188 MR. GLADSTONE AND GENESIS v 



to an end. Therefore, so far as I can see, one who 

 believes that matter has existed from all eternity 

 has just as much right to hold the nebular hypo- 

 thesis as one who believes that matter came into 

 existence at a specified epoch. In other words, 

 the nebular hypothesis and the creation hypothesis, 

 up to this point, neither confirm nor oppose one 

 another. 



Next, we read in the revisers' version, in which 

 I suppose the ultimate results of critical scholar- 

 ship to be embodied : " And the earth was waste 

 [ ' without form/ in the Authorised Version] and 

 void/' Most people seem to think that this 

 phraseology intends to imply that the matter out 

 of which the world was to be formed was a 

 veritable " chaos/' devoid of law and order. If 

 this interpretation is correct, the nebular hypo- 

 thesis can have nothing to say to it. The scien- 

 tific thinker cannot admit the absence of law 

 and order, anywhere or anywhen, in nature. 

 Sometimes law and order are patent and visible to 

 our limited vision ; sometimes they are hidden. 

 But every particle of the matter of the most fan- 

 tastic-looking nebula in the heavens is a realm of 

 law and order in itself; and, that it is so, is the 

 essential condition of the possibility of solar and 

 planetary evolution from the apparent chaos. 1 



1 When Jeremiah (iv. 23) says, " I beheld the earth, and, lo, 

 it was waste and void," he certainly does not mean to imply 

 that the form of the earth was less definite, or its substance less 

 solid, than before. 



