"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep."--_Genesis_ i. 2.
[Page 180]
"A dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height,
And time, and place are lost."--MILTON.
"It is certain that matter is somehow directed, controlled, and
arranged; while no material forces or properties are known to be
capable of discharging such functions."--LIONEL BEALE.
"The laws of nature do not account for their own origin."--JOHN
STUART MILL.
[Page 181]
IX.
_THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS._
The method by which the solar system came into its present form
was sketched in vast outline by Moses. He gave us the fundamental
idea of what is called the nebular hypothesis. Swedenborg, that
prodigal dreamer of vagaries, in 1734 threw out some conjectures of
the way in which the outlines were to be filled up; Buffon followed
him closely in 1749; Kant sought to give it an ideal philosophical
completeness; as he said, "not as the result of observation and
computation," but as evolved out of his own consciousness; and
Laplace sought to settle it on a mathematical basis.
It has been modified greatly by later writers, and must receive
still greater modifications before it can be accepted by the best
scientists of to-day. It has been called "the grandest generalization
of the human mind;" and if it shall finally be so modified as to pass
from a tentative hypothesis to an accepted philosophy, declaring
the modes of a divine worker rather than the necessities of blind
force, it will still be worthy of that high distinction.
Let it be clearly noted that it never proposes to do more than to
trace a portion of the mode of working which brought the universe
from one stage to another. It only goes back to a definite point,
never to absolute beginning, nor to nothingness. It takes matter
from [Page 182] the hand of the unseen power behind, and merely
notes the progress of its development. It finds the clay in the
hands of an intelligent potter, and sees it whirl in the process of
formation into a vessel. It is not in any sense necessarily
atheistic, any more than it is to affirm that a tree grows by vital
processes in the sun and dew, instead of being arbitrarily and
instantly created. The conclusion reached depends on the spirit of
the observer. Newton could say, "This most beautiful system of the
sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and
dominion of an intelligent and powerful being!" Still it is well to
recognize that some of its most ardent defenders have advocated it
as materialistic. And Laplace said of it to Napoleon, "I have no
need of the hypothesis of a god."
The materialistic statement of the theory is this: that matter
is at first assumed to exist as an infinite cloud of fire-mist,
dowered with power latent therein to grow of itself into every
possibility of world, flower, animal, man, mind, and affection,
without any interference or help from without. But it requires
far more of the Divine Worker than any other theory. He must fill
matter with capabilities to take care of itself, and this would
tax the abilities of the Infinite One far more than a constant
supervision and occasional interference. Instead of making the
vase in perfect form, and coloring it with exquisite beauty by
an ever-present skill, he must endow the clay with power to make
itself in perfect form, adorn itself with delicate beauty, and
create other vases.
The nebular hypothesis is briefly this: All the matter composing
all the bodies of the sun, planets, and satellites once existed
in an exceedingly diffused state; [Page 183] rarer than any gas with
which we are acquainted, filling a space larger than the orbit of
Neptune. Gravitation gradually contracted this matter into a
condensing globe of immense extent. Some parts would naturally be
denser than others, and in the course of contraction a rotary
motion, it is affirmed, would be engendered. Rotation would flatten
the globe somewhat in the line of its axis. Contracting still more,
the rarer gases, aided by centrifugal force, would be left behind as
a ring that would ultimately be separated, like Saturn's ring, from
the retreating body. There would naturally be some places in this
ring denser than others; these would gradually absorb all the ring
into a planet, and still revolve about the central mass, and still
rotate on its own axis, throwing off rings from itself. Thus the
planet Neptune would be left behind in the first sun-ring, to make
its one moon; the planet Uranus left in the next sun-ring, to make
its four moons from four successive planet-rings; Saturn, with its
eight moons and three rings not made into moons, is left in the
third sun-ring; and so on down to Vulcan.
The outer planets would cool off first, become inhabitable, and,
as the sun contracted and they radiated their own heat, become
refrigerated and left behind by the retreating sun. Of course the
outer planets would move slowly; but as that portion of the sun
which gave them their motion drew in toward the centre, keeping
its absolute speed, and revolving in the lessening circles of a
contracting body, it would give the faster motion necessary to
be imparted to Earth, Mercury, and Vulcan.
The four great classes of facts confirmatory of this hypothesis
are as follows: 1st. All the planets move [Page 184] in the same
direction, and nearly in the same plane, as if thrown off from one
equator; 2d. The motions of the satellites about their primaries are
mostly in the same direction as that of their primaries about the
sun; 3d. The rotation of most of these bodies on their axes, and
also of the sun, is in the same direction as the motion of the
planets about the sun; 4th. The orbits of the planets, excluding
asteroids, and their satellites, have but a comparatively small
eccentricity; 5th. Certain nebulæ are observable in the heavens
which are not yet condensed into solids, but are still bright gas.
The materialistic evolutionist takes up the idea of a universe of
material world-stuff without form, and void, but so endowed as to
develop itself into orderly worlds, and adds to it this exceeding
advance, that when soil, sun, and chemical laws found themselves
properly related, a force in matter, latent for a million eons in
the original cloud, comes forward, and dead matter becomes alive
in the lowest order of vegetable life; there takes place, as Herbert
Spencer says, "a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,
into a definite, coherent heterogeneity, through continuous
differentiation and integration." The dead becomes alive; matter
passes from unconsciousness to consciousness; passes up from plant
to animal, from animal to man; takes on power to think, reason,
love, and adore. The theistic evolutionist may think that the same
process is gone through, but that an ever-present and working God
superintends, guides, and occasionally bestows a new endowment
of power that successively gives life, consciousness, mental,
affectional, and spiritual capacity.
Is this world-theory true? and if so, is either of the [Page 185]
evolution theories true also? If the first evolution theory is true,
the evolved man will hardly know which to adore most, the Being that
could so endow matter, or the matter capable of such endowment.
There are some difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the
nebular hypothesis that compel many of the most thorough scientists
of the day to withhold their assent to its entirety. The latest, and
one of the most competent writers on the subject, Professor Newcomb,
who is a mathematical astronomer, and not an easy theorist, evolving
the system of the universe from the depth of his own consciousness,
says: "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 to be growing smaller by actual measurement, or the
nebulæ be actually seen to condense into stars and systems." In
one of the most elaborate defences of the theory, it is argued that
the hypothesis explains why only one of the four planets nearest
the sun can have a moon, and why there can be no planet inside of
Mercury. The discovery of the two satellites to Mars and of the
planet Vulcan makes it all the worse for these facts.
Some of the objections to the theory should be known by every thinker.
Laplace must have the cloud "diffused in consequence of excessive
heat," etc. Helmholtz, in order to account for the heat of the
contracting sun, must have the cloud relatively cold. How he and
his followers diffused the cloud without heat is not stated.
The next difficulty is that of rotation. The laws [Page 186] of
science compel a contraction into one non-rotating body--a central
sun, indeed, but no planets about it. Laplace cleverly evades the
difficulty by not taking from the hand of the Creator diffused gas,
but a sun with an atmosphere filling space to the orbit of Neptune,
and _already in revolution_. He says: "It is four millions to one
that all motions of the planets, rotations and revolutions, were at
once imparted by an original common cause, of which we know neither
the nature nor the epoch." Helmholtz says of rotation, "the
existence of which must be assumed." Professor Newcomb says that the
planets would not be arranged as now, each one twice as far from the
sun as the next interior one, and the outer ones made first, but
that all would be made into planets at once, and the small inner
ones quite likely to cool off more rapidly.
It is a very serious difficulty that at least one satellite does
not revolve in the right direction. How Neptune or Uranus could
throw their moons backward from its equator is not easily accounted
for. It is at least one Parthian arrow at the system, not necessarily
fatal, but certainly dangerous.
A greater difficulty is presented by the recently discovered satellites
of Mars. The inner one goes round the planet in one-third part of
the time of the latter's revolution. How Mars could impart three
times the speed to a body flying off its surface that it has itself,
has caused several defenders of the hypothesis to rush forward
with explanations, but none with anything more than mere imaginary
collisions with some comet. It is to be noticed that accounting for
three times the speed is not enough; for as Mars shrunk away from
the [Page 187] ring that formed that satellite, it ought itself to
attain more speed, as the sun revolves faster than its planets, and
the earth faster than its moon. In defending the hypothesis, Mitchel
said: "Suppose we had discovered that it required more time for
Saturn or Jupiter to rotate on their axes than for their nearest
moon to revolve round them in its orbit; this would have falsified
the theory." It is also asserted that the newly discovered planet
Vulcan makes an orbital in less time than the sun makes an axial
revolution.
In regard to one Martial moon, Professor Kirkwood, on whom Proctor
conferred the highest title that could be conferred, "the modern
Kepler," says: "Unless some explanation can be given, the short period
of the inner satellite will be doubtless regarded as a conclusive
argument against the nebular hypothesis." If gravitation be sufficient
to account for the various motions of the heavenly bodies, we have
a perplexing problem in the star known as 1830 Groombridge, now
in the Hunting Dogs of Bootes. It is thought to have a speed of
two hundred miles per second--a velocity that all the known matter
in the universe could not give to the star by all its combined
attraction. Neither could all that attraction stop the motion of
the star, or bend it into an orbit. Its motion must be accounted
for on some hypothesis other than the nebular.
The nebulæ which we are able to observe are not altogether confirmatory
of the hypothesis under consideration. They have the most fantastic
shapes, as if they had no relation to rotating suns in the formative
stages. There are vast gaps in the middle, where they ought to be
densest. Mr. Plumer, in the _Natural Science Review_, [Page 188]
says, in regard to the results of the spectroscopic revelations: "We
are furnished with distinct proof that the gases so examined are not
only of nearly equal density, but that they exist in a low state of
_tension. This fact is fatal to the nebular theory._"
In the autumn of 1876 a star blazed out in Cygnus, which promised
to throw a flood of light on the question of world-making. Its
spectrum was like some of the fixed stars. It probably blazed ont
by condensation from some previously invisible nebula. But its
brilliancy diminished swiftly, when it ought to have taken millions
of years to cool. If the theory was true, it ought to have behaved
very differently. It should have regularly condensed from gas to a
solid sun by slow process. But, worst of all, after being a star
awhile, it showed unmistakable proofs of turning into a cloud-mist--a
star into a nebula, instead of _vice versa_. A possible explanation
will be considered under variable stars.
Such are a few of the many difficulties in the way of accepting
the nebular hypothesis, as at present explained, as being the true
mode of development of the solar system. Doubtless it has come
from a hot and diffused condition into its present state; but when
such men as Proctor, Newcomb, and Kirkwood see difficulties that
cannot be explained, contradictions that cannot be reconciled by
the principles of this theory, surely lesser men are obliged to
suspend judgment, and render the Scotch verdict of "not proven."
Whatever truth there may be in the theory will survive, and be
incorporated into the final solution of the problem; which solution
will be a much grander generalization of the human mind than the
nebular hypothesis.
[Page 189]
Of some things we feel very sure: that matter was once without
form and void, and darkness rested on the face of the mighty deeps;
that, instead of chaos, we have now cosmos and beauty; and that
there is some process by which matter has been brought from one
state to the other. Whether, however, the nebular hypothesis lays
down the road travelled to this transfiguration, we are not sure.
Some of it seems like solid rock, and some like shifting quicksand.
Doubtless there is a road from that chaos to this fair cosmos.
The nebular hypothesis has surveyed, worked, and perfected many
long reaches of this road, but the rivers are not bridged, the
chasms not filled, nor the mountains tunnelled.
When men attempt to roll the hypothesis of evolution along the
road of the nebular hypothesis of worlds, and even beyond to the
production of vegetable and animal life, mind and affection, the
gaps in the road become evident, and disastrous.
A soul that has reached an adoration for the Supreme Father cares
not how he has made him. Doubtless the way God chose was the best.
It is as agreeable to have been thought of and provided for in the
beginning, to have had a myriad ages of care, and to have come
from the highest existent life at last, as to have been made at
once, by a single act, out of dust. The one who is made is not to
say to the Maker, "Why hast thou formed me in this or that manner?"
We only wish the question answered in what manner we were really
made.
Evolution, without constant superintendence and occasional new
inspiration of power, finds some tremendous chasms in the road
it travels. These must be spanned by the power of a present God
or the airy imagination [Page 190] of man. Dr. McCosh has happily
enumerated some of these tremendous gaps over which mere force
cannot go. Given, then, matter with mechanical power only, what are
the gaps between it and spirituality?
"1. Chemical action cannot be produced by mechanical power.
"2. Life, even in the lowest forms, cannot be produced from unorganized
matter.
"3. Protoplasm can be produced only by living matter.
"4. Organized matter is made up of cells, and can be produced only
by cells. Whence the first cell?
"5. A living being can be produced only from a seed or germ. Whence
the first vegetable seed?
"6. An animal cannot be produced from a plant. Whence the first
animal?
"7. Sensation cannot be produced in insentient matter.
"8. The genesis of a new species of plant or animal has never come
under the cognizance of man, either in pre-human or post-human ages,
either in pre-scientific or scientific times. Darwin acknowledges
this, and says that, should a new species suddenly arise, we have
no means of knowing that it is such.
"9. Consciousness--that is, a knowledge of self and its
operations--cannot be produced out of mere matter or sensation.
"10. We have no knowledge of man being generated out of the lower
animals.
"11. All human beings, even savages, are capable of forming certain
high ideas, such as those of God and duty. The brute creatures
cannot be made to entertain these by any training.
[Page 191]
"With such tremendous gaps in the process, the theory which would
derive all things out of matter by development is seen to be a
very precarious one.
The truth, according to the best judgment to be formed in the present
state of knowledge, would seem to be about this: The nebular hypothesis
is correct in all the main facts on which it is based; but that neither
the present forces of matter, nor any other forces conceivable to
the mind of man, with which it can possibly be endowed, can account
for all the facts already observed. There is a demand for a personal
volition, for an exercise of intelligence, for the following of a
divine plan that embraces a final perfection through various and
changeful processes. The five great classes of facts that sustain
the nebular hypothesis seem set before us to show the regular order
of working. The several facts that will not, so far as at present
known, accord with that plan, seem to be set before us to declare
the presence of a divine will and power working his good pleasure
according to the exigencies of time and place.
[Page 193]
X.