I2O EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



tively weak light through its own dense atmo- 

 sphere. Naturally the earth, reckoned as origi- 

 nally 1,300,000 times smaller, condensed much 

 sooner than the vast nebula from which it had 

 been detached. In any event we must appreciate 

 the perfect scientific accuracy, from a purely sci- 

 entific viewpoint, of the mention of "light" alone 

 by the inspired writer, reserving the first reference 

 to the "sun" for the period, when from the earth's 

 surface it might at length have been visible, as 

 the poet saw it: "Flattering the mountain tops 

 with sovereign eye." But no less striking is the 

 scientific accuracy of the Scripture passages that 

 now follows: 



And God saw the light that it was good; and 

 he divided the light from the darkness. And he 

 called the light Day, and the darkness Night; 

 and there, was evening and morning one day. 



Thousands of years before our discovery of the 

 rotundity of the earth, the Scripture writer had 

 penned these lines. Today we find them in full 

 conformity with all our present science. Al- 

 though the light from the sun or solar nebula 

 was still but faintly diffused through the mist, 

 with its source certainly undefined as it might 

 have been viewed from the newly formed earth, 

 yet it had sufficed to establish Day upon the side 

 of our planet turned towards this source of radi- 

 ance, while Night had by contrast resulted upon 

 the opposite hemisphere. Thus, for the first time 



