V MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS 187 



nothing of the same kind previously existed. It 

 is further usually assumed that " the heaven and 

 the earth " means the material substance of the 

 universe. Hence the " Mosaic writer" is taken 

 to imply that where nothing of a material nature 

 previously existed, this substance appeared. That 

 is perfectly conceivable, and therefore no one can 

 deny that it may have happened. But there are 

 other very authoritative critics who say that the 

 ancient Israelite l who wrote the passage was not 

 likely to have been capable of such abstract 

 thinking ; and that, as a matter of philology, lara 

 is commonly used to signify the " fashioning," or 

 " forming," of that which already exists. Now it 

 appears to me that the scientific investigator is 

 wholly incompetent to say anything at all about 

 the first origin of the material universe. The whole 

 power of his organon vanishes when he has to step 

 beyond the chain of natural causes and effects. 

 No form of the nebular hypothesis, that I know 

 of, is necessarily connected with any view of the 

 origination of the nebular substance. Kant's form 

 of it expressly supposes that the nebular material 

 from which one stellar system starts may be 

 nothing but the disintegrated substance of a 

 stellar and planetary system which has just come 



1 "Ancient," doubtless, but his antiquity must not be 

 exaggerated. For example, there is no proof that the 

 " Mosaic " cosmogony was known to the Israelites of Solomon's 



time. 



