The theory of the formation of worlds from Nebulae is not only endorsed by Sir Robert Ball but he states his belief that the same theory is carried out upon earth in the formation of life according to the plan of Darwin. To quote his words, Darwin “has shown that the evolution of the lifeless earth from nebulae is but the prelude of an organic evolution of still greater interest and complexity.” And further: “Can it be possible that the wondrous and complex phenomena known as life are purely material? Can a particle of matter which consists only of a definite number of atoms of definite chemical composition manifest any of those characters which characterize life? Take as an extreme instance the brain of an ant which is not larger than a quarter of a good-sized pin’s head. It would require a volume to describe what we know of the power of ants.” The following are among the wonderful things mentioned of their faculties. They communicate information to each other, build great edifices, make roads, tunnel under rivers and make temporary bridges over them by clinging together, store seeds, keep aphides as milch cows, go out to battle, and capture slaves; showing thereby a wonderful amount of power when we remember that the ant’s brain is said to be but a little globule one-thousandth of an inch in diameter. From the above we learn that the ant with a brain no larger than a quarter of a pin’s head is one of the most wondrous things in the world of life.
Let us conceive of such an ant standing before St. Peter’s Cathedral at Rome and asking of his species: “Who made that great building?” We may anticipate the reply, “We do not know.” Hear him ask again the question of all birds, insects, reptiles, and animals and receive the same answer, “We do not know.” Let him ask it at last of man who replies, “I well know who made it.” Encouraged he asks again, “Did you make it,” but the answer comes quickly, “No.” Still persistent he asks, “Could you make it?” and the answer is “No, it is not every man that could make such a building and surmount it with so wondrous a dome.” Once again he asks: “But if you did not, and could not make it, how do you know the builder of it?” He receives the answer: “I know as well as though I myself had done it. I have brain-power enough to know who planned it but it required one with a greater brain, even Michael Angelo, to conceive and build it.”
We have here seen the power of a brain smaller than a pin’s head; the additional power of one a few inches in diameter that could know the constructor of the great building, and yet be unable to make it; and the further increase of brain-power in the maker of that magnificent Cathedral. Yet the brain of Michael Angelo, so many times larger than the ants, is not enough for our purpose. We would find one large enough to know how the ant’s brain was formed and who formed it. Finding the brain knowing that, we would continue our queries until we found one a foot in size, a mile, earth’s size if you will, and finding that might learn what we would know of the creation of the nebulae of worlds and life; for to that brain we owe all that we possess here and may ever expect to possess.
We have been told of the wonderful instinct displayed by an ant, and yet we may not suppose, were an ant possessed of the power of speech, it could ever make observations like the above. We can conceive of a creature that possessed many times the ant’s brain-power making the inquiry, “How came this great structure?” and, asking it of a comrade that possessed the same powers as he, receiving the reply, “I do not know.” We may think of him as pushing the inquiry and receiving the answer from some that it had no author, but must have grown like the trees from nothingness; from others the conjecture that it was made by some great animal of sea or land; or again that it was made by a creature called man. We can believe that whatever their opinion might be it would matter little to Michael Angelo the author. In the vastness of the universe and the wonderful mysteries enveloping it; with the telescopes, spectroscopes, and other powerful instruments; with all the observations of centuries, and theories concerning earth’s first cause; man is yet like the ant before St. Peter’s. There is truth in the statement, “The Theory of Evolution may be true or it may be false it is still but an attempt to guess at a process; it does not touch the author of that process and never will.”[21]
To resolve, then, the mystery of the universe we believe that a great stride would be made could we find a being with wisdom like to man’s, but possessing power to create a fire-mist such as is conceived in the Nebular Hypothesis. Finding such a being we should never for a moment think, from what we know of dead matter, of its resolving itself into the order and system displayed in the universe, but unhesitatingly ascribe its formation to a being possessing such wisdom and power. Starting then with the theory that a Being with the intellect of man, but omnipotent power, could produce all that is now unintelligible to us; let us contemplate the appearance of His works and what we do not understand believe that He will unfold as our powers increase and as science develops.
The Revealed Word, the Great Astronomy, tells us that this Being is God and ascribes to Him the creation of the heavens, worlds, man, and life in all its forms. We can appreciate the astounding facts described in other works, and can we not feel the truths revealed in this? We meet people who believe this Revelation, perhaps doubtfully at first, but after study of the Word, or from hearing it explained, the truth becomes manifest to them; and what is remarkable and worthy of our contemplation is the fact that not one of the many millions who heed that Word, and live lives faithful to it, but will tell us ere they die that they do not regret the choice they have made and only wish that they had accepted its truths sooner.
The presumption is that if every human being would accept the fact that he owes his being to an Almighty God not one would ever regret it more than they who have already accepted the belief. Sooner or later all men are cast into the great fire-mist of Eternity, but ere they go hence accept or refuse a belief that may affect them throughout eternity. Many men are urging people to accept of the Salvation offered in the Bible, and the spirit within man feels the wisdom of such an acceptance. Men of thought see from their own anatomy that there must be a Being greater than themselves to have formed so wondrous a body, or even to have formed one of the smallest, as a grass-seed or animalcule. Why then should men need urging to make God their choice? Suppose we were suddenly cast upon a billowy sea but near us lay a life-boat, which if we laid hold upon the chances were, in nine cases out of ten, we should be saved. Would we hesitate a moment before making our choice? Desire for life would compel us to grasp the boat. Suppose, further, there was but one chance out of ten that if we entered the boat we should be saved, would we not instinctively make sure of that one chance, knowing if it were worthless we could be no worse off than floundering without it in the bottomless sea?
But can we look at creation, even without this Revealed Word, and say there is no evidence of a chance for a future life? It is few years that man lives upon earth, and those years can be but a breath to eternity; for we cannot suppose all the atoms in space will equal the years of eternity. As dying men, then, shall we live again? It is no more wonderful to believe in a new life than to believe that the combinations of our bodies are never destroyed, but are resolved again to atoms and molecules. It is no more mysterious than that the waters rise from oceans to the clouds only to return again, and repeat the process from year to year; no stranger than that earth wheels through space at the rate of nearly two millions of miles daily, without losing a drop of the waters that cover three-fourths of its surface; no more wonderful than the air that is composed of four-fifths nitrogen, and were the other fifth the same no life could exist; no more wonderful than that the sun at its great distance, holds earth as firmly by the invisible ether, as if it were an iron cord; and no more wonderful than that in earth’s yearly voyage about the sun, and in the daily turning upon its axis, we do not detect the slightest jar or movement. Neither is it as mysterious as that time has no destructiveness upon earth, water, light, air, and ether, which are seemingly eternal elements; and though our spirits are imperceptible while living here, so are also some of the known energies of nature. Magnetism, that day and night, on sea or land, directs and holds the magnetic needle to the north, reveals its certain existence to us, although invisible to any faculty we possess; electricity and the gases, of which earth, air, and ocean are mainly composed, are invisible as well as indestructible; ether, filling the immensity of space, is impervious to time; and each atom of it has energy to transmit light from every sun in space, whether near or distant, without varying a second per day, thereby enabling astronomers to predict future occurrences with perfect assurance for hundreds of years.
It is no more wonderful to believe in a future life than to believe there are millions of animalcule in a drop of water; nor as mysterious as that our bodies are constantly changing their forms. The man of years has possessed many bodies that he has unconsciously cast aside, and in old age has no more the body of infancy, childhood, youth, and manhood than he has the body of another person. Yet we see man clinging to his toothless, hairless, blinded, deaf, and decrepit form while leaning upon a staff for support, as though he could not live if separated therefrom; and why not as well lay aside wholly the earthly body for the heavenly? Nearly the whole universe is eternal, and our invisible spirits should be no more incomprehensible to us than are the universal elements and energies of nature.
It is our first living, our living now, that is wonderful and mysterious; for we find of every invention of man, the first invented one of its kind is the one most wondrous. Then with all this great universe around us shall we not live again? Are we so blinded that we see no chance of living without these bodies, when we possess faculties fitted for the contemplation of an Eternal Universe, although not the power of fully understanding its significance?