138 



E. WALTER MAUNDEE, F.R.A.S., ON 



the first day, directly or indirectly, with any form of that which 

 is known as " the Nebular Hypothesis." And this, for three 

 reasons : (1) I can trace no reference to the hypothesis in the 

 chapter. (2) The nebular hypothesis is concerned with the con- 

 tinuity of nature ; that is to say, with the continuousness of 

 its evolution, not at all with its creation. And (3) there is no 

 form of that hypothesis, at present recognised, which does not 

 offer serious scientific difficulties. 



A SECOND DAY. — The significance of the Divine command on 

 this day is, as it appears to me, that God then set in action the 

 forces which should finally result in the separation of the 

 Earth — that is to say, the globe on which we live — from the 

 rest of the Cosmos. If this be so, the omission of the verdict^ 

 " it was good," is natural; nothing new was called into existence 

 this day; it was the selection of a portion of the universe to 

 be the scene of the great Divine drama. From this time forth, 

 the narrative is essentially concerned with the Earth. 



A THIRD DAY. — Here the point which I wish to make is this : 

 We know that the creation of light and the separation of the 

 material of a planet from the rest of the universe do not 

 necessarily involve that that planet shall ever present a surface, 

 partly of land and partly of water, or shall ever become the 

 home of plant life. If we accept the doctrine of evolution, 

 even in its fullest range, that carries with it no necessity that 

 the course of development on a given planet must be analogous 

 to that which has taken place upon our Earth ; or that it 

 should ever attain there the same results that it has done here. 

 For example, so far as we can ascertain anything concerning 

 other worlds, we may feel confident that none of the planetoids, 

 such as Eros, ever has been, or ever will be, the home of any 

 form of organic life. That our Earth has " habitable parts " 

 involves, therefore, that a definite provision to that end was 

 made by the Creator. 



A FOURTH DAY. — Here let it be noted that, though our system 

 has a single sun, this is far from being the only type among 

 stellar systems and, therefore, is not an inevitable result of 

 stellar evolution. Similarly, though every planet in our system 

 is lighted by the sun, yet our Earth alone possesses a moon in 

 the true sense of that term. Several other planets possess 

 satellites, but these are all negligible in mass as compared with 

 their primaries, and negligible, too, in the light which they afford. 

 That our Earth has a greater light-giver to rule the day, and a 

 lesser liglit-giver to rule the night, involves, therefore, that a 

 definite provision to that end was made by the Creator. 



