We are next informed by the historian of creation, that after God had
finished making the firmament and had succeeded in dividing the waters
by means of an "expanse," he proceeded "to gather the waters on the
earth together in seas, so that the dry land might appear."
Certainly the writer of this did not have any conception of the real
form of the earth. He could not have known anything of the attraction of
gravitation. He must have regarded the earth as flat and supposed that
it required considerable force and power to induce the water to leave
the mountains and collect in the valleys. Just as soon as the water was
forced to run down hill, the dry land appeared, and the grass began to
grow, and the mantles of green were thrown over the shoulders of the
hills, and the trees laughed into bud and blossom, and the branches were
laden with fruit. And all this happened before a ray had left the quiver
of the sun, before a glittering beam had thrilled the bosom of a flower,
and before the Dawn with trembling hands had drawn aside the curtains of
the East and welcomed to her arms the eager god of Day.
It does not seem to me that grass and trees could grow and ripen into
seed and fruit without the sun. According to the account, this all
happened on the third day. Now, if, as the Christians say, Moses did not
mean by the word day a period of twenty-four hours, but an immense and
almost measureless space of time, and as God did not, according to this
view make any animals until the fifth day, that is, not for millions of
years after he made the grass and trees, for what purpose did he cause
the trees to bear fruit?
Moses says that God said on the third day, "Let the earth bring forth
grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after
his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth; and it was so. And the
earth brought forth grass and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the
tree yielding fruit whose seed was in itself after his kind; and God saw
that it was good, and the evening and the morning were the third day."
There was nothing to eat this fruit; not an insect with painted wings
sought the honey of the flowers; not a single living, breathing thing
upon the earth. Plenty of grass, a great variety of herbs, an abundance
of fruit, but not a mouth in all the world. If Moses is right, this
state of things lasted only two days; but if the modern theologians are
correct, it continued for millions of ages.
"It is now well known that the organic history of the earth can be
properly divided into five epochs--the Primordial, Primary, Secondary,
Tertiary, and Quaternary. Each of these epochs is characterized by
animal and vegetable life peculiar to itself. In the First will be found
Algae and Skulless Vertebrates, in the Second, Ferns and Fishes, in the
Third, Pine Forests and Reptiles, in the Fourth, Foliaceous Forests and
Mammals, and in the Fifth, Man."
How much more reasonable this is than the idea that the earth was
covered with grass, and herbs, and trees loaded with fruit for millions
of years before an animal existed.
There is, in Nature, an even balance forever kept between the total
amounts of animal and vegetable life. "In her wonderful economy she must
form and bountifully nourish her vegetable progeny--twin-brother life to
her, with that of animals. The perfect balance between plant existences
and animal existences must always be maintained, while matter courses
through the eternal circle, becoming each in turn. If an animal be
resolved into its ultimate constituents in a period according to the
surrounding circumstances, say, of four hours, of four months, of four
years, or even of four thousand years,--for it is impossible to deny
that there may be instances of all these periods during which the
process has continued--those elements which assume the gaseous form
mingle at once with the atmosphere and are taken up from it without
delay by the ever-open mouths of vegetable life. By a thousand pores
in every leaf the carbonic acid which renders the atmosphere unfit for
animal life is absorbed, the carbon being separated, and assimilated to
form the vegetable fibre, which, as wood, makes and furnishes our houses
and ships, is burned for our warmth, or is stored up under pressure for
coal. All this carbon has played its part, and many parts in its time,
as animal existences from monad up to man. Our mahogany of to-day has
been many negroes in its turn, and before the African existed, was
integral portions of many a generation of extinct species."
It seems reasonable to suppose that certain kinds of vegetation-and
certain kinds of animals should exist together, and that as the
character of the vegetation changed, a corresponding change would take
place in the animal world. It may be that I am led to these conclusions
by "total depravity," or that I lack the necessary humility of spirit to
satisfactorily harmonize Haeckel and Moses; or that I am carried away by
pride, blinded by reason, given over to hardness of heart that I might
be damned, but I never can believe that the earth was covered with
leaves, and buds, and flowers, and fruits before the sun with glittering
spear had driven back the hosts of Night.