STUDY XIV.

DAY VI. CREEPING THING, BEAST, CATTLE.

"A little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion."-LORD Bacon.

"Revelation is no theory. Its truth or certainty, as a fact, can only be estimated historically in the same way as other matters of fact."-Introduction to the Science of Religion: Professor MAX MÜLLER.

WE are required by opponents of Scripture to reconcile the erroneous interpretations of friends and the assertions of enemies with the sacred text; to justify unscientific theories of instantaneous creation, and to prove that everything was done without use of means, or of natural laws. We replythe Divine account reveals an orderly plan and continuous operation no reasonable person, unless prepossessed by a theory, after carefully reading the first chapter of Genesis, with the light of modern science, can think that elemental atoms were brought into existence by mere command; and, so soon as commanded, flashed into living tissues. No wellinformed believer imagines that every plant and animal was separately formed, as by hand-fashioning, out of the dust; or out of nothing, as by magical power.

When Mr Herbert Spencer1 states-"No one ever saw a special creation: no one ever found proof of an indirect kind, that a special creation had taken place "-he ought to know that creation need not be instantaneous, but may be effected by natural processes, as are modifications of the created by influences from within and without. As to seeing a creation, whoever saw an evolution? Embryology, and the passage of invisible through the visible into the invisible, are as much symbols and illustrations

"Principles of Biology," vol. i. p. 336.

Manifestations of the Unknown.

243

of creation as they are of evolution. No one can solve the ultimate mystery of the universe. If the evolutionist thinks that he has settled it by declaring "the egg was before the bird, not the bird before the egg;" Christians answerHowever many and separate acts, different in degree and kind, may or may not, precede the flash of life, the old truth remains firm as ever-"Out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every plant; and out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field."

Let those who would remove the footsteps of the Eternal from Palestine, and Providence from Jewry; make the saints orphans, and deprive man of sonship to God; tell us how matter, if created, was created-unless by Deity; and, if not created, how the eternity of its existence is more comprehensible, than the Christian's belief, that matter, and all other phenomena, are manifestations of the Great Unknown. If the many thousand impulses of energy do not proceed from Hidden Energy, into what abyss will they be our guides?

Mr Herbert Spencer asks "Why should not omnipotence have been proved by the supernatural production of plants and animals everywhere throughout the world from hour to hour?" It is proved: though he asks so unwise a question, the inquirer knows very well that plants and animals are produced everywhere throughout the world from hour to hour by omnipotence; he has stated again and again-" all phenomena are manifestations of the Unknown." Suppose the proof came otherwise, or by quicker process, that men did see, day by day, light flash out of darkness, the living rise up out of the dead, and things wholly unlike grow from utterly unlikely things; so that every kindled fire, every dawn of day, every oak from the acorn, every man from a scarcely visible ovule, appealed to them; would they believe? Would they not exclaim that man was a sudden evolution, that the oak grew naturally very quickly, that fire was the result or act of combustion, and that the sun rose according to mechanical law? If so, what proof could be given that wilful men would not misinterpret? Could we devise any procedure that might not be explained away? If full-grown men fell from the

1 "Principles of Biology," vol. i. p. 339.

clouds, is it not likely that a theory-as of aeorolites, would render their fall a natural event? Is the life of every individual now, and the present continuance of species; the growth of every harvest, and production from hour to hour of plants by natural succession; less wonderful than was the beginning of these things? Does the accounting that everything is selfproduced; or, which is the same, produced by nature's own power; explain the difficulty? Why, it is to put the Spirit of Divinity into stocks and stones; to make men like those Fetich-worshippers, who adored the spirit of steam in the engine, and prayed to the cranks and joints! There is an inquiry, on the page already referred to-"To what purpose were the millions of these demonstrations which took place on the earth when there were no intelligent beings to contemplate them? Did the unknowable thus demonstrate His power to Himself?" Surely, philosophers do not imagine that there are no beings unlike themselves; nor fondly dream that beings like themselves are the greatest things in heaven and in earth? that there is no God beside them? that Nature and God, Space and Matter, Time and Energy, are superfluous; unless men look on and admire ?

Creation does not, necessarily, imply an abrupt appearance; but, simply, a Divine work. Any and every type of life may have begun with imperfect form, and have attained the highest state after many ages of existence. We know that organic form, whether of vegetable or animal, continues the same only so long as the inward conditions and the outward circumstances remain unchanged; it was so in the past, it will be so in the future; anything otherwise would be impossible. If it were not, the jest and mad freak of Mephistopheles would be true

"Wine grapes of the vine are born,
Front of he-goat sprouts with horn,
Wine is juice, and wine-stocks wood,
Wooden boards yield wine as good!
There is truth for him that sees

Into nature's mysteries."—Faust.

It is not enough for the auditory and optical nerves to have a sensation, the intellect must reflect. The material ear and

eye give work for the spiritual ear and eye. Everything visible conducts to the invisible. Not only so, it is impossible for any man to know all sciences, he cannot know one, cannot know one thing perfectly in any one science; every science, and everything in every science, speedily passes beyond knowledge, and is lost in the unknown. It is gross presumption to bring up from the depths of this ignorance the assertion"all life motion and intelligence in the world are mechanical -as Vancanson's duck which eat and digested its food; or as the flute player of the same artist." Why those mechanisms were the work of mind, and maintained by mind. Even so, the beautiful arrangements of nature, in their uniformity and variety, in that which we understand and in that whereof we are ignorant, bring us to the acknowledgment of mind. The modes of action according to natural law cannot be arranged in scientific form, until they are represented to our mind as the work of intelligence. We naturally seek for, and are not satisfied till we find, tokens of intelligence, like, but infinitely greater than our own, in the moving power. If our argument is badly worked—

"Though you see a churchman ill,

In the church continue still."

To obtain a conception as to order and will in creation; try, by scientific imagination, to get a view of their reality in a triple truth concerning Vitality: 1. Unity of Power, 2. of Form, 3. of Substance.

1. Unity of Power.

All the activities of vitality are for maintenance of the body, for changes in its positions and parts, and for continuance of the species. If we add activities of consciousness, intellect, and volition, the scheme embraces the highest forms of life, and covers those of the lowest creatures. The activities are propagated and maintained by a rhythm of motion. Looking through a telescope of high power, we find that every pulsation of the heart gives a rhythmical jar or undulation to the whole room. Light also consists of undulations; the rays of heat, the movements of electricity, and the motions of projectiles are rhythmical. The rhythm is compound; there are solar, planetary, and terrestrial rhythms;

but they appear most numerously in the phenomena of life. There are rhythms in muscular action, in blood circulation, in contraction and expansion of the lungs, in the periodic need of food and repose, in the increase and decrease of life, and in the successive changes of organic forms. Indeed the whole of that mysterious thing, whatever it may be, the life of plants and animals, is, so far as it is physical, entirely an exhibition of rhythmical transformations of energy. The rhythm of poetry and music are the outcome of rhythm in sensation, intelligence, and emotion. This energy, so far as our earth and our physical life are concerned, centres in the sun; and from the sun, mechanically and chemically, come that aptitude and power by which atoms of salt crystallise, and amorphous fragments arrange and rearrange themselves into special structures. Atoms of albumen, fibrine, gelatine, or the hypothetical protein-substance, do not, of themselves, take specific shapes; their doing so is a manifestation of this peculiar energy.

2. Unity of Form.

If a drop of human blood be taken, kept warm, and examined under high microscopic power, there will be seen structureless corpuscles in marvellous activity, capable of individual movement and change of form-these are minute portions of undifferentiated protoplasm. They are not of the same shape or size in the human organism, as in beast and fowl, in reptile and fish, in worm and plant, but there is a general likeness in the peculiarity: "Traced back to its earliest state or form, the nettle arises as man does, in a particle of colourless protoplasm."1 So arising, life diverges into the different vital activities, balancing of functions, changes of condition, growth, adaptation, individuality, morphological, and physiological development. Not by the development of individuality from the germ, as if the germ contained the perfect organism in miniature; but by that persistence of rhythmical force acting upon their living particles, and developing their intrinsic aptitude, or polarity, into the plant or animal by what may be called special endowment. How strong the action is may be exemplified by the Bigonia. 1 "Physical Basis of Life." Prof. Huxley.