CREATION.--THE GENESIS OR BEGINNING.
"The laws of nature can not account for their own origin."--J. S. MILL.
Creation was the absolutely free act of God, unconditioned by any
pre-existing thing. Matter with its properties and forms, its temporal,
spatial, and numerical relations; Spirit with its life and feeling, its
ideas and laws--these had all their origin in the creative Word of God.
Whatever is, and is not God, is the creature of God. This is the
Biblical conception of Creation.
Origination and formation are so immediately and inseparably united in
the Biblical notion of Creation that the revelation of the one is the
revelation of the other, and we can not deny the former without
logically involving ourselves in the denial of the latter. He who gave
to matter its forms must have given it its essential properties, upon
which many of its forms depend; and He who gave to matter its essential
properties must have given it _origination_, for how can we conceive of
substance devoid of all attributes? Whether, therefore, the account in
Genesis "be found to have in view, mainly or solely, a universal or a
partial creation; whether the _principium_ there mentioned be the
particular beginning of the special work there described, or the
_principium principiorum_,--the beginning of all beginnings--the Bible
is in either case a protest against the dogma of the eternity of the
world, or of the eternity of matter."[130]
This notion of Creation as a pure supernatural origination is the only
one which reason can accept as adequate, satisfactory, and complete.
Formation without origination is a conception of creation which is
logically incomplete. It fails to meet the demand of reason for an
Absolute First Principle adequate to the production and explanation of
all existence. There are outlying elements of the problem which it can
not grasp in the unity of a Fundamental Idea. Matter with its
properties, Number, Time, and Space, with their relations, are still
lying outside of its field, and setting themselves up as self-existent
and independent realities, which by their apparent or conceded
independence must necessarily impose _conditions_ upon the Divine
activity, and perpetually embarrass the human mind in its effort to
think of God as the free and unconditioned Cause. Reason demands that
absolute unity shall stand at the fountain-head of being, and every
system of philosophy which allows of more than one self-existent and
independent and underived reality bewilders and staggers the
understanding, and vitiates all its processes of thought. After this
concession every argument for the being of God seems to us a _petitio
principii_.
Reason and Revelation, then, are agreed in the affirmation that the
Universe, both as to its matter and form, had its origin in the creative
Word and Will of God. How far this affirmation is sustained by the _à
posteriori_ inductions of physical science is a question of the deepest
interest, and to this we now invite attention.
This question naturally divides itself into two subordinate inquiries,
one relating to the _form_, the other to the _matter_ of the universe,
which may be thus presented:
1. Had the existing _Order_ of the universe a beginning? Had the forms,
relations, laws, and harmonies of the universe a beginning?
2. Had that which is the ground of all forms, the subject of all changes
and relations, a beginning? Had the _Matter_ of the universe a
beginning?
In regard to the first question, we remark in general: _The common
conviction of our race in all ages has been that the existing order of
the universe had a beginning, and will have an end._
It has been affirmed by some mental philosophers that mankind has an
intuitive and natural belief in the uniformity of nature, and the
consequent stability and permanence of the universe. Reid, the father of
the Scottish school of philosophy, says, "God has implanted in the human
mind an original principle by which he believes in and expects the
continuance of the course of nature." It is a matter of surprise that so
acute a thinker should have fallen into so flagrant an error. He has
evidently confounded our natural belief in causation with our acquired
experiences of uniformity. That "like causes will always produce like
effects" is a native intuition; but that "the same causes will always
continue in operation, and always operate with the same intensity," is a
mere presumption. Our faith in the uniformity and permanent stability of
nature is an induction from experience, and not a natural and necessary
intuition of the mind.[131]
Far from entertaining a belief in the permanence and stability of the
present order of nature, the great mass of mankind in earlier times
regarded the system of things as liable to constant interference on the
part of supernatural powers. In all ages of the world the existing order
of nature has been regarded as temporal, and the flow of terrestrial and
even of cosmical events has been conceived as liable to be broken up by
universal revolutions. The historical evidence of this universal belief
in "geological catastrophes" has been fully brought forward by Dr.
Winchell in his "Sketches of Creation."[132] Traditions of a primal
chaos and of periodic cataclysms are found among the Greeks, Egyptians,
Phœnicians, Chaldæans, Hebrews, Persians, Arabians, Hindoos, South
Sea Islanders, and the Aztecs. And among those nations in which the
physical sciences have been cultivated the same conceptions are still
entertained. As science has extended our acquaintance with natural
phenomena in all parts of the earth, and beyond the earth into the
celestial spaces, men have gradually attained a belief in the uniformity
of nature. But the doctrine of periodical catastrophes has not been
abandoned by scientific men. When men now speak of the uniformity of
nature, they use that term in a very large sense, and even loose sense,
as including catastrophes and convulsions of an intense and extensive
kind;[133] and, as we shall presently see, the most advanced and exact
modern science teaches us to contemplate a grand final catastrophe in
which all life will be extinguished on the earth, and the globe itself
shall be "ensepulchred in an extinguished sun." The attempt, therefore,
to represent the belief in the uniformity of nature as a universal and
necessary truth is vain. We have no _à priori_ ground for believing in
the permanence of the universe.
The common conviction of our race that the universe had a beginning,
that it has been the subject of great catastrophal changes, and that it
will finally come to an end, is not to be regarded as an insignificant
fact. As Herbert Spencer justly remarks, "We must presume that beliefs
that have long existed and have been widely diffused ... beliefs that
are perennial and universal ... have some foundation, and some amount of
verity."[134] Universal beliefs must rest on some common ground. That
common ground can not be experience. A belief which was as clearly and
confidently held four thousand years ago as it is held to-day can not
have been gradually attained by successive generalizations. It is
grounded on the fundamental antithesis between Becoming and Being,
phenomena and reality, the changeful and the permanent, the finite and
the infinite, the temporal and the eternal, which has been a necessary
form of thought to all minds in all ages. The human mind has never been
able to conceive these contradictory opposites as predicable of the same
subject. The universe as presented to sense is a perpetual genesis, a
ceaseless change; therefore it can not be permanent. It is a time-march
of phenomena; therefore it can not be eternal. It is limited by quantity
and quantitative relations; therefore it can not be infinite. Thus
reason has always conceived the universe as having a _beginning_, and
has confidently predicted that it will come to an _end_. All systems of
philosophy, and, indeed, many systems of religion, have been attempts to
explain "the beginning or origin of things"--that is, they have been "_à
priori_ theories of the universe."[135] Even Atheism itself comes under
this definition: it is an attempt to explain the origin of the universe
and of man on the _à priori_ assumption of the self-existence of Matter,
Space, and Motion. Thus all systems of thought, ancient and modern, have
had their birth in the innate conviction that there is something to be
explained, and that human reason is adequate to the task of furnishing
an explanation. They all assume that the universe had a beginning, and
their one, central problem is, "How are we to conceive aright the origin
of things?"
In what does this differ from the problem of modern science? It is true
that Comte would limit positive science to "the study of phenomena in
their orders of co-existence, resemblance, and succession," an idea
which the word "positive" by no means conveys. And Tyndall asserts that
"the man of science, if he confine himself within his own limits, will
give no answer to the question" as to the origin of things. At the same
time he admits that "he can clearly show that the present state of
things _may_ be derivative."[136] The great masters of science, however,
refuse to acknowledge any such arbitrary limitations. "The essence of
science," says Sir William Thomson, "consists in inferring antecedent
conditions, and anticipating future evolutions from phenomena which have
actually come under observation."[137] If this be the _essence_ of
science, then we presume that it is competent to throw some light on the
primitive condition of the universe, and give some prevision of its
future destiny. Did not Comte himself teach that the solar system was
once all nebula, and that it will yet collapse into an exhausted and
extinguished sun?[138] Is it true, then, that physical science by its
inductive inference of "antecedent conditions," does really furnish a
solid confirmation of the _à priori_ and native conviction of our race
that the universe had a beginning? Then most assuredly even physical
science is carrying us forward toward the ultimate unity of all truth--a
unity which can be realized perfectly only by the constant mutual
determination of _à priori_ and empirical knowledge, a synthesis and
equipoise of physical and metaphysical truths.
This is the most obvious tendency of modern science in its relation to
the question under consideration. Nothing is more remarkable in the
present aspect of physical research than what has been aptly called "the
transcendental character of its results." As George Henry Lewes
observes, "the fundamental ideas of modern science are as transcendental
as any of the axioms of ancient philosophy."[139] Palætiological science
in general has advanced by sure and steady steps, through careful
observation and experiment, inductive inference, and the application of
exact mathematical calculus to the recognition of the truth long ago
announced by Paul: "The things which are seen are _temporal_, the things
which are not seen are _eternal_." Dynamical Geology, Astronomical
Palætiology, Cosmogony, Molecular Physics, Abstract Dynamics, have all
landed in the same inevitable conclusion that "the existing order of
things had a beginning." Sir William Thomson's doctrine of the
"Dissipation of Energy" leads us, by sure steps of deductive reasoning,
to the necessary future of the universe--necessary, that is, if physical
laws remain unchanged--"so it enables us distinctly to say that the
present order of things has not been evolved through infinite past time
by the agency of laws now at work, but must have had a _distinctive
beginning_, a state beyond which we are totally unable to penetrate--a
state which must have been produced by _other than the now acting
causes_."[140]
The science of Geology reduces all terrestrial phenomena to the great
law of finite duration. If there be one scientific induction which may
be fairly pronounced legitimate and irrefragable, it is this one--that
the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning. "All organic
existence, recent or extinct, vegetable or animal, had a beginning;
there was a time when they were not. The geologist can indicate that
time, if not by years, at least by periods, and show what were its
relations to the periods that went before and that came after." He can
carry us back to the time when man did not exist upon the earth, when no
mammals existed; to the time when no birds, no reptiles, no fishes
existed--when even Huxley's protoplasm had no being; "when all creation,
from its centre to its circumference, was a creation of dead inorganic
matter,"[141] and when there was not one spore or monad or atom of life
throughout its dark domain. The form of the earth itself clearly reveals
its history, and points us to that beginning. Its bulging equator and
flattened poles, its pavement of congealed lava, which in some cases we
name granite; nay, the oldest water-worn pavement composed of the
detritus of the igneous rocks--all attest the emergence of our planet
from a molten condition, and a temperature[142] in which no life could
exist; so that even Tyndall admits "there are the strongest grounds for
believing that during a certain period of its history the earth was not,
nor was it fit to be, the theatre of life."[143]
The earth was once a molten mass heated to incandescence--a
self-luminous globe. On this point there is scarcely any difference of
opinion among scientific men. Furthermore, a large majority of modern
scientists regard themselves as justified in the affirmation of a still
anterior nebulous condition. If the nebular hypothesis is accepted, then
we are required to contemplate a period when the earth did not exist,
and when even the matter which now enters into its constitution was an
undistinguished part of the nebula from which the whole solar system was
evolved.
Many exact observations and mathematical computations as to the secular
cooling of the earth give results which are in strict accordance with
this theory of its primitive igneous condition. The observed facts
clearly indicate that the earth is becoming, on the whole, cooler from
age to age, and that the natural current of events is carrying it
inevitably to a state of total refrigeration.[144] The fossil remains
now found within the arctic circle indicate that at a period, not
extremely remote, tropical vegetation flourished, and forms of animal
life subsisted there which are now confined to the torrid zone. Mammoths
lived in the now uninhabited polar regions, and tree-ferns and the
tropical shell-fish found there a home.[145] The surface of the earth
was then warmed by internal heat which since that period has waned; that
heat has been gradually dissipated in the surrounding space, as a
red-hot ball suspended even in the warm air of a room must, according to
the well-known laws of radiation and absorption, necessarily part with
its heat.
Many experiments carefully conducted in our time show that the
temperature of the earth increases with the depth to which we
penetrate: "In boring for the artesian well at Grenelle, which is 546
metres deep, it was observed that the temperature augmented at the rate
of 1° Centigrade for every 30 metres. The same result was obtained by
observations in the artesian well at Mondorf, in Luxemburg; this well is
671 metres in depth, and its waters 34° warm." As the result of many
investigations in mines and borings, Sir William Thomson concludes that
the average inference may be thus stated--there is on the whole about 1°
Fahr. of elevation of temperature per 50 British feet of descent.[146]
If this increase is uniform--and we have no reason to suppose the
contrary--then at the depth of 50 miles there exists, says Helmholtz, a
heat sufficient to fuse all our minerals.
The fact that the temperature of the earth increases with the depth
necessarily involves a continual loss of heat from its interior by
conduction outward into and through the upper crust, according to a
well-known law of equilibrium of temperatures. "Hence, since the upper
crust does not become hotter from year to year, there must be a secular
loss of heat from the earth."[147] Thus it appears that from the surface
of the earth and the ocean, from thermal springs, and from three hundred
active volcanoes, the internal heat of the globe is incessantly radiated
into space and is practically lost.
Now this average loss of heat may be at least approximately measured,
and data are thereby furnished for determining the probable _age_ of the
earth, or, perhaps more correctly, its phase of life. If a man were to
find a hot ball of iron suspended in a room, and if he were carefully
to observe the distribution of heat in the ball, he would be able easily
to determine whether the ball were becoming hotter or cooler. If he
found that the inside were hotter than the outside, he would conclude
that the ball was cooling, and had therefore been hotter than when he
found it. So far common-sense would be his guide; but with the aid of
mathematics, and some knowledge of the physical properties of iron and
air, he could go much further, and be able to calculate how hot the ball
must have been at any given moment, if it had not been interfered with.
Thus he would be able to say, the ball must have been hung up less than,
say, five hours ago, for at that time the heat of the metal would have
been such that it would have been in a state of fusion, and hence not
capable of hanging as a solid mass. Precisely analogous reasoning holds
with regard to the earth: it is such a ball; it is hotter inside than
outside. The distribution of the heat near its surface is approximately
known--1° Fahr. of elevation in temperature for 50 British feet of
descent.[148] The properties of the matter of which it is composed are
approximately known. The temperature at which granite rocks are fusible
has been found to be about 7000° Fahr. This must therefore have been the
temperature of the earth in its primitive igneous condition. From these
data, Sir William Thomson has, by rigid mathematical calculations,
reached the conclusion that the consolidation of the earth's crust
commenced 98,000,000 years ago.[149] The rates of increase of
temperature _inward_ in a great amount of average rock at various
periods after the commencement of cooling, from the primitive heat of
7000° Fahr., are estimated by Sir William Thomson as follows:
"At 10,000 y'rs after commencement of cooling should have 2° per ft.
At 40,000 " " " " 1° "
At 160,000 " " " " 1/2° "
At 4,000,000 " " " " 1/10° "
At 100,000,000 " " " " 1/50° "
It is therefore probable that for the last 96,000,000 years the rate of
increase of temperature under ground has gradually diminished from 1/10
to about 1/50 of a degree Fahrenheit per foot, and that the thickness of
the crust through which any stated degree of cooling has been
experienced has gradually increased during that period from 1/5 of its
present thickness to what it now really is."[150]
We freely admit our inability to sit in judgment on the validity of Sir
William Thomson's conclusions. There are eminent geologists who
entertain the opinion that the secular cooling of the earth has
proceeded with much greater rapidity. It is, however, sufficient for our
purpose that the most distinguished physicists of the day are agreed in
teaching that _the existing terrestrial economy had a beginning_.
There are other terrestrial changes which engage the attention of the
geologist, and which force upon him the conclusion that the existing
terrestrial order had a beginning and must have an end. The surface of
the earth has at intervals undergone great changes in the disposition of
its land and water. That which is now dry land was once the ocean-bed,
and the ocean waves now roll and murmur over what was once dry land.
Sudden, or comparatively sudden, catastrophes have extinguished the
then existing creations, and the earth has been repeopled by new orders
of life. Changes are now in progress which are gradually reducing the
populous regions of the earth to the condition of the Sahara of Africa
and the Desert of Arabia. Upper and Lower Mesopotamia, the seat of the
ancient monarchies of Chaldæa, Assyria, and Babylonia, now present "vast
tracts of arid plain--yellow, parched, and sapless--which have now
become a bare and uninhabited desert." That ancient continent drained by
the Colorado, once as fertile as the Valley of the Mississippi, is now
the Great American Desert. "Every freshet burdens the streams with a
load of sediment; and the Mississippi bears daily to the Gulf material
sufficient for a cotton plantation. From the slopes of the Alleghanies
and the Rocky Mountains, from the broad acres over which the Mississippi
and the Ohio reach their silver fingers to filch from the land, the
sediments are stolen and carried away to the sea. The Western States are
slowly traveling toward the Gulf. The hills are melting, and even the
mountain cliffs are lowering under the ceaseless conflict with storm and
frost. The summits of the Alleghanies have come down 3000 feet from
their original altitudes. Give time enough, and the inequalities of the
land will disappear. The ocean will be filled, and again assert a
triumph over the continents which in the beginning were wrested from his
dominion." Thus by the storms of heaven, the erosion of the atmosphere,
the blasting power of frost, the gnawing of the tidal wave, the
mountains are being leveled, and the rocks and soils carried onward by
the rivers to fill up the basin of the sea. The headlong rush of the
avalanche, the murmuring of the brook, the roaring of the sea, the voice
of the storm--all proclaim, "The things which are seen are
temporal!"--"The existing order of things had a beginning and must come
to an end!"[151]
Astronomical Palætiology reduces all celestial phenomena to the same
great law of finite duration. It teaches that planets, stars, systems,
have their birth, their process of formation, their maturity, and their
slow, protracted decay. The ephemeron perishes in an hour, man endures
his three-score years and ten; continents and islands have their ages
and æons; the stars of heaven are not exempt from this universal law of
change and decay. According to the Nebular Hypothesis, the formation of
this our system of sun, planets, and satellites was a process of the
same kind as that which is still going forward in the heavens. One after
another, nebulæ condense into separate masses, which begin to revolve
about each other in obedience to dynamical laws, and form systems of
which our system is a matured example. The present aspect of this
planetary system is, however, but a passing phase in the history of its
fleeting life. Our planet was once a self-luminous orb; it has now
become opaque, and shines only with a borrowed light. The moon is
probably in a state of total refrigeration; its lunar air and lunar seas
have been changed by intensity of cold into the solid form.[152] The sun
itself is radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater
than it receives, and, as Helmholtz affirms, "the inexorable laws of
mechanics show that its store of heat must be finally exhausted."[153]
The planets in their motions encounter resistance from the interstellar
ether; they must, therefore, necessarily move in shorter and shorter
orbits, and at last fall into the sun. Thus the Nebular Hypothesis,
combined with the doctrine of a resisting medium, teaches us that the
solar system is wending its way, through successive changes, from a past
of vaporous unity to a future of consolidated reunion. "It was once all
nebula; it will, if left to physical agencies alone, collapse into an
extinguished and exhausted sun."
The astronomer who has been accustomed to regard every question relating
to his favorite science as almost exclusively a problem in mathematics,
will pronounce the above "a crude and adventurous" attempt on the part
of the physicist to solve a problem which belongs to "the calculus of
variations." Is the universe a Conservative or a Dissipative system?
Under its present laws will it run on forever, or will these very laws
in the end lead to its subversion? Will the mechanism of the heavens
finally run down as surely as the weights of a clock run down to their
lowest position, or are we authorized on scientific grounds to assert
the permanent stability of the solar system? This question has been
earnestly discussed by the most distinguished astronomers since the days
of Newton. Until recently, the general conclusion--reached mainly on
mathematical grounds--seems to have been that the universe is a
thoroughly conservative system, and that the celestial machinery by a
species of perpetual motion will run on forever. But must not all
applied mathematical reasoning obtain its data from the exact
observation of material facts? The mathematician must also be a good
natural philosopher; he must lay his account with all the facts of the
universe, otherwise his symbols have no contents, and his reasoning,
however faultless in its processes, will be fallacious in its results.
The discoveries of the present century respecting the correlation of the
various forms of energy, the nature of the solar light and heat, the
motions of comets, and especially the new doctrine of the "Dissipation
of Energy," have introduced new elements into the great problem, which
seem to indicate that gravitation is by no means the only force by which
the motions of the heavenly bodies are influenced, and that causes are
now in operation which are slowly but surely undermining the system. We
now find, therefore, such high authorities as Whewell, Sir John
Herschel, Sir William Thomson, Balfour Stewart, Prof. Maxwell, Dr. J. R.
Mayer, Helmholtz, Tyndall, Littrow, Comte, Adolph Fick, asserting that
the solar system is not a self-winding clock which may run forever, but
that it is a dissipative system which must ultimately lose all motion,
unless some power capable of controlling the laws of material nature
interfere to preserve it. We have no more valid reason for concluding
that the Deity intended the system should be eternal than that He
intended the earthly life of man should be eternal.[154] A few general
statements may assist the reader in appreciating the merits of the
discussion.
It has been observed since the dawn of science that changes are taking
place in the motions of the heavenly bodies. The eccentricity of the
earth's orbit has been gradually diminishing from the earliest
observations to the present time. The moon, also, has been moving faster
and faster from the time of the first recorded eclipses, and is now in
advance by about four times her own breadth of what her place would have
been had she not been affected by these accelerations.[155] In a few
thousand years she will be half a month ahead of the place she would be
in if her month were to remain constant. The moon is, therefore,
approaching closer and closer to the earth; and if these changes go on
uninterruptedly, without any reaction or adjustment, sooner or later the
final catastrophe must come, and the moon be precipitated on the body of
the earth.
Toward the close of the last century, Laplace, in his great work, the
"Méchanique Céleste," attempted by certain mathematical computations to
show that, nevertheless, the solar system is stable and permanent. The
planets, by their mutual attractions, produce perpetual perturbations in
one another's movements. Laplace believed he could prove that these were
periodic; they reach a maximum value and then diminish, oscillating
between very narrow extremes. He therefore taught that the machine would
go on by a kind of perpetual motion, without any winding up or
adjustment from without; and, consequently, the eternal continuance of
the solar system is insured.
All the investigations of Laplace, and the computations of Lagrange,
proceeded on two assumptions: first, that the planets are moving _in
vacuo_; and, secondly, that they are solid throughout their entire mass.
The latter assumption is certainly in conflict with well-determined
geological facts; and there is no _à priori_ ground for assuming that
the planetary spaces are void and empty. On the contrary, the general
analogies of nature would lead us to the very opposite conclusion, and
all attempts at producing a perfect vacuum have hitherto failed.
Furthermore, the great body of modern physicists, and nearly all modern
astronomers, hold that the celestial spaces are filled with a "material
ether," which must by its very nature offer some resistance to planetary
motion.
"Scientific men," says Mayer, "do not doubt the existence of such an
ether." The presence of such "material ether--dense, elastic, and
capable of motion--subject to and determined by mechanical laws,"[156]
is demanded for the explanation of radiant heat, light, and actinism. No
other theory ever proposed has so beautifully and completely accounted
for all the facts. Its reality must be admitted, until the positions
established by Huyghens, Young, Fresnel, Foucault, and Fiziau are shown
to be untenable. All the prominent experimental physicists of the
present day agree in teaching that light and heat are transmitted by
vibrations or wave-like motions in a material medium universally
diffused through space, and permeating all material bodies. Light and
heat are the ceaseless thrill which the distant orbs collectively create
in the ether, and which constitute what has been called the _temperature
of space_. If the existence of such material medium as the assumed ether
be denied, we can not account in any conceivable or rational manner for
the transmission of light and heat from the sun. And now, if the space
between the celestial bodies contain no other matter than that necessary
for the transmission of light, "that alone," says Littrow, "is
sufficient, in the course of time, to alter the motion of the planets,
and the arrangements of the solar system itself; the fall of all the
planets and comets into the sun, and the destruction of the present
state of the solar system, must be the final result of this
action."[157]
But it is further claimed by Helmholtz, Mayer, and Sir William Thomson
that the phenomena presented by Encke's comet furnish "direct proof" of
the existence of such resisting medium. The observations on this comet
made during the past thirty or forty years show that the periods of its
revolution are continually diminishing at the rate of 0.11° per
revolution of nearly 3-1/3 years. In other words, the comet's mean
distance from the sun is diminishing by slow and regular degrees. The
solution which Encke himself proposed, and which Herschel informs us "is
generally received,"[158] is that resistance is experienced from the
medium in which the comet moves; such resistance diminishing its actual
velocity and also its centrifugal force, thus giving the sun greater
power to draw it nearer. It will, therefore, fall into the sun. A
similar fate, says Helmholtz, threatens all the planets. "The analogies
of nature, and the ascertained facts of physical science, forbid us to
doubt that _every star_, and, indeed, _every body of every kind_ moving
in any part of space, has its relative motion impeded by the air, gas,
vapor, medium, or whatever we call the substance occupying space
immediately around them, just as the motion of a rifle-bullet is impeded
by the resistance of the air."[159]
There are also indirect resistances, the effects of tidal friction, on
all bodies which, like the earth, have portions of their free surfaces
covered by liquids, which, so long as these bodies move relatively to
neighboring bodies, must keep drawing off energy from their relative
motions. "Thus, if we consider the action of the moon on the earth, with
its oceans, lakes, and rivers, we perceive that it must tend to equalize
the period of the earth's rotation on its axis, and of the revolution of
the two bodies about their centre of inertia; because, so long as these
periods differ, the tidal action of the earth's surface must keep
subtracting energy from their motions."[160] As the tidal wave sweeps
over the oceans and rushes into the numerous bays and estuaries, the
motions which it produces in the waters necessarily involve an
expenditure of power or _vis viva_ in overcoming the resistance from
friction. The energy of motion thus expended must be drawn from the set
of machinery which produces the motions--that is, from the motion of
revolution of the moon, and the motion of rotation of the earth. It can
not be returned to the machinery, because all that is not spent in
triturating the sand and other materials composing the ocean-bed, is
transformed into heat and radiated into space.
It is true that in the present state of science we have not exact data
for estimating the relative importance of tidal friction, and of the
resistance of the interstellar medium; but, whatever it may be, there
can be, says Thomson, "but one ultimate result for such a system as that
of sun and planets if continuing long enough under existing laws....
That result is _the falling together into one mass, which, although
rotating for a time, must in the end come to rest relatively to the
surrounding medium_."[161]
Another evidence that the solar system is temporal, and that the present
cosmical order must come to an end, is found in the fact that the sun is
radiating heat into space in quantities incomparably greater than it
receives. If it were not so, we should receive, on the average, as much
heat from every other quarter of the heavens as from the sun, and no
vicissitudes of temperature would ever occur on the earth. Now, from
what we know of the nature of heat, it is impossible that the supply
contained in the sun should be inexhaustible. There is no apparent
reason why the sun should form an exception to the fate of all fires,
its only difference being one of size and time. It is larger and hotter
than ordinary lamps, but is nevertheless a lamp in which invisible
molecular energy is consumed, and consumed, too, at a rate which baffles
all conception. From every square foot of its surface the sun gives out
energy equal in amount to seven thousand horse-power. The total amount
of heat sent off from the sun in _one minute_ is "five thousand millions
of millions of units": a unit of heat being the quantity of heat
required to raise one kilogramme--or about one quart--of water one
Centigrade degree.[162] This enormous consumption of energy must finally
exhaust the original stock. Were the sun a solid block of coal, and were
it allowed a sufficient quantity of oxygen to enable it to burn at the
rate necessary to produce the observed emission of heat, it would be
utterly consumed in five thousand years. Or if we suppose, with Thomson,
that the initial form of the energy of the universe is the potential
energy of gravitation in matter diffused through space, and if this
potential energy (energy of position) is transformed into heat
(molecular kinetic energy) by condensation or contraction of the sun,
and this energy of molecular motion (heat) is again transformed into
radiant energy and diffused through infinite space, it is obvious that
this condensation can not be continued forever, and Thomson has shown in
his article on the "Age of the Sun's Heat" that its power of radiation
must come to an end. Various theories have been suggested for
replenishing the solar heat, one of the most plausible of which is the
falling of meteoric and cometary bodies into the sun. Prof. Thomson, who
was one of the first to adopt this view, has now abandoned it, or at
least has denied its adequacy to account for the maintenance of solar
heat. Even were the hypothesis accepted as valid, the supply of fuel is
still finite. Time will drain the entire space inclosed by the orbit of
the planet Neptune of all the meteors and comets. Even the planets must
at length be ensepulchred in the sun. "As surely," writes Sir William
Thomson, "as the weights of the clock run down to the lowest position,
from which they can never rise again unless fresh energy is communicated
to them from some source not yet exhausted, so surely must every planet
creep in, age after age, toward the sun." Not one can escape its fiery
end. And, finally, the heat of the sun itself--that is, its molecular
energy--must be transformed into radiant energy, and diffused and lost
as a working force in infinite space. "Thus do the inexorable laws of
mechanics indicate that the sun's store of heat, which can only suffer
loss and not gain, must _be finally exhausted_."[163]
There are thus special geological and astronomical facts which have long
been regarded as indicative of the principle that the existing order of
the material universe is _temporal_--it had a beginning, and must have
an end. But the modern Theory of Energy,[164] with its three great laws
of Conservation, Transformation, and Dissipation, must be regarded as a
comprehensive, complete, and final settlement of the question. It has
been shown, first, that no system of machinery can _create_ force any
more than it can create matter; and that the amount of energy in the
universe, or in any limited system which does not receive energy from
without, or part with it to external matter, is a constant or invariable
quantity. This is the _Law of the Conservation of Energy_. It has been
proved, secondly, as an experimental fact that, in general, one form of
energy may, by suitable processes, be transformed wholly or in part to
an equivalent amount of another form; and the sole and only function of
all possible machines is the conversion or _transformation_ of energy.
This is the _Law of the Transformation of Energy_. This law of
Transformation is, however, subject to the limitations which are imposed
by the _Law of the Dissipation of Energy_, the discovery of which is
mainly due to Sir William Thomson. He has shown that every machine does
its work against friction. "A material system can never be brought
through any returning cycle of motions without spending more work
against the mutual forces of its parts than it gained from these parts,
because no relative motions can take place without meeting with
frictional or other forms of resistance." No known process of
transformation is exactly reversible. Whenever an attempt is made to
transform and retransform energy by an imperfect process, part of the
energy is converted into heat, and the heat is _dissipated_, so as to
become useless because incapable of further transformation. It therefore
follows that, as energy is constantly in a state of transformation,
there is a constant degradation of energy to that final unavailable form
of uniformly diffused heat; and this will go on as long as
transformations occur, until the whole energy of the universe has taken
this form.[165] The reader will find an extended discussion of this
great question in Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philosophy," vol. i. pp.
188-304, in which it is shown that the present material system is not a
_dynamically conservative_ but a _dissipative_ system, and therefore
that in such a system "perpetual motion" is an impossibility.
Indeed, the Law of the Dissipation of Energy is an intelligent and
well-supported denial of the chimera of perpetual motion. There is a
loose idea that perpetual motion is impossible to us, because we can not
avoid friction with its consequent loss of energy, but that nature works
without friction, or that, in general, friction entails no loss, and so
here perpetual motion is possible; but nature no more works without
friction than we do, and friction entails a loss of available power. The
supply of invisible molecular energy in the sun is no more infinite than
the quantity of matter in the sun is infinite. The sun is daily lifting
huge masses of water from the sea to the skies, yearly lifting endless
vegetation from the earth, setting breezes and hurricanes in motion,
dragging the huge tidal wave round and round the earth; performing, in
short, the great bulk of the endless labor of this world and other
worlds, so that the energy of the sun is continually being given away
without any corresponding restoration. The loss of force in the shape of
radiant light and heat can never be weaned back to any other mode of
available energy. Carnot, Clausius, Thomson, and Rankine have all from
different points of view been led to the same conclusion. We can make no
use whatever of the energy represented by equally diffused heat. If one
body is hotter than another, as the boiler of a steam-engine is hotter
than the condenser, then we can make use of the difference of
temperature to convert some of the heat into work; but if two substances
are equally hot, even though their particles contain an enormous amount
of molecular energy, they will not yield us a single unit of work.
Energy is thus of different qualities, mechanical energy being the
_best_, and universal heat the _worst_; in fact, this latter description
of energy may be compared to the waste heap of the universe, in which
the _effete_ forms of energy are suffered to accumulate without any
further conversion.[166] If, then, when mechanical force passes into
heat, _some_ of the heat can never be brought back to be mechanical
force, and if the change from mechanical force to heat be ever going on,
all the force in the universe must at last take the form of radiant
heat. But if that be so, then at last all differences of temperature
must disappear, and every thing end in a universal death.
"We are come," says Adolph Fick, "to this alternative: either in our
highest, most general, most fundamental abstractions, some great point
has been overlooked, or the universe will have an END, and must have had
a BEGINNING; it could not have existed from Eternity, but must at some
date, not infinitely distant, have arisen from something not forming a
part of the natural chain of causes--that is, IT MUST HAVE BEEN
CREATED."[167]
So far, then, the deductions of science are found to be in striking
harmony with the teaching of revelation--the existing order of the
universe had a beginning; the forms, relations, laws, harmonies of the
Cosmos had a commencement in time. We may now proceed to the
consideration of the second question: Had that which is the _ground_ of
all form, the _subject_ of all changes and relations, a beginning? Had
the _matter_ of the universe a beginning?
That we may fairly present the answer which modern science offers to
this question, we must premise, in general, that it confesses its
inability, in the present stage of physical knowledge, to determine what
is the ultimate or internal constitution of matter. Many scientists of
to-day are of the opinion expressed by Grove[168] that "probably man
will never know the ultimate structure of matter." Others, as, for
example, Thomson, Bayma, McVicar, and Challis, entertain the opinion
that physical science is competent to discover all the minutiæ of
molecular actions, and when this has been achieved, the question as to
the ultimate constitution of matter can be finally determined. There is
one guiding principle, recognized alike by the physicist and the
metaphysician, namely, that substances, ultimate entities, are known,
and can only be known in and through their respective phenomena. An
exact enumeration and careful colligation of all the phenomena are
therefore indispensable prerequisites to the solution of the problem.
Meantime nothing is more remarkable, even in the present state of
physical science, than the fact that, under the subtile analysis of
modern physics, much that we have been accustomed to regard as phenomena
of matter dissolves and disappears, surviving only as phenomena of
_Force_. The phenomena of heat, light, color, sound, electricity, and
magnetism are now "modes of motion"--manifestations of one and the same
omnipresent energy, which is transferred from one portion of matter to
another, and modified or transformed simply by the mechanical
arrangements and collocations of matter. The opinion is rapidly gaining
ground that even chemical action is a mode of motion, and Professor
Norton does not hesitate in affirming that "_all the phenomena of
material nature result from the action of force upon matter_."[169] All
that we mean by a Material Force "is a force which acts _upon_ matter,
and produces in matter its own appropriate effects."[170] It is not an
attribute of matter, not a quality inherent in matter, but a mode or
state superimposed upon matter.
There is a large, influential, and daily increasing class of scientists,
among whom may be named Faraday, Prof. Owen, Dr. Laycock, Wallace, Dr.
Winslow, Prof. Huxley, who do not regard matter as an ultimate entity,
and who believe that all the phenomena of matter (so called), even
extension, resistance, and ultimate incompressibility, may be resolved
into phenomena of force. In other words, matter is only _phenomenal_,
and, like all phenomena, demands a _cause_.[171] These men are perplexed
with no difficulties as to the _origin_ of matter. As a phenomenon it
must be a product of Creative Efficiency, and therefore had a beginning.
It is obviously unnecessary that we should here discuss the merits of
this hypothesis which resolves matter into force. We shall encounter it
at a subsequent stage of our inquiry, and may then attempt to gauge its
merits. It is enough for our present purpose that Heat, Light, Color,
Sound, Electricity, Magnetism, are recognized as forms of molecular
Energy--phenomena of Force; that these forms of invisible molecular
energy, together with all the energy of visible motions and positions,
are regarded as flowing from one great central force, or fountain-head
of power; and that there is a remarkable unanimity among the first
scientific men of our age in acknowledging this power as the Creative
Efficiency of God. These forces uniformly work in obedience to Law; and
Law, whether viewed in the orderly movement of a planet or an atom, in
the symmetrical arrangement of a crystal of the definite proportions of
chemical combination, in the organization of a worm or of an elephant,
is intellect, is _reason_. This is the ultimate principle upon which
every condition of matter and form depends.
This conception of force will materially aid us in the conception of
matter. It is simply "the recipient of impulses or energy"[172]--the
mere passive condition for the exercise of power. "It does not generate
the phenomena which it manifests. It is only the substratum--it does
absolutely nothing but give to the phenomena their conditions of
manifestation."[173] Every molecule of matter, every aggregation of
molecules, every organism must be regarded as a machine upon which the
forces of nature play, and by which they are transformed and rendered
available for the performance of work. Thus matter, by its very
conception, must have been _created_, and fitted for the fulfillment of
a predetermined function. Before the mechanism of the universe was set
in motion, there was a preparation and collocation of its materials, and
an adjustment of its minutest parts. As Sir John Herschel justly
remarks, "Chemical analysis most certainly points to an origin, and
effectually destroys the idea of an external self-existent matter, by
giving to each of its atoms the essential character, at once, of a
_manufactured article_ and a _subordinate agent_."[174] The numerical
relations between chemical elements are the expression of creative
ideas. The maxim of the Pythagorean philosophers is daily receiving new
illustration from science, "The world is a living arithmetic in its
development, a realized geometry in its repose." There can be no
arithmetic without an Arithmetician, no geometry without a Geometrician.
Thus in the very elements out of which the universe is built, the blocks
of nature's temple, we see the indications not only of a fashioning but
of an _originating_ intelligence--a Creating God. Design as truly
appears in the primitive nature of matter as in its secondary
formations. The primitive purpose is stamped on the primitive article.
"Every molecule throughout the universe bears impressed on it the stamp
of a metric system as distinctly as does the metre of the Archives at
Paris, or the double royal cubit of the Temple of Karnac.
"No theory of evolution can be formed to account for the similarity of
molecules, for evolution necessarily implies continuous change, and the
molecule is incapable of growth or decay, of generation or destruction.
"None of the processes of Nature, since the time when Nature began, have
produced the slightest difference in the properties of any molecule. We
are therefore unable to ascribe either the existence of the molecules or
the identity of their properties to the operation of any of the causes
which we call _natural_.
"On the other hand, the exact quality of each molecule to all others of
the same kind gives it the essential character of a manufactured
article, and _precludes the idea of its being eternal and
self-existent_."[175]