Another doctrine yet more extreme severs all connection between nature and an intelligent Power above and over her, and thus makes her supreme in her domain. This is so far Atheism—ruling God out from at least the entire material universe.——Yet, again; to make nature herself intelligent—to ascribe to nature whatever traces of design appear in her operations, and to hold that nature is herself the universe, undistinguishable from any higher spiritual power, is Pantheism.——It is therefore important to define nature so that her true relations to the Supreme Intelligence—the very God—Creator and Lord of the universe—shall be distinctly seen and reverently recognized.
The advocates of extreme naturalism have labored faithfully to verify their doctrine by experiment. They have put Nature to task—not to say torture—to compel her to originate life. Pushing their chemical analysis of those forms of matter in which life is thought specially to reside, they flatter themselves that they have at last got their hands on the very elements which, brought together, make life, viz. carbonic acid, ammonia, and water, chemically combined. To this compound they give the name, “protoplasm.” They have found, they say, that where life is there is protoplasm, its home and dwelling-place at least; and that life never appears lodging in any other home. They can not see that the presence of life adds any thing to this compound, or that its absence takes any thing away. Therefore they are sure they have found what makes life.
Now the skillful chemist in his laboratory has not the least difficulty in providing himself with carbonic acid, ammonia, and water. Why then does he not evolve the long-sought-for life-force and prove his doctrine, past all doubt? Let him bring out new beings, new forms of life, vegetable or animal or both, in ample diversity, for the range is unlimited. Let his laboratory push forth into being such troops of offspring as will forever confound gainsayers and prove that Nature, properly manipulated, is equal to the production of life-forces in endless variety and abundance.
Have any modern scientists done this? Not yet. Have they made any approximation toward it? Mr. Huxley thinks he has come so near to it that if he could only have at his service the favorable conditions of the very earliest state of matter, he should succeed. “If it were given me (says he) to look beyond the abyss of geologically-recorded time to the still more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and chemical conditions which it can no more see again than a man can recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living protoplasm from not living matter.That is the expectation to which analogical reasoning leads me.”[2]——“Not living matter evolving living protoplasm” means that matter itself, dead matter, begets real life. Nature would thus become herself a creator, exercising the most decisive functions of the Infinite God. Mr. Huxley can not make Nature do this exploit in the present state of this world or of the universe; but he fully believes there was a time when he should have seen it if he had been there! This is his proof of the new doctrine. He will not presume to “call it any thing but an act of philosophic faith.”
3. The sense of the word “day” as used in Gen. I. of the six days of creation.
To simplify the subject I make the single issue—Is it a period of twenty-four hours, or a period of special character, indefinitely long? The latter theory supposes the word to refer here not so much to duration as to special character—the sort of work done and the changes produced during the period contemplated.
Turning our attention to this latter theory, we raise three leading inquiries:
(1.) Do the laws of language and, specially, does the usage of the word “day” permit it?
(2.) Apart from the bearing of geological facts, are there points in the narrative itself which demand or even favor this sense of the word?
(3.) What are the geological facts bearing on this question, and what weight may legitimately be accorded to them?