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planets are not now self-illuminating, it is supposed that the 
rings when detached from the original mass were dark also, 
and that the sun did not receive its luminous photosphere * until 
all the planets had been detached from it. 
84. Professor Nichol, in his Planetary System, accounts for 
the primitive light in a somewhat different way from La Place’s 
theory, adducing the auroras and other phenomena as indi- 
cating the existence of a power in the matter of our globe to 
emit light ; and, concluding that the matter of the planets is 
capable of evolving the energy which we term light ; and that 
the atmosphere of the sun is at present under influences 
favourable to the high manifestation of a power which, from 
the other orbs in the solar system, has not entirely departed. 
85. Another instance of light, independent of the sun, is 
seen in the Rhizomorpha, a species of fungus, vegetating in 
dark mines, and remarkable for its phosphorescent qualities. 
In some of the coal-mines of Saxony it is seen in great splen- 
dour, giving them the appearance of an enchanted castle ; the 
roofs, walls, and pillars being entirely covered with them, while 
the beautiful light emanating from them is perfectly dazzling 
to the naked eye. 
86. The progress of science has, therefore, dispelled the 
objection that light could not exist before the sun was in its 
present condition. And it has done even more, for it has 
served to prove the accuracy of the Mosaic cosmogony, which 
persons unacquainted with Hebrew necessarily overlook. 
Moses, speaking by inspiration, uses different words to express 
the primitive light and the luminary which God appointed to 
“ rule the day.” For when he describes, in ver. 3, the creation 
of light, he employs one word tin, aor,t to denote the light 
* Arago considered that the Sun consists, first, of a dark central sphere ; 
second, of a vast stratum of clouds suspended at certain distances from the 
central body ; third, of a photosphere, or luminous envelope, surrounding the 
cloudy stratum. Sir W. Herschel calculated that the light reflected outwards 
by the clouds was equal to 469 rays out of 1,000, or less than half the light 
of the photosphere, and that the light reflected by the opaque body of the 
sun beneath was only 7 rays out of every 1,000. The more recent discoveries, 
however, by means of the spectrum analysis ha v e somewhat modified these 
views. 
t The word nx signifies not only light, but fire, if the Mazoreto vowel 
points be unnoticed, as in Isaiah xliv. 16, and Ezekiel v. 2, &c. Also in 
Job xxi. 26, it is used for the sun, and in Jobxxxvii. 3, 11, 15, for lightning. 
And inasmuch as God has diffused heat through every part of nature, without 
whicli there could be neither vegetation nor animal life, we may conclude 
that it is heat as well as light which is intended by the original word. Besides 
nor there are four other words occasionally used in Scripture to denote the 
sun, and which may be rendered in their more literal sense as follows : — 
