No. l.J NATURE AND THE BIBLE. 53 



taken from the reserve to the forefront of a battle, as a support 

 to the troops engaged. Cicero repeatedly speaks of an important 

 witness as a firmament um in a trial, and of an argument as a 

 Urmamentum in an address. The notion of cubical solidity 

 never belongs to this Latin word. Like all words with a similar 

 termination, it carries out the root meaning of its verb, which 

 signifies to make strong. 



While Moses then was dwelling upon the fact of the expansion 

 of the heavens, his translators added also the idea of strength, 

 to bear up those heavenly bodies which they conceived as floating 

 in them. This idea of strength is abundantly indicated in other 

 passages of the Hebrew by other words, but not in this passage, 

 where th physical appearance of the expanse only is denoted. 

 Of all the contemptible theories which have been excogitated by 

 the ingenuity of those who sit in the seat of the scornful, this 

 " hammered plate" theory is the most preposterous. 



Upon the question of miracles, Dr. Dawson takes the ground 

 that they are not suspensions of law. And this ground is a per- 

 fectly tenable one upon its theological side ; for it be once 

 admitted that there is an intelligent and powerful Will existent 

 in the Universe, we can easily understand that any wonderful 

 and unusual work can no more be considered as a suspension of 

 law than our own acts of volition, exercised physically, as, for 

 instance, when we arrest the motion of falling bodies, can be 

 considered as suspensions of the law of gravitation. The ulti- 

 mate cause, in both instances, is a moral cause, that of will: 

 the one of a limited human will, and the other of a Divine, All- 

 powerful Will, containing the ultimate forces of the Universe. 



We have space only to advert to the notices of the theories of 

 Huxley and Tyndall regarding the non-existence of vital force. 

 These eminent philosophers are endowed with such a power of 

 vivid expression, and such force of imagination, in addition to 

 their great scientific powers, that it is not surprising if they are 

 sometimes carried away by their own picturesque methods of 

 grouping facts. Sometimes the unscientific mind is led astray 

 by them ; and we can never get over a slight feeling of resent- 

 ment towards Huxley when, after falling down and worshipping 

 his new deity Protoplasm for the space of a month or two, we 

 suddenly discovered that it was nothing but an old familiar 

 friend, albumen in a new Greek dress. Ever since that time, 

 we have been shy of these brilliant paradoxical phrases. Some 



