Creation 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



138 



creation of new forms, any more than their 

 propagation, has been brought about by the 

 use and instrumentality of means. In a 

 theological point of view it matters nothing 

 what those means have been. I agree with 

 M. Guizot when he says that " Those only 

 would be serious adversaries of the doctrine 

 of creation who could affirm that the uni- 

 verse the earth, and man upon it have 

 been from all eternity, and in all respects, 

 just what they are now." But this cannot 

 be affirmed except in the teeth of facts which 

 science has clearly ascertained. There has 

 been a continual coming-to-be of new forms 

 of life. This is creation, no matter what 

 have been the laws or forces employed by 

 creative power. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 

 5, p. 156. (Burt.) 



682. CREATION AND MAINTENANCE 

 ONE IN ESSENCE Divine Power Acts by 

 Wisdom and Knowledge. Whatever the 

 ultimate relation may be between mental 

 and material force., we can at least see 

 clearly this that in Nature there is the 

 most elaborate machinery to accomplish pur- 

 pose through the instrumentality of means. 

 It seems as if all that is done in Nature, as 

 well as all that is done in art, were done by 

 knowing how to do it. It is curious how the 

 language of the great seers of the Old Tes- 

 tament corresponds with this idea. They 

 uniformly ascribe all the operations of Na- 

 ture the greatest and the smallest to the 

 working of divine power. But they never 

 revolt as so many do in these weaker days 

 from the idea of this power working by 

 wisdom and knowledge in the use of means ; 

 nor, in this point of view, do they ever sepa- 

 rate between the work of first creation and 

 the work which is going on daily in the ex- 

 isting world. Exactly the same language is 

 applied to the rarest exertions of power, and 

 to the gentlest and most constant of all nat- 

 ural operations. Thus the saying that 

 " The Lord by wisdom hath founded the 

 earth; by understanding hath he estab- 

 lished the heavens," is coupled in the same 

 breath with this other saying, " By his 

 knowledge the depths are broken up, and the 

 clouds drop down the dew" [Prov. iii, 19- 

 20]. ARGYLL Reign of Law, ch. 3, p. 77. 

 ( Burt. ) 



683. CREATION A PRESENT FACT 



Suns Forming Now Partially Condensed 

 Nebulce Intense Heat and Activity of Gases 

 Composing Them. The aspect and the 

 chemical analysis of these nebulae have 

 brought again into favor the hypothesis of 

 cosmical matter originally scattered through 

 all space. A first condensation of this dif- 

 fuse matter produces clouds of vapors or 

 simple nebula?. By a subsequent condensa- 

 tion one or more nuclei are formed in these 

 nebulosities. These nuclei, attracting the 

 surrounding matter, gradually increase and 

 become stars, which afterwards, by their 

 mutual attraction, approach each other, and 

 group themselves into stellar clusters. We 



thus see nebulae at all ages of their organi- 

 zation. In order to develop in the gases 

 lines as clear and sharp as those revealed 

 by spectrum analysis, ordinary combustion 

 accompanied by a feeble disengagement of 

 heat would not suffice; on the contrary, a 

 very elevated temperature is necessary, like 

 that produced by the electric focus. We 

 may conclude that the fluids which consti- 

 tute the nebulae are in a state of vivid in- 

 candescence, at a temperature at least as 

 elevated as those which we can raise. The 

 depths of space, which are usually presented 

 to our mind as the seat of a glacial silence, 

 similar to that of death, are then, on the 

 contrary, in a state of tremendous activity 

 which our imagination can hardly conceive. 

 Thus suns are prepared which one day, when 

 sufficiently condensed and cooled, will rule 

 and illuminate a certain number of planets. 

 The planetary nebulae seem to be bodies al- 

 ready very far advanced in this way of for- 

 mation. We know a compound body, of 

 which the position is 19 hours 40 minutes 

 of right ascension and 50 6' of northern 

 declination; this is a star surrounded by a 

 nebulous atmosphere, presenting at the same 

 time two spectra which seems to indicate 

 an intermediate phase of sidereal forma- 

 tions. FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, p. 

 664. (A.) 



684. CREATION BY DEVELOPMENT 



A Long Course of Slow Modification In- 

 dications of Evolution in Orchids. Can we 

 feel satisfied by saying that each orchid was 

 created, exactly as we now see it, on a cer- 

 tain " ideal type " ; that the omnipotent 

 Creator, having fixed on one plan for the 

 whole order, did not depart from this plan; 

 that he, therefore, made the same organ to 

 perform diverse functions often of trifling 

 importance compared with their proper 

 function converted other organs into mere 

 purposeless rudiments, and arranged all as 

 if they had to stand separate, and then made 

 them cohere? Is it not a more simple and 

 intelligible view that all the Orchidece owe 

 what they have in common to descent from 

 some monocotyledonous plant, which, like so 

 many other plants of the same class, pos- 

 sessed fifteen organs, arranged alternately 

 three within three in five whorls; and that 

 the now wonderfully changed structure of 

 the flower is due to a long course of slow 

 modification each modification having been 

 preserved which was useful to the plant, 

 during the incessant changes to which the 

 organic and inorganic world has been ex- 

 posed? DARWIN Fertilization of Orchids, 

 ch. 8, p. 245. (A., 1898.) 



685. CREATION BY SECOND CAUSES 



God Works by Lain Law Makes Science 

 Possible Science Will Not Discover Too 

 Much. We may be stopped indeed at the 

 threshold of the inquiry by the suggestion 

 that so many thousands of years ago the 

 comets were launched upon the paths which 

 they are now pursuing, and at such dis- 



