Sec. 40. Proposition 7. Human Skeleton is a Special Creation
Human bones are composed of ten chemical elements, namely: carbon, chlorin, hydrogen, lime, magnesium, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sodium and sulphur. As found in the bones, these elements are grouped into the five chemical combinations, following: phosphate of lime, carbonate of lime, carbonate of soda, chloride of soda, and gelatin.
There are eight bones in the cranium, fourteen in the face and six in the ears, making twenty-eight in the skull, besides the thirty-two teeth. (Encyc. Brit. (9 ed.) vol. 1, p. 822.) In the infant there are thirty-three vertebræ (joints) in the spinal column, namely: seven cervical, in the neck; twelve dorsal, in the back; five lumbar, in the small of the back; five sacral, in the sacrum; and four coccygeal, in the coccyx. But in the adult, there are only twenty-six, the five sacral joints having fused into one bone, and the four in the coccyx having fused into another; these two and the twenty-four regular vertebræ (joints) making twenty-six. (Same book, p. 820.) In the chest there are twelve pairs of ribs, the sternum or breast bone and the hyoid or tongue bone, twenty-six in all. (Same book, p. 822.) Each arm and hand, including the scapula or shoulder blade, consists of thirty-two bones, making sixty-four in the two arms and hands. In each leg and foot, including the bones of the pelvis, there are thirty-one bones, making sixty-two in the pelvis, legs and feet. So that the adult human skeleton consists of two hundred and six bones, besides the thirty-two teeth. (Johnson’s Universal Cyclopedia, 7, p. 553.)
The same book, (p. 533) says:
“At birth their number is 278; at the age of twenty-five, 224; in advanced old age, 194. About 660 segments are needed in the formation of the 206 bones.”
In another place it says:
“Thus, the thigh bone or femur represents the fusion of at least five distinct segments, the union not being fully completed until about the twentieth year.” (Same book, p. 553, column 1.)
There is no bone in the fertilized ovum; therefore each skeleton and each bone is produced anew; that is, it grows anew for itself. No two bones are exactly alike. In the case of pairs similar bones are on opposite sides of the body, thus half the ribs, one arm, hand, leg, and foot are on each side of the body. Each of the twenty-four regular joints in the spinal column is similar to every other joint except the atlas. But, beginning at the top and going downward, each joint is smaller than the one next below it.
The bones of the skeleton have pores, foraminæ (holes), cavities, processes, joints and sutures. Some of them are long, others short, broad and irregular. Each is attached to one or more other bones by a joint or a suture. Each is adjusted to, and correlated with every other, in structure, form, size and function. The bones in the infant body grow inside of it and while in the mother’s womb. There is no model present by which to make it.
Who determines at what points in the embryo body these two hundred and seventy-eight bones shall be built up? Who ordains that there shall be twenty-two in the skull, thirty-three in the spinal column, etc.? Who fixes the structure, form, and size of each bone? Who adjusts and correlates each bone in the skeleton to every other? Who counts them? Who guides and controls the forces and motions that build up the skeleton, in such a manner that the bones on the right side have the same structure, form and size as those on the left? How does it happen that the bones on the right side are the reverse of those on the left? How does it happen that each human skeleton is exactly like every other. Who fixes nine months as the time in which the infant skeleton shall mature sufficiently for birth?
The father contributes the spermatozoön and the mother the ovum; these two cells fuse into the germ-cell (fertilized ovum), which is composed of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, with a possible trace of phosphorus and sulphur. Whatever qualities, characteristics, traits and potentialities pass from the parents to the child must necessarily be transmitted by and through the germ-cell (or fertilized ovum), for nothing else passes from the parents to the child. This cell is about the size of one-sixth of a common pin’s head; and is barely visible to the naked eye under the most favorable conditions. It has no intellect, memory nor will-power; no knowledge of anatomy, nor of the human body.
It is immediately divided into two daughter-cells, these into four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two and so on to infinity. Thus, it appears that the infinitesimal fertilized ovum is soon disintegrated, divided into millions of pieces and distributed among the new cells which are made from the food of the mother.
It is impossible to believe that the minute fertilized ovum when divided into a million pieces, selects the atoms, generates, guides and controls the forces and motions which build up the two hundred and seventy-eight bones in the infant body. It is preposterous to suppose that the millionth part of the germ-cell can determine the point in the embryo body, in which the skull bones, the ear bones, the spinal column, the arm-buds, leg-buds, etc., shall appear. Nor can we believe that this little cell or any of its daughter-cells can spontaneously and automatically produce any of the vital phenomena, manifested by the human skeleton.
Every one knows that neither the father nor the mother has any voluntary power, nor any control over the development and growth of the embryo.
Does the embryo develop and grow by accident or chance? Surely not; for each embryo develops and grows precisely as every other does, in every age and country, thus showing that the same ubiquitous creative force makes all of them.
“We must not assume any original creation, nor repeated creations,” says Haeckel, “to explain this, but a natural, continuous and necessary evolution.” (Evolution of Man, p. 26.) He argues that there is no personal God.
Writing in the Encyclopedia Britannica (vol. 8, p. 746, 9 ed.) Professor Huxley says:
“No exception is, at this time, known to the general law, established upon an immense multitude of direct observations, that every living thing is evolved from a particle of matter, in which no trace of the distinctive characters of the adult form of that living thing is discernible. This particle is termed a germ.…
“The definition of a germ as ‘matter potentially alive, and having, within itself, the tendency to assume a definite living form,’ appears to meet all the requirements of modern science … And the qualification of ‘potential’ has the advantage of reminding us that the great characteristic of the germ is not so much what it is, but what it may, under suitable conditions, become.…
“In all cases, the process of evolution consists in a succession of changes of the form, structure and functions of the germ by which it passes, step by step, from an extreme simplicity, or relative homogeneity, of visible structure to a greater or less degree of complexity or heterogeneity; and the course of progressive differentiation is generally accompanied by growth, which is effected by intussusception,” [interstitial deposit.]
“… And so far from the fully developed organism’s being simply the germ plus the nutriment, which it has absorbed, it is probable that the adult contains neither in form, nor in substance, more than an inappreciable fraction of the constituents of the germ, and that it is almost wholly made up of assimilated and metamorphosed nutriment.”
This being true, it cannot be said that the germ (fertilized ovum) ever develops into a man or woman. On the contrary it is annihilated; and its identity is wholly lost among the daughter-cells which are made of the mother’s food.
Herbert Spencer invented what he calls “physiological units” or “constitutional units,” and “structural proclivity.” But neither he nor any other man ever saw one of these “units,” they being wholly imaginary. In his Principles of Biology (vol. 1, p. 368) under “Genesis, heredity and variation,” he says:
“So that though all parts are composed of physiological units of the same nature, yet everywhere, in virtue of local conditions and the influence of its neighbors, each unit joins in forming a particular structure appropriate to its place.”
Could anything be more absurd?
For Spencer’s view of “physiological units” and “structural proclivity” see Principles of Biology 1, pp. 226, 361, 362, 365, 368, 372, and vol. 2, pp. 612-618.
The effect of the above quotations is that the atoms and cells of which the embryo body is composed, do spontaneously and automatically assemble and group themselves into the chemical combinations and mechanical arrangements, which are necessary to build up the human body, without the aid of any extraneous psychic or creative force whatever. This is necessarily the theory of the evolutionist and materialist; for they deny that there was ever any such thing as special creation. Besides, every one knows that neither the father nor the mother has any power, nor any control over the development and growth of the embryo.
It follows that the blind, unthinking, fertilized ovum and daughter-cells arising from it, spontaneously and automatically assemble themselves together in the form of the two hundred and seventy-eight bones of the embryo skeleton; or that the Creator generates, guides, and controls the forces and motions which build up the embryo body. Which theory is most plausible?
We cannot even imagine the dead atoms of carbon, chlorine, hydrogen, lime, etc., which compose the bones, assemble and group themselves into the twenty-two bones of the skull; nor into the thirty-three joints of the spinal column; nor into the bones of the arms, hands, legs and feet with all their pores, foraminæ, cavities, processes, joints and sutures.
But the evolutionist says that “heredity” produces the embryo; and another says “nature” does this wonderful work. I reply that whatever “heredity” and “nature” may do toward the production of the embryo must necessarily be done by and through the fertilized ovum, and I have already argued that this little atom is powerless to do any such thing. See [index], infra, “Heredity.”
Each bone in the skeleton, and all of them as a whole, testify that they were designed and made by the Creator!