The course of creation

by John Anderson

The magnificent work of creation, whose course we have been tracing in some of its primordial arrangements, in the geological phenomena of the earth’s crust, and in its relations to the vast planetary system of which it is a member, is the result over all of design and intelligence. The changes wrought in the earth’s structure and framework, from period to period, have not been brought about by merely mechanical changes of physical conditions. There are order and method in the inorganic, no less than in the organic forms, into which matter in any of the earth’s revolutions has been cast. There is prospective contrivance each for each. The alterations made in the outward surface, whether of sea or land, have been always such as were best adapted to the habits and requirements of successive living tribes. And the whole amount of change, in both departments of nature, has ever been in such measure and degree as to show, from the beginning, a persistent principle of stability in the system, and a wise, all-controlling arm to be regulating and directing everything. The invisible things of God, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen; and we cannot, if we would, rid ourselves of the thought, that somewhere and beyond, there is, not a “primitive cause”[18] only, but a Divine Being, the master of the universe, potentially in and present through all things.

Aristotle concludes his treatise “De Mundo,” with observing, that to treat of the world without saying anything of its Author would be impious, and he proceeds to show, on various grounds, the traces of an all-governing Deity. Newton concludes his great work, the “Principia,” by some reflections on the nature of the Supreme Cause, and infers from the structure of the visible world, “that it is governed by one almighty and all-wise Being, who rules the world, not as its soul, but as its Lord, exercising an absolute sovereignty over the universe, not as over his own body, but as over his work; and acting in it according to his pleasure, without suffering anything from it.” Speaking of the laws by which God governs the world, and giving his definition of the term Law, Boyle says, “I look upon a law as a moral, not physical cause, as being, indeed, but a rational thing, according to which an intelligent and free agent is bound to regulate its actions. But inanimate bodies are utterly incapable of understanding what it is, or what it enjoins, or when they act conformably or unconformably to it: therefore, the actions of inanimate bodies, which cannot incite or moderate their own actions, are produced by real power, not by laws.” “Hence,” says Whewell, in his Bridgewater Treatise, “hence we infer that the intelligence by which the law is ordained, the power by which it is put in action, must be present at all times, and in all places where the effects of the law occur: that thus the knowledge and the agency of the Divine Being pervade every portion of the universe, producing all action and passion, all permanence and change. The laws of nature are the laws which He, in his wisdom, prescribes to his own acts; his universal presence is the necessary condition of any course of events, his universal agency the only origin of any efficient force.”

The researches of science, the deeper they go into the secrets of nature, issue in the surest and brightest disclosures of the Divine Architect of the universe. We are enabled, by the lights which are furnished by the various branches of ascertained knowledge, to read in some degree the mind and purpose of God in the creations of his hand. We see in many instances what is actually intended by certain arrangements and combinations,—why, and for what end, objects are constructed in a particular way, and how it is that trains of events are made to follow in one uniform order rather than in any other. The universe, we discover, is not only bound by laws permanent and unchanging: the laws themselves have an end to serve, a particular result to accomplish. Accumulations of matter are brought together with a definite precise view; living substances are constructed with organs suited to their conditions of existence; relations of air, earth, and water, are established, which nicely answer the functions to be performed; and in ten thousands of cases are manifested the form, size, position, qualities of hardness, softness, and cohesion in the individual parts which can best secure their own special well-being along with the general conservation of the framework to which they are attached. How admirably, from age to age, do the organic as well as the inorganic structures of the geological narrative illustrate the truth of these remarks, where the manifestations of design are as numerous as the objects of creation, and as legible as if God had written their import by his own finger? The oldest, equally with the newest, book of nature, discloses the records of his will. We read them in the varied language traced and stereotyped upon their stony leaves. And in perusing the diversified contents of this wonderful volume, we cannot rise without the conviction that the being, attributes, and character of its Author, are brightly and indelibly impressed on every page.

The argument for the existence of a designing agent in the creation and arrangements of a material world, may be thus illustrated: A rude, unshapely piece of stone—say the “stone upon the heath”—does not at once impress the spectator with the conviction that it was made and placed where it is, by a designing intelligent being. But let it be chiseled into form, give it symmetry and proportion, and he immediately concludes that this is the result of skill and intention. Look at a piece of machinery—its framework of wood—its springs of iron—its wheels, beams and axles, composed of different metals, and arranged in different forms—and the inference is irresistible, that neither the forest, nor the quarry, nor the mine, yielded the materials in their present shape, nor combined among themselves to put them together.—Reason seeks for a different kind of agency, and experience tells that the mind and the hand of man have been there. We see water converted into steam, the steam brought into contact with a piece of metal, the vapor confined within an inclosure and acted upon by a condenser; and through means of this simple arrangement and the application of this natural power, duly regulated and sustained, we discern the triumph of mind over matter—the marvels which human industry and intelligence have been able to achieve. This combination of materials is not a thing of life.—Chance has produced none of these arrangements. The whole is the result of design, of aiming intention, of calculating intelligence. Examine the telescope, its apparatus of lenses, reflectors, and mirrors: look through that narrow tube as it is pointed in a clear starry night to the azure vault; and your shout of astonishment, when you first behold the increased magnitude of these orbs—their separation into systems and clusters—firmaments ascending in gradations of brilliancy, one above another—and the infinitely remote, studded and glowing with higher and higher galaxies—will partake of a mingled feeling of admiration at the immensity and grandeur of the universe—the wisdom and skill which combined to frame the instrument that brings within your ken, and enables you to gaze on, the glorious vision.

Now, in nature, we find the same indications of design, the same surprising combinations of skill, instruments framed with matchless wisdom and the most exquisite contrivance. Nay, all here, in every department of creation, leaves human ingenuity at an immeasurable distance. No statuary can rival that which is exhibited in the rocks, gems, and crystals of the earth. Machinery is transcendently surpassed, in the forms of every organic thing beneath or around, in minuteness, adaptation, and balancing of parts,—the steam-engine in energy and power—the ship by a more refined and skillful equipment of ropes, pulleys, and sails—and the telescope is not for a moment to be compared with the human eye in the beauty of its construction, the power of its movements, the amazing swiftness and variety of its glance.—But there is design and intelligence manifested in the works of man. They could not arrange themselves. They must have had an artificer. Draw near, look unto the works of creation, what cumulative evidence of their intelligent author, conclusive as the severest demonstrations of science. Man asks for a sign from heaven. Ten thousand intimations are given—millions, indeed, of miraculous contrivances meet him in every department of the universe.

This earth, however, is not an isolated body in the universe; it forms one of a system of worlds, and its geological history cannot be regarded as complete until we have viewed it in some of its more extended relations. The course of creation is traced in the planetary system, a series of masses of matter assuming one form, moving in one plane, following in one orbital path, revolving around a common center, enlightened and warmed by a common sun, and obedient, one and all, to the same great law of gravitation. The mighty problem of the universe has been solved upon the simple assumption, that a piece of our earth is like a piece of the other planets; that the properties of matter here are as the properties of matter above; and as the laws of motion and attraction below, so are they on high, and throughout infinite space. Astronomy thus derives all its achievements as a science from the earth, and the cause of the motions of the heavenly orbs is ascertained from experiments on the matter of the earth, which first led to the knowledge of regular dynamical laws. The field of astronomical research, in consequence, is not only the most wonderful, but it is also that in which our knowledge is the most accurate. Distant and infinitely remote as are the objects of the science, there is yet in no other department of natural philosophy results of investigation so completely satisfactory. With the precision of geometry, and the minute accuracy of numbers, the astronomer calculates the particular place of every one of the bodies of the solar system, at any particular hour and moment of the day. He determines the precise rate of their motions, and positions which they occupied in relation to the earth, in every past period of their history however remote, and even corrects the notations of former observers. He shows their relative distances, weights, dimensions, and influences upon one another; estimates the length of their days and years, eccentricities and perturbations; and describes the orbits in which they severally move, in their steady unwearied march through the heavens.—The undeniable effect of results like these, is to impress deeper upon the inquiring mind the conviction of foresight, method, and design in the vast system of which the earth is but a part; and as the earth gives lead to, and indicates some of the first lessons in, astronomy, so we derive in return a fuller knowledge of its various relations and past history than its own single geological tables can unfold.

When we proceed to speculate about the manner of Deity’s actings, difficulties at once meet us in every quarter, partly from our utter incapacity to comprehend and partly from the imperfections of human language to express—even were our comprehension adequate to the task—the essential qualities of Deity himself. As the anima mundi, the ancients represented the Divine Being, as both the active and self-moving principle in nature, and likewise as passive, and acted upon by the external world. Newton, in order to express his idea of the Divine omnipresence, employed the term sensorium, as denoting the mode in which he was enabled to perceive whatever passed in space fully and intimately. And while nothing was farther from the mind of the great philosopher than the ascription of bodily organs to the Divinity, he had to defend himself from much bitter and vehement controversy in consequence. Equally liable to misrepresentation, and from the sane cause—the imperfection of language—was the manner in which Newton spoke of the eternity or infinity of the Supreme Being, as if he regarded him as present in all parts of time and space by diffusion: whereas his notion simply was, that since He is necessarily and essentially present in all parts of space and duration, space and duration must also necessarily exist. Durat semper, et adest ubique, et existendo semper et ubique, durationem et spatium constituit,—is the tenet which he held.

No less difficult is it to express correctly the inference which we may legitimately deduce of the personality of the Godhead from the works and course of creation. And yet the idea is immediately consequent upon the conviction of a Divine existence, and is inseparable from it. The conception of both is necessarily involved in the same process of thought. Wherever we trace the actings of mind or of intelligence, the impress of design or the operations of a discriminating, discerning cause, reference is at one and the same instant made to a distinct personal subsistence. Power, wisdom, and goodness, may, indeed, be regarded in one way as abstract qualities. We can reason about them, and hold them up to our contemplation, as something distinct or different from the bodies in which they reside. Hence all our speculations respecting the laws of nature, the primary and secondary qualities of matter, the relations of cause and effect, to which principle of abstraction in man the various sciences owe their origin. The inductive philosophy is entirely built upon it. The creations of poetry, the peopling of the streams, groves, and mountains, with the ideal impersonations of fancy, are derived from the same source; while, by lifting us above the dominion of mere sense and attention to our physical wants, our spiritual energies are thereby awakened, and the soul enabled by its own inner visions to hold communings with new worlds, and to anticipate a new life.

But the principle of abstraction does not stop here. It both separates and combines. While it deals with the inferior manifestations of ideal qualities, it unites and embodies into one—links the universe to its Creator—represents him as the cause of all causes, the source of all power, and the fountain of all life; out of whose boundless, illimitable essence is the efflux of all being and existence. The ancients erroneously clothed their conceptions of Godhead in human shape, and multiplied the number of divinities to accord to the varieties of human passion, making gods many, as there were principles of good or evil in their own hearts; but still their superstition had a reality and foundation in nature. Their mythology had its origin in a true, though corrupted, theism; and giving form and locality to their numerous divinities, they but obeyed the dictates of that sentiment of the inner man, which, in unison with the voice of all creation, proclaims the existence of a Being whose personal subsistence and personal superintendence we necessarily associate with the laws and management of nature. He is there among his works, their Director as well as author.