Evolution and creation

by Herbert Junius Hardwicke

On the second day we are told that god created the firmament, and called it heaven, and that this firmament separated the waters above from those below, which clearly proves that the writer had no other conception of the universe than that it was limited above to the height of the clouds, and bounded below by the earth itself. The third day was set apart for the gathering together of the waters into seas and rivers, and for the creation of the vegetable kingdom, which again is contradictory of all known scientific facts, for there was still no sun in existence. At last, on the fourth day, the sun was created, as also the moon and stars, all being placed in the firmament, between the clouds and the earth, for the sole purpose of acting as lamps and marking time for this world. The writer evidently imagined that the only object of the heavenly orbs is to light up this world, to divide our day from our night, and to limit our seasons, being, apparently, ignorant of the fact that our days and seasons are regulated by the motions of the earth itself, quite irrespective of the movements of the celestial bodies. He was also clearly under the impression that the sun was, after our earth, the largest body in the universe, the moon being next, and the stars the smallest; whereas the sun is five hundred times larger than the earth and all the planets and their moons put together; while the earth is about forty nine times larger in bulk than the moon; and some of the stars are immensely larger than our sun, and all of them, moreover, suns themselves.

It is sufficiently evident from this account that the world had been in existence for three days and three nights before the sun was made, and that vegetation had in the meantime been produced, which is, we know, an absurdity. There are some ingenious individuals who have declared that this is quite possible, for there are, they say, lights that are unconnected with the sun, and that the writer evidently alluded to these faint glimmerings; but I assert confidently that, leaving out of the question the light derived from the stars, so far as we know from science, there is no light known which is not either directly produced from the sun, or a reflection of the sun’s light from some other object.

On the fifth day were created fishes, birds, and mammals in the form of whales. Now there has been so far no creation of land animals except birds, and yet the writer declares that whales were made, being clearly quite ignorant of the fact that whales are not true fishes, but mammals, belonging to the sub-kingdom Mammalia, to which belong also horses, cows, apes and men. Whales were not evolved until long after creeping animals, such as lizards, serpents, etc., and took to the water again after having been, in the parent form, long accustomed to dry land, just in the same manner as did the walrus, porpoise, sea-cow, dolphin and seal, all of which are mammals. It was not until the next (sixth) day that creeping animals were created, according to Genesis, and yet we know well enough that they slowly evolved from molluscs, or soft-bodied animals, at a very early period, ages before such species as whales and cattle existed. On the very same day, according to the narrative, god formed an androgynous, or hermaphrodite man, having two sexes, and being the fac-simile of himself. Many ancient races believed that their god was androgynous, and no doubt the writer of this account held the same opinion, regarding the good principle of the summer months, or Elohim, as a bi-sexual and reproductive deity. If this be not the correct view of the matter, it would be interesting to know which of the two sexes the god of Genesis partakes of.

On the seventh day god rested from his work; but we do not find any record of his having done anything to cause fatigue, except giving utterance to his fiat day by day.

This story is so palpably absurd as to need no argument to prove it so, were it not for the fact that certain crafty persons, seeing the utter impossibility of reconciling it with science and reason, have seen fit to invent new interpretations of the original, in order to give it an appearance of truth. One sect maintains that the days were epochs, and not ordinary days, which, if it were true, would merely augment the difficulty by making the earth to have existed, with vegetation, for ages instead of days, without the sun; but we have already seen that this theory will not hold ground for a moment.

Another more cunning class of religionists have propounded the hypothesis that the whole story is meant to be an epitome of what occurred at the origin of the universe and life, and that ordinary days were really meant, and purposely utilised to epitomise long periods of time, as was customary with ancient writers, who frequently availed themselves of poets’ licence in this manner. This theory is primâ facie a plausible one, and has, no doubt, satisfied many restless and thoughtless spirits amongst us; but in reality it differs but little, if at all, from the preceding hypothesis, both leaving us in much the same position. They declare that the very same order is maintained in the narrative as that adopted by scientists; that both agree that the earth was formed first, and then, in the following order, vegetation, fishes, birds, beasts of the field, and man. We know well enough, however, that the sun is absolutely necessary for the existence of the vegetable kingdom; that birds did not appear before reptiles and worms, but long after them; and that placental mammals made their appearance, not before creeping animals, and kangaroos, opossums and others of the marsupial species, but many ages after them.

In direct contradiction of this fable in Genesis, we learn from science that our solar system once existed in a condition of highly attenuated nebulous vapour; and that in the course of millions of years this huge chaotic mass of matter, with its sum of force or energy, subject alike to the laws of gravitation and transformation, gradually condensed, and became moulded into cosmic order, forming in process of time a number of rotating spherical nebular masses, in a state of intense heat, owing to the shock of their recently united atoms. These spheres gradually cooled by radiation, consequently contracting and becoming possessed of a more rapid rotary movement, throwing off from their equatorial regions large rings of vapour, which in their turn also condensed, and, under the influence of the same two laws, formed separate spheres for themselves. Thus gradually came into existence our sun, planets and moons.

In the course of time, as our earth cooled down, large volumes of water were precipitated on the surface, causing an enormous wear and tear of the now solid rock of the earth’s crust, which eventually gave rise to depositions of various kinds of earth grits, in layers, one above the other; which strata have been divided by geologists into periods, according to various peculiarities observed in the course of their deposition. In the earliest of these periods, owing to the gradual change that took place in the relative proportions of the atmospheric gases, and to the great decrease in temperature, a peculiar combination of the molecular atoms of the earth’s substance took place, which resulted in the formation of an albuminous substance, called protoplasm, possessing the power of absorption, assimilation, and reproduction by fission, or, in other words, developing the property called life. Under the influence of the laws of heredity and selection this primordial germ of life gradually developed into higher and still higher organic forms of existence, from Amœbæ to Gastrœada, or molluscs with mouths; next to Vermes, or worm life; then to Vertebrata, or back-boned animals; through fishes; amphibians, living both in and out of water; reptiles, from which eventually evolved birds; and marsupials; up to placental mammals, such as whales, quadrupeds, apes and men. The gradual evolution of these species occupied many millions of years before the date of the creation in Genesis (B.C. 4004), during which period the face of the earth underwent manifold and great changes.

Now, in the name of common sense and reason, does this hypothesis agree with and corroborate, as it is said to do by some divines, the 1st Bible story of creation, in any manner at all? I maintain that the man who replies in the affirmative does an injustice to his reasoning faculties and outrages the common sense of his fellows. The theory of creation is absolutely opposed to that of evolution on every point.

Now let us examine the second narrative, as given in the second and third chapters of Genesis. Here we have a direct contradiction of the story in the first chapter; for we are told that god created the earth, the heavens, vegetation and man, but not woman, all in one day. We are also told that there had been no rain upon the earth, and yet that “there went up a mist from the earth,” which we know is impossible. “But,” say the orthodox, “everything is possible with god.” The reply of the evolutionist is, “Can god, then, make a stick with one end only?” God next planted a garden, in which he placed his newly made man, after giving him instructions to eat of every tree within it, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the fruit of which was not to be touched, and the penalty of disobedience being instant death. Then, in fresh contradiction of the first narrative, beasts of the field and birds were created, after man; after which Adam, the man, named them all; but how he acquired the power of speech necessary for such a feat is not recorded. For absurdity the next part of the narrative exceeds all that has preceded it. God created cattle and birds in abundance, but yet could not manufacture a suitable partner for the man; so he adopted the strange device of taking from Adam’s body, while he slept, one of his ribs, with which he made a woman. Now it must strike every thoughtful man and woman that this act was the very acme of stupidity, for surely it would have been far easier to have created the woman at once by another fiat, or to have created a spare rib with which to make the woman. To attribute such conduct to the great author is surely the height of irreverence.