THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



investigators of a much later epoch. Thus, 

 in the Hexasmeron of St. Gregory of Nyssa, 

 "is developed, in unequivocal terms, the 

 same hypothesis that has so long been re- 

 garded as the special glory of the Systeme 

 du Monde of Laplace." According to this 

 saint, the words, " In the beginning God cre- 

 ated the heaven and the earth," " do not refer 

 to the creation of the heavens and the earth, 

 as we now behold them, and still less do they 

 signify the creation of the creatures plants, 

 animals, and man that inhabit the earth. 

 They refer rather to the creation from noth- 

 ing of the primitive, cosmic matter from 

 which all forms of matter, organic and inor- 

 ganic, were subsequently fashioned. The 

 saint finds a warrant for this interpretation 

 in the words of Genesis itself. For, accord- 

 ing to the inspired writer, the earth, after 

 the first creative act, was ' void and empty,' 

 or, as the Septuagint has it, ' invisible and 

 discomposed.' In the beginning, then, all 

 things were created potentially rather than 

 in act. They were contained naturally or in 

 germ in the invisible and unformed matter 

 that came forth from nothing in response to 

 the divine fiat. The first sentence of Gene, 

 sis tells us of creation, properly so called, 

 the opus creationis (or work of creation). 

 That which follows refers to the formation 

 from pre-existing matter of all the bodies of 

 the universe. This is what theologians call 

 the opus formationis (work of formation) 

 and what modern scientists term the devel- 

 opment of evolution. In the beginning, 

 therefore, according to St. Gregory of Nyssa, 

 all was in a chaotic or nebulous state. But 

 it did not remain so, because the Almighty 

 put it under the action of certain physical 

 laws by virtue of which it was to go through 

 that long cycle of changes of which science 

 speaks. . . . The manner in which the saint 

 expresses himself when treating of this sub. 

 ject is, considering the scientific knowledge 

 of his time, simply marvelous. He seems 

 to have had an intuitive knowledge of what 

 could then not be demonstrated, and of what 

 could be known only after the revelations 

 of modern geography and astronomy. . . . 

 After the primitive, nebulous matter of the 

 cosmos was created, certain molecules, St. 

 Gregory teaches, began, under the influence 

 of attraction, to unite with other molecules, 

 and to form separate masses of matter. In 



the course of time, these masses of matter, 

 rotating on their axes, gave off similar 

 masses, which assumed a spherical form. 

 In this wise were produced the sun and 

 moon, stars and planets. ... In this bril- 

 liant conception, in which he could but divine 

 what Laplace and his compeers have ren- 

 dered all but certain, St. Gregory recog- 

 nized the existence of laws which he was 

 unable to detect, much less to comprehend. 

 These were the laws made known long ages 

 afterward by the investigations of Kepler, 

 Newton, and Plateau, and the laws of chemi- 

 cal affinity which have thrown such a flood 

 of light on the secret operations of Na- 

 ture. . . . No exegetist has ever been more 

 happy in the employment of the scientific 

 method ; no one has ever had a keener ap- 

 preciation of the reign of law and order 

 which obtains in the universe. No one has 

 ever realized more thoroughly that the cos- 

 mos as we now see it, far from being the 

 work of chance, is the result of a series of 

 divine interventions, is the outcome of a 

 gradual evolution of that primordial matter 

 which God created in the beginning ; which 

 he then put under what we call laws of Na- 

 ture ; and which he still conserves by his 

 providence." 



A Monument to Lavoisier. A proposition 

 was published by Gustavus Hinrichs, of St. 

 Louis, on the 8th of May of this year it 

 being the centenary of the death of that 

 chemist for the erection by the chemists of 

 the world of a monument to the memory of 

 Lavoisier, " the Copernicus of chemistry." 

 "It is now well understood," Mr. Hinrichs 

 says, " that the claims of Lavoisier to uni- 

 versal recognition depend in no way upon 

 the title to the discovery of any new sub- 

 stance, however important. Both England 

 and Sweden have appropriately honored 

 their discoverers of dephlogisticated air by 

 imposing monuments. The well-known fact 

 that both these eminent chemists remained 

 faithful and aggressive phlogistonists till 

 death is an all-sufficient proof that their 

 discovery is in no way essential to the 

 glory of Lavoisier. The life work of Lavoi- 

 sier was deeper and broader than the dis- 

 covery of any new substance, and affected 

 the very foundation of the science of chem- 

 istry. He broke through the veil of mere 



