io From Matter to Man. 



gulf fixed between fools and philosophers. The 

 creation of the earth compared to the creation of the 

 universe is as a child's problem to a paradox. For 

 the present constituents of the earth existed before 

 the earth's actual creation, in other forms as nebulae, 

 cosmic dust, meteors, or other planetary and astral 

 material. The earth, in fact, in creation, or more 

 correctly in evolution, could only be a re-formation of 

 other earths, or a re-arrangement of the constituents 

 of other astral bodies which had already existed. 

 The creation of the universe, on the other hand, is 

 assuming an impossibility. For, as the sum of all 

 those things which exist, the universe neither has nor 

 could have a beginning ; antecedents to it are im- 

 possible. Blot out existence and non-existence is 

 assumed, the absence of causes as well as of causal 

 material ; consequently, the assumed creation of the 

 universe could not be a re-formation of other uni- 

 verses, but would be a distinct creation of something 

 from nothing, by a something, say a Deity, who was 

 Himself nothing, which is a rednctio ad absnrdum. 



To render the argument clearer, let us take a 

 simple illustration. When a cart wheel revolves we 

 do not seek a cause for the revolution of each spoke 

 in the wheel, but a cause for the revolution of the 

 wheel as a whole. Yet the one involves the other, 

 for the motor power for both is the same. Nature, 

 similarly, resembles a vast revolving wheel, whose 

 motions include an infinite number of sub-motions, 

 each again sub-divided, classified, and apportioned 



