The Creator, and what we may know of the method of creation

by W. H. Dallinger

Clearly, these are not the atoms of the chemical elements known to us. They are not the atoms of Dalton nor of Clark Maxwell. The atoms of the cosmic mist are, by the very terms of the formula, naked of quality; and, by the limiting conditions of the definition of the cloud as homogeneous, are, throughout all the abysms of space, alike in size, in shape, and in motions. Equal extensions of space moving at equal rates.

By these conditions, then, it is manifest that primordial matter is in itself infinitely powerless and inert. Motion can affect it; but can there be motion of any new kind originated without a power to cause it? If that can be, the fundamental acts of human reason are untrustworthy; and man is incapable of knowledge or deduction, which is absurd. Then what was the power that determined new motions in the primordial homogeneous matter?

It could not by any demand in the formula be even gravity, if that were competent. Modern thought and knowledge cannot allow gravitation to be a property of matter. Ether is matter, but it does not gravitate. Gravity is therefore an occult affection of matter by motion, that has a history ‘to be accounted for.’

In this almost infinite primal nebula, a certain class of motion is assumed. How it originated is unexplained. But what is the atomic motion of this primal homogeneous matter? From the terms given it must be as I have said. Motion of absolute likeness throughout all the profounds of space it filled; equalized motion in every atom; no difference of rate; no difference of mode. The motion of one atom is identic with the motion of all. It could never be lost; it could never increase; it could never alter. It is homogeneous, and therefore changeless—balanced for ever—in itself. Says Mr. Spencer: ‘Any finite mass of diffused matter, even though vast enough to form our whole sidereal system,’ if it were of ‘absolute sphericity, absolute uniformity of composition, and absolute symmetry of relation to all forces external to it,’[11] would be homogeneous and eternally incapable of change.

And that ‘homogeneity’ is the very condition laid down for the beginning, from which mechanical evolution is to educe the universe. In the Spencerian formula there is no qualification of the term homogeneous. It postulates ‘an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity,’ that is, an indefinite cloud, with balanced motion in all its atoms which neither attracts nor repels, and is in itself infinitely incapable of change.

Now, shall we not ask how the first pulse, that caused the stupendously vast homogeneity to throb into the heterogeneous, arose? whence did it come? Infinite incapacity could not, unless reason be mendacious, render itself capable. Then how came that first movement that, it is argued, ended in revolving systems, a bountiful earth, the throat of the nightingale, and the tragedy of Macbeth!

There is no answer. This philosophy, to get the first progressive movement in its balanced nebula, bids its formula stand aside, that it may advance. At a critical moment it changes the very meaning of the homogeneous. ‘The condition of homogeneity is a condition of unstable equilibrium!’[12] ‘The phrase ... is one used in mechanics to express a balance of forces of such kind that the interference of any further force, however minute, will destroy the arrangement previously subsisting, and bring about a totally different arrangement.’[13]

Note, then, the homogeneous cosmic cloud is, by the terms given, in equilibrium. But some ‘further force,’ some small influence outside itself, acts upon it, and it breaks up.

But what is the outside influence? What is this ‘further force,’ and from whence? We have a cloud composed of atoms in balanced motion—nothing more. Outside influence, ‘further force,’ is an intrusion. It has no right there. It has not on the wedding garment of the formula.

Surely an outside influence must be caused? If it involved no more energy than is wielded by a may-fly’s wing, how came it there? It is as easy to admit the self-origination of a divinity of power, as the self-creation of power to lift a grain. It is not in the philosophy; ‘outside influence’ has no credentials, and the admission of inability to evolve the universe without it, is an admission that the mechanical philosophy fails at the outset. Nor can it serve the emergency to invoke ‘force.’