Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith Part 22

The grand error of all cosmogonies lies in the arrogant a.s.sumption, on which every one of them must be founded, _that the theorist is acquainted with all substances, and all forces in the universe_, and with all the modes of their operation; not only at the present period, and on this earth, but in all past ages, and in worlds in widely different, and utterly unknown situations; for, if he be ignorant of any substance, or of any active force in the universe, his generalization is avowedly imperfect, and necessarily erroneous. That unknown force must have had its influence in framing the world. Its omission, then, is fatal to the theory which neglects it. A theory of creation, for instance, which would neglect the attraction of gravitation would be manifestly false. But there are other forces as far reaching, whose omission must be equally fatal; for instance, the power of repulsion.

A conviction of this truth has given rise to a constant effort to simplify matters down to the level of our ignorance, by reducing all substances to one, or at most two simple elements, and all forces to the form of one universal law; but the progress of science utterly blasts the attempt. Instead of simplifying matters, the very chemical processes undertaken with that view revealed new substances, and every year increases our knowledge of nature's variety. No scientific man now dreams of one primeval element. In the same way, astronomy, which, it was boasted, would enable us to account for all the operations of the universe, by reducing all motion to one mechanical law, has revealed to us the existence of other forces as far reaching as the attraction of gravitation, and more powerful; and substances whose nature and combinations are utterly unknown. But every cosmogony is just an attempt to simplify matters, by ignoring the existence of these unknown substances, and mysterious forces; a process which science condemns, as utterly unphilosophical and absurd.

Astronomy has shown us _our ignorance of the substances_, or _materials_, _of our own little globe_. It has demonstrated that the whole body of the earth must have an average density equal to iron. As the rocks near the surface are much lighter, those toward the center must be heavier than iron, to make up this density. Of what, then, do they consist? The geologist says he does not know. No geologist ever saw them. No mortal ever will see them, and report their chemical const.i.tution, their dip, and the arrangement of their strata, to the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science. The very utmost "we can say is that they are unlike anything with which we are acquainted."

Very well; then be pleased to have the decency to abstain from telling us how the world was made, when you don't know what it is made of.

The sun's heat, at its surface, is 300,000 times greater than at the surface of the earth, but a tenth of this amount, collected in the focus of a lens, dissipates gold and platinum in vapor. When the most vivid flames which we can produce are held up in the blaze of his rays, they disappear. If a cataract of icebergs, a mile high, and wider than the Atlantic Ocean, were launched into the sun with the velocity of a cannon-ball, the small portion of the sun's heat expended on our earth would convert that vast ma.s.s into steam as fast as it entered his atmosphere without cooling its surface in the least degree. "The great mystery, however, is to conceive how so enormous a conflagration (if such it be) can be kept up. Every discovery in chemical science here leaves us completely at a loss, or rather seems to remove farther the prospect of probable explanation."[212] Yet, the sun is the nearest of the fixed stars, and by far the best known, and most nearly related to us. In fact, we are dependent on his influences for life and health. But if the theorist _can not tell his substance, or the nature and cause of the light and heat he sends us_, how can he presume so far on the world's credulity as to present a theory of his formation?

"Astronomical problems acc.u.mulate unsolved upon our hands, because we can not, as mechanicians, chemists, or physiologists, experiment on the stars. Are they built of the same material as our planet? Are Saturn's rings solid, or liquid? Has the moon an atmosphere? Are the atmospheres of the planets like ours? Are the light and heat of the sun begotten of combustion? And what is the fuel which feeds these unquenchable fires?

These are questions, which we ask, and variously answer, _but leave unanswered after all_."[213] But, till he can answer these, and a thousand questions like these, let no man presume to describe the formation of these unknown orbs.

Comets const.i.tute by far the greatest number of the bodies of our solar system. Arago says seven millions frequent it, within the orbit of Ura.n.u.s.[214] They are the largest bodies known to us, stretching across hundreds of millions of miles. They approach nearer to this earth than any other bodies, sometimes even involving it in their tails, and generally exciting great alarm among its inhabitants. But the nature of the transparent luminous matter of which they are composed is utterly unknown. As they approach the sun, they come under an influence directly the opposite of attraction. The tail streams away from the sun, over a distance of millions of miles, _and yet the rate of the comet's motion toward the sun is quickened_, as though it were an immense rocket, driven forward by its own explosion.

Further, while the body of the comet travels toward the sun, sometimes with a velocity nearly one-third of that of light, the tail sends forth coruscations in the opposite direction, with a much greater velocity.

The greatest velocity with which we are acquainted on earth is the velocity of light, which travels a million of times faster than a cannon-ball, or at the rate of 195,000 miles per second; but here is a substance capable of traveling twenty-three times faster, and here is a force propelling it, twenty-three times greater than any which exists on earth. Its existence was first discovered by the coruscations of the comet of 1807. "In less than one second, streamers shot forth, to two and a half degrees in length; they as rapidly disappeared, and issued out again, sometimes in proportions, and interrupted, like our northern lights. Afterward the tail varied, both in length and breadth; and in some of the observations, the streamers shot forth from the whole expanded end of the tail, sometimes here, sometimes there, in an instant, two and a half degrees long; _so that within a single second they must have shot out a distance of 4,600,000 miles_."[215] Similar exhibitions of this unknown force were made by the comet of 1811, by Halley's comet, and several others.

In these amazing disclosures of the unknown forces of the heavens, do we not hear a voice rebuking the presumption of ignorant theorists, with the questions, Knowest _thou_ the ordinances of heaven? Canst _thou_ set the dominion thereof in the earth? Hear one of the most distinguished of modern astronomers expound the moral bearings of such a discovery: "The intimation of a new cosmical power--I mean of one so unsuspected before, but which yet can follow a planet through all its wanderings--throws us back once more into the indefinite obscure, and checks all dogmatism.

How many influences, hitherto undiscovered by our ruder senses, may be ever streaming toward us, and modifying every terrestrial action. And yet, because we had traced one of these, we have deemed our astronomy complete! Deeper far, and nearer to the root of things, is that world with which man's destiny is entwined."[216]

We can have no reason, save our own self-sufficient arrogance, to believe that the discovery of these two forces exhausts the treasures of infinite wisdom. Humboldt thus well refutes the folly of such an imagination: "The imperfectibility of all empirical science, and the boundlessness of the sphere of observation, render the task of explaining the forces of matter by that which is variable in matter, an impracticable one. What has been already perceived, by no means exhausts that which is perceptible. If, simply referring to the progress of science in our own times, we compare the imperfect physical knowledge of Robert Boyle, Gilbert, and Hales, with that of the present day, and remember that every few years are characterized by an increasing rapidity of advance, we shall be better able to imagine _the periodical and endless changes which all physical sciences are destined to undergo. New substances and new forces will be discovered._"[217]

Thus, all true science, conscious of its ignorance, ever leads the mind to the region of faith. Its first lesson, and its last lesson, is humility. It tells us that every cosmogony, which the children of theory so laboriously scratch in the sand, must be swept away by the rising tide of science. When we seek information on the great questions of our origin and destiny, and cry, "Where shall wisdom be found, and what is the place of understanding?" The high priests of science answer, in her name, "It is not in me; the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea."

We receive this honest acknowledgment as an inestimable boon. We are saved thereby the wearying labor of a vain and useless search after knowledge which lies not in her domain. We come down to the Bible with the profound conviction that science can give us no definite information of our origin, no certainty of our destiny, and but an imperfect acquaintance with the laws which govern this present world. If the Bible can not inform us on these all-important questions, we must remain ignorant. Science declares she can not teach us. The Word of G.o.d remains, not merely the best, but absolutely the only, the last resource of the anxious soul.

The Bible gives us no theory of creation. It simply a.s.serts the fact, that "In the beginning G.o.d created the heaven and the earth," but does not tell us _how_ he did so. The knowledge could be of no use to us, for he never means to employ us as his a.s.sistants in the work of creation.

Nor could we understand the matter. The force by which he called the worlds into being, and upholds them in it, exists in no creature. "He stretcheth forth the heavens alone. He spreadeth abroad the earth by himself." "He upholdeth all things by the word of his power."

But it presents anxious, careworn, humbled souls with something infinitely more precious than cosmogonies; even an explicit declaration of the love toward them of him who made these worlds.

"Thus saith the Lord, THY REDEEMER, And he who formed thee from the womb: I am the Lord, who maketh all things; Who stretcheth forth the heavens alone, And spreadeth abroad the earth, by myself."

"He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.

He telleth the number of the stars, And calleth them all by their names.

Great is our Lord, and of great power; His wisdom is infinite!"

Yes, the Creator of heaven and earth, who upholds all things by the word of his power, became a man like you, and dwelt on earth, and suffered the sorrow, the shame, the pain, the death, that sinful man deserved; and when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. From that heavenly throne his voice now sounds, reader, in your ear, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and _I will give you rest_."

FOOTNOTES:

[186] Cosmos III. 138.

[187] Herschel's Outlines, chap. xvii. sec. 887.

[188] Cosmos III. 197.

[189] Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, 9th ed. p. 180.

[190] Cosmos IV. 292.

[191] Nichol's Contemplations on the Solar System, x.x.x.

[192] Cosmos III. 253.

[193] Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, chap. xvi.

[194] _New York Evangelist_, May 5, 1870.

[195] Nichol's Architecture of the Heavens, 9th edition, 272.

[196] Pontecoulant in _System of the World_, p. 70.

[197] Progress of Astronomy, 70.

[198] Memoirs of the French Academy, by M. Le Verrier; from _The Annual of Scientific Discovery_, for 1855, p. 376.

[199] Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, p. 558, ed. of 1853.

[200] Ill.u.s.trations of Universal Progress, page 298.

[201] Fragments of Science and Scientific Thought, p. 163.

[202] Ill.u.s.trations of Progress, page 292.

[203] Ill.u.s.trations of Progress, page 34.

[204] The Earth, page 256.

[205] Taylor's Scientific Memoirs, Vol. V., cited in McCosh's Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, p. 403.

[206] Opening Address to the British a.s.sociation, 1845.

[207] Taking water as the unit of density, Mercury is 6.71; Venus, 5.11; Earth, 5.44; Mars, 5.21; Saturn, 0.76; Ura.n.u.s, 0.97; Neptune, 1.25; the Sun, 1.37.--Cosmos IV. p. 447.

[208] Newton's Optics, IV. p. 438.

[209] Cosmos, IV. p. 425.

[210] Cosmos, III. p. 28.

[211] More Worlds Than One, p. 45.

[212] Herschel's Outlines, VI. Sect. 400.

[213] Dr. George Wilson, F. R. S. E., in Edinburgh Phil. Journal, V. p.

53.