Now, we have no particular fault to find with the nebular hypothesis. It is only an explanation of a change which matter has undergone. It does not affect the question of creation whether matter was first in a state of incandescent gas, or sprang at the bidding of the eternal fiat into its manifold conditions of to-day. Indeed, we will grant that there is a plausibility in the theory which to many minds renders it fascinating; but that does not make matter eternal and self-conserving. It is entirely consistent with the dogma of creation that God first made matter devoid of harmonious forms and relations, and that these slowly developed in accordance with the laws he appointed. There is nothing inconsistent in supposing that our terrestrial planet is a fragment struck off from the central mass, and that, after having undergone numerous changes, it at last settled down into a fit abode for man. The church never expressed herself pro or con; for no matter how individual writers may have felt and written, no matter how much they may have sought to place this or that physical theory in antagonism with revealed truth, the church never took action, for the reason that the question lies beyond the sphere of her infallible judgment until it touches upon the revealed doctrine. It is Dr. Draper, therefore, who strenuously seeks to draw inferences from modern physical theories, so as to put them in conflict, not only with revelation, but with the truths of natural theology. After having given an outline of the nebular hypothesis, he says: “If such be the cosmogony of the solar system, such the genesis of the planetary worlds, we are constrained to extend our view of the dominion of law, and to recognize its agency in the creation as well as in the conservation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe.” Now, what he means by extending our views of the dominion of law is to make it paramount and supreme. But what is this law? If its agency is to be recognized in the creation of the innumerable orbs that throng the universe, it certainly must have existed prior to that event, else Dr. Draper uses the word creation in a sense entirely novel. Now, supposing, as we are fairly bound to do, that Dr. Draper attaches to the term creation its ordinary signification, we will have the curious spectacle of law creating that of which it is but the expression. We cannot perceive what other meaning we are to extract from the saying that we must recognize the agency of law in the creation of the universe. Law is, therefore, the creator of the universe; that is to say, “The general expression of the conditions under which certain assemblages of phenomena occur” (Carpenter’s definition of law) ushered into existence the cause of those phenomena. Can anything more absurd be conceived? But apart from the notion of law being at the bottom of creation, how can Dr. Draper, consistently with his ideas of “infinite space,” “infinite time,” “sequence of events without beginning or end,” admit such a thing as creation at all? Creation is the transition of a portion of the eternal possibles in the divine mind from a state of possibility into one of physical existence, at the bidding of God’s infinite power. Supposing, then, that it is in this sense Dr. Draper uses the word creation, he must of necessity discard the doctrine of the eternity of matter, and his nugæ canoræ concerning “the immutability of law,” “law that dominates overall,” “unending succession of events,” become the frothings of a distempered mind. But when a person writes in accordance with no fixed principles, only as the intellectual caprice of the moment dictates, he necessarily falls into glaring and fatal inconsistencies. For not many pages after this implied admission of creation, even though it be the inane creation by law, he says: “These considerations incline us to view favorably the idea of transmutations of one form into another rather than that of sudden creations. Creation implies an abrupt appearance, transformation a gradual change.” He thus again rejects the doctrine of creation in almost the same breath in which he spoke of it as brought about by the agency of law. The question here occurs, Are the notions of creation and law antipodal? Can they not coexist? For our own part, we see nothing inconsistent in the supposition that God created the universe, under stable laws for its guidance and conservation. The very simplicity of the compatible existence of the two puzzles us to know what objection to it the ingenuity of Dr. Draper has discovered. For it must be understood that his stated incompatibility is a wearisome assumption throughout—wearisome, for the mind, ever on the alert to find a reason for the statement, withdraws from the hopeless task tired and disgusted. For instance, at the close of his remarks concerning the nebular theory he says: “But again it may be asked, ‘Is there not something profoundly impious in this? Are we not excluding Almighty God from the world he has made?’” The words are sneeringly written. They are supposed to contain their own reply, and the writer passes on to something else. He does not attempt to prove that the nebular hypothesis is at variance with creation, except with such a view of the act as he himself entertains. And this brings us to the consideration of his views concerning this sublime dogma. Draper evidently supposes that creation took place by fits and starts, as figures pop out in a puppet-show. Hence he is constantly contrasting the grandeur of a slow development, an ever-progressing evolution, with the unphilosophical idea of sudden and abrupt creations. Though we fail to perceive anything derogatory to the infinite wisdom of the Creator in supposing that he launched worlds into existence perfect and complete, the idea of creation in the Christian sense does not necessarily imply this. We hold that the iron logic of facts forces us to the admission of creation in general, in opposition to the senseless doctrine of unbeginning and unending series and sequences; and while we do not pretend to determine the manner in which God proceeded with his work, we likewise hold that the gradual appearance of planet after planet of the innumerable orbs that stud the firmament, of genus after genus, and species after species, can be far more philosophically referred to the positive act of an infinite power than to the vague operation of law. Draper, therefore, shivers a lance against a windmill when he sets up his doctrine of evolution against a purely imaginary creation. While he thus arraigns the doctrine of creation as shortsighted and unphilosophical, it is amusing to contemplate the substitute therefor which his system offers. On page 192 he says: “Abrupt, arbitrary, disconnected creative acts may serve to illustrate the divine power; but that continuous, unbroken chain of organisms which extends from palæozoic formations to the formations of recent times—a chain in which each link hangs on a preceding and sustains a succeeding one—demonstrates to us not only that the production of animated beings is governed by law, but that it is by law that it has undergone no change. In its operation through myriads of ages there has been no variation, no suspension.” We have already proved that whatever is finite or contingent in the actual order must necessarily have had a beginning—a fact which Draper himself seems to admit when he speaks of the creative agency of law; and the question arises what it is which Dr. Draper substitutes for the creative act. Creation by law is an absurdity, since law is but the expression of the regularity of phenomena, once the fact of the universe has been granted. Unbeginning and unending series are not only an absurdity, but a palpable evasion of the difficulty. We have, therefore, according to Dr. Draper, a tremendous effect without a cause. When we view the many-sided spectacle of nature, the star-bespangled empyrean, the endless forms of life which the microscope reveals, the harmony and order of the universe, we naturally inquire, Whence sprang this mighty panorama? What all-potent Being gave it existence? Draper’s answer is, It had no beginning, it will have no end—i.e., it began nowhere, it will end nowhere. There it is, and be satisfied. The Christian replies that it is the work of an eternal, necessary, and all-perfect Being, who contains within himself the reason of his own existence, and whose word is sufficient to usher into being countless other worlds of far vaster magnitude than any that now exist.
Throughout the whole book are scattered references to this supremacy of law over creation, and the inference is constantly deduced that every curse which has befallen humanity, every retarding influence placed in the way of human progress, has proceeded from the doctrine of creation. Creation alone can give color to the doctrine of miracles, and creation renders impossible the safe prediction of astronomical events. For these reasons Draper condemns it, not only as an intellectual monstrosity, but as morally bad. While we admit that the possibility of miracles does depend on the admission of an intelligent Cause of all things, it by no means follows that the same admission invalidates the safe prediction of an eclipse or a comet. Draper’s words touching the matter are such a curiosity in their way that we cannot forbear quoting them. On page 229 he says: “Astronomical predictions of all kinds depend upon the admission of this fact: that there never has been and never will be any intervention in the operation of natural laws. The scientific philosopher affirms that the condition of the world at any given moment is the direct result of its condition in the preceding moment, and the direct cause of its condition in the subsequent moment. Law and chance are only different names for mechanical necessity.”
Parodying the words of Mme. Roland, we might exclaim, O Philosophy! what follies are committed in thy name. Just think of it, reader, because God is supposed to superintend, by virtue of his infinite intelligence, the processes of universal nature, with the power to derogate from the laws he himself appointed, he must be so capricious that constancy, harmony, and regularity are strangers to him. Supposing we take for granted the possibility of miracles, it does not ensue that God is about to disturb the regularity of the universe at the bidding of him who asks. The circumstances attending the performance of a miracle are so obvious that there can be no room for doubting the constancy of law operation. Thus the promotion of an evidently good purpose, which is the prime intent of a miracle, precludes the caprice which alone could render unsafe the prediction of a physical occurrence. As well might we question the probable course a man of well-known probity and discretion will pursue under specified circumstances, with this difference: that as God is infinitely wise, in proportion is the probability great that he will not depart from his usual course, except for most extraordinary reasons. And if the safety of a prediction depending on such circumstances is not as great as that which depends on mechanical necessity, we must base our scepticism on very shadowy grounds. Father Secchi can compute the next solar eclipse as well as Dr. Diaper; and if he should add, as he undoubtedly would, D. V., nobody will therefore be inclined to question the accuracy of his calculations or doubt the certainty of the occurrence. In preference, however, to the admission of a free agency in the affairs of the universe, he subscribes to the stoicism of Grecian philosophy, which subjects all things to a stern, unbending necessity, and makes men act by the impulse and determination of their nature. “This system offered a support in their hour of trial, not only to many illustrious Greeks, but also to some of the great philosophers, statesmen, generals, and emperors of Rome—a system which excluded chance from everything, and asserted the direction of all events by irresistible necessity to the promotion of perfect good; a system of earnestness, sternness, austerity, virtue—a protest in favor of the common sense of mankind. And perhaps we shall not dissent from the remark of Montesquieu, who affirms that the destruction of the Stoics was a great calamity to the human race; for they alone made great citizens, great men.” Men can therefore be great in Draper’s sense when they can no longer be virtuous; they can acquire fame and win the gratitude of posterity when they can no longer merit; in a word, mechanical necessity; the same inexorable fatality which impels the river-waters to seek the sea, which turns the magnet to the north, and makes the planets run their destined courses, presides over the conduct of men, and elevates, ennobles their actions. Free-will is chance; Providence an impertinent and debasing interference; and virtue the firmness, born of necessity, which made Cato end his days by his own hand. Such is Draper’s substitute in the moral order for the teachings of Christianity—a system inevitably tending to build a Paphian temple on the site of every Christian church, and to revive the infamies which the pen of Juvenal so scathingly satirized, and for which S. Paul rebuked the Romans in terms of frightful severity and reprobation. For what consideration can restrain human passions, if men deem their actions to be a necessary growth or expansion of their nature, if the good and bad in human deeds are as the tempest that wrecks, or the gentle dews that fructify and animate the vegetable world? His whole book is a cumbersome and disjointed argument in favor of necessity, as opposed to free agency; of law, as opposed to Providence. The manner of his refuting the existence of divine Providence is so far novel and original that we are tempted to reproduce it for those of our readers who prefer not to lose time by perusing the work in full. On page 243 he says: “Were we set in the midst of the great nebula of Orion, how transcendently magnificent the scene! The vast transformation, the condensations of a fiery mist into worlds, might seem worthy of the immediate presence, the supervision, of God; here, at our distant station, where millions of miles are inappreciable to our eyes, and suns seem no bigger than motes in the air, that nebula is more insignificant than the faintest cloud. Galileo, in his description of the constellation of Orion, did not think it worth while so much as to mention it. The most rigorous theologian of those days would have seen nothing to blame in imputing its origin to secondary causes; nothing irreligious in failing to invoke the arbitrary interference of God in its metamorphoses. If such be the conclusion to which we come respecting it, what would be the conclusion to which an Intelligence seated in it would come respecting us? It occupies an extent of space millions of miles greater than that of our solar system; we are invisible from it, and therefore absolutely insignificant. Would such an Intelligence think it necessary to require for our origin and maintenance the immediate intervention of God?” That is to say, we are too insignificant for God’s notice, because larger worlds roll through space millions of miles from us, and God would have enough to do, if at all disposed to interfere, in looking after them, without occupying his important time with terra and her Liliputian denizens.
It is evident from this passage that Draper’s mind can never rise to a grand conception. It would not do to tell him that the Intelligence which superintends and controls the universe “reaches from end to end powerfully, and disposes all things mildly”; that his infinite ken “numbers the hair of our heads,” notes the sparrow’s fall, and sweeps over the immensity of space with its thronging orbs, by one and the same act of a supreme mind. The furthest is as the nearest, the smallest as the greatest, with Him who holds the universe in the hollow of his hand, and whose omnipotent will could create and conserve myriad constellations greater than Orion. In the passage just quoted Dr. Draper commits the additional blunder of confounding creation in general with a special view conveniently entertained by himself. His objection to creation, as before remarked, proceeds on the notion that creation is necessarily adverse to slow and continuous development, such as the facts of nature point out as having been the course through which the world has reached its present maturity. He does not seem able to understand that, creation having taken place, the whole set of physical phenomena which underlie recent physical theories may have come to pass, as he maintains; only we must assign a beginning. His whole disagreement with the doctrine of creation is founded on this principle of a non-beginning, though he vainly strives to make it appear that he objects to it as interfering with regular, progressive development. On page 239 he says: “Shall we, then, conclude that the solar and the starry systems have been called into existence by God, and that he has then imposed upon them by his arbitrary will laws under the control of which it was his pleasure that their movements should be made?
“Or are there reasons for believing that these several systems came into existence, not by such an arbitrary fiat, but through the operation of law?” The shallowness of this philosophy the simplest can sound. As well might we speak of a nation or state springing into existence through the operation of those laws which are subsequently enacted for its guidance. Prayer and the possibility of miracles are equally assailed by Draper’s doctrine of necessary law. His argument against the former is very closely akin to J. J. Rousseau’s objection to prayer. “Why should we,” says the pious author of Emile, “presume to hope that God will change the order of the universe at our request? Does he not know better what is suited to our wants than our short-sighted reason can perceive, to say nothing of the blasphemy which sets up our judgment in opposition to the divine decrees?” The opposition of Draper and Tyndall to prayer proceeds exactly on the same notion—the absurdity, namely, of supposing that our petitions can ever have the effect of changing the fixed and unalterable scheme of the universe. Tyndall went so far as to propose a prayer-gauge by separating the inmates of a hospital into praying and non-praying ones, and seeing what proportion of the two classes would recover more rapidly. Those three distinguished philosophers evidently never understood the nature and conditions of prayer, else they would not hold such language. God changes nothing at our instance, but counts our prayer in as a part of the very plan on which the universe was projected. In the divine mind every determination of our will is perceived from eternity, as indeed are all the events of creation. But we admit a distinction of logical priority of some over others. Thus God’s knowledge of our determination to act is logically subsequent to the determination itself, since the latter is the object of the divine knowledge, and must have a logical precedence over it. Prayer, then, is compatible with the regularity of the universe and infinite wisdom, because God, having perceived our prayer and observed the conditions accompanying it, determined in eternity to grant or to withhold it, and regulated the universe in accordance with such determination. Our prayers have been granted or withheld in the long past as regards us, but not in the past as regards God, in whom there is no change nor shadow of a change. It is evident from this how absurd is Tyndall’s notion of testing the efficacy of prayer in the manner he proposed, and how unjust is Draper’s constant arrow-shooting at shrine-cures and petitions for health addressed to God and to his saints. Nor does the granting of a prayer necessarily imply a departure from the natural course of events. The foreseen goodness and piety of a man can have determined God to allow the natural order and sequence of events to proceed in such a manner as to develop conformably to his petition. In this there is no disturbance of the natural order, since the expression means nothing else than the regularity with which phenomena occur in their usual way—a fact entirely consistent with the theory of prayer.
It is true, however, that the history of the church exhibits many well-authenticated examples of prayers being granted under circumstances which implied the performance of a miracle or a suspension of the effects of law. To this Draper opposes three arguments: first, the inherent impossibility of miracles; secondly, the capricious disturbance of the universe which would ensue; and, thirdly, the impossibility of discerning between miracles and juggling tricks or the marvellous achievements of science. To the first argument we would return an argumentum ad hominem. While Dr. Draper sneeringly repudiates a miracle which implies a derogation from physical law, he unwittingly admits a miracle tenfold more astounding. The argument was directed against Voltaire long years ago, and has been repeatedly employed since.
Suppose, then, that a whole cityful of people should testify to the resurrection of a dead man from the grave; would we be justified in rejecting the testimony on the sole ground of the physical impossibility of the occurrence? We would thereby suppose that a whole population, divided into the high and low born, the ignorant and the educated, the good and the bad, with interests, passions, hopes, prejudices, and aspirations as wide apart as the poles, should secretly conspire to impose on the rest of the world, and this so successfully that not even one would reveal the gigantic deception. History abounds in instances of the sort, in recitals of sudden cures witnessed by thousands, of conflagrations suddenly checked, of plagues disappearing in a moment; and if we are pleased to refuse the testimony because of the physical impossibility, we are reduced to the necessity of admitting, not a miracle, but a monstrosity in the moral order. It is true that Dr. Draper quietly ignores this feature of the case, and is satisfied with the objection to the possibility of miracles on physical grounds, without taking the pains to inquire whether circumstances can be conceived in which this physical possibility may be set aside. Complacently resting his argument here, the “impartial” doctor, whose lofty mind ranges in the pure ether of immaculate truth, accuses the church of filling the air with sprites whose duty it is to perform miracles every moment. Recklessly and breathlessly he repeats and multiplies the old, time-worn, oft-refuted, and ridiculous stories which stain the pages of long-forgotten Protestant controversialists, and which well-informed men of to-day not in communion with the church would blush to repeat, as likely to stamp their intelligence with vulgarity and credulity. Not so with Dr. Draper; for not only does he rehash what for years we have been hearing from Pecksniffs and Chadbands usque ad nauseam, but he introduces his stale stories in the most incongruous manner. Shrine-cures, as he calls them, he finds to have gone hand in hand with the absence of carpeted floors, and relic-worship with smoky chimneys, poor raiment, and unwholesome food. No doubt his far-seeing mind has been able to discover a necessary relation between those things which the ordinary judgment would pronounce most incongruous and dissonant. Draper not only refuses to recognize the long and laborious efforts of the church to ameliorate the condition of the masses, to lift them from the misery and insanitary surroundings into which they had sunk during the night of Roman decadence, and in which the internecine feuds of the robber barons and princes, of feudal masters and vassals, had left them, but he impudently charges the church with being the author of their wrongs and wretchedness. It is true the same charge has been made before by vindictive and passionate writers, and it receives no additional weight at the hands of Dr. Draper by being left, like Mahomet’s coffin, without prop or support. Since Maitland’s work first disabused Englishmen of the opinions they had formed concerning mediæval priest-craft and church tyranny, no writer has had the hardihood to revive the exploded slanders of Stillingfleet and Fletcher, till this latest anti-papist felt that he had received a mission to do so.
Draper’s belief that the admitted possibility of miracles would tend to disturb the regular succession of natural phenomena is simply puerile; for miracles occur only under such circumstances as all men understand to preclude caprice and irregularity. Thus the daily-recurring mystery of transubstantiation still takes place upon our altars, and, so far as that tremendous fact is concerned, we might all cling to the idea of necessary, immutable law; for no order is disturbed, no planet fails to perform its accustomed revolution. As for its being impossible for Catholics to distinguish between real miracles and juggleries, it is very evident that, in keeping with his general opinion of believers in miracles, he must rate their standard of intelligence at an exceedingly low figure. A miracle supposes a derogation of the laws of the physical world, and is never accepted till its character in this sense has been thoroughly proved. A Protestant writer of high intelligence, who not long since was present in Rome at an investigation into the evidence adduced to prove the genuineness of certain miracles attributed to a servant of God, in whose behalf the title of venerable was demanded, remarked that, had the same searching scrutiny been employed in every legal case which had fallen under his observation, he would not hesitate to place implicit confidence in the rigid impartiality of the judge, the logical nature of the evidence, and the unimpeachable veracity of the witnesses. Dr. Draper, therefore, supposes, on the part of those whom he claims to be incapable or unwilling to discriminate between miracles, in the sense defined, and mere feats of legerdemain, an unparalleled stupidity or contemptible roguery. Since, however, he constitutes himself supreme judge in the case, we will place in juxtaposition with this judgment another, which will readily show to what extent his discriminating sense may be trusted. On page 298 he says: “The Virgin Mary, we are assured by the evangelists, had accepted the duties of married life, and borne to her husband several children.” As this is a serious accusation, and the doctor, in presenting it, desires to maintain his high reputation as an erudite hermeneutist and strict logician by adducing irrefragable proofs in its support, he triumphantly refers to S. Matt. i. 25. “And he knew her not till she brought forth her first-born.” We are reluctant to mention, when it is question of the accuracy of so learned a man as Dr. Draper, that among the Hebrews the word until denotes only what has occurred, without regard to the future; as when God says: “I am till you grow old.” If Draper’s exegesis is correct concerning S. Matt. i. 25, then we must infer that God as surely implies, in the words quoted, that he will cease to exist at a specified time, as he explicitly states he will exist till that time. But, not satisfied with this display of Scriptural erudition, he refers, in support of the same statement, to S. Matt. xiii. 55, 56; and, because mention is there made of Jesus’ brethren and sisters, the latest foe to Mary’s virginity concludes that these were brothers and sisters by consanguinity. What a large number of brothers and sisters our preachers of every Sunday must have, who address by these endearing terms their numerous congregations! If, however, Dr. Draper desires to ascertain who these brethren and sisters were, he will find that they were cousins to our divine Saviour; it being a favored custom among the Jews thus to style near relatives. S. Matt, xxvii. 56 and S. John xix. 25 will define the exact relation the persons in question bore to the Saviour. Such are the penetration, profundity, and erudition of the man who brands as imbeciles, dupes, and rogues the major part of Christendom! But perhaps it may be said that hermeneutics are not Draper’s forte, owing to his supreme contempt of the New and Old Testaments, and that he has won his laurels in the field of philosophy. We have already hinted that his perspicuity in philosophical discussions is in advance of his subtlety, for the reason that he keeps well on the surface, and exhibits a commendable anxiety not to venture beyond his depth. At times, however, an intrepidity, born of ignorance, overcomes his native timidity, and, with amazing confidence, he plays the oft-assumed rôle of the bull in a china-shop. Mixing himself up with the Arian dispute concerning the Blessed Trinity, he inclines to the anti-Trinitarian view, because a son cannot be coeval with his father! The carnal-minded Arius thus reasoned, and it is no wonder Dr. Draper agrees with him. Had Dr. Draper taken down from his library shelf the Summa of S. Thomas, the great extinguisher of Draper’s philosophical beacon, Averroës, he would have received such enlightenment as would have made him blush to concur in a proposition so utterly unphilosophical. The Father, as principle of the Son’s existence, is co-existent with him as God, and logically only prior to him as father, just as a circle is the source whence the equality of the radii springs; though, given a circle, the equality of the radii co-exists, and, if an eternally existing circle be conceived, an eternal equality of radii ensues. The priority is therefore one of reason, viz., the priority of a cause to a co-existing effect. But we have said satis superque concerning Draper and his book. We deplore, not so much the publication of the volume, as the unhealthy condition of the public mind which can hail its appearance with welcome. As an appetite for unnatural food argues a diseased state of the bodily system, so we infer that men’s minds are sadly diseased when they take pleasure in what is so hollow, false, and shallow as Dr. Draper’s latest addition to anti-Catholic literature. We have been obliged to suppress a considerable portion of the criticisms we had prepared on particular portions of this rambling production, in order not to take up too much space. We consider it not to be worth the space we have actually given to its refutation. And yet, of such a book, one of our principal daily papers has been so unadvised or thoughtless as to say that it ought to be made a text-book. To this proposition we answer by the favorite exclamation of the wife of Sir Thomas More: “Tilley-Valley!”