they shone with a light of their own? "And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," I have met with no form of the nebular hypothesis which involves anything analogous to this process.
I have said enough to explain some of the difficulties which arise in my mind when I try to ascertain whether there is any foundation for the contention that the statements contained in the first two verses of Genesis are supported by the nebular hypothesis. The result does not appear to me to be exactly favorable to that contention. The nebular hypothesis assumes the existence of matter having definite properties as its foundation. Whether such matter was created a few thousand years ago, or whether it has existed through an eternal series of metamorphoses of which our present universe is only the last stage, are alternatives, neither of which is scientifically untenable, and neither scientifically demonstrable. But science knows nothing of any stage in which the universe could be said, in other than a metaphorical and popular sense, to be formless or empty, or in any respect less the seat of law and order than it is now. One might as well talk of a fresh laid hen's egg being "without form and void," because the chick therein is potential and not actual, as apply such terms to the nebulous mass which contains a potential solar system.
Until some further enlightenment comes to me, then, I confess myself wholly unable to understand the way in which the nebular hypothesis is to be converted into an ally of the "Mosaic writer."[1]
But Mr. Gladstone informs us that Professor Dana and Professor Guyot are prepared to prove that the "first or cosmogonical portion of the Proem not only accords with but teaches the nebular hypothesis."[2]
- ↑ In looking through the delightful volume recently published by the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, a day or two ago, I find the following remarks on the nebular hypothesis, which I should have been glad to quote in my text if I had known them sooner: "Nor can it be ever more than a speculation; it can not be established by observation, nor can it be proved by calculation. It is merely a conjecture, more or less plausible, but perhaps, in some degree, necessarily true, if our present laws of heat, as we understand them, admit of the extreme application here required, and if the present order of things has reigned for sufficient time without the intervention of any influence at present known to us."—"The Story of the Heavens," p. 506. Would any prudent advocate base a plea, either for or against revelation, upon the coincidence, or want of coincidence, of the declarations of the latter with the requirements of an hypothesis thus guardedly dealt with by an astronomical expert?
- ↑ Postscript to article on "Proem to Genesis" (published in "Popular Science Monthly" for March, 1886).—I learn with satisfaction that in America, where the stores of geological knowledge have been so greatly enlarged, the business of the reconciler has been taken into the hands of scientists: Dr. Dana, Professor of Geology in Yale College, and Dr. Arnold Guyot, Professor of Geology and Physical Geography in New Jersey College. Both of these authorities, it appears, have adhered through a long career, and now adhere with increased confidence, to the idea of a substantial harmony between science and the Mosaic text. Professor Dana's latest tract has recently appeared in the "Bibliotheca Sacra" for April, 1885. Hie thinks the evidence doubtful as to the priority of birds over the low or marsupian mammals (p. 214); but strong for an abundant early
