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members of the universe stand to one another, which involves 
that some must have been in existence before others ; (2) 
from the order in which living beings make their appearance 
in geological strata. Of which the former may be regarded 
as a certain ground of argument; the latter as an uncertain. 
The several items of information contained in the cosmogony 
will be reviewed according as they fall under the one or other 
of these heads. 
(1.) The narrative places “ light 99 as the first thing called 
forth by God in the process of transforming the waste 
and desolate abyss into the perfected earth. By this 
“ light 99 we are certainly not to understand light in its 
narrower technical sense, as distinguished from heat, but 
rather the two in combination as we meet with them in 
nature in the light of the sun.* The creation of “ light 99 
must be taken, therefore, as equivalent to what we should now 
call the creation of radiant force. Now, what is the teaching 
of Science on this point ? It has shown us most abundantly 
that on such radiant force, imparted to the earth by the sun, 
and by the earth once more scattered into space, depends 
in the first place well nigh the whole of the phenomena of 
meteorology. That it is the cause not only, as we readily 
perceive, of the temperature of the earth, but also of the 
moistness of the atmosphere, of winds, of clouds, of dew, of 
rain, of ocean currents, — in a word, of every one of the 
elements which, variously combined and conditioned by the 
earth's external features, go to make up climate. Further, 
that on this climate, so produced, very many of these same 
external features themselves not a little depend; the action 
of rain and its consequent rivers, of winds, and ocean cur- 
rents, being in particular largely instrumental in actually 
altering the surface of the earth. Once more, that this 
radiant force supplies the physical power needed for the life 
and growth of plants, and through them indirectly of animals 
also ; so that without it there could exist no life upon the 
earth at all. Next, therefore, to the materials of which the 
earth is composed, there is no element in its constitution of such 
paramount and extensive importance as “ light ; 99 while, from 
the relation in which it stands towards other parts of creation, 
it plainly must have preceded them in order, since without it 
they could not be. Before there could be expanse or clouds, 
plants or animals, there must be light. So Science teaches, 
* How closely the ideas of light and heat were united in the Hebrew mind 
is shown by the same word being used for both, with merely a slight differ- 
ence in pronunciation, "n« and *vin. 
