December 1, 1886.] 



♦ KNOW^LEDGE ♦ 



THE STORY OF CREATION. 



a plain account of evolution. 

 By Edwaed Clodd. 



PART II.— EXPLAXATORT. 

 Chapter I. 

 It must be so, lor miracles arc coasefl ; 

 And therefore we must needs admit the means 

 How things are perfected. 



Archbishop of Canterbuuv : 

 Henrij Y., act i., scene 2. 



The gases gather to the solid firmament ; the chemic lump arrives 

 at the plant and grows ; arrives at the quadruped and wallis ; arrives 

 al the }iiaii and thinks. — E.meeson. 



N the second j^aper of tliis series a summary 

 account was given of the materials wliich make 

 up the Universe.* These were comprised under 

 the terms Matter and Power. Power is that 

 wliich acts upon Matter in the production or 

 destruction, the increase or decrease of motion; 

 and, as explained ah-eady, it is upon tliis two- 

 fold and opposite action that we base our assumptions as to 

 the nature of Matter — i.e. as consisting of atoms of infinite 

 minuteness. 



That form of Power which draws the atoms togetlier into 

 larger or smaller massc.s, and which resists their separation, 

 we call Force ; that form of Power which drives the atoms 

 apart and resists their combination, we call Energy. Both 

 Force and Energy are, like Matter, indestructible ; in other 

 words, the sum-total of each is a fixed quantity. Force 

 inheres in, and cannot be taken from, each atom of weigh- 

 able mattei'j but Energy passes from atom to atom and 

 from mass to mass, its vehicle being that unweighable 

 ethereal medium which is supposed to fill the spaces between 

 bodies and between the particles of bodies. In this diverse 

 way each is ceaselessly acting : Force aggregating the par- 

 ticles round various centres, Energy separating them and 

 passing into space, only fractions of it striking intervening 

 bodies, as, e.g., in the interception of the sun's radiant 

 energy by the planets. And the certain result, however 

 immeasurably distant, is that all the Energy of the Universe 

 will be dissipated, and that all the Matter of the Universe 

 will become cold, solid, and inert under the aggregating and 

 unopposed action of Force. 



The problem we have now to consider is this : — Given 

 ^Matter and Power as the raw materials of the Universe ; is the 

 interaction of Power, under its two forms of a combining 

 Force and a separating Energy, upon iV[atter, sufficient to 

 account for the totality of non-living and living contents of 

 the Universe % 



Of the beginning, of what was before the jiresent state of 

 things, of what will follow the end of it, we know nothing, 

 and speculation about it is futile. Science is concerned with 

 the Universe as we find it, the mobile vehicle of orderly 

 succession ; tlie Evolved, or X^ufolcled ; ,U_is Werdeu, as the 

 Germans say, or the Becoming ; not less full of endless 

 significance because the questions of its origin and destiny^ 

 are without answer ; not less wrapped in my.stery as to its 

 idtimate nature because we de.scribe it as a mechanical pro- 

 cess, and do not fall back upon unknown agencies or assume 

 unknown attributes of Matter or Power to explain it. 



But since everything points to the finite duration of the 

 material universe — for what it now is it once was not, and 

 its state is ever changing — we must make a start some- 

 where. And we are therefore compelled to posit a pri- 



* Knowledge, December 188.5, p. 41. The reader will find the 

 present explanation easier to follow i£ he will read, the whole of 

 cliap. ii. in Part I. again. 



mordial nebulous, non-luminous state, when the atoms, with 

 their inherent forces and energies, stood apart from one 

 another in momentary pause. Not evenly distributed, else 

 Force would have drawn them together as an uniform 

 spherical mass round a common centre of gravity, and 

 Energy, awakened by the collision of atom with atom, 

 would have pas.sed profitle.-^sly in the form of heat to the 

 ethereal medium : but varying in position and character, 

 with special gravitation towards special centres. Tliis 

 theory of unstableness and unlikeness at the outset squares 

 with the unequal distribution of Matter, with the move- 

 ments of its masses in diflerent directions and at different 

 rates, and with the ceaseless redistribution of Matter and 

 Power. All changes of state are due to the rearrangement 

 of atoms through the play of attracting forces and repelling 

 energies, resulting in the evolution of the seeming like into 

 the actual unlike, of the shapeless into the shapely, of the 

 simple into the more and more complex, till the highest 

 complexity is reached in the development of living matter. 

 If all that is, from fire-fused rock to the genius of man, was 

 wrapped up in primordial matter, with its forces and energies, 

 we can speak of simplicity only in a relative sense as contrasted 

 with the infinite variety around us which has been evolved. 



InorijHiiic Evolution. — Under this head we may ajiply 

 the foregoing to the earliest stages of cosmical change, to the 

 Evolution of Stellar Sys(ein.s. 



The exi.stence of nebulous or cloud-like objects in space, 

 which the telescoiie, aided by the analysis of the spectro- 

 scope, proves to be immense masses of glowing gas, together 

 with other evidence to be didy cited in its place, justifies 

 the a^umption of a yet more discrete state of the atoms 

 which formed the material universe at the outset. But, 

 although we are ftxmiliar with matter in an invisible state, 

 as, e.g., in the element oxygen, which, in a combined state, 

 forms nearly half the solid framework of the globe, we can 

 form no conception of the extreme rarefaction of the primi- 

 tive atoms. Upon this Helmholtz remarks that " if we 

 calculate the density of the mass of our planetary system 

 at the time when it was a nebulous sphere which reached 

 to the path of the outermost planet, we should find that it 

 would require several millions of cubic miles of such matter 

 to weigh a s-ingle grain." Given, however, the play of 

 Force and Energy uj'on this difl'used matter, the mechanics 

 of the process which resulted in the visible universe are not 

 difficult of explanation. The Force bound up in each 

 atom, acting as affinity, combined the atoms as molecules ; 

 actinc as cohesion, it united the molecules into masses ; 

 acting as gravitation, it drew the masses toward their several 

 centres of gravity. One of these masses, by no means the 

 largest, became the nucleus of our solar system, which may 

 be taken as a type of all other masses whose evolution 

 into stellar systems is as yet complete. 



As the atoms rushed together. Energy, which had 

 hitherto existed in a state of rest as passive separation, be- 

 came active in molar and molecular form. As molar energy 

 it imparted motion to each mass, a motion of rotation on its 

 own axis ; and a motion in an orbit, as in the proper motion of 

 double stars, and of the jilanets round the sun. As molecular 

 energy it imparted a rapid vibratory backwards and forwards 

 motion to the molecules, which motion was forthwith con- 

 verted into the radiant energy of heat and light, rendering 

 the mass self-luminous. From the moment of their con- 

 version the dissipation of both forms of energy ensued. 

 The friction of the ethereal medium slowly retards the 

 orbital motion of every mass, the molar energy thus lost 

 passing into that medium, until finally the movement in the 

 orbit will be stopped, and the force of gravitation, no longer 

 resisted by energv, will draw the smaller masses to the larger, 

 as vagrant meteors are being ceaselessly drawn to planets 



