New Theories in Astronomy

by William Stirling

The foregoing is only one instance of the many that could be cited where science has schemed projects for universal progress without due thought, and has come to the conclusion that they could be easily carried out. There are as many examples of this jumping at conclusions as would fill many books, which of course it is not our purpose to do; but there is one that it is necessary to have brought forward for examination, because of its having, through a most incomprehensible want of thought, a tendency to establish Natural Religion on the very bases upon which the Christian Religion is established.

The one referred to is that by which some of the most eminent scientists of the present century, following up what was done in former times, have been able by deep study and experiment, unfortunately coupled with unaccountable blindness or preconceived erroneous ideas, to formulate processes by which the whole universe may have elaborated itself from protyle and protoplasm, or some such substances which, without any foundation to build upon, they suppose to have existed from all eternity. This advance in science has been called the Theory of Evolution, and has been very generally considered to be new, or of comparatively very recent conception; but it is only a piece of the evidence of a very general propensity in those who come to acquire a little more knowledge, to flatter themselves that they have power to seize hold of the Unknown.

The theory may be new, but evolution most assuredly is not, as any one may convince himself who will take the trouble to read the first chapter of the Book of Genesis and to think. There he will find it stated that the earth and all things in it and on it were created and made in six days, or periods of time, showing him distinctly, if he does not shut his eyes wilfully, that two operations were employed in the process, one of creation and the other of making, which last can mean nothing but evolution. It does not matter a straw whether the latter operation was carried on personally by the Creator and Maker, or under the power of laws ordained by Him for the purpose; it was evolution all the same, and just the kind of evolution the scientists above alluded to would have us believe to be new, not far from 3500 years after the account of the creation and making of the world was written by Moses.

It will do no harm to take special notice of the work that was done in each of the six periods, as it will help to fix attention on the subject during examination and judgment; and may even tend to open the eyes of any one who had made up his mind to keep them shut.

In the first period the heavens and the earth were created, but the earth was without form and void, inanis et vacuus, according to The Vulgate—(does that mean empty and hollow?)—and darkness was upon the face of the deep; but light was let shine upon the earth to alternate with darkness, and between the two to establish day and night. It is therefore evident that after the earth was created it had to be reduced to something like its present form, a globe of some kind, and to rotate on an axis, otherwise there could have been no alternations of light and darkness, of day and night. Where did the light come from? Some people seem to think that Moses should have included a treatise on the creation and evolution of the universe, in his account of the work done in the first period of creation. For all that can be truly said to the contrary, he seems to have been quite as able to do so as any scientist of the present day; but it is evident he thought it best to limit himself to writing only of the earth, as being of most interest to its inhabitants, and enough for them as a first lesson. The literature of science, however, of the present day, will tell them that long ages after the earth was evolved into a globe, it must have been in a molten, liquid state, surrounded by an atmosphere of vapours of some of the chemical elements so dense that no light from without could shine through it, and could only be penetrated by light after the cooling of the earth had dispelled a sufficient portion of that dense atmosphere. With this explanation, which they had at hand for the looking for, they might have been so far satisfied, and have left Moses to tell his story in his own way.

In passing, it may not be out of place to say that, after the cooling of the earth had proceeded so far that the vapours of matter had been condensed and precipitated on its surface, all boiling of water whether in the seas or on its surface must soon have ceased, so that no inconceivably enormous volumes of steam could be thrown upwards to maintain an atmosphere impenetrable to light; and that when dense volumes of steam ceased to be thrown up, the condensation of what was already in the atmosphere would be so rapid, and its density so soon reduced sufficiently to admit of the passage of light through it, that one can almost fancy himself present on the occasion and appreciate the sublimity of the language. "And God said, Let there be light, and there was light"; more especially if he had ever stood by the side of the cylinder of a large steam engine, and understood what he heard when the steam rushed from it into the condenser, and noted how instantaneous it seemed to be. Any one who has watched a pot of water boiling on the fire and emitting clouds of steam, will have noticed how immediately the boiling ceased whenever the pot was removed from the fire; but he will also have noticed that the water still continued to emit a considerable quantity of vapour, and will be able to understand how it was that the cloudy atmosphere of the earth, at the time we are dealing with, could allow light to pass through it but still keep the source of light from being visible. He experiences daily how thin a cloud will hide the sun from his sight. But there is more to be said about this when the time comes for taking note of the actual appearance on the scene of the sun, moon, and stars.

To obtain some rude idea of the time to be disposed of for evolution during the first period, let it be supposed that the whole of the time consumed in the creation and development of the earth was 300 million years, as demanded by some geologists, the first period of the six would naturally be somewhere about 50 millions of years, a period which would allow, probably, very liberal time for evolution, but could never have been consumed in creation, seeing that creation has always been looked upon as an almost instantaneous act. And if anyone is still capable of exacting that the period was a day of twenty-four hours, he has to acknowledge that at least twenty-three of them were dedicated to the work of evolution.

The second period was evidently one solely of evolution, as all that was done during it was confined to making the firmament which divides the waters from the waters; an operation which could never be confounded with creation, being probably brought about solely by the cooling of the earth, which was the only means by which a separation between the waters covering the earth, and those held in suspension above it by the atmosphere, could be brought about, and must have been purely the work of evolution.

The third period was begun by collecting the waters under the firmament into one place and letting the dry land appear; which, it may be well to note, gives it to be understood that the surface of the solid part of the earth had come to be uneven either by the elevation or depression, perhaps both, of some parts of it, and next the earth was let bring forth grass and trees, and in general vegetation of all kinds. These cannot be considered otherwise than as operations of evolution: there was no creation going on beyond what may have been necessary to help evolution, and of that not a word is said. Here it is well to notice that until the waters were gathered together into one place and the dry land appeared there could be no alluvial deposits made in the sea, and that till well on into this third period, that is well on for 150 million years from the beginning, there could be no geological strata deposited in it containing vegetable matter, for the very good reason that although rains and rivers may have swept earthy matter into the sea, the rivers could not carry along in their flow any vegetable matter until it had time to grow.

Should evolutionists think they have discovered something new in spontaneous generation, we refer them to the 11th verse of the chapter, where they will see—"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth." The conclusion of this passage asserts plainly that the seed was already in the earth, somehow or other, ready to germinate and sprout when the necessary accompanying conditions were prepared. The words are very few, and they can have no other meaning.