120 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



vigorous than before. It is like new blood poured 

 into depleted veins. 



It is beyond dispute that of the two rival or con- 

 flicting conceptions of the universe now pretty famil- 

 iar to all current readers, the scientific conception 

 and the theological conception, the one is waning, or 

 becoming feebler day by day, the other growing 

 stronger day by day. Up to the sixteenth or seven- 

 teenth century the theological conception held almost 

 complete possession of man's mind. Only here and 

 there did a bold thinker like Bruno or Eoger Bacon 

 chafe under its sway. But in our time the theologi- 

 cal conception has been so modified by science that 

 it is hardly recognizable any more. In the simplest 

 and most literal form this conception is embodied in 

 the Mosaic account of creation. The universe was 

 created out of nothing by God, man was made out 

 of the dust of the earth, and woman out of man. 

 Heaven was above the earth and Hades below. 

 The world was the centre of the universe and the 

 chief object in it. All the heavenly bodies revolved 

 around it, the sun to give it light and warmth by 

 day, the moon to give light by night. Then came 

 the fall of Adam through the machinations of the 

 devil, the beginning of evil, the expulsion from 

 Paradise, the wrath and disappointment of God, -the 

 wholesale drowning, Noah and his ark, the chosen 

 people, the new departure, the birth of Jesus, the, 

 plan of redemption, and the rest of the history 

 which we know so well, and the curious arbitrary 

 and unnatural and fortuitous character of it all. 



