84 KEV. A. IRVING, B.A.^ D.SC, ON EVOLUTIONARY LAW 



power, as distinguished from tlie "<:iods many and lords many" 

 of the old Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony, which lay in the back- 

 ground of the writer s mental vision ; but in each case of its 

 use, as much a figurative expression as that which the psalmist 

 uses, when he sings, " By the word of the Lord were the 

 heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His 

 mouth." (Psalm xxxiii, 6.) 



In the present state of our knowledge we may perhaps say of 

 Genesis i and ii (1-3) — that it is a descriptive poem, the 

 production of a genius gifted with exceptional insiglit supple- 

 mented by the special illumination of the Spirit of God, and in- 

 w^rought with things tliat are matters of ordinary observation, 

 implying a general sequence almost suggesting cvolntioiiarij law, 

 without forestalling the results of the slow operation of the 

 human mind in arriving at its present standpoint ; but intended 

 to drive home to the understanding of primitive and untutored 

 minds the great monotheistic idea, which lies at the foundation 

 of all tlie Eevelation contained in the Holy Scriptuies, and is 

 enunciated in the first verse of the Bible. 



Supplementary Note A. 



Since this paper was written the author has been disap- 

 pointed — after reading carefully twice over the address of 

 Professor Sir G. H. Darwin to the British Association at Cape 

 Town — in coming to the conclusion that the mind of that 

 distinguished scientist is almost a blank as to the teaching of 

 thermal ehemistty. Yet this is a real factor even of " the first 

 order " (as a mathematician would say) in any theory of the 

 evolution of worlds which starts with the nebular hypothesis. 

 If we reflect, for example, on two most prominent instances, the 

 stahility of the compound silica (SiO^), and the stahilUy of the 

 water molecule (H^O), as some indication of the enormous 

 thermal value of the combinations which have given us these 

 most widely distributed compounds, and rellect further upon 

 the high temperature of the flame of the oxy-hydrogen blow- 

 pipe,* we can scarcely fail to see the importance of heat of 

 combination in lite evolution of molecular matter, as we know it. 

 To proceed by a leap from the discussion of the "nebula" to 

 the discussion of a hot molt'iu sphere revolving iind rotating in 



One gramme of hydrogen in burning into 9 grammes of steam 

 virlding over 34,000 tlierniHl nnits, lluit is to say, heat enough to raise 

 :',4,000 grammes of water from 0° C. to 1"' C. 



