i8«5-l 
Seen and the Unseen . 
703 
The Origin and Beginning of the World. 
The mythology of primitive nations contains inconceivable 
conceptions : some that the world assumed its present form 
and condition in an instant of time ; that it was supported 
in its position by gigantic beings, _ each supported by others 
still more powerful, until supposition lost the foundation on 
which they stood in the realms of fancy and imagination. 
The opinion reigned, until a few centuries past, that it was 
perfectly immovable and flattened on its surface. At this 
time superficial Theology reigned with all power and 
authority. He who presented a truer conception was nearly 
sacrificed on the altar of bigotry and superstition. At length 
the true system of the world, by slow gradations, was ex- 
posed. Others supposed that from an incomprehensible 
nothing a tangible something was created. 
The struggle between Theology and Philosophy continued 
for a long period. Philosophy struggled to overcome the 
obstacles thrown in its path ; at length it became unchained, 
and emancipated itself from the thraldom which oppiessed 
it. This World has given birth to all the thoughts con- 
ceived by man concerning the constitutions of things . the 
theatre of human action, of pain, of pleasure, of life and 
and death, of knowledge and ignorance. I he Earth and 
Nature and her laws have given existence to man, endowed 
him with faculties and sensibilities, and stamped upon him 
the impress of Eternal Design, and manifested the laws by 
which his organism was produced. These aie the tiuths 
yielded to intelligent seekers. 
Man abandoned Nature and reason in seaich of sorne- 
thing unwarrantable, and thus lost sight of the tiue relations 
between Nature and Science, and of Science and himself, 
and so degraded became his condition that thought and 
feeling (language being inadequate) alone could supply the 
place of expression. Such was, and to a ceitain extent 
still is, the condition of things in a world where Natuie 
put forth its energies to yield happiness to the lace 01 man. 
A mass composed of atoms and particles previously con- 
stituting the atmosphere of the Sun, the whole held in 
appropriate position by mutual relations, the result of the 
supposed laws of attraction and repulsion, -the whole mass 
being in a state of igneous fluidity, rotary and oibiculai 
motions were established. The rotary motion by the im- 
petus of particles rushing into it, and the revolutionary 
motion in an elliptic orbit, having an aphelion and perihelion 
