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., 14.
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.
1. 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 debris 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."[140]
2. 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.
3. 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.[141]
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.
4. 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.[142]
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, |Algae.
PRIMARY | | Echinodermata |
OR | | (Cystideans). |
PALAEOZOIC| |_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 |Algae.
| | (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
algae or sea-weeds. In the Palaeozoic 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.
5. 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 12,000
square miles, and must have an average depth of about 800 feet. At the
present rate of conveyance of sediment by the river, it has been
calculated that a period of about 33,000 years is implied in the
deposition of this comparatively modern formation.[143] To be quite
safe, let us take 30,000 years, and add 50,000 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
Palaeozoic period was three times as long as the Mesozoic and Tertiary
together. This would give altogether, say, 51,280,000 years for the
whole of geological time from the beginning of the Palaeozoic, 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.[144] 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 100. About 100 forests have
successively grown, partially decayed, and been entombed in muddy and
sandy sediment. In the same section, including in all about 14,000
feet of beds, there are 76 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 Palaeozoic 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 6000 years. That of the Ganges gives one foot in 2358 years,
the average being, say, one foot in 4179 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.[145] If we estimate the proportion of
land to water as 576 to 1390, this will give for the entire area of
the ocean a rate of deposition of one foot in 14,400 years. Now the
entire thickness of all the stratified rocks is estimated at 72,000
feet; and at this rate the enormous time of 1,036,800,000 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 11,650,000 square miles, consequently only one twelfth of the
above time, or about 86,400,000 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 80,000 years ago for the date of the Glacial
period, and for the beginning of the Tertiary period about 3,000,000
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.
6. 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 Palaeozoic 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.
7. 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 Palaeozoic 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.[146]
8. 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 palaeontologists.
Pictet says, in the introduction to his "Traite de Paleontologie:" "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 1856, as
summarized in a notice of the work in the Journal of the Geological
Society:
"1. 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.
"2. 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.
"3. 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.
"4. 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.
"5. 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.
"6. 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.
"7. 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 palaeontologist 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,[147] 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--1. That the materials of our existing continents are of secondary
origin, as distinguished from primitive or coeval with the beginning.
2. That a chronological order of formation of these rocks can be made
out. 3. That the fossil remains contained in the rocks constitute a
chronology of animal and vegetable existence. 4. That the history of
the earth may be divided in this way into distinct periods, all
pre-Adamite. 5. That the pre-Adamite periods were of enormous
duration. 6. 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. 7. 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:
1. 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.[148]
2. 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 Palaeozoic 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 Palaeozoic
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.
3. 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."
4. 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 Palaeozoic 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 330, 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 AEONS. | 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 |Palaeozoic 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." |
[149] |
======================================================================
_Note._--The above table is identical with that published in "Archaia"
in 1860, and which the author sees no reason now to change.
5. 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 Palaeozoic, 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 Palaeozoic 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.
6. 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 Palaeozoic 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.
7. 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.
8. 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,[150] "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 palaeontological 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 palaeontology, 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 1875 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 palaeontologists 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:
"1. 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.
"2. 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.
"3. 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.
"4. 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.
"5. 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.
"6. 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.
"7. 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.
"8. 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.
"9. 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.
"10. Palaeontology 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.
"11. 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 palaeontology 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."