This change of the sun’s path, as the poet well knew, could be effected only by some change in the motion of the earth.
“Some say he bid the angels turn askance
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun’s axle; they with labor pushed
Oblique the centric globe.”
Next we have the effect upon the lower orders of animals described.
“Discord first,
Daughter of sin, among the irrational
Death introduced: through fierce antipathy,
Beast now with beast ’gan war, and fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,
Devoured each other.”
The question arises here, whether such views are sustained by the Bible and by science. Few, I presume, would seriously maintain that the act of our first parents, which produced what Dr. Chalmers calls “an unhingement” of the human race, resulted likewise in a change in the motion of the earth and the heavenly bodies; since the Bible so clearly describes the previous ordination of days, years, and seasons, on the fourth day of creation. And is there any thing in the language of the Bible that will justify the opinion that such changes as this theory supposes took place in the productions of the earth, and in the nature of its animals? No anatomist can surely be made to believe that, without a constant miracle, our carnivorous animals can have become herbivorous, without such a change in their organization as must have amounted to a new creation. And such a metamorphosis can hardly have passed unnoticed by the sacred writer. True, only the gramineous and herbaceous substances are in the Bible given to the inferior animals for food, while the fruits are assigned to man. But this passage seems only to be a designation of one part of vegetable productions to men, and another to other animals, and can hardly be supposed to preclude the idea that there might be other tribes requiring animal food.
The sentence pronounced upon the serpent for his agency in man’s apostasy seems, at first view, favorable to the opinion that animal natures experienced at the same time important changes; for he is supposed to have been deprived of limbs, and condemned henceforth to crawl upon the earth, and to make the dust his food. But is it the most probable interpretation of this passage, which makes the tempter a literal serpent, or only a symbolical one? The naturalist does not surely find that serpents live upon dust, for they all are carnivorous, and they are as perfectly adapted to crawl upon the ground as other animals to different modes of progression; and though cursed above all cattle, they are apparently as happy as other animals. Hence the probability is, that an evil spirit is described in Genesis under the name and figure of a serpent. This conclusion is supported by other parts of Scripture, where the tempter is in several places declared to be the devil, the old serpent, and the great dragon.
A part of the sentence passed upon man seems, also, at first view, to imply an important change in the vegetable productions of the earth; for the ground is cursed for man’s sake: it would henceforth produce to him thorns and thistles, and in the sweat of his brow must he eat of the fruits of it, all the days of his life. Now, will not the condition and character of Adam show how this curse might be fulfilled, without any change in the productions of the soil? The garden of Eden, where man had lived in his innocence, was doubtless some sunny and balmy spot, where the air was delicious, and the earth poured forth her abundant fruits spontaneously; and although he was called to keep and dress that garden, yet, with a contented and holy heart, and with no factitious wants, the work was neither labor nor sorrow. But now he is driven from that garden into regions far less fertile, where the sterile soil can be made to yield its fruits only by the sweat of the brow, and where the thorn and the thistle dispute their right of soil with salutary plants; and in his heart, too, unholy and unsubdued passions have place, which will infuse sorrow into all his labors.
As I have remarked in another place, I cannot see why the functions of animal and vegetable organization might not have gone on forever without decay and death, if such had been the Creator’s will. In other words, I do not see why the operation of the organs should at length be impeded and cease, as we know they do universally. Hence I can conceive that it might have been otherwise originally; and in the case of man it is possible, as we shall see farther on, that a change of this sort may have taken place at the time of his apostasy. But, after all, it strikes me that the Bible furnishes very clear evidence that the same system of decay and death prevailed before the apostasy which now prevails. The command given, both to animals and to man, to be fruitful and multiply, implies the removal of successive races by death; otherwise the world would ere long be overstocked. A system of death is certainly a necessary counterpart to a system of reproduction; and hence, where we know the one to exist, the presumption is very strong that the other exists also. There is no escape from this inference, except to call in the aid of miraculous power to preserve the proper balance among different races of animals, by preventing their multiplication. Such an interference I am always ready to admit, where the Scriptures assert it. But to imagine a miracle without proof, merely to escape a fair conclusion, is, to say the least, very wretched logic. God never introduces a miracle where he can employ the ordinary agency of nature for accomplishing his purposes. Nor should we resort to one without the express testimony of the Bible, which, on this subject, is our only source of evidence.
We have in Scripture the same kind of proof that plants were subject to decay and death, before the fall, as we have in respect to animals. For in the account of the creation of plants on the third day, we find them described as bearing seeds; and does not this clearly imply the same system of reproduction which now exists throughout the vegetable kingdom? In short, an unprejudiced mind, in reading the history of the world in Genesis, before and after the fall, can hardly fail of the conviction, that animals and plants were originally created on the same plan, as to reproduction, decay, and death, which now prevails. Great, indeed, must have been the change at the fall, if, previous to that time, their structure excluded all the organs and means of reproduction; as must have been the case if decay and death were also excluded. And it is strange that the sacred writer should take no notice of such a change. He states the effect of sin upon the three parties directly concerned in it, viz., the tempter, Adam, and Eve; and if a transformation of all vegetable and animal natures, great enough almost to constitute a new creation, did take place, it could hardly have been passed in silence. Even in the case of man, we have no remarkable physical change. The effect seems to have been chiefly confined to his intellectual constitution, where we should expect the effect of sin to be primarily felt. There, indeed, in man’s noblest part, has the havoc been the most terrific, and powerfully has its operation there reacted upon the body, so as to make death, in the case of man, the king of terrors.
We find, then, insuperable objections to the prevalent notion that an entire revolution took place at the fall in the material world, and especially in organic nature. Those passages of Scripture which, literally interpreted, seem to imply some changes of this sort, are easily understood as vivid figurative representations of the effects of sin upon men, while their literal interpretation would involve us in inextricable difficulties. We rest, therefore, in the conclusion, that, whatever connection there may be between death and the existing system of organic and inorganic nature, no important change took place at the time of man’s first transgression; in other Words, the present system is that which was originally determined upon in the divine mind, and not the original plan altered after man’s transgression.