance, late in geological time, of man upon the earth. dr. dawson's sketch of paleontology will, we feel sure, be found interesting by all readers.--_athenæum_, london. since hugh miller's time no scientific geologist has done more than principal dawson to extend popular interest in this branch of study, to secure attention to its educational value, or to remove misapprehensions which exist in some quarters as to the relations of science and scripture on geological questions.--_leisure hour_, london. we have read his book with profound interest. it is intelligible, candid, modest.--_boston transcript._ origin of the world. the origin of the world, according to revelation and science. by j. w. dawson, ll.d., f.r.s., f.g.s., &c. mo, cloth. * * * * * published by harper & brothers, new york. harper & brothers _will send either of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united slates, on receipt of the price._ by alexander winchell, sketches of creation: a popular view of some of the grand conclusions of the sciences in reference to the history of matter and of life. together with a statement of the intimations of science respecting the primordial condition and the ultimate destiny of the earth and the solar system. by alexander winchell, ll.d. with illustrations. mo, cloth, $ . a geological chart: exhibiting the classification and relative positions of the rocks, and the various phenomena of stratigraphical geology; together with an indication of geological equivalents, the most important american and foreign synonyms, the economical products of the rocks, and numerous typical localities; with an actual section from the atlantic to the rocky mountains, near the parallel of thirty-nine degrees. by alexander winchell, ll.d. mounted on roller, $ . _with a key._ vo, paper, cents. the doctrine of evolution; its data, its principles, its speculations, and its theistic bearings. by alexander winchell, ll.d. mo, cloth, $ . reconciliation of science and religion. by alexander winchell, ll.d. mo, cloth, $ . _published by harper & brothers, new york._ harper & brothers _will send any of the above works by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the united states, on receipt of the price._ the interpreters of genesis and the interpreters of nature essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley our fabulist warns "those who in quarrels interpose" of the fate which is probably in store for them; and, in venturing to place myself between so powerful a controversialist as mr. gladstone and the eminent divine whom he assaults with such vigour in the last number of this review, [ ] i am fully aware that i run great danger of verifying gay's prediction. moreover, it is quite possible that my zeal in offering aid to a combatant so extremely well able to take care of himself as m. reville may be thought to savour of indiscretion. two considerations, however, have led me to face the double risk. the one is that though, in my judgment, m. reville is wholly in the right in that part of the controversy to which i propose to restrict my observations, nevertheless he, as a foreigner, has very little chance of making the truth prevail with englishmen against the authority and the dialectic skill of the greatest master of persuasive rhetoric among english-speaking men of our time. as the queen's proctor intervenes, in certain cases, between two litigants in the interests of justice, so it may be permitted me to interpose as a sort of uncommissioned science proctor. my second excuse for my meddlesomeness is, that important questions of natural science--respecting which neither of the combatants professes to speak as an expert--are involved in the controversy; and i think it is desirable that the public should know what it is that natural science really has to say on these topics, to the best belief of one who has been a diligent student of natural science for the last forty years. the original "prolegomenes de l'histoire des religions" has not come in my way; but i have read the translation of m. reville's work, published in england under the auspices of professor max muller, with very great interest. it puts more fairly and clearly than any book previously known to me, the view which a man of strong religious feelings, but at the same time possessing the information and the reasoning power which enable him to estimate the strength of scientific methods of inquiry and the weight of scientific truth, may be expected to take of the relation between science and religion. in the chapter on "the primitive revelation" the scientific worth of the account of the creation given in the book of genesis is estimated in terms which are as unquestionably respectful as, in my judgment, they are just; and, at the end of the chapter on "primitive tradition," m. reville appraises the value of pentateuchal anthropology in a way which i should have thought sure of enlisting the assent of all competent judges, even if it were extended to the whole of the cosmogony and biology of genesis:-- as, however, the original traditions of nations sprang up in an epoch less remote than our own from the primitive life, it is indispensable to consult them, to compare them, and to associate them with other sources of information which are available. from this point of view, the traditions recorded in genesis possess, in addition to their own peculiar charm, a value of the highest order; but we cannot ultimately see in them more than a venerable fragment, well-deserving attention, of the great genesis of mankind. mr. gladstone is of a different mind. he dissents from m. reville's views respecting the proper estimation of the pentateuchal traditions, no less than he does from his interpretation of those homeric myths which have been the object of his own special study. in the latter case, mr. gladstone tells m. reville that he is wrong on his own authority, to which, in such a matter, all will pay due respect: in the former, he affirms himself to be "wholly destitute of that kind of knowledge which carries authority," and his rebuke is administered in the name and by the authority of natural science. an air of magisterial gravity hangs about the following passage:-- but the question is not here of a lofty poem, or a skilfully constructed narrative: it is whether natural science, in the patient exercise of its high calling to examine facts, finds that the works of god cry out against what we have fondly believed to be his word and tell another tale; or whether, in this nineteenth century of christian progress, it substantially echoes back the majestic sound, which, before it existed as a pursuit, went forth into all lands. first, looking largely at the latter portion of the narrative, which describes the creation of living organisms, and waiving details, on some of which (as in v. ) the septuagint seems to vary from the hebrew, there is a grand fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times as follows: on the fifth day . the water-population; . the air-population; and, on the sixth day, . the land-population of animals; . the land-population consummated in man. "now this same fourfold order is understood to have been so affirmed in our time by natural science, that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." (p. ). "understood?" by whom? i cannot bring myself to imagine that mr. gladstone has made so solemn and authoritative a statement on a matter of this importance without due inquiry--without being able to found himself upon recognised scientific authority. but i wish he had thought fit to name the source from whence he has derived his information, as, in that case, i could have dealt with [ ] his authority, and i should have thereby escaped the appearance of making an attack on mr. gladstone himself, which is in every way distasteful to me. for i can meet the statement in the last paragraph of the above citation with nothing but a direct negative. if i know anything at all about the results attained by the natural science of our time, it is "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" that the "fourfold order" given by mr. gladstone is not that in which the evidence at our disposal tends to show that the water, air, and land-populations of the globe have made their appearance. perhaps i may be told that mr. gladstone does give his authority--that he cites cuvier, sir john herschel, and dr. whewell in support of his case. if that has been mr. gladstone's intention in mentioning these eminent names, i may remark that, on this particular question, the only relevant authority is that of cuvier. but great as cuvier was, it is to be remembered that, as mr. gladstone incidentally remarks, he cannot now be called a recent authority. in fact, he has been dead more than half a century; and the palaeontology of our day is related to that of his, very much as the geography of the sixteenth century is related to that of the fourteenth. since , when cuvier died, not only a new world, but new worlds, of ancient life have been discovered; and those who have most faithfully carried on the work of the chief founder of palaeontology have done most to invalidate the essentially negative grounds of his speculative adherence to tradition. if mr. gladstone's latest information on these matters is derived from the famous discourse prefixed to the "ossemens fossiles," i can understand the position he has taken up; if he has ever opened a respectable modern manual of palaeontology, or geology, i cannot. for the facts which demolish his whole argument are of the commonest notoriety. but before proceeding to consider the evidence for this assertion we must be clear about the meaning of the phraseology employed. i apprehend that when mr. gladstone uses the term "water-population" he means those animals which in genesis i. (revised version) are spoken of as "the great sea monsters and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind." and i presume that it will be agreed that whales and porpoises, sea fishes, and the innumerable hosts of marine invertebrated animals, are meant thereby. so "air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl" in verse , and "every winged fowl after its kind," verse . i suppose i may take it for granted that by "fowl" we have here to understand birds--at any rate primarily. secondarily, it may be that the bats and the extinct pterodactyles, which were flying reptiles, come under the same head. but whether all insects are "creeping things" of the land-population, or whether flying insects are to be included under the denomination of "winged fowl," is a point for the decision of hebrew exegetes. lastly, i suppose i may assume that "land-population" signifies "the cattle" and "the beasts of the earth," and "every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth," in verses and ; presumably it comprehends all kinds of terrestrial animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, except such as may be comprised under the head of the "air-population." now what i want to make clear is this: that if the terms "water-population," "air-population," and "land-population" are understood in the senses here defined, natural science has nothing to say in favour of the proposition that they succeeded one another in the order given by mr. gladstone; but that, on the contrary, all the evidence we possess goes to prove that they did not. whence it will follow that, if mr. gladstone has interpreted genesis rightly (on which point i am most anxious to be understood to offer no opinion), that interpretation is wholly irreconcilable with the conclusions at present accepted by the interpreters of nature--with everything that can be called "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" of natural science. and be it observed that i am not here dealing with a question of speculation, but with a question of fact. either the geological record is sufficiently complete to afford us a means of determining the order in which animals have made their appearance on the globe or it is not. if it is, the determination of that order is little more than a mere matter of observation; if it is not, then natural science neither affirms nor refutes the "fourfold order," but is simply silent. the series of the fossiliferous deposits, which contain the remains of the animals which have lived on the earth in past ages of its history, and which can alone afford the evidence required by natural science of the order of appearance of their different species, may be grouped in the manner shown in the left-hand column of the following table, the oldest being at the bottom:-- formations first known appearance of quaternary. pliocene. miocene. eocene. vertebrate _air_-population (bats). cretaceous. jurassic. vertebrate _air_-population (birds and pterodactyles). triassic. upper palaeozoic. middle palaeozoic. vertebrate _land_-population (amphibia, reptilia [?]). lower palaeozoic. silurian. vertebrate _water_-population (fishes). invertebrate _air_ and _land_- population (flying insects and scorpions). cambrian. invertebrate _water_-population (much earlier, if _eozoon_ is animal). in the right-hand column i have noted the group of strata in which, according to our present information, the _land, air,_ and _water_ populations respectively appear for the first time; and in consequence of the ambiguity about the meaning of "fowl," i have separately indicated the first appearance of bats, birds, flying reptiles, and flying insects. it will be observed that, if "fowl" means only "bird," or at most flying vertebrate, then the first certain evidence of the latter, in the jurassic epoch, is posterior to the first appearance of truly terrestrial _amphibia,_ and possibly of true reptiles, in the carboniferous epoch (middle palaeozoic) by a prodigious interval of time. the water-population of vertebrated animals first appears in the upper silurian. [ ] therefore, if we found ourselves on vertebrated animals and take "fowl" to mean birds only, or, at most, flying vertebrates, natural science says that the order of succession was water, land, and air-population, and not--as mr. gladstone, founding himself on genesis, says--water, air, land-population. if a chronicler of greece affirmed that the age of alexander preceded that of pericles and immediately succeeded that of the trojan war, mr. gladstone would hardly say that this order is "understood to have been so affirmed by historical science that it may be taken as a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." yet natural science "affirms" his "fourfold order" to exactly the same extent--neither more nor less. suppose, however, that "fowl" is to be taken to include flying insects. in that case, the first appearance of an air-population must be shifted back for long ages, recent discovery having shown that they occur in rocks of silurian age. hence there might still have been hope for the fourfold order, were it not that the fates unkindly determined that scorpions--"creeping things that creep on the earth" _par excellence--_turned up in silurian strata nearly at the same time. so that, if the word in the original hebrew translated "fowl" should really after all mean "cockroach"--and i have great faith in the elasticity of that tongue in the hands of biblical exegetes--the order primarily suggested by the existing evidence-- . land and air-population; . water-population; and mr. gladstone's order-- . land-population; . air-population; . water-population; can by no means be made to coincide. as a matter of fact, then, the statement so confidently put forward turns out to be devoid of foundation and in direct contradiction of the evidence at present at our disposal. [ ] if, stepping beyond that which may be learned from the facts of the successive appearance of the forms of animal life upon the surface of the globe, in so far as they are yet made known to us by natural science, we apply our reasoning faculties to the task of finding out what those observed facts mean, the present conclusions of the interpreters of nature appear to be no less directly in conflict with those of the latest interpreter of genesis. mr. gladstone appears to admit that there is some truth in the doctrine of evolution, and indeed places it under very high patronage. i contend that evolution in its highest form has not been a thing heretofore unknown to history, to philosophy, or to theology. i contend that it was before the mind of saint paul when he taught that in the fulness of time god sent forth his son, and of eusebius when he wrote the "preparation for the gospel," and of augustine when he composed the "city of god" (p. ). has any one ever disputed the contention, thus solemnly enunciated, that the doctrine of evolution was not invented the day before yesterday? has any one ever dreamed of claiming it as a modern innovation? is there any one so ignorant of the history of philosophy as to be unaware that it is one of the forms in which speculation embodied itself long before the time either of the bishop of hippo or of the apostle to the gentiles? is mr. gladstone, of all people in the world, disposed to ignore the founders of greek philosophy, to say nothing of indian sages to whom evolution was a familiar notion ages before paul of tarsus was born? but it is ungrateful to cavil at even the most oblique admission of the possible value of one of those affirmations of natural science which really may be said to be "a demonstrated conclusion and established fact." i note it with pleasure, if only for the purpose of introducing the observation that, if there is any truth whatever in the doctrine of evolution as applied to animals, mr. gladstone's gloss on genesis in the following passage is hardly happy:-- god created (a) the water-population; (b) the air-population. and they receive his benediction (v. - ). . pursuing this regular progression from the lower to the higher, from the simple to the complex, the text now gives us the work of the sixth "day," which supplies the land-population, air and water having been already supplied (pp. , ). the gloss to which i refer is the assumption that the "air-population" forms a term in the order of progression from lower to higher, from simple to complex--the place of which lies between the water-population below and the land-population above--and i speak of it as a "gloss," because the pentateuchal writer is nowise responsible for it. but it is not true that the air-population, as a whole, is "lower" or less "complex" than the land-population. on the contrary, every beginner in the study of animal morphology is aware that the organisation of a bat, of a bird, or of a pterodactyle presupposes that of a terrestrial quadruped; and that it is intelligible only as an extreme modification of the organisation of a terrestrial mammal or reptile. in the same way winged insects (if they are to be counted among the "air-population") presuppose insects which were wingless, and, therefore, as "creeping things," were part of the land-population. thus theory is as much opposed as observation to the admission that natural science endorses the succession of animal life which mr. gladstone finds in genesis. on the contrary, a good many representatives of natural science would be prepared to say, on theoretical grounds alone, that it is incredible that the "air-population" should have appeared before the "land-population"--and that, if this assertion is to be found in genesis, it merely demonstrates the scientific worthlessness of the story of which it forms a part. indeed, we may go further. it is not even admissible to say that the water-population, as a whole, appeared before the air and the land-populations. according to the authorised version, genesis especially mentions, among the animals created on the fifth day, "great whales," in place of which the revised version reads "great sea monsters." far be it from me to give an opinion which rendering is right, or whether either is right. all i desire to remark is, that if whales and porpoises, dugongs and manatees, are to be regarded as members of the water-population (and if they are not, what animals can claim the designation?), then that much of the water-population has, as certainly, originated later than the land-population as bats and birds have. for i am not aware that any competent judge would hesitate to admit that the organisation of these animals shows the most obvious signs of their descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. a similar criticism applies to mr. gladstone's assumption that, as the fourth act of that "orderly succession of times" enunciated in genesis, "the land-population consummated in man." if this means simply that man is the final term in the evolutional series of which he forms a part, i do not suppose that any objection will be raised to that statement on the part of students of natural science. but if the pentateuchal author goes further than this, and intends to say that which is ascribed to him by mr. gladstone, i think natural science will have to enter a _caveat._ it is not by any means certain that man--i mean the species _homo sapiens_ of zoological terminology--has "consummated" the land-population in the sense of appearing at a later period of time than any other. let me make my meaning clear by an example. from a morphological point of view, our beautiful and useful contemporary--i might almost call him colleague--the horse (_equus caballus_), is the last term of the evolutional series to which he belongs, just as _homo sapiens_ is the last term of the series of which he is a member. if i want to know whether the species _equus caballus_ made its appearance on the surface of the globe before or after _homo sapiens,_ deduction from known laws does not help me. there is no reason, that i know of, why one should have appeared sooner or later than the other. if i turn to observation, i find abundant remains of _equus caballus_ in quaternary strata, perhaps a little earlier. the existence of _homo sapiens_ in the quaternary epoch is also certain. evidence has been adduced in favour of man's existence in the pliocene, or even in the miocene epoch. it does not satisfy me; but i have no reason to doubt that the fact may be so, nevertheless. indeed, i think it is quite possible that further research will show that _homo sapiens_ existed, not only before _equus caballus,_ but before many other of the existing forms of animal life; so that, if all the species of animals have been separately created, man, in this case, would by no means be the "consummation" of the land-population. i am raising no objection to the position of the fourth term in mr. gladstone's "order"--on the facts, as they stand, it is quite open to any one to hold, as a pious opinion, that the fabrication of man was the acme and final achievement of the process of peopling the globe. but it must not be said that natural science counts this opinion among her "demonstrated conclusions and established facts," for there would be just as much, or as little, reason for ranging the contrary opinion among them. it may seem superfluous to add to the evidence that mr. gladstone has been utterly misled in supposing that his interpretation of genesis receives any support from natural science. but it is as well to do one's work thoroughly while one is about it; and i think it may be advisable to point out that the facts, as they are at present known, not only refute mr. gladstone's interpretation of genesis in detail, but are opposed to the central idea on which it appears to be based. there must be some position from which the reconcilers of science and genesis will not retreat, some central idea the maintenance of which is vital and its refutation fatal. even if they now allow that the words "the evening and the morning" have not the least reference to a natural day, but mean a period of any number of millions of years that may be necessary; even if they are driven to admit that the word "creation," which so many millions of pious jews and christians have held, and still hold, to mean a sudden act of the deity, signifies a process of gradual evolution of one species from another, extending through immeasurable time; even if they are willing to grant that the asserted coincidence of the order of nature with the "fourfold order" ascribed to genesis is an obvious error instead of an established truth; they are surely prepared to make a last stand upon the conception which underlies the whole, and which constitutes the essence of mr. gladstone's "fourfold division, set forth in an orderly succession of times." it is, that the animal species which compose the water-population, the air-population, and the land-population respectively, originated during three distinct and successive periods of time, and only during those periods of time. this statement appears to me to be the interpretation of genesis which mr. gladstone supports, reduced to its simplest expression. "period of time" is substituted for "day"; "originated" is substituted for "created"; and "any order required" for that adopted by mr. gladstone. it is necessary to make this proviso, for if "day" may mean a few million years, and "creation" may mean evolution, then it is obvious that the order ( ) water-population, ( ) air-population, ( ) land-population, may also mean ( ) water-population, ( ) land-population, ( ) air-population; and it would be unkind to bind down the reconcilers to this detail when one has parted with so many others to oblige them. but even this sublimated essence of the pentateuchal doctrine (if it be such) remains as discordant with natural science as ever. it is not true that the species composing any one of the three populations originated during any one of three successive periods of time, and not at any other of these. undoubtedly, it is in the highest degree probable that animal life appeared first under aquatic conditions; that terrestrial forms appeared later, and flying animals only after land animals; but it is, at the same time, testified by all the evidence we possess, that the great majority, if not the whole, of the primordial species of each division have long since died out and have been replaced by a vast succession of new forms. hundreds of thousands of animal species, as distinct as those which now compose our water, land, and air-populations, have come into existence and died out again, throughout the aeons of geological time which separate us from the lower palaeozoic epoch, when, as i have pointed out, our present evidence of the existence of such distinct populations commences. if the species of animals have all been separately created, then it follows that hundreds of thousands of acts of creative energy have occurred, at intervals, throughout the whole time recorded by the fossiliferous rocks; and, during the greater part of that time, the "creation" of the members of the water, land, and air-populations must have gone on contemporaneously. if we represent the water, land, and air-populations by _a, b,_ and _c_ respectively, and take vertical succession on the page to indicate order in time, then the following schemes will roughly shadow forth the contrast i have been endeavouring to explain: genesis (as interpreted by nature (as interpreted by mr. gladstone). natural science). _b b b c a b c c c c a b a a a b a b a a a_ so far as i can see, there is only one resource left for those modern representatives of sisyphus, the reconcilers of genesis with science; and it has the advantage of being founded on a perfectly legitimate appeal to our ignorance. it has been seen that, on any interpretation of the terms water-population and land-population, it must be admitted that invertebrate representatives of these populations existed during the lower palaeozoic epoch. no evolutionist can hesitate to admit that other land animals (and possibly vertebrates among them) may have existed during that time, of the history of which we know so little; and, further, that scorpions are animals of such high organisation that it is highly probable their existence indicates that of a long antecedent land-population of a similar character. then, since the land-population is said not to have been created until the sixth day, it necessarily follows that the evidence of the order in which animals appeared must be sought in the record of those older palaeozoic times in which only traces of the water-population have as yet been discovered. therefore, if any one chooses to say that the creative work took place in the cambrian or laurentian epoch, in exactly that manner which mr. gladstone does, and natural science does not, affirm, natural science is not in a position to disprove the accuracy of the statement. only one cannot have one's cake and eat it too, and such safety from the contradiction of science means the forfeiture of her support. whether the account of the work of the first, second, and third days in genesis would be confirmed by the demonstration of the truth of the nebular hypothesis; whether it is corroborated by what is known of the nature and probable relative antiquity of the heavenly bodies; whether, if the hebrew word translated "firmament" in the authorised version really means "expanse," the assertion that the waters are partly under this "expanse" and partly above it would be any more confirmed by the ascertained facts of physical geography and meteorology than it was before; whether the creation of the whole vegetable world, and especially of "grass, herb yielding seed after its kind, and tree bearing fruit," before any kind of animal, is "affirmed" by the apparently plain teaching of botanical palaeontology, that grasses and fruit-trees originated long subsequently to animals all these are questions which, if i mistake not, would be answered decisively in the negative by those who are specially conversant with the sciences involved. and it must be recollected that the issue raised by mr. gladstone is not whether, by some effort of ingenuity, the pentateuchal story can be shown to be not disprovable by scientific knowledge, but whether it is supported thereby. there is nothing, then, in the criticisms of dr. reville but what rather tends to confirm than to impair the old-fashioned belief that there is a revelation in the book of genesis (p. ). the form into which mr. gladstone has thought fit to throw this opinion leaves me in doubt as to its substance. i do not understand how a hostile criticism can, under any circumstances, tend to confirm that which it attacks. if, however, mr. gladstone merely means to express his personal impression, "as one wholly destitute of that kind of knowledge which carries authority," that he has destroyed the value of these criticisms, i have neither the wish nor the right to attempt to disturb his faith. on the other hand, i may be permitted to state my own conviction, that, so far as natural science is involved, m. reville's observations retain the exact value they possessed before mr. gladstone attacked them. trusting that i have now said enough to secure the author of a wise and moderate disquisition upon a topic which seems fated to stir unwisdom and fanaticism to their depths, a fuller measure of justice than has hitherto been accorded to him, i retire from my self-appointed championship, with the hope that i shall not hereafter be called upon by m. reville to apologise for damage done to his strong case by imperfect or impulsive advocacy. but, perhaps, i may be permitted to add a word or two, on my own account, in reference to the great question of the relations between science and religion; since it is one about which i have thought a good deal ever since i have been able to think at all; and about which i have ventured to express my views publicly, more than once, in the course of the last thirty years. the antagonism between science and religion, about which we hear so much, appears to me to be purely factitious--fabricated, on the one hand, by short-sighted religious people who confound a certain branch of science, theology, with religion; and, on the other, by equally short-sighted scientific people who forget that science takes for its province only that which is susceptible of clear intellectual comprehension; and that, outside the boundaries of that province, they must be content with imagination, with hope, and with ignorance. it seems to me that the moral and intellectual life of the civilised nations of europe is the product of that interaction, sometimes in the way of antagonism, sometimes in that of profitable interchange, of the semitic and the aryan races, which commenced with the dawn of history, when greek and phoenician came in contact, and has been continued by carthaginian and roman, by jew and gentile, down to the present day. our art (except, perhaps, music) and our science are the contributions of the aryan; but the essence of our religion is derived from the semite. in the eighth century b.c., in the heart of a world of idolatrous polytheists, the hebrew prophets put forth a conception of religion which appears to me to be as wonderful an inspiration of genius as the art of pheidias or the science of aristotle. "and what doth the lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy god?" if any so-called religion takes away from this great saying of micah, i think it wantonly mutilates, while, if it adds thereto, i think it obscures, the perfect ideal of religion. but what extent of knowledge, what acuteness of scientific criticism, can touch this, if any one possessed of knowledge, or acuteness, could be absurd enough to make the attempt? will the progress of research prove that justice is worthless and mercy hateful; will it ever soften the bitter contrast between our actions and our aspirations; or show us the bounds of the universe and bid us say, go to, now we comprehend the infinite? a faculty of wrath lay in those ancient israelites, and surely the prophet's staff would have made swift acquaintance with the head of the scholar who had asked micah whether, peradventure, the lord further required of him an implicit belief in the accuracy of the cosmogony of genesis! what we are usually pleased to call religion nowadays is, for the most part, hellenised judaism; and, not unfrequently, the hellenic element carries with it a mighty remnant of old-world paganism and a great infusion of the worst and weakest products of greek scientific speculation; while fragments of persian and babylonian, or rather accadian, mythology burden the judaic contribution to the common stock. the antagonism of science is not to religion, but to the heathen survivals and the bad philosophy under which religion herself is often well-nigh crushed. and, for my part, i trust that this antagonism will never cease; but that, to the end of time, true science will continue to fulfil one of her most beneficent functions, that of relieving men from the burden of false science which is imposed upon them in the name of religion. this is the work that m. reville and men such as he are doing for us; this is the work which his opponents are endeavouring, consciously or unconsciously, to hinder. footnotes [footnote : _the nineteenth century._] [footnote : earlier, if more recent announcements are correct.] [footnote : it may be objected that i have not put the case fairly inasmuch as the solitary insect's wing which was discovered twelve months ago in silurian rocks, and which is, at present, the sole evidence of insects older than the devonian epoch, came from strata of middle silurian age, and is therefore older than the scorpions which, within the last two years, have been found in upper silurian strata in sweden, britain, and the united states. but no one who comprehends the nature of the evidence afforded by fossil remains would venture to say that the non-discovery of scorpions in the middle silurian strata, up to this time, affords any more ground for supposing that they did not exist, than the non-discovery of flying insects in the upper silurian strata, up to this time, throws any doubt on the certainty that they existed, which is derived from the occurrence of the wing in the middle silurian. in fact, i have stretched a point in admitting that these fossils afford a colourable pretext for the assumption that the land and air-population were of contemporaneous origin.] the lost faith, and difficulties of the bible as tested by the laws of evidence. by t. s. childs, d. d. philadelphia: presbyterian board of publication and sabbath-school work, no. chestnut street copyright, , by the trustees of the presbyterian board of publication and sabbath-school work. _all rights reserved._ westcott & thomson, _stereotypers and electrotypers, philada._ some of the most pathetic cases of the spiritual unrest and skepticism of the day are found among the children of christian parents. they have been brought up to believe the bible, but under the influences that have met them as they have gone out from the old home into the world their early faith has been shaken, and not unfrequently destroyed. to such as these, and, beyond these, to all who have come to believe that our age has passed beyond the bible, it is hoped that the incidents and arguments of this little book may be of service. washington, d. c., june, . the lost faith. letter i. my dear c----: it is useless for you to write to me on the subject of your last letter. i appreciate your motives, but with me the question is settled. i have given up the beliefs of my childhood; they had long been a burden to me, and the writings and lectures of mr. ---- did the rest. have you heard him? can he be fairly answered? i am not, indeed, as confident as he is that there is no personal god, though i do not believe it can be _proved_, and i entirely agree with him in abhorring and rejecting the doctrine of future suffering. this was the horrible nightmare of my childhood, and you cannot conceive the relief that the rejection of the doctrine has given me. i am frank to say, from my own experience and that of others, that this is the point that gives mr. ---- his hold on so many. the doctrine of endless suffering for the sins of this life is abhorrent to them, and they welcome his views almost as a first truth of reason. this, at least, is my position. the existence of god cannot be proved, nor can any immortality for man except in the influence he may leave behind him. but a truce to this. come to me soon if you are not afraid of my "infidelity," and let us live over the days of our boyhood. most of the dear old friends are gone; we are nearly alone, and i am not inclined to drop the last links of brighter, and perhaps better, days than these now upon us. yours, truly, a----. * * * * * my dear a----: your letter has moved me deeply. yes, we are almost alone. of all the dear group that used to gather in the old school-house, and play upon the common, and stroll along the river-banks in summer and skate upon its solid surface in winter, you and i are nearly all that remain. the southern sea has poor h----; w----, the leader of our sports, fell (under another name, i think) with custer's band in the wild tragedy of montana; b---- and s---- won their honors, and were buried with them, on the battlefield; k---- lives a wreck in mind and body. the rest are scattered. the old homes are all changed; the inmates are gone from them for ever. and you are changed. no recollections of the past that your letter has called up have impressed me more sadly than the change you speak of in yourself. you have lost the faith of your childhood. it is true you do not speak of it as a loss: you think you have gained by it. your early beliefs oppressed you, and you have escaped the burden by rejecting belief in god and in a future life. let me claim the liberty of an old friend--it may be for the last time, for we shall soon both be away--and ask if you are _sure_ of your ground. the questions are too momentous, the interests involved are too great and too lasting, to be risked on an uncertainty. you are not, indeed, sure that there is no god, but you are sure that no man can prove that there is; and you are equally certain that there can be no future state of suffering for any. your final conclusions you have reached through the influence of mr. ----, and you admit that his hold on you and on others has come largely through his passionate denials of the doctrine of future retribution. i have no doubt this is so. but, after all, is this decisive? are mr. ----'s doubts and denials more to be relied on than the positive beliefs of as intelligent and good men as the world has ever seen? i do not press this as proof one way or the other, but it is something worth thinking of before you give up for ever your respect for christianity and the bible. your letter has called up memories that will not down at the bidding. you remember your mother; you remember her life; you remember her death. the day after her burial we were sitting, you and i, under the old willow on the bank of the river--it is all before me now--and you told me how she died with her hand on your head, and how before she died you promised to meet her again. was it all a delusion? did she go out in final darkness? and was your promise the folly of childhood? will you bear with me if i recall another and a later scene? the days of childhood were behind us. we had drifted apart. you remained among the old home-scenes; i was making my way among strangers. then one went from you who had become dearer to you than a mother. i have before me a letter that came to me out of the shadows of that bitter trial; i know you will not misjudge me if i quote its words now. thus you wrote: "i am sure such a life cannot have ended; the possibilities of it cannot yet be finished. that soul, with all its sweetness and beauty and brightness, cannot have been quenched like a spark on the ocean.... her last words were, 'i go with him who has brought life and immortality to light, and who has opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.'" i would not recall these early views and faiths unkindly. if they were wrong, of course you are right in parting with them; but is it certain they were wrong? and in giving them up have you found something better and more sure to take their place? one important point i presume you have not overlooked: whatever doubts there may be as to the existence of god, _atheism can never be proved_. no man can ever be sure that there is _not_ a god; he may deny that the proof of divine existence satisfies _him_, but that is all he can do. somewhere in the universe, after all, god may be. no man has explored all its recesses; none has pierced its limitless heights; none has threaded all its dark abysses and found that in it all there is no god. a man must himself have the attributes of god to know that there is no god. and suppose i cannot prove that there is a god? if i live as if there were one and it should happen that there is not, i am safe; i lose nothing. but if i live as if there were no god and it should come to pass at last that there is, where am i? of two untraveled paths, it is wisest to take that which is _known_ to be safe. but suppose it to be a question of probabilities. suppose you have to choose between an endless succession of finite causes, as a man, an oak, a flower, a dewdrop--not one of which is adequate to its own existence--and one infinite, eternal self-existent, almighty and allwise cause of all things (and some such choice sooner or later you must make), which is the better? which is the more reasonable? if you think through these questions at all, either you must at last admit a god or you must make something for yourself that will do the work of god; and the god you make _must do what actually is done now_; what he will do hereafter, who can say? your friend, mr. ----, tells you that "all there is is all the god there is"--that "the universe is all there is or was or will be." this is pantheistic atheism; it is a mere assertion without a particle of proof; and if true, it can give us no relief for the future, as i hope to satisfy you. by the side of this utterance of mr. ---- let me put the words of that king in the realm of science, professor joseph henry. they are found in the last letter that he ever wrote, and may be taken as the final summing up of all those vast researches that have made his name the heritage of the world. they are entitled to some weight as against the statements of men who, if they can follow in his footsteps at all, must follow afar off. these are his words: "after all our speculations and an attempt to grapple with the problem of the universe, the simplest conception which explains and connects the phenomena is that of the existence of one spiritual being infinite in wisdom, in power and all divine perfections." that is, the simplest and the best explanation of the facts of the universe is found in the existence of god. this is testimony accepted by the highest scientific authority both in this country and in europe. i do not say that it proves there is a god, but it does prove that belief in god is consistent with the highest intellectual power. to disbelieve is no proof of a great mind. mr. ---- eulogizes thomas paine as one of the greatest and best men of his age--a man "whose writings carry conviction to the dullest." now, paine, though a bitter enough infidel, as we all know, never so parted from his reason or his reverence as to deny the existence of god. he says with a force that, according to mr. ----, must "carry conviction to the dullest:" "i know i did not make myself, and yet i have existence; and by searching into the nature of other things i find no other thing could make itself, and yet millions of other things exist; therefore it is that i know by positive conclusions resulting from this search that there is a power superior to all these things, and that power is god." paine believed in god; he believed in a future life; he believed in the person of christ, of whom mr. ---- so far takes leave of all historic judgment, and even of all respectable infidel judgments, as to say we do not know that he ever existed! this suggests a word in regard to your questions whether i have heard mr. ---- and whether he can be fairly answered. i have never heard him on the subjects of which you speak, but i have read enough, i think, to judge him fairly. i recognize his brilliant gifts, his wit, his rhetorical power, but i am surprised that one of your natural clearness of mind should not see that he deals most unfairly with the questions of religion. his representation of christianity is a caricature, and it takes great charity not to believe it is an _intentional_ caricature. his treatment of the scriptures is inexcusably unfair. if a christian were to deal with an infidel book as mr. ---- deals with the bible, there would be no bound to the charges of outrageous misrepresentation and perversion. his abuse of christians and christianity is often more like the raving of a madman than like the calm judgment of a fair-minded reasoner. what are we to think of a man who can sit down and deliberately write and send out to the world such words as these?--"hundreds, and thousands, and millions, have lost their reason in contemplating the monstrous falsehoods of christianity;" "nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries are believers;" "the orthodox christian says that if he can only save his little soul, if he can barely squeeze into heaven, ... it matters not to him what becomes of brother or sister, father or mother, wife or child. he is willing that they should burn if he can sing." this is enough. but what shall be said of such ravings? suppose mr. ---- finds imperfections in the church; suppose he finds a multitude of professed christians that are not what they should be, just as christ has given us reason to expect,--does that settle the real nature of christianity? suppose "nine-tenths of the people in the penitentiaries" were american citizens,--does that prove that american citizenship is a bad thing or make it worth while for a man to spend his life in denouncing our constitution? mr. ---- knows there is a very different kind of citizen, and he knows that these men are in the penitentiary, not because they have kept the laws of their country, but because they have broken them. so, even if the monstrous assertion were true that nine-tenths of the occupants of the penitentiaries are christian professors, they are there, not on account of christianity, but in spite of it. true christianity never sent them there, and every honest man knows that. christianity is founded on christ, and the required fruit of it is holiness, rectitude with man and purity before god. this is a fact that any man who _wants_ to know the truth can understand by an hour's study of the teachings of christ and his apostles. to your question whether mr. ---- can be answered, i say deliberately he has been answered a hundred times. i do not think that in all his assaults on the bible he has advanced a respectable argument or objection that has not been urged and answered again and again long before he was born. the christian church has not the least fear for herself from his attacks; indeed, she understands them so well, and has repelled them so often, that she is perhaps too indifferent to anything he may say. the danger is not to the church, but to those _who want to be convinced that the bible is not true, and who want to be assured that, however they may live in this life, they have nothing to fear in a life to come_. indulge me in another letter, and believe me yours, truly, c----. letter ii. my dear a----: the two questions that press upon every mind, and that mr. ---- has shown again and again, with wonderful pathos, by dying beds and at open graves, are pressing upon his, are these: is there a god? is there a future state of existence? to these questions the best answer mr. ---- has to give is, "we do not know." he seems confident that there is no personal god, and "we cannot say whether death is a wall or a door, the beginning or the end of a day, the spreading of pinions to soar or the folding for ever of wings, the rise or the set of a sun." with all this uncertainty, he is absolutely sure that there is no future state of suffering for evil-doers. he does not know whether there is any future at all, but he does know that there is no future of sorrow. he is profoundly ignorant as to the _fact_ of a future, but has decisive knowledge as to the _nature_ of the future, if there is one. "rather than that this doctrine of endless punishment should be true," he says, "i would gladly see the fabric of our civilization, crumbling, fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and even memory forgets." now, it may be quite true that mr. ---- has this preference, yet this does not settle the case. we can fully understand how any man should shrink from the terrible possibility of future suffering. orthodoxy has no more delight in it than has infidelity. but it is not a question of preference: it is a question of fact; and the point i submit for your reflection is this--whether mr. ----, on his own ground, is authorized to affirm that there is no future state of suffering for any. he says we do not know whether there _is_ any future state. very well. then, certainly, we do not know what _kind_ of a future state there may be, if there is one. if mr. ---- is not able to assure us that there is no future for us at all, he surely has not the ground to assure us of any kind of a future, good or bad. there may be a future of joy, there may be a future of suffering; there may be both. mr. ---- is too good a lawyer to undertake to prove anything by mere negative evidence. he "leaves the dead with nature, the mother of all," and "nature," as to any sure utterance upon the future, is as silent as are the lips of the dead themselves. mr. ---- does not believe in a personal god. _you_ are not sure whether there is one or not. there may be; there may be none. if there is, we cannot know it. let us see what we gain on either supposition. suppose there is a god, though i cannot know it or i cannot know him. then, clearly, i cannot know what he is; i cannot know what he may do. it is quite possible that this unknown god may be a god who hates what we call sin, and who will punish it, and who will punish it just as long as it stands an offence in the moral universe, whether it be in this world or in the world to come. no agnosticism can deny this conclusion. the darkest as well as the most radiant scenes that christian faith brings within our view _may_ be eternally true. i may be immortal, and it may be an immortality of joy or of sighing for me as i use this life and the truth that god has made known to me in this life. let us take the other hypothesis. suppose there is no god; suppose mr. ---- has satisfied me that there is no supernatural revelation, and no personal god to make one. has he made it well for me hereafter? has he delivered me from all fear for the future? has he saved me beyond question from "the serpent of eternal pain"? if there is no god, does that make it certain that there will be no future suffering for any man? let us see. we are here in a world of suffering. how came we here? and how did suffering come here? if we came without a god, who will prove that without a god we may not go elsewhere, and that suffering may not go with us? here we are--by natural law, by evolution, by chance--as part and particle of the one eternal unity; however it may be, we are here, and we suffer. we know what pain of body and pain of mind are. we have felt the sting of death, and no law of nature, no power of evolution, has ever lighted up for us the darkness of the grave. now, the question we want answered is this: if "nature" has brought us into this state where there is so much of what we call sin, and so much bound with it that we call suffering, how do we know that the same "nature" may not continue the same facts hereafter? nay, what assurance can mr. ---- give us that "nature" is not a power that may in some future frenzy cast us into a state _far worse_ than the present? is he so far possessed of all the secrets of "nature" that he _knows_ the time will never come when she may strike us with a force more terrible than any retributive judgment of god? if "nature" works now in storm and fire, in earthquake and pestilence, in disease and torture and death, in the sorrows of memory, the horrors of remorse and dread forebodings of coming woe, _how do you know that she may not manifest herself thus hereafter and through the ages to come_? if nature is, as mr. ---- says, the mother of us all, there are times when she manifests her motherhood appallingly. and when are these manifestations to end and how are they to end? if under her regal sway we find that, as a fact, sin and suffering are connected here, can any man prove that it may not be a law of "nature" herself that sin and suffering shall be connected eternally? if in the imperial reign of "the mother of us all" there are chains and scourges, prisons and scaffolds, thunderbolts and flames, cyclones and famines and ocean-graves, will any man prove that somewhere in the darkness and mystery of the future there may not be, in the long outworking of this reign, something worse than a hell, worse than an undying worm, worse than a quenchless fire? it is, i admit, a fearful thing to fall unprepared into the hands of the living god; but if i must choose, give me that, a thousand times, rather than the terrific possibilities that overhang us all if we are to be eternally at the disposal of a blind, inexorable, soulless, merciless "nature." the judge of all the earth will do right; at the worst we shall receive no more at his hands than we deserve; but no created being can tell us what we shall receive at the hands of an irresponsible, pitiless "nature" though she be "the mother of us all." there is nothing so dark and terrible in all the woes of the bible as the possibilities that mr. ---- offers us in his gospel; and there is this difference: the bible opens wide a door of hope for all who care to enter it; mr. ---- leads us out into the outer darkness and leaves us there. is it worth while for any man to spend his life in persuading us to make this exchange of despair? and is it worth our while--yours or mine--to make it? truly yours, c----. letter iii. my dear a----: in the note in which you kindly acknowledge my former communications you say that, whatever christianity may be to me, you cannot see it as i do; its excellences, as they appear to my mind, do not impress you at all, and as long as they do not you cannot be expected to accept it. i admit the conclusion: you cannot receive as good and true what does not seem to be so. but does it follow that a thing is not good and true because you do not see it? the question still comes, is the cause in the thing or in you? you remember the beethoven concert we once attended together in b----? to you it was an occasion of exquisite enjoyment; to me it was nothing. the difference was not in the music: it was in us. you have a musical taste; i have not. i tried--not very sincerely, perhaps--to persuade you that there was nothing beautiful in it; you smiled, but attempted no argument. you were wise. you knew the music was beautiful, for you had experienced it; you had felt its power. if i chose to deny it because i had not felt it, so it must be; you could only pity me. now, is it not possible that there may be something like this in religion? may it not be a reality--a supreme reality--though you do not see it or feel it? may i not know it to be real because i have felt its power? and if there are thousands and tens of thousands as intelligent men and women as the world has ever seen who are as ready to testify that they have felt the power and experienced the reality of the christian religion as you are to testify that you have felt the power and know the sweetness of music, are you wise to dismiss its claims because _you_ have not felt the force of them? you must see this. i leave it to your candor. christianity may be true though you have not felt its truth. a cloud of witnesses stand ready to testify to you its truth from personal experience. they may not argue with you: multitudes of them could not argue with you; but, after all, they have a proof of the reality of their religion, of the power of christ to satisfy and bless men, which no arguments in the world can shake. if all this were a new thing, or if the witnesses were only ignorant and superstitious men, you might well enough hesitate to receive the testimony; but when you reflect that it is the accumulated testimony of nearly nineteen centuries, that it comes from all countries and all classes, from the prince on the throne and the beggar at his gate, from the philosopher in his study and the sailor in the forecastle, from the statesman in the cabinet and the ploughman in the furrow, i submit it cannot with wisdom or reason be set aside. it is no answer to say that many great men and learned men and ploughmen can be brought who have had no such experience and give no such testimony. this is true, but it is one of the first laws of evidence that no amount of merely negative testimony can overthrow the explicit evidence of honest, intelligent, trustworthy witnesses. fifty men who did not see a murder could not set aside the clear testimony of two who did see it. few of the race have ever seen the moons of mars, or even of jupiter; this does not disturb the witness of the few who have: the satellites are there. i have just been reading--not for the first time--peter harvey's account of his visit, with daniel webster, to john colby. you will find it in harvey's _reminiscences of webster_; and if you have not read it, it is worth your reading. colby had married webster's oldest sister when webster was a mere boy. it was in some respects a strange marriage. she was a godly, christian woman, while colby was a wild, reckless, ungodly man--"the wickedest man in the neighborhood," webster believed, "as far as swearing and impiety went." he seems to have been the terror of webster's boyhood. singularly enough for new england, though a man of strong natural powers, he never learned to read till he was over eighty years of age. his wife died early, and the families drifted apart. webster had not seen colby for over forty years, but he heard that a great change had taken place with him, and he visited him to judge for himself. i should mar the story of the interview if i undertook to condense it. let me give the essential parts of it in mr. harvey's own words. long as it is, i think you would be sorry to have it shorter. webster and harvey had driven to andover, and were directed to mr. colby's house. "the door was open.... sitting in the middle of the room was a striking figure who proved to be john colby. he sat facing the door, in a very comfortably furnished farmhouse room, with a little table--or what perhaps would be called a light-stand--before him. upon it was a large, old-fashioned scott's family bible in very large print, and, of course, a heavy volume. it lay open, and he had evidently been reading it attentively. as we entered he took off his spectacles and laid them upon the page of the book, and looked up at us as we approached, mr. webster in front. he was a man, i should think, over six feet in height, and he retained in a wonderful degree his erect and manly form, although he was eighty-five or six years old. his frame was that of a once powerful, athletic man. his head was covered with very heavy, thick, bushy hair, and it was as white as wool, which added very much to the picturesqueness of his appearance. as i looked in at the door i thought i never saw a more striking figure. he straightened himself up, but said nothing till just as we appeared at the door, when he greeted us with-- "'walk in, gentlemen.' "mr. webster's first salutation was-- "'this is mr. colby--mr. john colby--is it not?' "'that is my name, sir,' was the reply. "'i suppose you don't know me?' said mr. webster. "'no, sir, i don't know you; and i should like to know how you know me.' "'i have seen you before, mr. colby,' replied mr. webster. "'seen me before!' said he; 'pray, when and where?' "'have you no recollection of me?' asked mr. webster. "'no, sir, not the slightest;' and he looked by mr. webster toward me, as if trying to remember if he had seen me. "mr. webster remarked, "'i think you never saw this gentleman before, but you have seen me.' "colby put the question again, "'when and where?' "'you married my oldest sister,' replied mr. webster, calling her by name. "'i married your oldest sister!' exclaimed colby. 'who are you?' "'i am "little dan,"' was the reply. "it certainly would be impossible to describe the expression of wonder, astonishment and half incredulity that came over colby's face. "'_you_ daniel webster!' said he; and he started to rise from his chair. as he did so he stammered out some words of surprise. 'is it possible that this is the little black lad that used to ride the horse to water? well, i cannot realize it!' "mr. webster approached him. they embraced each other, and both wept. "'is it possible,' said mr. colby, when the embarrassment of the first shock of recognition was past, 'that you have come up here to see me? is this daniel? why! why!' said he, 'i cannot believe my senses. now, sit down. i am glad--oh, i am so glad to see you, daniel. i never expected to see you again. i don't know what to say. i am so glad that my life has been spared that i might see you. why, daniel, i read about you and hear about you in all ways. sometimes some members of the family come and tell us about you, and the newspapers tell us a great deal about you, too. your name seems to be constantly in the newspapers. they say that you are a great man--that you are a famous man--and you can't tell how delighted i am when i hear such things. but, daniel, the time is short; you will not stay here long: i want to ask you one important question. you may be a _great_ man: are you a _good_ man? are you a christian man? do you love the lord jesus christ? that is the only question that is worth asking or answering? are you a christian? you know, daniel, what i have been: i have been one of the wickedest of men. your poor sister, who is now in heaven, knows that. but the spirit of christ and of almighty god has come down and plucked me as a brand from the everlasting burning. i am here now, a monument to his grace. oh, daniel, i would not give what is contained within the covers of this book for all the honors that have been conferred upon men from the creation of the world until now. for what good would it do? it is all nothing, and less than nothing, if you are not a christian, if you are not repentant. if you do not love the lord jesus christ in sincerity and truth, all your worldly honors will sink to utter nothingness. are you a christian? do you love christ? you have not answered me.' "all this was said in the most earnest and even vehement manner. "'john colby,' replied mr. webster, 'you have asked me a very important question, and one which should not be answered lightly. i intend to give you an answer, and one that is truthful, or i will not give you any. i hope that i am a christian. i profess to be a christian. but, while i say that, i wish to add--and i say it with shame and confusion of face--that i am not such a christian as i wish i were. i have lived in the world, surrounded by its honors and its temptations, and i am afraid, john colby, that i am not so good a christian as i ought to be. i am afraid i have not your faith and your hopes; but still i hope and trust that i am a christian, and that the same grace which has converted you and made you an heir of salvation will do the same for me. i trust it, and i also trust, john colby--and it will not be long before our summons will come--that we shall meet in a better world, and meet those who have gone before us whom we knew, and who trusted in that same divine free grace. it will not be long. you cannot tell, john colby, how much delight it gave me to hear of your conversion. the hearing of that is what has led me here to-day. i came here to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears the story from a man that i know and remember so well. what a wicked man you used to be!' "'oh, daniel,' exclaimed john colby, 'you don't remember how wicked i was, how ungrateful i was, how unthankful i was. i never thought of god; i never cared for god; i was worse than a heathen. living in a christian land with the light shining all around me and the blessings of sabbath teachings everywhere about me, i was worse than a heathen until i was arrested by the grace of christ and made to see my sinfulness and to hear the voice of my saviour. now i am only waiting to go home to him, and to meet your sainted sister, my poor wife. and i wish, daniel, that you might be a prayerful christian; and i trust you are. daniel,' he added, with deep earnestness of voice, 'will you pray with me?' "we knelt down, and mr. webster offered a most touching prayer. as soon as he had pronounced the 'amen,' mr. colby followed in a most pathetic, stirring appeal to god. he prayed for the family, for me and for everybody. then we rose, and he seemed to feel a serene happiness in having thus joined his spirit with that of mr. webster in prayer.... "the brothers-in-law took an affectionate leave of each other, and we left. mr. webster could hardly restrain his tears. when we got into the wagon, he began to moralize: "'i should like,' said he, 'to know what the enemies of religion would say to john colby's conversion. there was a man as unlikely, humanly speaking, to become a christian as any man i ever saw. he was reckless, heedless, impious--never attended church, never experienced the good influence of associating with religious people--and here he has been living on in that reckless way until he has got to be an old man, until a period of life when you naturally would not expect his habits to change, and yet he has been brought into the condition in which we have seen him to-day, a penitent, trusting, humble believer. whatever people may say,' added mr. webster, 'nothing can convince me that anything short of the grace of almighty god could make such a change as i with my own eyes have witnessed in the life of john colby.'" mr. colby was eighty-four years old at the time of his conversion. at that age he learned to read for the single purpose of reading the bible, and it was the only book he ever did read. he lived for three years after this, and to the end gave the clearest evidences of a change that to mr. webster's judicial mind could be explained only by the supposition of a divine interposition; it was a divine reality. the last intelligible words of the once terrible blasphemer were, "jesus! glory!" changing the details, the experience of john colby has been the experience of thousands upon thousands. and--i put it to you in all candor--is it all a lie? was webster--one of the grandest intellects of this or of any age--was he a fanatic or a fool to believe in the reality of the religion that john colby had experienced? was he a weakling to put his faith where john colby had put his, and to trust that when the summons of both should come--as it soon did come--they might meet each other and those who had gone before them trusting in the same divine, free grace? you may criticise the bible, you may criticise christians, but, after all, there is something in christianity that cannot be explained away as a superstition or a delusion; there is something that cannot be dismissed by a scoff or with indifference. somewhere and at some time it will have the final word, and it will be heard. i commend it to your honest and earnest judgment now. try it; i ask no more. settle the great questions that press on every heart as the bible opens the way of settlement to you, and wait the issue. you can lose nothing; you may gain everything. the fact is as remarkable as it is familiar that no man in the last hour here--the hour, often, of supernal light--ever wanted to take back or to change his faith in the man of nazareth as the son of god and the saviour of men. when the shadows are melting in the great realities, and the mysteries of life are about to be finished and the verities of the future are to be proved, no man has yet been found to mourn that in the face of all difficulty and doubt and denial here he was a christian. can that, or anything approaching it, be said of any form of atheism or infidelity or unbelief? as ever, yours, c----. letter iv. my dear a----: i had supposed my last letter would end our correspondence. your kind reply has gratified me more than i can express. without further words, let me take up at once the question that you put, i am sure, sincerely. you ask, "what _is_ 'the way of settlement that the bible opens to the great questions that press us?'" the questions of supreme interest are few and simple. is there a god? is there a future existence for us? how can that existence be made a safe and satisfying one? if you are willing to allow any authority to the bible at all, there can be no doubt as to the first two questions. there is a god by whom we were created and to whom we are responsible; there is a future existence. those two questions are settled, if the bible can settle anything. and they are settled, let me add, in harmony with the profoundest instincts and the most imperative demands of our nature. whatever a few souls in their struggling dissatisfaction and sad unrest may persuade themselves, the great yearning heart of humanity will quiet itself on nothing less than god and immortality. even your former guide, mr. ---- (let me hope i may speak of him now as only your _former_ guide), cries out in the presence of the dead and before the awful silence of the grave, "_immortality_ is a word that hope through all the ages has been whispering to love. all wish for happiness beyond this life; all hope to meet again the loved and lost." yes, there are hours when the most hopeless are glad to turn to the hope that the bible alone gives, when the bitterest rejecters of god and his word long for the consolation that only the rejected word affords. let us turn to the other question. if, when we are through with this life--as we soon shall be through with it--we are not through with existence--if there is a life beyond the present not measured by years or ages,--how can it be made worth having? is there any way in which our immortality can be assured to us as an immortal good? after all the doubts and darkness, the mystery and suffering, the bitterness and disappointment, of this life, may it in any way be found a great and a good thing, after all, that we have lived? to answer these questions we must come back to the old truth--the truth of your childhood. the "advanced thought" of our day has discovered nothing to change the fact that men are out of the way, they are not what they should be. every man knows this. the bible expresses it in a very plain way by saying _they are sinners_. as such it deals with them; to such alone it opens its door of hope. the bible is of no use to you unless you are a sinner. if you call this cant, i am sorry for it, but i cannot help it; i cannot change it. the only men for whom god is dealing here for good, for whom he is making possible an immortality of honor and happiness, are the sinful. and is not this well for us? does it not at once bring hope to you--a hope as great as it is mysterious? you know that life has not been to you an unstained thing any more than it has been to any of us. to know this is to know sin, the one appalling fact of the universe, the one unspeakable woe of our being. in the simplest way, then, my dear a----, let me say that the first step in your coming right with god, and so right with the future, is to know and to feel that you are wrong. the bible closes the door of hope for ever on the man who comes claiming the brightness and the good of a life beyond the grave because he is worthy of it. these words were once familiar to you: "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified." rom. iii. . can he who is wrong make himself right? can he be all he ought to be? can he do all he ought to do? can you set right all the wrong and all the failure of the past? can you make the future without error? to ask these questions is to answer them to every honest conscience. for one who is wrong there must be the consequences of wrong, and these must be as fearful and as far-reaching as sin itself. "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," and evermore and everywhere the harvest is greater than the seed. the coming tribulation and anguish of the unsaved souls that do evil is a law of nature as well as of revelation. the wages of sin is death. you know this. you have felt it in its measure. you have seen it in the unhappiness, the misery, the woe, the despair and death with which sin reigns everywhere around us. take the brightest view of life that you can, and the darkness in which it ends is terrible. to go out of it without god is to go out without hope. am i wrong in believing that you need no argument here, that no conviction is more sorrowfully intense with you than this? will you go now a step farther? standing in your wrong and your weakness and your unrest, with the heavy shadows of the future falling upon you, are you willing to draw near to the open portal of a better life? are you willing to look up and read over it--"god so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life"? john iii. . are you willing to submit your faith to the mystery--beyond all depth except the love of god--that the son of god in our nature has borne our sins in his own body on the tree--that he has died for us, the just for the unjust? in other words, are you willing to receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child--to be saved, if saved you may be, in god's own way? in a former letter i spoke of the testimony of webster to the reality of the christian religion; and, though it is true that christianity does not depend upon the patronage of any man, it is well to know that greater intellects than those that would persuade you to reject it have bowed before it and found their supreme hope in it. let me give you, then, another testimony from this greatest of american statesmen and jurists. it was his last night on earth; that life of extraordinary influence and honor was closing. as his family and friends stood around his bed his physician repeated the immortal hymn of cowper: "there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from immanuel's veins, and sinners, plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains." as upon the night-air died away the final stanza-- "then in a nobler, sweeter song i'll sing thy power to save when this poor, lisping, stammering tongue lies silent in the grave," the majestic voice that had thrilled courts and senates, was heard in a clear thrice-repeated "amen! amen! amen!" and so he passed, let us hope, to have part in that final song. pity, infinite pity, that he had not made more of that magnificent intellect for the giver of it! but at least he was too great a man to deny the love and the sacrifice by which alone the life of the greatest as well as the feeblest can be saved from being an eternal tragedy. i know, my dear a----, the derision with which all this may be received, but my hope is that you have passed beyond that point of intellectual self-conceit and moral self-murder. at all events, this is the only ground of a safe immortality that the bible holds out, and beyond the bible there is no ground. if you ever settle safely the solemn questions of the future, you will settle them here. if you ever find the rest for which i know you are weary, you will find it at the cross and in the presence of him who hung upon it, and whose words are to-day, as of old, "come unto me, and i will give you rest." in all this i know there is nothing new to you. i had nothing new to say; i wished simply to make a plea for the faith of your earlier years. it is easy to put it aside, but, after all, it is a faith that will stand. the evidence of nineteen centuries from millions of honest and intelligent witnesses, of all ranks and conditions, living and dying, to the power of this faith to sustain in the most solemn crises of life, when flesh and heart are failing, and when the darkness and anguish and mystery of death are rocking the soul to its foundations, cannot wisely be dismissed as a delusion: there must be a reality behind it. the lights that have gone out from your own home and heart you were right in believing have "not gone out in darkness," but you will not forget that as they went into purer light they went with him who has brought life and immortality to light, who is the resurrection and the life, in whom believing, though we were dead, yet shall we live. here i must rest. i can only commend you to god and to the word of his grace--to the written word and to the incarnate word, to the bible and to christ. i am as certain as i am of my own existence that if you will give yourself up to the guidance of these you will be satisfied and you will be saved. if you will only take the bible _and follow it_, you will find an assurance of its truth that cannot be shaken; you will find rest, for you will find christ. and surely it is not too much to ask that in a matter of such infinite importance you make a fair, honest and thorough trial of that which no man ever yet made trial of to be disappointed. yet let me not fail to impress as a final thought that this result of good and of peace will come _only by the power of the holy spirit_. it is his to take of the things of christ and show them to us; unless he does this, we cannot see them. my last word of entreaty, then, is--and i would make it as earnestly as conviction and feeling and language can make it--yield to the spirit of god. the end you want is too great for your own strength. you have proved this. you have struggled on long enough in your own plans and your own way, seeking rest, and you are as far from rest as ever. try now another way. take hold of a higher strength. "ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find." i plead with you by all the memories of the past and by all the hopes of the future. you have sinned, and i would not heal the hurt slightly. no one knows better than you that if the bible is true you have a long and dark account against you--if not of open and flagrant sin, yet to the mind that makes no mistakes of that which is perhaps far worse, of calm, deliberate, persistent rejection of christ and of his spirit. it would be faithlessness and cruelty to hide the fact that by all the verities of god you are in peril--in fearful peril. to stand in darkness where no light is is sad enough; but when light is come into the world and men stand in darkness, there is sin that seals its own doom. as the case is now, the very unrest of your soul--its dark gropings, its unsatisfied yearnings, its sighs of despair--all this is the living witness of your danger, the prophecy of a deeper gloom and woe to come. but as yet it is also the voice of god's mercy; it is the plea of his spirit calling you to the only rest that the universe has for the erring and the sinful. the spirit of god is very pitiful. every thought of good is from him; every desire for a better life is his inspiration; every penitent sigh is his breath. i believe he is not far from you; i believe, therefore, you are not far from the kingdom of heaven. quench not the spirit. do not go down in darkness in sight of the city of light. you remember the circumstances of our return from europe in the fall of --. we were young then, but the events are still vivid in my memory, as they are no doubt in yours. for two days we were delayed in liverpool by a fearful storm. in that storm the royal charter was coming in, having made successfully the voyage of the world. she had been signaled, and was already in the channel; her arrival was looked for every hour. dear friends of those we were leaving were on board. the fires were lighted on the hearth, and the table was spread for the long-absent ones, and glad hearts were waiting impatiently to give them joyful welcome. but they never came; in sight of the harbor and of the lights of home they went down--the four hundred of that doomed ship. the next day we passed the silent wreck as we came out, and i am sure you thought, as i did, how unutterably sad and pathetic is such an end, to perish in sight of home. our voyage, dear a----, is almost over. the harbor is near; the lights of the eternal home are in sight; the table is spread, and dear ones--yours and mine--are waiting there to give us glad and everlasting welcome. do not make wreck of life and hope and immortality in the very sight of home. yours, in the bonds of early years, c----. since these letters were written, he to whom they were addressed has gone where human arguments and pleadings cannot reach him. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, he passed from the scenes of a busy, honored and prosperous life into the solemn mysteries that lie beyond our horizon. on his desk was found the following unfinished letter, written the night before his death: my dear c----: i have not misapprehended the spirit and motive of your letters. i have read them--more than once--with care and, i believe, with candor. when a man stands in the shadow of a great and awful change--and my physician warns me that my lifework may end suddenly--he is a fool who deals any other way than seriously and honestly with the questions you discuss. if i cannot say that your reasoning removes all my doubts, i can most sincerely say this, even though it may be, in your judgment, at the cost of my consistency: _i would give the world to have your faith and hope_. while i have been glad to have the arguments of mr. ---- to support my own faith or want of faith, i will be candid and say that i have not been at rest. life has been terribly empty and hopeless since i felt, with professor clifford, that "the great companion is dead." i have had success, as the world goes, but what of it? what does it amount to? what is to be the end of it all? no god! no immortality! nothing beyond this little circle whose utmost limit i seem to be even now touching! is it so? i am writing at midnight--an hour when these questions often come to me with the pressure of despair. oh to be a child again with a child's faith, a child's peace! my mother-- * * * * * here the letter ended. did the thought of his mother open the door of his aching heart to his mother's god and his mother's christ? so let us hope. there is a mercy that is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear god, and a righteousness that is unto children's children to such as keep his covenant. lying upon the letter was the following slip, cut from a newspaper. it was stained apparently with tears, and was probably the last thing that my friend read. it could hardly be the expression of any heart to whom the "hand of mercy" was not already "opening the wicket-gate:" "'mid the fast-falling shadows, weary and worn and late, a timid, doubting pilgrim, i reach the wicket-gate. where crowds have stood before me i stand alone to-night, and in the deepening darkness pray for one gleam of light. "from the foul sloughs and marshes i've gathered many a stain; i've heard old voices calling from far across the plain. now, in my wretched weakness, fearful and sad i wait, and every refuge fails me, here at the wicket-gate. "and will the portals open to me who roamed so long filthy and vile and burdened with this great weight of wrong? hark! a glad voice of welcome bids my wild fears abate. look! for a hand of mercy opens the wicket-gate. "on, to the palace beautiful and the bright room called peace! down, to the silent river, where thou shalt find release! up, to the radiant city, where shining ones await! on! for the way of glory lies through the wicket-gate." difficulties of the bible. difficulties of the bible as tested by the laws of evidence.[ ] [ ] the substance of this essay was given as an address before the bible conference in philadelphia in november, . it has, however, been revised and considerably changed with reference to its present use.--t. s. c. one has to breathe but little of the atmosphere of popular thought to-day to find how full it is of religious doubt. parental faiths count for little. the beliefs of childhood, the teachings of the sainted dead, the hopes that once brightened the darkness and mysteries and griefs of life with the light of a cloudless future, are to multitudes no more. "the eclipse of faith" has come, and souls are drifting out upon the starless, shoreless sea of unbelief. they see "the spring sun shining out of an empty heaven to light up a soulless earth." they take up the wail of despair: "we are all to be swept away in the final ruin of the earth." this is the deep, pathetic undertone of the sighing of a thousand hearts to-day. has life anything real? is it worth living? when the little play is over, and the hour's music is ended, and the lights are out, and we go forth into the darkness of the final night--what then? is it darkness for ever? or is there the light of an eternal day? who knows? is anything certain? must nations and men and the evening-moth alike go down and perish for ever under the crush of an inexorable fate? is there no rift in this cloud? have we no anchor that will hold as the storm drives us on through the blinding mists and gloom to the eternal shore? have we no sure word of promise to which we can cling when everything else around us and under our feet is giving way? _is the bible true?_ that is the simple but momentous question; it settles all other questions of most concern to men. to it, therefore, we find the most intense thought of thoughtful men converging. that from this there should emerge questions not easily solved is not to be wondered at: they emerge in every inquiry of human thought. the only thing to be asked is that these questions be dealt with candidly and fairly. to many minds the bible is still on trial; it is only just that in its trial those rules and principles shall be observed which men everywhere expect and demand shall be observed for themselves when they or their interests are to be tried. this is the point of this essay. it is not, indeed, a discussion from the highest ground of inspiration; it does not claim to be. it simply deals with a certain class--a very large class, however--of alleged difficulties of the bible, and it appeals to the candid reader to deal with them as fairly and by the same rules as he would have his fellow-men deal with him in a matter of life or death, or of any worldly interest. for this object only a few of the common rules of evidence have been taken. it is believed, however, that their application will cover a very large portion of the popular objections to the alleged inconsistencies and contradictions of the bible. undoubtedly, there are difficulties in the bible; the question is whether these prove that it is not the work and word of god. on the other hand, it may be suggested whether they do not confirm it as the work of god, for they at once put it in harmony with all his other works. if the bible were without difficulties, it would, for us, be out of the line with everything else that god has made or done. nature and providence are full of difficulties. there is nothing in the bible harder of explanation and reconciliation than are the facts that meet us everywhere in god's creative and providential realms. if these difficulties do not prove that nature and providence are not, from beginning to end, the works of god, they do not on the face of them prove that the bible is not such. in dealing with the difficulties of the scriptures, therefore, we have not the least idea that they will all be removed: difficulties will remain. the lord of hosts himself is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence upon which many stumble and fall and are broken. isa. viii. , . if a man is determined to commit suicide, he can do it by the very means that god has created to preserve life--by fire or by water. spiritual self-destruction is quite possible through the word of life itself. at the same time, no man has a right to put needless difficulties in the bible or to make difficulties where none exist. more than this, every man is bound to deal as fairly at least with the bible as he deals with his fellow-men in the ordinary relations of life. that which would give him no trouble as a judge upon the bench or a juror in the box ought not to be urged as a fatal objection to the scriptures. in testing at this time some of the difficulties of the bible by the accepted rules of evidence, hardly more can be done than to present a few of these rules as applicable to these difficulties. but the rules are of the widest application; the solution of one difficulty by them is the solution of a hundred. looking upon the bible as a whole, we may refer for a moment to the familiar precept that every man is to be presumed innocent until he is proved guilty. this is emphatically true of a man of good general reputation. the rule would seem as applicable to a book as to a man. now, the bible is not a new book; it has been before the world for ages. it has a character. that it is on the whole a good book the bitterest opposers of its plenary inspiration not only admit, but assert. it is conceded that it is entitled to its name--the _bible_, _the_ book. it claims to be a truthful book; by every fair principle this claim must be allowed until it is shown to be false. bancroft's _history of the united states_ claims to be a reliable work; the claim is generally admitted. if a man now comes forward and asserts that it is false in whole or in details, by universal judgment he must prove his assertion, and obviously his proofs must be stronger than the evidences of the truth of the history. if this is so in reference to a book that has not stood the test of half a century, emphatically is it true of a book whose character has been established through the searching scrutiny of friends and foes for fifteen centuries--ay, for twice fifteen centuries. if a man now affirms the bible to be false, wholly or in part, it rests upon him in all fairness to prove his position, and his evidence must be stronger than that which supports the book. for three thousand years a growing mass of testimony to the truth of the bible has been rolling up in the face of every objection that ingenuity, learning and the bitterest hostility could present. account for it as we may, that is the fact. there is, therefore, a reasonable presumption in its favor, and in favor of any specific statement that it makes. if, then, we find in it a positive statement in regard to any fact, and that statement is now confronted by another and a contradictory one, the two do not stand on the same level. the new claimant must prove his position, and to prove it he must disprove the truth of the scripture record. it is not enough to show that his proposition might be true if we had no other information on the subject: he must show that the scripture, with its mass of supporting and cumulative evidence, is false; and he must support his new proposition by a body of evidence stronger than this manifold evidence of ages by which the scriptures are sustained. the application of this principle is obvious, yet nothing is more common than its violation. an hypothesis with certain analogies perhaps in its favor, but admittedly without a solitary positive proof to sustain it, is put forward as an established truth without regard to the fact that the bible, with its general character of veracity behind it, gives another and an entirely different account of the matter. we will not say this is irreverent: it is unfair and unreasonable. the character of the bible may justly claim to sustain its record till it is proved false. deal with it as fairly as you deal with the red-handed anarchist: let the book be innocent till proved guilty; and if innocent, the written word, like the incarnate word, stands a true witness in all things for ever. condemned, crucified, buried, it will rise again. it is a perilous thing to condemn the guiltless. let us pass to another rule of law; it is this: "the testimony of a single witness, where there is no ground for suspecting either his ability or integrity, is a sufficient legal ground for belief" (_starkie on ev._, i. ). the mere silence of one witness or of many witnesses cannot set aside the clear, positive testimony of a single trustworthy witness. that josephus does not mention events which moses records does not affect the truth of the mosaic record, and his silence as to the bethlehem massacre--even if no reason could be suggested for it, as there can be--cannot, under this rule of law, affect the positive testimony of matthew that there was such a massacre. the courts go farther than this. they say, "if a witness swear positively that he saw or heard a fact, and another _who was present_ that he did not see or hear it, and the witnesses are equally faithworthy, the affirmative witness is to be believed" (_decisions of the supreme court of errors of the state of connecticut_, vol. vi. p. ). in the case referred to in that decision the court set aside a verdict that had been rendered by the lower court on the negative testimony of eleven witnesses against the positive testimony of three. the principle recognized by that decision, and which is universally accepted as law, is that the negative testimony of witnesses present at any given transaction cannot set aside the positive testimony of a far less number of witnesses, or even of a single reliable witness. the silence of any of the evangelists in reference to an incident or event at which they may have been present, but which possibly they may not have noticed or which they do not record, does not contradict in the least the testimony of _one_ who says such an incident occurred. the fact of the marriage in cana is not at all disturbed because john is the only witness who testifies to it. so if one writer states a part of an incident or of a discourse which another writer omits, while the latter gives a part which the first omits, there is no contradiction. matthew (xx. ) says the mother of zebedee's children made a certain request which mark (x. ) says the children themselves made. but this is not inconsistent: the children united with the mother in the request. matthew calls attention to one party; mark, to another. nothing can be more unreasonable than the cavil that stumbles at such difficulties. the rule before us applies to that extraordinary doubt of modern criticism--whether the israelites were ever in egypt, because, as affirmed, the monuments do not record their presence nor their flight nor the destruction of the egyptian host at the red sea. now, leaving out of the argument the strong probability that the monuments do refer to their presence in egypt, and the further probability that the egyptians would not be likely to preserve on their monuments the record of their own ignominy and overthrow, the objection could not stand for a moment in any court of justice in the presence of the positive testimony of the record to the history in egypt--all the more as this testimony is sustained by an extraordinary weight of incidental corroborative evidence, and is involved in the whole subsequent history of the nation. grant, if you will, that there are improbabilities in parts of the history; still, the courts rule that "mere improbability can rarely supply a sufficient ground for disbelieving direct and unexceptionable witnesses of the fact where there was no room for mistake" (_starkie_, i. ; see also _greenleaf on ev._, i. , , ). that canon, fairly applied, sweeps away no inconsiderable portion of the objections to the scripture histories. take the great decisive fact of the resurrection of christ--a fact that carries with it the whole christian system and the verity of the whole christian revelation. it is a fact of testimony--of the testimony of many witnesses, under a great variety of circumstances, at many times and places, and extending through so long a period as to preclude all reasonable or admissible supposition of "mistake." no fact of ancient history can be proved by testimony if the resurrection of christ cannot be. the proof stands by itself, positive, direct, unexceptionable as to the character and capacity of the witnesses. it is proof that the law declares cannot be set aside by "mere improbability;" and if this fact is established, everything essential to christianity is established. the seal of the risen christ is on the old testament; his blood is on the new testament. it is, throughout, the living book of the slain and living lord. another very important rule of law is this: "in cases of conflicting evidence, the first step in the process of inquiry must naturally and obviously be to ascertain whether the apparent inconsistencies and incongruities which it presents may not without violence be reconciled" (_starkie_, i. ). "where there is an apparent inconsistency or contradiction in the testimony of witnesses, such construction shall be put upon it as to make it agree if possible, for perjury is not to be presumed" (_ conn._ ). nothing is more remarkable than the constant violation of this rule by many of the critics of the bible; their effort is to see, not if the testimony can be made to agree, but if by any possibility it can be forced to appear contradictory. it is hardly putting it too strongly to say that many of these efforts would not be considered respectable, and would not be tolerated by the critics themselves, if they concerned any other book than the bible and any other subject than christianity. the courts take even stronger ground on the obligation of harmonizing apparently conflicting evidence. if the elements of reconciliation are not found in the evidence itself, they insist on the admission of any reasonable supposition that will explain the difficulty. "where doubt arises," says starkie (_ev._ i. ), "from circumstances of an apparently opposite and conflicting tendency, the first step in the natural order of inquiry is to ascertain whether they be not in reality reconcilable, especially when circumstances cannot be rejected without imputing perjury to a witness; for perjury is not to be presumed, and in the absence of all suspicion that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies." (see also _starkie_, i. , .) take the familiar case of the taxing when cyrenius was governor of syria. luke ii. . everybody knows how confidently it was asserted that luke was in error because cyrenius' government of syria was several years later than luke makes it; equally, every one knows how that difficulty was met by the supposition, made almost a certainty, that cyrenius was twice governor of syria--once at the time in question, and once later. even if the supposition were not as probable as it is, if there were no other way of solving the difficulty, we should be justified by the principle of law in assuming it rather than to assume that a witness as intelligent as luke, and with his opportunities of knowledge and with no motive for misstatement, should either wilfully or carelessly have made so gross an error. here the rule fits perfectly: "in the absence of all suspicion, _that hypothesis is to be adopted which consists with and reconciles all the circumstances which the case supplies_." in regard to certain objections to the mosaic record--for example, the improbability of the desert sustaining the host of the israelites: we select this as an example of a mass of like objections--dean stanley, while holding in general to the historic fact, says the recorded miracles do not meet the difficulty and we have no right to add to them; for "if we have no warrant to take away, we have no warrant to add." if by this he meant we have no right to add to the inspired word _as a part of it_ what is not in it, he is quite correct; but if he meant, as he evidently did, that we have no right to make a reasonable supposition to explain an apparent difficulty of the word, no utterance can be more groundless. he might as well object that moses could not possibly have led the israelites through the desert forty years because no man could do that without sleeping, and the record does not say that moses slept during all that time, and "we have no warrant to add" to the record. the same difficulty is urged by others from the present barrenness of the desert, which it is contended is substantially as it was in the time of the exodus. this is to be met not so much by hypothesis as by the facts--( ) that the condition of the desert was very different then from its condition now. because the country around philadelphia cannot now support a tribe of indians by hunting and fishing, it does not follow that it could not do this two hundred years ago. ( ) god had undertaken to bring the nation out. if every miracle necessary to accomplish this end is not recorded, it does not prove that it was not wrought. as in the life of our lord, so in the deliverance of israel, many miracles may have been wrought of which no account has come down to us. this suggests an obvious and a very important consideration: _facts may now be missing_ which were perfectly well known at the time of the event, but the record of which has not been preserved. hence, if a difficulty can be removed by a reasonable supposition, or even by any admissible supposition, of a missing fact, we are entitled to make that supposition. webster (_works_, vol. vi. p. ) in his address to the jury on the celebrated trial of the knapps for the murder of captain white of salem, massachusetts, says: "in explaining circumstances of evidence which are apparently irreconcilable or unaccountable, if a fact be suggested which at once accounts for all and reconciles all, by whomsoever it may be stated, it is still difficult not to believe that such fact is the true fact belonging to the case." the missing fact that was wanted in this case to show a motive for the murder was the stealing of a will, or the purpose to steal a will, and this proved the true hypothesis. to illustrate by a familiar incident of the old testament history. the prophets jeremiah and ezekiel foretell the fate of the last king of judah, zedekiah. jer. xxxii.; ezek. xii. they declare that he shall be taken captive by the king of babylon, that he shall go to babylon and that he shall die in babylon; yet ezekiel expressly says that he shall not see babylon. now, here is apparently as gross a contradiction as there can be; and if our information stopped here, it would be impossible to reconcile it. fortunately, however, the explanation is given in the history. from kings xxv. we learn that the king of babylon, when zedekiah was brought into his presence at riblah, ordered his eyes to be put out and sent him blind to babylon; so that he saw the king of babylon, he went to babylon, he died in babylon, and yet he never saw babylon. but--and this is the point of this familiar case--if this unexpected and extraordinary fact had not been stated, how absolutely impossible it would have been to give any satisfactory solution of the difficulty! it may be doubted whether any supposition as violent as this needs to be made to reconcile every alleged contradiction of the bible. a remarkable illustration of the power of a missing fact occurs in the history of the overthrow of babylon itself. the scripture account (dan. v.) says that belshazzar was king of babylon, that he was in the city, engaged in a feast, at the time of its capture, and that he was slain. reliable secular historians give the name of the king as nabonnedus or labynetus, and state that he was not in the city when it was captured, that he was not killed, but taken prisoner, kindly treated and allowed to retire to private life. these different accounts were not only eagerly seized upon by skeptics as proofs of the error of the scriptures, but even biblical scholars admitted them to be incapable of reconciliation. no longer ago than when the writer was in the theological seminary that prince of biblical students, addison alexander, said that no solution of the difficulty was known; he was too wise a man to say that no solution was possible. kitto, in his _cyclopedia_, declared that no hypothesis _could_ harmonize the accounts. yet the reconciliation was perfectly simple. a cylinder of historic records discovered by sir henry rawlinson in the ruins of lower babylon showed that there were at this time two kings of babylon, a father and a son. one was occupying a stronghold near the city, the other was defending the city itself; the latter was taken and slain, the former was spared. thus, by the providential bringing to light of a fact buried for centuries, that which had seemed to be, and which had repeatedly and triumphantly been proclaimed to be, and which had been given up _as_ being, an irreconcilable contradiction, was shown to be perfectly harmonious. yet if the hypothesis of two kings had been suggested as an explanation before the discovery of the fact, it would have been hissed out of court by the whole skeptical school. the two accounts of the death of judas have not passed out of the field of popular objection. matthew (xxvii. ) says he committed suicide; luke (acts i. ) says he fell headlong and burst asunder. he does not say where he fell from or what were the circumstances of the fall, and it is certainly not impossible, or even improbable, that both accounts are true. the traitor hung himself, possibly, on the verge of a precipice--the supposed spot furnishes all the conditions for this--and afterward (how long is not said) the rope or the limb of the tree gave way, and he fell, striking first on the rocks at the foot of the tree and then plunging over the precipice with the result described by luke. the case is not without a parallel. a few weeks since the papers noticed the death of a gentleman in one of our western states. according to one account, he perished in a railroad disaster; according to another, he committed suicide--a contradiction almost exactly like that in the case of judas. yet there was no real discrepancy. with his wife and child he was on the fatal train that met its doom at chatsworth. his child was killed; he and his wife were taken from the ruins terribly injured. the wife soon died; in despair, and with no hope of his own life, he drew his pistol and sent the ball through his own head. he perished in the chatsworth disaster, and he committed suicide. the application of these principles of law--the admission of any reasonable hypothesis, or of an hypothesis that may seem _improbable_, if it removes the difficulty, the supposition of missing facts known at the time, but now lost--principles of constant application in our courts of justice,--releases at once the pressure from a large part of the objections to the inspired record. the accounts of the healing of the blind men at jericho and the resurrection of christ--two of the most difficult of full explanation in the new testament--require no more than this. it is not hard to present reasonable hypotheses to meet the cases as they stand; and if all the facts were known to us we believe the harmony would be as complete and as simple as that of the histories of the siege and capture of babylon. we draw the discussion to a close with the words of the eminent american jurist and legal authority, professor greenleaf: "all that christianity [or the bible] asks of men on this subject is that they would be consistent with themselves, that they would treat its evidence as they treat the evidence of other things, and that they would try and judge its actors and witnesses as they deal with their fellow-men when testifying to human affairs and actions in human tribunals." this, as we have said, is not the highest claim that we can make for the bible; but if men will go as far as this, and deal with the alleged contradictions of the book honestly by the common rules of evidence, the vast majority of all the difficulties to which these rules apply will disappear. in the mean time, if there are those that do not yield to present knowledge, we can afford to wait. many objections once supposed to be unanswerable have been answered, and the process is going on. god is very patient, but we may be assured that he who just as the occasion has demanded has summoned up the silent witnesses to his word from the valley of the nile, from the stormy cliffs of sinai, from the plains of mesopotamia and from the sullen shores of the dead sea, will not fail in the future to give all the confirmation of his truth that the faith of his church may need. washington, d. c., . the end. * * * * * transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error. missing page numbers are page numbers that were not shown in the original text. the cover for the ebook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. lectures on evolution essay # from "science and hebrew tradition" by thomas henry huxley i. the three hypotheses respecting the history of nature we live in and form part of a system of things of immense diversity and perplexity, which we call nature; and it is a matter of the deepest interest to all of us that we should form just conceptions of the constitution of that system and of its past history. with relation to this universe, man is, in extent, little more than a mathematical point; in duration but a fleeting shadow; he is a mere reed shaken in the winds of force. but as pascal long ago remarked, although a mere reed, he is a thinking reed; and in virtue of that wonderful capacity of thought, he has the power of framing for himself a symbolic conception of the universe, which, although doubtless highly imperfect and inadequate as a picture of the great whole, is yet sufficient to serve him as a chart for the guidance of his practical affairs. it has taken long ages of toilsome and often fruitless labour to enable man to look steadily at the shifting scenes of the phantasmagoria of nature, to notice what is fixed among her fluctuations, and what is regular among her apparent irregularities; and it is only comparatively lately, within the last few centuries, that the conception of a universal order and of a definite course of things, which we term the course of nature, has emerged. but, once originated, the conception of the constancy of the order of nature has become the dominant idea of modern thought. to any person who is familiar with the facts upon which that conception is based, and is competent to estimate their significance, it has ceased to be conceivable that chance should have any place in the universe, or that events should depend upon any but the natural sequence of cause and effect. we have come to look upon the present as the child of the past and as the parent of the future; and, as we have excluded chance from a place in the universe, so we ignore, even as a possibility, the notion of any interference with the order of nature. whatever may be men's speculative doctrines, it is quite certain that every intelligent person guides his life and risks his fortune upon the belief that the order of nature is constant, and that the chain of natural causation is never broken. in fact, no belief which we entertain has so complete a logical basis as that to which i have just referred. it tacitly underlies every process of reasoning; it is the foundation of every act of the will. it is based upon the broadest induction, and it is verified by the most constant, regular, and universal of deductive processes. but we must recollect that any human belief, however broad its basis, however defensible it may seem, is, after all, only a probable belief, and that our widest and safest generalisations are simply statements of the highest degree of probability. though we are quite clear about the constancy of the order of nature, at the present time, and in the present state of things, it by no means necessarily follows that we are justified in expanding this generalisation into the infinite past, and in denying, absolutely, that there may have been a time when nature did not follow a fixed order, when the relations of cause and effect were not definite, and when extra-natural agencies interfered with the general course of nature. cautious men will allow that a universe so different from that which we know may have existed; just as a very candid thinker may admit that a world in which two and two do not make four, and in which two straight lines do inclose a space, may exist. but the same caution which forces the admission of such possibilities demands a great deal of evidence before it recognises them to be anything more substantial. and when it is asserted that, so many thousand years ago, events occurred in a manner utterly foreign to and inconsistent with the existing laws of nature, men, who without being particularly cautious, are simply honest thinkers, unwilling to deceive themselves or delude others, ask for trustworthy evidence of the fact. did things so happen or did they not? this is a historical question, and one the answer to which must be sought in the same way as the solution of any other historical problem. so far as i know, there are only three hypotheses which ever have been entertained, or which well can be entertained, respecting the past history of nature. i will, in the first place, state the hypotheses, and then i will consider what evidence bearing upon them is in our possession, and by what light of criticism that evidence is to be interpreted. upon the first hypothesis, the assumption is, that phenomena of nature similar to those exhibited by the present world have always existed; in other words, that the universe has existed, from all eternity, in what may be broadly termed its present condition. the second hypothesis is that the present state of things has had only a limited duration; and that, at some period in the past, a condition of the world, essentially similar to that which we now know, came into existence, without any precedent condition from which it could have naturally proceeded. the assumption that successive states of nature have arisen, each without any relation of natural causation to an antecedent state, is a mere modification of this second hypothesis. the third hypothesis also assumes that the present state of things has had but a limited duration; but it supposes that this state has been evolved by a natural process from an antecedent state, and that from another, and so on; and, on this hypothesis, the attempt to assign any limit to the series of past changes is, usually, given up. it is so needful to form clear and distinct notions of what is really meant by each of these hypotheses that i will ask you to imagine what, according to each, would have been visible to a spectator of the events which constitute the history of the earth. on the first hypothesis, however far back in time that spectator might be placed, he would see a world essentially, though perhaps not in all its details, similar to that which now exists. the animals which existed would be the ancestors of those which now live, and similar to them; the plants, in like manner, would be such as we know; and the mountains, plains, and waters would foreshadow the salient features of our present land and water. this view was held more or less distinctly, sometimes combined with the notion of recurrent cycles of change, in ancient times; and its influence has been felt down to the present day. it is worthy of remark that it is a hypothesis which is not inconsistent with the doctrine of uniformitarianism, with which geologists are familiar. that doctrine was held by hutton, and in his earlier days by lyell. hutton was struck by the demonstration of astronomers that the perturbations of the planetary bodies, however great they may be, yet sooner or later right themselves; and that the solar system possesses a self-adjusting power by which these aberrations are all brought back to a mean condition. hutton imagined that the like might be true of terrestrial changes; although no one recognised more clearly than he the fact that the dry land is being constantly washed down by rain and rivers and deposited in the sea; and that thus, in a longer or shorter time, the inequalities of the earth's surface must be levelled, and its high lands brought down to the ocean. but, taking into account the internal forces of the earth, which, upheaving the sea-bottom give rise to new land, he thought that these operations of degradation and elevation might compensate each other; and that thus, for any assignable time, the general features of our planet might remain what they are. and inasmuch as, under these circumstances, there need be no limit to the propagation of animals and plants, it is clear that the consistent working out of the uniformitarian idea might lead to the conception of the eternity of the world. not that i mean to say that either hutton or lyell held this conception--assuredly not; they would have been the first to repudiate it. nevertheless, the logical development of some of their arguments tends directly towards this hypothesis. the second hypothesis supposes that the present order of things, at some no very remote time, had a sudden origin, and that the world, such as it now is, had chaos for its phenomenal antecedent. that is the doctrine which you will find stated most fully and clearly in the immortal poem of john milton--the english _divina commedia--_ "paradise lost." i believe it is largely to the influence of that remarkable work, combined with the daily teachings to which we have all listened in our childhood, that this hypothesis owes its general wide diffusion as one of the current beliefs of english-speaking people. if you turn to the seventh book of "paradise lost," you will find there stated the hypothesis to which i refer, which is briefly this: that this visible universe of ours came into existence at no great distance of time from the present; and that the parts of which it is composed made their appearance, in a certain definite order, in the space of six natural days, in such a manner that, on the first of these days, light appeared; that, on the second, the firmament, or sky, separated the waters above, from the waters beneath the firmament; that, on the third day, the waters drew away from the dry land, and upon it a varied vegetable life, similar to that which now exists, made its appearance; that the fourth day was signalised by the apparition of the sun, the stars, the moon, and the planets; that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals originated within the waters; that, on the sixth day, the earth gave rise to our four-footed terrestrial creatures, and to all varieties of terrestrial animals except birds, which had appeared on the preceding day; and, finally, that man appeared upon the earth, and the emergence of the universe from chaos was finished. milton tells us, without the least ambiguity, what a spectator of these marvellous occurrences would have witnessed. i doubt not that his poem is familiar to all of you, but i should like to recall one passage to your minds, in order that i may be justified in what i have said regarding the perfectly concrete, definite, picture of the origin of the animal world which milton draws. he says:-- "the sixth, and of creation last, arose with evening harp and matin, when god said, 'let the earth bring forth soul living in her kind, cattle and creeping things, and beast of the earth. each in their kind!' the earth obeyed, and, straight opening her fertile womb, teemed at a birth innumerous living creatures, perfect forms, limbed and full-grown. out of the ground uprose, as from his lair, the wild beast, where he wons in forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den; among the trees in pairs they rose, they walked; the cattle in the fields and meadows green; those rare and solitary; these in flocks pasturing at once, and in broad herds upsprung. the grassy clods now calved; now half appears the tawny lion, pawing to get free his hinder parts--then springs, as broke from bonds, and rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce, the libbard, and the tiger, as the mole rising, the crumbled earth above them threw in hillocks; the swift stag from underground bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved his vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose as plants; ambiguous between sea and land, the river-horse and scaly crocodile. at once came forth whatever creeps the ground, insect or worm." there is no doubt as to the meaning of this statement, nor as to what a man of milton's genius expected would have been actually visible to an eye-witness of this mode of origination of living things. the third hypothesis, or the hypothesis of evolution, supposes that, at any comparatively late period of past time, our imaginary spectator would meet with a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different antecedent conditions of the mineral frame-work of the earth; until, at length, in place of that frame-work, he would behold only a vast nebulous mass, representing the constituents of the sun and of the planetary bodies. preceding the forms of life which now exist, our observer would see animals and plants, not identical with them, but like them, increasing their differences with their antiquity and, at the same time, becoming simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter which, so far as our present knowledge goes, is the common foundation of all vital activity. the hypothesis of evolution supposes that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say "this is a natural process," and "this is not a natural process;" but that the whole might be compared to that wonderful operation of development which may be seen going on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which there arises, out of the semi-fluid comparatively homogeneous substance which we call an egg, the complicated organisation of one of the higher animals. that, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of evolution. i have already suggested that, in dealing with these three hypotheses, in endeavouring to form a judgment as to which of them is the more worthy of belief, or whether none is worthy of belief--in which case our condition of mind should be that suspension of judgment which is so difficult to all but trained intellects--we should be indifferent to all _a priori_ considerations. the question is a question of historical fact. the universe has come into existence somehow or other, and the problem is, whether it came into existence in one fashion, or whether it came into existence in another; and, as an essential preliminary to further discussion, permit me to say two or three words as to the nature and the kinds of historical evidence. the evidence as to the occurrence of any event in past time may be ranged under two heads which, for convenience' sake, i will speak of as testimonial evidence and as circumstantial evidence. by testimonial evidence i mean human testimony; and by circumstantial evidence i mean evidence which is not human testimony. let me illustrate by a familiar example what i understand by these two kinds of evidence, and what is to be said respecting their value. suppose that a man tells you that he saw a person strike another and kill him; that is testimonial evidence of the fact of murder. but it is possible to have circumstantial evidence of the fact of murder; that is to say, you may find a man dying with a wound upon his head having exactly the form and character of the wound which is made by an axe, and, with due care in taking surrounding circumstances into account, you may conclude with the utmost certainty that the man has been murdered; that his death is the consequence of a blow inflicted by another man with that implement. we are very much in the habit of considering circumstantial evidence as of less value than testimonial evidence, and it may be that, where the circumstances are not perfectly clear and intelligible, it is a dangerous and unsafe kind of evidence; but it must not be forgotten that, in many cases, circumstantial is quite as conclusive as testimonial evidence, and that, not unfrequently, it is a great deal weightier than testimonial evidence. for example, take the case to which i referred just now. the circumstantial evidence may be better and more convincing than the testimonial evidence; for it may be impossible, under the conditions that i have defined, to suppose that the man met his death from any cause but the violent blow of an axe wielded by another man. the circumstantial evidence in favour of a murder having been committed, in that case, is as complete and as convincing as evidence can be. it is evidence which is open to no doubt and to no falsification. but the testimony of a witness is open to multitudinous doubts. he may have been mistaken. he may have been actuated by malice. it has constantly happened that even an accurate man has declared that a thing has happened in this, that, or the other way, when a careful analysis of the circumstantial evidence has shown that it did not happen in that way, but in some other way. we may now consider the evidence in favour of or against the three hypotheses. let me first direct your attention to what is to be said about the hypothesis of the eternity of the state of things in which we now live. what will first strike you is, that it is a hypothesis which, whether true or false, is not capable of verification by any evidence. for, in order to obtain either circumstantial or testimonial evidence sufficient to prove the eternity of duration of the present state of nature, you must have an eternity of witnesses or an infinity of circumstances, and neither of these is attainable. it is utterly impossible that such evidence should be carried beyond a certain point of time; and all that could be said, at most, would be, that so far as the evidence could be traced, there was nothing to contradict the hypothesis. but when you look, not to the testimonial evidence--which, considering the relative insignificance of the antiquity of human records, might not be good for much in this case--but to the circumstantial evidence, then you find that this hypothesis is absolutely incompatible with such evidence as we have; which is of so plain and so simple a character that it is impossible in any way to escape from the conclusions which it forces upon us. you are, doubtless, all aware that the outer substance of the earth, which alone is accessible to direct observation, is not of a homogeneous character, but that it is made up of a number of layers or strata, the titles of the principal groups of which are placed upon the accompanying diagram. each of these groups represents a number of beds of sand, of stone, of clay, of slate, and of various other materials. on careful examination, it is found that the materials of which each of these layers of more or less hard rock are composed are, for the most part, of the same nature as those which are at present being formed under known conditions on the surface of the earth. for example, the chalk, which constitutes a great part of the cretaceous formation in some parts of the world, is practically identical in its physical and chemical characters with a substance which is now being formed at the bottom of the atlantic ocean, and covers an enormous area; other beds of rock are comparable with the sands which are being formed upon sea-shores, packed together, and so on. thus, omitting rocks of igneous origin, it is demonstrable that all these beds of stone, of which a total of not less than seventy thousand feet is known, have been formed by natural agencies, either out of the waste and washing of the dry land, or else by the accumulation of the exuviae of plants and animals. many of these strata are full of such exuviae--the so-called "fossils." remains of thousands of species of animals and plants, as perfectly recognisable as those of existing forms of life which you meet with in museums, or as the shells which you pick up upon the sea-beach, have been imbedded in the ancient sands, or muds, or limestones, just as they are being imbedded now, in sandy, or clayey, or calcareous subaqueous deposits. they furnish us with a record, the general nature of which cannot be misinterpreted, of the kinds of things that have lived upon the surface of the earth during the time that is registered by this great thickness of stratified rocks. but even a superficial study of these fossils shows us that the animals and plants which live at the present time have had only a temporary duration; for the remains of such modern forms of life are met with, for the most part, only in the uppermost or latest tertiaries, and their number rapidly diminishes in the lower deposits of that epoch. in the older tertiaries, the places of existing animals and plants are taken by other forms, as numerous and diversified as those which live now in the same localities, but more or less different from them; in the mesozoic rocks, these are replaced by others yet more divergent from modern types; and, in the paleozoic formations, the contrast is still more marked. thus the circumstantial evidence absolutely negatives the conception of the eternity of the present condition of things. we can say, with certainty, that the present condition of things has existed for a comparatively short period; and that, so far as animal and vegetable nature are concerned, it has been preceded by a different condition. we can pursue this evidence until we reach the lowest of the stratified rocks, in which we lose the indications of life altogether. the hypothesis of the eternity of the present state of nature may therefore be put out of court. fig. .--ideal section of the crust of the earth. we now come to what i will term milton's hypothesis--the hypothesis that the present condition of things has endured for a comparatively short time; and, at the commencement of that time, came into existence within the course of six days. i doubt not that it may have excited some surprise in your minds that i should have spoken of this as milton's hypothesis, rather than that i should have chosen the terms which are more customary, such as "the doctrine of creation," or "the biblical doctrine," or "the doctrine of moses," all of which denominations, as applied to the hypothesis to which i have just referred, are certainly much more familiar to you than the title of the miltonic hypothesis. but i have had what i cannot but think are very weighty reasons for taking the course which i have pursued. in the first place, i have discarded the title of the "doctrine of creation," because my present business is not with the question why the objects which constitute nature came into existence, but when they came into existence, and in what order. this is as strictly a historical question as the question when the angles and the jutes invaded england, and whether they preceded or followed the romans. but the question about creation is a philosophical problem, and one which cannot be solved, or even approached, by the historical method. what we want to learn is, whether the facts, so far as they are known, afford evidence that things arose in the way described by milton, or whether they do not; and, when that question is settled it will be time enough to inquire into the causes of their origination. in the second place, i have not spoken of this doctrine as the biblical doctrine. it is quite true that persons as diverse in their general views as milton the protestant and the celebrated jesuit father suarez, each put upon the first chapter of genesis the interpretation embodied in milton's poem. it is quite true that this interpretation is that which has been instilled into every one of us in our childhood; but i do not for one moment venture to say that it can properly be called the biblical doctrine. it is not my business, and does not lie within my competency, to say what the hebrew text does, and what it does not signify; moreover, were i to affirm that this is the biblical doctrine, i should be met by the authority of many eminent scholars, to say nothing of men of science, who, at various times, have absolutely denied that any such doctrine is to be found in genesis. if we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in genesis--as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake--is not the meaning of the text at all. the account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or as short as convenience requires. we are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of structureless rudiments. a person who is not a hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvellous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations. but assuredly, in the face of such contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as i do, from giving any opinion. in the third place, i have carefully abstained from speaking of this as the mosaic doctrine, because we are now assured upon the authority of the highest critics and even of dignitaries of the church, that there is no evidence that moses wrote the book of genesis, or knew anything about it. you will understand that i give no judgment--it would be an impertinence upon my part to volunteer even a suggestion--upon such a subject. but, that being the state of opinion among the scholars and the clergy, it is well for the unlearned in hebrew lore, and for the laity, to avoid entangling themselves in such a vexed question. happily, milton leaves us no excuse for doubting what he means, and i shall therefore be safe in speaking of the opinion in question as the miltonic hypothesis. now we have to test that hypothesis. for my part, i have no prejudice one way or the other. if there is evidence in favour of this view, i am burdened by no theoretical difficulties in the way of accepting it; but there must be evidence. scientific men get an awkward habit--no, i won't call it that, for it is a valuable habit--of believing nothing unless there is evidence for it; and they have a way of looking upon belief which is not based upon evidence, not only as illogical, but as immoral. we will, if you please, test this view by the circumstantial evidence alone; for, from what i have said, you will understand that i do not propose to discuss the question of what testimonial evidence is to be adduced in favour of it. if those whose business it is to judge are not at one as to the authenticity of the only evidence of that kind which is offered, nor as to the facts to which it bears witness, the discussion of such evidence is superfluous. but i may be permitted to regret this necessity of rejecting the testimonial evidence the less, because the examination of the circumstantial evidence leads to the conclusion, not only that it is incompetent to justify the hypothesis, but that, so far as it goes, it is contrary to the hypothesis. the considerations upon which i base this conclusion are of the simplest possible character. the miltonic hypothesis contains assertions of a very definite character relating to the succession of living forms. it is stated that plants, for example, made their appearance upon the third day, and not before. and you will understand that what the poet means by plants are such plants as now live, the ancestors, in the ordinary way of propagation of like by like, of the trees and shrubs which flourish in the present world. it must needs be so; for, if they were different, either the existing plants have been the result of a separate origination since that described by milton, of which we have no record, nor any ground for supposition that such an occurrence has taken place; or else they have arisen by a process of evolution from the original stocks. in the second place, it is clear that there was no animal life before the fifth day, and that, on the fifth day, aquatic animals and birds appeared. and it is further clear that terrestrial living things, other than birds, made their appearance upon the sixth day and not before. hence, it follows that, if, in the large mass of circumstantial evidence as to what really has happened in the past history of the globe we find indications of the existence of terrestrial animals, other than birds, at a certain period, it is perfectly certain that all that has taken place, since that time, must be referred to the sixth day. in the great carboniferous formation, whence america derives so vast a proportion of her actual and potential wealth, in the beds of coal which have been formed from the vegetation of that period, we find abundant evidence of the existence of terrestrial animals. they have been described, not only by european but by your own naturalists. there are to be found numerous insects allied to our cockroaches. there are to be found spiders and scorpions of large size, the latter so similar to existing scorpions that it requires the practised eye of the naturalist to distinguish them. inasmuch as these animals can be proved to have been alive in the carboniferous epoch, it is perfectly clear that, if the miltonic account is to be accepted, the huge mass of rocks extending from the middle of the palaeozoic formations to the uppermost members of the series, must belong to the day which is termed by milton the sixth. but, further, it is expressly stated that aquatic animals took their origin on the fifth day, and not before; hence, all formations in which remains of aquatic animals can be proved to exist, and which therefore testify that such animals lived at the time when these formations were in course of deposition, must have been deposited during or since the period which milton speaks of as the fifth day. but there is absolutely no fossiliferous formation in which the remains of aquatic animals are absent. the oldest fossils in the silurian rocks are exuviae of marine animals; and if the view which is entertained by principal dawson and dr. carpenter respecting the nature of the _eozoon_ be well-founded, aquatic animals existed at a period as far antecedent to the deposition of the coal as the coal is from us; inasmuch as the _eozoon_ is met with in those laurentian strata which lie at the bottom of the series of stratified rocks. hence it follows, plainly enough, that the whole series of stratified rocks, if they are to be brought into harmony with milton, must be referred to the fifth and sixth days, and that we cannot hope to find the slightest trace of the products of the earlier days in the geological record. when we consider these simple facts, we see how absolutely futile are the attempts that have been made to draw a parallel between the story told by so much of the crust of the earth as is known to us and the story which milton tells. the whole series of fossiliferous stratified rocks must be referred to the last two days; and neither the carboniferous, nor any other, formation can afford evidence of the work of the third day. not only is there this objection to any attempt to establish a harmony between the miltonic account and the facts recorded in the fossiliferous rocks, but there is a further difficulty. according to the miltonic account, the order in which animals should have made their appearance in the stratified rocks would be thus: fishes, including the great whales, and birds; after them, all varieties of terrestrial animals except birds. nothing could be further from the facts as we find them; we know of not the slightest evidence of the existence of birds before the jurassic, or perhaps the triassic, formation; while terrestrial animals, as we have just seen, occur in the carboniferous rocks. if there were any harmony between the miltonic account and the circumstantial evidence, we ought to have abundant evidence of the existence of birds in the carboniferous, the devonian, and the silurian rocks. i need hardly say that this is not the case, and that not a trace of birds makes its appearance until the far later period which i have mentioned. and again, if it be true that all varieties of fishes and the great whales, and the like, made their appearance on the fifth day, we ought to find the remains of these animals in the older rocks--in those which were deposited before the carboniferous epoch. fishes we do find, in considerable number and variety; but the great whales are absent, and the fishes are not such as now live. not one solitary species of fish now in existence is to be found in the devonian or silurian formations. hence we are introduced afresh to the dilemma which i have already placed before you: either the animals which came into existence on the fifth day were not such as those which are found at present, are not the direct and immediate ancestors of those which now exist; in which case, either fresh creations of which nothing is said, or a process of evolution, must have occurred; or else the whole story must be given up, as not only devoid of any circumstantial evidence, but contrary to such evidence as exists. i placed before you in a few words, some little time ago, a statement of the sum and substance of milton's hypothesis. let me now try to state as briefly, the effect of the circumstantial evidence bearing upon the past history of the earth which is furnished, without the possibility of mistake, with no chance of error as to its chief features, by the stratified rocks. what we find is, that the great series of formations represents a period of time of which our human chronologies hardly afford us a unit of measure. i will not pretend to say how we ought to estimate this time, in millions or in billions of years. for my purpose, the determination of its absolute duration is wholly unessential. but that the time was enormous there can be no question. it results from the simplest methods of interpretation, that leaving out of view certain patches of metamorphosed rocks, and certain volcanic products, all that is now dry land has once been at the bottom of the waters. it is perfectly certain that, at a comparatively recent period of the world's history--the cretaceous epoch--none of the great physical features which at present mark the surface of the globe existed. it is certain that the rocky mountains were not. it is certain that the himalaya mountains were not. it is certain that the alps and the pyrenees had no existence. the evidence is of the plainest possible character and is simply this:--we find raised up on the flanks of these mountains, elevated by the forces of upheaval which have given rise to them, masses of cretaceous rock which formed the bottom of the sea before those mountains existed. it is therefore clear that the elevatory forces which gave rise to the mountains operated subsequently to the cretaceous epoch; and that the mountains themselves are largely made up of the materials deposited in the sea which once occupied their place. as we go back in time, we meet with constant alternations of sea and land, of estuary and open ocean; and, in correspondence with these alternations, we observe the changes in the fauna and flora to which i have referred. but the inspection of these changes gives us no right to believe that there has been any discontinuity in natural processes. there is no trace of general cataclysms, of universal deluges, or sudden destructions of a whole fauna or flora. the appearances which were formerly interpreted in that way have all been shown to be delusive, as our knowledge has increased and as the blanks which formerly appeared to exist between the different formations have been filled up. that there is no absolute break between formation and formation, that there has been no sudden disappearance of all the forms of life and replacement of them by others, but that changes have gone on slowly and gradually, that one type has died out and another has taken its place, and that thus, by insensible degrees, one fauna has been replaced by another, are conclusions strengthened by constantly increasing evidence. so that within the whole of the immense period indicated by the fossiliferous stratified rocks, there is assuredly not the slightest proof of any break in the uniformity of nature's operations, no indication that events have followed other than a clear and orderly sequence. that, i say, is the natural and obvious teaching of the circumstantial evidence contained in the stratified rocks. i leave you to consider how far, by any ingenuity of interpretation, by any stretching of the meaning of language, it can be brought into harmony with the miltonic hypothesis. there remains the third hypothesis, that of which i have spoken as the hypothesis of evolution; and i purpose that, in lectures to come, we should discuss it as carefully as we have considered the other two hypotheses. i need not say that it is quite hopeless to look for testimonial evidence of evolution. the very nature of the case precludes the possibility of such evidence, for the human race can no more be expected to testify to its own origin, than a child can be tendered as a witness of its own birth. our sole inquiry is, what foundation circumstantial evidence lends to the hypothesis, or whether it lends none, or whether it controverts the hypothesis. i shall deal with the matter entirely as a question of history. i shall not indulge in the discussion of any speculative probabilities. i shall not attempt to show that nature is unintelligible unless we adopt some such hypothesis. for anything i know about the matter, it may be the way of nature to be unintelligible; she is often puzzling, and i have no reason to suppose that she is bound to fit herself to our notions. i shall place before you three kinds of evidence entirely based upon what is known of the forms of animal life which are contained in the series of stratified rocks. i shall endeavour to show you that there is one kind of evidence which is neutral, which neither helps evolution nor is inconsistent with it. i shall then bring forward a second kind of evidence which indicates a strong probability in favour of evolution, but does not prove it; and, lastly, i shall adduce a third kind of evidence which, being as complete as any evidence which we can hope to obtain upon such a subject, and being wholly and strikingly in favour of evolution, may fairly be called demonstrative evidence of its occurrence. ii. the hypothesis of evolution. the neutral and the favourable evidence. in the preceding lecture i pointed out that there are three hypotheses which may be entertained, and which have been entertained, respecting the past history of life upon the globe. according to the first of these hypotheses, living beings, such as now exist, have existed from all eternity upon this earth. we tested that hypothesis by the circumstantial evidence, as i called it, which is furnished by the fossil remains contained in the earth's crust, and we found that it was obviously untenable. i then proceeded to consider the second hypothesis, which i termed the miltonic hypothesis, not because it is of any particular consequence whether john milton seriously entertained it or not, but because it is stated in a clear and unmistakable manner in his great poem. i pointed out to you that the evidence at our command as completely and fully negatives that hypothesis as it did the preceding one. and i confess that i had too much respect for your intelligence to think it necessary to add that the negation was equally clear and equally valid, whatever the source from which that hypothesis might be derived, or whatever the authority by which it might be supported. i further stated that, according to the third hypothesis, or that of evolution, the existing state of things is the last term of a long series of states, which, when traced back, would be found to show no interruption and no breach in the continuity of natural causation. i propose, in the present and the following lecture, to test this hypothesis rigorously by the evidence at command, and to inquire how far that evidence can be said to be indifferent to it, how far it can be said to be favourable to it, and, finally, how far it can be said to be demonstrative. from almost the origin of the discussions about the existing condition of the animal and vegetable worlds and the causes which have determined that condition, an argument has been put forward as an objection to evolution, which we shall have to consider very seriously. it is an argument which was first clearly stated by cuvier in his criticism of the doctrines propounded by his great contemporary, lamarck. the french expedition to egypt had called the attention of learned men to the wonderful store of antiquities in that country, and there had been brought back to france numerous mummified corpses of the animals which the ancient egyptians revered and preserved, and which, at a reasonable computation, must have lived not less than three or four thousand years before the time at which they were thus brought to light. cuvier endeavoured to test the hypothesis that animals have undergone gradual and progressive modifications of structure, by comparing the skeletons and such other parts of the mummies as were in a fitting state of preservation, with the corresponding parts of the representatives of the same species now living in egypt. he arrived at the conviction that no appreciable change had taken place in these animals in the course of this considerable lapse of time, and the justice of his conclusion is not disputed. it is obvious that, if it can be proved that animals have endured, without undergoing any demonstrable change of structure, for so long a period as four thousand years, no form of the hypothesis of evolution which assumes that animals undergo a constant and necessary progressive change can be tenable; unless, indeed, it be further assumed that four thousand years is too short a time for the production of a change sufficiently great to be detected. but it is no less plain that if the process of evolution of animals is not independent of surrounding conditions; if it may be indefinitely hastened or retarded by variations in these conditions; or if evolution is simply a process of accommodation to varying conditions; the argument against the hypothesis of evolution based on the unchanged character of the egyptian fauna is worthless. for the monuments which are coeval with the mummies testify as strongly to the absence of change in the physical geography and the general conditions of the land of egypt, for the time in question, as the mummies do to the unvarying characters of its living population. the progress of research since cuvier's time has supplied far more striking examples of the long duration of specific forms of life than those which are furnished by the mummified ibises and crocodiles of egypt. a remarkable case is to be found in your own country, in the neighbourhood of the falls of niagara. in the immediate vicinity of the whirlpool, and again upon goat island, in the superficial deposits which cover the surface of the rocky subsoil in those regions, there are found remains of animals in perfect preservation, and among them, shells belonging to exactly the same species as those which at present inhabit the still waters of lake erie. it is evident, from the structure of the country, that these animal remains were deposited in the beds in which they occur at a time when the lake extended over the region in which they are found. this involves the conclusion that they lived and died before the falls had cut their way back through the gorge of niagara; and, indeed, it has been determined that, when these animals lived, the falls of niagara must have been at least six miles further down the river than they are at present. many computations have been made of the rate at which the falls are thus cutting their way back. those computations have varied greatly, but i believe i am speaking within the bounds of prudence, if i assume that the falls of niagara have not retreated at a greater pace than about a foot a year. six miles, speaking roughly, are , feet; , feet, at a foot a year, gives , years; and thus we are fairly justified in concluding that no less a period than this has passed since the shell-fish, whose remains are left in the beds to which i have referred, were living creatures. but there is still stronger evidence of the long duration of certain types. i have already stated that, as we work our way through the great series of the tertiary formations, we find many species of animals identical with those which live at the present day, diminishing in numbers, it is true, but still existing, in a certain proportion, in the oldest of the tertiary rocks. furthermore, when we examine the rocks of the cretaceous epoch, we find the remains of some animals which the closest scrutiny cannot show to be, in any important respect, different from those which live at the present time. that is the case with one of the cretaceous lamp-shells (_terebratula_), which has continued to exist unchanged, or with insignificant variations, down to the present day. such is the case with the _globigerinæ,_ the skeletons of which, aggregated together, form a large proportion of our english chalk. those _globigerinae_ can be traced down to the _globigerinae_ which live at the surface of the present great oceans, and the remains of which, falling to the bottom of the sea, give rise to a chalky mud. hence it must be admitted that certain existing species of animals show no distinct sign of modification, or transformation, in the course of a lapse of time as great as that which carries us back to the cretaceous period; and which, whatever its absolute measure, is certainly vastly greater than thirty thousand years. there are groups of species so closely allied together, that it needs the eye of a naturalist to distinguish them one from another. if we disregard the small differences which separate these forms, and consider all the species of such groups as modifications of one type, we shall find that, even among the higher animals, some types have had a marvellous duration. in the chalk, for example, there is found a fish belonging to the highest and the most differentiated group of osseous fishes, which goes by the name of _beryx._ the remains of that fish are among the most beautiful and well-preserved of the fossils found in our english chalk. it can be studied anatomically, so far as the hard parts are concerned, almost as well as if it were a recent fish. but the genus _beryx_ is represented, at the present day, by very closely allied species which are living in the pacific and atlantic oceans. we may go still farther back. i have already referred to the fact that the carboniferous formations, in europe and in america, contain the remains of scorpions in an admirable state of preservation, and that those scorpions are hardly distinguishable from such as now live. i do not mean to say that they are not different, but close scrutiny is needed in order to distinguish them from modern scorpions. more than this. at the very bottom of the silurian series, in beds which are by some authorities referred to the cambrian formation, where the signs of life begin to fail us--even there, among the few and scanty animal remains which are discoverable, we find species of molluscous animals which are so closely allied to existing forms that, at one time, they were grouped under the same generic name. i refer to the well-known _lingula_ of the _lingula_ flags, lately, in consequence of some slight differences, placed in the new genus _lingulella._ practically, it belongs to the same great generic group as the _lingula,_ which is to be found at the present day upon your own shores and those of many other parts of the world. the same truth is exemplified if we turn to certain great periods of the earth's history--as, for example, the mesozoic epoch. there are groups of reptiles, such as the _ichthyosauria_ and the _plesiosauria,_ which appear shortly after the commencement of this epoch, and they occur in vast numbers. they disappear with the chalk and, throughout the whole of the great series of mesozoic rocks, they present no such modifications as can safely be considered evidence of progressive modification. facts of this kind are undoubtedly fatal to any form of the doctrine of evolution which postulates the supposition that there is an intrinsic necessity, on the part of animal forms which have once come into existence, to undergo continual modification; and they are as distinctly opposed to any view which involves the belief, that such modification may occur, must take place, at the same rate, in all the different types of animal or vegetable life. the facts, as i have placed them before you, obviously directly contradict any form of the hypothesis of evolution which stands in need of these two postulates. but, one great service that has been rendered by mr. darwin to the doctrine of evolution in general is this: he has shown that there are two chief factors in the process of evolution: one of them is the tendency to vary, the existence of which in all living forms may be proved by observation; the other is the influence of surrounding conditions upon what i may call the parent form and the variations which are thus evolved from it. the cause of the production of variations is a matter not at all properly understood at present. whether variation depends upon some intricate machinery--if i may use the phrase--of the living organism itself, or whether it arises through the influence of conditions upon that form, is not certain, and the question may, for the present, be left open. but the important point is that, granting the existence of the tendency to the production of variations; then, whether the variations which are produced shall survive and supplant the parent, or whether the parent form shall survive and supplant the variations, is a matter which depends entirely on those conditions which give rise to the struggle for existence. if the surrounding conditions are such that the parent form is more competent to deal with them, and flourish in them than the derived forms, then, in the struggle for existence, the parent form will maintain itself and the derived forms will be exterminated. but if, on the contrary, the conditions are such as to be more favourable to a derived than to the parent form, the parent form will be extirpated and the derived form will take its place. in the first case, there will be no progression, no change of structure, through any imaginable series of ages; in the second place there will be modification of change and form. thus the existence of these persistent types, as i have termed them, is no real obstacle in the way of the theory of evolution. take the case of the scorpions to which i have just referred. no doubt, since the carboniferous epoch, conditions have always obtained, such as existed when the scorpions of that epoch flourished; conditions in which scorpions find themselves better off, more competent to deal with the difficulties in their way, than any variation from the scorpion type which they may have produced; and, for that reason, the scorpion type has persisted, and has not been supplanted by any other form. and there is no reason, in the nature of things, why, as long as this world exists, if there be conditions more favourable to scorpions than to any variation which may arise from them, these forms of life should not persist. therefore, the stock objection to the hypothesis of evolution, based on the long duration of certain animal and vegetable types, is no objection at all. the facts of this character--and they are numerous--belong to that class of evidence which i have called indifferent. that is to say, they may afford no direct support to the doctrine of evolution, but they are capable of being interpreted in perfect consistency with it. there is another order of facts belonging to the class of negative or indifferent evidence. the great group of lizards, which abound in the present world, extends through the whole series of formations as far back as the permian, or latest palaeozoic, epoch. these permian lizards differ astonishingly little from the lizards which exist at the present day. comparing the amount of the differences between them and modern lizards, with the prodigious lapse of time between the permian epoch and the present day, it may be said that the amount of change is insignificant. but, when we carry our researches farther back in time, we find no trace of lizards, nor of any true reptile whatever, in the whole mass of formations beneath the permian. now, it is perfectly clear that if our palaeontological collections are to be taken, even approximately, as an adequate representation of all the forms of animals and plants that have ever lived; and if the record furnished by the known series of beds of stratified rock covers the whole series of events which constitute the history of life on the globe, such a fact as this directly contravenes the hypothesis of evolution; because this hypothesis postulates that the existence of every form must have been preceded by that of some form little different from it. here, however, we have to take into consideration that important truth so well insisted upon by lyell and by darwin--the imperfection of the geological record. it can be demonstrated that the geological record must be incomplete, that it can only preserve remains found in certain favourable localities and under particular conditions; that it must be destroyed by processes of denudation, and obliterated by processes of metamorphosis. beds of rock of any thickness crammed full of organic remains, may yet, either by the percolation of water through them, or by the influence of subterranean heat, lose all trace of these remains, and present the appearance of beds of rock formed under conditions in which living forms were absent. such metamorphic rocks occur in formations of all ages; and, in various cases, there are very good grounds for the belief that they have contained organic remains, and that those remains have been absolutely obliterated. i insist upon the defects of the geological record the more because those who have not attended to these matters are apt to say, "it is all very well, but, when you get into a difficulty with your theory of evolution, you appeal to the incompleteness and the imperfection of the geological record;" and i want to make it perfectly clear to you that this imperfection is a great fact, which must be taken into account in all our speculations, or we shall constantly be going wrong. you see the singular series of footmarks, drawn of its natural size in the large diagram hanging up here (fig. ), which i owe to the kindness of my friend professor marsh, with whom i had the opportunity recently of visiting the precise locality in massachusetts in which these tracks occur. i am, therefore, able to give you my own testimony, if needed, that the diagram accurately represents what we saw. the valley of the connecticut is classical ground for the geologist. it contains great beds of sandstone, covering many square miles, which have evidently formed a part of an ancient sea-shore, or, it may be, lake-shore. for a certain period of time after their deposition, these beds have remained sufficiently soft to receive the impressions of the feet of whatever animals walked over them, and to preserve them afterwards, in exactly the same way as such impressions are at this hour preserved on the shores of the bay of fundy and elsewhere. the diagram represents the track of some gigantic animal, which walked on its hind legs. you see the series of marks made alternately by the right and by the left foot; so that, from one impression to the other of the three-toed foot on the same side, is one stride, and that stride, as we measured it, is six feet nine inches. i leave you, therefore, to form an impression of the magnitude of the creature which, as it walked along the ancient shore, made these impressions. fig. .--tracks of brontozoum. of such impressions there are untold thousands upon these sandstones. fifty or sixty different kinds have been discovered, and they cover vast areas. but, up to this present time, not a bone, not a fragment, of any one of the animals which left these great footmarks has been found; in fact, the only animal remains which have been met with in all these deposits, from the time of their discovery to the present day--though they have been carefully hunted over--is a fragmentary skeleton of one of the smaller forms. what has become of the bones of all these animals? you see we are not dealing with little creatures, but with animals that make a step of six feet nine inches; and their remains must have been left somewhere. the probability is, that they have been dissolved away, and completely lost. i have had occasion to work out the nature of fossil remains, of which there was nothing left except casts of the bones, the solid material of the skeleton having been dissolved out by percolating water. it was a chance, in this case, that the sandstone happened to be of such a constitution as to set, and to allow the bones to be afterward dissolved out, leaving cavities of the exact shape of the bones. had that constitution been other than what it was, the bones would have been dissolved, the layers of sandstone would have fallen together into one mass, and not the slightest indication that the animal had existed would have been discoverable. i know of no more striking evidence than these facts afford, of the caution which should be used in drawing the conclusion, from the absence of organic remains in a deposit, that animals or plants did not exist at the time it was formed. i believe that, with a right understanding of the doctrine of evolution on the one hand, and a just estimation of the importance of the imperfection of the geological record on the other, all difficulty is removed from the kind of evidence to which i have adverted; and that we are justified in believing that all such cases are examples of what i have designated negative or indifferent evidence--that is to say, they in no way directly advance the hypothesis of evolution, but they are not to be regarded as obstacles in the way of our belief in that doctrine. i now pass on to the consideration of those cases which, for reasons which i will point out to you by and by, are not to be regarded as demonstrative of the truth of evolution, but which are such as must exist if evolution be true, and which therefore are, upon the whole, evidence in favour of the doctrine. if the doctrine of evolution be true, it follows, that, however diverse the different groups of animals and of plants may be, they must all, at one time or other, have been connected by gradational forms; so that, from the highest animals, whatever they may be, down to the lowest speck of protoplasmic matter in which life can be manifested, a series of gradations, leading from one end of the series to the other, either exists or has existed. undoubtedly that is a necessary postulate of the doctrine of evolution. but when we look upon living nature as it is, we find a totally different state of things. we find that animals and plants fall into groups, the different members of which are pretty closely allied together, but which are separated by definite, larger or smaller, breaks, from other groups. in other words, no intermediate forms which bridge over these gaps or intervals are, at present, to be met with. to illustrate what i mean: let me call your attention to those vertebrate animals which are most familiar to you, such as mammals, birds, and reptiles. at the present day, these groups of animals are perfectly well-defined from one another. we know of no animal now living which, in any sense, is intermediate between the mammal and the bird, or between the bird and the reptile; but, on the contrary, there are many very distinct anatomical peculiarities, well-defined marks, by which the mammal is separated from the bird, and the bird from the reptile. the distinctions are obvious and striking if you compare the definitions of these great groups as they now exist. the same may be said of many of the subordinate groups, or orders, into which these great classes are divided. at the present time, for example, there are numerous forms of non-ruminant pachyderms, or what we may call broadly, the pig tribe, and many varieties of ruminants. these latter have their definite characteristics, and the former have their distinguishing peculiarities. but there is nothing that fills up the gap between the ruminants and the pig tribe. the two are distinct. such also is the case in respect of the minor groups of the class of reptiles. the existing fauna shows us crocodiles, lizards, snakes, and tortoises; but no connecting link between the crocodile and lizard, nor between the lizard and snake, nor between the snake and the crocodile, nor between any two of these groups. they are separated by absolute breaks. if, then, it could be shown that this state of things had always existed, the fact would be fatal to the doctrine of evolution. if the intermediate gradations, which the doctrine of evolution requires to have existed between these groups, are not to be found anywhere in the records of the past history of the globe, their absence is a strong and weighty negative argument against evolution; while, on the other hand, if such intermediate forms are to be found, that is so much to the good of evolution; although, for reasons which i will lay before you by and by, we must be cautious in our estimate of the evidential cogency of facts of this kind. it is a very remarkable circumstance that, from the commencement of the serious study of fossil remains, in fact, from the time when cuvier began his brilliant researches upon those found in the quarries of montmartre, palaeontology has shown what she was going to do in this matter, and what kind of evidence it lay in her power to produce. i said just now that, in the existing fauna, the group of pig-like animals and the group of ruminants are entirely distinct; but one of the first of cuvier's discoveries was an animal which he called the _anoplotherium,_ and which proved to be, in a great many important respects, intermediate in character between the pigs, on the one hand, and the ruminants on the other. thus, research into the history of the past did, to a certain extent, tend to fill up the breach between the group of ruminants and the group of pigs. another remarkable animal restored by the great french palaeontologist, the _palaeotherium,_ similarly tended to connect together animals to all appearance so different as the rhinoceros, the horse, and the tapir. subsequent research has brought to light multitudes of facts of the same order; and at the present day, the investigations of such anatomists as rutimeyer and gaudry have tended to fill up, more and more, the gaps in our existing series of mammals, and to connect groups formerly thought to be distinct. but i think it may have an especial interest if, instead of dealing with these examples, which would require a great deal of tedious osteological detail, i take the case of birds and reptiles; groups which, at the present day, are so clearly distinguished from one another that there are perhaps no classes of animals which, in popular apprehension, are more completely separated. existing birds, as you are aware, are covered with feathers; their anterior extremities, specially and peculiarly modified, are converted into wings by the aid of which most of them are able to fly; they walk upright upon two legs; and these limbs, when they are considered anatomically, present a great number of exceedingly remarkable peculiarities, to which i may have occasion to advert incidentally as i go on, and which are not met with, even approximately, in any existing forms of reptiles. on the other hand, existing reptiles have no feathers. they may have naked skins, or be covered with horny scales, or bony plates, or with both. they possess no wings; they neither fly by means of their fore-limbs, nor habitually walk upright upon their hind-limbs; and the bones of their legs present no such modifications as we find in birds. it is impossible to imagine any two groups more definitely and distinctly separated, notwithstanding certain characters which they possess in common. as we trace the history of birds back in time, we find their remains, sometimes in great abundance, throughout the whole extent of the tertiary rocks; but, so far as our present knowledge goes, the birds of the tertiary rocks retain the same essential characters as the birds of the present day. in other words, the tertiary birds come within the definition of the class constituted by existing birds, and are as much separated from reptiles as existing birds are. not very long ago no remains of birds had been found below the tertiary rocks, and i am not sure but that some persons were prepared to demonstrate that they could not have existed at an earlier period. but, in the course of the last few years, such remains have been discovered in england; though, unfortunately, in so imperfect and fragmentary a condition, that it is impossible to say whether they differed from existing birds in any essential character or not. in your country the development of the cretaceous series of rocks is enormous; the conditions under which the later cretaceous strata have been deposited are highly favourable to the preservation of organic remains; and the researches, full of labour and risk, which have been carried on by professor marsh in these cretaceous rocks of western america, have rewarded him with the discovery of forms of birds of which we had hitherto no conception. by his kindness, i am enabled to place before you a restoration of one of these extraordinary birds, every part of which can be thoroughly justified by the more or less complete skeletons, in a very perfect state of preservation, which he has discovered. this _hesperornis_ (fig. ), which measured between five and six feet in length, is astonishingly like our existing divers or grebes in a great many respects; so like them indeed that, had the skeleton of _hesperornis_ been found in a museum without its skull, it probably would have been placed in the same group of birds as the divers and grebes of the present day. [ ] but _hesperornis_ differs from all existing birds, and so far resembles reptiles, in one important particular--it is provided with teeth. the long jaws are armed with teeth which have curved crowns and thick roots (fig. ), and are not set in distinct sockets, but are lodged in a groove. in possessing true teeth, the _hesperornis_ differs from every existing bird, and from every bird yet discovered in the tertiary formations, the tooth-like serrations of the jaws in the _odontopteryx_ of the london clay being mere processes of the bony substance of the jaws, and not teeth in the proper sense of the word. in view of the characteristics of this bird we are therefore obliged to modify the definitions of the classes of birds and reptiles. before the discovery of _hesperornis,_ the definition of the class aves based upon our knowledge of existing birds might have been extended to all birds; it might have been said that the absence of teeth was characteristic of the class of birds; but the discovery of an animal which, in every part of its skeleton, closely agrees with existing birds, and yet possesses teeth, shows that there were ancient birds which, in respect of possessing teeth, approached reptiles more nearly than any existing bird does, and, to that extent, diminishes the _hiatus_ between the two classes. fig. --hesperornis regalis (marsh) fig. --hesperornis regalis (marsh) (side and upper views of half the lower jaw; side and end views of a vertebra and a separate tooth.) the same formation has yielded another bird, _ichthyornis_ (fig. ), which also possesses teeth; but the teeth are situated in distinct sockets, while those of _hesperornis_ are not so lodged. the latter also has such very small, almost rudimentary wings, that it must have been chiefly a swimmer and a diver like a penguin; while _ichthyornis_ has strong wings and no doubt possessed corresponding powers of flight. _ichthyornis_ also differed in the fact that its vertebrae have not the peculiar characters of the vertebrae of existing and of all known tertiary birds, but were concave at each end. this discovery leads us to make a further modification in the definition of the group of birds, and to part with another of the characters by which almost all existing birds are distinguished from reptiles. figure. --ichthyornis dispar (marsh). side and upper views of half the lower jaw; and side and end views of a vertebra. apart from the few fragmentary remains from the english greensand, to which i have referred, the mesozoic rocks, older than those in which _hesperornis_ and _ichthyornis_ have been discovered, have afforded no certain evidence of birds, with the remarkable exception of the solenhofen slates. these so-called slates are composed of a fine grained calcareous mud which has hardened into lithographic stone, and in which organic remains are almost as well preserved as they would be if they had been imbedded in so much plaster of paris. they have yielded the _archaeopteryx,_ the existence of which was first made known by the finding of a fossil feather, or rather of the impression of one. it is wonderful enough that such a perishable thing as a feather, and nothing more, should be discovered; yet, for a long time, nothing was known of this bird except its feather. but by and by a solitary skeleton was discovered which is now in the british museum. the skull of this solitary specimen is unfortunately wanting, and it is therefore uncertain whether the _archaeopteryx_ possessed teeth or not. [ ] but the remainder of the skeleton is so well preserved as to leave no doubt respecting the main features of the animal, which are very singular. the feet are not only altogether bird-like, but have the special characters of the feet of perching birds, while the body had a clothing of true feathers. nevertheless, in some other respects, _archaeopteryx_ is unlike a bird and like a reptile. there is a long tail composed of many vertebrae. the structure of the wing differs in some very remarkable respects from that which it presents in a true bird. in the latter, the end of the wing answers to the thumb and two fingers of my hand; but the metacarpal bones, or those which answer to the bones of the fingers which lie in the palm of the hand, are fused together into one mass; and the whole apparatus, except the last joints of the thumb, is bound up in a sheath of integument, while the edge of the hand carries the principal quill-feathers. in the _archaeopteryx,_ the upper-arm bone is like that of a bird; and the two bones of the forearm are more or less like those of a bird, but the fingers are not bound together--they are free. what their number may have been is uncertain; but several, if not all, of them were terminated by strong curved claws, not like such as are sometimes found in birds, but such as reptiles possess; so that, in the _archaeopteryx,_ we have an animal which, to a certain extent, occupies a midway place between a bird and a reptile. it is a bird so far as its foot and sundry other parts of its skeleton are concerned; it is essentially and thoroughly a bird by its feathers; but it is much more properly a reptile in the fact that the region which represents the hand has separate bones, with claws resembling those which terminate the forelimb of a reptile. moreover, it has a long reptile-like tail with a fringe of feathers on each side; while, in all true birds hitherto known, the tail is relatively short, and the vertebrae which constitute its skeleton are generally peculiarly modified. like the _anoplotherium_ and the _palaeotherium,_ therefore, _archaeopteryx_ tends to fill up the interval between groups which, in the existing world, are widely separated, and to destroy the value of the definitions of zoological groups based upon our knowledge of existing forms. and such cases as these constitute evidence in favour of evolution, in so far as they prove that, in former periods of the world's history, there were animals which overstepped the bounds of existing groups, and tended to merge them into larger assemblages. they show that animal organisation is more flexible than our knowledge of recent forms might have led us to believe; and that many structural permutations and combinations, of which the present world gives us no indication, may nevertheless have existed. but it by no means follows, because the _palaeotherium_ has much in common with the horse, on the one hand, and with the rhinoceros on the other, that it is the intermediate form through which rhinoceroses have passed to become horses, or _vice versa;_ on the contrary, any such supposition would certainly be erroneous. nor do i think it likely that the transition from the reptile to the bird has been effected by such a form as _archaeopteryx._ and it is convenient to distinguish these intermediate forms between two groups, which do not represent the actual passage from the one group to the other, as _intercalary_ types, from those _linear_ types which, more or less approximately, indicate the nature of the steps by which the transition from one group to the other was effected. i conceive that such linear forms, constituting a series of natural gradations between the reptile and the bird, and enabling us to understand the manner in which the reptilian has been metamorphosed into the bird type, are really to be found among a group of ancient and extinct terrestrial reptiles known as the _ornithoscelida._ the remains of these animals occur throughout the series of mesozoic formations, from the trias to the chalk, and there are indications of their existence even in the later palaeozoic strata. most of these reptiles, at present known, are of great size, some having attained a length of forty feet or perhaps more. the majority resembled lizards and crocodiles in their general form, and many of them were, like crocodiles, protected by an armour of heavy bony plates. but, in others, the hind limbs elongate and the fore limbs shorten, until their relative proportions approach those which are observed in the short-winged, flightless, ostrich tribe among birds. the skull is relatively light, and in some cases the jaws, though bearing teeth, are beak-like at their extremities and appear to have been enveloped in a horny sheath. in the part of the vertebral column which lies between the haunch bones and is called the sacrum, a number of vertebrae may unite together into one whole, and in this respect, as in some details of its structure, the sacrum of these reptiles approaches that of birds. but it is in the structure of the pelvis and of the hind limb that some of these ancient reptiles present the most remarkable approximation to birds, and clearly indicate the way by which the most specialised and characteristic features of the bird may have been evolved from the corresponding parts of the reptile. in fig. , the pelvis and hind limbs of a crocodile, a three-toed bird, and an ornithoscelidan are represented side by side; and, for facility of comparison, in corresponding positions; but it must be recollected that, while the position of the bird's limb is natural, that of the crocodile is not so. in the bird, the thigh bone lies close to the body, and the metatarsal bones of the foot (ii., iii., iv., fig. ) are, ordinarily, raised into a more or less vertical position; in the crocodile, the thigh bone stands out at an angle from the body, and the metatarsal bones (i., ii., iii., iv., fig. ) lie flat on the ground. hence, in the crocodile, the body usually lies squat between the legs, while, in the bird, it is raised upon the hind legs, as upon pillars. in the crocodile, the pelvis is obviously composed of three bones on each side: the ilium (_il._), the pubis (_pb._), and the ischium (_is._). in the adult bird there appears to be but one bone on each side. the examination of the pelvis of a chick, however, shows that each half is made up of three bones, which answer to those which remain distinct throughout life in the crocodile. there is, therefore, a fundamental identity of plan in the construction of the pelvis of both bird and reptile; though the difference in form, relative size, and direction of the corresponding bones in the two cases are very great. but the most striking contrast between the two lies in the bones of the leg and of that part of the foot termed the tarsus, which follows upon the leg. in the crocodile, the fibula (_f_) is relatively large and its lower end is complete. the tibia (_t_) has no marked crest at its upper end, and its lower end is narrow and not pulley-shaped. there are two rows of separate tarsal bones (_as., ca., &c._) and four distinct metatarsal bones, with a rudiment of a fifth. in the bird, the fibula is small and its lower end diminishes to a point. the tibia has a strong crest at its upper end and its lower extremity passes into a broad pulley. there seem at first to be no tarsal bones; and only one bone, divided at the end into three heads for the three toes which are attached to it, appears in the place of the metatarsus. in the young bird, however, the pulley-shaped apparent end of the tibia is a distinct bone, which represents the bones marked _as., ca.,_ in the crocodile; while the apparently single metatarsal bone consists of three bones, which early unite with one another and with an additional bone, which represents the lower row of bones in the tarsus of the crocodile. in other words, it can be shown by the study of development that the bird's pelvis and hind limb are simply extreme modifications of the same fundamental plan as that upon which these parts are modelled in reptiles. on comparing the pelvis and hind limb of the ornithoscelidan with that of the crocodile, on the one side, and that of the bird, on the other (fig. ), it is obvious that it represents a middle term between the two. the pelvic bones approach the form of those of the birds, and the direction of the pubis and ischium is nearly that which is characteristic of birds; the thigh bone, from the direction of its head, must have lain close to the body; the tibia has a great crest; and, immovably fitted on to its lower end, there is a pulley-shaped bone, like that of the bird, but remaining distinct. the lower end of the fibula is much more slender, proportionally, than in the crocodile. the metatarsal bones have such a form that they fit together immovably, though they do not enter into bony union; the third toe is, as in the bird, longest and strongest. in fact, the ornithoscelidan limb is comparable to that of an unhatched chick. fig. .--bird. ornithoscelidan. crocodile. the letters have the same signification in all the figures. _il.,_ ilium; _a._ anterior end; _b._ posterior end; _ia._ ischium; _pb.,_ pubis; _t,_ tibia; _f,_ fibula; _as.,_ astragalus; _ca.,_ calcaneum; i, distal portion of the tarsus; i., ii., iii., iv., metatarsal bones. taking all these facts together, it is obvious that the view, which was entertained by mantell and the probability of which was demonstrated by your own distinguished anatomist, leidy, while much additional evidence in the same direction has been furnished by professor cope, that some of these animals may have walked upon their hind legs as birds do, acquires great weight. in fact, there can be no reasonable doubt that one of the smaller forms of the _ornithoscelida, compsognathus,_ the almost entire skeleton of which has been discovered in the solenhofen slates, was a bipedal animal. the parts of this skeleton are somewhat twisted out of their natural relations, but the accompanying figure gives a just view of the general form of _compsognathus_ and of the proportions of its limbs; which, in some respects, are more completely bird-like than those of other _ornithoscelida._ fig. .--restoration of compsognathus longipes we have had to stretch the definition of the class of birds so as to include birds with teeth and birds with paw-like fore limbs and long tails. there is no evidence that _compsognathus_ possessed feathers; but, if it did, it would be hard indeed to say whether it should be called a reptilian bird or an avian reptile. as _compsognathus_ walked upon its hind legs, it must have made tracks like those of birds. and as the structure of the limbs of several of the gigantic _ornithoscelida,_ such as _iguanodon,_ leads to the conclusion that they also may have constantly, or occasionally, assumed the same attitude, a peculiar interest attaches to the fact that, in the wealden strata of england, there are to be found gigantic footsteps, arranged in order like those of the _brontozoum,_ and which there can be no reasonable doubt were made by some of the _ornithoscelida,_ the remains of which are found in the same rocks. and, knowing that reptiles that walked upon their hind legs and shared many of the anatomical characters of birds did once exist, it becomes a very important question whether the tracks in the trias of massachusetts, to which i referred some time ago, and which formerly used to be unhesitatingly ascribed to birds, may not all have been made by ornithoscelidan reptiles; and whether, if we could obtain the skeletons of the animals which made these tracks, we should not find in them the actual steps of the evolutional process by which reptiles gave rise to birds. the evidential value of the facts i have brought forward in this lecture must be neither over nor under estimated. it is not historical proof of the occurrence of the evolution of birds from reptiles, for we have no safe ground for assuming that true birds had not made their appearance at the commencement of the mesozoic epoch. it is, in fact, quite possible that all these more or less avi-form reptiles of the mesozoic epochs are not terms in the series of progression from birds to reptiles at all, but simply the more or less modified descendants of palaeozoic forms through which that transition was actually effected. we are not in a position to say that the known _ornithoscelida_ are intermediate in the order of their appearance on the earth between reptiles and birds. all that can be said is that, if independent evidence of the actual occurrence of evolution is producible, then these intercalary forms remove every difficulty in the way of understanding what the actual steps of the process, in the case of birds, may have been. that intercalary forms should have existed in ancient times is a necessary consequence of the truth of the hypothesis of evolution; and, hence, the evidence i have laid before you in proof of the existence of such forms, is, so far as it goes, in favour of that hypothesis. there is another series of extinct reptiles which may be said to be intercalary between reptiles and birds, in so far as they combine some of the characters of both these groups; and which, as they possessed the power of flight, may seem, at first sight, to be nearer representatives of the forms by which the transition from the reptile to the bird was effected, than the _ornithoscelida._ these are the _pterosauria,_ or pterodactyles, the remains of which are met with throughout the series of mesozoic rocks, from the lias to the chalk, and some of which attained a great size, their wings having a span of eighteen or twenty feet. these animals, in the form and proportions of the head and neck relatively to the body, and in the fact that the ends of the jaws were often, if not always, more or less extensively ensheathed in horny beaks, remind us of birds. moreover, their bones contained air cavities, rendering them specifically lighter, as is the case in most birds. the breast bone was large and keeled, as in most birds and in bats, and the shoulder girdle is strikingly similar to that of ordinary birds. but, it seems to me, that the special resemblance of pterodactyles to birds ends here, unless i may add the entire absence of teeth which characterises the great pterodactyles _(pteranodon)_ discovered by professor marsh. all other known pterodactyles have teeth lodged in sockets. in the vertebral column and the hind limbs there are no special resemblances to birds, and when we turn to the wings they are found to be constructed on a totally different principle from those of birds. fig. .--pterodactylus spectabilis (von meyer). there are four fingers. these four fingers are large, and three of them, those which answer to the thumb and two following fingers in my hand--are terminated by claws, while the fourth is enormously prolonged and converted into a great jointed style. you see at once, from what i have stated about a bird's wing, that there could be nothing less like a bird's wing than this is. it was concluded by general reasoning that this finger had the office of supporting a web which extended between it and the body. an existing specimen proves that such was really the case, and that the pterodactyles were devoid of feathers, but that the fingers supported a vast web like that of a bat's wing; in fact, there can be no doubt that this ancient reptile flew after the fashion of a bat. thus, though the pterodactyle is a reptile which has become modified in such a manner as to enable it to fly, and therefore, as might be expected, presents some points of resemblance to other animals which fly; it has, so to speak, gone off the line which leads directly from reptiles to birds, and has become disqualified for the changes which lead to the characteristic organisation of the latter class. therefore, viewed in relation to the classes of reptiles and birds, the pterodactyles appear to me to be, in a limited sense, intercalary forms; but they are not even approximately linear, in the sense of exemplifying those modifications of structure through which the passage from the reptile to the bird took place. iii. the demonstrative evidence of evolution the occurrence of historical facts is said to be demonstrated, when the evidence that they happened is of such a character as to render the assumption that they did not happen in the highest degree improbable; and the question i now have to deal with is, whether evidence in favour of the evolution of animals of this degree of cogency is, or is not, obtainable from the record of the succession of living forms which is presented to us by fossil remains. those who have attended to the progress of palaeontology are aware that evidence of the character which i have defined has been produced in considerable and continually-increasing quantity during the last few years. indeed, the amount and the satisfactory nature of that evidence are somewhat surprising, when we consider the conditions under which alone we can hope to obtain it. it is obviously useless to seek for such evidence except in localities in which the physical conditions have been such as to permit of the deposit of an unbroken, or but rarely interrupted, series of strata through a long period of time; in which the group of animals to be investigated has existed in such abundance as to furnish the requisite supply of remains; and in which, finally, the materials composing the strata are such as to ensure the preservation of these remains in a tolerably perfect and undisturbed state. it so happens that the case which, at present, most nearly fulfils all these conditions is that of the series of extinct animals which culminates in the horses; by which term i mean to denote not merely the domestic animals with which we are all so well acquainted, but their allies, the ass, zebra, quagga, and the like. in short, i use "horses" as the equivalent of the technical name _equidae,_ which is applied to the whole group of existing equine animals. the horse is in many ways a remarkable animal; not least so in the fact that it presents us with an example of one of the most perfect pieces of machinery in the living world. in truth, among the works of human ingenuity it cannot be said that there is any locomotive so perfectly adapted to its purposes, doing so much work with so small a quantity of fuel, as this machine of nature's manufacture--the horse. and, as a necessary consequence of any sort of perfection, of mechanical perfection as of others, you find that the horse is a beautiful creature, one of the most beautiful of all land-animals. look at the perfect balance of its form, and the rhythm and force of its action. the locomotive machinery is, as you are aware, resident in its slender fore and hind limbs; they are flexible and elastic levers, capable of being moved by very powerful muscles; and, in order to supply the engines which work these levers with the force which they expend, the horse is provided with a very perfect apparatus for grinding its food and extracting therefrom the requisite fuel. without attempting to take you very far into the region of osteological detail, i must nevertheless trouble you with some statements respecting the anatomical structure of the horse; and, more especially, will it be needful to obtain a general conception of the structure of its fore and hind limbs, and of its teeth. but i shall only touch upon those points which are absolutely essential to our inquiry. let us turn in the first place to the fore-limb. in most quadrupeds, as in ourselves, the fore-arm contains distinct bones called the radius and the ulna. the corresponding region in the horse seems at first to possess but one bone. careful observation, however, enables us to distinguish in this bone a part which clearly answers to the upper end of the ulna. this is closely united with the chief mass of the bone which represents the radius, and runs out into a slender shaft which may be traced for some distance downwards upon the back of the radius, and then in most cases thins out and vanishes. it takes still more trouble to make sure of what is nevertheless the fact, that a small part of the lower end of the bone of the horse's fore arm, which is only distinct in a very young foal, is really the lower extremity of the ulna. what is commonly called the knee of a horse is its wrist. the "cannon bone" answers to the middle bone of the five metacarpal bones, which support the palm of the hand in ourselves. the "pastern," "coronary," and "coffin" bones of veterinarians answer to the joints of our middle fingers, while the hoof is simply a greatly enlarged and thickened nail. but if what lies below the horse's "knee" thus corresponds to the middle finger in ourselves, what has become of the four other fingers or digits? we find in the places of the second and fourth digits only two slender splint-like bones, about two-thirds as long as the cannon bone, which gradually taper to their lower ends and bear no finger joints, or, as they are termed, phalanges. sometimes, small bony or gristly nodules are to be found at the bases of these two metacarpal splints, and it is probable that these represent rudiments of the first and fifth toes. thus, the part of the horse's skeleton, which corresponds with that of the human hand, contains one overgrown middle digit, and at least two imperfect lateral digits; and these answer, respectively, to the third, the second, and the fourth fingers in man. corresponding modifications are found in the hind limb. in ourselves, and in most quadrupeds, the leg contains two distinct bones, a large bone, the tibia, and a smaller and more slender bone, the fibula. but, in the horse, the fibula seems, at first, to be reduced to its upper end; a short slender bone united with the tibia, and ending in a point below, occupying its place. examination of the lower end of a young foal's shin bone, however, shows a distinct portion of osseous matter, which is the lower end of the fibula; so that the apparently single, lower end of the shin bone is really made up of the coalesced ends of the tibia and fibula, just as the apparently single, lower end of the fore-arm bone is composed of the coalesced radius and ulna. the heel of the horse is the part commonly known as the hock. the hinder cannon bone answers to the middle metatarsal bone of the human foot, the pastern, coronary, and coffin bones, to the middle toe bones; the hind hoof to the nail; as in the fore-foot. and, as in the fore-foot, there are merely two splints to represent the second and the fourth toes. sometimes a rudiment of a fifth toe appears to be traceable. the teeth of a horse are not less peculiar than its limbs. the living engine, like all others, must be well stoked if it is to do its work; and the horse, if it is to make good its wear and tear, and to exert the enormous amount of force required for its propulsion, must be well and rapidly fed. to this end, good cutting instruments and powerful and lasting crushers are needful. accordingly, the twelve cutting teeth of a horse are close-set and concentrated in the fore-part of its mouth, like so many adzes or chisels. the grinders or molars are large, and have an extremely complicated structure, being composed of a number of different substances of unequal hardness. the consequence of this is that they wear away at different rates; and, hence, the surface of each grinder is always as uneven as that of a good millstone. i have said that the structure of the grinding teeth is very complicated, the harder and the softer parts being, as it were, interlaced with one another. the result of this is that, as the tooth wears, the crown presents a peculiar pattern, the nature of which is not very easily deciphered at first; but which it is important we should understand clearly. each grinding tooth of the upper jaw has an _outer wall_ so shaped that, on the worn crown, it exhibits the form of two crescents, one in front and one behind, with their concave sides turned outwards. from the inner side of the front crescent, a crescentic _front ridge_ passes inwards and backwards, and its inner face enlarges into a strong longitudinal fold or _pillar._ from the front part of the hinder crescent, a _back ridge_ takes a like direction, and also has its _pillar._ the deep interspaces or _valleys_ between these ridges and the outer wall are filled by bony substance, which is called _cement,_ and coats the whole tooth. the pattern of the worn face of each grinding tooth of the lower jaw is quite different. it appears to be formed of two crescent-shaped ridges, the convexities of which are turned outwards. the free extremity of each crescent has a _pillar,_ and there is a large double _pillar_ where the two crescents meet. the whole structure is, as it were, imbedded in cement, which fills up the valleys, as in the upper grinders. if the grinding faces of an upper and of a lower molar of the same side are applied together, it will be seen that the opposed ridges are nowhere parallel, but that they frequently cross; and that thus, in the act of mastication, a hard surface in the one is constantly applied to a soft surface in the other, and _vice versa._ they thus constitute a grinding apparatus of great efficiency, and one which is repaired as fast as it wears, owing to the long-continued growth of the teeth. some other peculiarities of the dentition of the horse must be noticed, as they bear upon what i shall have to say by and by. thus the crowns of the cutting teeth have a peculiar deep pit, which gives rise to the well-known "mark" of the horse. there is a large space between the outer incisors and the front grinder. in this space the adult male horse presents, near the incisors on each side, above and below, a canine or "tush," which is commonly absent in mares. in a young horse, moreover, there is not unfrequently to be seen in front of the first grinder, a very small tooth, which soon falls out. if this small tooth be counted as one, it will be found that there are seven teeth behind the canine on each side; namely, the small tooth in question, and the six great grinders, among which, by an unusual peculiarity, the foremost tooth is rather larger than those which follow it. i have now enumerated those characteristic structures of the horse which are of most importance for the purpose we have in view. to any one who is acquainted with the morphology of vertebrated animals, they show that the horse deviates widely from the general structure of mammals; and that the horse type is, in many respects, an extreme modification of the general mammalian plan. the least modified mammals, in fact, have the radius and ulna, the tibia and fibula, distinct and separate. they have five distinct and complete digits on each foot, and no one of these digits is very much larger than the rest. moreover, in the least modified mammals, the total number of the teeth is very generally forty-four, while in horses, the usual number is forty, and in the absence of the canines, it may be reduced to thirty-six; the incisor teeth are devoid of the fold seen in those of the horse: the grinders regularly diminish in size from the middle of the series to its front end; while their crowns are short, early attain their full length, and exhibit simple ridges or tubercles, in place of the complex foldings of the horse's grinders. hence the general principles of the hypothesis of evolution lead to the conclusion that the horse must have been derived from some quadruped which possessed five complete digits on each foot; which had the bones of the fore-arm and of the leg complete and separate; and which possessed forty-four teeth, among which the crowns of the incisors and grinders had a simple structure; while the latter gradually increased in size from before backwards, at any rate in the anterior part of the series, and had short crowns. and if the horse has been thus evolved, and the remains of the different stages of its evolution have been preserved, they ought to present us with a series of forms in which the number of the digits becomes reduced; the bones of the fore-arm and leg gradually take on the equine condition; and the form and arrangement of the teeth successively approximate to those which obtain in existing horses. let us turn to the facts, and see how far they fulfil these requirements of the doctrine of evolution. in europe abundant remains of horses are found in the quaternary and later tertiary strata as far as the pliocene formation. but these horses, which are so common in the cave-deposits and in the gravels of europe, are in all essential respects like existing horses. and that is true of all the horses of the latter part of the pliocene epoch. but, in deposits which belong to the earlier pliocene and later miocene epochs, and which occur in britain, in france, in germany, in greece, in india, we find animals which are extremely like horses--which, in fact, are so similar to horses, that you may follow descriptions given in works upon the anatomy of the horse upon the skeletons of these animals--but which differ in some important particulars. for example, the structure of their fore and hind limbs is somewhat different. the bones which, in the horse, are represented by two splints, imperfect below, are as long as the middle metacarpal and metatarsal bones; and, attached to the extremity of each, is a digit with three joints of the same general character as those of the middle digit, only very much smaller. these small digits are so disposed that they could have had but very little functional importance, and they must have been rather of the nature of the dew-claws, such as are to be found in many ruminant animals. the _hipparion,_ as the extinct european three-toed horse is called, in fact, presents a foot similar to that of the american _protohippus_ (fig. ), except that, in the _hipparion,_ the smaller digits are situated farther back, and are of smaller proportional size, than in the _protohippus._ the ulna is slightly more distinct than in the horse; and the whole length of it, as a very slender shaft, intimately united with the radius, is completely traceable. the fibula appears to be in the same condition as in the horse. the teeth of the _hipparion_ are essentially similar to those of the horse, but the pattern of the grinders is in some respects a little more complex, and there is a depression on the face of the skull in front of the orbit, which is not seen in existing horses. in the earlier miocene, and perhaps the later eocene deposits of some parts of europe, another extinct animal has been discovered, which cuvier, who first described some fragments of it, considered to be a _palaeotherim._ but as further discoveries threw new light upon its structure, it was recognised as a distinct genus, under the name of _anchitherium._ in its general characters, the skeleton of _anchitherium_ is very similar to that of the horse. in fact, lartet and de blainville called it _palæotherium equinum_ or _hippoides;_ and de christol, in , said that it differed from _hipparion_ in little more than the characters of its teeth, and gave it the name of _hipparitherium._ each foot possesses three complete toes; while the lateral toes are much larger in proportion to the middle toe than in _hipparion,_ and doubtless rested on the ground in ordinary locomotion. the ulna is complete and quite distinct from the radius, though firmly united with the latter. the fibula seems also to have been complete. its lower end, though intimately united with that of the tibia, is clearly marked off from the latter bone. there are forty-four teeth. the incisors have no strong pit. the canines seem to have been well developed in both sexes. the first of the seven grinders, which, as i have said, is frequently absent, and, when it does exist, is small in the horse, is a good-sized and permanent tooth, while the grinder which follows it is but little larger than the hinder ones. the crowns of the grinders are short, and though the fundamental pattern of the horse-tooth is discernible, the front and back ridges are less curved, the accessory pillars are wanting, and the valleys, much shallower, are not filled up with cement. seven years ago, when i happened to be looking critically into the bearing of palaentological facts upon the doctrine of evolution, it appeared to me that the _anchitherium,_ the _hipparion,_ and the modern horses, constitute a series in which the modifications of structure coincide with the order of chronological occurrence, in the manner in which they must coincide, if the modern horses really are the result of the gradual metamorphosis, in the course of the tertiary epoch, of a less specialised ancestral form. and i found by correspondence with the late eminent french anatomist and palaeontologist, m. lartet, that he had arrived at the same conclusion from the same data. that the _anchitherium_ type had become metamorphosed into the _hipparion_ type, and the latter into the _equine_ type, in the course of that period of time which is represented by the latter half of the tertiary deposits, seemed to me to be the only explanation of the facts for which there was even a shadow of probability. [ ] and, hence, i have ever since held that these facts afford evidence of the occurrence of evolution, which, in the sense already defined, may be termed demonstrative. all who have occupied themselves with the structure of _anchitherium,_ from cuvier onwards, have acknowledged its many points of likeness to a well-known genus of extinct eocene mammals, _palaeotherium._ indeed, as we have seen, cuvier regarded his remains of _anchitherium_ as those of a species of _palaeotherium._ hence, in attempting to trace the pedigree of the horse beyond the miocene epoch and the anchitheroid form, i naturally sought among the various species of palaeotheroid animals for its nearest ally, and i was led to conclude that the _palaeotherium minus (plagiolophus)_ represented the next step more nearly than any form then known. i think that this opinion was fully justifiable; but the progress of investigation has thrown an unexpected light on the question, and has brought us much nearer than could have been anticipated to a knowledge of the true series of the progenitors of the horse. you are all aware that, when your country was first discovered by europeans, there were no traces of the existence of the horse in any part of the american continent. the accounts of the conquest of mexico dwell upon the astonishment of the natives of that country when they first became acquainted with that astounding phenomenon--a man seated upon a horse. nevertheless, the investigations of american geologists have proved that the remains of horses occur in the most superficial deposits of both north and south america, just as they do in europe. therefore, for some reason or other--no feasible suggestion on that subject, so far as i know, has been made--the horse must have died out on this continent at some period preceding the discovery of america. of late years there has been discovered in your western territories that marvellous accumulation of deposits, admirably adapted for the preservation of organic remains, to which i referred the other evening, and which furnishes us with a consecutive series of records of the fauna of the older half of the tertiary epoch, for which we have no parallel in europe. they have yielded fossils in an excellent state of conservation and in unexampled number and variety. the researches of leidy and others have shown that forms allied to the _hipparion_ and the _anchitherium_ are to be found among these remains. but it is only recently that the admirably conceived and most thoroughly and patiently worked-out investigations of professor marsh have given us a just idea of the vast fossil wealth, and of the scientific importance, of these deposits. i have had the advantage of glancing over the collections in yale museum; and i can truly say that, so far as my knowledge extends, there is no collection from any one region and series of strata comparable, for extent, or for the care with which the remains have been got together, or for their scientific importance, to the series of fossils which he has deposited there. this vast collection has yielded evidence bearing upon the question of the pedigree of the horse of the most striking character. it tends to show that we must look to america, rather than to europe, for the original seat of the equine series; and that the archaic forms and successive modifications of the horse's ancestry are far better preserved here than in europe. professor marsh's kindness has enabled me to put before you a diagram, every figure in which is an actual representation of some specimen which is to be seen at yale at this present time (fig. ). fig. . the succession of forms which he has brought together carries us from the top to the bottom of the tertiaries. firstly, there is the true horse. next we have the american pliocene form of the horse (_pliohippus_); in the conformation of its limbs it presents some very slight deviations from the ordinary horse, and the crowns of the grinding teeth are shorter. then comes the _protohippus,_ which represents the european _hipparion,_ having one large digit and two small ones on each foot, and the general characters of the fore-arm and leg to which i have referred. but it is more valuable than the european _hipparion_ for the reason that it is devoid of some of the peculiarities of that form--peculiarities which tend to show that the european _hipparion_ is rather a member of a collateral branch, than a form in the direct line of succession. next, in the backward order in time, is the _miohippus,_ which corresponds pretty nearly with the _anchitherium_ of europe. it presents three complete toes--one large median and two smaller lateral ones; and there is a rudiment of that digit, which answers to the little finger of the human hand. the european record of the pedigree of the horse stops here; in the american tertiaries, on the contrary, the series of ancestral equine forms is continued into the eocene formations. an older miocene form, termed _mesohippus,_ has three toes in front, with a large splint-like rudiment representing the little finger; and three toes behind. the radius and ulna, the tibia and the fibula, are distinct, and the short crowned molar teeth are anchitherioid in pattern. but the most important discovery of all is the _orohippus,_ which comes from the eocene formation, and is the oldest member of the equine series, as yet known. here we find four complete toes on the front limb, three toes on the hind limb, a well-developed ulna, a well-developed fibula, and short-crowned grinders of simple pattern. thus, thanks to these important researches, it has become evident that, so far as our present knowledge extends, the history of the horse-type is exactly and precisely that which could have been predicted from a knowledge of the principles of evolution. and the knowledge we now possess justifies us completely in the anticipation, that when the still lower eocene deposits, and those which belong to the cretaceous epoch, have yielded up their remains of ancestral equine animals, we shall find, first, a form with four complete toes and a rudiment of the innermost or first digit in front, with, probably, a rudiment of the fifth digit in the hind foot; [ ] while, in still older forms, the series of the digits will be more and more complete, until we come to the five-toed animals, in which, if the doctrine of evolution is well founded, the whole series must have taken its origin. that is what i mean by demonstrative evidence of evolution. an inductive hypothesis is said to be demonstrated when the facts are shown to be in entire accordance with it. if that is not scientific proof, there are no merely inductive conclusions which can be said to be proved. and the doctrine of evolution, at the present time, rests upon exactly as secure a foundation as the copernican theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies did at the time of its promulgation. its logical basis is precisely of the same character--the coincidence of the observed facts with theoretical requirements. the only way of escape, if it be a way of escape, from the conclusions which i have just indicated, is the supposition that all these different equine forms have been created separately at separate epochs of time; and, i repeat, that of such an hypothesis as this there neither is, nor can be, any scientific evidence; and, assuredly, so far as i know, there is none which is supported, or pretends to be supported, by evidence or authority of any other kind. i can but think that the time will come when such suggestions as these, such obvious attempts to escape the force of demonstration, will be put upon the same footing as the supposition made by some writers, who are i believe not completely extinct at present, that fossils are mere simulacra, are no indications of the former existence of the animals to which they seem to belong; but that they are either sports of nature, or special creations, intended--as i heard suggested the other day--to test our faith. in fact, the whole evidence is in favour of evolution, and there is none against it. and i say this, although perfectly well aware of the seeming difficulties which have been built up upon what appears to the uninformed to be a solid foundation. i meet constantly with the argument that the doctrine of evolution cannot be well founded, because it requires the lapse of a very vast period of time; while the duration of life upon the earth thus implied is inconsistent with the conclusions arrived at by the astronomer and the physicist. i may venture to say that i am familiar with those conclusions, inasmuch as some years ago, when president of the geological society of london, i took the liberty of criticising them, and of showing in what respects, as it appeared to me, they lacked complete and thorough demonstration. but, putting that point aside, suppose that, as the astronomers, or some of them, and some physical philosophers, tell us, it is impossible that life could have endured upon the earth for as long a period as is required by the doctrine of evolution--supposing that to be proved--i desire to be informed, what is the foundation for the statement that evolution does require so great a time? the biologist knows nothing whatever of the amount of time which may be required for the process of evolution. it is a matter of fact that the equine forms which i have described to you occur, in the order stated, in the tertiary formations. but i have not the slightest means of guessing whether it took a million of years, or ten millions, or a hundred millions, or a thousand millions of years, to give rise to that series of changes. a biologist has no means of arriving at any conclusion as to the amount of time which may be needed for a certain quantity of organic change. he takes his time from the geologist. the geologist, considering the rate at which deposits are formed and the rate at which denudation goes on upon the surface of the earth, arrives at more or less justifiable conclusions as to the time which is required for the deposit of a certain thickness of rocks; and if he tells me that the tertiary formations required , , years for their deposit, i suppose he has good ground for what he says, and i take that as a measure of the duration of the evolution of the horse from the _orohippus_ up to its present condition. and, if he is right, undoubtedly evolution is a very slow process, and requires a great deal of time. but suppose, now, that an astronomer or a physicist--for instance, my friend sir william thomson--tells me that my geological authority is quite wrong; and that he has weighty evidence to show that life could not possibly have existed upon the surface of the earth , , years ago, because the earth would have then been too hot to allow of life, my reply is: "that is not my affair; settle that with the geologist, and when you have come to an agreement among yourselves i will adopt your conclusion." we take our time from the geologists and physicists; and it is monstrous that, having taken our time from the physical philosopher's clock, the physical philosopher should turn round upon us, and say we are too fast or too slow. what we desire to know is, is it a fact that evolution took place? as to the amount of time which evolution may have occupied, we are in the hands of the physicist and the astronomer, whose business it is to deal with those questions. i have now, ladies and gentlemen, arrived at the conclusion of the task which i set before myself when i undertook to deliver these lectures. my purpose has been, not to enable those among you who have paid no attention to these subjects before, to leave this room in a condition to decide upon the validity or the invalidity of the hypothesis of evolution; but i have desired to put before you the principles upon which all hypotheses respecting the history of nature must be judged; and furthermore, to make apparent the nature of the evidence and the amount of cogency which is to be expected and may be obtained from it. to this end, i have not hesitated to regard you as genuine students and persons desirous of knowing the truth. i have not shrunk from taking you through long discussions, that i fear may have sometimes tried your patience; and i have inflicted upon you details which were indispensable, but which may well have been wearisome. but i shall rejoice--i shall consider that i have done you the greatest service which it was in my power to do--if i have thus convinced you that the great question which we have been discussing is not one to be dealt with by rhetorical flourishes, or by loose and superficial talk; but that it requires the keen attention of the trained intellect and the patience of the accurate observer. when i commenced this series of lectures, i did not think it necessary to preface them with a prologue, such as might be expected from a stranger and a foreigner; for during my brief stay in your country, i have found it very hard to believe that a stranger could be possessed of so many friends, and almost harder that a foreigner could express himself in your language in such a way as to be, to all appearance, so readily intelligible. so far as i can judge, that most intelligent, and perhaps, i may add, most singularly active and enterprising body, your press reporters, do not seem to have been deterred by my accent from giving the fullest account of everything that i happen to have said. but the vessel in which i take my departure to-morrow morning is even now ready to slip her moorings; i awake from my delusion that i am other than a stranger and a foreigner. i am ready to go back to my place and country; but, before doing so, let me, by way of epilogue, tender to you my most hearty thanks for the kind and cordial reception which you have accorded to me; and let me thank you still more for that which is the greatest compliment which can be afforded to any person in my position--the continuous and undisturbed attention which you have bestowed upon the long argument which i have had the honour to lay before you. footnotes: [footnote : the absence of any keel on the breast-bone and some other osteological peculiarities, observed by professor marsh, however, suggest that _hesperornis_ may be a modification of a less specialised group of birds than that to which these existing aquatic birds belong.] [footnote : a second specimen, discovered in , and at present in the berlin museum, shows an excellently preserved skull with teeth; and three digits, all terminated by claws, in the fore limb. .] [footnote : i use the word "type" because it is highly probable that many forms of _anchitherium-_like and _hipparion-_like animals existed in the miocene and pliocene epochs, just as many species of the horse tribe exist now, and it is highly improbable that the particular species of _anchitherium_ or _hipparion,_ which happen to have been discovered, should be precisely those which have formed part of the direct line of the horse's pedigree.] [footnote : since this lecture was delivered, professor marsh has discovered a new genus of equine mammals (_eohippus_) from the lowest eocene deposits of the west, which corresponds very nearly to this description.--_american journal of science,_ november, .] transcriber's note: text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). small capital text has been replaced with all capitals. * * * * * [illustration: titlepage] the other side of evolution its effects and fallacy by rev. alexander patterson director, presbyterian training school of chicago author of "the greater life and work of christ," "the bible as it is," "bird's-eye bible study" and "the bible manual." [illustration: logo] chicago the bible institute colportage association north la salle street copyright, by the bible institute colportage association of chicago table of contents. preface. claims of evolution. -- interest in subject. -- effect on christian belief. -- opinion of eminent scholars. -- effect on the common man. -- evolution being accepted on exparte evidence. -- question too important to be left to science. -- the average man capable of understanding the arguments. -- the court of last resort. vii introduction. meaning of evolution. -- conversational and scientific use of the word. -- le conte's definition. -- spencer's spheres of evolution. -- theistic and atheistic evolution. -- the origin of man, the vital point. -- the bible account and darwin's. xix chapter i. evolution is an unproven theory. nearly all evolutionists admit this. -- citations from tyndall, spencer, huxley, prof. conn, whitney, dr. j. a. zahm, dr. rudolph schmidt, and others. -- evolution rejected by many and opposed. -- complaint of prof. haeckel on this. -- prof. virchow's opposition. -- list of scientists who do not advocate evolution. -- discarded theories of the past. -- uncertainty of scientific theories in general. chapter ii. the evolution of the universe and earth. the four problems facing evolution, the origin of matter, of force, the formation and orderly adjustment of the universe and the origin of life. -- evolution makes no attempt at the first two. -- spencer admits it is the unknowable. -- lord kelvin's testimony. -- prof. george frederick wright on the nebular hypothesis. -- the solar system unique. -- the fire-mist and its wonderful contents. -- failure as to origin of life. -- le conte's theory. -- testimony of tyndall, wilson, conn, against spontaneous generation. chapter iii. evolution of species. evolution's great field. -- no case of evolution known --no cause of evolution known. -- how evolution originated species. -- argument from geology. -- geologists opposing it; sir j. w. dawson, sir r. murchison, barrande. -- prof. conn's admissions. -- haeckel's admissions. -- the argument from morphology. -- rudimentary parts. -- the eohippus, "old horse." -- argument from classification of species. -- no agreed classification. -- evolution's phantom tree. -- no changes in egypt's , years or prehistoric man's longer time. -- distribution of plants and animals. -- argument from embryology. -- the three-fold argument of evolution. -- facts opposing evolution. chapter iv. the evolution of man. the vital question. -- all evolutionists agree here. -- the two accounts of bible and evolution. -- arguments from origin of species. -- argument from similarity of structure. -- argument from human characteristics. -- rudimentary organs in man. -- the "gill-slits." -- how the brute became man. -- prof. edward clodd's account of "the making of a man." -- edward morris' description of primeval man. -- the theistic evolutionist's adam and how he fell. -- the missing link. -- the calaveras skull. -- neanderthal skull. -- haeckel's "pithecanthropus-erectus." -- the colorado monkey's skeleton. -- croatia skeletons. -- argument from the brain. -- prof. clodd's story of how man got his brain. -- argument from language. -- prof. max mueller's protest. -- argument from prehistoric man.--antiquity of man. -- testimony as to man's recent origin from prof. george frederick wright, s. r. pattison, prof. friedrich pfaff, winchell, dr. j. a. zahm.--argument from uncivilized races. -- argument from history of limits of man's history. -- evolution and religion. -- evolution's ethics. -- christian experience.--christ and evolution. chapter v. evolution unscientific and unphilosophical. four steps necessary to proof, facts, classification, inferences, verification. -- fails to account for facts. -- has no classification. -- false in inferences and has no verification. -- rests on imagination. -- tyndall's "scientific use of the imagination." -- evolution the doctrine of chance revamped and clothed in scientific terms. chapter vi. evolution and the bible. evolution has no scriptural argument. -- the two accounts mutually exclusive. -- bible account appealed to by all scripture writers as fact. -- evolution's interpretation of scripture. -- christ's testimony to the facts of scripture. -- evolution and bible doctrines. -- importance of adam as basis of scripture doctrine. -- man's state and remedy as given by evolution and by the bible. -- the future of the bible and of evolution. -- evolution in its logical form is atheism.--evolution a relic of heathenism.--testimony of james freeman clarke, sir j. william dawson. chapter vii. the spiritual effect of evolution. must affect the spiritual state. -- effect on candidates for ministry. -- latent effect on faith. -- on experimental religion. -- evolution as a state of heart. -- a comfortable theory to the impenitent. -- prepares for "isms." -- weakens pulpit power. -- eliminates faith in the supernatural and eternal. -- education's place in modern giving. -- is this the last form of unbelief? -- the common people and the gospel of the cross. preface. evolution is claimed by its advocates to be the greatest intellectual discovery of the past century, and, by some, the greatest thought that ever entered the mind of man. in the words of its greatest philosopher, herbert spencer, "it spans the universe and solves the widest range of its problems, which reach outward through boundless space, and back through illimitable time, resolving the deepest problems of life, mind, society, history and civilization." it has woven into one great philosophy the history of the material universe, the entire organic creation, man and all his faculties, the whole course of human history and the origin and progress of all religion. it also undertakes to account for the bible, for what is popularly called higher criticism represents the biblical branch of evolution. it has reconstructed the bible and remanded its miraculous narratives to the realm of myth. it has formulated a theology in which the most sacred doctrines of evangelical belief are discarded. in its central theory of the origin of man, it vitally affects the doctrines of the nature of man, of sin and penalty, man's need and the work of christ. it even touches the person of christ, for many of its advocates say that he too comes within its scope. in its radical and most consistent form, it utterly discards belief in god. most of the great teachers of evolution, such as ernst haeckel of jena, are and have been atheists. it is true that many evolutionists are theistic. but it is not enough to be theistic. the devil is "theistic," so was thomas paine. christianity is far more than theism. it is the grossest sophistry to teach that because a belief has some truth in it we must therefore tolerate it. all false doctrine is sugarcoated with truth. that we are not overstating the dangerous nature of the theory will appear from the following opinions of competent scholars and observers. prof. george frederick wright, the eminent geologist, says of evolution: "it is the fad of the present, which is making such havoc and confusion in the thought of the age, leading so many into intellectual positions, whose conclusions they dare not face and cannot flank, and from which they cannot retreat except through the valley of humiliation." (_bibliotheca sacra_, april, .) prof. george howison sounds this alarm: "it is a portent so threatening to the highest concerns of man, that we ought to look before we leap and look more than once. under the sheen of the evolutionary account of man, the world of real persons, the world of individual responsibility, disappears; with it disappears the personality of god." (_limits of evolution_, pp. , .) there is a vital connection between facts, doctrines, experiences, conduct and prospects. these successively flow from each other. christianity rests on facts, from these we derive doctrines and from doctrines come experiences, which give rise to conduct and that ends in suitable prospects. facts form the basis of christianity. when, therefore, evolution attacks the facts of the bible, it attempts to undermine the very basis of all christianity. president francis l. patton has said: "you may put your philosophy in one pocket and your religion in another and think that, as they are separate, they will not interfere, but that will not work. you have to bring your theory of the universe and your theory of religion together. this is the work of this age." while all do not go the length of the radical evolutionists, yet such is the natural working of the human mind, that this will be its logical conclusion. if this theory is accepted, we must look for widespread lapse from all christian faith and, as conduct follows belief in all intelligent creatures, we shall see also great moral declension. to the ordinary man, the matter appears in this light: if we cannot believe a man's statements we will not take his advice. if we cannot believe the bible's narratives why should we believe its religion? if it is not trustworthy as to facts of this world, why depend upon it as to the other world? if it cannot teach correctly the nature of insects and animals, why should it be able to tell us the nature of god? the common man reasons rightly. the bible must stand or fall by its reliability all along the line of truth of every kind. evolution is being taught, or taken for granted to-day in high schools, academies, colleges, universities, and seminaries. it meets the sunday school scholar at the first chapter of genesis. a busy city pastor says he has been asked about it every day in the week. it is a living question and must be met. in every free library are the works of spencer, darwin, tyndall, huxley and others, and these are read continually. it does seem as if the other side of such a question ought to be given and considered, if there be another side, and there certainly is. the theory of evolution is being accepted to-day upon ex-parte evidence. the books on evolution are numbered by hundreds, those giving the other side are few. many do not even read for themselves but rely upon the weight of noted names, or the supposed "consensus of scholarship." it is even asserted that none but scholars have the right to discuss the subject. dr. lyman abbott says in his "evidences of christianity" that "those who are not scientists must be content to await the final judgment of those who are experts on this subject, and meanwhile accept tentatively their conclusions." not to notice this demand that we rest on an unfinished theory, might we not ask permission to accept, "tentatively" at least, the bible as it is, while awaiting the conclusions of scientists as to what we shall think or believe about it; especially in view of the fact that all that has been done so far by christianity on earth has been effected by the conservative belief in the bible. but non-scientific people are able to comprehend evolution. the scientist to-day is able to state conclusions in language the non-scientific can readily understand, and the evolutionist himself tells us we can understand his facts and arguments. so we who are not scientists may proceed to investigate a subject in which we have so much at stake. the questions involved are too important to be left to the scientist alone. the scientist is mainly a witness as to the facts of nature. it is the duty of the whole body of the intelligent christian community, lay and clerical, to generalize and draw conclusions. these form, as they have in the past, the court of last resort in such discussions. the best generalizer will be, not the scientist whose labors are necessarily confined to a single science, or even to a department of it, and who may be even more or less biased by his environment, but the best juryman will be the intelligent non-scientific mind. it is before the judgment seat of christian common sense that this and all other theories must appear. it is the man in the pew who says to this pastor, come, and he cometh, and to that professor, go, and he goeth. nor is this examination premature. evolution has been now for many years before the public and its writings fill libraries. we may assume that the evidence is now before us and, if not all in, at least enough is given us by which to judge its nature and probable outcome. this we may further assume in view of the fact that the advocates of the theory admit that an increasing number of facts are not giving increasing evidence but that their case is more beset with difficulties than in the day of darwin, the father of the hypothesis, or rather, its step-father. so we may proceed with our examination. the author of this book makes no claim to being a scientist. he is simply one of the great jury to whom this theory appeals. he has, therefore, here simply considered the evidence and given herein his conclusions. the facts and arguments of evolutionary writers will form the chief source of the examination. nearly one hundred writers and works are cited. out of its own mouth we will condemn it. the citations in a book as small as this must be brief but care has been taken that they are fair as to the points they are given to show. it is not claimed that the citations from evolutionary writers exhibit their opinion on the whole subject but that they do show their fatal admissions and their general uncertainty on the whole subject. it will be shown that evolution is not accepted by all scientists and scholars; that it is rejected by some of the greatest of these; that it is admittedly an unproven theory; that it has never been verified and cannot be; that not a single case of evolution has ever been presented, and that there is no known cause by which it could take place. its arguments will be considered one by one and their fallacy shown. it will be shown to be, by its own principles, unscientific and unphilosophical, and simply a revamping of the old doctrine of chance clothed in scientific terms. finally, it will be shown that it is violently opposed to the narrative and doctrines of the bible and destructive of all christian faith; that it originated in heathenism and ends in atheism. much of the material in this book has been presented by the author in lectures upon the bible during bible institutes and conferences, and he has been frequently requested to put it in printed form. he hopes that where the arguments do not convince, they will at least bring the reader to what mr. gladstone called "that most wholesome state, a suspended judgment." among others, the following writers are cited: agassiz, abbott, argyle, askernazy, balfour, brewster, ballard, bruner, barrande, bunge, brown, bowers, bixby, bonn, clodd, conn, cope, clarke, cooke, derouge, dana, dawson, dubois, etheridge, fovel, fiske, gladstone, galton, gregory, hilprecht, huxley, howison, haeckel, haecke, harrison, herschel, hartman, harnack, heer, humphrey, hoffman, hamann, ingersoll, jones, kelvin, koelliker, liebig, lecky, leconte, lang, meyer, max mueller, monier, murchison, naegeli, paulsen, pfaff, petrie, pattison, r. patterson, pfliederer, patton, parker, ruskin, romanes, reymond, renouf, schliemann, sayce, starr, schultz, sully, spencer, schmidt, sedgwick, stuckenberg, snell, see, townsend, thomas, tyndall, thomson, virchow, von baer, wallace, winchell, warfield, wright, whitney, wagner, woodrow wilson, white, wiseman, zahm, zoeckler. i especially acknowledge indebtedness to prof. george frederick wright, of oberlin college, in revising this book and for his valuable suggestions and corrections, and especially his favorable introduction. to his works confirming many of my conclusions i refer the reader, as follows: the logic of christian evidence, the scientific aspects of christian evidences, the ice age in north america, man in the great ice age. alexander patterson. preface to third edition. in issuing a third edition of this book it is proper to state what changes, if any, have occurred in the discussion. while the belief in evolution is wide-spread, no known cause or causes have yet been discovered by which the supposed changes in species occurred, for "evolution" is not a force or energy of any kind, but only the name of a theory by which the present order of nature is supposed to have come. the method darwin proposed was by natural selection arising from the prodigality of production, the small variations that occur in living things, the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest, aided by environment and other causes all of which by slow degrees during infinite ages have produced the progressive order of species. this has been decided to be insufficient and has been abandoned by evolutionary writers. it is now agreed that the changes must have occurred in variations originating in the embryo or in the germ, or in the very substance of which that is composed. but all this is far beyond human ken as all writers admit, as follows: "we are ignorant of the factors which are at work to produce evolution. we do not even know whether the life processes are conducted in accordance with the principles of chemistry and physics, or are in obedience to some more subtle vital principle." (metcalf, _organic evolution_.) president david starr jordan and prof. vernon lyman kellogg, both of stanford university, say: "these changes or variations, if they do occur, cannot be explained." (_evolution and animal life, p. ._) this is universally admitted by scientific writers and the search is now for some proof for evolution along these lines. but as president jordan makes the still greater confession that "science does not comprehend a single elemental fact of nature," and such writers as the late lord kelvin, president of the british association for the advancement of science, agree thereto, the required proof seems far off. so the discussion is in even a less tangible state than in darwin's time, for that had a theory supposed to be sufficient, but now there is no known cause which can be demonstrated or offers the slightest explanation, as admitted above by these leading writers. the facts which are advanced to support the theory are dealt with in this volume and their fallacy shown, that all may be explained without reverting to such an unproven theory as evolution. alexander patterson. _chicago, april , ._ introduction by prof. george frederick wright of oberlin college. the doctrine of evolution as it is now becoming current in popular literature is one-tenth bad science and nine-tenths bad philosophy. darwin was not strictly an evolutionist, and rarely used the word. he endeavored simply to show that species were enlarged varieties. the title of his epoch making book was, "the origin of species by natural selection." on the larger questions of the origin of genera and the more comprehensive orders of plants and animals, he spoke with great caution and only referred to such theories as things "dimly seen in the distance." herbert spencer, however, came in with his sweeping philosophical theory of the evolution of all things through natural processes, and took darwin's work in a limited field as a demonstration of his philosophy. it is this philosophy which many popular writers and teachers, and some thoughtless scientific men have taken up and made the center of their systems. but the most of our men of science are modest in their expressions upon such philosophical themes. herbert spencer does not rank among the great men of science of the day. lord kelvin's recent remarks upon the subject are most truthful and significant. (see below pp. , .) mr. patterson does well to emphasize the fact that _orderly succession_ does not necessarily imply _evolution from resident forces_. the orderly arrangements of a business house proceed from the activity of a number of free wills, each of which might do differently, but act in a definite manner, through voluntary adherence to a single purpose. god is all wise and good as well as all powerful. his plan of creation will therefore be consistent whatever be the means through which he accomplishes it. mr. patterson, also, does well to dwell upon the "uncertainties of science." inductive science looks but a short distance either into space or time, and has no word concerning either the beginning of things or the end of things. upon these points the inspired word is still our best and our only authority. while not saying that all the points in this little volume are well taken, i can say that i disagree with fewer things in it than with those in almost any other on the subject, and that it is fitted to serve as a very needful tonic in these days of the confusion of bad philosophy and fragmentary science. george frederick wright. oberlin, ohio, aug. , . foreword. before entering upon the discussion we need to enquire as to the meaning of the word "evolution" as applied to the theory. we must also ask a definition of the theory as given by its best-known writers; and also enquire as to the spheres it claims to cover. to clearly state a question is often half the task of solving it. meaning of evolution. we must distinguish between the ordinary conversational sense of the word evolution and the technical use of the term as designating a theory by that name. we speak of the evolution of the seed into the plant and the further evolution of the flower and the fruit, meaning by our words merely the natural progressive action of the life within the plant. this principle the evolutionist applies to the whole universe which he says came in a similar way. again we use the word evolution to describe any succession of things which show progress. such an instance is given us in the change in appliances for the use of steam from the time when its power was first observed in the lifting lid of the tea-kettle to the time when it drives the latest ocean liner. this is, however, simply the succession of a series of things in advancing order, but without vital connection. their real relation is outside of themselves in the minds of the inventors who, in turn, may be many and widely separated. succession is not evolution nor does it prove or imply such a process. that demands an intimate and genetic connection between the things as they appear, the higher growing out of the substance of the lower in physical things and the intellectual likewise. the theory of evolution asserts that from a nebulous mass of primeval substance, whose origin it never attempts to account for, there came by natural processes, as a flower from a bud, and fruit from the flower, all that we see and know in the heavens above and the earth beneath. tyndall's statement of the scope of the theory is as follows: "strip it naked and you stand face to face with the notion, that not only the ignoble forms of life, the animalcular and animal life, not only the more noble forms of the horse and lion, not only the exquisite mechanism of the human body, but the human mind with its emotions, intellect, will and all their phenomena, were latent in that fiery cloud." (_christianity and positivism_, p. .) dr. lyman abbott further defines its application to man thus: "evolution is the doctrine that this life of man, this moral, this ethical, this spiritual nature has been developed by natural processes." (_theology of an evolutionist._) herbert spencer's celebrated definition is as follows: "evolution is a progress from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from general to special, from the simple to the complex elements of life." but we deny the right to apply this definition exclusively to the theory of evolution. creation also proceeds on the same order, so also does manufacture or any other intelligent operation. the clearest account of the theory is that given by prof. le conte, as follows: "all things came ( ) by continuous progressive changes, ( ) according to certain laws, ( ) by means of resident forces." (_evolution and religious thought._) it is the latter clause in which the real meaning of the theory lies. these "resident forces" include exterior influences such as food, climate, etc. the theories of evolution are as many as the respective writers. each one has his own theory as to the scope and cause and operation of it all. theistic evolution allows the intervention of god at the creation of the primeval "fire-mist" and at the origin of life and the production of man's spiritual nature. the atheist denies any interference of a creator at all. haeckel says the best definition of evolution is "the non-miraculous origin and progress of the universe." he and many others say that if the creator is admitted at any point, he may as well be admitted all along. this is consistent evolution. the theistic and the atheistic evolutionist however agree in saying that man was descended from the brute, as to his body at least, and some even, as above shown, claim this descent for the whole man. this doctrine as to man is the vital part of the whole theory and in this all evolutionists are practically agreed. so that so far as their effect on christian doctrine and bible fact is concerned, all may be classed together. chapter i. evolution as an unproven theory. with perhaps the exception of prof. ernst haeckel of jena, all evolutionists admit that evolution is unproven. one of the latest writers, and most impartial, is prof. h. w. conn, who says in his "evolution of to-day:" "nothing has been positively proved as to the question at issue. from its very nature, evolution is beyond proof.... the difficulties offered to an unhesitating acceptance of evolution are very great, and have not grown less since the appearance of darwin's _origin of species_, but have in some respects grown greater." (pp. , .) he makes many such admissions. dr. rudolph schmidt writes, "all these theories have not passed beyond the rank of hypotheses." (_theories of darwin_, p. .) prof. whitney, of yale university, says, "we cannot think the theory yet converted into a scientific fact and those are perhaps the worst foes to its success who are over-hasty to take it and use it as a proved fact." (_oriental and linguistic studies, pp. - _) tyndall said: "those who hold the doctrine of evolution are by no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they only yield to it a provisional assent." (_fragments of science_, p. .) dr. j. a. zahm writes: "the theory of evolution is not yet proved by any demonstrative evidence. an absolute demonstration is impossible." (_popular science monthly_, april, .) huxley said, "so long as the evidence at present adduced falls short of supporting the affirmative, the doctrine must be content to remain among the hypotheses." (_lay sermons_, p. .) down to the end of his life, he said the evidence for evolution was insufficient. (_quarterly review_, january, .) this universal admission will be a surprise to the non-scientific, especially in view of the astounding and sweeping claims the theory has made. it will seem strange that a confessedly unproven theory should be made the basis of all "modern thinking," the foundation of a universal philosophy, the cause of a revolution in theology, and the reason for rejecting the narratives of the bible, and, on the part of some, of abandoning christianity and launching into atheism. yet such is the case. well may we draw a long breath here and say, is this science? is it scientific to accept as true an unproven theory and make it the basis of all belief? we have even more startling facts to present as to this amazing form of unbelief. in discussing evolution, we must also continually distinguish between fact and theory, between things proven and assumed. for the writers continually intermingle these in a confusing way. we need ever to ask concerning its statements, is this proven or assumed? the jury have a right to ask that everything be proved absolutely before rendering a verdict for evolution. evolution is not accepted by all scientists and scholars. the statement is often made that evolution has "the consensus of scholarship." this carries force to the non-scientific, indeed to all, for we must rest our faith, for facts at least, on the opinion of scientists. but while many have followed it, there remain many scholars who have not bowed the knee to baal. prof. haeckel, its greatest living advocate, complains bitterly of the opposition of many of the scientists of europe, and that many once with him have deserted him. the late dr. virchow, the great pathologist and the discoverer of the germ theory, was an active opponent of evolution. he says: "the reserve which most naturalists impose on themselves is supported by the small actual proofs of darwin's theory. facts seem to teach the invariability of the human and the animal species." (_popular science_, pp. , .) dr. groette, in his inaugural address as rector of the university of strasburg, rejected evolution. dr. d. s. gregory of new york, editor of the homiletic review and in a position to know the facts, vouches for the statement, that, "it is a strange fact that no great scientific authority in great britain in exact science, science that reduces its conclusions to mathematical formulae, has endorsed evolution." the late dr. j. h. w. stuckenberg, of cambridge, wrote me, that many of the scientists of germany reject the extreme views of evolution, and the inferences which men like prof. haeckel, of jena, have drawn from darwinism. he quotes dr. w. haecke, a zoologist of jena, the home of prof. haeckel, as saying: "we the younger men must free ourselves from the darwinian dogma, in which respect quite a number of us have been quite successful." prof. paulsen, of berlin, has exposed some of haeckel's fallacies and regards his reasoning as "a disgrace to germany." he said the mechanical theory for which darwinism was held to stand, is rejected by such scientists as naegeli, koelliker, m. wagner, snell, fovel, bunge, the physiological chemist, a. brown, hoffman and askernazy, botanists; oswald heer, the geologist, and otto hamann, the zoologist. of carl ernst von baer, the eminent zoologist and anthropologist, haecke affirms, that in early years he came near adopting the hypothesis of evolution into his system, but that at a later date he utterly rejected it. the same change occurred in the late du bois reymond and prof. virchow, the eminent scientist of the university of berlin. (see also articles of dr. stuckenberg in _homiletic review_, january, , may, .) sir j. william dawson, the great geologist of canada, utterly rejected it and says: "it is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity; it is utterly destitute of proof." (_story of the earth and man_, p. .) dr. etheridge, examiner of the british museum, said to dr. george e. post, in answer to a question, "in all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species. this museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of these views." thomas carlyle called evolution "the gospel of dirt." ruskin said of it, "i have never yet heard one logical argument in its favor. i have heard and read many that are beneath contempt." (_the eagles nest_, p. .) prof. zöckler writes: "it must be stated that the supremacy of this philosophy has not been such as was predicted by its defenders at the outset. a mere glance at the history of the theory during the four decades that it has been before the public shows that the beginning of the end is at hand." such utterances are now very common in the periodicals of germany, it is said. it seems plain the reaction has commenced and that the pendulum that has swung so strongly in the direction of evolution, is now oscillating the other way. it required twenty years for evolution to reach us from abroad. is it necessary for us to wait twenty years more to reverse our opinions? why may we not pass upon facts for ourselves without awaiting the "consensus of european scholarship," which is after all so subject to perplexing reversals? it makes plain people dizzy to attempt to follow leaders of opinion who change with every wind that blows across the ocean. many citations will appear in the following pages which show the strong exceptions taken by leading scholars against the theory in whole or in part. indeed, as said already, the arguments to be given herein against evolution are drawn from the statements of leading evolutionists themselves. some of these are earlier opinions and some their latest utterances. in every case the state of the discussion will be shown to be far from that "consensus of scholarship" so airily claimed by the writers on the subject and so unhesitatingly accepted by their followers. it may be objected that some of these authorities are dead and that later scholars differ from them. not to mention the names of still living writers named above, let us remark that all wisdom is not left to our day. socrates and bacon are dead, yet their opinions are still of value. moses is dead, yet the ten commandments are still believed if not obeyed. our present evolutionary writers will also one day be dead, yet they hope even then to be given some credit for sense and science. the "consensus of scholarship" ought to include wisdom past as well as present. it is also to be remembered that there are thousands of quiet thinkers who have never given in their adhesion to this startling theory, and more, that the great masses of the church at least, have no confidence in it. those preparing to launch their ships upon this current had better, as a matter of common prudence at least, wait a while at least till the mists have rolled away. discarded theories of the past. prof. george frederick wright says, "the history of science is little else than one of discarded theories.... the so-called science of the present day is largely going the way so steadily followed in the past. the things about which true science is certain are very few and could be contained in a short chapter of a small book." (_the advance_, may , .) it is sometimes charged to the church that it has held theories which the discoveries of science have shown to be untrue. but it must be borne in mind that these false theories were just as firmly held by the scientists of the day as by the church. dr. andrew white has written two great volumes on the warfare between science and theology. he might write many and larger volumes on the wars between the theories of science. every one of these discarded theories, and they are numbered by thousands, has been the center of terrific conflicts. galileo's discovery of the satellites of jupiter was opposed by his fellow astronomers, who even refused to look at them through his telescope. dr. j. a. zahm quotes cardinal wiseman as saying that the french institute in could count more than eighty theories opposed to scripture, not one of which has stood still or deserves to be recorded. at a meeting of the british association, sir william thomson announced that he believed life had come to this globe by a meteor. his theory lived less than a year. mr. huxley said that the origin of life was a sheet of gelatinous living matter which covered the bottom of the ocean. this theory had even a shorter life. among the most recent reversals of this kind is that of a universally held theory, namely, that coral reefs are built up by the coral insects in their desire to keep near the surface as the ocean's bottom sinks. prof. a. agassiz has just demolished this theory. scholars were unanimous a short time ago that troy was a myth. but dr. schliemann's great discoveries have overthrown that "consensus of scholarship." prof. harnack, one of the greatest of critics in his great work, _the chronology of the christian scriptures_, admits that science, meaning higher criticism, has made many mistakes and has much to repent of. joseph cook said, "within the memory of man yet comparatively young, the mythical theory of strauss has had its rise, its fall, its burial." the thirty thousand citizens of st. pierre on martinique, trusting in the assurances of the scientists, remained in their fated city and the next day were overwhelmed in the most awful calamity of modern times. we may consider in this connection the dissatisfaction of some of the greatest minds of evolutionary circles with the results of their own theory. mr. herbert spencer is thus quoted, writing in his eighty-third year: "the intellectual man, who occupies the same tenement with me, tells me that i am but a piece of animated clay equipped with a nerve system and in some mysterious way connected with the big dynamo called the world; but that very soon now the circuit will be cut and i will fall into unconsciousness and nothingness. yes i am sad, unutterbly sad, and i wish in my heart i had never heard of the intellectual man with his science, philosophy and logic." (_facts and comments._) prof. frederic harrison, the agnostic, thus writes: "the philosophy of evolution and demonstration promised but it did not perform. it raised hopes, but it led to disappointment. it claimed to explain the world and to direct man, but it left a great blank. that blank was the field of religion, of morality, of the sanctions of deity. it left the mystery of the future as mysterious as ever and yet as imperative as ever. whatever philosophy of nature it offered, it gave no adequate philosophy of man. it was busy with the physiology of humanity and propounded inconceivable and repulsive guesses about the origin of humanity." (_north american review_, december, , p. .) from the opposite side of the field, president woodrow wilson writes: "this is the dis-service scientific study has done for us; it has given us agnosticism in the realm of philosophy, scientific anarchism in the field of politics. it has made the legislator confident that he can create and the philosopher sure that god cannot." (_forum_, december, .) uncertainty of scientific theories in general. another feature which strikes the non-scientific mind curiously is the wide differences among great scientists as to the facts of nature. the age of the earth is variously declared to be ten million years by some, and by others equally able, a thousand million years. the temperature of its interior is stated to be , degrees by one, and , degrees by another. herschel calculated the mountains on the moon to be half a mile high, ferguson said they were fifteen miles high. the height of the aurora borealis is guessed from two and a half to one hundred and sixty miles, and its nature is still more widely described. the delta at the mouth of the mississippi was calculated by lyell to have been , years in forming. gen. humphrey, of the united states survey, estimated it at , years, and m. beaument at , years. the deposits of carbonate of lime on the floor of kent cavern in england have been estimated by different scientists to have been from a thousand to a million years in forming. the discovery of radium and other similar substances, it is said, is almost revolutionizing the theories of the constitution of matter and affecting all physical science. these facts are not cited to discredit science. no one in his senses would fail to acknowledge our great debt to the earnest and laborious workers in these varying fields. but these instances of many such are cited to show that there is need for caution in accepting proposed theories. chapter ii. evolution of the universe and earth. in undertaking to account for the universe, evolution faces four problems. . the origin of matter. . the origin of force. . the formation and orderly arrangement of the universe. . the origin of life. in all of these it fails; it confesses its failure in the first two and last, and makes ludicrous attempts to explain the third. we will consider each in turn. . evolution fails to account for the origin of matter. spencer says this is the unknowable. so that spencer's great philosophy rests on what he doesn't know and cannot find out. darwin said as to the origin of things, "i am in a hopeless muddle." prof. edward clodd wrote: "of the beginning of what was before the present state of things, we know nothing and speculation is futile, but since everything points to the finite duration of the present creation, we must make a start somewhere." (_story of creation_, p. .) science is what we know. therefore evolution rests upon an unscientific foundation. nor is there any other account conceivable than that the bible gives. as long as this first and fundamental fact is not solved, the theory must be content to be at most a limited one, and far from being that sweeping discovery which its advocates assert it to be. . evolution fails to account for the origin of force. the great forces which animate the universe, such as gravity, heat, motion and light, must be accounted for by this theory to give it the standing it demands. it makes no attempt to do this. evolution is silent when we ask, whence came these mighty forces? calling them laws of nature does not answer the question. laws need law makers and enforcers also. laws do not enforce themselves. as forces, they show the ceaseless giving out of energy. where is the dynamo from which this perpetual energy originated and still proceeds? in this connection, let us notice the reticence and limitations of really great scientists as to the nature of these energies. lord kelvin, the greatest living scientist, said at the meeting of the british association for the advancement of science, of which he was president: "one word characterizes the most strenuous of the efforts for the advancement of science that i have made perseveringly for fifty-five years. that word is failure. i know no more of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity, than i knew and tried to teach to my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my first session as professor." haeckel himself, the greatest living evolutionist, admits: "we grant at once that the innermost character of nature is just as little understood by us as it was by anaximander and empedocles , years ago.... we grant that the essence of substance becomes more mysterious and enigmatic the more deeply we penetrate into the knowledge of its attributes." (_riddle of the universe._) . evolution fails to account for the orderly movements of the heavenly bodies which have the accuracy of a chronometer, aye, which are the standards by which all chronometers are regulated, so that the astronomer can calculate to a second when the heavenly bodies shall pass any particular point of view or form their many conjunctions. there is no collision, no noise. "there is no speech nor language, their voice is not heard." our solar system is unique in the heavens. prof. see tells us there is no other like it in the regularity of its orbits, and in its distant position from the powerful attractions of the mighty systems of the heavens. the earth, too, is the only world so far known to be advanced enough for the production of life. its situation is far enough from the sun to be beyond its powerful heat and electric energy and yet near enough to preserve and continue all life. the arrangement of its surface into land and water proportions gives the requisite amount of moisture over the land areas. the atmosphere is mixed of gases in just the right proportions for life. all this speaks as loudly as any mechanism can speak, of intention and benevolence and control and careful adjustment; far from that haphazard effect which comes from the undirected working of "resident forces." evolution declares the universe began with a nebulous mass, which tyndall says was "fire-mist," and contracted as it became cold; but spencer says it was a cold cloud which became heated as it contracted. we are left to the perplexity of deciding for ourselves which theory we will accept. this is only one of many such contradictions we shall meet. but however, or whatever it was, it organized itself into the wonderful universe of stars by a rotary motion which the contraction produced, and this threw off portions as a carriage wheel throws off mud, each portion taking up a similar motion and cooling in a similar fashion until it became cool enough for living things. proof for all this is supposed to be seen in a nebula which is seen in the constellation orion, which has a spiral form and is supposed to be a world in the making. but in february, , a new star appeared surrounded by a nebula and this in rapid motion from the center. this sudden appearance of a world in a nebulous state seems like the reversing of the evolutionary process or indeed like a world being destroyed and reduced to its first estate. other facts are also contradictory, such as the motion or revolution of some of the satelites in a reverse order from that demanded by the theory. indeed the whole nebular theory is now being called in question. prof. george frederick wright of oberlin university, thus writes of it: "the nebular hypothesis, which all forms of evolution now assume for a beginning, involves the supposition that the molecules of matter composing the solar system were originally diffused through space like the particles of mist in a vast fogbank, and that then, under the action of gravitation, they began to approach each other and to collect in masses, which began to revolve about their axes and to move in orbits around the center of attraction. every step in this supposition involves an added mystery. the existence of the molecules in their original diffused state is but the beginning of the mystery, though that is utterly incomprehensible. "the power of gravitation which compels the separated particles to approach each other is an utter mystery, which has completely baffled all efforts at explanation by scientific men. the revolution of the various masses of the solar system on their axes and in their orbits is another mystery for which there is no solution. "thus is the thorough-going evolutionist at every point confronted with an insoluble mystery, and he deceives himself if he fancies that he has discovered anything which will take the place of the christian's conception of god as the creator, sustainer and ruler of all things." (_record-herald_, chicago, dec. , .) other facts are even more perplexing to this theory. the moon is moving from her place at an increasing rate and astronomy cannot account for it. the earth's axis of revolution has varied from time to time. only one star in a thousand has ever been catalogued. of only about a hundred is the calculation of the parallax possible, so distant are they. as to our earth, a well-known writer says: "no one of standing in the scientific world of to-day is willing to go on record as having a theory of his own regarding the internal fires of this planet or attempting to account for their origin." in view of this state of uncertainty, it seems to the non-scientific mind hazardous to project across these vast ages a guess as to what the conditions were and how the universe originated. and above all to found on this guess a vast philosophy of the universe affecting all we hold precious for this life and that to come. well may we hesitate before such demands. . the origin of life is a problem evolution has sought in vain to solve or account for by its natural or resident forces. prof. le conte labors hard to show that it might have come from the union of the four gases, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen, under some peculiar circumstances. if he had said under the direct act of the creator we could assent cheerfully. for these do enter into the substance which forms the bodies of living things. but the claim of evolution is that all came by "resident forces," self-operating. once admit the direct act of the creator, and, as haeckel says, they might as well admit it along the whole process, for the argument for a single instance is valid for the whole. so they will have none of it. prof. le conte labors to show that protoplasm might be self-originating, but prof. conn says, "protoplasm is not a chemical compound but a mechanism.... unorganized protoplasm does not exist.... it could never have been produced by chemical process. chemistry has produced starches, fats, albumens, but not protoplasm." (_method of evolution._) lord kelvin, in writing to the _london times_, said: "forty years ago i asked liebig, walking somewhere in the country, if he believed that the grass and flowers which we saw around us grew by mere chemical forces. he answered, 'no, no more than i could believe that a book of botany describing them could grow by mere chemical forces.'" tyndall, after laborious experiments during eight months, thus candidly states the result, in an address before the royal institute, london: "from the beginning to the end of the inquiry, there is not, as you have seen, a shadow of evidence in favor of the doctrine of spontaneous generation.... in the lowest, as in the highest of organized creatures, the method of nature is, that life shall be the issue of antecedent life." and mr. huxley also admitted, "the doctrine that life can only come from life is victorious all along the line." prof. conn states, "there is not the slightest evidence that living matter could arise from non-living matter. spontaneous generation is universally given up." (_evolution of to-day_, p. .) wilson, the great authority on the cell says, "the study of the cell has seemed to expand rather than narrow the enormous gap that separates even the lowest forms of life from the inorganic world." (_the cell in development and inheritance_, p. .) here then, is the greatest chasm of all: evolution fails at the very start in the story of life. yet this is its chosen field. on this depends the whole theory. if there was a creator at the origin of life, why not at the origin of all living things? it is simply a question of degree. the making of a single cell, the simplest creature that lives, is as great a mystery as that of man. conceptually the one is as possible as the other.[ ] [ ] see these points discussed more fully in wright's scientific aspects of christian evidences. chapter iii. the evolution of species. this is evolution's great field of labor. it was this which mainly occupied darwin's labors and is the basis of the whole sweeping theory. this suggested man's animal origin and all that follows as to man's history and religion and civilization. so that this is the basal part of evolution. yet against this fundamental argument, two great charges are made and admitted: first, not a single case of evolution of species is known, and, second, no law or force by which such changes could take place has been discovered. we will consider these two fatal defects. not a single instance of evolution is known. in support of this assertion we might quote the admissions of nearly every evolutionary writer. prof. winchell writes upon this point as follows: "the great stubborn fact which every form of the theory encounters at the very outset is, that notwithstanding variations, we are ignorant of a single instance of the derivation of one good species from another. the world has been ransacked for an example, and occasionally it has seemed for a time as if an instance had been found of the origination of a genuine species by so-called natural agencies, but we only give utterance to the admissions of all the recent advocates of derivation theories, when we announce that the long-sought _experimentum crucis_ has not been discovered." (_the doctrine of evolution_, p. .) prof. conn, in one of the most recent works upon evolution, says: "it is true enough that naturalists have been unable to find a single unquestioned instance of a new species.... it will be admitted at the outset on all sides, that no unquestioned instance has been observed of one species being derived from another.... it is therefore impossible at present to place the question beyond dispute." (_evolution of to-day_, p. .) here then is a fatal defect. the world has been ransacked for evidence, the museums are full of specimens, the secrets of nature have been explored in every land, the minutest creatures discovered and analyzed. we have the remains of animals and plants of many kinds thousands of years old, such as the mummied remains from egypt, and yet not a single instance of the change evolution asserts has ever been known! yet this change of species is the fundamental argument of evolution. on this rests its theory of the origin of man and all that flows from that assertion, and this basal assertion is absolutely without an actual instance of fact. the changes in certain species such as roses, primroses, tomatoes, pigeons and dogs, are not new species, but only varieties, having none of the traits of species, easily intermingling, propagating, and readily reverting to their original forms, changes which true species are not susceptible of. darwin admitted that the continued fertility of these varieties was one of his greatest difficulties. one of the definitions of species is that they will not interbreed and propagate. so that hybrids are sterile. "after its kind," is the primal law of nature, and as dr. jesse b. thomas says, "the stubborn mule still blocks the way of evolution." no cause of evolution is known. evolution is not a force. there is no power or cause which is known as evolution. the word simply describes the order in which things have been supposed to come. we must draw a clear line of distinction between cause and order of appearance. there is a certain order in the succession of living things as they came, but what caused that order is the very question at issue. the duke of argyle warns against confusing these when he says, "evolution puts forward a visible order of phenomena as a complete and all-sufficient account of its own origin and cause." (_theories of darwin._) the absence of an agreed cause is admitted by evolutionists. huxley says, "the great need of evolution is a theory of derivation." (_man's place in nature._) darwin admits, "our ignorance of the laws of derivation is profound." (_descent of man._) "the laws governing inheritance are for the most part unknown." (_origin of species._) prof. conn in _evolution of to-day_, says, "no two scientists are agreed as to what is the cause of the supposed changes of species." (p. .) prof. clodd traces it to the protoplasm which forms the germ and ends his exhaustive treatise by saying the cause is still unknown. (_method of evolution._) darwin's theory was natural selection. it is this which is technically called "darwinism," although some writers apply that name to the general subject of evolution. natural selection is the theory that inasmuch as minute variations occur in the struggle of living things for existence, the variations which would prove favorable to the welfare of the animal would be transmitted to its progeny and be increased and so, in many generations, the accumulating effects, aided by climate, food, sexual selection, and other causes, would amount to a new species. prof. conn says of this theory, "natural selection is almost universally acknowledged as insufficient to meet the facts of nature, since many facts of life cannot be explained by it." (p. .) mr. huxley said long before: "after much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against mr. darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that as the evidence now stands it is not absolutely proved that a group of animals, having all the characteristics exhibited by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether natural or artificial." (_lay sermons_, .) the theories as to what produced the supposed changes are as many as the writers on evolution. prof. conn says, "all agreement disappears. each thinker has his own views." and adds, "thus far we have seen no indication of the manner in which this evolution has been manifested." (p. .) prof. j. arthur thomson, lecturer on zoology in the school of medicine, edinburgh, said: "unless we can give some theory of the origin of variations we have no material for further consideration. unfortunately we are very ignorant about the whole matter." the various writers ascribe the changes to food, climate, sexual selection, extraordinary births, isolation and many other supposed causes. all these have been in turn combatted by other evolutionist writers, and the war goes on and has produced libraries of volumes. it is around this that the conflict rages and the war is a merry one. how evolution originated species. it is when evolution gives the particulars of these changes that it becomes especially interesting. we will, by way of lighting up the examination, consider a few of the stories it tells us as to how things came. spencer tells us how the backbone came to be, for the primitive animals had none. prof. conn quotes his account as follows: "he thinks the segmentation, the division of the spinal column into vertebrae, arose as the result of strains. originally the vertebrate was unsegmented, but in bending its body from side to side in locomotion through the water, its spinal column became divided by the action of simple mechanical force." (_evolution of to-day_, p. .) thus what we usually consider a serious calamity, the breaking of one's backbone, became one of the greatest blessings, for what would we be without flexible backs, with which to follow the meanderings of evolution? evolution also tells us how legs originated. the earliest animals were without legs. some animal in this legless state found on its body some slight excrescences or warts, which aided materially its progress as it wiggled along, and thus it acquired the habit of using these convenient warts. this habit it transmitted to its posterity and they increased the habit until the excrescences, lengthened and strengthened by use, became legs of a rudimentary kind, which by further use developed a system of bones and muscles and nerves and joints such as we have ourselves. spencer's account of the origin of quadrupeds is that the earliest animals propagated by dividing into two parts, and in some of these the division was not perfectly made, and so the animal had duplicated ends, each of which had legs, forming finally the present quadruple arrangement. eyes originated from some animal having pigment spots or freckles on the sides of its head, which, turned to the sun, agreeably affected the animal so that it acquired the habit of turning that side of its head to the sun, and its posterity inherited the same habit and passed it on to still other generations. the pigment spot acquired sensitiveness by use and in time a nerve developed which was the beginning of the eye. from this incipient eye came the present wonderful combination of lenses, nerves and muscles, all so accurately adjusted that, of the sixteen possible adjustments of each part, only once in a hundred thousand times would they come together, as they now are, by chance. land animals began thus, according to evolution: in a time of drought some water animals, stranded by the receding waters, were obliged thenceforth to adopt land manners and methods of living. although, strangely, the whale by the same cause was forced to the water, for it was once a land animal, but in a season of drought was obliged to seek the water's edge for the scant remaining herbage, and, finding the water agreeable, remained there and its posterity also, and finally, the teeth and legs no longer needed, became decadent and abortive as we see them now. darwin inferred the history of the whale's marine career from seeing a bear swimming in a pool and catching insects with its wide-open mouth as it so skimmed the water's surface. the same drought produced another and wonderful change, for it is to this that the giraffe owes his long legs and neck. the herbage on the lower branches withering up, he was obliged to stretch his neck and legs to reach the higher branches. this increased, as all such changes increased, in his posterity, and finally after many generations produced the present immense reaching powers of the giraffe. so that the same drought deprived the whale of his legs and conferred them upon the giraffe. the mere recital of these speculations will be enough for all who have not surrendered their judgment to the keeping of others. it seems scarcely necessary to assure readers unacquainted with the theory, that this is not exaggeration or caricature. we have simply abbreviated, and rendered into untechnical language, the accounts of evolutionary writers given in all seriousness and with high-sounding scientific terms. any such work will give many specimens of similar accounts. reply seems unnecessary, yet must be made. . all this is pure speculation. not a single such change is known, or has been observed. . all is based on natural selection, which evolutionists have themselves discarded; yet for want of any other theory they are constantly obliged to fall back upon it. . such acquired traits are not transmitted, as prof. thomson of edinborough, tells us. only characteristics inherited, or congenital in the fertilized egg cell, are so transmitted. (_outlines of zoology_, p. .) the "sports" such as the white robins and crows occasionally seen, disappear as individuals and do not propagate as distinct types. let us pause here to contemplate the spectacle of a theory, which its own advocates admit is unproven, and which has been opposed by some of the greatest minds, a theory which has not a single direct fact of evidence, and has no way of accounting for the changes which it declares have taken place; such a theory accepted as the basis of every science, the foundation of a universal philosophy, taught in educational institutions to youth as if demonstrated, demanding immediate and universal submission, undertaking to revise scripture, to revolutionize theology, and to prescribe what we must do to be saved and to save others! surely it is safe to hesitate before such demands. we will not discount the great service done humanity in the patient research in the realms of nature by laborious students. all this should be given weight. we also admit the value of a theory as a means to the ascertaining of truth. but we cannot consent that the vast interests affected by evolution shall be decided by "the balancings of probabilities," or the mooted value of a theory. this is no place for theories, which must be held tentatively, if at all. this is a matter which affects the belief and lives and hopes of millions, their welfare here and hereafter. religion is too sacred to be made a shuttlecock tossed about in the arena of intellectual amusement. sir j. william dawson said of some writers and their theories: "to launch a clever and startling fallacy, which will float a week and stir up a hard fight, seems as great a triumph as the discovery of an important fact or law; and the honest student is distracted with the multitude of doctrines and hustled aside by the crowd of ambitious groundlings." (_story of the earth and man_, .) evolution has much to say for itself, but, as we see, it is all of the nature of circumstantial evidence. this seems to the non-scientific mind as strange for anything called science, which we have been accustomed to think means something known or proven. we have been accustomed to see cases thrown out of court when presenting no evidence and to fare badly in general on mere circumstantial evidence. however, as evolution is so persistent for a hearing, we must examine what it has to advance for our consideration. its arguments are drawn from geology, classification, distribution of plants and animals, morphology and embryology. the argument from geology. the argument from this science is that the fossils appear in the strata of the earth in advancing order, the simplest first, and more complex afterwards. the assumption is that the higher came from the lower, by a chain of infinitesimal changes, through a long series of ages. now the facts are not as claimed. we will show this later. but admitting that they are, the argument is wanting. . all this is pure assumption. no such changes are known in existing species to have ever taken place, and the assumption that these changes took place in geologic ages is wholly unwarranted. if it cannot be predicated of the animals we see and know, how can it be asserted of a period millenniums ago? . mere succession is not evolution. the coming in orderly succession is evidence of some plan but not necessarily of evolution. an intelligent creator would work in the same way, especially if he had intelligent beings to instruct thereby, at the time or afterwards. . evolution in comparing the successive comings of the rocky strata and the fossil creatures, compares two kinds of things that cannot be made analogous. rocks are not produced by evolution, the higher growing out of the lower, as is claimed of species. that certain species appeared with the lower rocks and strata, and higher orders with later rocks and strata only proves of one, as of the other, an advancing order of production but tells nothing of the cause of either. . we are supported in these doubts as to the value of evolution's argument from geology by the fact, that many of the most eminent geologists deny any proof of evolution in their chosen science. sir roderick murchison said, "i know as much of nature in her geologic ages as any living man, and i fearlessly say that our geologic record does not afford one syllable of evidence in support of darwin's theory." the great swiss geologist, joachim barrande states, "one cannot conceive why in all rocks whatever and in all countries upon the two continents, all relics of the intervening types should have vanished.... the discordances are so numerous and pronounced, that the composition of the real fauna seems to have been calculated by design for contradicting everything which the theories (of evolution) teach us respecting the first appearance and primitive evolution of the forms of life upon the earth." (quoted by winchell, in _doctrine of evolution_, p. .) prof. conn, an evolutionist, admits the presence of many facts disclosed by geology which oppose the theory of evolution. he says, "in the earliest records geology discloses, we find not a few generalized types but well differentiated forms, nearly all the sub-kingdoms as they now exist, five-sixths of our orders, nearly an equal proportion of sub-orders, a great many families and some of our present species. all this is a surprise and an unexplained problem." such a result, he says, is not what evolution would lead us to expect. all the important classes of animals made their appearance without warning. (_evolution of to-day_, pp. , , , .) haeckel writes, "we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that various groups have from the time of their first appearance, burst out into an exuberant growth of modification of form, size and members, with all possible, and one might almost say, impossible shapes, and they have done this within a comparatively short time, after which they have died out not less rapidly." (_last link_, p. .) the testimony of geology, as adduced by geologists and even by evolutionists, is that it does not sustain the claims of evolution. species existed in present form from the earliest times. geologic species came in suddenly and went out suddenly. some of the simplest remain unchanged through all earth's transformations to the present time. (dr. robert patterson, _errors of evolution_, p. .) the great fossil cemeteries show that the living creatures fell in serried ranks, overtaken by cataclysms, in every act of life. le conte tries to explain this by saying that there were "paroxysmal" eras, but what the paroxysms were, or whence they came, he does not say. the whole testimony is against evolution and reverts to proof of the bible story of creation. professor adam sedgwick says: "at succeeding epochs, new tribes of beings were called into existence, not merely as the progeny of those that had appeared before them, but as new and living proofs of creative interference." the argument from classification of species. this is one of the strong points of evolution. it is claimed that plants and animals can be so classified in an ascending order that it is evident the higher came out of the lower. we object as follows: . there is no classification agreed upon by scientists. this comes largely from want of agreement as to what a species is. scientists differ widely and radically. spencer presents a review of all these schemes of classification and ends by saying, "it is absurd to attempt a definite scheme of relationship." his own plan of the scheme he says is the figure of a "laurel bush squashed flat by a descending plane." (_principles of biology_, p. .) this agrees with his statement as to the absurdity of such schemes. some arrange the whole in a continuous straight line from the lowest up. darwin thought the whole came from half a dozen germinal forms. where these came from he did not say. dr. j. clark ridpath said, "the eagle was always an eagle, the man always man. every species of living organism has i believe come up by a like process from its own primordial germ." (_arena_, june, .) haeckel insists that the theory demands but a single primeval germ as the ancestor of all living things. he presented a tree, showing twenty or more stages between primeval protoplasm and man, but this has been now rejected by evolutionists. prof. d. kerfoot schults represents the classification as follows: "if all the animals that have ever existed on the earth be represented by a tree, those now existing on the earth will be represented by the topmost twigs and leaves, and the extinct forms will be represented by the main trunk and branches." (_first book on organic evolution_, p. xiv.) but the source of all, the primeval protoplasm, is wanting. the missing primeval germ or germs leaves the tree without a root, and prof. conn tells that even the sub-kingdoms are not united by fossils. spencer admits that not a single species has been traced to its source or its family tree completed, and even the ancestors of our living species are wanting. prof. dana admitted as follows, "if ever the links (upon which the doctrine of evolution depends) had an actual existence, their disappearance without a trace left behind is altogether inexplicable." here then is a tree without root or trunk or branches, and having only the tips of outer twigs and leaves, in other words, a phantom tree, a fit representation of the theory for which it stands. the present orders of plants and animals give a strong argument against evolution. it has been seen that succession is not evolution. the mere coming of animals in orderly succession shows only plan, but the means of executing that plan is not shown thereby. but further, while in the geologic ages there was succession, here in our age is simultaneousness of species, two very different and contradictory phenomena. why has succession ceased? why have not the higher orders pushed the lower out, as in the geologic ages, if evolution was the cause? yet here they all exist quietly together as if they knew nothing of evolution or its requirements. nor have any such changes occurred in thousands of years, as the mummied remains of cats and crocodiles and ibises in egypt show. surely , years would show some evolution if there had been such a thing; but it is not seen in all the , years, or even in the more distant period since primeval man existed, for we have the remains of animals found with man in his early history. out of species, are the same as we have to-day unchanged, and still others, as the lingula, the same as in ages past. thus evolution's trusted argument from classification utterly fails of demonstration. distribution of plants and animals. the distribution of plants and animals is another favorite argument of this theory. certain animals are said to be found only in certain regions, the bison only in north america, the kangaroo only in australia, the armadillo only in mexico. evolution triumphantly asks, were they created only in these places? we now simply remark that difficulties as to creation do not prove evolution. evolution says the ancestors of these came from other parts ages ago and by long isolation and environment became what they are. facts again are against the theory. huxley himself says that in the neighborhood of oxford are animal remains like those of australia; that britain was once connected with the continent, and so these animals passed over. the same is true he says of the isolated fauna of new zealand and south america. (address in _daily post_, march , .) this argument might be used against evolution as well as the previous arguments. two islands in the pacific, only fifteen miles apart, have the animals of asia in one and of australia in the other. one of the bermudas has lizards like those of africa and another like those of america. in fact it is evident that animals and plants have scattered widely. the morphological argument. the comparative study of plants and animals presents another argument for evolution. it is found, for example, that there is a similarity of plan in the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, the flipper of the whale, the leg of the animal and the arm of the man. so also in a measure with all other corresponding parts. this evolution says, shows that all these animals are genetically connected and all came from the same ancestors. huxley himself replies to this argument in these words, "no amount of purely morphological evidence can suffice to prove that things came into existence in one way rather than another." (_study of zoology_, p. .) another great scientist, prof. quatrefages, professor of anthropology in the museum of natural sciences, paris, writes on this as follows: "without leaving domain of facts, and only judging from what we know, we can say, that morphology itself justifies the conclusion that one species has never produced another by derivation." prof. conn admits, after going through the whole subject with the latest facts, that unless some further explanation can be found, homology does not prove descent. (_evolution of to-day_, p. .) this resemblance of parts is just what we should expect in things originating from one intelligent operator, whether creator or manufacturer. it is found in every factory. the wheel is the same in the wheelbarrow, the cart, carriage and locomotive. in fact, uniformity of plan proves unity in the cause, and not the diversity of chance causes claimed by evolution. if evolution were true, there would be as much diversity among organs as there is among the forms of organs. if the operation of chance conditions has resulted in radical changes in the forms of organs, why then is there not this similar diversity among the organs themselves? evolution has no reply. creation has such reply; god is one and his plan one. why should not the forms of all these things be alike, seeing they are to live in the same climates, eat the same food and propagate in the same manner? the rudimentary, abortive and discarded parts found in some animals form one of the strongest arguments evolution advances. the favorite instance it presents is found in the horse. the horse walks on one toe and has splints further up the leg, which they tell us are the remains of the other toes, and the callosities on the leg are the remains of thumbs. the remains have been found of an animal as large as a dog which resembles the horse and has two toes, and another older animal, as large as a fox, which has four toes. putting these side by side, evolution calls them all horses, and says the one-toed animal came from the two-toed, and he from the four-toed, and that this proves the evolution of the horse from the eohippus (old horse) as it is called. . bearing in mind that this conclusion is pure assumption, and only inference at best, let us remark that it violates the primal law of evolution laid down by spencer, that of evolution from the simple to the complex. it should have shown first the one-toed horse, then his development into a two-toed animal, and so on up to a horse having five toes. this would be evolution. as it is, we see the opposite of evolution, degradation, which often occurs in nature, and we see few if any instances of any subsequent restoration to primal conditions. . besides all this, that most necessary thing to a good horse, a pedigree, is wanting. the connecting links are all missing in his ancestral tree. for the ancestors of that first of horses are unknown. but he is not alone in this, for even his owner has the same sad want of proven descent, as we will see later. just how the horse lost his appendages, and why he dropped toe after toe in this extraordinary manner the story leaves untold. . but another great objection exists. it takes time to breed horses. it required all of the tertiary period to produce the one-toed animal from the four-toed ancestor and much longer time was required to develop him from a totally different animal, where more than a mere question of toes comes in. for we have to face the difficulty, and the time necessary, to develop a good horse, say from an alligator, and the still greater task of producing him from an animal without toes at all, or even legs, or anything to hang legs on, and simply a bag of jelly-like substance, which the evolutionist assures us was the ancestor of all horses and their riders. if it appears to the reader that life is too short for such business we can say the geologist agrees with him, for he tells us the age of the old earth itself was not one tenth long enough to produce evolution's horses, and still less their riders. another instance of evolution's proofs is the swim-bladder of fishes. this evolution sometimes states is an incipient lung, and that the fish learned in a drought to breathe air. sometimes, as the need of the theory demands, the swim-bladder is claimed as the relic of a discarded lung. these however are two different and opposing claims. either as a prophecy or a relic the swim-bladder is fatal to the claims of evolution. if it is an incipient lung, then here is intention, which evolution rejects. if a relic, here is retrogression, the opposite of evolution. the abortive organ is one of the difficulties of the theory which darwin admitted, and prof. conn tells us, is not yet answered. prof. huxley said, "either these rudiments are of no use to the animal, in which case they ought to have disappeared, or they are of some use to the animal, in which case they are arguments for teleology." (_darwinism_, p. .) the argument from embryology. evolution derives its greatest argument from the study of the embryo. it makes three claims. first, that the germ of everything, plant and animal, is the same, neither chemical analysis nor the microscope showing any difference. if therefore, such vast variety could come from origins so alike, why could not all we see come from a similar origin, the primitive animal, which was also such a simple cell? second, in the growth of the embryo it recapitulates the ancestral history of that particular organism. third, all this when compared with the geologic record, and the present orders of living things as classified, presents the full succession of the forms of life, the one supplying what the other lacks. these claims must be examined separately. . the claim that the germs of all living things are alike is not true. the resemblance is only superficial. protoplasm, of which the germ is composed, differs and is not homogeneous material. that which builds the muscles is one kind, and that which builds brain and nerves is entirely different. prof. clodd tells us it is not a chemical compound but a mechanism. nor could the germs be alike. for the plant breathes carbon, the animal oxygen. the one oxidizes, the other deoxidizes. there are still greater and deeper differences. tyndall says, "under the most homogeneous material, there lie structural energies of such complexity, that we must question whether we have the mental elements with which to grapple with them.... the most trained and disciplined imagination retires in bewilderment from the problem. in that realm, inaccessible to everything but mind, the wonders of creation are wrought out.... here is determined the germ and afterwards the complete organization." (_fragments of science_, p. .) so that these cells or germs, which appear so alike, contain each in itself the entire plan and life of the coming creature, to the color of a feather, the trick of a hunting dog and the smile and dimples of a child. . the second claim that the course of each embryo traverses its ancestral history, is not nearly so vociferously made as some years ago. prof. a. agassiz writes, "anything beyond a general parallelism is hopeless." prof. conn admits "embryology alone is not a safe guide, and only when verified by the fossils can it be relied upon. it seldom gives a true history.... the parallel is largely a delusion.... it often gives a false history." (_evolution of to-day_, pp. , , , .) prof. thomson writes, "recapitulation is due to no dead hands of the past, but to physiological conditions which we are unable to discover." (_outline of zoology_, p. .) he also says that the young mammal was never like a worm, a fish, or reptile. it was at the most like the young of these in their various stages. so far from the course of all being alike, baer says he can tell the difference between the embryo of the common fowl and duck on the second day. (_principles of biology_, p. .) so far as this claim holds good, it forms an argument against evolution. for here is a goal or ideal to which all things strive. this is intention, and plan and purpose, all of which is opposed to the main idea of evolution. it is in line with creation. . the culminating argument for evolution is given by arranging in ascending classification the geologic orders of life (which we have seen do not appear as evolution demands), and placing alongside of these the classification of present animals (which we have seen is not agreed upon, and is as diverse as the writers themselves), and then laying alongside of these two artificial arrangements, the embryonic recital (which is now doubted and is often false to the past history), and triumphantly pointing to the three-fold combination. the gaps geology shows are thus filled by present forms and what both lack, by the embryonic recital. here are compared three things which radically differ. the geologic record shows progress from lower to higher, although not that complete nor unvarying record necessary to the theory, while the present orders of life exist simultaneously. both show the existence of separate things having no individual connection. the embryo is a single individual, designed from its conception on a predetermined plan, animated by internal forces, and limited to a certain end and life. it is as dawson says, a "closed series." the worlds of living and fossil creatures consist of myriads of individuals, under many widely different conditions, and aimed at widely different ends and lives. the two are contradictory for the uses of evolution. what we do see in these three facts are three marks of personal intelligence. in embryonic growth we see the plan of production. in the coming of the fossil creatures we see the progress of the plan in historical appearance. in the present display of nature we see the ultimate purpose of the whole. it all forms one great consistent plan and bears all the marks of personal and creative work. so that summing up the argument from comparison of the three facts, the geologic order, the present classification, and the embryonic growth, we find in the first absolute separation of species, in the second no genetic connection as already shown under that argument, and in the third different phenomena having no points in common with the other two. the whole argument then fails of conclusion and reverts as the former do, to proof against evolution. facts opposing evolution of species. a theory to be proven must meet the facts and account for them. the theory in question fails lamentably in this. there are countless facts not only unaccounted for but diametrically opposed to it and antagonizing it. we cite some of these: . _degeneration in nature._ nature shows a constant tendency downward. prof. e. d. cope, an eminent evolutionist, writes: "the retrogradation in nature is as well or nearly as well established as evolution." the wild varieties of plants and animals are far inferior to the cultivated kinds. the older species are far superior to the present. the saber-toothed tiger is far superior to the present animal. so also is the mammoth as compared with the elephant. plants show degeneration in colors. the order of superiority is from yellow, the lowest, to white, pink, red, purple and blue, the highest. when they drop from blue to yellow, it is degeneration. some now having green flowers once had colored blossoms. progress is not seen to be upward in the flowers. so also parasitism is degeneration both in plants and animals. the course of nature is not, as it has not been, constant development upward. the scripture statement "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain," describes accurately the condition of nature (_ro._ : .) . _continued unchanged species for ages._ the crustacea, for example in lake tanganyika, africa, remain as the receding ocean left them ages ago. . _species instead of increasing in number have decreased._ there were species of trilobites. they have all disappeared. there were species of ammonites; all are gone. of the species of nautilus, only three remain. indeed whole families have become obliterated. all this is antagonistic to evolution. . _species continue the same under the most diverse environments._ environment is claimed as a cause of the changes demanded by evolution. but the same species exist in the most diverse regions, e. g., mosquitoes, whales and oaks. . _adaptation of one species to another._ darwin says that a single case of the adaptation of one species to another would be fatal to his theory. yet he himself gives the data for hundreds of such adaptations. he adduces the fact that a hundred head of red clover produced , seeds. a similar number protected from insects produced none. the fertilization of plants by insects is well known. the smyrna fig is said to owe its value to its fertilization by the piercing of an insect. some of these insects have been introduced into california for that purpose. there is an orchid which can be fertilized only by an insect falling into a cup of liquid which the flower has, and escaping through a side opening in which it touches the pollen. dr. andrew wilson writes: the colors of flowers--nay, even the little splashes of a hue or tint seen on a petal--are intended to attract insects that they may carry off the fertilizing dust, or pollen, to other flowers. it is to this end also that your flowers are many of them sweet-scented. the perfume is another kind of invitation to the insect world. the honey they secrete forms a third attraction--the most practical of all. . _complex adjustments of nature._ evolution in vain attempts to account for the wonderful complex adjustments we see in nature, such as the mimicry of animals and plants; the walking stick so closely resembles a twig that it deceives the closest observer. the withered leaf butterfly, with spots and wrinkles, is exactly like the thing it imitates. this is true also of the leaf butterfly and of another which exactly resembles a bird's dropping. evolution cannot account for the ventriloquism of insects, such as the cricket and tree toad; the battery of the electric eel; the beauty of insects and fish and shells and birds and flowers, especially the harmony of their colors. edible insects are plainly colored, the poisonous kinds highly colored. some butterflies have "scare-heads" on their wings, exactly resembling an owl's head, and other insects have similar frightful appearances which they thrust out when attacked. all this tells of design and interest and often has the appearance of humor in the creation of these numerous creatures. . _the mathematical adjustments of nature are as exact as the multiplication table._ illustrations of this are the accuracy of the orbits of the heavenly bodies and the law of gravitation. the growth of the cell proceeds on geometrical progression in the division of parts into , , , , etc. the climbing plants form their coils with mathematical accuracy and proportion. the proportions in which chemicals will mix is mathematically fixed. prof. tyndall thus calls our attention to crystallization: "by permitting alum to crystallize in this slow way we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallize, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallizes we have formed the hexagonal prisms capped at the end by pyramids; by allowing saltpeter to crystallize, we have these prismatic masses, and when carbon crystallizes we have the diamond." (_fragments of science_, p. .) "looking at it mentally we see the molecules [of sulphate of soda] like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering around distinct centers and forming themselves into distinct solid masses, which after a time assume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. here then is an architect at work, who makes no chips nor din, and who is now building the particles into crystals similar in shape to these beautiful masses we see upon the table." (_belfast address._) . _the structure of living things shows the true principles of architecture._ a mr. mclaughlin, a noted scotch mathematician, tried by mathematical calculation to ascertain the shape of a building which would contain the most room with least material and yet embody the greatest architectural strength in its retaining walls. after many laborious calculations, he found after he had arrived at a conclusion that the honey bee had long before given the same plan of structure in its cell. the human skull is a true dome, and the spinal column a true pillar. the ribs of the ship are copied from the fish, the yacht from the duck, and its deep fin from the fish.[ ] [ ] see "number in nature," hastings, boston, for further illustrations of this. evolution pretends to account for every one of these facts by chance changes, extending through countless ages as has already been shown in its amazing account of the origin of legs, eyes, backbones and other members. surely this is an appeal to credulity! the faith of the christian is sometimes taxed but what shall we say of the faith of the evolutionist? which is more credible, the simple account of miraculous creation or this long, involved and absolutely unseen and unknown process? . _the age of the earth._ prof. george frederick wright, the geologist, tells us that geologic time is not one-hundredth part as long as it was supposed to be fifty years ago, and the popular writers who glibly talk of the antiquity of man are behind the times and ignorant of the new light which as a flood has come from geology.[ ] [ ] see man in the glacial period, by prof. geo. frederick wright. summing up the case, prof. francis m. balfour tells us: "all these facts that fall under our observation contradict the crude ideas of those so-called naturalists, who state that one species can be transmitted into another in the course of generations." so also sir david brewster declares: "we have absolute proof of the immutability of species, whether we search for it in historic or geologic times." dr. etheridge, the famous english authority on fossils, says: "nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by fact. men adopt a theory and then strain their facts to support it. i read all their books, but they make no impression on my belief in the stability of species. some men are ready to regard you as a fool if you do not go with them in all their vagaries, but this museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views." chapter iv. the evolution of man. the central point in the whole theory is the descent of man from the brute. it is this which, as stated, gives it importance to the christian. but for this, the hypothesis would be but a curious scientific theory. it is a matter of comparatively minor interest how the universe or the various species came. it is only because these theories are used to assert the animal origin of man that they are dealt with here. it is in this claim as to the origin of man that all the various theories of evolution agree, however they may vary in other matters, and, as this is the vital point, these theories are considered as one in this discussion. this is a question merely of fact. did or did not man descend from the brute or was he specially and divinely created? this is the question in a nut-shell. the two accounts are as follows placed side by side. darwin's account is accepted substantially by all evolutionists. the bible account. (gen. i: , ; ii: ; v: , .) "and god said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness.... and god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them.... and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.... in the day that god created man, in the likeness of god made he him: male and female created he them; and blessed them and called their name adam." evolution's account. (from darwin's descent of man, ii, .) "man is descended from a hairy quadruped, furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arborial in its habits and an inhabitant of the old world. this creature, if its whole structure had been examined by a naturalist, would have been classed among the quadrumana, as surely as would the common and still more ancient progenitor of the old and new world monkeys. the quadrumana and all the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal, and this through a long line of diversified forms, either from some reptile-like, or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. in the dim obscurity of the past, we can see that the early progenitor of the vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchia, with the two sexes united in the same individual." the bible account is circumstantial, with mention of places and rivers of undoubted historical character. it is accepted by subsequent scripture writers and made the basis of their historical and spiritual teachings. the evolutionary account is lacking in all of this. there are no exact data nor any attempt to give any. no description save an imaginary one is ever given. as no one was there to see, the whole is fanciful. the two accounts are utterly irreconcilable. whatever the scripture account means it does not mean evolution, and literary justice demands that we do not impose upon a writer a meaning he did not intend or give. prof. pfliederer writes, "there is only one choice. when we say evolution we definitely deny creation. when we say creation we definitely deny evolution." prof. james sully says, "the doctrine of evolution is directly antagonistic to that of creation." (_bible student_, july, , quoted by prof. warfield.) how anyone can accept both accounts passes all understanding. the late dr. john henry barrows, president of oberlin university, tells of meeting a hindu boy in his visit to india, who had attended the mission schools and learned there the shape and situation of the earth. he had of course previously been taught the hindu cosmogony that the earth was surrounded by salt water and that by a circle of earth and that by successive circles of buttermilk, sweet cane juice, and other "soft drinks" with intervening circles of land. dr. barrows asked the boy which belief he would hereafter hold. he replied that he would believe both. this might be possible to the hindu boy, but it surpasses all previous intellectual feats that any intelligent person can accept both the bible account and darwin's account of the creation of man. we will review the arguments for and against the evolutionary account of the origin of man from the following spheres and subjects: . the argument from the evolution of species. . from similarity of structure in animals and man. . rudimentary organs in man. . human characteristics in animals. . history of the evolution of man from the brute. . the "missing link." . the brain. . man's mind and consciousness. . language. . pre-historic man. . antiquity of man. . savage races. . history of mankind. . religion. . ethics. . christian experience. . christ. . argument from the origin of species. on this argument rests the theory of man's animal origin. but for the desire to prove that such is man's origin, the argument would never have been conceived. we introduce it here again to call special attention to this fact. we have seen that there is decided difference of opinion on this theory; that many object to it; that there is not a single case of such origin of species known; that there is no law or force or cause agreed upon or known by which such origin of species could take place; that there are countless objections and facts against it; that its arguments are confessedly insufficient; and they are at best but inferences and only "the balancing of probabilities." if therefore the proofs of the origin of species are wanting the whole theory of evolution falls in ruins to the ground. there would seem no need to proceed further. yet evolution lightly steps over the ruins of its previous claims and proceeds to further assertions. some of the greatest of the exact scientists stop here. prof. dana, the great geologist, says: "man's origin has thus far no sufficient explanation from science. the abruptness of transition from preceding forms is most extraordinary and especially because it occurs so near the present time." (_elements of geology._) prof. virchow, the most eminent pathologist of europe, wrote as follows: "there always exists a sharp line of demarcation between man and the ape. we cannot pronounce it proved by science that man descends from the ape, or from any other animal. whoever calls to mind the lamentable failure of all attempts made very recently to discover a decided support for the '_generatio aequivoc_' in the lower forms of transition from the inorganic to the organic world will feel it doubly serious to demand that this theory, so utterly discredited, should be in any form accepted as the basis of our views of life." many more such expressions might be quoted from eminent scientists to the same effect. but as we will use these under the respective heads of the foregoing order of argument, we pass on here to the arguments as stated. . similarity of structure in animals and man. it is well known that the internal and external form of man is like that of the lower animals. this, evolution claims, is an argument for genetic connection. the same argument would prove that a locomotive was born from a stage coach, and that from a cart, and that from a wheelbarrow. similarity of structure proves only uniformity of design. an intelligent maker of any nature would so operate, and man himself so manufactures now. why should not god make man on the model of the lower animals, seeing he is to live in the same world, under the same conditions, eat the same food and propagate in the same way? there is no reason for departure from a form which has proved useful and appropriate. all the parts in the human form have been thus tested in the lower forms and found right for their purpose and are now, as we would expect, applied to man. man is the climax of all. all is for his use in the lower worlds of plants and animals; then why not use their frame and inner organs also? the mechanic uses the same appliance such as the wheel in his most complex construction as well as in the simplest engine. but there are parts in the human frame not found in the lower orders. wallace, one of the greatest evolutionists, says the soft human skin cannot be accounted for by natural causes, nor the valves in the human veins which are in different position from those of the brute, nor the human foot nor larynx, nor the human voice, especially the female voice, nor the absence of hair on the body, nor why man is short armed and long legged, while his ape-man ancestor is the reverse. many more such problems vex the evolutionist. creation accounts for all this, and does so by one simple, sweeping argument in place of evolution's complex and bewildering maze of speculations. ruskin teaches us in this extract that god works by law and does not deviate therefrom even where it seems to us that he might have wrought differently: "but god shows us in himself, strange as it may seem, not only authoritative perfection, but even the perfection of obedience, an obedience to his own laws; and in the cumbrous movement of those unwieldiest of his creatures, we are reminded, even in his divine essence, of that attribute of uprightness in the human creature, 'that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.'" (_seven lamps of architecture_, ii., p. .) . rudimentary organs in man. evolution points to certain features in man which it claims came from his brute ancestry, such as the long hairs in the eyebrow, which they say came from the ape-man, the tips of the ear, and the hair on the forearm, which slants from the hand to the elbow. the whole outside ear is also claimed as a relic from that brute and is unnecessary for hearing. so also of the five toes when a solid foot would have been better, although most of us think not. they also point to some evidences of a tail which they say was rubbed off when the ape-man learned to sit down. this, however, many apes do now with no signs of decreasing tails. many internal members and organs are pointed to, which are too numerous here to mention. one instance is as good as the whole catalogue, and one reply also. all this proves too much for the theory. here is the loss of useful organs and the survival of others not needed. this is not evolution, at least not the kind we have been asked to build our hopes upon for progress. further, these so-called "relics of the brute" are counted as having no use save to support evolution. the "gill-slits" in the neck of the human embryo are the favorite instance of this kind of fact. haeckel and, after him others, picture the forms of fish, dog and man in embryonic state, and say in triumph, there is proof of the descent of the man from the dog and of him from the fish; and this resemblance has survived to tell the tale, there being no other use for it. but this is not the only feature that "survives." heads and mouths and eyes also "survive." why are these not pointed to as proofs of descent? because we can see use for them, while there appears to be no use for the "gill-slits" except to prove evolution. if we could see some use in the "gill-slits" in the neck of the embryo, the argument of evolution would fall to the ground. evolution's argument from the gill-slits and all other "relics of the brute" rests therefore on ignorance, a very unsafe foundation for a scientific theory, for knowledge is constantly increasing, especially of the human frame, and there is not the slightest doubt, reasoning from analogy and past experience, that there is use for these peculiar embryonic features. we repeat the argument of huxley as to these rudimentary parts: "either these rudiments are of no use, in which case they should have disappeared; or they are of use, in which case they are arguments for teleology." (_darwinism and design_, p. .) evidences of this nature are of that kind called circumstantial, and in law are least relied upon, for on such evidence some innocent men have been hung. shall we condemn the whole race to a bestial origin on the same evidence? all arguments founded on such facts are weak, puerile and unworthy of scientists. no wonder that prof. paulsen said haeckel's speculations are "a disgrace to the philosophy of germany." shall we suspend a philosophy of the universe upon a few long hairs? shall we allow the guess as to the origin of the tip of the outer ear to revolutionize theology? shall we risk our eternal destiny on the supposed uselessness of the so-called "gill-slits" in premature puppies? yet this is the demand of evolution reduced to plain english. . human characteristics in animals. the human characteristics found in animals form an argument for evolution. we find the animals have memory, love, hatred, jealousy; that they can think and plan, use means and weapons, admire things of beauty, and some have sports. all of this, so evolution claims, points to genetic connection with man. but all this only shows uniformity in the inner as in the outer being. there is as much reason for the one as for the other. life is the same wherever we find it. the forces which operate in the rain drop are the same as in the universe of boundless space. the intellectual nature of man is the same as that of angels who have no genetic connection with us. even devils are the same in the intellectual nature as god himself. mind is the same thing wherever it exists. to say therefore that because animals have certain characteristics like those of man, they are the ancestors of man, is a leap to a conclusion entirely unwarranted by either facts or logic. yet it is on such conclusions that evolution rests. creation would proceed on the same comprehensive plan, and we have seen that man does also. he applies his forces as he does his materials to the most varied uses. nor has any instance of the development of a brute or his faculties to any approach to man's faculties ever been known. the highest animal is still immeasurably below the lowest and most bestial man, not only in the grade of the faculties that they have in common, but in others which the animal does not possess and cannot acquire. there is a great gulf fixed which they do not pass over--as our next section will show. . history from the brute to the man. many have essayed the relation of the story of the change from the brute to the man. in doing so, some have covered themselves with ridicule, yet the attempts continue to be made as do others to produce perpetual motion. to bridge this chasm is necessary in order to sustain evolution, for this is the heart of the question. it is said that a famous professor of history abandoned his chair because of the uncertainty of the facts of history. one would expect that the attempt to relate what happened before man had any history, or even existed, would be even more hazardous. yet we are given the account with such assurance as sometimes to deceive the very elect--who abandon their bibles. haeckel's attempt was the most impressive, and swept all before it, for a year or two. he presented a many-branched tree, whose roots were protoplasm, its trunk protozoa, its successive branches sponges, fish, reptiles, birds, marsupials, monkeys, apes, man-apes, and the topmost branches, man. of the twenty-one stages, half have been proved to be "wrong" by evolutionists and the rest are "doubtful." the home of the primeval man, or ascending-ape, whichever it or he was, is one of the difficult facts to settle. haeckel locates it at the bottom of the indian ocean. he can thus defy disproof. another says it was in the tropics somewhere. this is also a safe assertion. the difficulty is that the remains of the pre-historic man are found in the northern regions, while the ancestor animal was a denizen of the tropics. so another declares that the original home was in the northern regions, to which a pair of wild animals of the ancestor kind were driven by something or somebody, and their retreat cut off, and so they were forced to the life in caves and adopted the habits we find among cave dwellers. but although our ancestor cannot be located we are told just who and what he was. thus prof. edward clodd, an authoritative evolutionist, tells us in his book, "the making of a man," as follows: "whichever among the arboreal creatures possessed any favorable variation, however slight, of brain or sense organ, would secure an advantage over less favored rivals in the struggle for food and mates and elbow room. the qualities which gave them success would be transmitted to their offspring. the distance in one generation would be increased in the next; brain power conquering brute force and skill outwitting strength. while some for awhile remained arboreal in their habits, never moving easily on the ground, although making some approach to upright motion, as seen in the shambling gait of the manlike apes, others developed a way of walking on their hind legs, which entirely set free the fore limbs as organs of handling and throwing. whatever were the conditions which permitted this, the advantage which it gives is obvious. it was the making of a man." (p. .) it seems difficult, indeed unfair, to take this seriously. we must assure the reader that the author of this description shows no intention of humor either here or elsewhere in his work, or indeed any consciousness of it. all is given in perfect sobriety. we must therefore accept it as a profound scientific deliverance of the most authoritative kind and deal with it accordingly, and believe that walking on the hind legs and throwing things with the fore limbs was "the making of a man." how easily men are made! . this argument rests on the theory of natural selection now discarded by most evolutionists. . apes have done all he here claims and far more. the chimpanzee has been taught to sit at a table, to drink out of cups, to eat with a knife and fork, to wipe his mouth with a napkin and use a toothpick, but has got no further in the ways of good society, and as to increase of cranial development, has obtained none save as the effects of undue potations have produced an enlarged feeling. . the whole account is purely imaginary as no professor of evolution was there to observe the facts. it is in short an intrusion into the realm of fiction, which clearly belongs to mr. kipling in his wonderful jungle stories. again in his book on "man and his ancestor," (p. .) prof. morris gives us a full description of this unseen and purely hypothetical ancestor as follows: "it was probably much smaller than existing man, little if any more than four feet in height, and not more than half the weight of man. its body was covered, though not profusely, with hair; the hair of the head being woolly or frizzly in texture and the face provided with a beard. the face was not jet black, like a typical african, but of a dull brown color; the hair being somewhat similar in color. the arms were long and lank, the back being much curved, the chest flat and narrow, the abdomen protruding, the legs rather short and bowed, the walk a waddling motion somewhat like that of the gibbon. it had deep set eyes, greatly protruding mouth with gaping lips, huge ears and general "ape-like aspect." prof. john fiske thought it was much more than a million years since man diverged from the brute. during an active geologic age before the cave-man appeared on the scene, "a being erect upon two legs and having the outward resemblance of a man wandered hither and thither upon the face of the earth." (_destiny of man_, p. .) we read all this with astonishment that anyone could penetrate the dim vista of millions of years ago and transcribe such a detailed and circumstantial account of what then existed. it reads like a picture from life. yet not only was the writer not there, but no one else was present, for this was the father of us all, according to evolution. we are told that, given time enough, all this series of changes from the primeval cell to the modern philosopher or scientist is possible. but time for this is limited by the age of the earth. for lord kelvin has stated that only a few million years are possible on any calculation and this would all be needed for the change from ape to man to say nothing of the interminable ages necessary for the change from the protozoa to the fish and then to land animals and so on to mammals and up to the ape. the after life of the ape-man is described with the same circumstantiality as the coming to manhood's estate. dr. robert patterson combines the various features of evolution's description and this creature's history in the following extract: "it is a fearful and wonderful picture they give us of the origin of marriage from the battles of baboons, of the rights of property established by terrible fights for groves of good chestnuts, of the beginning of morals from the instincts of brutes, and of the dawnings of religion, or rather of superstition, from the dreams of these animals; the result of the whole being that civilization and society and law and order and religion are all simply the evolution of the instincts of the brutes and that there is no necessity for the invoking any supernatural interference to produce them." (_fables of infidelity._) it is here we meet the "theistic" account of the origin of man. it was to this creature we are told god imparted a soul or spirit supernaturally. for this strange creature was the adam of theistic evolution. eve they say nothing about. nor are we told how or when the soul was imparted, whether in a single animal, a pair, or a herd; whether awake or asleep. nor are we told what they did next, or how the soul-ape got along with the rest of the species. nor are we told what particular state, or act, or habit, entitled him to the new nature he received. it seems as if the ability to "stand on the hind legs and throw things with the fore limbs," which prof. clodd tells us was the "making of a man," scarcely entitled him to such a divine inheritance as an immortal soul. this also was the adam who fell according to the theistic evolutionist, though how such a creature could "fall" seems difficult to conceive. it was this thing whose sin, paul tells us, brought death on the whole race. it was this who is a type of christ who is "the second adam." out and out evolution has but a fraction of the difficulties, either physical or spiritual, to face that this make-shift compromise "theistic" theory has before it. it is not surprising that the thorough-going evolutionist rejects this strange compound of fiction and theology. we appeal to the common, every-day man of fair judgment: which takes more faith, or if preferred, credulity, the accepting of that strange, complex, unauthenticated account of man's origin or the simple and, with an omnipotent god in mind, entirely possible account of the bible? "the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul." which is the more noble, the more satisfying to our desires for a high and divine origin as well as high and divine destiny? . the missing link. the missing link is the great desideratum of evolution, for the evolutionist indignantly disclaims the present apes or monkey as ancestors. he tells us the connecting link was a creature superior to these. but of which he is unable to show any specimen. it is purely mythical. we have the remains of millions of animals reaching through all the ages and why is this particular specimen wanting? dr. rudolph virchow, the great discoverer of the germ theory, has for thirty years, according to haeckel, "opposed the theory of man's descent from the brute." (_last link_, p. .) he himself says: "the intermediate form is unimaginable save in a dream.... we cannot teach or consent that it is an achievement that man has descended from the ape or other animal." (_homiletic review_, january, .) dr. friedrich pfaff, professor of natural sciences in the university of erlangen, writes on the question as follows: "nowhere in the older deposits is an ape that approximates more closely to man, or man that approximates more closely to an ape, or perhaps a man at all. the same gulf which is found to-day between man and the ape goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the tertiary period. this fact alone is sufficient to make its unintelligibleness clear to every one who is not penetrated by the conviction of the infallibility of the theory of the gradual transmutation of and progressive development of all organized creatures. if, however, we now find one of the most man-like apes (gibbon) in the tertiary period, and this species is still in the same low grade, and side by side with it, at the end of the ice period, man is found in the same high grade as to-day, the ape not having approximated more nearly to man, and modern man not having become further removed from the ape than the first man, every one who is in a position to draw a right conclusion can infer, that the facts contradict a theory of constant progression, development and ceaselessly increasing variation from generation to generation, as surely as it is possible to do." (_age and origin of man_, am. tr. soc., p. .) from time to time the discovery of the "missing link" is announced and telegraphed through the civilized world, only to be remanded to its place among the remains of brutes or men. we will consider the instances of such as they have been presented: . the calaveras skull now in the california state museum. this has been shown recently to be a hoax. it was placed in a mine shaft feet deep, by mr. r. c. scribner, a storekeeper at the mine, as a practical joke. this he lately acknowledged to the rev. w. h. dyer, of los angeles, a clergyman of the episcopal church. . the neanderthal skull. this was found in in prussia. it had narrow receding forehead and thick ridges over the eyes. it was claimed by the evolutionists as from two to three hundred thousand years old. dr. meyer of bonn examined the evidence, and found it to be the skull of a cossack killed in . many other scientists agreed with him. (_bible science and faith_, p. .) . the colorado specimen. prof. stephen bowers of the mineralogical and geological survey of california, gives this account of another such discovery: "a few years ago the newspapers contained an account of the discovery of a skeleton in colorado, by a columbia college professor, which he was pleased to call the 'missing link' between man and the apes. he gave this remarkable creature an antiquity of a million and a half of years. the friable bones were carefully wrapped in cotton and shipped east. but scarcely had the learned professor gotten away with his prize when certain cowboys came forward and claimed the bones to be that of a pet monkey which they buried but a dozen years previously." . the late find of skeletons at croatia, austria, is heralded as the discovery of a connecting link. but these are skeletons of men and not of brutes. they are degraded men and nothing is better known than the possibility of degeneracy in man. we have degenerates now with all the peculiarities of these low specimens, retreating brows and jaws and flat faces. degeneracy does not prove evolution. while the shape of these skulls is low and long it has not been shown that their cubical capacity is much less than that of normal man. . the pithecanthropus erectus. this is the most popular relic with evolution. it consists of a piece of a skull from the eyes upward, a leg bone and two teeth. these were found in java by dr. von eugene du bois in . the cubic measurement of the skull is inches, the same as that of an idiot, that of a normal man being inches, and of an ape . these specimens were found at separate places and times. the skull is too small for the thigh bone. the age of the strata in which they were found is uncertain. authorities are divided as to the nature of these. haeckel admits that the belief that this is the missing link is strongly combatted by some distinguished scientists. at the leyden congress, it was attacked by the illustrious pathologist rudolph virchow. the assumptions based upon this specimen and necessary for evidence are as follows: first, that it is as old as claimed, a hundred thousand years at least, or a million as stated by some. second, that these bones belong to the same individual. third, that they are the remains of a full-grown individual. fourth, that they are the remains of a human or semi-human being. fifth, that they are not the remains of an idiot whose capacity the brain represents. with all these unproven assumptions, and against the opinion of many of the finest scientists in europe, haeckel and some evolutionists have declared this is the missing link. they place this piece of a skull of one creature upon this leg of another and insert these teeth belonging to a third, all so far separated in life that they probably did not even know each other, and rechristen the whole "pithecanthropus erectus," which may be freely translated "the ape that walked like a man," being thus the first that arrived at that point which prof. clodd tells us was "the making of a man." and this specimen is haeckel's _last link_, and this he says demonstrates the truth of evolution. the evidence of bones and other remains is now generally suspected. it has been found that even in the case of recent remains, as in criminal trials, experts are often unable to decide whether they are human or brute, recent or remote, and what part of the frame they occupied. it is said that wallace, the great cotemporary with darwin in the promotion of the theory, now admits there is no evidence of an evolutionary link between man and the lower animals. . the argument from the brain. the brain forms the principal difference between man's body and the brute's. the brain is especially used as proof by the evolutionist. it is the organ of mind. its size corresponds with the intellectual state of the creature. it is the theory of evolution that there was an increase in the size of the brain in some of the man-apes of that day, although none such is seen now. prof. edward clodd thus describes these supposed brain changes after the ice age: "the changes by which he met these new conditions were in a very small degree physical. they were almost wholly mental. the principal physical change was in the growth of the brain and the expansion of the cranium, giving rise to a less bestial physiognomy and an advanced mental power." (_man and his ancestor_, p. .) how could man adapt himself by increasing the size of his brain? why should the passing away of the ice age increase the size of the brain? however, he disposes of the whole matter, after arguing through pages of supposition and assumption, by stating, "the absence of facts forces us to confine ourselves largely to suggestions and probabilities." (_making of a man_, p. .) but probabilities are not science and we have a right to ask from those claiming to be scientists actual facts and not guesses, for so great an assertion as the descent of man from the brute. the capacity of the ape brain is , of the human cubic inches. there is no evidence of change in either the ape or the man. the prehistoric man has as good a head on his shoulders as his modern descendants. bruner says the most ancient skulls even exceed ours. dr. pfaff says the stone age men are equal to the present generation. so if education does not increase the size of man's brain, why should the new tricks of prof. clodd's ancient "arboreal creature" enlarge that individual's brain per cent? on the other hand, the ape of to-day and the ape of , years ago as mummied and preserved in egypt are the same. the big-brained ape of evolution has unaccountably disappeared and even his skull is missing. . man's mind and consciousness. evolution claims that all man's faculties have been derived from the brute, as was his physical frame. it is fair to say that this is met at the door by the protest of some of the greatest scientists, themselves sympathetic with evolution. prof. john fiske wrote on the origin of mind: "we can say when mind came on the scene of evolution, but we can say neither whence nor why.... it is not only inconceivable how mind should have been produced from matter, but it is inconceivable that it should have been produced from matter." (_darwinism_, pp. , .) prof. dana has said, "the present teaching of geology is that man is not of nature's making.... independently of such evidences, man's high reason, his unsatisfied longings, aspirations, his free will, all afford the fullest assurance that he owes his existence to the special act of the infinite being whose image he bears." (_geologic story_, p. .) prof. george h. howison writes on this theme: "to make evolution the ground of the existence of mind in man, is destructive to the reality of the human person and therefore, of the entire world of moral good and of unqualified truth." (_limits of evolution_, p. .) lord kelvin, the most eminent living scientist, wrote in a letter to the london times, "every action of human free will is a miracle to physical and chemical and mathematical science." . language. evolution has long tried to create an argument for the derivation of man's speech from the cries of animals. this is met however by the philologist with positive denial. prof. max mueller says: "there is one barrier which no one has yet ventured to touch,--the barrier of language. language is our rubicon and no brute will dare to cross it.... no process of natural selection will ever distill significant words out of the notes of birds and animals." (_lessons on the science of language_, pp. , , .) false claims have been made for the languages of savage people and ancient races. darwin said that the people of terra del fuego were the lowest in the scale, so far as discovered, and their language correspondingly crude. but further investigation shows that they have , words; over twice as many as shakespeare used. the language of some of the tribes of the congo is described by a missionary as more complex than greek. the history of languages shows the same want of evidence for an evolutionary origin. the oldest forms are the most complex. modern greek and latin are simpler than the ancient forms. english is an improvement in this respect on the old anglo saxon, whose grammatical forms it has largely cast off and reduced the language to greater simplicity. a scientist is now endeavoring to ascertain the speech of monkeys. he has ascertained that these animals have different sounds for different wants, a fact as to other creatures that he could have ascertained by a visit to the nearest poultry yard. the hen has as many calls as the monkey, and as many meanings too. her call for food is one sound. her cry of alarm at a passing hawk is another, and her brood perfectly understands all, and without previous education. all animals and birds, and many insects too, have sounds with meaning in them, but language is another matter. . prehistoric man. the remains of early races form an argument used by evolution. these remains are found in many places in caves and are accompanied by tools of stone and vessels of pottery and the remains of animals. these degraded peoples are pointed to by evolution as man in a state of development. if the preceding arguments were well founded this would appear reasonable enough. but in view of the fallacious character of the prior reasoning, we must halt at this claim. there are many and conclusive reasons for rejecting this unproven claim. for it is unproven. it is only inference and assumption. . these men of the cave do not necessarily represent man in a course of progress, for we find to-day the same classes of people with their stone tools and pottery and living as prehistoric man lived. there to-day exist men in every stage of the supposed progress from the cave man to the highest in civilization. such remains could be had in any burial place of these savage peoples. prehistoric man, so-called, is still with us and we can interview him as to his state and history. . we have seen that modern man has not developed in brain capacity above prehistoric man. it is also true that he has not developed physically. dana tells us that the skeleton found at mentone compares favorably with the best modern men. indeed we have degenerated in many respects. we have almost lost the sense of smell as compared with savage peoples or even animals. our teeth are certainly not improving. if we are to find perfect specimens we do not look at the most advanced classes but to the reverse. those who live to extreme old age are generally in the lowly ranks. but why has physical development ceased at all? why are there not some superior beings by this time? but alas, there are no marks or indications of wings or halos on either the great saints or scientists of the day. we are told that while physical evolution has ceased among men, evolution now works along mental lines of progress. this is a radical shifting of the ground of evolution, for heretofore all this has been not only omitted but discarded. if evolution is anything, it is physical. nor does evolution give any account of the causes of the stoppage of physical development and the change to mental evolution. we will also show later that this supposed progress has not been such as claimed. . antiquity of man. evolution asserts that a vast antiquity for man has been proven by remains that have been found. it is commonly said that these remains are hundreds of thousands of years old. but the claims for these vast periods are now being greatly reduced and generally discredited. dr. zahm says of these speculations: "we could not give a better illustration of the extremes to which the unguided human intellect is subject than the vacillating and extravagant notions of the antiquity of man." (_bible science and faith_, p. .) the age of the peat beds of abbeville, in france, in which human remains were found, was once estimated at , years. the estimate has been reduced to a fifth of that age. the remains of the animals found with man are supposed to prove his extreme antiquity. the remains of the mammoth were once cited as such proof. but the mammoth has been found in such a state of preservation that its flesh has been fed to the dogs. the enormous ages which have been credited to these remains are well illustrated by the discovery of a skeleton at new orleans while digging for the gas works. from the depth of the stratum in which it was found it was estimated by scientists at the age of , years. soon after, the gunwale of the skeleton's kentucky flat boat was found in the same stratum, and the age therefore of the remains was reduced from , to years. the evidences from peat bogs, stalagmite formations, stone, iron and bronze tools are all now considered unreliable by scientists. so many exposures of mistakes in the estimate of age from these have been made, that the whole is looked upon with suspicion. instance after instance might be given. it has been claimed that we can arrange these past races in an ascending order as they worked in stone, bronze, or iron, in their successive history. this is a false theory. we have all these "ages" existing to-day. on the other hand, dr. livingstone found no stone age in africa. dr. schliemann found in the ruins of troy the bronze age below the stone age. the early egyptians used bronze, the later ones stone tools. in the chaldean tombs all these are found together. europe had the metal age while america had the stone age. (_creation and evolution._ prof. townsend.) these prehistoric races to which evolution points us as representing man in his early state, do not represent that early world. they are found at the outer limits of the world and not at the acknowledged center whence man came. they are, in short, what we find to-day at the outlying regions of earth. they therefore, are exceptional peoples and not representative of the world at that time, or now. the dynasties of egypt were once cited against the bible narrative, but these have been reduced to moderate figures. a thousand years was taken off by one discoverer recently from the age of the middle kingdom. there is a question whether the egyptian dynasties were successive or in some cases contemporary. there is also the well-known fact that the egyptians had years of varying length. they often counted dynasties by years of three months and also of a month! dr. flinders petrie lately discovered in the tombs of the kings, preceding the first dynasty of egypt at abydos, grecian pottery of mycean clay, and this in a tomb estimated to date from , b. c.! (_atlantic monthly_, october, .) the same kind of estimating is now being done from the assyrian tablets and their records. we must remember these old kings were great boasters and liars, too. we don't know the basis of their calculations. perhaps assyria also had three month years. if their method was like egypt's, and they were connected as we know by much intercourse and literature, we may expect like inaccuracy. the ancient dates given in the inscriptions found in nuffar recently, are already suspected by scholars. the date for the temple uncovered there was , b. c. this number is the product of forty multiplied by eighty; evidently a round number for eighty generations, and not at all a careful or exact chronological statement. however, let us compare the two accounts, the bible and the assyrian. the one precise in statement, accurate in ten thousand points as demonstrated, with us for thousands of years, trusted and tried. the other inexact, mythical in its legends, having all the marks of inaccuracy, just discovered, made by people we know nothing of and having no character to speak of, and full of vain boastings and absurd claims. which is the true and which the false? let the jury decide. we will abide the verdict. prof. a. h. sayce of oxford, writes: "the light that has come from the remnants of the past has been fatal to the pretenses of critical skepticism. the discoveries of abydos have discredited its methods and results. they have shown that where they can be tested they prove to be absolutely worthless. it is only reasonable to conclude that methods and results, that thus break down under the test of monumental discovery, must equally break down in other departments of history where no such test can be applied. it is not the discoveries of the higher critics, but the old traditions which have been confirmed by archaeological discovery." (_homiletic review_, march, .) this statement is made by one of the most able archaeologists and semitic scholars in the world. the age of man on earth has much testimony from science agreeing with the bible account. from many the following are cited: dr. j. a. zahm, the distinguished scholar, says, "i am disposed to attribute to man an antiquity of about ten thousand years. it seems likely that the general consensus of chronologists will ultimately fix on a date which shall be below rather than above ten thousand years as the nearest approximate to the age of our race." (_the bible, science and faith_, p. .) he quotes many other authorities. prof. winchell tells us, "the very beginnings of our race are still almost in sight." (_sketches of creation._) dawson thinks man has been on earth about seven thousand years. geology agrees that man did not exist before the ice age. the stone age is fixed at about seven thousand years ago by others. professor george frederick wright tells us, "the glacial period did not close more than ten thousand years ago. this shortening of our conception of the ice age renders glacial man a comparatively modern creature. the last stage of the excessive unstability of the earth was not so very long ago and continued down to near the introduction of man." (_bibliotheca sacra_, april, .) s. r. pattison, f. g. s., tells us, "science shows to us a number of converging probabilities which point to man's first appearance along with great animals about , years ago." (_age and origin of man geologically considered, am. tr. soc._, p. .) dr. friedrich pfaff, professor of natural science in erlangen, thus sums up the evidence from geology as to man: "( ) the age of man is small, extending only to a few thousand years. ( ) man appeared suddenly: the most ancient man known to us is not essentially different from the now living man. ( ) transitions from the ape to the man, or the man to the ape, are nowhere found. the conclusion we are led to is that the scripture account of man, which is one and self-consistent, is true.... this account of man we accept by faith, because it is revealed by god, is supported by adequate evidence, solves the otherwise insoluble problems, not only of science and history, but of inward experience, and meets our deepest need.... the more it is sifted and examined the more well founded and irrefragable does it prove to be." (_age and origin of man_, am. tr. soc., pp. - .) . savage races. evolution delights to compare savage peoples alternately with present civilized races and with the brute. prof. conn says, "there is a greater difference between a newton and a hottentot, than between the hottentot and the orang-outang." he fails to notice, or state, that the first is a difference of degree only, and the latter a difference of kind. it would be possible to develop a hottentot into a philosopher, but no attempt is ever dreamed of, to change an orang-outang into a hottentot. on the other hand, the lowest savages have under culture shown their human inheritance of faculties beyond the brute. two pigmies taken to italy learned to speak italian in two years with fluency. they showed themselves superior to many european children, and one became proficient in music. the skill of this race with poisoned arrows, pits for game, and cultivation of various kinds, is well known. the savage races show the opposite of evolution. they are races in ruins. max mueller says, "what do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter in their history? they may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as primitive may be for all we know a relapse into savagery, or corruption of what was something more rational and intelligible in former ages." this estimate of this great scholar is attested by facts. where to-day is the hindu race that could build the taj mahal? what greek race to-day could reproduce the architecture or statuary of their ancestors? the ruins of all eastern and many western lands point to fallen races as well as ruined structures. the world's history is that of the fall of great nations such as egypt, babylonia, greece, rome, in all of which are sad examples of architecture and peoples alike in decay. . the argument from history. history is appealed to to show the progress of man and his continuance in the evolutionary line since his origin in the brute. our present civilization is pointed to and compared with the past and we are told that this is the result of evolution. some remarks of a preliminary kind are called for here. it is to be remembered that history does not cover a very long period, that the record is often broken, and that the facts are often very uncertain. large sections of the world we know historically nothing or little of, such as asia and africa. we must remember that progress is confined mostly to europe and america and these form but a third of the population of the world. also that european progress is a comparatively recent matter. we are now considering the entire history of the race and must take in these vast outside regions to arrive at correct conclusions. to judge the entire progress of mankind from a short-sighted view of a limited portion is as unscientific as it is unscriptural. we must also remember that europe owes its progress to the influence of christianity. for to-day it is the christian nations only that have progress and the most christian have the most progress. no fact is better seen or proven. lange states, "among human tribes left to themselves, the higher man never comes out of the lower. apparent exceptions do ever, on close examination, confirm the universality of the rule in regard to particular peoples, while the claim, as made for the world's general progress, can only be urged in opposition by ignoring the supernal aids of revelation that have ever shown themselves directly or collaterally on the human path." (_commentary on genesis_, p. .) we have seen that so far as present savage races are concerned they have made no progress, and semi-civilized races, such as the egyptians, chinese and hindus have retrograded. we need also to consider the vast and great civilizations which existed in remote antiquity as is now revealed by archaeology. the recent discoveries in assyria and babylonia and egypt show vast empires of culture as well as national extension and power, and that their earlier culture was the greatest. so prof. hilprecht, of the university of pennsylvania, testifies of babylonia: "the flower of babylonian art is found at the beginning of babylonian history." (_recent researches in bible lands_, p. .) horace bushnell tells us, "all great ruins are but a name for greatness in ruins." it is to egypt we must go for the earliest records of human civilization. here the account of prof. sayce, of oxford, gives us the facts: "the earliest culture and civilization to which the monuments bear witness was in fact already perfect. it was full-grown. the organization of the country was complete. the arts were known and practiced. egyptian culture as far as we know at present has no beginning." (_recent researches in bible lands_, pp. , .) "the older the culture, the more perfect it is found to be. the fact is a very remarkable one, in view of modern theories of development and of the evolution of civilization out of barbarism. whatever may be the reason, such theories are not borne out by the discoveries of archaeology. instead of the progress one should expect, we find retrogression and decay. is it possible the biblical view is right after all and that civilized man has been civilized from the outset?" (_homiletic review_, june, .) prof. flinders petrie tells us that the great pyramid bears on its stones the marks of the solid and tubular drill, edged with stone as hard as diamond, and cutting one-tenth of an inch at a revolution, and showing no sign of wear. they had also straight and circular saws. the same building reveals scientific and astronomical knowledge equal in some respects to modern science. not only were the past civilizations great, but, in many respects, far above the present. so that the race has even fallen from higher levels. lecky thus writes of the greeks: "within the narrow limits and scant populations of the greek states, arose men, who in almost every conceivable form of genius, in philosophy, in epic, dramatic and lyric poetry, in written and spoken eloquence, in statesmanship, in sculpture, in painting, and probably in music, attained the highest levels of human perfection." (_history of european morals_, p. .) galton says of the same civilization: "the millions of europe, breeding as they have for two thousand years, have never produced the equal of socrates and phidias. the average ability of the athenian race is, on the lowest possible estimate, nearly two grades higher than our own; that is, about as much as our race is above the african negro." (_hereditary genius_, p. .) it does seem as if such testimony of these great scholars should make us not only chary of the theory which claims ever upward and onward progress, but also more modest in our boasted modern progress and position. prof. frederick starr of the anthropological department of chicago university, says that the american race is reverting to the indian state. he bases this on measurements of faces of , children. this is a dismal outlook. it is not what evolution has promised us. the followers of evolution have reason to be indignant at such a turn in its course. however, we may comfort them and ourselves with the hope that if evolution fails us we have other resources. evolution and religion. consciousness of god and the hereafter is the great distinction between man and brute. this is the basis of all religion. of this evolution gives the origin in the dreams of animals. according to that department of the evolutionary theory popularly called higher criticism, all religion, including israel's and christianity, was derived from fetishism and from that it developed to animism, and so to polytheism and finally monotheism. but the lowest savages have, according to anthropology, the belief in a supreme being. andrew lang says, "it is among the lowest savages that the supreme beings are regarded as eternal, moral, powerful." (_making of religion_, p. .) fetishism and animism are processes of decay, says dr. john smith, quoting hartmann, derouge, renouf, lang and others. (_integrity of scripture_, p. .) traces of monotheism are found in china, india, egypt and elsewhere. in all nations is this decay found save in one, israel. it is further found that mankind had an original theistic religion common to the race, which is just what the bible teaches. all the evidence is to the effect that the further back we go, the purer the religions are found to be. the earliest romans were more pure in religion than the later people. the early greeks more so than the more recent. the early handwritings give a purer and more theistic religion than the later books. dr. jacob chamberlain thus sums up the evidence for the hindu vedas: "they all teach the godhead is one, that he is good, that man is in a state of sin, not at peace with the holy one, that man is in need of holiness and purity, that there can be no harmony between sinful man and a holy god unless sin is in some way expiated and expurgated, and that this is the greatest and most worthy end of existence." (_northfield echoes_, august, , p. .) the ruins of assyria and egypt point to a religion resembling that of the israelites. so far is this noticed that some have said that moses copied much of what he taught israel from them. this conclusion is not necessary. the fact is that man had a deposit of truth at the beginning, and all men had the same. both moses and egypt and assyria therefore, had much of what survived from that early revelation. the fact here stated agrees with the bible account and not with evolution. "the study of the mythology and philosophy of the heathen world does not show an evolutionary progress to a higher state, but the reverse." (francis m. bruner in _the evolution theory_.) christianity has not been a development of these religions, for it is and was, antagonistic to them at every point. it was an opposing force introduced suddenly and utterly at variance in every particular with all about it. sir m. monier said in an address in : "there can be no greater mistake than to force these non-christian writings into conformity with some scientific theory of development, and then point to the christian's holy bible as the crowning product of religious evolution. so far from this, these non-christian books are all developments in the wrong direction. they begin with some flashes of true light and end in utter darkness." evolution and ethics. evolution has a system or systems of ethics. it traces the beginning of the sense of right and wrong to the instincts of animals, such as the parental instinct, the recognition of marital rights, and the right to respective properties such as nests and burrows. so that the animal, or man, came to see that it was best on all accounts to be good to oneself and others. so mr. spencer's definition of right is the happiness of oneself, one's offspring and others. acts are good or bad as they increase happiness or misery. he ignores the moral instinct and exalts expediency and utility. this is the level of the uncivilized or savage races. dr. james thompson bixby of leipsic, makes humanity the goal of evolution's ethics. "the test of what is morally good is the tendency of the given motive to help forward the progress of the race toward the ideal humanity." (_ethics of evolution_, p. .) every bible believer will see how far short these fall of the standard of holiness and happiness the bible places before us. but when or where did any people ever aim to help forward the "ideal perfection of humanity" who did not have the mighty impulse which the bible, and only the bible, gives to that object? there is not even the sense of brotherhood necessary for the motive. to point natural man to that is to ask him to act outside his nature. the law of the struggle for existence never taught christian ethics. the self-sacrificing christian has something which never came from evolution. the cross is the final test of evolution. by it that theory and all other false theories are weighed in the balances and found wanting. the struggle for existence is the law of self and is the antithesis of the cross, which is the very opposite of the struggle for existence. nor is the struggle for existence the law of the lower creature. that law is to bring forth fruit, to propagate their species. that is the plant's goal; when it has so done it retires or dies. the little bird will struggle more fiercely for its young than for its food, or even for its life, which it imperils often to save its brood. below the unfallen creation and regenerated humanity is the unregenerated selfish man. not evolution but revolution can create christian ethics. history does not present an instance of progress in ethics save as aided by the bible. evolution and christian experience. in undertaking to account for man, evolution must account for the fact of christian experience. conversion revolutionizes a man. it turns him against his natural likes and dislikes. he even turns against himself and the selfish becomes unselfish. this is not development, for that operates according to the nature of the thing. develop a wolf and you may get a dog. develop man from the savage state and you may have the condition of the greek in the highest state of culture and yet in the lowest state of vice. introduce christian experience and you have christianity with all the civilization which proceeds and flows from it. there is no such consistent body of testimony for any fact, science or truth as there is for christian experience. it is the same in all ages, in all lands and in all classes of society, and in all circumstances of life. this evidence is perfectly legitimate and must be considered by the student of human life and character. let evolution then account for conversion which changes man's inner nature, and gives a life which lives contrary to natural human instincts and conduct; and christian hopes which yearn for deliverance from sin and self and long for the highest spiritual state and hasten to meet the holy and all-seeing god. the missions of our great cities as well as those of the foreign field are full of witnesses for the transforming effect of christian experience. the author of this book can vouch for the following from personal knowledge. a business man in illinois became addicted partly from use in disease to alcohol and the use of morphine and also cocaine. he used all these and in excessive quantities; as much as forty grains of morphine in a day. he tried seven "cures." he visited europe to consult specialists. he spent in all over $ , in seeking a cure and all in vain. by the persuasions of christians he was led to seek relief in prayer and experienced what christians call conversion and was immediately delivered from all his appetites. the author of this saw him three months after and found him a sober man and without any desire for drink or drugs. he saw him again a year after and he was still rejoicing in full deliverance. since beginning this book, a correspondence was had to verify the case still further, and he is reported as follows: "in january, , his weight was pounds. in january, , his weight was pounds. he is an official member of a prominent church, a director of the young men's christian association and a great worker in both." no evolution can account for such a change. it is as great a miracle as cleansing the leper. prof. george romanes of oxford, was, it is said, brought back from infidelity to faith by the letters of a japanese missionary friend, dealing with experimental and practical religion. evolution asks for facts. here are facts, and they tell not of evolution but of regeneration. evolution and christ. evolution cannot account for christ. without entering here on an argument for his divinity, we simply present him and ask the evolutionist to account for such a character and life. let us listen to what the enemies of christianity say of christ. renan said: "the incomparable man to whom the universal conscience has decreed the title of the son of god, and that with justice.... between thee and god there will be no longer any distinction." jean paul richter said: "the holiest among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, he lifted with pierced hands empires off their hinges and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel and still governs the ages." (dr. liddon's _bampton lectures_.) rousseau testified as follows: "what sweetness, what purity in his morals! what force, what persuasion in his instructions! his maxims how sublime! his discourses, how wise and profound! such presence of mind, such beauty and precision in his answers, such empire over his passions! it would be much harder to conceive that a number of men should have joined together to fabricate this book than that a single person should furnish out the subject to its authors. jewish writers would never have fallen into that style, and the gospel has such strong and such inimitable marks of truth that the inventor would be more surprising than the hero." (_emilius and sophia_, or an essay on education, pp. , , .) thomas paine: "the morality that he preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind. it has never been excelled." (_age of reason_, p. .) robert ingersoll, to m. d. landon, in a letter giving permission to print his speeches: "in using my speeches do not use any assault i may have made on christ which i foolishly made in my earlier life. i believe christ was the perfect man. 'do unto others' is the perfection of religion and morality. it is the _summum bonum_." (_homiletic review_, november, , p. .) theodore parker: "shall we be told such a man never lived--the whole story is a lie? suppose that plato and newton never lived, that their story is a lie? but who did their works and thought their thoughts? it takes a newton to forge a newton. what man could have fabricated jesus? none but a jesus." (_discourses on religion_, pp. - .) napoleon bonaparte: "everything in jesus christ astonishes me. his spirit overawes me. between him and whoever else in the world there is no possible line of comparison. i search in vain in history to find the similar to jesus christ, or anything which can approach the gospel. in him we find a moral beauty before unknown, and an idea of the supreme superior even to that which creation suggests." to say that jesus was an evolution of that age, as some evolutionists do say, and that we may look for even a greater in the future, is to be guilty not only of blasphemy but of gross ignorance as to the age in which jesus came. there was nothing in that age to give rise to such a character. he came as a flash of lightning in a dark sky, or, according to the bible figure, as the rising of the sun in the world's night. chapter v. evolution unscientific and unphilosophical. before making so serious a charge against a scientific theory as that it is both unscientific and unphilosophical, we will show that others have held a similar view and that among these are many scholars. we have already seen prof. paulsen's remark that haeckel's reasonings are a "disgrace to the philosophy of germany." prof. george frederick wright calls evolution a "fad," "the cast-off clothing of the evolutionary philosophy of fifty years ago." the duke of argyle says, "it is such a violation of and departure from all that we know of the existing order of things as to deprive it of all scientific base." evolution fails in all the steps of scientific proof. there are four stages of proof necessary for a full demonstration. . observation of facts. . classification of these facts. . inferences legitimately drawn therefrom. . verification of these conclusions. . it fails in its facts. that this is true is evident from the reticence of the exact scientists to commit themselves to the theory. if the facts were all that they say, these laborious and faithful laborers in the laboratory and field would acknowledge the case. in the presentation of facts, the theoretical evolutionist culls out and magnifies those looking his way and passes in silence or minifies those antagonistic to the theory. it makes much of the change of a low salt water animal into its fresh water form, and passes over the immutability of all the great species. evolution dwells upon the splints in the leg of the horse and passes over lightly the vast unbridged gaps between organic and inorganic matter, the origin of the vertebrates, the countless missing links between the species. it rests its argument on the "gill-slits" in the necks of embryonic fish, puppies and infants, and passes airily over the origin of matter, of life, of consciousness and of christian experience. it presents ex-parte evidence. . evolution fails in classification. we have seen the testimony of evolution itself on this point. nor is there any agreed definition of species. not a single species has been traced to its origin. the species defy chronological classification. the most primitive species exist to-day and the most advanced were in existence almost at the first. nor can the classifications which are attempted be advanced as proof of evolution. they are as evidential of manufacture or of creation or of any other process of intelligent mind. . evolution rests on inferences. as its great philosopher, spencer, has said, no inference is warranted unless it accounts for all the facts. not only does no inference of evolution do this, but it admits again and again that it is beset with countless difficulties. nor are these inferences the only ones that might be drawn. it is not only necessary to draw an inference but to show that no other inference is possible. some of these are the wildest possible deductions from the facts,--as for example, the theories as to the origins, already cited, as to whales and giraffes. sir j. william dawson, the eminent geologist, says of evolution's deductions as follows: "it seems to indicate that the accumulated facts of our age have gone altogether beyond its capacity for generalization, and but for the vigor which one sees everywhere, it might be taken as an indication that the human mind has fallen into a state of senility and in its dotage mistakes for science the imaginations which are the dreams of its youth." (_story of the earth and man_, p. .) the works of writers on evolution abound in such phrases as "seems to be--i infer--it is conceivable--it might have been--it is probable--i think--apparently--must have been--no one can say--not difficult to conceive,"--and other unscientific terms, and on such deductions they project other inferences, and so leap skilfully from one supposition to another across the quagmire of evolution. evolution is undertaking a philosophical impossibility--the proving of a negative, that there could be no other method than derivation. this is the philosophical basis of the whole theory. . finally evolution fails in the fourth step. it admits again and again that it has not demonstrated its case. not a single instance of evolution of species has been shown or produced, and no law of the change is given. the gaps it does not bridge are many. we specially need to notice that it gives no account of the origin of matter or force. it can give no account of the origin of life. it utterly fails to account for man's self-consciousness or intellectual, moral or spiritual nature. it takes no account whatever of the other world or life and entirely disregards the facts of christian experience. in short, so far from being a great universal philosophy, it is simply a disjointed combination of unproven theories. the evolutionist, prof. conn, admitting the missing factors, says candidly, "it is therefore impossible to make evolution a complete theory." (_evolution of to-day_, p. .) sir j. william dawson thus sums up the evidence: "the simplicity and completeness of the evolutionary theory entirely disappear when we consider the unproved assumptions on which it is based and its failure to connect with each other some of the most important facts in nature; that in short, it is not in any true sense a philosophy, but a mere arbitrary arrangement of facts in accordance with a number of unproved hypotheses. such philosophies, falsely so-called, have existed ever since man began to reason on nature, and this last of all is one of the weakest and most pernicious of all. let the reader take up either darwin's great book or spencer's biology and merely ask, as he reads each paragraph, what is here assumed and what is proved? and he will find the fabric melt away like a vision. spencer often exaggerates or extenuates with reference to facts and uses the art of the dialectician where argument fails." (_story of the earth and man_, p. .) prof. william jones tells us evolution is "a metaphysical creed and nothing else; an emotional attitude rather than a system of thought." (_homiletic review_, august, .) evolution rests on imagination. the evolutionist not only uses his imagination but claims the right to do so. tyndall has written an essay on the scientific use of the imagination. now when the pictures of an evolutionist's imagination are held up as facts, as in the description of man's development from the brute, he leaves the realm of science and enters that of fiction. mr. gladstone has said of this: "to the eyes of an onlooker their pace and method seem to be like a steeple-chase. they are armed with a weapon always sufficient if not always an arm of precision, 'the scientific imagination.' they are impatient of that most wholesome state a suspended judgment." (_homiletic review_, october, , quoted by dr. jesse b. thomas.) evolution is the doctrine of chance. the language used by the evolutionist is peculiar for persons claiming to believe in law as the great agency of nature and to base their conclusions on the operation of fixed causes. the changes which together make up the birth of a new species are occasioned they say by "chance happenings," "undesigned variations," "accidental variations," "utterly undetermined antecedents," "unintentional variations," and other like expressions. the synonyms of this idea are exhausted by them in describing the way in which the changes first occurred, by which one species began the journey up to another stage of existence. it is simply a revival and revamping of the old doctrine of chance. prof. frank ballard says of this: "chance manufactured protoplasm out of nebulosity.... to accept this after rejecting faith on the ground of its difficulty, is to quibble and cavil." an illustration of the appeal to chance and its use is found in the following account as given by prof. ernst haeckel, the greatest living teacher of evolution, of how tree-frogs became green: "once upon a time there were among the offspring of ancestral tree-frogs some which among other colors exhibited green, not much, perhaps not even perceptible to our eyes. the occurrence of this color was spontaneous, a freak. the descendants of these greenish creatures, provided they did not pair with frogs of the ordinary set, became still greener and so on, until the green was pronounced enough to be of advantage when competition set in." (_last link_, p. .) here the origin of greenness in the tree-frog begins with a chance happening and is promoted by a chance union of the greenish frog with one not in "the ordinary set," but of the more select circle of the green, and the favoring chances continued in this same remarkable way until the color became of use in protecting them. it was with similar chance happenings, evolution tells us, that all the great kingdoms, classes, orders, families, genera and species originated. it was by chance happenings that the present beautiful and infinite variety of nature came. it was by unintended accidents that the wonderful adjustments in the universe came. it has been calculated that the possibility of the letters of the alphabet, if thrown promiscuously, coming together in the present order is once in five hundred million million million times. what would be the chances of the innumerable combinations of nature coming together in the order in which they are by the chance happenings to which evolution attributes them? chapter vi. evolution and the bible. the interest in the question of how things came to be centers for the believer in the bible narrative and doctrine. we have been accustomed to bring all things to bible testing and so far with assured results. the bible has never failed and we believe will not fail now. we therefore ask, what does it teach as to evolution? we are amazed to find evolution makes no appeal to the bible, and the bible makes no allusion to evolution. they are strangers to each other. the argument from scripture for evolution has not yet been written. the best the theistic evolutionist can say as to the bible account of the origin of man is an apology for its narratives, or some explanation which vaporizes its facts into figures of speech. we have heretofore given the bible account and that of evolution printed in parallel columns (p. ). the reader is again referred to these, and asked to notice the differences in these two accounts. the bible account is not the description of the slow transformation of an ape into a man-like ape, and that into an ape-like man, and that into a cave man, and he into a stone-tool man, and that again into a pottery-making savage, and he into a weapon-making barbarian, and he into a chinese and after that into a roman or greek, and last into an englishman and american and he into a spiritual being in the image and likeness of god. common literary honesty demands that we give an author his own intended meaning. if the bible meant evolution why did it not give it? two accounts more utterly dissimilar could scarcely be given than the bible account of man's creation and the account of evolution. we may take one or other and be consistent but the rules of literary exegesis and common sense and scripture alike forbid taking both. to call it "poetry" or an "allegory" is no explanation. why did not the writer make poetry or allegory which had some agreement with facts? why lead us into a perplexing situation when he might as well have given us some other account or omitted it altogether? the differences between these two accounts are obvious. the bible account describes a definite act, the evolution account a long-continued process through millions of years. the bible account is a production _de novo_ of a new and original creature; the evolution account gives one of a numerous line of ancestors; the bible account presents us with a perfect creature "in the likeness of god;" the evolution account with a brute slightly raised above the common herd. the bible account gives a descriptive narrative with accompanying events; the evolution account leaves all the events unknown save as guessed at by the imagination of the various writers. the bible account gives a high and noble origin by a special and creative act of his creator; evolution tells of a degraded origin from a brute by the operation of blind forces. the bible account is noble and satisfying and, to one who believes in an omnipotent god, credible, calling for belief in one creative act; the evolution account is filled with difficulties and paradoxes calling for the wildest stretch of imagination and the utmost application of credulity. the bible account is frequently referred to as an actual history by other scripture writers; the evolutionary account has not one scripture reference or the slightest hint from scripture of its having any place whatever in fact. the bible account agrees with and is the basis of the spiritual teachings of the bible; the evolutionary account has no such agreement and needs to be explained away to be allowed any place whatever in sacred writings. if the bible is the book the common consent of the wisest of all mankind and of every age has affirmed it to be, it should have some intimation of this "greatest discovery of the human mind." for the bible does touch on the greatest problems of the world and life. not only does the bible give a very different account of the origin of man, but also of nature. its definition of the beginning of things is as follows: "by faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of god, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear." (heb. : .) the term it applies to this is creation. it gives also a circumstantial account of the coming of the present order as we have it, closing with man's creation. evolution's interpretation of the bible. in order to bring the evolutionary theories within the possibility of bible sanction, a theory of interpretation is adopted which calls the narratives of creation and the fall myths, legends, allegories, parables, "scenic representation," or "idealized history" according to the theological bias of the interpreter. these all amount to the same thing, for they do away with the historical value of the accounts. it is only a play upon words to say they are "parables" for parables are not unhistorical. every one of christ's parables is true to life and facts. it is claimed that the bible narratives are poetry and therefore are not historical. the evolutionist for his purpose confounds poetry and fiction. they are not synonymous. a poetical form does not imply fictitiousness. the psalms have much history under their poetical form. but the first chapter of genesis is not poetry. hebrew poetry has a well-defined form as seen in the poetical books. this chapter does not conform to that form, and accordingly it is printed not in poetical form but as prose in the revised version. the mere repetition of certain phrases is not the mark of poetry, but is characteristic of the oriental languages in which the bible was written. but who is to decide what in the bible is historical and what is not? what is to hinder anyone from so discarding any fact whatever in the bible? why has not the enemy of christianity the same right to apply this reasoning to the accounts of the death and resurrection of christ? where will this process end? the proclaimer of such theories is putting a weapon into the hands of the opponent of christianity that he will use one day to the destruction of the faith of many. once having permission to apply these terms, it is easy to make these narratives, or anything else in the bible, mean anything or nothing as is desired. as an ancient writer said, "twenty doctors can make a text read twenty different ways." we protest against this loose method of interpretation for many reasons: . we object to every new theory interpreting the bible to suit itself. . there is not the slightest warrant in these narratives or elsewhere for such interpretation. they are given as facts and are always so treated. creation and the fall are everywhere spoken of as actual facts both by christ and all other scripture writers. . it is on this system of interpretation that every false system rests, such as mormonism. all the modern vagaries support themselves from scripture by accommodation of its language to their doctrines. . the bible is not a book of puzzles, a delphic oracle, to be read in any way suited to the occasion or desires. it has a plain meaning and is for everyday people and everyday needs. . the acceptance of the bible account as unquestioned fact and the literal interpretation of it by christ and his apostles ought to be enough for anyone calling himself christian or even for any other who will accept good human testimony. these writers were years nearer the date of the events in question than we. they had access to knowledge now lost to us. from any standpoint, we may rest our view of these narratives on the testimony of the new testament scriptures. the references of the new testament to the old are numbered by hundreds. any bible with references, or any text book or bible with helps will show these. it is enough here to give those christ refers to. christ himself cites from twelve books and about twenty-four narratives as follows: creation, matt. : ; law of marriage, matt. : ; cain and abel, matt. : ; the deluge, matt. : ; abraham, john : ; sodom and gomorrah and lot's wife, luke : - ; manna, john : ; brazen serpent, john : ; shew bread, matt. : , ; elijah and his miracles, luke : , ; naaman, luke : ; tyre and sidon, matt. : ; jonah and "the whale," matt. : ; the books of moses, john : ; the psalms, luke : ; moses and the prophets, luke : ; isaiah, matt. : ; daniel's prophecies, matt. : ; malachi, matt. : ; the entire old testament, luke : . of not one of these does he convey the slightest hint of aught but trustworthiness and literal interpretation. . the still more serious issue is presented of asserting that both paul and christ either did not know that these were myths, or knowing so gave no intimation that they used them in any way other than as true narratives. this would not only shake all confidence in christ as divine and his apostles as inspired, but would shake all confidence in any fact or teaching from scripture whatever. for scripture rests on facts and these facts on witnesses. to these, appeal is constantly made. on the truth of these all depends. here then is a "mythical" adam made the basis of marriage; a "mythical" adam and his fall, the argument for man's need and christ's work, and the same "mythical" adam made the proof of the resurrection. in short the whole system of bible truth is attacked by these theories, from credibility in christ himself to the last hope of the believer in the world to come. whom shall we believe? shall we credit evolution which admits that its theory is unproven and full of difficulties, with not a single case of evolution to support it, nor a power which could produce it, and with countless facts to antagonize it, or shall we believe jesus christ who was never mistaken, or false in his facts, or teachings, and who believed these chapters, cited them and accepted their narratives without question? evolution and bible doctrines. we have arrived at the vital point in this discussion. if evolution were only a scientific question, it would interest a limited circle. as a deeply religious question it interests all. that evolution affects vitally all evangelical belief is apparent to the most superficial inquirer. it is not only a matter of historic fact but of doctrinal teaching. man's nature and need as a descendant from the brute is one thing, and as a spiritual being, fallen from the likeness of god, another. the responsibility in either case is very different and therefore has to do with eternal destiny for weal or woe, and also with the work of christ. the theology of the higher criticism which is also the theology of evolution, of which it is the biblical branch, is thus summed up by an evolutionary writer, in a recent article giving the articles of belief of the theology of evolution: "the bible can no longer speak with unquestioned authority.... poor old adam disappears.... christ's divinity is only such as we may possess ... the atonement is only such as we see in all life and nature.... as to the future life we find ourselves left very much in the dark.... we no longer regard going to heaven as the center of our interest." (theodore d. bacon quoted in _homiletic review_, nov. .) evolution teaches, as stated by dr. george a. gordon, of boston: "man's state and fate is on account of the irrationality he has brought up with him from the animal world." (_immortality and the new theodicy_, p. .) the future of man according to evolution is that as he has risen from the brute state he ought not to be punished for his defects but rather rewarded for having done so well. evolution teaches that man has in himself the elements of his salvation. these if developed will produce the change he needs for this world and that to come. he will proceed on the same lines as he has traveled to reach his present state. development is the saviour of evolution. the bible says that to develop man is to develop sin and, "sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." it requires the intervention of the supernatural in regeneration to save man. evolution is self-saving. the future is radically affected by the theory of evolution. the development of mankind is its objective point. to bring man to a point of development will bring the kingdom of heaven. the fate of the individual is not made much of. he is sacrificed for the race or species. but while not much is made of the individual the general teaching is that somehow it will be well with all at last. it is a fact that all universalists are evolutionists. evolution makes heaven and hell terms which mean little or nothing. the present social state of man is the great quest. evolution is a bridge which reaches neither shore. it knows not whence man came nor where he goes. . the bible rests its doctrines upon its facts. there is no character in scripture aside from christ upon whose historical character so much scripture doctrine depends as upon adam. the creation of man is made the basis for the sanctity of marriage by christ, who quotes the words of the account in genesis. (matt. : - ; mark : - .) paul makes this narrative the basis of his great argument for the state and need of man and the work of christ. "through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin.... death reigned from adam to moses.... by the trespass of the one the many died ... the judgment came of one unto condemnation ... as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one shall the many be made righteous." (rom. : - , r. v.) here the actuality of the narrative is the very basis of the declaration of man's state in sin and a type of the extent and nature of christ's work. so also the use by paul in the account of the resurrection doctrine: "as in adam all die, so also in christ shall all be made alive." ( cor. : - .) . the bible teaches that man was made in the image of god. that image was christ who is elsewhere declared to be "the effulgence of his glory and the very image of his substance." (heb. : .) in this image man was made. this is a very different picture presented to us from that given by the evolutionist of a brute "which could stand on its hind legs and throw things with its forelegs." . the bible teaches that all are guilty and condemned and lost, and without excuse. it teaches that man fell from a high state as a race and as a race is responsible for his condition. it cites death as the proof of this. it teaches that man is inherently averse to god by nature and wilfully continues to do wrong and in short is condemned and lost. it teaches that he once had the truth and wilfully gave it up for sin. that he does so now in spite of the law of god written in his conscience and that out of christ he is lost and without hope. (rom. - ; ep. : - , , .) . the bible teaches that what man needs is a pardon, a reconciliation with god, a ransom, a regeneration, a resurrection. he must be translated from death to life, from the kingdom of darkness to that of light. if he has not all this he is lost and doomed. . the bible teaches that in order that man might enjoy this, christ had to come and die, "the just for the unjust that he might bring us to god." he died as a sacrifice, as an offering, as a ransom, as a propitiation, as a reconciliation. his death made it possible in justice as well as in mercy to save man. . the bible gives a description of man's means of salvation which is most opposite to the hope held out by evolution. it is by a radical and supernatural change that he becomes right and only as all men so change or are changed will the world become right. conversion is not evolution but regeneration, the implanting of a new and opposite nature. . the bible teaches a different outcome of human life and history. it points to an end by supernatural means to the world and a judgment for mankind and the establishment of the kingdom of heaven by supernatural means. it cites the destruction of sodom and gomorrah and the deluge as examples of the world's end. it gives the most awful combination of earthly figures as the picture of the doom of the impenitent and the most beautiful figures earth and sky can furnish or the mind of man conceive as the home of the saved. nothing could be more different than the theologies of evolution and of the bible. many well-meant volumes have been written to reconcile evolution and evangelical belief. none are satisfying, although the eagerness with which some were at first received are witness to the desire to retain both beliefs. the theistic evolutionist thinks that to find a place for the creator somewhere along the line is enough. st. james rebukes this insufficient theology in these words: "thou believest that there is one god; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (jas. : .) so also christ himself said: "ye believe in god believe also in me.... i am the way, the truth and the life.... no man cometh unto the father but by me.... he that honoreth not the son honoreth not the father which hath sent him.... for as the father hath life in himself even so gave he to the son also to have life in himself.... he hath committed all judgment unto the son that all men may honor the son even as they honor the father. he that honoreth not the son honoreth not the father." theism then is not enough in the opinion of jesus christ. the whole christian system is in question in this theory. the whole aim of evolution is to dispose of the supernatural as much as possible. the radical evolutionist gets rid of god entirely he thinks. the theistic evolutionist limits the interference of the supernatural to the creation of matter, of life, of man's spiritual nature, and the incarnation and work of christ. the tendency of evolution is to make the miracles of christ mythical and the phenomena of conversion natural. the theistic evolutionist is on a side hill. he must go up or down. he is not consistent, and, as the human mind asserts its right to consistency, he is forced, willingly or unwillingly, often unconsciously, to the one side or the other, and he finds himself led along lines which take him far from evangelical belief. in its consistent form, evolution leaves no room for a creator. indeed haeckel, the greatest of living evolutionists and the legitimate successor to darwin's place and greatness, states, as already quoted, thus: "it entirely excludes supernatural process, every prearranged and conscious act of a personal character. nothing will make the full meaning of the theory of descent clearer than calling it the non-miraculous theory of creation." (_history of creation_, pp. , .) another evolutionist, carl vogt, says: "evolution turns the creator out of doors." infidels all accept of it gladly. every atheist is an evolutionist. evolution a relic of heathenism. james freeman clark thus writes: "in the system of the greek and scandinavian mythology, spirit is evolved from matter; matter up to spirit works. they begin with the lowest form of being; night, chaos, a mundane egg, and evolve the higher gods therefrom." (_ten great religions_, p. .) sir j. william dawson, the late eminent geologist of canada, writes of the theory as follows: "the evolutionist doctrine is one of the strangest phenomena of humanity. it existed most naturally in the oldest philosophy and poetry, in connection with the crudest and most uncritical attempts of the human mind to grasp the system of nature; but that in our day a system destitute of any shadow of proof, and supported merely by vague analogies and figures of speech and by arbitrary and artificial coherence of its own parts, should be accepted as a philosophy and should find able adherents to string upon its thread of hypothesis our vast and weighty stores of knowledge, is surpassingly strange." (_story of the earth and man_, p. .) evolution is working towards a pantheistic atheism. this is expressed in the creed of the late cecil rhodes, the late magnate of south africa, as follows: "i believe in force almighty, the ruler of the universe, working scientifically through natural selection to bring about the survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit." chapter vii. the spiritual effect of evolution. it is apparent that the adoption of such a theory as evolution must affect the spiritual state of the person receiving it. man's mental and spiritual natures are intimately connected. while those in a settled previous spiritual experience may carry evolution as "a working theory" only, those in an immature state will be vitally affected. especially is this true of youthful minds. it is indeed a fact that many young men have started with high purposes to prepare for the ministry, and even for foreign missions, and have, after adopting these modern theories, abandoned their purpose, and thousands have abandoned all personal religion. pastors can tell of many such instances. some have said that the adoption of evolution has helped their faith. they fail to see that bringing the bible down to their faith is not bringing their faith up to the bible. it is a weakening of faith and not a strengthening of it. this apparent increase of faith simply prepares the way for its utter ruin. the first step leads to a wider divergence, as many have shown, that leads to wreck of all faith in a supernatural god or world or bible. the mind will follow its natural workings. loss of faith in the facts of the bible leads to loss of faith in its truths. the acceptance of this theory still further leads to a lessening of the sense of our need of christ that the bible teaches and man should feel. and further the acceptance of this theory, while it may not affect materially the minds of experienced christians, will through them affect others. there is also a latent unconscious loss of faith that is realized only in some great emergency, when in "the storm and stress" of life the soul looks out for something to hold to. it is then that the rotting platform of unbelief goes down in wreck. the other extreme is also a cause of ruin. in the time of great prosperity when all the allurements of life and time and sense present themselves, it requires all the purpose one has to stem the tide of temptations. it is here that a false belief will work havoc. the mind conceives that after all sin is not so hateful or salvation so needed or doom so fearful. the effect on experimental personal experience is evident. instead of looking for a regeneration, a revolution of the inner state, the believer in evolution necessarily looks for a change from education or other form of development. such a thing as conversion or a baptism of the holy ghost he will cease to look for or desire. there will come declining feeling, lessening devotion, prayer will become perfunctory and there will come increasing occupation with and love for other things. evolution as a belief makes right many things that were before held to be wrong. it is an easy religion to hold. it strikes the world at the angle of least resistance and enables the holder to accept almost anything that the natural man desires. the conflict of "the flesh and the spirit" ceases; the flesh, that is the natural man, has conquered. these theories in many seem to be but evidences of a previous wrong state of heart. the wish is father to the thought. the theory is accepted because it allows the laying aside of views that restrain the desires. such persons are willing to admit the existence of god and his contact with man at creation if relieved from any nearer relationship. it is therefore worse than unbelief. it is antagonism. it is enmity. christ said, "men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil." the heart and life are the basis of their opinions. it is evident that argument here fails. "a man convinced against his will remains an unbeliever still." evolution is a comfortable theory to the world. it elevates man. it hides the presence of god. it calls for no repentance or consecration. it boasts of human progress and claims merit therefor. in short it is the worship of man rather than the worship of god. it deifies man and it ignores christ. once committed to this theory, there is no extreme the person may not reach. some have abandoned christ and christianity because of it. it is in fact in doctrine and experience and conduct, the antithesis of christianity. such a theory as evolution and its vaporizing method of bible interpretation, prepares the way for "isms" of every kind. it is to this we are indebted for the swarm of these that afflicts the church to-day. once allow that the bible may be interpreted to suit such theories and any heresy or absurdity can prove its position from the bible as all of them by this same process do. it is already weakening the power of the pulpit, and this in turn is one great reason for the declining effect of the preached word. once received into a minister's heart the edge of his sword is dulled if indeed the sword is not itself sheathed. he may not preach evolution either as a method of creation or a method of salvation, but his own inner faith is weakened in the old truth which had such power to convert the souls of hearers. when openly advocated and taught, it is useless to seek revivals among those so taught. so it is the fact that conversions to-day are mainly confined to the young and others not affected by the error. all the indications point to the further weakening of the hold upon men of the supernatural and the eternal. to eliminate the former and, while acknowledging the latter, to disparage all reference to the future life, seems to be the tendency of the day. as already cited, one of its chief advocates tells us, "heaven is no longer the center of the christian's hope." the consequence is the material and intellectual interests receive chief attention and other agencies take the chief place religion should have. education received in the united states over $ , , in gifts during the last few years, to say nothing of the many fold more received from incomes and public funds. meanwhile the causes of christ are languishing, missions are dwarfed, small churches in great masses of the population are struggling for existence against fearful odds, while the money of professed christians pours in these mighty streams for all other purposes. no sensible person will disparage education, but "religion is the chief concern of mortals here below." further it is the few who can take advantage of the higher education for which these millions are given. but five per cent of the common school scholars can attend college. the many must toil for existence. it is to the poor the gospel was preached by its founder. it is to the poor it means most. to those who have little else it is the all in all. it is to these it should be preached in its freedom and fullness. the principles of natural selection of the fittest which sends millions to higher institutions and neglects the masses of the people is the opposite of the gospel. cardinal newman wrote: "there is a special effort made almost all over the world, but most visibly and formidably in its most civilized and powerful part, to do without religion.... truly there is at this time a confederacy of evil marshalling its hosts from all parts of the world, organizing itself and taking measures enclosing the church of christ as in a net and preparing the way for a general apostasy." (_quoted in "christianity and anti-christianity."_ s. j. andrews, p. .) whether this is the final form of unbelief is difficult to say. it bears the marks of anti-christianity the apostle speaks of. the unbelief of the latter days will rest on belief in the unvarying stability of nature. ( peter : .) the coming of this theory is aimed to dissipate any looking for supernatural changes such as the scriptures teach are coming to earth, such as the last day, the coming of christ, the resurrection and all the vast series of changes therein declared. hence that wholesome fear of god so operative in deterring evil and stimulating good is removed. based on this unbelief, the enemy of god and man can advance to the accomplishment of his purposes as never before. all satanic methods before this have been crude and coarse compared with this last invention. it is the most subtle and sweeping of all evil methods to ensnare the mind of man. based on what is called science, promoted by the scholars of the day, taught in the fountains of learning and preached from pulpit and platform, it must have a widespread effect. heretofore attacks on christianity have been made from without. this is from within. it is the trusted leaders who are now undermining the fortress in which they live. but revivals always begin at the bottom. it was a few poor fishermen who commenced the gospel age. it is their successors to whom we must look as we have in the past for return of apostolic power. "god chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame them that are wise; and god chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong; and the base things of the world, and the things that are despised did god choose, yea and the things that are not, that he might bring to naught the things that are: that no flesh should glory before god." ( cor. : , , r. v.) so we look hopefully to god for that only which will deliver the church from this and all other pestilent evils, theoretical and practical, a revival of true religion by the power of the holy spirit, and the preaching of the old gospel of the cross of christ. index. page abbeville, peat beds, abbott, dr. lyman, xi, abydos tombs, adam, - adjustments, complex, adaptation of species, agassiz, , age of earth, antiquity of man, ape-man, ape, relics of, assyrian antiquity, assyrian religion, armadillo, architecture of body, askenazy, aurora borealis, authors, list of, xiv babylonian civilization, - backbone, origin of, baer, carl ernest von, balfour, prof. francis m., ballard, prof. frank, barrande, joachim, barrows, dr. john henry, beaument, m., bee, cell of, bermuda lizards, bible account, bible interpretation, , bible theology, bonaparte, napoleon, bowers, prof. stephen, brain, argument from, brewster, sir david, brown, a., bruner, f. m., bunge, calavaras skull, carlyle, thomas, chamberlain, dr. jacob, chance, chimpanzee, christ, christ and the old testament, christian experience, classification, clodd, edward, , , , , , , colorado skeleton, conn, prof. h. w., , , , , , , , , , , consensus of scholarship, congo languages, cook, dr. joseph, cope, e. d., coral theory, croatian skeleton, cross, test of evolution, crystallization, dana, prof., , , , darwin, chas., , , , , , , darwinism, dawson, sir j. w., , , , , , degeneration, de rouge, distribution, dubois, dr. von eugene, earth, age temperature, , , , egypt, mummied animals, , egyptian dynasties, egyptian civilization, embryology, eohippus, etheridge, dr., , ethics, evolution--meaning, definitions, unproven, scientists reject, cause of, no case of, geology against, phantom tree, mental, unverified, chance, bible, conversion, eyes, origin of, fiske, prof. john, force, origin of, fossils, foval, french institute, galileo, galton, geology, argument from, geologist, testimony of, germ, the, giraffe, origin of, gladstone, green frogs, great pyramid, greeks, gregory, dr. d. s., grote, dr., haeckel, ernst, xiv, , , , , , , , , haecke, dr. w., harmann, otto, harnack, prof., harrison, frederick, hartmann, heathen origin, heer, oswald, herschell, hilyrecht, prof., hindu vedas, history, higher criticism, , hoffmann, home of primeval man, howison, prof. geo., xiv, human characteristics, humphrey, gen., huxley, , , , , , , , , , ingersoll, robt., jones, prof. wm., kelvin, lord, , , , kangaroo, kent cavern, kipling, koelliker, land, animals, origin of, lang, andrew, lange, language, lecky, le conte, prof. joseph, , , , legs, origin of, liebig, life, origin of, livingston, dr., lyell, making of a man, mathematical adjustments, matter, origin of, mental changes, mentone skeleton, meyer, dr., mind and consciousness, missing link, mississippi delta, molecular creation, monier, sir m., monkey language, moon, mountains of, morphological argument, mueller, prof. max, , , murchison, sir roderick, mclaughlin, naegeli, natural selection, , neanderthal skull, nebular hypothesis, new orleans skeleton, newman cardinal, origin of life, orion, nebula, paine, thomas, viii, parker, theodore, patterson, dr. robert, , pattison, s. r., patton, prest. francis l., xiv paulsen, prof., petrie, prof. flinders, pfaff, dr. frederick, , , pfliederer, prof., pithecanthropus-erectus, poetry, post, dr. geo. e., prehistoric man, protoplasm, quatrefages, religion, renan, renouf, reymond, dubois, rhodes, cecil, richter, jean paul, ridpath, j. clark, rocks, origin of, romans, rousseau, rudimentary organs, ruskin, , savage races, st. pierre, sayce, prof. a. h., , schliemann, , schmidt, dr. rudolph, schults, d. kerfoot, scientific theories, sedgwick, adam, see, prof., simultaneousness, snell, solar system, species, evolution of, spencer, herbert, xv, , , , , , , , spiritual effect, star, prof. f., stone age, stuckenburg, dr. j. h. w., succession, , sully, prof. james, swim-bladder, taj mahal, terra del fuego, theistic evolution, , "theistic," adam, theology of evolution, thomas, dr. jessie b., thomson, sir wm., , thomson, dr. j. arthur, , thompson, dr. james, troy, tyndall, , , , , , universe, evolution of, order of, varieties, vedas, hindu, virchow, dr. rudolph, , , , wagner, m., wallace, , whales origin, white, andrew, whitney, prof., wiseman, cardinal, wilson, woodrow, wilson, on the cell, wilson, andrew, winchell, , wright, geo. frederick, xv, , , , , zahm, dr. j. a., , , , zoeckler, books by rev. alex. patterson bird's-eye bible study with introduction by dr. j. wilbur chapman a synopsis of all the books of the bible, with statement as to their classification and interrelation; a summary of the broad teachings of the scriptures, with general view of the development in the revelation of divine truth. also suggestive chapters on "how to study the bible," "the way of salvation," "how to win souls to christ," "power in prayer," "the work of the holy spirit," etc. especially adapted for use by pastors, evangelists, sunday-school teachers, bible class leaders, and christian workers generally. pages. paper, cents, for $ . . cloth, cents net the greater work and life of christ as revealed in scripture, man and nature i. christ in the eternal past. ii. christ in creation. iii. christ in the old testament age. iv. christ in his earthly life. v. christ in his present state and work. vi. christ in the day of the lord. vii. christ in the eternal future. pages. cloth. $ . the other side of evolution an examination of its evidences with an introduction by george frederick wright, d.d., ll.d., oberlin college. this book undertakes to show that evolution is not accepted by all scientists and gives names of many who oppose it; that it is admittedly an unproven theory; that it has never been verified and cannot be; that not a single case has ever been known, or any cause by which such changes could take place. its arguments are fairly stated and considered one by one. over a hundred writers are cited, including all the great evolutionists. pages. cloth, cents net. the bible institute colportage association north la salle street, chicago * * * * * transcriber's note: minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. mismatched quotes are not fixed if it's not sufficiently clear where the missing quote should be placed. the cover for the ebook version of this book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain. in the index, the transcriber has changed the following names to match the text: beaumont to beaument chamerlain to chamberlain kerfort changed to kerfoot muller to mueller naegali to naegeli pflieder to pfliederer quatrafoges to quatrefages