78 



The Origin of Force, 



tells us that there was a time when it was not, and that in the be- 

 ginning of its existence God began the work of fashioning it. We 

 are required to fix our minds upon this pre-existing state; this age 

 when neither heavens nor earth existed as now, and when there was 

 something out of which God could fashion them. We are also re- 

 quired to consider the beginning of this work. The English version 

 of the Scriptures uses the word created instead of fashioned; but all 

 expositors concur in saying that the original Hebrew word (para) 

 means to shave, to cut or to shape. It, therefore, implies the fashion- 

 ing of something which did not exist, out of existing material. The 

 word create originally signified growth; and to create would mean to 

 cause to grow.^ Fashioning and creation are therefore distinct terras, 

 and in some important respects opposing^ ideas. 



Science also asserts that the heavens and the earth had a beginning. 

 It does not say that God fashioned them; but it says they were 

 fashioned by Force. Science and the author of Genesis, therefore, 

 assuming the existence of unorganized matter, assert that the heavens 

 and the earth were fashioned therefrom. What was the nature of 

 this pre-existing material ? Science tells us that an etherial mass 

 spread* throughout space, before the spheres existed; and Genesis, 

 as we shall see, can only be rationally interpreted by accepting this 

 hypothesis. Indeed, we may go further, and affirm that a rational 

 interpretation of Genesis will prove this hypothesis to be true, to all 

 who accept it as authority. If we shall succeed in establishing this, 

 then we are justified in now assuming that the primordial universe 

 was a monotonous sea of Jelly, and that this etherial fluid, or gela- 

 tinous mass, was unillumined by a single ray of light. 



This absence of light is rendered certain from the fact that there 

 was an absence of motion — or, the fact that there was an absence 

 of motion renders certain the fact that there was an absence of 

 light; for light is simply the manifestation of motion, or a form 

 of motion. There must have been a time when the primordial ether 

 was absolutely motionless. If we assume that it is a thousand million 

 years since the Laurentian continent first appeared above the waters, 

 we must also assume that there was a definite time when the first 

 impulse of motion was a]3plied which resulted in its appearance. 

 That time may have been countless ages preceding the formation of 

 Laurentide; but, whenever it was, it had a distinct and definite be- 



1 See Days of Creation, by Tayler Lewis, p. 49,50 



