Sophereus. Let us see about this. Let us discard all idea of the source from which Moses received his information of the occurrences which he relates, and put his account upon the same level with Plato's description of the origin of animals, and with the Darwinian or Spencerian theory of that origin; regarding all three of them, that is to say, as mere hypotheses. Whatever may be the supposed conflict between the Mosaic account of the creation and the conclusions of geologists concerning the periods during which the earth may have become formed as we now find it, the question is, on the one hand, whether the Hebrew historian's account of the process of creation is a conception substantially the same as that at which we should have arrived from a study of Nature if we had never had that account transmitted to us from a period when the traditions of mankind were taking the shapes in which they have reached us from different sources; or whether, on the other hand, it is so "grossly anthropomorphic" and absurd that it is not worthy of any consideration as an occurrence that it will bear the slightest test of scientific scrutiny. Let any one take the Mosaic narrative, and, divesting himself of all influence of supposed inspiration or divine authority speaking through the chosen servant of God, and disregarding the meaning of those obscure statements which divide the stages of the work into the first and the second "day," etc., let him follow out the order in which the Creator is said by Moses to have acted. He will find in the narrative an immense condensation, highly figurative expressions, and many elliptical passages. But he will also find that the Creator is described as proceeding in the exertion of his omnipotent power in a manner which we should be very likely to deduce from a study of his works without this narrative. We have, first, the reduction of the earth from its chaotic condition—"without form and void"—to the separation of its elemental substances; then the creation of light; the separation of earth and water; the productive capacity of the dry land; the establishment of the vegetable kingdom, each product "after its kind"; the formation of the heavenly bodies as lights in the firmament, to make the division of day and night, seasons and years. It is obviously immaterial, so far as this order of the work is concerned, down to the stage when the formation of the first animals took place, in what length of time this first stage of the work was accomplished; whether it was done by an Omnipotence that could speak things into existence by a word, or whether the process was carried on through periods of time of which we can have no measure, and by the operation of infinitely slow-moving agencies selected and employed for the accomplishment of a certain result. Confining our attention to the first stage of the work as we find it described, we have the formation of the earth, light, air, the heavenly bodies, alternations of day and night, seasons and years, and the vegetable kingdom, before any animal creation. We then come to the formation of animals which are to inhabit this convenient abode, and which are described as taking place in the following order: first the water animals, the fowls of the air, and the beasts of the field, "each after its kind"; then, and finally, the creation of man. Respecting his creation, we are told that it was the purpose of the Almighty to make a being after a very different "image" from that of any other creature on the earth; and whatever may be the true interpretation of the language employed, whether man was created literally "in our image, after our likeness," or according to an image and a likeness of which his Creator had conceived, there can be no doubt that what Moses described as the purpose of God was to make a being differing absolutely from all the other animals by a broad line of demarkation which is perfectly discoverable through all the resemblances that obtain between him and all the other living creatures. To this new being there was given, we are told, dominion over all the other animals, and the fruits of the earth were assigned to him for food; he was formed out of the dust of the earth, the breath of life was breathed into his nostrils, and he became "a living soul." Let us now see if this statement of the creation of man is so "grossly anthropomorphic" as is supposed. You are aware that Buffon, who was certainly no mean naturalist or philosopher, and who was uninfluenced by the idea that the book of Genesis was an inspired production, reached the conclusion that a study of nature renders the order of man's creation as described by Moses a substantially true hypothesis. "We are persuaded," said Buffon, "independently of the authority of the sacred books, that man was created last, and that he only came to wield the scepter of the earth when that earth was found worthy of his sway."[112] You evolutionists will say that this may be very true upon your hypothesis of his gradual development out of other animals, through untold periods of time. But now let us see whether Moses was so grossly unscientific, upon the supposition that God created man as he describes. If man was created, or molded, by the Deity, he was formed, in his physical structure, out of matter; and all matter may be figuratively and even scientifically described as "the dust of the earth," or as "clay," or by any other term that will give an idea of a substance that was not spirit. If Moses had said that man's body was formed out of the constituent elements of matter, or some of them, he would have said nothing that a modern believer in special creations need shrink from, for he would have stated an indisputable fact. He stated in one form of expression the very same fact that a modern scientist would have to state in another form, whatever might have been the mode, or the power, or the time in or by which the constituent elements were brought together and molded into the human body. So that the derisive figure of God taking clay and molding it into the human form, as a potter would mold a vessel, does not strike me as presenting any proof that the account given by Moses is so destitute of scientific accuracy, or as rendering his statements a ridiculous hypothesis.
Kosmicos. Well, then, it comes at last to this: that you consider the substance of the Mosaic account of the creation, independent of its authority as an inspired statement, to be entitled to stand as a hypothesis against the explanations given to us by the scientists of the great modern school of evolution, notwithstanding those explanations are in one form or another now accepted by the most advanced scientific thinkers and explorers?
Sophereus. I certainly do. But understand me explicitly. As, after my study of the probable origin of the solar system, and our discussion of that subject, I expressed my conclusion that the phenomena called for and manifested the exercise of a formative will by some acts of special creation, so now, in reference to the animal kingdom, I have reached the same conclusion, for reasons which I have endeavored to assign. I can see that the operation of the process which you call evolution may have caused certain limited modifications in the structure and habits of life of different animals; or rather, that limited modifications of structure and habits of life have occurred, and hence you deduce what you call the process of evolution. But to me this entirely fails to account for, or to suggest a rational explanation of, the distinct existence of species, their division into male and female, and the establishment of the laws of procreation by which individuals of a species are multiplied—a process which does not admit of the production of individuals of an essentially different type from the parents, and which, so far as we have any means of knowledge, has never commenced in one species and ended in another, in any length of time that can be imagined, or through any series of modifications.
Kosmicos. Let us postpone the farther discussion of the origin of species to some future time, when I will endeavor to convince you that both Darwin and Spencer have satisfactorily accounted for them.
Sophereus. Very well; I shall be glad to be enlightened.
THE SINGLE-CELL HYPOTHESIS.
Note.—It will readily occur to the reader that Sophereus might most pertinently have asked: Whence did the primal cell originate? It is conceived of as the ultimate unit of organizable matter; invisible to the naked eye, perhaps incapable of being reached by the microscope, but consisting of an infinitesimally small portion of matter, more or less organized in itself, and possessing a capacity to unite with itself other minute particles of matter, and so to form larger aggregates of molecules. The hypothesis is, that this single cell has given origin to all animated organisms, and, through an indefinite series of such organisms, to the human race. The single cell, then, having this capacity and this extraordinary destiny, was either the first and only one of its kind, or it was one of many of the same kind. If we select any supposed point of time in the far antecedent history of matter, the question may be asked whether there existed at first but one such cell, or many. If there were many of such cells, how came they to exist? If one only was selected out of many, for this extraordinary destiny of giving origin to all the animated organisms, who or what made the selection for this transcendent office of the one cell? If there never was but one such cell, how did it come to exist? As these questions are clearly pertinent, the effort to answer them inevitably conducts us to the idea of creation, or else to the conclusion that the numerous cells and the selected one had no origin; that the selection was not made, but was accidental; or that the one cell, if there never was but one, was not a created thing. Human reason can not accept this conclusion.